Exceedingly Mundane

I went outside a few minutes ago to try to get some pictures of the birds that are at my bird feeder. Lots of them! I can see them from inside the house, and have tried to take pictures before from inside, but we have mesh screens on our windows, so those are messing up the pictures. Anyway, wouldn’t you know it – as soon as I go sit quietly outside, the birds all leave and won’t come back. Not a single one flew anywhere near our backyard while I was outside.

So, I took a couple of different pictures instead. Pretty spring day today, in the low 70’s, a nice breeze blowing, and pretty blue skies:

And, I noticed that even though it’s not yet March 1, my Bradford pear tree is starting to bloom and one flower bud had even popped out. Soon, it will be a riot of white blooms:

Not too much going on around here to blog about. Watching a lot of TV though! I worked on some of my pages yesterday for this blog (check out the sidebar, the “100 things” and “Lately” ones are the ones I spent time on yesterday). Tim is also doing some work on Hambones, in his “spare” time (aka, late at night). He’s really busy at work too. He finds time to go out back and hit golf balls every day after work, though, until dark. 😛

I meant to blog yesterday about the Dancing with the Stars finale. Click the -more- button if you want to get my TV and food wrap-up! 🙂

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This week’s questions are all about blogging… Have fun, and thank you for playing! =)

1. What time of year do you blog the most? I blog year-round, I try to write something every day, whether it’s blog worthy or not!

2. What time of year do you seem to blog the least? See #1

3. What time of DAY do you do your most blogging? Mornings, mostly, although I do blog in the afternoon and evening, just depends on the day and what we have going on and what we’re doing

4. When blog-hopping, do you tend to look at your blogroll list (or fave blogs) to see which ones have been updated, or do you visit your faves on a regular basis regardless? Yes, I check the ones on my blogrolling account daily (and they show me when someone has updated their blog). I also have a long list of bookmarks on my local PC of other blogs that I check periodically. I try to visit them 1-2 times a week, if possible

5. Do you change your blogroll often? No, but I add someone new every now and then!

6. How many times a day, after writing a new post, do you check for new comments?I have my blog setup to email me when someone comments, and I always have my email open, so that would be very frequently, I guess 😀

7. Do you leave comments on others’ blogs, or are you more of a lurker? Depends on the blog and the entry. I try to leave comments, because I know how much I enjoy getting them on mine. I do that more on blogs of people I know, or that I have gotten to know through the Internet or blogging. There are a lot of blogs though, that I only lurk at and don’t comment.

I say … and you think … ?

Baby step:: Abby!
Wasted:: trashed
Reggie:: Wayne (Indianopolis Colts :D)
Pitiful:: poor, poor pitiful
Acting out:: showing out
Tomato:: YUCK
Bad night:: nightmares
Trip:: vacation
Finance charges:: won’t pay ’em
Sport:: Football

~Live Events~

By the way…
Would you rather attend…

a rock concert or a bluegrass festival? rock concert
a car show or a craft show? craft show
the ballet or a Broadway show? ballet
a Garth Brook’s concert or a Celine Dion concert? BOTH!
Stars on Ice or a hockey game? hockey game
the Grammies or the Oscars? the Oscars

Tim got a lot done yesterday in our master bathroom. We had two layers of vinyl flooring in there to remove. The original white flooring that the builder put in the house (which I hated, it showed every speck of dirt and every dark hair that came out of my Shaggy DA head), and then the beige vinyl square adhesive tiles we put down a few years ago, when we ripped down the wallpaper and repainted the walls in there. It was a lot of work, but Tim got both layers up. Now, we just need to do some cleaning, and we’ll be ready to start laying tile!

Click -more- to see some pictures from yesterday’s stage 1 🙂

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Casa de Hammons is now officially closed for renovations and will not be accepting Bed & Breakfast customers for a couple of weeks. Sorry, no room at the inn 😀

Translation = we’re starting today on the last of the ceramic tile project. If you recall, we began late last fall, by ripping up the vinyl in the guest bathroom, breakfast room, kitchen and laundry room, and putting down ceramic tile. We finished just before Thanksgiving, and I insisted we take off through the holidays (which extend through the Super Bowl around here!). So, now it’s time to get back on the wagon and do our master bath. Which means… we have had to move into the guest bathroom. Therefore, we won’t be able to have any overnight company (unless it’s an emergency, obviously) until we finish our bathroom and move back in.

Hope you’re all ready for more tile project reports and pictures! Let the project commence

Friday night turned out to be date night – dinner and a movie!

I had supper planned, but at about 4 PM, Tim popped up and said “let’s go out to eat and to a movie”… so, we did! I have been hungry for shrimp lately, specifically a shrimp po-boy, so I lobbied for that. I suggested we go to Captain’s Catch in Madison, near our new theater, but Tim didn’t want to go there. We settled on Fat Tuesday’s. I have never been, but Tim goes often at lunch (although he hasn’t been at night). We went early, and ordered fried mushrooms for an appetizer, then po-boys and fries (shrimp for me, catfish for Tim). It was really good, and after the mushrooms, we were nearly full, so we were good and brought half of our sandwiches home for leftovers. Lunch today! 🙂

After dinner, we headed to the new Malco Grandview theater and got tickets for “Firewall” with Harrison Ford. We went last weekend to a matinee, which was crowded, but it was even more packed – a typical Friday night, I guess. We waited in line for a few minutes for cappuccinos at the coffee bar, but they weren’t moving fast and we didn’t want to get bad seats, so we abandoned plans for coffee and went on into the theater. We got good seats, on the aisle about half way up, and then watched previews and the place fill up, it was at least 3/4 full or more. They showed previews for several good movies coming up, including the remake of Poseidon Adventure. “Firewall” was good and we enjoyed it, but it was not great (I like big-screen epic type of movies at the theater). It would be a really good rental though 🙂 I’ll try to do a review of it later on Hambones.org

I participated in this fun photo meme for the first time last week. I got such a great response from all the “regulars” at this site. Several of them stopped by to view my submission and left really sweet comments. They made me feel very welcome, and it was fun to do. I love this kind of stuff! So, I checked out Kristine’s site again, and found out that the assignment for this week is “Bedside Manner”.

This game is for everyone. Encourage your players to play and comment on your blog if they played so you can get to know your readers. If you want to send them over here to let me know they played, Great!

the inside of your nightstand drawer
a good book you’ve read
your favorite lamp

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I finished another book last night – well, actually this morning. I stayed up really late and I’m feeling it this morning. I was still up reading at 1:30 AM when Tim came to bed (he’d been working on a program), and I finished it a few minutes later. It was really light and fun and frivolous and I laughed out loud at several parts. I really enjoyed it, as I had all of her Shopaholic books that I had read.

I need to do a review and add to Hambones, maybe later today or this weekend. In the mean time, this makes a total of 9 books so far this year, with a total of 3127 pages read. I have one more book from my last library run. Another Brad Meltzer book, called “Dead Even”. This is the first Meltzer book that Tim read, that got him hooked, so it should be good.

Oh, and one little funny. I think when Tim came in last night, he expected to find me asleep and I was wide awake, reading. I often fall asleep while I’m reading before bedtime, so he usually comes in, marks my page with my bookmark, puts it on my nightstand and turns out the light (yes, isn’t he a sweetheart!). When he saw I was wide awake and reading, he couldn’t resist a little jab. He goes “What, are you reading like a book-a-day now?!” 😀

With the new season of American Idol on now (see post below!), I have all my music vibes going full blast. Plus, I have been watching Dancing with the Stars and enjoying all the dancing and music on that show. Including the PussyCat Dolls that were on one Friday night, and especially – Michael Buble, whom I love! He was on one of the Friday Results shows and I got re-enamored of him again

So, today I went on iTunes and bought:

The debut album by Carrie Underwood… we really liked her last season and I’ve been meaning to get it for a while, since it came out before the holidays. I’ve been listening to it this afternoon, and so far I really like it!

I also got the rest of “It’s Time” by Michael Buble. I had already downloaded the song “Home”, which is my favorite, but decided after seeing him sing on DWTS that I *needed* the whole album. 😀

I’m really enjoying this season of American Idol so far. I think there are a lot of good singers this time, and a lot of likable personalities. I’m going to go out on a limb early on and make a pick. There’s a lot of singing and improving left to do – but, as of right now, my favorite is:

Chris! Yep, he’s the one I am really rooting for right now. I like several of the girls (Lisa, Paris, Kellie and Katherine) and a bunch of the guys (LOVE Taylor Hicks, Elliot, Ace and the crooner kid David, although he may not make it much longer). But, overall, I really like Chris so far!

I must admit, I had never heard of a Johari window until I was reading SusiePie’s post here. It seems a fairly interesting concept. I thought it might make an interesting entry for my blog, since most of the people who read my blog actually do know me in real life. Pretty well, actually. Which, on the other hand, is sorta scary, so maybe this wasn’t such a great idea! 🙂 Oh well. Here we go:

Wikipedia defines a Johari Window as “a metaphorical tool intended to help people better understand their interpersonal communication and relationships. It is used primarily in self-help groups and corporate settings as a heuristic exercise.”

Here’s what I need all of my faithful blog readers to do – go to this website and pick 5 or 6 words that you think describe me. {Shudder} Thanks!

I just finished “Danzig Passage” by Bodie Thoene this morning. Tim had to work really late last night, and I sat up till midnight reading, but didn’t quite finish it. So, since I got up earlier than he did this morning, I was able to finish reading it. What good books these are 🙂 This is #5 of 6 in the Zion Covenant series.

This makes 8 so far this year, with a total of 2753 pages read. 😀

I think I’m going to switch gears now and read something a little lighter. The last several books I have read have either been in the Zion Covenant series (struggle of Jews and those trying to help them as Hitler ravages all of Europe) or legal thrillers like “The First Counsel” which I just finished, and “Dead Even” which I also have checked out from the library (both by Brad Meltzer). I am going to read “The Undomestic Goddess” by Sophie Kinsella. I read 2 or 3 of her Shopaholic books last year and really enjoyed them. They are light, funny and entertaining. Books about shopping are a nice diversion 🙂

Stole this from Kelly’s blog… a bit late, it’s from last Friday. But I wanted to play along anyway!

As always, if you’d like to play along, post your answers in the form of a comment (or at your own blog 😀 ).

Friday Five

1. Rain? Love it or hate it?

2. Country music? Love it or hate it?

3. Rap music? Love it or hate it?

4. Valentine’s Day? Love it or hate it?

5. Oprah? Love her or hate her?

My answers in the extended section…

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