Exceedingly Mundane

Right around Christmas, I had a few days where I was not feeling very well. I wasn’t near-death kind of sick, just sort of run down, with a bad sore throat, a headache and I sort of ached all over. I was afraid it might have been the flu, but after I got some rest, took some Tylenol and sucked back a few Chloraseptic lozenges, I started to feel better.

I don’t get “near-death” sick very often. I don’t run fever much, and I have only thrown up 2 or 3 times in the last 10-11 years. But, if I do ever get really sick, we have a problem in our house. Tim and I treat sickness and feeling bad completely different. Completely.

When I’m sick, I like to have a little bit of attention paid to me. I know, I am probably asking a lot, but that’s what I like and it’s what I had growing up. If I didn’t feel good, my mom would mother me and make me chicken noodle soup (Campbells, from a can!), get me some Sprite or give me some crackers every few hours. She’d check on me and see how I was feeling. Personally, I don’t think that’s a lot to ask, but if you were to ask my husband that, you would not get that kind of answer. Tim, when he doesn’t feel good, wants to be left completely, totally and utterly alone. Don’t talk to him, don’t offer to bring him food or get him something to drink, don’t try to get him a Tylenol, just leave him alone. For hours or days on end. He doesn’t like to be touched, talked to, or basically even share the same room with me or anyone else. Me, I’m the polar opposite. I like those things. I don’t like to be in a dark room, all alone and left to die.

A couple of years ago, I was pretty sick. I was running fever and I was pretty weak. I laid down in bed (something I rarely do, so you’d think that would have tipped Tim off) and turned off the lights, tv, radio, etc. I had the door open, and apparently he looked in on me once, closed the door, and then proceeded to not come in for nearly 10 hours. TEN HOURS. After I woke up a few hours later, I lay there miserable, wondering, is he going to offer to bring me something to drink since I’m too weak to get up and get it myself? Will he offer me some soup or crackers since I’m too sick to open a can of Campbells chicken noodle and feed myself? Nope, nothing. I could have died and he wouldn’t have noticed.

I know, I’m going to get a lot of snide comments here. I have come to learn from Tim that apparently I’m asking for way too much. Apparently, I can learn to leave him alone and try not to talk to him, but he can’t learn to check on me (tsk, tsk, there I go again, being snarky) and get me a Sprite. 🙄 Now, before you pipe up and say what a bad wife I am, please let me state for the record, I really don’t think I am that bad. I am not asking to be petted and baby’d to death, just a cursory check and an offer of medicine or food every now and then would be nice. I love Tim to death and I know he loves me and I know he wouldn’t knowingly let me lay there and die. At least, I don’t think he would 😀

Ok, here’s today’s Question of the Day: How do you act when you’re sick? Do you want to be left alone or do you like a little attention? Does your spouse or family share the same way of thinking, or are there a lot of polar opposites in your home on this matter? Leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

I have an odd request, and it’s going to come off like I’m asking for something or begging, because, let’s face it, I am! It’s not a big thing, so if it doesn’t work out, I won’t break down and cry or anything. 🙁

I noticed on a box of Nabisco brand crackers I bought before Christmas that Rachael Ray’s picture was on the box. When I read the side of the box, I noticed an offer for one of her cookbooks, Express Lane Meals, if you collect a certain number of box tops and mail them in with a check for 4.99. Unfortunately, it calls for 6 box tops and I only have 2 of these boxes. We don’t eat a lot of crackers, but I did buy some for a cheeseball and some dips I made at the holidays. I might buy one or maybe two more boxes at most, around the time of the Super Bowl. But I seriously doubt that I will buy 6 boxes of crackers in the next few months.

So, here’s my shameless begging – if you have a box of these crackers that has this special “cookbook point” on it and you are NOT going to use it for yourself, would you mind mailing it to me? Like I said, I won’t break down and sob if I don’t get it, but on the other hand, I didn’t think it would be too awful to ask. Or is it? Am I just a shameless horrible good-for-nothing blogger??!

Here’s what they look like:

Thanks!

Tim worked quite a bit last night on getting me setup with a new photoblog for the Project365 photo project. Thank you sweetheart!!! It’s on my sidebar, or you can click here to reference it. I just updated it with today’s photo 😆 I have also started a listing of others who are participating in this project… so if you are and you’re not on my list, leave me a comment and let me know so I can add you!

Oh, and I’m still trying to decide on a look for this new photoblog. Right now I have the mountain one, just because it reminds me of winter, without being holiday oriented. That may change sooner or later!

Well, I’ve been thinking, mulling, pondering, and deliberating on whether or not to join the Project 365 photo project. It’s an awfully big commitment and I’m not sure one that I will be able to complete. The idea of taking and posting a photo a day for 365 consecutive days is rather daunting to me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I take a ton of photos already. I would guess that I take, on average, 1000 photos a year, maybe more. Of nothing, of everything; of food, animals, people, events, holidays, flowers, things around the house, etc. Taking the photos is not that big of a deal to me, it’s something I am already doing. It’s just the general idea that I commit to a project this demanding and see it through to the end. It’s the “forced” nature of the project. I rather enjoy taking my photos and don’t want it to become a chore or something I feel that I *have* to do. Nor do I want it to be something I tried and failed. I’m a bit competitive, ya know, I don’t like to fail. 🙄

Having said that, I am going to at least attempt it. But, with the caveat that I might not complete it, that I might not post a picture every day (yup, my blog, my rules, my way, nanananana!). I will quit if I feel like it’s become something I don’t enjoy doing any more.

In the mean time, I’ve set up a separate area of the blog for this immense project. It’s called Project365 and is on my sidebar. I will also be posting a lot of the pictures here, as I’m doing today. I hope to incorporate the pictures I use for this photo project into my regular blogging. Some days I will and some I won’t. I often post photos anyway (yes, of Beau the wonder dog and food I cook, I know, but remember this blog ain’t named ‘Exceedingly Mundane’ for nothing!), so hopefully it won’t be too burdensome to post extra ones as a part of this project.

Drumroll please… click here to see the first two days entries, and my entry for today is below:

I found Beau staring out the window this morning into our backyard which was filled with birds. I think we have more birds in the wintertime because I put out suet, bird seed and also corn for the squirrels. We get a lot more activity, I think, when they have trouble finding other food. This morning, I was able to see both a cardinal and a dove in one section of a tree… I took multiple pictures and was able to get the camera to focus on either the dove or the cardinal but not both. This was the best of the lot 🙂

P.S. I just read over at Susie‘s blog that she is participating too. Yeah! I like how she’s setup a separate photo blog for this. I wanted to do this, but will require help from my geeky husband to get it going. Something to strive for in the future 🙂

Our fantasy football league has sadly come to an end. I hated to see it finish — we have such a good time playing every week. Congratulations go out to our friend Chris (code name: Jurisprudence What?) for coming in first, and to our friend Michael (code name: Skull Crushers) for being the runner-up. They both had a really great season! Both of their teams were pretty awesome, and they were both really hard to beat! Tim (code name: WhoDat) and our nephew Zack (code name: Bone Crushers), battled it out for third place, with Tim coming in third. I didn’t do too bad; I was pretty pleased with my results, although of course I would have rather won! I came in 5th (out of 16 teams in our league) and was the highest scoring female. My blog buddy Dawn also made it into the playoffs with me, and we were the only women who did. The men really dominated this year!

Anyway, we hated to see it come to an end, and can’t wait for next year. Next year will be the third annual Hambones fantasy football league, cool huh?! In the mean time, we’re really excited about the playoffs around here. Tim, my devoted Saints fan, is on cloud 9 that his team has made it into the playoffs, and we can’t believe they have a first round bye! We’ll be rooting for them and then looking forward to the Super Bowl!

P.S. Tim wants me to say “Geaux Saints!!!”

I have several topics rolling around in my head that I want to blog about. However, I can’t seem to decide which one to start with. I probably need to jot them down somewhere or start some draft blog posts, because a lot of the time I can’t think of a single thing to blog about. Nothing, nada.

Anyway, I thought I’d start at the beginning of my day. One of the first things I do every morning is make the bed. It’s something I was raised with. I can’t ever remember a time when my mom let me slide and not make the bed. I’m sure when I was very little, she did it for me, but I don’t remember those days. I can remember being older and living at home, and she always wanted the bed made. Since I’ve been grown and living on my own, it’s something that I have always, always done. And I mean 365 days a year always. Even when I’m sick. I make the bed every day. It must be some kind of weird gene I have!

So that’s today’s Question of the Day: Do you make your bed every day? Or does it just not matter to you? If you do, is it something your mom or someone else insisted on or taught you?

Have a great day everyone! I hope to get busy today with cleaning and getting things back to normal. I’ve made stabs over the last couple of weeks at keeping things picked up and semi-presentable looking, but I haven’t really done much cleaning, and my house shows it. We need some serious cleaning around here 🙄

OK, so we just finished our jigsaw puzzle! That sucker was 1000 pieces and so many of the same colors. Lots of white, greens and brown shades. We’ve been working very diligently on it since Saturday afternoon late. Here it is – Ta da!

Now, we’ll have to find something else to do for the rest of the holiday today. Tomorrow, I hope to get back into some kind of normal routine 🙄

Happy New Year to all of you out there! Hope you are all having a good New Years Eve and will have a good New Years Day.

Here’s to a wonderful, healthy, happy and blessed 2007 for us all!

P.S. I hope to return to “normal” blogging on Tuesday. That, and menu planning, and cleaning and getting things back to normal 😀

P.S.S. The jigsaw puzzle pictured below is coming along really well… will try to post a picture when we’re through 😛

It’s a total wash-out here at our house today. It’s been raining since before we got up and really hasn’t stopped all day. The rain effectively ruled out Tim playing golf or hitting golf balls (his preferred thing to do with any spare time). He watched a golf DVD for a while and then read a golf book for a while… finally, we decided to turn on college bowl games and pulled this out:

So, yeah, we’re going to work on a jigsaw puzzle this weekend after all! 🙂 Or at least, I am! It’s a whopping 1000 pieces, so send some good jigsaw puzzle vibes our way!

Ok, part of my post Christmas decluttering is also to remove my cute little snowman look here. I’m going back to a theme I used last year, a red one I really liked. Please let me know if you see it, and mostly, if you have any trouble seeing or accessing anything. I really like this one and hope to keep it a while! 🙂

Thanks, and have a wonderful day!!!

Just a quick blurb… not a lot going on around here. We’re in the post-Christmas downward spiral … does anyone else experience that? I guess after all the weeks of shopping, decorating, wrapping, cooking and planning, it’s always a bit of a letdown after the “Big Day” is over. I usually really enjoy that time, but this week, not so much. Tim is off work all week, and looking forward to doing the things he loves – going to play golf and going to hunt. Me, I usually use this time to get the house back to normal, un-decorated, and everything put up and back in its place. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do much of that so far. I haven’t felt well, and so I haven’t had a lot of energy to do much yet. (That brings up the title of the post – if you work at home and you’re sick, are you on vacation or do you ask for sick leave or what?!!) I’m behind on my cleaning, since we’ve been gone so much and we’ve been so busy, but the dirt and dust are starting to get to me. 🙄 At least I’m about to catch up on the laundry – after the break with no workable washer and dryer, I’m glad to have a set in the house that works!

Anyway, I haven’t even made a menu for this week (blah!) and have no concrete plans of what we are going to do and what we are going to eat on any given day. I don’t operate well without some kind of plan; I’m not a “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants” kind of girl! Anyway, at this point, I don’t much feel like cooking and don’t much care. Isn’t that terrible? Guess that’s what happens when you get half sick and don’t feel like doing much besides laying on the couch and reading or watching TV!

Hope everyone is having a good day… and maybe starting to get back to normal. Looks like we’re going to have to postpone the “back to normal routine” here at our house until next week!

I hope everyone out there had a wonderful and joyous Christmas! We’ve been gone and I haven’t been able to blog. We went to see Tim’s family and then mine, and we also spent a little bit of time at home, just by ourselves, to celebrate the Christmas holiday. We had a great time everywhere we went, but I am pretty worn out now. I want to just rest for a day or so, and not even think about taking all of our Christmas stuff down! That will be quite a job, and I am going to put it off for a few days.

Tim and I had a good Christmas and got lots of wonderful things, both that we asked for and some surprises! I got a lot of books (3 cookbooks, 4 Beverly Lewis books I had requested, and the Nicholas Sparks book too). I also got a cute snowman, a DVD, some toys for Beau, two iTunes gift cards, a Starbucks gift card, and a cool silicone strainer that I think is a great gadget! Tim got a lot of golf stuff, which is all that he wanted 🙂 Everything I got him was golf-related (except for some pj pants and slippers, but those came from Beau!). Beau got a set of travel bowls for water and food from Santa, and Santa also brought him a lot of Nylabones and chewies (Greenies). Beau has been a good dog, and Santa must have known it! Tim got me a surprise – a heart-shaped diamond and ruby pendant and matching earrings. I was so surprised! He also got me some of my favorites – Godiva chocolates, a Yankee Candle (spiced cinnamon) and some Bath and Body Works (Japanese Cherry Blossom). A good Christmas all-around 😀 Oh, and we can’t forget about the “Jetson’s” washer and dryer that we got a couple of days before Christmas… not really a gift, but very needed and very much appreciated 🙂

Hope you all had a wonderful and joyous holiday, filled with family and friends, as we did. Merry Christmas, a day late, and Happy New Year!!!

I blogged the other day that my washing machine stopped working, so we went and ordered a new hE washer and dryer. They were delivered today – sort of. Sigh. Tim and I are not very happy with Sears right now.

We ordered an hE4/4t washer and dryer in graphite with matching pedestals. They only had to get the washer from a warehouse in another part of the state; the others were supposedly either in the warehouse here or floor models. When they arrived, the independent contractor who was delivering and installing them told Tim right away, you should look at the pedestals. They weren’t wrapped up in any way and they were all scratched up and banged up. Each of them had scratches on the side, one of them had a big scratch on the front of the drawer and the worst was that one of the drawers was all dented up, with a big dent in the front. Tim called and talked to the Sears people, who basically wouldn’t do anything, and he told the delivery guy to just put them back on the truck and not bring them in. We hate to pay full price for something new and get something all scratched and banged up. They got the washer and dryer installed and went on their merry way, while we tested it all out and started laundry. I’ve got several loads to do tonight, and I’m trying to learn the different modes and settings. We’re going to see how I like them without the pedestals, but right now, we’re both leaning toward just telling them to refund our money and we’ll do without them. There’s also the issue of how much clearance we need between the top of the appliances and the bottom of our cabinets. The saleslady didn’t mention anything, although we talked at length about height, how much space we had, and the different sizes of pedestals. Come to find out, when we were reading the book that came with the washer (the dryer showed up without a book!), the book says that they recommend at least 9″ of space in between the appliances and the cabinets. We won’t have that with the pedestals we ordered.

So, anyway, we’re going to give these a test drive, sans pedestals, for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. I just hope the washer and dryer are both ok, we really need those! I have laundry piled up in huge piles all over the house, waiting to be cleaned 🙂

Here they are, I guess they’re a big Christmas present for both of us, LOL!

Mindless ramblings on books and movies… 🙂

I was out running errands the other day and I just couldn’t resist stopping at the library. I had been purposefully staying away, trying to read some books that I have here at home, but the lure of the library (and the bookstore) are sometimes just too strong for me to resist. I went with a purpose though, to try to find a short, light, Christmas type book to read here at the holidays. Last year I bought a paperback in Walmart by Debbie Macomber, one of my favorite “women’s” authors, and I enjoyed reading it during the holidays. I like having something Christmas-y to read this time of year. I looked under her name first at the library, and found two Christmas themed books, and grabbed both of them. I’ve already read one of them, a really short, small book called “Can This Be Christmas”, about a group of weary travelers stranded by a blizzard, stuck at a train depot in the Northeast on Christmas Eve. It was a really short book, but sweet and happy and had a good message about the real meaning of Christmas. I also picked up another one called “The Christmas Basket”, that I haven’t read yet. I’m still working on the second book in the Beverly Lewis Amish series, and I am really enjoying those books.

I also picked up a cookbook from the New books section at the front of my library. It’s called “Eating Well Serves Two” and I hope to get time to go through it and maybe copy out some recipes before it’s due back after the new year. Since I cook almost exclusively for two, and this one is a healthy type book, it seemed perfect for me. Can’t wait to go through it… I tend to read cookbooks like regular fiction books!

I went and got my hair cut yesterday and the girl that cuts my hair had a big bag of paperbacks that she was going to give away. All she asked was that if I read them, that I bring them back another time and leave for someone else to pick up and read. That kind of plan suits me just fine, and so I just quickly grabbed a couple of books from the bag. I saw Nora Roberts name and realized she had a trilogy, called the Circle Trilogy, and without reading the jacket, just said, I’ll take these and read them and get them back to you next year. Well. I have liked what few books I have read by Nora Roberts, but when I got home, I read the inside jacket and found out these are about vampires and witches and sorcerers, so not at all what I thought they were going to be! I’ll see after the holidays if I like them, they were free and I can give them a try. I sort of hate to take them back without reading them… I don’t want to appear ungracious, but I’m not sure these are the kinds of books I want to be reading! 🙄

As for movies, we’re still watching a lot of movies on our new digital cable and free HBO. They are not having a lot of good movies available “On Demand” right now, although we’ve watched a couple of mediocre, older movies lately. Last night, we thought about going to rent one, then decided to be lazy and finally enter the 21st century. Yes, we had never done a Pay-Per-View movie until last night. We went through the list and found 2 or 3 that are on my rental list, and Tim was being very sweet and offered to let me pick one (aka, a “girl” movie). I picked “The Lake House” with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. I liked it, it was sweet and sappy and predictable, but more than that, it was clean and had a happy ending. My kind of movie. I really liked it and enjoyed it. Except, that our company came in about 3/4 of the way through it and proceeded to heckle and make fun of my movie. Because of the time sliding aspect of the movie and the overall sappiness of it. I told them to please not make fun of my movie, I wanted to enjoy it. Which I did, but they got Tim going and then he proceeded to make fun of it. Anyway, Tim gets the next choice and he indicated that he wants to watch… sigh….why do guys like things like this… his choice is — Larry the Cable guy, or Inspector something or whatever that movie is. Big Sigh. I’m sure I won’t like it nearly as much as Tim, but then again, I’m sure I enjoyed “The Lake House” a lot more than he did too! 🙂

How about another Question of the Day: What was the last movie you rented that you really liked?

Well, it appears that Christmas has come early to our house!

We’ve had company for the last few days, and will for a few more days. Then, we’ll hit the road to visit both sides of our family over the 3 day Christmas weekend. We’ll open presents in three places, and visit with lots of family. We’re really looking forward to it.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I was going to wash the sheets on our guest bed, since Round 1 of our company was leaving, and Round 2 was headed in that evening. I tried 6 times to wash the sheets. Either the tub was full of sudsy water when it finished, or else when the cycle finished, the sheets were dirty. And I do mean dirty, with lint and gunk and grass and dirt. I’m not sure where all the gunk is coming from. Tim checked some stuff and opened up part of the washer trying to fix it. We decided it was time for a new set. After all, I bought this set after I got out of college and it is nineteen (yes, 19!) years old. I think that’s a decent life cycle, so we decided it was time to get a new set. Merry Christmas to me!:roll:

We went to Sears and got one of the new hE washer and dryer sets with the pedestals. They didn’t have them all in the warehouse locally, so they had to get them from another warehouse. So, I have to wait a couple of days for them to arrive. In the mean time, I already had 3 loads of clothes, sheets and towels waiting to be washed. By the time they get here on Friday, I’m sure that will double. And boy, I sure hope they get here on Friday like they promised. Otherwise, we’re going to run out of clean towels and underwear before Christmas is over! 😆

I’ll post a picture of them once they’re here… nothing more exciting that new appliances for Christmas! We’re also needing a dishwasher, and I actually thought I would get that for Christmas. I’ve been having trouble with our dishwasher for several months now. A couple of the tines have broken off, and the main problem is that the detergent doesn’t dispense half of the time. Ours has a little flip-open door on the door of the dishwasher and about half the time when it’s finished, that door has never popped open and the detergent is in there all gunked up. So, I have been thinking it’s time to get a new dishwasher. A quieter one is the main thing I’m after. Ours sounds like a jet engine taking off!

I told Tim the other day… 2007 is going to be the Year of the Appliance for us!

OK, how about a Question of the Day: Do you have a major appliance in your house that you want or need to buy, or replace? Something that is old and nearly worn out, or just something you’d like to get a newer version of? Leave me a comment and let me know!