Exceedingly Mundane

“I’ve got you…
…under my skin”::

Onesome: Under– Water? Have you ever gone scuba diving? Any interest?…or does that sort of thing just not work for you? Never been scuba diving. If I have my way, I won’t ever go. I can barely swim and the water plainly terrifies me. So do sharks and jellyfish. So no, that sort of things just does not work for me! 🙂

Twosome: my– gosh, it seems to have been hot since forever! How are you doing with the weather this Summer? OK, as long as I stay inside in the AC. That one week when it was so unbearably hot, I didn’t want to go out at all. It’s been better lately, but heck, August just started! It’s warm here through October. Lots of times I hand out candy on Halloween in shorts with my short sleeve orange pumpkin t-shirt!

Threesome: skin– Do you ‘skin’ your site? What styles do you prefer when you have the option at someone’s place? Simple? …or loaded with graphics? Well, I “borrow” premade skins/themes from other sites (most notably Alex King’s WordPress site) and either use them as is, or modify them slightly. I haven’t learned CSS yet, but I hope to. I want to work on that and make more designs for my blog and for others that we host on our site. One day. I seem to have too many hobbies, too many interests and not enough discipline!

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 just added 4 new reviews to the Reviews section of Hambones. Three of them are movie reviews, of movies we watched this past weekend. Hostage, Coach Carter and Princess Diaries 2. The other is a book review for the book I finished last night, “Big Stone Gap” by Adriana Trigiani. 🙂

Our family and friends website turns one year old today. Happy birthday, or should I say anniversary (???) to you, my little website – Hambones.org.

I’ve spent most of the day so far working on the celebrations at the website. We have several games and fun things going on over there. I hope everyone enjoys it. I know we really love having and maintaining the website, and love it when people get on and play games, post in the forums, look at and submit photos to share, use the recipes, read our book or movie reviews, or anything else they use the site for. That makes us really happy.

I already posted this in the Forums at Hambones, since we are playing there too! 🙂 The more the merrier.

Well, today’s happy will be easy for me. I’m happy that we have this website, Hambones.org.

Tim and I have put a lot of time, energy, (money), effort and love into this site. We set out to put together a place on the Internet where both of our families could come, spend time, share photos, chat, exchange information, and just generally connect with one another. We work very hard at maintaining the site and that intent, and hopefully we’ve succeeded. It gives us a lot of joy to do it, and we hope everyone else enjoys it as well. So today is easy – Hambones makes me happy!

Here’s an excerpt from the book I just finished, “Big Stone Gap”. It has a subplot running through it about certain character’s mothers getting sick and passing away. These words really hit home to me. I still struggle a lot with missing my Mom. I asked Tim last night at supper (we were at Cock of the Walk), if he still missed his grandmother a lot. He said he did, but that it gets better with time. He told me he thought I was a lot better, and I told him that I thought I was just a lot better at hiding it from him. 🙂

Anyway, this really got to me. Read on, if you’re interested

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I just finished reading “Big Stone Gap” by Adriana Trigiani. I must admit that I had a bit of a time getting into it, but boy, once I did, it was really good. I quite enjoyed it by the end. Of course, it had a really good ending, and books and movies with good endings just bowl me over. I am a sucker for a happy ending.

By the way, this was book #20 for me on the year. Woo-hoo! 😀

I have to return this book and my 2 audiobooks to the library on Friday. I’m heavily debating whether to check out more (which is what I want to do), but I feel like if I check out more books, I will just read and not do any scrapbooking. I got all of our vacation pictures printed and had wanted to start working on those. But, boy, when I get into reading mode, I really don’t want to do anything else.

Alrighty then. What’s a girl to do!

OK, Day 3 – something that makes me happy today….

I’m washing sheets today and it always makes me really happy to take warm, soft, cuddly sheets out of the dryer and put them on our bed. Especially in the winter, when it’s chilly, but even now, in the middle of summer, it makes me happy.

Plus, an added bonus is that I bought us two new allergen pillows last week. Nothing like a nice new fluffy pillow to make you feel all snugly and comfy going to sleep. 😀

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 cashed in some of my points this morning for gift cards. I had accumulated quite a few points over the last few months, and I cashed them in for two – $10 gift cards to Target. I have a few things in there I want to buy (not like I ever have any trouble finding things to buy in there, I love that store!), and I’m hoping the cards will come in the mail in the next couple of weeks. Then, I’ll head out on a shopping spree, courtesy of Mypoints.

I’ve been doing this points program for about 2 years now, and it’s really paid off. We’ve gotten a bunch of movie rental cards, and I have also gotten one Target $10 gift card before. You read emails, answer surveys, link through this site to merchants they partner with (such as Target.com, BestBuy.com, Cabelas.com, Hotels.com, etc, there are a lot of them), and then you accumulate points for your purchases. I really like doing it, but then again, I have a lot of time and my time is free. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll send you a referral and get you started on earning free gift cards to places like Best Buy, Target, Home Depot and Blockbuster!

P.S. I also do two other programs online, and have received gift cards and free movie rentals from Blockbuster from those. Let me know if you want more info!

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 think I’ve done this one before, from this site… there is not a new challenge up, so he/she suggested we look through the archives and find one we like. So, I did! I picked one from May 2005, 10 brand names you can’t live without:

Here’s mine, in no particular order. As always, if you’d like to play along, you are certainly encouraged to do so either in the form of a comment, or at your own blog. 😀

10 Brand Names You Can’t Live Without

1) Crest toothpaste
2) Pantene shampoo
3) SoftLips Lip Balm
4) Coffeemate Creamer
5) Raisin Bran Crunch cereal
6) Morningstar Corn Dogs
7) Tyson chicken breasts
8) Quilted Northern Toilet Paper
9) Bounty Paper Towels
10) Seiko wristwatch

Bonus Ones:

Sonic (anyone, anywhere, anytime!)
Dell Computer 🙂 – although any computer with high speed access will do!
iPod
FORD EXPLORER!!!

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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It may sound silly, but one thing I am happy about this morning is that there is a 60% chance of rain today! I’m sure some people are getting a lot of rain and are maybe getting sick of it, but where I live, it’s fairly dry and we could really use some rain. This is the best chance we’ve had in several days, and so I’m hopeful that it might rain later today. Our grass and flowers are very dry, and if it doesn’t rain soon, I will have to drag out the hoses and sprinklers and spend several hours watering. That won’t make me happy, so I am really pulling for the rain!

I may have another happy thought later, you never know! 😀

I just took some more pictures of my new Explorer and posted them in the Photo gallery on Hambones (in the Misc photo album). Tim took it by the dealership this morning (also took care of the tag and insurance for us, what a sweetie pie!) and they cleaned it all up. I thought that was probably the best time for pictures – it probably won’t ever be that clean and shiny again!

I also made a new photo album in the Hambones photo section (page 2) for Brittany and Zack. Linda sent me some pictures of them riding a neighbor’s horse and also of a fish they caught that was over 36″ long. Those are now in their photo album. 🙂