Exceedingly Mundane

Mark another item off of my to-do list 😀 I just finished typing up 5 movie and 1 book reviews in the Reviews Section at Hambones.org. I added reviews for the following movies:

a) Eight Below (theater)
b) Kingdom of Heaven (DVD)
c) The Legend of Zorro (DVD)
d) Flightplan (DVD)
e) Just Like Heaven (DVD)

And the book “The First Counsel” by Brad Meltzer. Whew, caught up, for a few days, at least. 🙂

Be sure to add any reviews of books or movies to the Reviews section, if you are so inclined. 😆

Well, I’ve been posting in the Exercise Forum on Hambones about my daily workouts. I think I did something to my left ankle last Thursday. It started feeling tender when I was working out. I rested on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, thinking it would be better if I laid off of it for a while. I worked out on Monday and again today. Yesterday, it felt really tender when I put any weight on it, but it was fine when I was not exercising. It didn’t hurt at all if I was just walking around.

Well, that’s changed as of today. I guess I hurt it a little more when I was working out today. NOW, it’s aching most of the time, and it hurts to put any weight on it. So, Tim, my sweet pea, offered to tape it for me. Nice to have a trainer on staff, huh?! 🙂 I guess I won’t be working out for a couple of days. I wonder if I can get out of any of the rest of my daily chores?

1. Do you have a collection of anything? If so, of what? I used to collect scrapbook supplies, but those days are over. I have a small collection of cookbooks, I love to buy cookbooks, but try to restrain myself. I love to collect music for my iPod. I’m a gatherer when it comes to stocking the pantry or freezer. But, basically, no, I don’t collect anything like snowmen or unicorns or roosters or Disney memorabilia or anything interesting like that. 😯

2. What is your favourite book? How many times have you read it? Probably my most favorite book is any of my Rosamunde Pilcher books – Shell Seekers or September are my favorites. I don’t reread books often, maybe once or twice. Too many good books out there I want to read, to be re-reading many very often.

3. Do you usually prefer books or movies? Difficult question – the book is always better than the movie, but I like each for different reasons. For both, I like to be entertained and escape in a good book or a good movie. I don’t think I can pick, I love both. 😛

4. Do you tend to believe immediately what people tell you or are you cautious? I’m afraid so, I’m terribly naive and gullible. I tend to always take what people tell me at face value, even when it’s a blatant lie or joke or me. Duh, I’m like a brick wall that way

5. Where do you get your news information (TV, newspaper, internet) and why? All of the above, in equal measure. TV, Internet, local paper only

Yes, I wholeheartedly admit it. I’m a total TV addict. I have multiple shows on every day that I must watch. I go into withdrawal in the summer when my shows are not on. I go through mild semi-withdrawal on a week like this when the stupid people at ABC decide to show a re-run of Lost. I mean, how dare they!

I get excited and sad all at the same time about my TV shows… case in point:

1) 24 last night was great. As was House. We LOVE House. He is such a great character and says/does things no one else on TV would dare to do.

2) I’m excited that they are actually starting the singing on American Idol. It’s on 3 nights this week!

3) I get sad when I realize that Dancing with the Stars is about to be over. Final two shows this week – Thursday and Sunday. Sigh.

4) I get excited when I realize that a week from today we start the new Amazing Race. Yippee!

5) There’s so much other “must see TV” on for me that I have not had a lot of free time to watch Olympics coverage at night. Only so much TV viewing I can squeeze in, in one night. Sigh.

Yes, that’s my life. I love TV. I watch some daytime TV (Martha, Oprah, All My Children) and tons of nighttime TV. I could blog endlessly about each of my shows, but I try to restrict it here, and what little I do blabber on about, I post in the forums at Hambones.

I’ve faced the truth – I’m addicted. How about you?

I think I covered most of Saturday in my previous blog post here. It’s been so cold this weekend that I really haven’t wanted to get out. I would have really preferred to curl up by the fire with my book all weekend, but we had too much going on, and company to boot.

My dad went to Gail’s house on Saturday and spent the night, then came to our house after lunch on Sunday to do the same. Tim went out and hit some balls in the 30-something-degree weather. Daddy and I hung out inside. I made some banana bread and also some white chicken chili for supper. We watched some of the Olympics, worked some Sudoku’s, then settled in to watch a movie. Part of Tim’s Valentines gift was 2 movies, one of which is a really old movie that I have always loved called “The Man from Snowy River”. I don’t think Tim had ever seen it all the way through. So, we put the movie in, popped some popcorn and had hot chocolate last night. Good night! Daddy left for home not too long after Tim left for work today. I had hoped he would stay and visit a bit, but I think he was ready to get home.

I’ve been playing catch-up all day today (laundry and chores). It’s still really cold, in the upper 30’s all day, so I haven’t gone outside a bit. When the weather is like this, I like being a hermit! It’s supposed to start warming up later this week though. 🙂

From this website:

At the movie theater, where do you choose to sit? What do you buy at the concession?

Very timely question, considering our new theater opened this past weekend and it’s just wonderful. (You can go back and read about it here.) Tim and I both like the top section, and we prefer to sit about 2/3 of the way towards the top. I really prefer to sit closer to the aisle (because I usually drink something and then have to go to the restroom), but Tim likes the middle of the aisle. He wants to be smack dab in the middle of the screen 🙂 Normally, our concession purchases consist of Diet Coke and a big tub of popcorn. At our new theater, we have a lot more choices! I had a cappuccino Saturday, and we can get cheesecake, tiramisu, muffins, candy, chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks, corn dogs, pizza and other good stuff. 🙂 We’ll probably stick to popcorn and Diet Coke or coffee though!

~Candy Dreams~

By the way…
Which do you prefer?

Milk chocolate or dark chocolate? Difficult choice. I like them both, but I’d probably pick milk chocolate if pushed.
Hard candies or chewy candies? Chewy
Tootsie Pops or Blow Pops? Surprisingly, Blow Pops!
Plain M&Ms or Peanut M&Ms? PLAIN
Are you tempted by the candy display at the grocery store check-out? Tempted=Always. Buy=Rarely
What is your absolute favorite candy? Probably Butterfinger, or the new Butterfinger Crisp. I absolutely love Godiva chocolates that Tim buys me. Then again, I never met a chocolate or sweet anything I didn’t like.

We’ve seen three movies today, back to back to back. Fun, huh? 😀

Daddy stopped by on his way up to Gail’s house, and we got to visit with him, and also go out to eat lunch at Pigskin (one of the new BBQ restaurants that opened last year). He’s going to come back tomorrow afternoon, and spend the night and then go home Monday.

We went to our new Grandview theater that opened yesterday in Madison – all 17 glorious screens. The place was pretty impressive – fountain in the lobby, couches and chairs, and Internet cafe with laptops and free Internet access. Another cafe with a fireplace, couch and tables. A Cafe serving Seattle Drip coffees, cappuccinos, mochas, lattes and a pastry case with cheesecakes, baklava, tiramisu, muffins, cookies and lots of other good looking fattening stuff 😀 Another food area with pizza, chicken tenders, mozzarella sticks and pronto pups. Three party rooms, a big arcade, and 17 screens. We were very happy to have it open just a couple of miles from our house!

I thought Tim would want to go see “Firewall”, but he wanted to see what was on the big screen (“The Grand”) – their biggest theater room was showing “Eight Below” and the screen is a lot bigger and the sound a lot better, plus it’s all digital. So, we went and saw that. Great movie, and a packed house. Then we came home and watched the ones we had rented, “Flightplan” and “Just Like Heaven”. I will have to work on movie reviews on Hambones soon. We enjoyed them all

I ran across this website a couple of weeks ago, and noticed that she did a fun sort of thing on Fridays – Stuff Portrait Fridays. Kristine posts earlier in the week (I forgot to check early though!) with an assignment of stuff to take pictures of, then post.

The assignment this week: Under Your Bed, Pots and Pans, Your Stereo.

Click on the extended entry to see my photo submissions. 🙂

Read the rest of this entry »

Happy Birthday Gail! Hope you have a great day, and a wonderful weekend. You’re in luck this year – your birthday falls on a Friday, so the “birthday rules” apply. If your birthday falls on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday, you get to celebrate all weekend long! Hooray 🙂

Have a great day, big sister!

Cheney’s Got a Gun

1. Do you have good hand-eye coordination? Not nearly as good as I would like. I wish it were better, but all the video and computer games I’ve tried to play through the years have proved it ain’t what it could be!

2. Have you ever held a gun? Yes, shot one too.

3. What do you think of toy guns? In the age that I grew up in, they were probably ok for kids to play with. With everything in TV, movies and video games today, it’s probably not a great idea to teach kids about guns. Tim won’t agree with this, of course. I agree with him about teaching gun safety, but I don’t think it’s a great idea to have any kind of guns around kids.

4. When is the last time you asked for forgiveness? Probably the last time I said something to Tim that I shouldn’t have said. Open mouth, insert foot. I really wish I could stop opening my mouth and letting stuff come out that shouldn’t, I should learn to always think first. It’s probably my worst fault.

5. Your favorite Aerosmith song: WELL. Since reading the title of this, I can only think of “Janie’s Got a Gun”. I do like that one, but probably my favorite is the one from Armageddon, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”. 😆

I haven’t had much time lately to blog about what’s going on around here. I’ve been at the driving range for the past two afternoons. 🙄 Tim has been having to work at night all week, including one night that he pulled an all-nighter (till 7:10 AM) and another night where he didn’t finish till about 3:45 AM. So, we’ve gone to the driving range for a couple of sunny afternoons, so he could practice his swing and hit balls to his heart’s content.

Don was in Jackson on Wednesday, visiting a friend who was having surgery at a local hospital, and we talked him into coming over to the driving range (in Clinton, called Tee Time, I think), so he could hit balls with Tim. We both enjoyed getting to see Don. I took pictures of both of them hitting the balls, a few scenic shots (which I have uploaded to my Flickr account, see the sidebar), and also some video so that they could see their golf swing. Thankfully, this place has Adirondack chairs behind the hitting area, so I have been taking my iPod and my book and reading and listening to music. It’s great to spend the time with Tim, plus — he’s doing something he loves and I get to skip all my chores and do something I love (read and listen to my IPod), but it does make for more work later on. I’m behind in my uploading of pictures, behind in my blogging, behind in paying bills, behind in the laundry and other household chores. But, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, Tim was swinging his golf clubs, and I got to read for several hours each afternoon… so, all was right with the world. Hard to beat, huh?!

I finished “The First Counsel” by Brad Meltzer last night. This is a book we own, that I bought for Tim a couple of years ago, and that I pulled out of our library when I wanted something to tide me over, until my next trip to the library (tomorrow). This was a really good book, very similar to a good John Grisham legal thriller. Tim really likes this author, Brad Meltzer, and I can see why. He sucks you in pretty quickly, gives you impossible situations, and then leads you from pillar to post, first throwing the plot one way and then another.

I need to write a review of this book for Hambones, but I haven’t yet… maybe soon! This book makes #7 on the year for me, with a total of 2,340 pages read so far. I am going to the library tomorrow to return the 3 I have finished, and check out more. For today, I will resist the urge to start a new book and try to instead focus on cleaning out some magazines that I have piled up around here. That, and the huge pile of mail on the kitchen table.

I think I may get more reading done in the near future, if I do more of what I did yesterday. Tim wanted to go to the driving range and me go with him. He really wanted me to hit balls, but as I told him repeatedly, “I don’t want to hit golf balls, I don’t want to play golf”. So, we compromised, I took my book and iPod and read while he hit balls to his heart’s content. If I go with him more, I will get a lot more reading in! A lot less chores, laundry and cleaning done, but more reading! 🙂

Duh, no surprises here… I’m not very athletic and not into breakneck sports like luge and bobsledding. While I enjoy watching them, I seriously doubt I would ever attempt them! 🙂

Go check it out and see which sport you would be best at!

You Are Curling

What you lack in athleticism, you make up for in concentration. And while curling isn’t much more of a sport than bowling, you *can* win a gold medal for it!