Exceedingly Mundane

I’ve had a busy day today. Spent most of the morning either on the telephone or watching the coverage of Hurricane Rita. I decided I was getting a little obsessive about it, as I always do. So, I headed out this afternoon and ran errands all afternoon. I went to the library and got more books (more on that tomorrow), then to Michaels, where I used this week’s coupon on a fall welcome sign to hang by our front door. Then, I headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond and picked up a Yankee Candle on clearance. After that was the biggie – a huge run to Sam’s. I filled up most of the back of my new Explorer with stuff I bought 🙂

We had supper (soup and sandwiches) and then watched Survivor, the season premiere of CSI and the series premiere of Criminal Minds. Good shows. I’m having a good TV week – Lost last night, Survivor tonight and the season finale of Battlestar tomorrow night. Yippee!

I talked to Gail earlier – she and Don are on the coast with a group from their church, helping out with recovery efforts. They’re trying to decide whether to stay and help, or get out of the way of Hurricane Rita. She heard from Trent and Shanna that they got to her parents ok, so that was a big relief. 🙂

Well, I had hoped we wouldn’t have another major hurricane to deal with this year, especially after what we’ve been through here and in Louisiana in the last 3 weeks since Katrina hit. Now, there’s another monster storm in the gulf, hurricane Rita. She grew to a category 5 late yesterday and although they think she will weaken slightly, a cat 3 or cat 4 hurricane hitting TX or southwest Louisiana is more than enough to worry about.

I’ve been really worried about Trent, Shanna and the kids. I finally talked to Shanna this morning and they’re going to try to go to her parents, who live out from Tomball. I’m afraid they may still lose power there, but Shanna’s dad has a generator, so that will help. I hope this one fizzles out and is not as bad as they are predicting, but we’ve learned a valuable lesson with Katrina. It’s best to be prepared and get everyone out and hope for the best. It could be bad, but we just have to hope. I will feel better when I know that Trent and Shanna have gotten to her parents and are safe, with the kids.

OK, in case anyone is not living on planet Earth, the season premiere of Lost is tonight. I’m ready and waiting – how many more hours do I have to wait?! 😀 I’ve had a counter on my blog for weeks, counting down to this day. I’ve read spoiler sites and stuff, and Gail and I have talked about it. I’m ready. More than ready. I better not be disappointed people, I know we will get more questions than answers, but I want an answer or two also!

Found these at The Woman Wonders blog a few days ago. Great questions for a child of the 80’s like myself!!

1. Little House on the Prairie or Facts of Life? I loved Little House, read all the books and watched most of the shows, especially the early and middle years of its run on TV.

2. Kirk Cameron or Ricky Schroeder? I liked Kirk Cameron myself 🙂

3. Bon Jovi or Def Leppard? Oh my, loved them both, but I have to go with Def Lep on this one

4. Leg warmers or vests? I don’t remember either one, but I think I probably wore vests before leg warmers!

5. Debbie Gibson or Tiffany? I didn’t particularly like either one, but if pressed, I’d pick Debbie Gibson

6. The Cosby Show or Family Ties? Loved the Cosby Show! I can remember in college, we had a whole group that got together in our lobby of the girls dorm I was in, and watched it every Thursday night. Same thing with Miami Vice on Fridays (wasn’t it Fridays?). Loved those shows!

7. Madonna or Cyndi Lauper? Hmm, liked both, loved neither

8. E. T. or Annie? E. T. all the way. I’ve never seen Annie!

9. Duran Duran or Micheal Jackson? Loved Duran Duran, had several of their cassettes. Never liked MJ that much, and I despise him these days

10. Magic Johnson or Larry Bird? Larry Bird, I was a Celtics fan for a long time!

OK, my calendar says that tomorrow is the beginning of fall. Now, granted, I realize we don’t get a lot of fall here, and certainly not all that early. But — STILL — people, the high today is supposed to be 97º, yes, that’s NINETY SEVEN DEGREES. Geesh, I’d take 88 or 90 in a heartbeat. 75 would be nice, but I know I’m dreaming.

On a related note, we’ve lost most, if not all, of the flowers I planted in the spring. I don’t even feel like getting outside in the heat and the continuing swarms of love bugs, to go dig them up, or water the stragglers that are still hanging on. Same goes for the tree we planted in April. I know the poor thing needs water, but I don’t want to fight the bugs and the heat to water it. Sigh. When is fall REALLY going to get here? 🙂

Saw this posted on another blog, and swiped it to post here. I’m constantly amazed at the English language and how hard it must be for others to learn to speak, read and write it. Goodness knows I have trouble with it myself sometimes, and it’s all I’ve ever known! 🙂 There’s lots of these, but here’s some good examples. 🙂

Read each of these phrases aloud, and then note the spellings:

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

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We watched the Saints (of old) play terribly and lose to the NY Giants last night. I taped the season premiere of 7th Heaven, and we’ll watch it this week. Tonight is the season premiere of NCIS, which ended with the surprise killing off of one of the main characters last year in the last 5 seconds. There’s a new character added, played by Lauren Holly, and I’m looking forward to it. Then, House comes on Fox at 8. So, I’m all set and excited about something new to watch on TV. Of course, that goes without saying that I’m totally pumped about tomorrow’s season premiere of Lost. I can’t wait!

We have them every fall, but I don’t think I ever remember them being this bad! There’s been a lot on the news lately about the love bug “epidemic” as they call it. They keep saying it is NOT because of Hurricane Katrina, which is what we all think. We think the hurricane pushed them further north than normal (which is why we seem to have thousands of them, instead of hundreds). They say this is just an outbreak season. Whatever. I’m so sick of them, and I want them to go away. They are swarming in our back yard. You can’t even step out on the deck without a dozen of them flying onto your skin, clothes or in your hair. They don’t sting, thank goodness, but they are so annoying. I’m ready for them to GO AWAY!

In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, or want to see how bad they are, click on the -More- link to see some pictures of them on our deck, and what they did to our cars this past weekend when we went to Hattiesburg.

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Monday, September 19, 2005

1. When you’re stressed out, what do you do to relieve your stress? Find some quiet peaceful time. Remove myself from whatever or whoever is stressing me out. Take a bath or a nap. Read a book. Veg out in front of the TV. Take a walk. Something!

2. Are you normally a patient person, or is patience NOT one of your virtues? Well, I think I’ve gotten more patient the older I’ve gotten. Patience can be learned, I think.

3. How many times a week do you blog? I try to blog every day, at least a little something. If I start lagging behind, I know me, I’ll drop it eventually, so I try to do a little bit every day.

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I finished another book tonight, “Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind” by Ann B. Ross. I just entered a review of it here on Hambones.org. I really enjoyed this book, and plan to read more of the ones from this series (this was book #1). As for my list, this was #28 on my list of books for the year. Yeah, me! 😀

Vegging out today after a long, but productive day yesterday. Went down and helped Dad in his yard. Took some pictures but haven’t transferred and loaded them yet. Gail and Don went down too, and between the five of us, I bet we bagged 25 or 35 bags of leaves. Tim and I are feeling it today, we’re both pretty sore. Went to the USM game with Mark, Amanda, Ethan and Abby. Was pretty humid, but the Eagles won, so it’s all good. Got home late and are vegging today, watching football, munching on game-day food. And doing a little reading in commercial breaks. Tim started a new book, yeah! Having a terrible week with my fantasy football team, oh well. Always next week!

Tim got called by the Operations Center in Dallas about 5:30 this morning. So early, so very very early. Especially considering we sat up late last night 🙁 They had a problem and he had to get up and work for a couple of hours to fix it. I tried to go back to sleep, and did a little, but it was very fitful and not very restful. Poor Tim didn’t get any rest at all after that. He said he couldn’t go back to sleep.

We’re headed down to Hattiesburg for the day. Dad may need some help in his yard, and then we’re going to the game tonight. Mark, Amanda, Ethan and Abby want to go, so we’re all going to go together. We’re anxious to see what the campus and area looks like, even though it’s nearly 3 weeks since the storm. From everything we’ve read, it may still look pretty rough.

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!

A different one, from this site:

Can You Hear Me Now?

1. Who is your mobile phone provider, and how many minutes are in your plan? Cingular, 350 minutes, unlimited mobile to mobile though

2. What program do you primarily use for instant messaging? AOL is where most of my friends and family are, except for Tim, who uses Yahoo at work. I love to IM! 🙂

3. Who do you send and receive text messages from most? I don’t text message on my phone.

4. What area code do you live in? 601

5. What year did you first get an e-mail address and do you still use it? Wow, back in the late 80’s on the mainframe where I worked. Personal one, probably early or mid-90’s with Juno, which I kept until about 3 or 4 years ago when we switched to high speed access.

Quitters never win.

1. Name one thing you’ve quit: a job I had grown to dread going to every single solitary day

2. Name something you’ve won: a trip to the Bahamas, a trip to a concert in Dallas, tickets, CD’s, etc. I have always had good luck winning things!

3. Describe a subject in school you do poorly in: Hmmm, well, we all know I was a whiz in school 😈 I never took physics because I didn’t think I’d do well in it at all, so I avoided it like the plague. Mechanical things are Greek to me.

4. Have you ever purposely not done your best? Not that I can remember

5. Do you lead, follow, or get out of the way? A combination of follow or get out of the way