Exceedingly Mundane

Bummer. Tim’s golf DVD we ordered him just came in the mail. I know what he’ll be watching for a while. He keeps swinging those darn clubs inside and I know sooner or later, he’s either going to hit something, or put a hole in the ceiling.

For the record, I’d like to restate one thing – I despise the Golf Channel. I hate it, I really do. It’s now on constantly at our house. Day and night, night and day, day in and day out. I’m considering packing up and moving to Iceland. They don’t play golf there, do they? 😛

Well, I was blog surfing and found I had been tagged by not one, but two, different people for the same little questionnaire. 😯 I had tried to swear off these for a while, but I hate not doing the quiz and playing along. I won’t tag anyone else though, but feel free to play along if you’d like!

I was tagged by Kathy and Dawn:

5 things about me

What were you doing 10 years ago? Planning my wedding and honeymoon

What were you doing 1 year ago? Same thing as I’m doing now 😛

Five snacks you enjoy (in no particular order, as all snacks are created equal):
1. anything Chocolate
2. Chili Cheese Fritos
3. Oreos
4. Dr Pepper
5. Krispy Kreme donuts

Five songs in which you KNOW all the lyrics:
I’d be hard pressed to come up with 5 songs that I don’t know all the lyrics too. It’s something I’ve been good at, all of my life. My mom even wrote in my baby book that I knew all the words to a lot of songs when I was little, like 4 or 5. If I like I song, I know all the words. I could name hundreds, just have to go down the playlists on my iPod. 🙂

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1. Buy a very large home, with a gourmet kitchen and a place for Tim’s pool table he wants
2. Travel
3. Save money for our retirement
4. Take all of our family on a fun vacation
5. Buy a cabin in the mountains for our “winter home” 😀

Five bad habits:
1. Speaking what’s on my mind without thinking about it first (0pen mouth, insert foot)
2. Biting my fingernails
3. Being negative
4. Procrastinating
5. Wasting too much time on the PC / watching TV

Five things you like doing:
1. Playing on the computer
2. Taking photos
3. Reading
4. Watching TV
5. Hanging out with Tim

5 things you would never wear, buy or get again:
1. a Pontiac automobile
2. cheap dinnerware that chips and cracks
3. a bathing suit, if I can help it
4. an icemaker that drips
5. can’t think of anything else off the top of my head

Five favorite toys:
1. my new camera
2. my iPod
3. our new smart remote
4. my computer/Internet connection
5. caller id!

I finally broke down and decided to jump on the “purchase exercise equipment in January in hopes of losing weight this year” bandwagon. 🙄 I haven’t spent any of my Christmas money yet, so I decided to order 2 exercise DVD’s with some of my money. I have been taping exercise shows off of TV and am fine with those, but I thought I’d splurge and get something that was commercial free 😀

Here’s what I just ordered:

Maybe they’ll help!

I finished the last book in the Mitford series by Jan Karon last night, Light from Heaven. It was a bittersweet thing for me to finally finish this book – I wanted to finish it and see how it ended, but I hated to see these books and this series come to an end. Sigh. Very sad. I’ve read all nine of these books and enjoyed them immensely. They are comfy cozy books, like an old quilt, and I look forward to each new one so that I can read it and see what’s going on with my favorite characters. Now, the series is over and there are no more. The good news is that the writer, Jan Karon, is going to take the main character (Father Tim) and do a set of 3 books about him, and just not have them set in Mitford. So, I do look forward to those. The first book won’t be out until 2007, though.

OK, I’ve updated my sidebar. That makes 2 books so far for 2006, 589 pages completed. I still have to enter a book review on the Reviews section of Hambones for “Light from Heaven”.

I started the Nicholas Sparks book I bought last summer, “True Believer” late last night, and so that’s my new “currently reading” 🙂

OK, a day late here, but a new one, and a fun one! From this site:

~Motoring~
By the way…

What kind of vehicle do you drive? 2005 Explorer
How old were you when you passed your driver’s test? 15
What’s the price of a gallon of gas where you live? 2.29 for the cheapest, most were in the 2.30’s
Other than driving to work, do you keep the roads hot, or are you a homebody? Homebody
What’s the longest road trip you’ve taken? when I was little, we drove to Colorado to see Suzanne. As an adult, probably the trip that Tim and I took this past summer, when we went to Washington DC.

I say … and you think … ?

Alone:: lonely
Science:: fair
Deposit:: bank
Faithful:: loyal
Tender:: sweet
Chocolate:: YUM!
Homework:: math
Tamper:: mess with
Friend:: buddy
Wire:: string

We went to see the new Queen Latifah movie, “Last Holiday” this afternoon. I had read good things about it, and since it was my turn to get to pick a movie (Tim picked King Kong right before Christmas), I picked this one. Tim and I both thought it was good – pretty clean, very funny and it “had heart” as I like to say. Afterwards, Tim offered to take me to Little Tokyo for teppanyaki, so we went there. The lines were long though, so we left and went to Pigskin, near our house. We ordered a slab of ribs and all the fixin’s, and it was deee-licious.

Well, it’s not a full size one, just a little kiosk or cart inside my Kroger. But hey, those of us who don’t live in the Pacific Northwest (or even a big metropolitan area) have to take what we can get! There’s a stand-alone Starbucks on County Line, but I don’t ever venture there. I wish they would open a full size one here, with a drive-through, but in the mean time, this is a good step.

The sign said “Opening Soon – Tuesday 1/24” so I’m pretty excited 🙂 Like Tim said, “I guess you’ll be shopping at Kroger a lot more now, huh?!” Well, I would like to, but they are quite a bit more expensive on a lot of items than Walmart. But, they do have this new Starbucks inside, and that’s a big draw for me. I can go and get whatever concoction I want, decaf in the afternoons, and enjoy my coffee while I do one of my other favorite things – go grocery shopping. Yes, I know. I’m weird that way. I went today and had a blast, and bought a lot of stuff I can’t find at Walmart, and a lot of stuff we don’t need to be eating, and spent a lot of money. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Sam I am

1. What do you normally eat for breakfast? Normally, it’s a bowl of cereal (Cheerios lately, sometimes Raisin Bran Crunch) and a small glass of OJ. If Tim is working from home or it’s the weekend, I have coffee too (with tons of Splenda and creamer).

2. Are you more likely to drink coffee or tea? Coffee in the AM and Tea at lunch, water with dinner

3. Would you consider yourself a good cook? I think I’m pretty good!

4. What is your favorite meal? Hmmm, that I make or to get out? When eating out, my favorite food is Chinese. I love me some Chinese food 🙂

5. Green eggs and ham: would you eat it? No, not if the eggs were green! I like my eggs white and yellow 😛

Feast Seventy-Seven
Friday, January 20, 2006

Appetizer
About how many times per day do you check your email? A lot. I bring it up first thing in the morning and leave it on all day, till I go to bed. I probably check at least once an hour, maybe more.

Soup
If you had the money to collect something really valuable, what would it be? I guess gold, I think the value never goes down. Probably a smart thing to collect!

Salad
Write a sentence using the letters of your favorite beverage. (Example: The egret admires.) Hmmm, this is hard! C-o-k-e …… Carry other keys everywhere? (The rules didn’t say it had to make sense!)

Main Course
If you could be on a game show, which one would you want it to be? Wheel of Fortune, I’d have a better chance at getting the answers than on Jeopardy 🙄

Dessert
Name 3 computer programs or web sites you would hate to be without. Hambones.org, Blingo, WordPress

I’ve been trying to get back into the swing of cooking since the holidays ended. I normally like to try new recipes, but so far this year, I’ve been cooking old standby’s and not trying anything new. Last night, I made a really quick and easy enchilada pie, which is a new recipe for me. It’s not low-fat, but it was fairly easy and we both liked it. It made enough for us for dinner last night, and leftovers for lunch today, so that is always nice.

Recipe included on the extended section… just click “read more” if you’re interested!

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Easy one today… I have so far been able to stay far away from the quicksand that is Ebay 😀

::eBay and PayPal::

Onesome: eBay– Is eBay your first stop when looking for something? …or your last place to go when you cannot find it anywhere else? Do you even use it? …and hey, have you scored anything choice there lately? No, I don’t use eBay and rarely look there

Twosome: and– while we’re at it: if you did your shopping online for Christmas, how did it go? Did things come in on time? Any significant failures? …and if you didn’t, will you consider trying online shopping sometime this year? I like to shop online and I did order several things at Christmas. Most of them were delivered in a timely manner, but Amazon.com seemed really slow this year. I think they were swamped and overwhelmed. My stuff arrived in time, and in perfect condition, but it took a lot longer than I thought. I ordered in what I thought was plenty of time (before 12/10) and my stuff got here around 12/21 or 12/22. I expected it in a week, not 11-12 days.

Threesome: PayPal– Online shopping and services can be somewhat of an adventure; is PayPal your choice as a payment option or do you prefer another method. …or do you shop locally or not at all? Don’t use PayPal. When I do order online, I just use a credit card.

The ladies at my favorite scrapbooking message board are really into doing quizzes and questionnaires on their new blogs lately, and they are being very sweet to tag me! I have been tagged twice lately, and I just logged on the message board and discovered I’d been tagged yet again. So, here’s another one! Jodi tagged me with a “5 Guilty Pleasures” list. Here we go!

Ground Rules: The first player of this “game” starts with the topic “5 Guilty Pleasures” and people who get tagged need to write an LJ (blog) entry about their 5 Guilty Pleasures as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose the next 5 people to be tagged and list their names.

My 5 Guilty Pleasures

1. The Computer/Internet – I spend far too much time on my computer and online all day. It is in my blood though, I have a degree in computer science and spent most of my working career working on computers. We have the Hambones website that I maintain, my blog that I update daily and all that goes with those (maintenance, updates, finding graphics, posting topics of interest, sizing and uploading photos, etc). I also surf several blogs per day, a couple of message boards, some cooking sites, and even play games every now and then. When I work on updated themes for my blog, I can easily spend 6-8 hours working on a new design. Definitely a guilty pleasure, but fairly useful as well. 🙂

2. TV – I have been a serious TV addict all of my life. As a child, I had two escapes – TV and reading. Both are still guilty pleasures. My sisters were older than me, gone by the time I started kindergarten, and there were no kids in my neighborhood my age. I grew up very alone, and found that TV and books filled my time quite nicely. Still do today!

3. Reading – see #2. I love to read, always have. I have really kicked it up in the last year or so on my reading pace, and I am really enjoying it. I could easily sit all afternoon and read. I try to get all of my “chores” done first, and normally only read at night. After the requisite TV shows have been watched, of course.

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Tidbits of random nothingness… that’s the tagline on my blog (or subtitle, I guess you could call it). Since I don’t really have anything to blather on about today (or any day, for that matter!), I’ll log a few random tidbits for the day. Not a whole lot else going on anyway. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves, hardy har har. 😆

– I have been working on loading photos in the Photos section of Hambones. I have a huge backlog, way back to last November. Yes, that’s me, the poster child for procrastination. I hope to get them finished today, but it may be later in the week. In the mean time, there are now new/old pictures loaded from Ethan’s birthday party in November, Thanksgiving, Don’s first deer, misc Tim golfing pictures, and the Hammons family lunch in early January. Go check them out if you are a registered user (you’ll have to be logged in to view photos). I still have all the Christmas ones left to load, so don’t look for those quite yet.

– I bought 2 avocados Monday at the grocery store. They were firm, so not ripe and ready to peel. I had thought they would ripen in a couple of days, as long as I left them out. I even went ahead and put them in a brown paper bag, which I’ve done before (to hasten the ripening process.) So, I want to use them tonight with dinner, and they are still pretty firm. What to do… what to do? I did a Blingo search and found that some people said to add a banana or apple to the bag to help speed up the ripening. I have never done this before. Have you? Does it work?

– How often do you buy new pillows for your bed? You know, the ones you sleep on, not decorative or toss pillows? We seem to go through ours pretty quick, or at least Tim does. I try to wash them every month or two, but I still seem to be replacing them once or twice a year. How often do you get new ones? I must admit I’m more adamant about these after seeing that Oprah show about dust mites and how things are in our beds. That show really grossed me out.

– Coming soon… the story about my squirrel feeder. Yes, random nothingness for another day. I know you’re beside yourself with anticipation. 😛

I’ve been tagged again! Cindi at my SBA scrapbooking message board tagged me with this meme. I love these kinds of things, so I will answer here, and then tag 2 more ladies at SBA! Gotta keep these things alive 🙂

Something I keep hidden: Chocolate

Something that’s always on display: Family Pictures

One thing I will never throw away: Pictures of any kind

The best gift I have ever received: Tim and his love and devotion

An unusual thing in my purse: Hmmm, my purse is pretty normal. I just started carrying Purell hand sanitizer with me, that’s probably the most unusual thing (not very though!)

Something that’s always in my trunk: I don’t have a trunk in my SUV. But there’s always jumper cables underneath the cargo panel.

Something I never want to run out of: Toilet Paper. Milk. Food. 🙂

My favorite pair of shoes: my Ascics tennis shoes

Something I never take off: my wedding band

Something I sleep with every night: gotta be Tim 😀

Something that triggers a memory: pictures trigger the strongest memories for me. Smells and sounds sometimes, but I have an atrociously bad memory, so pictures are the best bet

Something my children fight over: N/A, no kiddos here

One thing that’s on my wishlist: my lifelong dream is to go to England and Scotland

Something I’m embarrassed to admit I like: that I’d rather dip my fries in mayo than ketchup 🙄

Something I collect: scrapbook supplies, cookbooks

Something I avoid at all cost: Snakes

Let’s see….and I tag 2 other ladies at SBA… Michelle and Diane