Exceedingly Mundane

Yesterday, I visited one of my favorite blogs, Vader’s Mom. She just happens to be Stacy too! What, a great name, huh? LOL!

She posted here about her fridge, and I decided to play along. This is also my photo for today, and I’m posting it here rather than at my photoblog. Thanks, Stacy, for letting me swipe this idea and use it here.

I wish my fridge was nice and new. We want to get new appliances, but the washer and dryer we bought in December is going to put a hold on any new appliances for a while. This lovely white tiny refrigerator is about 14 years old and we really need a new one. We want to get a stainless side-by-side, but right now, that’s just a dream.

Anyway, the front of my fridge is your basic hodge-podge. I love putting photos on there, and I have Christmas cards I put on the side that hang up there all year. On the front is a collection of magnets from places we’ve been, the menu for the week, coupons to the Christian bookstore, things I’ve cut out of the newspaper, photos, etc. There’s also a dry erase board where I write reminder notes, or Tim’s “honey-do” list. You’ll notice that is really short right now. I have a bigger list on a piece of paper of things I want him to do before our Super Bowl party on Sunday. LOL

So, here’s my fridge…feel free to play along at your own blog. Leave me a note if you do, and I’ll come on over and check it out 😀

The front:

The side, where I put some Christmas cards. I fix my cereal and coffee on the countertop next to the fridge every morning, so I get to see these smiling faces every morning!

I was going through a very large stack of mail last night, and one of the things I flipped through was a catalog from Sam’s Club. It’s a Valentines thing, and it has tons of chocolates, diamonds and yummy food in it. I got all weak in the knees. Anyway, in the back, there’s a couple of pages about books now available at Sam’s, as well as some coming soon. A couple of my favorite authors are listed, so I thought I would post the books that are coming out, in case anyone else is interested.

February 6 – Family Tree by Barbara Delinsky
February 27 – Shopaholic and Baby by Sophie Kinsella
March 6 – Whitethorn Woods by Maeve Binchy

And some others from authors I haven’t read yet, but have heard good things about:

February 6 – Step on a Crack by James Patterson
March 6 – Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

And, I get a newsletter from Debbie Macomber, one of my very favorite authors. She has a new hardback coming out in May, called ” Back on Blossom Street”. Yippee!

I’m going to cheat and piggyback off of yesterday’s post about calendars. I blogged about the fact that I’m a throwback to a previous generation. As much as I love technology and all of the geeky things available to us today, I still hang on to some older things. Case in point – calendars. I use electronic ones constantly, but I still have a paper one hanging on my wall near my computer.

Same with newspapers. I read news online, watch it on TV, listen to it on the radio sporadically, and still, we get a newspaper delivered daily. It’s something I’ve done since I was out of college and living on my own. I grew up in a household where you read the morning paper over coffee (and in my mom’s case, with a cigarette in your hand, while you worked the crossword puzzle). It’s something I’ve never completely let go of, although these days, I’m as likely to read the paper in the evenings as much as I am in the mornings.

I do love getting a paper for several other reasons. I love getting the localized news, the neighborhood kind of news. I love seeing the recipes and articles in our food section. I like our Entertainment section that comes out on Thursdays. I like being able to grab the paper and look up a movie time if we’re running out to a movie. But most of all, I love the coupons and circular ads on the weekends!!!

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – do you get a newspaper delivered to your house? If so, it is daily or just on the weekends? If not, how do you prefer to get your news, on the computer, tv or what source?

Today’s photo over on my photoblog is of the calendar I have hanging near my computer. It’s from Local Girl, a very sweet blogger who lives in Hawaii. She gave away a couple of calendars earlier this month, and I was tickled pink that she drew my name out of a hat and sent me this beautiful calendar. The pictures are gorgeous and it reminds me of her, and of the state I hope to visit one day before I die.

But, back to the topic at hand – today’s topic is calendars. I’m a throwback to the old guard, I still like to have a paper calendar around. When I was working every day in an office, I had a daily calendar on my desk (Far Side, Dilbert, dogs, Bible verses, something with a picture or new thought every day), and also one hanging on my wall. Now, I like to have one on my wall in my office at home. I use the calendar on the computer a ton, and rely on it heavily; I’d definitely be lost without Outlook and the reminders and alarms. I also have my calendar synchronized to my PDA, which I take with me everywhere. But, still, I cannot completely let go of my paper calendar. Same with the newspaper (another topic for another day) and even a landline phone. I think I’m a throwback to the previous generation. I still want to hang onto those things, even though I embrace the newer things like electronic calendars I can carry with me, the ubiquitous cell phone and even reading my news online.

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – how about you? Do you have a paper calendar? At home, at work or both? Do you use electronic calendars? Or both? What works for you? Leave me a comment and let me know… inquiring minds and nosy bloggers like myself would like to know!

Wow, I am totally speechless, completely stunned and otherwise, just tickled pink! We have been gone all day, and I arrived home this evening and as per usual, I thought I would check my email and see if I had any new blog comments. Then, I spied a comment from Heidi, saying that did I know I had been nominated for the “Share the Love” blog awards? Heavens no, I had no idea, and again, I’m totally and incredibly shocked and stunned!

Thank you to whoever nominated me, and in general, for all of you lovely ladies who come by to read my mundane little blog. I love blogging, and even though I started this as a project and a challenge to myself, and mostly, as a way to keep family and friends in the loop as to our lives — it has evolved into something much more. I truly feel that I have made so many blogging friends. Wonderful, sweet, incredibly gracious ladies who I know to be good friends of mine now, and who I know, that if we lived in the same part of the country, would be terrific IRL (in real life) friends as well.

Wow. I totally don’t know what to say. I truly am speechless, which if you knew me, you’d know is a feat in and of itself. 😀 I think I’ll go find some chocolate, and maybe make some hot cocoa, and celebrate!!!

I’ve been doing the Project 365 every day this year, and so far I really like it. Some days, it is really hard to come up with a photograph, and I am so totally going to steal some ideas from some of the other participants for future photos. 😀 But really, one of the best things about this project is all of the nice new bloggers I have met. There are some really nice ladies who are doing this project, and I enjoy visiting not only their Project365 photo blog, but also their “regular” blogs. One of these is Tiggerprrr’s blog. She posted a photo yesterday on her photo blog of her new shoes. See, she has plantar fascitis, and it really hurts to walk, especially inside her house on her hardwood floors. Her doctor recommended she get better shoes and wear them inside the house.

Believe it or not, this is something I was going to blog about (I’m trying to keep a list of ideas as I think of them, not when I sit down to blog and I’m drawing a total blank about anything worthwhile or interesting to say).

Anyway, I’m a total homebody and when I’m at home, I like to be really cozy and comfortable. I wear sloppy clothes, I don’t usually put on make-up if I’m going to be home all day, and I don’t wear shoes around the house. I think the “Flylady” always recommends that you get up and get dressed first thing every day, as part of your routine. Now, I get dressed (although some mornings, you can find me sitting way too long at the computer, still clad in my PJ’s), but I don’t put on shoes. I just don’t like wearing shoes around the house. In the summer, I go barefoot. In the winter I put on socks. On really cold days, I might put on TWO pair of socks, but I don’t put on shoes.

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – when you’re going to be home for a long stretch of time, say all day, do you wear shoes around the house? Do you just wear socks or go barefoot? Do you wear slippers or houseshoes, or what? Inquiring minds want to know!

Believe it or not, I didn’t really take a lot of pictures while we were gone. We really only went for the Saints-Bears game and we didn’t get to do any sightseeing while we were there. We had two days of traveling and one day for the game and that was it. I hope we can go back another time and do all of the “touristy” things in Chicago. Neither of us have ever been there before, and it looked like a really nice city.

My overriding memory of Chicago in January will be of how cold it was! Tim, on the other hand, was fine and loved every single minute of it. But, I’m pretty cold natured, and even though I had on a lot of layers, I still got cold. We left for the game (2 PM game) at 11 AM and got to Soldier Field around noon, so we had two hours before the game even started. Then, it took a while to get back out, so we were out in the cold for about 6 hours or so all together. After about 3 hours, I started getting pretty cold. In the third quarter, my feet and hands started getting numb, so I felt cold all over. I think it would have really helped if the Saints had been winning, I would have been a lot warmer! LOL 🙂

I have a few pictures and will post them on the extended page. I discovered that it’s a hassle to store your camera in its case under your coat, or in the pocket of your sweatshirt, under a few layers of coats, gloves and scarves. It takes a while to get to it, and then to put it back in its warm spot. So, I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures at the game since it took some much effort to get my camera in and out! 🙂

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It’s always so good to get back home, at least to me! We’re back from our trip to Chicago, snow and a sad loss at Soldier Field and all. 🙂 I still have to unpack and do a bunch of other things, but I’ll try to come back and blog soon, and also load a few pictures over on my photoblog soon. Not sure if it will be tonight (there’s Jack that I have to watch!) or tomorrow. But I hope soon! I missed my computer and my doggie while we were gone

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I’ve got to scrub down our shower today. I try to do this once a week, and I hate doing it. I really have to get in the shower to scrub it down good, but I hate getting in there {gasp, naked} with all of those chemicals. I’ve tried spraying and scrubbing the shower walls (and shower door) down while fully clothed and I always end up getting wet. Today it’s really cold again, so I just take a really hot shower and scrub down the shower walls before getting my shower.

Today’s Question of the Day is a two-fer: Do you actually get *in* your shower to scrub it? And the biggie – do you sing in the shower? Not when you’re cleaning it, but on a regular day. On any given day, do you sing while you’re in the shower?

I never do, it’s just something I have never done. Singing at the top of my lungs while I’m dusting or vacuuming, or while I’m driving in my car is a completely different story, so I’ll save that question for another day. Today, tell us if you or anyone in your family sings while they’re in the shower. Tim does, on rare occasions, if he’s in a really good mood and has just heard a song he likes and is still singing it. Oops, he probably wouldn’t have wanted me to put that here! 😳

Leave me a comment and let me know!

Needless to say, we’re still on a football infused high at our house. Tim’s beloved Saints won last night, and are going to the NFC Championship game for the first time EVER in their franchise history. We’re watching the other playoff games today, to see who we’ll play and who will play for the AFC title game. Pretty exciting stuff for us, considering the Saints are perpetually never in the post-season games. And… I’m still looking forward to the premiere of 24 tonight.

On a different note, I blogged yesterday that I had started a new book. I did, and then about 25 pages into it, realized I was reading the WRONG book. Duh. I feel like a total mo-ron. I picked up book 5 in the series I am reading, and not book 3. Argh. Now I have a glimpse of what is going to happen and I feel terrible for starting the wrong one. I plan to rectify that this afternoon, if I get a chance (in between football games and commentary!). I had thought we would get a fair amount of rain this weekend, but it all appears to be going north of us. It’s partly cloudy here and in the 70’s. Not really winter, I’m afraid. Good news on our heating bill but bad news on several other fronts. Oh well, no complaining here. It’s all good here at our house 😀

Hope everyone’s having a good day. Geaux Saints!!!

Not to much blog-worthy going on around here. I seem to be posting as much of what I’m doing during the day over on my Project 365 photo blog, since I’m taking a photo a day and blogging about what it is or how it relates to my day. Check it out if you haven’t already (yes, sorry, had to get that shameless plug in there :mrgreen:). Oh, and below, I just posted a book blurb for the book I finished last night. I’m going to start a new book this afternoon, hoorah!

Let’s see…. quick recap. I had a busy day yesterday, going grocery shopping and running errands. I had originally planned to cook last night, but decided to ask Tim for a date night instead, to which he very graciously obliged. We had dinner at our favorite Mexican place (we split fajitas – shrimp, chicken, beef and chorizo and it was really good!). Tim even splurged and ordered me some guacamole to go with our chips. I adore guacamole if it doesn’t have big chunks of tomato in it and this place does not. Yummy. After dinner, we were headed to Hollywood Video to get a movie to watch for the rest of our date night, when Tim suddenly declares “I want dessert”. Then he says… “I think I want a shake”. Normally, for a shake, we go to Sonic, but we were headed in the other direction and suspiciously near Cold Stone Creamery. So, we stopped there to see if they had shakes. They do and smoothies too. I should have stuck to my original plan, I declared in the truck that we could just split one. But, as soon as I got inside and started seeing all that ice cream and reading all the descriptions, I caved and got my own! Tim got a chocolate shake with brownie bits added (a large one, so I could sample it) and I got a small Cherry Cheesecake shake. Divine, absolutely divine. We rented “The Da Vinci Code” and watched it last night. I had read the book, but Tim had not. He said he enjoyed it and rated it an 8 out of 10. I think I would give it a 7, but only because I *had* read the book and I think my expectations are always higher. I want to try to watch some of the extras today, while Tim is out playing golf. (By the way, as another project I’m trying to tackle, I’m trying to keep track of the movies we watch this year. Check it out in my sidebar lists or click here. Just a listing, no ratings, but I think it will be fun to look back at the end of the year and see how many movies we watch!)

Tonight is the big playoff game, Tim’s beloved Saints versus the Philadelphia Eagles. Please consider rooting for the Saints unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool Eagles fan. The Saints need all the help and good vibes they can get! They so rarely make the playoffs that this is a huge deal! We’re going to splurge again tonight and have brats with sauerkraut for the game.

Then, tomorrow night, I’m equally excited about planting myself in front of the TV. The first 2 hours of the new season of 24 start, and I absolutely cannot wait! It’s going to really rawk this time because of our new hi-def plasma TV and the fact that our sorry cable company *finally* got around to adding Fox to our HD lineup. It is going to look fantabulous, and we’re going to get 2 hours Sunday and two hours on Monday night. By Tuesday, I expect to be a driveling 24 junkie 😆

That’s about it for the excitement here – golf for Tim, reading for me, playoff games on TV and then 24. What are the highlights of your weekend? Pipe up and let me know what all I am missing out on! 😛

I bought a Daily Devotional book the other day at Sam’s, by the Guideposts people. My grandmother used to read Guideposts and I have fond memories of reading these with her when I would go stay at her house when I was young.

Anyway, one of the thoughts on yesterday’s devotional was a quote by Rick Hamlin, who is a Christian author. Simple, but to the point:

I rejoice, Lord, in all the blessings of life.

So, that’s the thought for today. Be sure to go over and check out my photos I am posting daily as part of the Project 365. They’re just as mundane as this regular blog! 🙂

I blogged the other day about how one of the first things I do every day is to make the bed, and asked everyone to comment about whether or not they make their bed every day. To my surprise, I got a lot of feedback! It was wonderful!!! So, this time we’re going to talk about towels. I think this one will definitely have me in the minority!

I wash towels on Tuesday (get the alliteration?!). Once a week. When we take a bath or a shower, we hang the towel back up and let it dry, to use it again the next day. I know a bunch of people don’t do that, they like to throw the towel out and get a fresh one. My husband was like that. It took him a while to “come around” to my way of thinking. We came from completely different backgrounds and totally different ways of looking at this. I came from a family of girls. We didn’t get that dirty and sweaty and nasty, and my mom’s philosophy was, you take a bath or shower, so you’re CLEAN when you towel off. You use the towel just to dry off your clean body. My husband, on the other hand, came from a family of all boys. And outside boys, they grew up on a farm and would often come in dirty or nasty after working, being in the chicken house, hunting, fishing or whatever. They used a towel and threw it in the dirty clothes to be washed. So, I explained my way to Tim and he agreed to try it that way. He understood the logic behind “you are supposed to come out of the shower clean, so the towel is just to dry you off”. Now, in the summer, when it’s really hot here, I do wash the towels more often. We’re not too gross. Well, maybe we are. That’s the point of this post 🙂

That’s today’s Question of the Day: When you use a bath towel, do you throw it in the dirty clothes or do you hang it up to dry and use it again? Do you want or need a new towel every time you get out of the shower? And, along the same lines, how often do you wash towels in your house? Leave me a comment and let me know!