Exceedingly Mundane

This afternoon I put some stuff for dinner in the crockpot, and it cooked all afternoon. When Tim got in from work, he offered to take me to eat Chinese. Which I have been wanting to do for weeks and weeks. I’ve been begging, pleading, bargaining, etc lately to get him to go eat Chinese with me. So, I put up the food (who knows when we’ll eat it), and we went to our nice little Chinese buffet near our house. I gorged to my heart’s content! Tim got extra double bonus points for sucking it up and taking me. I don’t think he wanted Chinese, but he knew how much I did. What a sweetie pie! 😀

Then, I pushed my luck and asked to go out Lakeland to Hobby Lobby. I had hoped that they had finished stocking all of the scrapbooking stuff, since I had not been in weeks. Apparently, Tim was still in his “earn bonus points” mood, so he took me! My hopes were dashed – I didn’t find anything new. And, in fact, I think they had even less since the last time I was there before, probably in early August. Phooey. We also went to Lowe’s to get some O-rings and A/C filters. Then, we stopped at the big Target to get a shower gift for a friend of Tim’s at work. We made it home in time to watch Battlestar, which was really good. I was so sad to see that next week is the season finale, darn it. I hate that we won’t have new episodes for a while. My only consolation is that Survivor, Lost, Race, etc are all starting up (or have started). Thank goodness!

Nothing blog-worthy today to prattle on about… not that today is any different from any other day!

Have been running errands and grocery and Walmart shopping today. I’m very good at those. We had to throw out most of the food from our freezer and refrigerator after Hurricane Katrina and I’ve been slowly replacing most of it. Well – slowly for me. It’s been like a slow torture for me not to have gone out the first day or two we got back power and bought out the whole store and filled all my empty space. I cannot stand to have empty space in my pantry, cabinets, refrigerator or freezer. Some sort of sick OCD “hunter/gatherer” gene I have. If there’s empty space —- I must fill it. I’m feeling a lot better after all the shopping I’ve done today, though. 😀

Last night was good – we had a good supper, went walking, then watched the season premiere of House. It was a good show, as always, and I recommend it to anyone who has never watched it before. 🙂 Tim had to work last night, and finished up sometime after 1 AM. He said it all went well though. He’s working from home today, so I’m doing my best to keep things quiet around here and let him concentrate. Lots of computer time and maybe a little scrapping time later today for me!

SCRATCH THAT — Please disregard what I blogged about below. Tim is now ready , 10 minutes after I blogged about staying home and enjoying the peace and quiet – he’s ready to go out and go purchase a new DVD recorder before football season starts. Sigh. Things never seem to go my way. 🙄

This weekend is going to be, or at least I hope that it is, a quiet one. Sort of the calm after the storm. I think we both need a little down time and some quiet time.

We worked outside in the yard most of the morning, then got cleaned up and took my Explorer to get it washed. It had two or three layers of dead bugs on it from all the trips to the Delta and back and forth to Tim’s parents house. Stubborn, stuck-on bugs! The car wash didn’t get them all off, but it got a bunch. We picked up some fast food on the way home, and now I think we’re going to watch a lot of football the rest of the weekend. MSU is on right now, and our Golden Eagles play tonight, and Tim’s beloved Saints play tomorrow. So hopefully we can veg some and watch football.

Today went according to plan, love it when that happens! Got all the errands run, and I’m happy to report that I had no problems whatsoever getting gas. YEAH! I drove right up to the pump, and although I was limited to $40, I was able to get gas without a line. What a nice thing that I always took for granted before! We both have full tanks now, so barring any unforeseen road trips, that ought to hold us a couple of weeks. The price wasn’t bad either. I drove by 2 gas stations (one I’m not sure had gas) that were 2.59 and found a Shell that was 2.53 sandwiched in between them. So, needless to say, I got the 2.53! What was odd was that this station wasn’t selling the middle or premium grade, they had those pump handles covered with plastic bags. They only had the low grade, which is what I wanted anyway. I guess that gas station owner was smart and decided that more of the low grade in the tanks in the ground was a good thing – since most people are buying the cheapest grade these days anyway.

I went to Target and Walmart, and also dropped off books at the library and checked out new ones. I have updated the sidebar to reflect the new books I’m going to read. One is by Karen Kingsbury, a Christian author that Gail recommended. Another is by Debbie Macomber, who wrote another book I just finished reading and enjoyed. The other is a chance book. I haven’t heard a thing about this author or these books, either in someone’s blog or website or from anyone I know. I was browsing the bookshelves at the library and ran across several books in the “Miss Julia” series. I love reading series books, if I like the characters or settings, I like reading more than one. So I thought I would give one of them a try. On the front of this one it says “Absolutely Loved this Book! What a Joy to Read!” – by Fannie Flagg. So it’s probably a good old-fashioned southern kind of read, like “Fried Green Tomatoes” or whatnot. I’ll report back later on whether or not it was any good! 😀

Looks like a busy day today. Tim is working from home still. He has all week and I just love it. I love him being here during the day and being able to fix lunch for him and hear him talking on his conference calls and seeing him work. Makes me warm and fuzzy all over. 🙂

I have been catching up on housework, laundry, bill-paying, cleaning, etc all week and today I’m headed out. We’re really trying to conserve gas and combine errands, since the hurricane. I’m going to head out today and scope out the gas situation. Hopefully, the long lines are gone and it’s just the high prices left to contend with. I hope most of the gas stations near us that closed down shortly after the hurricane are opening back up. We’ll see 🙂

I’m headed to the library and Walmart today and contemplating a trip to Target. Oh, and gas station hunting. Should be a good day! Then, tonight we’ll watch our tape from last week’s Battlestar Galactica that we taped and never had a chance to watch, then watch a new episode tonight at 9:00. I can’t wait, I love that show! The rest of the weekend will be filled with football. Tim is very excited, and I am too!

Wow, this really made my day! My blog buddy Dawn highlighted my blog in her post today, “Meet the Bloggers”. That is so cool, and she is soooo sweet to say nice things about me and my blog. We’ve never met, but I feel like we have gotten to be friends, via the Internet, and as Dawn says — “see, not everyone on the Internet is a weirdo!”. I feel the same way.

Dawn is playing in our fantasy league, she’s the Florida Storm Surge. Watch out guys and girls, she’s pretty football savvy and she just might beat us all! 😀

Go check out Dawn’s blog, and Dawn – thank you so much, this really made my day. You are too sweet for your own good!!

I haven’t blogged a whole lot lately, other than the occasional meme, and my daily “A Happy a Day in August”, a challenge I picked up at Big Orange Michael‘s blog. There’s not a whole lot exciting going on, other than the occasional new car and day trip to the in-laws. Mostly, my days are filled with routine, mundane to most everyone but me, and our days are very ordinary.

Ordinary.

I have been thinking about this word a lot lately. I read a blog entry at a scrapbooker’s site (Cathy Zielske), where she referenced something another lady had written at her blog. I’ll put it in the extended (-More-) section for you to read, if you’d like. It really struck a chord with me. These are my days – ordinary. Not to be confused with boring or meaningless or — dare I say — mundane. Although I do live a mundane existence. Which is why I named this blog “Exceedingly Mundane”.

It’s a happy, quiet, content little existence for me. I find great comfort in routine, in schedules, in patterns, in things happening as planned. I am not a spontaneous person. Tim is, and I’ve been slowly learning to adjust to it, but it still goes against my nature. My nature is very business-like, very practical, very much like the mathematics and computer degree I hold (though faded and not used as much these days). Very ordered, 1, 2, 3, 4. Very methodical. Very logical. This brings me great joy, great peace, great contentment. It does not, however, lead to interesting blog entries. 😀 Nor do my hobbies and the things I do during each day to fill my time (and yes, contrary to popular belief, I actually stay very busy). I have too many hobbies, I’m afraid, and therefore am not able to give top billing to any of them at any given time. They all have to fight for my attention, and get a piece of my time, but they all get shorted and none gets as huge a block of time as I’d like. I love to read, I alway have. I love to take photos and “mess” with them, always have. Since I was 12 and got my first camera. I love scrapbooking and recording our memories (which is a must for me, with my terrible memory and all. I’m afraid I’m going to be 70 one day and not remember any of my life, at all). I love to cook and bake. I would do this more, but we would each weigh 500 pounds. I love to watch tv and movies. I love to play on the computer, I have dozens of things that can occupy me for any length of time on the computer. And mostly, the overriding factor, is that I love to spend time with Tim, doing whatever we can together.

All of these are great and wonderful things, but not all that exciting to blog about. So therefore, blog readers, I extend my apologies for not having a happening, exciting blog. This one fits me just fine though, like an old comfortable sweatshirt, and I’ve decided to keep it. 😆

P.S. I’ve also read on several scrapbooker’s blogs that they have and enjoy the book “Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. I think I will add it to my Amazon wish list (not that I ever get much off of there, but a girl has to have a tangible place to wish and dream!) There’s a website for the book, including a section of excerpts, which is where I linked to.

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We’ve had a busy weekend… Rewind to Friday night. I had food out ready to cook, a flank steak I had marinated all afternoon, but Tim wanted to go out to eat. So….. we did! We went to Captain’s Catch in Madison. I had a shrimp po-boy with fries and Tim had red beans and rice (and YUCK, they had jalapenos on them). Then, we went to Walmart and picked up food for Saturday.

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We’re headed out (in the new Explorer) in about an hour, going to Tim’s parents house for the day. His mom’s birthday is next week, so we’re going to go visit and celebrate with her. We’ll also get to see my dad, as he is coming for the morning and lunch, and to help Tim with a deer stand. Which, obviously, I know nothing about, so you’ll have to ask Tim about that! 🙂

much going on, nothing much to blog about. Which is the way I like my days and weeks to go 🙂

I was gone all day Monday, and so I’ve been more than happy to stay home since then. Especially with the rising price of gas, something I have been meaning to blog about, but haven’t. Wouldn’t you know, just as soon as we trade in my nice gas-mileage-friendly sedan and get a gas-guzzling SUV, the gas prices go through the roof. I swear, I think they’ve gone up 30 or 40 cents a gallon since we got the Explorer. All the more reason to stay home. I try to consolidate my errands now, and hold off on running around for no good reason. Heaven knows, Tim likes to do this enough on the weekends, so I feel it’s necessary to conserve during the week. Especially with all the birthdays, holidays, football games and hunting trips that will be coming up in the next few months. And at over $50 a shot to fill up each of our gas guzzlers, I’m going to try to keep road-running to a minimum.

Anyhoo, today…

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I’ve been busier than a bee all day today, running around. I had a lot of personal errands to run, and also wanted to go out and get most of the gift cards that family and friends won on our Hambones Anniversary celebrations that finished up this morning. I think all together, I made 11 or 12 stops today! Whew! I still have a couple more to go, and then get them all mailed or arranged to get to people. I hope everyone really enjoyed playing in all the little silly games we had on the main website as part of the one year festivities.

Not everyone would think that what I did today was fun, but to me it was very very very fun!

I went out to our new Hobby Lobby and spent a while there browsing their scrapbook section. I did glance in the seasonal stuff up front – they already have all of their fall and Christmas stuff out, or at least a lot of it. Granted, I didn’t check out the rest of the store, but I will on another trip. Today was all about buying scrapbook stuff!

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Well, I haven’t been able to think of anything remotely interesting to write about lately (like that’s all that different from any other day, week or month!!). And it’s just a “same ole, same ole” kind of week, so nothing to report in the way of dates, shopping or something fun or exciting (like a new car!!) Not that I have those very often at all. I lead a very mundane existence. Happy, peaceful and quiet, but mundane. And I have no knack for writing catchy or thought-provoking blog entries. I seem to write just the way I talk, matter of fact, practical and very long-winded!

Click the -More- if you want to read a few blah things that are going on with us!

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My branch of the library in Madison is closed this week for inventory. I went last Friday to drop off books and get more to read. I found one that day, but two others that I was looking for were at another branch. So, I headed over there this morning to look for these books.

This branch is older, but it’s bigger. I do believe there are a lot more books, videos and other material available at this branch. I might have to go here more often and check it out.

Anyhoo, I had read on another lady’s blog that she had read and enjoyed some of the “Harmony” books, which she likened to the Mitford series. Now, I’m a huge Jan Karon fan and I have loved every single one of the Mitford books, so I’m hoping these are as good, funny and heartwarming.

I checked out two from this series – Home to Harmony and Just Shy of Harmony. They had two or three others, so maybe I’ll have more to look forward to this fall. 🙂