Exceedingly Mundane

Nothing like tooling around in a shiny new red car (SUV) to make a girl smile 🙂

I went to the library today, and returned 3 books and checked out one more. My little branch of our county library system is going to be closed next week for inventory, and I had a hard time finding some books I wanted. I checked the computer and they have them at another branch (that will be open next week), so I just got one today and plan to go next week to the other branch and check out one or two more. I’ve read on other blogs and message boards about the Harmony books. Several people compared them to the Mitford books by Jan Karon, which I love and adore. So, if the Harmony ones are half that good, I’m really looking forward to reading some of them.

I also went to Tuesday Morning and Big Lots…

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Tim and I went for a walk tonight before supper. It was partly cloudy, but we took off wearing sunglasses. After we turned off our street, it started to sprinkle lightly. I suggested we turn back, and Tim turned around and then took a few steps and said “If it was up to me, I’d like to go walking in the rain”. Well, phooey. How can I refuse that? 😆 So, we turned back around and headed back off. It rained on us almost the entire walk. It wasn’t a pouring-down, driving kind of rain, just a good steady solid light rain. It actually felt really good. We were just really wet when we got home and my hair looked like a really bad poodle doo. Otherwise, it was all good!

Nothing like making memories with my sweetie-pie, walking in the rain.

I’ve been really busy all morning, working on stuff at Hambones.org. We’re celebrating our one-year anniversary beginning tomorrow, and we have a lot of fun and silly stuff going on, including a couple of things involving small monetary prizes (cash or gift cards, if I can get them in $5 or $10 denominations). I hope everyone enjoys the silly things I’ve come up with, and that everyone enjoys the site and all we have to offer here. We are rather proud of our little family and friends website. It ain’t much, but it is a place on the Internet where we can all connect and share info about our lives, photos and just generally pick at each other in the forums!

I also posted about our 1st annual Football Fantasy league. We’ve gotten that setup and it’s time to start getting teams together and getting excited about fantasy football! I posted some info in the Sports Forum, so hopefully everyone that’s interested will check that out.

Not a lot else going on today. I have a bunch of housework to do today that I was supposed to do yesterday and didn’t. I am very good at procrastinating! 😆

Oh, Tim didn’t have to work last night after all, even though I thought he was going to. We both sat up really late though, anyway. He was up watching old football tapes and I was reading my book. Gotta get it finished before it is due back at the library on Friday! 😛

I had salmon out and defrosted and ready to cook, along with some vegetables, for tonight’s supper. Tim got home about 6:00, and right as he walked in, he asked what we were having for supper. I told him, and he responded with an “ugh” and then a “sounds like a good night to go out and eat”. “How about Cock of the Walk?” he said.

Cock of the Walk is a great little catfish place not far from our house, on the Reservoir. They sell basically one thing – fried catfish with all the trimmings. I think they also offer fried chicken strips, but we have never known anyone who has ever ordered anything but the fish.

It’s a great place right on the water, very rustic; you sit at wooden tables and eat out of tin plates and cups. Lots of charm and character. You order catfish by the person, fish for two, and then they start parading out the food. First, you get the coleslaw and pickled/marinated onions, then your server (dressed in riverboat attire, complete with a hat and feather) brings out a small cast iron pan of cornbread that he flips and catches in the pan. If you’re lucky, he won’t drop yours! 🙂 Soon afterwards, they will bring out a big aluminum platter of fried catfish, french fries, and hushpuppies. (Are you now sensing that it’s not healthy, all fried!). Tim also likes the greens, so he ordered a half keg of those. I ate a bite, to make him happy, but I do NOT like greens. 🙄

Needless to say, it was all delicious and we ate till we nearly popped. We drove around in the new car and looked at some new houses going up around the Reservoir after that. A good, fun, date night. But then again, we always have those –Tim is the world’s best at fun and spontaneous. And he’s a great date!

I got out and about today in my new car – went to the bank, video store and grocery shopping. I have another “happy a day” to add to my list – my local Walmart is now back to carrying the kind of soda Tim likes to drink (Cherry Coke) and the kind of chips I like to buy (Sun Chips). The last two or three times I was there, they didn’t have either and I was rather bummed. I’m happy to report they had them both today!

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Tim and I had another busy, but fun-filled day today. We took the new Explorer out, needless to say!!

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Please donate your spare change to us, we’re poor now. 🙁

Because we BOUGHT A NEW CAR TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yipppeee! Tim bought me a 2005 Ford Explorer XLT Sport tonight. It’s red, but we think it’s more of a maroon color. I’ve never had a car this color before 🙂 I missed my old Explorer and Tim absolutely adores his F-150, so we decided to take advantage of Ford’s Employee Discount program they had running through today, and we bought this sweet thing tonight:

It has running boards, graphite gray leather interior (including really comfy bucket seats up front for us), a 6 cd disc changer, an electronic information center on the dash, a rear sensing system, a cool cargo cover in the back that I didn’t have on my old Explorer, keyless entry (including a pad on the driver door), and the nifty little auto dimmer on the rear view mirror. Tim has this on his truck and it’s pretty cool.

Needless to say, I’m pretty excited. I even took a picture of it tonight in the garage!

We bought it so late in the day, that the cleaning folks had already left. So, Tim is going to take it by on Monday and have them clean it up and detail it. I’ll probably take more pictures tomorrow in the daylight, and I know I will take some once it comes home all clean and shining.

OK, gotta try and catch my breath… I’m still really pumped! 😆

Dad drove up from Hattiesburg today to “hang out” with me. Hanging out with your 82 year old father is actually not too bad! We went to Roadhouse Grill and had lunch with Tim, then to Sam’s. He just left going back towards home, with a couple of stops along the way.

Not much else going on… I can’t think of a single interesting thing to blog about. What’s up with that? Send ideas please.

I’m still waiting patiently (NOT) for my Snapfish order to arrive in the mail. I waddle out to the mailbox every afternoon to look inside and hope that my 160 pictures from our vacation are sitting there waiting on me. For two days in a row I have been heartbroken and disappointed. When oh when will they arrive? How will they look? Will I be kicking myself that I ordered all my prints from this trip from there, rather than giving them a quick test with just a few pictures. Oh woe is me.

Updated Programming Note: Tim is going to be off tomorrow; not sure what we will be doing. Something fun and exciting, I’m sure! Tune in later for more details! 😀

Yesterday I didn’t feel all that well. Actually, I felt rather icky, although it was nothing I could really put my finger on. I *think* I feel better today, but I can’t really tell yet. 😆 I hope I do, I don’t like feeling out of sorts.

I worked out in the yard yesterday morning, but it wasn’t anything strenuous and it wasn’t that hot yet. So I don’t think it was that. The leftovers I ate for lunch didn’t stay down long, so I think that’s why I felt bad all afternoon, I was just kinda weak and lethargic. I didn’t feel any better by the time Tim got home from work, and barely ate half what I put on my plate for supper. Now, for those of you who know me, you know I was feeling bad then. I always clean my plate! I went to bed early, about 9:30 or 10:00, and got a lot of sleep. So hopefully whatever it was is gone.

Of course, that doesn’t really remove the other underlying problem. I don’t have much to blog about! I can’t seem to think of anything interesting or funny or thought-provoking to write about. But hey, I forget, this blog is exceedingly mundane and I don’t usually write about those kinds of things anyway! Ha. Problem solved!

I think I held my breath on and off for over two minutes this morning, while the Space Shuttle Discovery lifted off from Kennedy Space Center about 9:39 AM our time. I said lots of prayers and apparently a lot of other people did too, as the shuttle lifted effortlessly into the sky and then into space. I was so relieved, and so very glad. I’ve always been a huge space and astronomy nut (I wrote more about this a couple of weeks ago, when Discovery was originally supposed to have launched), and I am a firm believer in our right and need to explore space. I know a lot of people might disagree, and say that money was better spent on poverty, medicine or other avenues, but I’m a huge proponent of exploring our last frontier and discovering more of God’s handiwork. I think it’s an integral part of mankind’s nature, to reach out and look for more. I, for one, am very hopeful they will continue our space program and continue to reach further, go faster and do more. I am going to be paying close attention the next few days and find out how all the work at the International Space Station is going. I want to go there one day. 🙂

On another front, I think it’s going to be very hot here again today, but hopefully not as hot as the last few days. I think we hit 100º yesterday or the day before. Tim and I were watching the news last night and they said we had not hit 100 since 2000, but that year we hit it several times. It has really felt scorching lately, and I know my flowers and the grass are suffering. I spent over 2 hours out watering and running the sprinklers all morning. Everything is just so parched.

Busy day today and I thought I wouldn’t get any exercise in. But, from my fellow devotees on the Exercise forum on Hambones.org, I got some encouragement and decided to bite the bullet tonight. I worked out to a tape for about 25 minutes, then just as soon as I got through, Tim walked in and asked if I wanted to go for a walk. Now — he claims he had no idea I’d been working out, and played all innocent. Personally, I think he was thinking he could slide by, since I’d just worked out I would say “no, I don’t want to go”.

WRONG.

We took our normal 2 mile route through the subdivision. So, I got nice and doubly sweaty tonight! 🙂

Other stuff going on – I’ve been loving the LOST trivia that Gail is posting on our Trivia forum. Three days in a row now, gotta love it. I love that show and miss that show and can’t wait till the fall for new episodes.

Also going on tonight – we setup a blog for Chris on Hambones. Blogging seems to be the new thing on our little family and friends website. Besides mine, there are now 5 others. Hip-hip-hooray, I love to see everyone getting involved and blogging about what’s on their mind or going on in their life. Love it, just love it!

Have had a fairly eventful morning.

Zack came and stayed with me this morning. Linda had to work today and Mitchell had to come to town for an appointment at the VA. Brittany went to work with Linda and Zack rode with his Papaw to the VA, and I went and picked him up to come hang out with me while Mitchell went in for a checkup. Zack and I hung out all morning. We played on the computer, watched tv and had a good time waiting on Papaw. They left about lunchtime.

We discovered this morning (while Zack and I were playing on the computer) that we were having intermittent RoadRunner issues. It affected my phone (using our Vonage Voice over IP service) and our Internet connection. The cable was mostly unaffected. I waited patiently for a couple of hours but it was never resolved. It was up, but it was slow and not very usable. I finally called and spent half an hour on the phone with Roadrunner support, to no avail. Once they heard we had a router, they pretty much said “it must be your router, it’s not our modem or service”. Huh. So, I called my main tech support (Tim), who stepped me through a lot of stuff and got us back up and running. Thanks Tim!

While Zack was here, the Terminex guy came by to do a check of the termite bait stations. I keep the front gate locked these days, so people can’t wander into our backyard. He apparently thought the gate was just stuck, because when he couldn’t get the gate opened using the handle, he reached up and grabbed on the wood plank and yanked on it. And proceeded to splinter off a section of fence board. When I looked out the window, he was standing there with a chunk of my fence in his hand. 🙁 He said he’d come and replace the board, but I’m not going to hold my breath!

A few tidbits to share this afternoon:

1. We watched Million Dollar baby this afternoon. Wow. I just wrote a review and posted it here on Hambones.

2. It’s hotter than blue blazes outside. I went outside late afternoon to water some of my flowers. They are just so wilted out in this heat. My outdoor thermometer was in the shade and read about 105 degrees. Geesh.

3. I was reading the Sunday paper this afternoon and in doing my favorite part (looking at all the ads), I noticed one prevalent theme — everybody is having Back to School sales. Gee, it’s still July. These poor kids go back so early these days, in early to mid August around here. I don’t remember much, but I swear I remember from some point in my elementary or junior/high school years that we didn’t have to go back till right before Labor Day in early September. I know I remember this because I remember thinking every year how silly it was that we had to start one day or a half day before the Labor Day holiday on Monday. Why not just let us start back that Tuesday? I guess that’s what you call “the good ole days”🙄

Since we drove across town to a different Ford dealership and we were near the Lakeland corridor (tons of great retail, including a new Hobby Lobby opening in the next month, yeah!), I begged and pleaded with Tim for a chance to stop at the Target out there. It’s so much bigger and nicer than the one by our house, and the scrapbook aisle is twice the size! They had just opened a new Best Buy about three door fronts down from the Target, so Tim headed to Best Buy and I got to go to Target and peruse the scrapbook aisle to my hearts content. I picked up 3 $1 document boxes to store some scrapbook foam stamps in, a makeup thingie on sale, and some scrapbook stuff. They had a bunch of patriotic stuff that I had seen a month or so earlier that they didn’t have at my store. I want to try to start work on my pages from DC when the pictures arrive in my mailbox from Snapfish, so I wanted some new papers and toys to play with.

Check the -More- link for a picture of my haul, if you’re so inclined!

After Target, I walked over to Best Buy and Tim and I browsed a bit longer. Then, we realized Chris and Elizabeth would be over soon, and so we headed out. We stopped at Kroger to pick up some dip and cokes for snacking on before the pizza arrived, and I also picked up some necessities while I was there (fruit, veggies, salad, milk, etc). We also stopped in and rented “Million Dollar Baby” with one of the last of my free rental coupons.

We got home just a few minutes before Chris and Liz got to our house. Elizabeth brought the rest of her laundry, and they brought back our Scene-It DVD game they had borrowed. We ordered 2 pizzas from Papa Johns and hung out till it got there. I must stop here and commend our local Papa Johns on their speedy service. I called at 6:15 to order pizza and the guy on the phone said 45 min-1 hour, which is very reasonable for a Saturday night. Less than 25 minutes later, the delivery guy was banging on our front door with two piping hot delicious pizzas. Way to go Papa Johns!

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Yesterday was so busy that I really didn’t have time to blog about the details, just a quick update. So, for those of you yearning for more copious amounts of information about our day, read on dudes and dudettes. 😀

We slept in late yesterday morning, the first day of Tim’s non-oncall rotation for two weeks. He had a really rough two weeks and we were both pretty tired. We got up and had coffee, juice and homemade waffles. I tried a new recipe for crispy gingerale waffles, and they were good (thanks Gail!). I will try to get the recipe on Hambones soon, but there’s really nothing to it. Bisquick, oil and gingerale. I can post the proportions if anyone wants them pronto. 🙂

After that, we headed out to do some research, scouting and test driving of some new vehicles.

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