Exceedingly Mundane

From the Monday Madness Meme site

1. What’s on your refrigerator? (Please feel free to use a picture to answer.) Oh my, I’m classic middle-American, cover your fridge with junk, kind of person. Lots of magnets, holding up various photos, memorabilia, postcards, newspaper clippings, Christmas cards, pictures the kids colored, etc. Tim and I started buying magnets from places we have visited, so I have a ton on there of all the fun places we’ve been. And I have Christmas card photos on the side, where I pour my cereal every morning. Makes me smile all year long!

2. What color is your refrigerator? White

3. Is the freezer on the top, bottom or side? Top

4. How old is your fridge? Does it match your stove? Fridge will soon be 12 years old, like the house. I guess it matches, the stove is white with black accents.

5. How regularly do you clean the inside of your fridge Hmmm, this is a bad one for me. I hate to clean out the inside. I haven’t done an all-out, take everything out at one time cleaning, in years. I clean a shelf or section or drawer at a time if it looks dirty though. For some reason, the white plastic gallon milk jugs we buy tends to fleck off white plastic specks and they drive me nuts. I’m always wiping those out.

Yesterday Tim and I went to Lakewood Cemetery to check on Dodie’s grave. It was such a pretty day, all sunny and warm and hardly a cloud in the sky. There were a lot of people out at the cemetery, doing what we were doing. We put new, fresh flowers on Dodie’s grave. I had picked out some that I thought were really springy, yellow and purple ones. Click the (More)… button to see a picture of them. 🙂

After we finished putting out the flowers, we were walking back to the car and saw Fred drive up. He was on his way home from Gail’s house in Indianola and we knew he was thinking of stopping there. So it was really good to see him again and visit with him a bit at the cemetery.

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Didn’t get this one posted yesterday. I liked the questions, so here we go!

Sunday, March 6

Your Kitchen
“If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.” -Harry Vaughan

1) What is your favorite kitchen appliance? Hmm, probably my new Cuisinart stuff, great can opener and coffeemaker.

2) What kind of cookware do you have? A set of Reverware… looking at some Calphalon ones

3) What color are your countertops and cabinets? Cabinets are white, countertops are a beige speckled laminate. Wish they were tile or granite!

4) Name one kitchen appliance or gadget that you wish you had. Wish I had room for a nice food processor, or room for more gadgets and appliances!

5) Describe your dream kitchen. HUGE. Tons of cabinets. Big walk-in pantry off the kitchen. Wood cabinets. Under cabinet lighting. Appliance caddy in corner with door that lifts, to hide small appliances. Stainless steel appliances, smooth top stove, double oven, built in microwave, huge refrigerator. Lots of countertop space to work on, and lay out food for when we have lots of people over. Island to work on. Space above island for pot rack (must have high ceilings). Eating bar on one side, or on the other side of the island. Love to have brick somewhere, in vented area over stove, or in a keeping room off the kitchen. Want a place to put all my cookbooks, and a space for a computer nook, to put a laptop. Want windows looking out to backyard or a flower bed. Lots of light. Open to the family room or a keeping room so I can see TV and Tim while I’m cooking or washing dishes. Getting the idea that I know exactly what I want?! 🙂

Here’s another quiz to take to test your spelling and grammer, and overall command of the English language!

Commonly Confused Words Test

I took it and at then end I was presented with these results:

English Genius

You did so extremely well, even I can’t find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don’t. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you’re not afraid to use it properly! Way to go!

Forgot to mention that I finally got a new pedometer yesterday. Found one at Walmart that I sort of liked. It is a bit different from my other one that I loved (thank you Suzie!), but I think I will like this one too. I still have to set my stride on it, and as such, I have not worn it yet. I should have worn it today, since we did a ton of walking all day. Oh well, I know I got close or over my 10,000 steps today.

Anyway, it’s a Sportline brand from Walmart, and I like that when I flip the case down, I can see my steps. I had to turn my other one upside down to see it, or take it off. I think that helped with my cracked clip problem. Also, this one doesn’t have the same kind of clip-on clip. It has a clip more like a clothespin, if that makes sense, and Tim and I think with the little spring, hopefully it will hold up better. If not, I guess I will just have to keep buying them until I find one I like and that lasts!

Call me geeky, but I really like wearing one every day. It seems to be a visual reminder to me to get up, move around, keep walking and moving. It really does seem to help me, and hey, ain’t that what it’s all about?

P.S. For any of you that might be interested, it’s almost identical to This one. I found it at Walmart for less than half that price, and it’s labeled “Go Walking” by Sportline, but it looks identical, same color, sort of see-through, same buttons, same features. Whole lot cheaper though!

Another fun little quiz thingie to take, go to THIS website to take it for yourself and see your results! 🙂

Cor blimey, I taste like Tea. I am a subtle flavour, quiet and polite, gentle, almost ambient. My presence in crowds will often go unnoticed. Best not to spill me on your clothes though, I can leave a nasty stain. What Flavour Are You?

Just a quick note about our day. We met Tim’s parents, brother Terry and my dad this morning at Harbor Freight. Tim, Terry and Linda and Mitchell bought a bunch of toys there. We all went to eat (and ate WAY too much food) at Ryan’s for lunch. Note to self – Stay away from all-you-can-eat buffets. ACK! Daddy left going to Indianola, and we went shopping for the rest of the afternoon at Lowe’s and Walmart with Tim’s folks and brother. Stopped for gas (going up, up, up here) and then a movie on the way home. By the time we got in, Tim was completely wiped out. Has taken some Tylenol, as he says his fever is back, and has been laying on the couch since we got home.

We had a message on the answering machine from Kathryn, saying that they were on their way to MS from Charlotte, for David’s baptism tomorrow. We had already wanted to go, as Dad went up, and David and Eliz were home from MC, but Tim is feeling so bad, he had already said he would not be able to make the trip. With Kathryn and Jeremy coming home, it makes it so much harder not to be able to go. We hate not being able to see everyone and being there for David. I hope everyone understands that we’d come if we could. But with the way Tim is feeling, and that this is his one chance to get a bit of rest before his week from you-know-where starts at work (well, 2-3 weeks he says this project is going to take), we just can’t make it. Tim is not getting better, and if he doesn’t get some rest soon, he’s going to get a lot worse. He hides it well, some people might not even realize he’s sick, because he’s tough, but I know better and I see a lot more than other people do. Anyway, I digress. We hate not being able to go, but we’re not going to be able to make it. I hate not being able to see everyone, and not seeing David be baptized.

Well, I stayed pretty busy today and didn’t get this done earlier. If you’d like to play along, just post your own answers in a comment! 🙂

From this website.

Appetizer – Who is the one person you email more often than anyone else? Probably Gail.

Soup – So far, which year of your life has been the most enjoyable? Well, I would have to say 1995, the year that Tim and I dated and got engaged.

Salad – Name someone with whom you have lost touch but would like to reunite. Probably either Julie or Kate.

Main Course – What was the tastiest meal you had this past week? Hmm, the tastiest one I prepared was my beefy black bean chili with homemade butter wheat bread. Overall, it would be our dinner out tonight, I had shrimp quesadillas and they were delicious!

Dessert – Using the letters in your favorite color, write three words that describe your personality.

G-R-E-E-N
G – Gullible
R – Routinized (Routine-Oriented)
E – Envious
E – Entertaining
N – Naive

Well, we went shopping and out to eat dinner tonight. Tim is still not feeling well (and voluntarily taking Tylenol, so I know he feels bad), and was pretty wiped out by the time we finally got home. I, however, had a really good time!

We went to the new Lowe’s out on Lakeland. Very nice store. Big, too. I think it’s bigger than the one in Hattiesburg, and I can only hope that ours here in Madison that they are building will be that big, or bigger. We found lots of things in there we liked! Including a wallpaper border for our bathroom. We both liked it a lot better than the one we had bought at Home Depot a couple of weekends ago. We shopped at Lowe’s a little while, and then we went to eat Mexican at El Torero at Parkway. Very good place, we used to eat there a lot more before we got our 2 Mexican places in Madison. Tim had his usual (carne asada) and I tried the shrimp quesadillas, which were delicious. After we ate, we went to the new Kohl’s. I like this store! I had never been in one and wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I can see myself spending a lot of money in there! I didn’t get a chance to look through the clothes much, so I’m planning on going back next week or the next and doing more shopping. We mostly concentrated on the home interior stuff, and bought a new shower curtain and towels to go with the new border. Between what we bought tonight, and what I had bought a week or so ago at Linens N Things, I think we have what we want now for our bathroom. We still have to take down the old border and put up this new border, and of course, I have things to return to 3 or 4 stores, but I think we’re “good to go” now. 🙂

Poor Tim, he is still not feeling well and is really wiped out. I hope he gets to feeling better soon. No rest for the weary though. Both his parents (Linda and Mitchell) and my dad (Fred) are all coming tomorrow. We’re going to meet them early, out at Harbor Freight, in Pearl. Like I told Tim, going to Harbor Freight ranks right up there with a trip to the dentist for a root canal, or a trip to the gynecologist, for me. Oh joy, I can hardly wait! 🙂

Goodnight computer. Goodnight Internet. Goodnight Hambones.

I had IM’d with Tim earlier this afternoon and told him it was a pretty day, he had been working a lot late at night, and could he take off a bit early and play hooky? He said he was busy working on stuff, but he was going to try.

He just got home – a WHOLE hour early! Yippppeeeee!

I just got back from Walmart, and now we’re headed out to Lakeland to check out the new Kohl’s, the new Lowe’s and go eat supper out there somewhere. Can’t wait! 😀

Well, it was another long night. Poor Tim. He’s half sick and is on-call and keeps getting called out in the middle of the night. I honestly don’t know how he does it. He is in the middle of a deep sleep at 3 in the morning, the on-call phone rings, he jumps up and starts working. His throat was so sore, he could barely talk. Poor thing. We slept in, needless to say, this morning so he could get a little more sleep before heading into work.

As the old story goes, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that technically he goes off-call today, for another two weeks. However, he told me this morning that his boss has guard duty this weekend, so Tim would more than likely get called anyway. Plus, he’s been warning me for weeks that they have been in sort of a “code-freeze”. They haven’t been putting in much new code on Tuesday nights at 11 PM since the holidays. Now, it seems, they are going to put in a whole bunch at one time. Tim said that starting next week, he would be working almost every single night, starting about 11 PM or so, to put in new code. I said, is it just for a few days? No, he said, it’s going to take at least a couple of weeks, maybe more. Poor thing, he is not going to keep a normal schedule for a while longer yet.

So – the moral of the story here is, for those of you reading this who might be tempted to call early in the morning any time soon… Please Don’t. Call after lunch! We’d both really appreciate it!

Click Here to go take it for yourself and see what gender your brain is! 🙂

If you could open your own retail store, what type of merchandise would you sell?

From one of my most favorite meme sites – Thursday Threesome Meme

::Routine Scheduled Maintenance::

Onesome: Routine– Tell us about your morning routine. Do you get up at the same time every day, or do you sometimes hit the snooze button on your alarm clock more often than you should? Do you head straight for the coffee or into the shower? Well, I think this meme applies to people who have a job! 🙂 Like most of the rest of the world. I set the alarm for Tim, but we end up snoozing a couple of times. He heads right for the shower, I get up and fix his lunch, get his clothes out, and get going on my morning routine. I have a very specific routine I follow. It works for me. Certain things every day, certain things on certain days of the week. As Suzie said years ago (and I think she made up this word), I’m very “routinized”.

Twosome: Scheduled– What’s on your schedule for the day? Do you schedule every minute or go with the flow? I schedule most everything in my life. I have things I do each day, like the trivia in the morning, that I do at a specific time. I have lists all over the place – in my head, on my computer, on the refrigerator, on little scraps of paper lying around. The nice thing now is that most of the time, if I don’t get something done, it can wait till the next day. Not all of them, but some of them can slide. The luxury I have now. But, again, this meme is perfect for me, because I’m very structured, very ordered, very routine oriented. A bit OCD, Tim would say 😀

Threesome: Maintenance– What do you do to maintain your sanity each day in this hectic world? Do you find a little time to yourself each day and meditate, or wait until everyone’s tucked in for the night and log on to the computer or settle down with a book? Or do you run off to the gym and maintain your body while maintaining your mind? Well, again, a question for the person I used to be. I have done everything in my power to live a more stress-free life, to take care of my health, physically and mentally, and to take care of Tim in the process. I have a much different set of rules for myself now than I did when I was working full time. And I feel about a thousand times better too.

Well, Tim doesn’t need to “work from home” on a regular basis. He didn’t go in to work yesterday because he was feeling bad, so he “worked from home”. Last night at 8:45, I asked him how much longer he was going to work, and he said “I’m almost finished”. Good grief. At least when he goes into the office, he finishes up between 5 and 6 PM. Working from home, apparently to a Type-A personality, means working till you go to sleep. 👿