Exceedingly Mundane

Another recap of our weekend, that appears to be the only blogging I do these days! But at least that’s better than nothing. I used to blog daily, when I first started, and do lots of memes and questions and fun things. I think those things are mostly gone in blog-land, or are they still out there floating around? I used to do Menu Plan Monday and I know that one is still going strong. I am just not as good at coming up with a firm menu as I used to be! I’ve learned to be more flexible with food, especially during prime golf season!

Anyhoo, I digress. Last week was pretty busy, with Zack here early in the week, then Elizabeth came over one day to hang out and show us her new Macbook from school. Wednesday and Thursday, Tim worked on the deck, cleaning it and putting on more protectant (man, I’m going to miss my deck!) We went after work on Thursday to take a few boxes to the storage unit and also check on the house. Tim played some golf, I did some reading (just finished Take a Chance on Me by Susan May Warren and The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, both of which I loved!). The week flew by!

By the time Friday rolled around, we were ready for a weekend! Tim played golf after work and I made us a huge platter of nachos for supper. We both overate, but they were really good! Dessert was frozen chocolate/vanilla swirl yogurt. By the time Tim got in, it was too late for a movie, so we just watched TV shows from the DVR.

Saturday, he got up early for a 7:30 tee time. He was supposed to play 18 with a group, but he came in early, as one of the older guys in his group was dizzy and they were all afraid he was getting heat stroke, so they quit after 9. He was originally going to bring home Chick Fil A for him, me and Suzanne, but we shifted gears and called Suzanne to let her know. She came over and we all went to eat lunch at Majestic Burger. I got my regular fish sandwich (grilled mahi mahi on wheat), Tim got a chicken philly and we split onion rings. We also got the fried portobella bites to share with Suzanne, and I believe she got a big salad. It was all really good! We wanted to take Suzanne to see the house, but she had plans, so we went ourselves instead. The sheetrock was pretty much complete, there were 2 workers in there finishing up sealing the joints between sheets. The house next door that is nearly complete but not sold was having an open house, so I finally got to go look around. It’s a lot bigger than I thought, it’s two story, with a huge bonus room, bathroom and two large storage areas on the second floor. It’s about 200 or 300 more square feet, we thought, and Zillow lists the asking price at about 18,000 more than ours. So, hopefully we’ll have nice neighbors! Anyway, we looked at other houses in the area that are being built, and noticed that the other two lots by our builder down at the end of the street had sold, so he is completely sold out on our street. After we got home, we watched some tv and movies. Tim watched World War Z, streaming free on Amazon Prime, but I skipped that one to read my book. Then we both watched GI Joe:Retaliation, also on Amazon. I fixed us a healthy supper of panko baked cod and a big Caesar salad, since we had the two bad meals previously of nachos and Majestic.

Sunday was busy with church (still in the Characters who teach Character series, this week was Elijah) and then we went to brunch afterwards at Corner Bakery. Tim had a tee time of 3:05 but it started raining around 1 PM and he called at 2:15 to cancel. It stopped about 2:30 and then he and Braxton went to play 9 holes and practice at around 5 PM. I finished my book and worked on a pile of magazines while he was gone. After he got in, we had breakfast for supper, then watched the last 2 episodes of Crisis. I think that both Believe and Crisis were cancelled, which is a shame, we enjoyed those shows.

Now, it’s Monday and we’re back to the regular routine. We meet with the decorator on Wednesday, to pick out things for the house. Tim has to take another day of vacation, supposed to take the better part of the day. I’m sure this week will fly by, or at least I hope so! They are supposed to be starting on the brick for the house, so I’m hoping by this coming weekend, it will be fully bricked! Getting closer, but still a LONG way to go and I go back and forth, being anxious and not anxious to go ahead and move! LOL!

Last weekend flew by (again) and I never got a chance to blog about it. Time to catch up 🙂

Last Friday night, we went over to Suzanne’s new apartment for Tim to help with some stuff. He worked on the dryer (and we had to make a quick trip to Lowe’s) and was going to work on some of her electronics, tv/surround sound, but she was tired so we didn’t get started on that. She is settling in and I hope she is doing better. Sometimes hard to tell 🙂

Saturday was busy. I had originally thought that Tim would play golf, since he almost always does, but he said he wanted to get some other stuff done. We visited a long time outside with our neighbors, Rick and Sharon, whom we are going to miss horribly. We will see them at church, but it’s not the same as living next door to someone for 20+ years 🙁 Main objective of the day: We went and rented a storage unit to start moving stuff into. Tim cleaned out the garage for a while, loaded a pickup truck bed full of stuff, and we moved it into the storage unit. It’s near the new house, so of course… we had to go check on the house! We spent more time there than I would have liked – it’s still in the wiring stage, so right up Tim’s alley. But I can only look so long at electrical wiring, surround sound wiring, internet/ethernet cables, plumbing, etc. After that, we came home and I made a pizza using the items from the Fresh Market Big Meal deal that I had gotten on Thursday with Gail. (Did I blog about that? Gail and Don came down Thursday, so Tim and Don could play golf. Gail got her first visit to the house, then we went to Fresh Market and Marshalls and TJ Maxx. They left early Friday AM, like 5:30 AM!!). Anyway, the pizza was good and we watched either TV or a movie, I have already forgotten!

Sunday was a tough day, but turned out better than I had hoped. My first Father’s Day without my Dad. We went to church (where I teared up multiple times). Our pastor’s father (also a pastor) gave the message, part of the series we are in, Characters who Teach Character. This week was Abraham. Our pastor’s father is also celebrating 50 years of ministry, and had once been a pastor in our church, so it was a really nice, really moving service. After church, we changed clothes and headed to Tim’s parents house for the day. We got to visit all day with Tim’s parents, Terry, Emi, Brittany and Zack and also had lunch with Jackie, Stephanie, Tony, Ramsey, Tyler and the twins. The only ones missing were Mark, Amanda and the kids. We were so hoping they would come, since Tim took off work for Monday and Tuesday, as we were planning to bring Ethan home with us for a couple of days. Anyway, we stayed until dark and headed home, and Zack followed us back. He did stay and played golf both days with Tim.

Monday, I caught up on housecleaning and also did some cooking. I made banana bread and crockpot maple bbq chicken for sandwiches and fresh green beans that Linda had sent home with us (YUM!). Tim got Zack to help load up the treadmill and they took that to the storage unit, then played golf all day at Lake Caroline. After they came in around 5 PM, we had supper, and then headed to Malco to see “Edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise. We all really enjoyed it!

Tuesday was another day of golf for Tim and Zack. They played twice out at Patrick Farms, then Zack headed home. Tim came in really tired and a bit sunburned, but he had a great time playing, so he was happy. We had leftovers for supper and caught up on more tv on the DVR.

Today, today is hump day and the time is still flying by. On one hand, it is and on the other, more dominant hand, the one that wants to move to the new house, time seems to be dragging! Several more months on the house. I’m ready for it to be done. Tim and Zack stopped by Monday and they had started on the insulation, including the special Pro Pink insulation we are adding to our custom build. They should finish insulation, do sheetrock and probably brick in the next 7-10 days, so it will look more like a real house then, no more studs showing! 🙂

Another uber busy weekend in the books! Not interesting for anyone else, but I like to record some of what is going on these days. Especially when we do fun things like go check on the house (our new big thing, LOL!) and we spend time with family and have such a good time!

I had thought Tim was going to go play golf on Friday after work, but he surprised me and said he wouldn’t go, so we could go check on the house and go out to eat. Such a sweetie pie! We went and checked on our house (Tim had been there the evening before to meet with the builder and electrician). I had not been since last Sunday, when Tim’s family came to see. From Sunday to Friday, they had made a lot of progress – the roof was finished, the front and back doors all installed, all windows have been installed, the two fireplaces are in, and the duct work done for the heating/ac system, which was also installed in the attic. We also went and looked at a couple of others houses further along, being built by our builder, to get an idea of fixtures, finished details, etc. We have to meet with the decorator soon to pick out a lot of things. Lots going on!

After we left the house, we were hungry and couldn’t decide where to go eat. We both decided that since we’d been good all week eating salads, we deserved to splurge and be bad, so we went to Pizza Inn for the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet! That’s something we hardly ever do, it has probably been 3 or 4 years or more since we’ve done that. I usually make pizza and every once in a while, we order or pick up pizza, but we never go to a buffet. Plus, I wanted to check and make sure they would deliver to our new house (they will), since I think we’ll be too far away from the Papa Johns we both love. After supper, we went to Dick’s to look for golf balls for Tim and ran into my old buddy Braxton. We talked to him for a long time, and it was good to see him and catch up on things. We were going to go check out the new Harbor Freight, but it was getting too late, so we went next door and ambled through Home Goods till they closed. So many things I want to buy for the house. Tim is like, you have to wait, I don’t want to buy more we have to move!!

Saturday, Tim had an early tee time with his buddies. After he got home (I had cooked lunch, but he brought us Chick-Fil-A home for lunch, as a surprise, along with a chocolate shake for us to split, do you notice a pattern of splurges!) and we ate, we got ready and headed out on more errands. We went to the new Harbor Freight they just opened near us. Tim had a blast, browsing and shopping, and after nearly 2 hours, I finally coaxed him into leaving. We went to the dollar store and TJ Maxx after that, and then, even though I had food cooked from lunch, we were out, we were hungry, so we stopped for supper! We went to the Papitos near TJ Maxx and had a huge meal. Tim ordered the Fiesta Dinner, which came out on two huge platters. I got the Baja Fish Tacos and they were really good! We took leftovers home, but haven’t had a chance to eat them yet.

On the way home, we called to talk to Mark and Amanda. They actually had been trying to reach us at home, to see if we had any photos of the church Tim and Mark grew up in, as they were having their 100th Anniversary on Sunday. So I spent several hours going through old photos and sending to them, and Mark worked all night on the slide show for the anniversary. Sunday morning, we got up and drove over to Tim’s family and we had the celebration at church for several hours. They read the 100 year history of the church, we visited with lots of family and friends (Tim had not seen a lot of these people in 20 or 30 years), we had lunch, then singing from two different groups. Kindred Spirits, which has Steven in it, and the Leaf River Boys, which has Tim’s Uncle Richard in it, playing the harmonica. After all the festivities at the church, we all went back to Linda and Mitchell’s and visited for several hours. Tim had brought his pistol and everyone took a turn firing it. I, of course, was the worst shot by far 🙂 Ethan had a shell casing come back and pop him in the face, so he had a nice bright red shiner to show for his first effort with a pistol! Brittany took me, Amanda and Abby down to see her new trailer. She’s so excited! It needs a lot of work and I asked her if it would be ready before our new house, and she said she wasn’t sure! It will get all new paint, all new floors and a lot of other work before she moves in. We stayed pretty late, then left and swung through Wendy’s for a late, late, late supper on the drive home. Obviously, WAY too much eating out this weekend, but that always happens when we stay so busy, always easier to pick up food while we are out running crazy. Tim and I are both pretty tired today, but we thoroughly enjoyed our weekend! (Note to self: no pictures here from the 100th anniversary at the church, I posted them on Facebook instead).

* I’m reading a free Kindle book, “Abducted” by Janice Cantore. The second in the Pacific Justice series. Read the first and enjoyed it, so thought I’d go ahead and read the second one. I also recently read two from my library’s website, the first two books in the slightly Amish themed series “The Inn at Eagle Hill” by Suzanne Woods Fisher. Was glad to find them at my library and get them for free. I also recently read the latest by Francine Rivers, “Bridge to Haven”, also from my library. Deciding what to read is the only problem I ever have. I think I have over 830 titles unread on my Kindle, a nice wish list at the library, Kindle Prime books I can borrow, etc etc etc. Finding time and selecting the book is the only real issue for me these days 😀

* I’ve started my annual summer watch-a-thon of the Harry Potter movies. Most of our shows have ended for the spring and even though we pick up a few shows in the summer on cable, I still have plenty of time to watch Harry and his friends. We are also re-watching several of the Marvel movies together lately… Tim and I have watched Thor, Iron Man 3 and The Avengers in the past couple of weeks

* I’m not cooking much. We had a ton of food last week leftover from our Memorial Day cookout, then Tim grilled burgers over the weekend. After all that meat (ribs, hot dogs and burgers), he decided he needed to eat lighter. So, Sunday he declared that this week would be salad week. We got some grilled shrimp at Sam’s, a big thing of lettuce, veggies and mushrooms, and have been having salads every night. Tim, bless his heart, tells me that he is losing a pound a day. Me, on the other hand, I’ve gained about .8 of a pound. Go figure.

* We started a new summer series at church. Looks like another good one, as always. The title is “Characters Who Teach Character” and focuses on patriarchs and figures from the Old Testament. Solomon and wisdom was the first week. This week will be Daniel, but we won’t be there to hear it. We’re going to Tim’s family’s church for their 100th anniversary celebration.

* The sun is shining today, for the first time in a while. We’ve had very unseasonable weather since Tuesday of last week (the day after Memorial Day). It has rained every day. I have so enjoyed not having to get out and water the grass, plants and flowers. I was very dismayed though, since they were framing the house (wood and water don’t mix in my mind) and then trying to get the roof on. The contractors know what they are doing, I suppose, so I’m not supposed to worry, Tim says 🙂

* I’ve packed about 10 boxes and still haven’t made a dent in anything. I want to pack more, but keep thinking, I will need that or use that or whatever. I guess the majority of the packing will have to be done in the last couple of weeks before we close.

* I’m not walking or exercising at all. Big fat slug. But it has been raining and I’m just not motivated.

* My sister and her husband celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this week! Congratulations to Don and Gail 😀

* On a snack kick lately of honey mustard pretzels. Cannot seem to eat enough of them. And my summer drink is an organic strawberry lemonade I found at Kroger. So good, I could drink a whole jar every day, but try to limit myself to one glass every day or so. Oh, and I still have chocolate every day, of some kind. Life is too short not to enjoy it 🙂

Ok, boring post, but it catches me up a little on what’s going on.

I suppose it’s inevitable. You live in a house for over 20 years, you accumulate items, you make a house a home and make memories in it, and then, you decide to move. It’s natural that one gets nostalgic and one gets sappy and dare I say, one gets downright sad at times. Maybe it’s just hormones or so recently realizing how much I miss both my parents. Or some other maudlin thought pattern 😀

I am working on cleaning out magazines today. I realize how much things have changed since I first moved in this house. I used to get a ton of magazines. Back before anything was digital, I did silly things like subscribe to a newspaper that was thrown on my driveway daily, subscribe to magazines that showed up in my mailbox once a month, etc. My, how times have changed. I don’t subscribe to magazines any longer. I have dallied with online subscriptions, but I just find that I don’t read them often enough to justify it. So, once I page through the last ones (won’t be today, I have stacks of them, LOL!) and put them in the recycle bin, I will probably never see another magazine in my home.

Same thing with music cd’s (which I’ve packed) and movies, which have yet to be packed. We’ve done fairly good through the years with moving to new technology, yet I realize, I have lived through a time where there were just 3 local tv stations and no way to record tv or movies. Then, the advent of the VCR, and magically, I could record a tv show or movie to watch later. What a spectacular idea that seemed at the time. I think I have mostly purged the house in recent years of old VCR tapes that contained things I had recorded from TV. We’ve moved on to DVD’s and Blu-Rays (buying movies which we watch from time to time). I’ve packed up a boatload of music CD’s, realizing (much like the magazines), I probably won’t ever buy them again and may not even use them again. I do everything digital, with iTunes or Amazon and various and sundry electronic devices.

I remember a rotary phone and calling someone before you left the house to drive to see them, to let them know you were coming.

I remember my mom being so excited to get a humungous box for her kitchen called a microwave.

I think I’m getting old. And I think it’s starting to hit me how much work it’s going to be to pack up my adult life in boxes 😀

P.S. I’m also thinking right about now that maybe it was a good thing we never had children… not only more stuff to pack, but more memories and harder to come to grips with moving them out of a house they grew up in.

How on earth can it be the end of January already? Wow, the first year of the month has really flown by.

Let’s see… I’ve been sick the last few days. I got a sore throat and it just went downhill from there. I felt like I was gargling glass when I tried to swallow, and then I lost my voice. While Tim thoroughly enjoyed that time, I did not 🙂 I had several days of OTC medicine and lots of hot tea with honey, and now I’m getting better. Good thing too! We’ve had another round of really cold weather. We had a dusting of snow yesterday (and I didn’t take a SINGLE photo, horror!) but it barely covered the deck. I miss Beau when it snows though, that dog was fascinated with snow! It was SO COLD. The highs the last couple of days have been in the 20’s, with the lows at night in the low teens. Yikes, we’re having a cold winter!

I didn’t cook a whole lot over the weekend, since I was sick. We ate out some junk food, and just had easy stuff like cereal and popcorn 🙂 I finally cooked us some decent food this week. I made a chicken noodle soup on Monday, Tuesday I made a panko baked cod, stuffed zucchini and salad. Wednesday was a Tim favorite, eggs, bacon, grits and homemade buttermilk biscuits. Today, I’ve got a tomato basil soup going in the crockpot and if I get industrious enough, I’ll make chicken crescents to go with it and maybe a salad. I’m not planning on date night for tomorrow (since we picked up a lot of food last weekend while I was sick), so I’m hoping to make sloppy joes and roast a head of cauliflower I have languishing in the produce drawer 😀

The Super Bowl is this weekend and I’m not all that excited about it. When our Saints got eliminated from the playoffs, we sort of lost interest in football. It’s harder to get excited since we don’t have parties any more. It’s just so hard for friends and family to come over late on Sundays, with having to drive back home late. It definitely makes it more fun to watch the game, but it is a lot more work, so it’s sort of a toss up on how much I enjoy having a big party versus getting to just watch the game without all the extra work. For the record, I’m rooting for the Broncos. I’ve always liked Peyton Manning (except the year he and the Colts played my Saints, that was a no brainer, but otherwise I root for him) and I’d like to see him win one more before his career is over. Tim and I DESPISE the Seahawks, it’s an NFC thing. Blech.

I am not doing well on my reading so far this year… I had hoped to be further along this far into January. I sort of struggled through a recent book, one I purchased at a reduced rate on Kindle called “Sherlock Holmes and the Needle’s Eye”. Maybe it was the writing or the subject matter, or maybe I was just not in the mood for that type of book. I moved onto a more enjoyable one after Sherlock, the second Jane Austen Takes the South book by Mary Jane Hathaway. Apparently there are only two of these, but I thoroughly enjoyed both, very very Southern 🙂 I just started Sycamore Row, by John Grisham. My sister Suzanne read it first, and recommended it. I went ahead and splurged and bought it around Black Friday when I found it reduced for Kindle. Now, I see my library has it for free in the Kindle version, oh well. This way, Tim might be able to read it sometime on my iPad. I normally enjoy Grisham so I have high hopes for this one.

Watched Jack Reacher again last night on Amazon Prime streaming. We saw it at the theater and really liked it, so it was good to watch again. I think a lot of our shows will be tapering off soon, with the Olympics starting up soon. We’ll have to see how our TV watching changes, which translates to, will I be able to get Tim to watch Olympics coverage with me! I like it a lot more than he does.

Tim is still enjoying P90X. Me, not so much. We’ve moved into phase 3, and he’s tickled pink. Me, I’d like to chuck the dvd’s and throw a sledgehammer at ole Tony’s face on the TV. Ugh. Tim did it last winter and lost over 30 pounds. Me doing it this winter, I *might* be down 2-3 pounds, but I think that’s from more eating healthy than anything. Obviously, I’m getting out of it exactly what I put into it!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

We’ve had a busy weekend! Gail and Don came down on Friday and had supper with us, then we all went to see Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Tim and I both loved it, good movie! If you don’t see it at the theater, be sure to rent it 🙂 I have several I want to rent (or in my case, probably request from the library) or watch on our Amazon Prime. We watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol the other night and enjoyed it all over again 🙂

Gail and Don spent the night, then headed out Saturday morning. We went by and picked up my dad and then headed to a get-together at my in-law’s house. We normally go to big get-togethers at Linda’s family, but this one was for Mitchell’s family. They are really good about waiting till after the holidays, we always get together in January for that side of the family. It’s nice that the hectic holidays have passed and we can get together and visit. We had a good time! And as always, lots of good food 🙂 We took a smoked pork loin and some brownies and had tons of other good stuff to eat. We missed seeing Terry and Zack though (they went to sign his letter of intent to play golf at a junior college southwest of here), and also Mark, Amanda and their kids (Mark had the flu). So thankful that neither of us have gotten sick this winter, although Tim has been fighting a sore throat and cough for a few days. And I’m even more thankful that my dad has stayed relatively healthy in the assisted living place. He kept getting sick late last winter, so I’m really glad he’s doing better right now. It’s hard to believe that he fell almost a year ago and we moved him up here. Time is flying by!

Enjoyed church this morning, great music as always and a good message. Current series: Reclaiming Life. We went to Corner Bakery again this Sunday after church for brunch (again, we went last Sunday too, always sad when our Saints are no longer playing football). Last week, I had more lunch-type food, a cup of clam chowder and half of an uptown turkey sandwich. This week, I was colder and wanted coffee, so I went with second breakfast (a hobbit thing!). I tried their power panini thin with avocado and spinach. While it tasted good, that was the smallest, tiniest, narrowest imitation of a panini I have ever seen! I got a small cup of steel cut oats on the side, and it did fill me up, but boy, it was a small serving!

I went to Kroger after lunch and got groceries, and after I got home, Tim and I looked at houses all afternoon. I wanted to come home and fix supper, but was overruled by Mr Pizza himself, who wanted to stop at Little Caesars and pick up pizza. Good news – we have tons of pizza leftover for Tim to have for lunch all week! I think I’m going to take it easy this week on the cooking front – I’m planning a lot of salads, some sandwiches, maybe one soup thrown in, and Tim has a boatload of pizza leftover 🙂

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I shared the photo above on Facebook the day my prize came in… I was so excited! I enter giveaways at random online (I used to do a lot more, just a few here and there now) and rarely win any more. So, when I won the Pacific Foods giveaway at the Appetite for Health website, I was SO excited! When it came in, I was even more excited! I got two of each, of 12 different items, so a total of 24 products from Pacific Foods. I had to work to find a place to store them!

Then…

I started using the products. To be fair, I had bought one Pacific product in the past, and loved it! I have been buying their low sodium tomato soup for years. I decided quite a while back to stop using almost all canned soup. I started making my own dry cream soup mix and I gave up the Campbell’s tomato soup. It’s just so easy some winter nights to open up a red and white can, and throw together a grilled cheese sandwich for supper 🙂

Anyway, I have always loved the tomato soup that I’ve bought in the past, so I had high hopes for all of my giveaway products. To be fair, I have tried two, and while neither have been very good, I have opened them up, warmed them up and served them. I think they will be a lot better on the second one of those, as I will spice them up or jazz them up some. I tried one package of the pork and beans when Tim smoked some ribs. I normally open a can of pork and beans and then add a ton of stuff to it, so when I just opened the paper package of Pacific pork and beans and didn’t touch them at all, Tim was not happy with them. Next time, I’ll know to jazz them up like I do a normal can of beans.

The second thing I tried was a container of the butternut squash bisque. I had even higher hopes for it, as I love butternut squash anything. It just wasn’t what I was expecting and the flavors were a bit lacking. So, again, next time (since I have two containers of each product), I will add more seasoning and stuff.

I am excited to get all of this stuff though and look forward to trying more of the products. I feel like the broths (I got chicken and vegetable) and the milks (I got 2 almond and 2 hemp) are going to be great and I’ll go through those easily.

2013 was a record-setting year for me, book wise. I not only read the Bible through (which I now plan to do yearly), but I also read more books than I ever have in the past (110 total !!!) I’m leaving my GoodReads widget up for a couple of weeks longer, just so I can see it and be motivated to get back into a good reading groove.

I didn’t read many books at all from about Thanksgiving till New Years Eve. We got busy with Thanksgiving, Tim’s birthday (the day after), decorating and shopping for Christmas, wrapping, etc. Then about the time we got all of that done and I felt like I could relax, snuggle up with a good book, watch a Christmas movie, then Tim took off vacation! And while I loved every minute he was off and we could spend together, we were spending it all together 🙂 And one thing Tim is not into is a) reading a book and b) watching a girlie Christmas movie! So, I only read a couple of books and got to watch zero of my favorite Christmas movies. I had even added a couple to the Amazon Prime queue to stream (more on that in another post to come soon). But, I need to go delete them now, since I didn’t get to watch them. Oh well, there’s always next year.

I’m on to a new year of reading, with new goals. I tend to set a low goal at GoodReads, then adjust it throughout the year. I started out with a book I got from the Kindle Prime program, one of their “First” books. Apparently, they pick out a few books each month from new authors and offer them to read for free. I picked the one that sounded the best to me, “Soy Sauce for Beginners” by Kirstin Chen. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed it! I normally read almost exclusively Christian fiction, because I don’t like the language and explicit stuff in most mainstream books these days. But this one was surprisingly clean, and had nothing “bad” in it, at least according to my standards. The story was good, and I liked the characters, so it was a nice, fun, quick read to start off the year. Now, book #2 is the last in a trilogy I am reading by Lisa T. Bergren. I got the first two in the “Grand Tour” series free for Kindle, and purchased the last one “Glittering Promises” for 2.99, to finish up the trilogy. So far, I’m liking the first two that I got free more, but I hope this one gets better 🙂

We watched a new TV show last night, one we both really liked. “Intelligence” with Josh Holloway, who played Sawyer on Lost. He’s a super soldier who has had a computer chip implanted in his brain, which gives him instant access to anything cyber related. It had an interesting concept, we like all the characters/actors, and I hope this one makes it. We picked up a new show last fall that we both love, “The Blacklist” and it’s a big hit, so hopefully this one will make it too.

Lastly, our Saints won their first EVER road playoff game! They went to Philadelphia last weekend in this cold “polar vortex” we’ve been having and WON! We were so excited. Now, onto an even harder road game in Seattle this weekend. They might not make it, but we’re going to hope they keep going through the playoffs 😀

Have a good day, everyone!

Well, another three months have come and gone and no blogging from me 🙂 What else is new?!

It’s January 6, 2014. It will take me a while to get used to writing 2014, I had just gotten used to 2013 and now it’s in the books.

My favorite time of the year has come and gone, seemingly in the blink of an eye. My birthday in October (Tim took me shopping all day the day after and bought me every piece of clothing I could find that I liked, so half a new wardrobe!), Halloween (mostly rained out, but Gail was here, and Kathryn and the kids came), Thanksgiving (Gail and clan were at Disney, so Tim and I went to Mount Olive at Aunt Becky’s, while Daddy stayed at Ridgeland Pointe, as he was not feeling well), and then our 3 Christmases have all come and gone. The regular football season is over (Saints were 11-5 in regular season and have won the first wildcard playoff game, Seattle is next) and that is always so sad for me. Football season is hands down, my most favorite time of the year. Christmas is packed and put away, all the lights from the tree, my garland and my Snow Village are gone and I’m just about over missing them.

Let’s see, I accomplished my goal for 2013 (I never set goals!), which was to read through the entire Bible. I’d tried in the past and never made it through the early parts of the Old Testament. In 2013, I used the YouVersion Bible app on my ipad and read through the One Year Bible, which uses the format of a section from the OT, a section from Psalms, a section from Proverbs, and a section from the New Testament. It was very doable for me, and I was able to accomplish my goal, yippee! Now, I’m going to make that a goal every year, and try to read through it yearly. I need to spend more time reading Scripture and less time watching tv and playing computer games 🙂 I bought the MacArthur Study Bible and a chronological one called Reading God’s Story, and I’ve decided to do the MacArthur one this year.

Let’s see… we’re currently having quite a cold snap, so I’m happy to stay inside and enjoy winter! Today’s high was supposed to hit 26, not sure if it made it. Tonight should set a record, 12 degrees. As Siri says on our iphones, Brrr! Needless to say, we’re not walking. It’s harder for me to get out and walk without Beau, and convincing Tim to go, so when it’s cold, we just don’t go.

Tim has now successfully figured out a way for me to wish for spring and golf season to get here faster (whether he realizes it or not!). Normally, I enjoy winter and having him home more (which I still do), and being able to spend more time together. However, he’s making me do P90X with him, and now every day that we do that, I secretly wish for winter to be over, so he can go to the golf course and I do NOT have to do that stupid exercise program. I don’t like anything about it. He did it last winter and lost 30 or 35 pounds. Me, I’ve been doing it since October and maybe I’ve lost 2 pounds. Sigh.

Last year was all about my dad, since he fell in mid-February and we moved him here shortly after. We lost Beau in March, and I’ve missed him every day since. I’m hoping this year is going to be more focused on us. We have some plans for this year (including a dog, hopefully), that I hope will come to fruition.

I don’t know if I’ll get back into blogging or not, but I’m going to try a bit. I’m not cooking much (so no new recipes to share and no food photos) and I don’t have Beau (so no cute Beau photos or videos). I’m not posting much on Facebook because of those things, and because Tim doesn’t like me to post when we go places (movies, out to eat, etc). Sigh. Hard to come up with things to blog about 😀

Ok, not much of a catch-up post, but a start. I always want to look back on my blog and see what we are doing, that’s hard to do with these 2-4 month gaps I’ve been having, LOL!

Let’s see, time to do another little catch-up post…

September, thankfully, has now come and gone, and it’s October! One of my most favorite months of the year, if not THE favorite. I’m ready for fall! It’s supposed to cool off a bit this weekend and one night is predicted to be in the low 50’s. I’m ready!

Last weekend was fairly busy. We went to see Katelyn and Sam (and their cousins) play soccer. We picked up my dad about 8:30 AM and drove out to Clinton to their soccer fields. Katelyn played first, followed by her twin cousins, Keaton and Logan, and then Sam played at 11. Well, Sam’s game was not really full blown soccer, but they were out there having fun and trying to kick the ball and score. Sam seems to enjoy the sidelines, drinking his Gatorade and spitting on the field the most! Like most 5 year old boys, I assume. I took a bunch of pictures of all the soccer players, but haven’t transferred them yet, hopefully soon! Afterwards, we all packed up (about 20 or more of us) and went to the Blue Rooster for burgers. Tim and I have been wanting to go to the Blue Rooster in Flora, not realizing they had one out in Clinton. It was really good. Gail and Don tried the vegetarian burgers and said they were good, I might get that next time. I had a good old fashioned beef burger, built my own, with sauteed mushrooms and swiss cheese. After lunch, we took my dad back to his assisted living place, and after we swung back by the house, Tim and Don left to go play golf at Lake Caroline. Gail and I decided to go shopping. We went to Target for a while (I got a new fall purse, burgundy or claret, whatever they call the color these days), and some things for Halloween. We also went by Sam’s Club for a few things. After playing, the guys wanted to meet at Dickies for supper. Neither Gail nor I were very hungry, so we mostly entertained the guys while they ate ribs.

Sunday was equally busy. We went to church (really good service, we’re in the Exponential series, a study of Ephesians) and then home to change. We picked up my dad again and headed to Tim’s parents house. The kitchen is almost completely done (everything but the oven), and it looks fantastic! Linda cooked a great lunch (pork roast, rice and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls and banana pudding for dessert) and we got to eat at the new kitchen table. I should have taken pictures, but didn’t. After lunch, we visited a few hours before heading home. After dropping off my dad, Tim and I went home to eat leftovers (Mr. Chen’s from Friday night, a full weekend of overeating!) and watch Sunday night football.

Monday, Tim was ready to start back with P90X. He’s doing his best to talk me into doing it with him. I’m not much into exercise, especially of the extreme variety. But, he said he’d start back walking some with me, so I agreed to give it a shot. I won’t be able to do it every day like he will, as this week was fairly free, but next week I get back to having to take my dad somewhere at least once a week. I am not overdoing it, in fact, I can barely do a lot of the exercises. Day 1 was an hour of pushups, pullups and situps. For the push-ups, I did 1 or 2, where the fanatics and Tim did 25 or 30. But, I am trying and that’s better than sitting my butt on the couch. I need to be better with my portions, the eating and snacking are what really help me pack on the pounds, I think.

Speaking of… I’ve been doing a lot of cooking this week, LOL! I’ve pulled out my crockpot for the week. Monday night, the Saints played the Dolphins (both undefeated going into the game, and we’re now 4-0!!!), and so I made a french dip all day in the crockpot, along with homemade buns, roasted broccoli and oven sweet potato fries. Tuesday, I made Tim biscuits and we had breakfast food. Wednesday, I made red beans and rice in the crockpot. Today, I’m going to try a new recipe I pinned on Pinterest for a crockpot beef and broccoli. I had also planned to make a pizza, but that may get pushed back a few days. The fridge is full of leftovers, plus food I bought at Kroger yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that several items in the bulk bins at Kroger were marked half off. I certainly hope they are not getting rid of them, or phasing them out. Our Whole Foods across town has not opened yet, not sure how many months before it will be open, not to mention, it’s more than 10 miles down there. Anyway, I didn’t need a lot from the bulk bins, but since walnuts, dried cherries, steel cut oats and roasted pumpkin seeds were marked 50% off, I loaded up! 🙂

Most all of our TV shows are back on now, which is great. Tim cut our cable package the other day. We were in a promotion that gave us all of the premium movie channels and it expired on October 1. So he cut those and cut back on our tier. Not going to save us a lot of money, but every little bit helps. Plus, with football and all the new shows back on, we definitely don’t need the movie channels. We can stream movies from Amazon or Apple TV, or I can get most new releases at the library (just have to request and wait for them, most of the time). We still have several movies on the DVR that I recorded from the pay channels while we had them, that we still have not watched. I’m mostly about football these days, along with NCIS, Person of Interest, Elementary, Blue Bloods, and a couple of new ones, especially The Blacklist. Tim loves that one 🙂

I’m not reading nearly as much as I was earlier in the year. I’m reading my Bible and Jesus Calling Devotional every day, and plugging along with books. Current book I’m reading is one I actually bought, Double Cross by James David Jordan (read the first one, Forsaken, and loved it, so I knew that if I found the second one free or discounted, I would get it. Paid 2.99 and it’s worth every penny so far!). I will go over 100 in the next few weeks, well surpassing the goal I set. I might even beat my previous high goal of 104, if I can keep it up 😀

OK, nothing exciting, but I guess that mostly catches me up, LOL!

I’m SO glad that fall is here, even though we’ll still have plenty of hot days. At least maybe the nights will start cooling off a bit, and my early morning walks will be less sweaty and stinky 🙂

We got one or two new tv shows last week, but this week, it really starts cranking up. Some new favorites are returning and we’re going to try a few new shows.

Here’s some of the new ones we are going to give a test drive too and see how we like them…

* Sleepy Hollow – this one started on Fox last week and we both liked it! It reminds me a lot of Grimm, which Tim loves and watches by himself. I’ll give this one a try for a while, until the creatures and monsters and stuff start to get to me 🙂

* Hostages (CBS) and The Blacklist (NBC) – both start Monday night at 9 PM here. Not sure about either one, but they have some decent actors and a decent sounding plot. We’ll give them a try.

* Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD – Tuesday night on ABC, and I cannot wait! I love all the Marvel movies and loved the Avengers movie. I hope this one is great, and it’s even better because although Colson died in the last movie, he lives in this tv show! 😀

* Ironside starts in early October, I think on NBC. I remember Blair Underwood from a show a LONG time ago, I think it was LA Law. Boy, I’m getting old 🙂

And then we’ve got a lot of favorites coming back, including both NCIS shows, Person of Interest, Elementary, Blue Bloods and several others. I have a new season of Top Chef to look forward to, and a new Dancing (which started last week). I’m really on the fence about The Voice. I loved,loved,loved it last season with Shakira and Usher, and now they are gone and the two I dislike intensely (CeeLo and Christina) are back. Bleh. I will give it a limited shot, mostly because I enjoy Adam and Blake.

As far as fall goes, I’m ready for more. Cooler temps, more comfort foods, holidays, birthdays and of course, the football that I’m already enjoying. Our college team is not doing well (again, hard after a streak of 17 winning seasons), but the Saints… oh, my Saints! They are 3-0 and we have such high hopes and happy expectations every Sunday. I love this time of year! Bring on some cool temps, let me pull out jeans and my favorite long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts, light a good smelling candle, and I’m a happy camper 😀

I haven’t been blogging, because I can’t seem to come up with anything to blog about! Football season has started, thankfully, but other than that, things are pretty much the same. Same ole, same ole, my mom used to say 🙂

Football started off ok on the first week – the Saints beat the Falcons, our USM team lost their second game (sigh) and I lost my fantasy football matchup. Bigger Sigh.

I am not reading as much, and I’m not cooking as much. I *am* trying to walk more, which is good. So that fills a bit of my mornings. Will be glad for cooler weather 🙂 I’m not quite sure what I’m doing with the rest of my time, it just seems to go by and I don’t have a lot to show for it. I am fairly unproductive lately. Bummer.

Tim, on the other hand, is happy playing golf all the time. He plays about 5 days a week, and has finally broken par. He shot 71 the other day and was tickled pink, purple and blue 🙂 He ordered a new putter, and a new shaft for his driver, so he’s a very happy camper!

OK, end of the Nothing Post 😀

Hooray! Made it through the two hardest months of the year for me, July and August. Today is September 1 and while it’s hot, and I’m sick, I’m grateful that the last four months of the year (my most favorite time of the year) have arrived.

Had a busy week. Had to take my dad to the dentist one day, to a new lawyer another day (and THAT opened up a whole Pandora’s box of problems, issues, decisions, etc), and then I had a dentist appointment another day. Tim got sick on Tuesday, maybe even Monday late. Sinus, we think. Now, I have it and it’s not fun. It’s not as bad as I’ve had before, so I am very grateful that I’m not feeling worse than I am. I’ve had bad sinus infections before, and almost always at this time of year (Sept 1-15 is notoriously when I get these) and so far (KNOCK ON WOOD), I’m not nearly bad enough that I need to go to the doctor and get a shot and some antibiotics. So very grateful 🙂

It’s gotten hot again, July hot, just in time for Labor Day. We’re not going to do a thing this year, for the holiday. In years past, we would have Labor Day parties here. But this year, most of my side of the family is out of town, Linda is just now starting to get her kitchen back, Terry has the store open, so we’re just not going to have anyone here or go anywhere. My dad is not very happy with me, but he’ll probably get over it by Halloween 🙂

As I saw posted today on Facebook, today is the last Sunday until February without football. Yippee!
Our fantasy draft is tomorrow morning, so we’ll have that to play with as well. USM played their first game last night, it was not on tv, so we listened to some on the radio. Once they had turned the ball over 4 times, Tim decided to turn it off and go back to watching golf (they lost, sigh, just like last year, when they were winless). Oh, and we watched a decent movie last night that I had recorded, Trouble with the Curve, a Clint Eastwood movie.

I’ve been reading a couple of secular books lately, and I’m sorely reminded of why I prefer Christian fiction. I was on the wait list at the library for a hardback copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (pen name for J.K. Rowling) and while it was ok, it was not what I prefer to read. I just don’t like the language. I know she can write good books without all those f-bombs, I’ve read the Potter books! Such a shame. And then, as I was finishing that one up, my name finally came up for the digital download of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I’ve been on the wait list for months, I think when I got on the list, I was number 23. It took months, and was bad timing to come available as I was finishing up the Cuckoo one. This one is better, the language is bad (but not AS bad) and the plot is better. After this one though, I’m going back to clean Christian fiction.

OK, well, just a quick post, glad September is here, not feeling great, sinus and stuff. And I have a bit of my summer doldrums left over, just don’t want to do much of anything other than play games, read, watch tv and be lazy. I’m not even motivated to cook these days 🙁

As Scarlett said, After all, tomorrow is another day! 😀

Well, here it is two weeks since I’ve posted, and I’ve once again neglected my blog. I’m so grateful my little blog is so faithful, always sitting here patiently waiting on me to return 🙂

Let’s see, nothing exciting or earth-shattering to blog about. Just skipping on along, trying to get through August. The end is in sight though, LOL! Yippee! 😀

* The last couple of weekends have been busy, which is the way that Tim likes it 🙂 Two weekends ago, we went over on Saturday to his mom’s house, to help with more of the kitchen renovation. Her cabinets were in (most of them) and a couple of the appliances. They moved the dishwasher back in, put down moulding on the floor, laid new flooring and got it looking a lot better. She’s waiting on granite countertops and an issue with the cabinets and wall oven. It’s going to look awesome in there, it already does!

* This past weekend, we went to Indianola for the day on Saturday. Tim played in a charity golf tournament with Don at his club. Gail took me out to eat lunch at The Crown, since I had never been. I had the Catfish Allison and Gail had a chicken salad plate. We both had some dessert, big splurge, and it was all really good! Left at nearly dark, which means we always have to stop half way, coming out of the Delta, and go through a car wash. Those bugs up there are killer! We can’t see out of the windshield and so we have to stop and clean it all off.

* Did I blog before that Tim shot par? He’s shot 72 one time so far at his home course, which is a par 72. He’s up and down, but has shot it once and is very fired up! He’s been playing 5 days a week all summer, so his game has really improved. Now, he wants to break par! He’s ordered a new putter, a new shaft for his driver, and something else.

* He also ordered me two happies, I think he felt bad about getting so much golf stuff for him 🙂 I got a new Timex indiglo watch with a maroon cloth band, I really like it. And today, a package was delivered for me, a bluetooth outdoor speaker. Now, once the weather cools and it is fall, I can sit outside on the deck or out back by Beau’s grave and listen to my music streaming from either my iphone or my ipad.

* Speaking of my iPad, I am running down the battery every day on the thing. I have a new addiction, thanks to Linda and her sisters, they’ve gotten me playing HayDay. Very similar to Farmville that I used to play all the time on Facebook, except this one is done on a phone or tablet. And the crops never ruin, it just sits and waits on you to come back and play, which is really nice. And, I am still playing Cafe World in Facebook. Over 2 or 3 years, I have a consecutive day streak going, somewhere in the 1075 day range. Yikes. Bad addictions 🙂

* Ready for football! USM opens this Saturday with a home game at The Rock. The Saints play their last preseason game this week, then a Sunday off before the regular season starts. Can’t wait!

* Been busy with my Dad the last few days. We took him with us on Sunday to Magee, to celebrate Linda’s birthday with a big family lunch at a local restaurant, Berry’s Seafood. I think there must have been 35-40 of us! Imagine the hostess when the first one comes in and says “Table for 40”!!! We had a good time and got to visit with everyone, and my dad had a blast. Yesterday (Monday), I took him to the dentist. Tomorrow is a trip to a new lawyer, to update his will. And then Thursday morning I have to go to the dentist.

* Have tried a couple of new recipes lately, and also gotten a couple of “real” books from the library, I’ll have to post about those later 🙂