Exceedingly Mundane

Time to feast again! Yeah!

Friday, June 23, 2006
Feast Ninety-Nine

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you like your job? Well, considering I have the best job on the planet (housewife), I’d have to say a 10. I had a fairly high-pressure job for years before (IT analyst, on call 24×7) that wore me out and so I left to take a short sabbatical. Short term turned into long term, what can I say, it’s wonderful

Soup
When was the last time you think you were lied to? I have absolutely no idea!

Salad
Share some lyrics from one of your favorite songs.Wow, this is really hard. I have tons of songs I love and listen to. Lately, I’ve been listening to the new Brad Paisley album I got. There’s 4 or 5 songs on there I just adore and I can barely pick between them. Ok, I pick “She’s Everything” – here’s a link to the entire song, but like most lyrics, it sounds tons better when you actually hear it. Here’s some excerpts I love:

She’s a yellow pair of running shoes
A holey pair of jeans
She looks great in cheap sunglasses
She looks great in anything
She’s, “I want a piece of chocolate”
“Take me to a movie”
She’s “I can’t find a thing to wear”
Now and then she’s moody

Chorus:
And she’s everything I ever wanted
And everything I need
I talk about her, I go on and on and on
‘Cause she’s everything to me

Another section of lyrics I love:
She’s the voice I love to hear
Someday when I’m ninety
She’s that wooden rocking chair
I want rocking right beside me
Every day that passes
I only love her more
Yeah, she’s the one
That I’d lay down my own life for

And a snippet or two: She’s a bubble bath and candles, a stealer of the covers, She’s the answer to my prayer, And she’s the song that I’m playing

OK, that’s most of the lyrics! I also love “The World” and “Waiting on a Woman” from that album. They are great love songs, funny and sweet, that I think Brad Paisley probably wrote for his wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley. They all remind me of Tim and the things he says to me, the way he treats me and the way he loves me. I can totally hear Tim singing these to me, and telling me the same things in his sweet country-boy way 🙂 Of course, I can hear myself saying “I want some chocolate” and “I don’t have a thing to wear” to Tim over and over, ad nauseum 😀

Main Course
What do you do/take when you are in pain? Usually just Tylenol or maybe Advil.

Dessert
Fill in the blanks: My love for Tim is very strong and deep. (OK, no fair, the sappy song lyrics got me going on this one!)

I haven’t found a whole lot that I want to watch this summer on TV. We watched the first episode of Treasure Hunters the other night and liked it, so we’re going to give that one a try. Yesterday, I was reading the newspaper and saw on the TV grid that a movie was coming on the Hallmark Channel last night called “Love Comes Softly”. It sounded really familiar, like a book my mother-in-law and sister might have read and liked. So, using one of my favorite online tools, IMBD, I looked it up, and sure enough, it’s a movie made from that book. I watched it and really enjoyed it. I coerced Tim into watching it with me, and even though he didn’t want to admit it, I think he really liked it. Another one is coming on tonight, “Love’s Enduring Promise” and I plan to watch that one as well. These are from the books by Janette Oke, which I have not read, but now have on my library list. She’s a Christian fiction writer, and I like reading books like that, and watching movies like that – clean, simple, old-fashioned and with a good message. I really enjoyed it, and am so happy to have found something on TV to watch. Can’t wait to watch the other one tonight 😆

Today is “officially” the first day of summer, otherwise known as the summer solstice. It’s also the longest day of the year, and I for one am looking forward to shorter days, and cooler temps!

Anyway, it’s been summer here for several weeks, maybe a month or more. It’s been really hot, and up until a few days ago, we had had no rain. I think we went 2 weeks or more with no rain, and it was so blazingly hot and dry. Thankfully, we had a shower over the weekend, and another one on Monday. Irregardless, it’s still really hot. Part and parcel of living in the Deep South. 🙄

I took this picture several weeks ago with my cameraphone, I think it was in late May. So, we’ve been hot here for a while!

OK, today seems to be a “don’t have anything to blog about” kind of day. I’ve been doing a lot of memes lately, and I couldn’t find one I wanted to do today. Plus, my days have be minorly boring, with nothing really interesting to blog about (I could blog about the amount of golf my better half is playing, but, I won’t!).

So…. Let’s do a simple poll… please feel free to leave a comment with more info, if you’d like 🙂

Have a great day!

I went out to get the mail today and was really surprised to see the first of our free DVD’s from Kellogg’s arrive in the mail. I blogged about this originally on 5/31 and had just mailed off for the first two that week. So, in less than 3 weeks, we already got our first totally free movie. Granted, it’s not a blockbuster and probably something we would never buy, but it was free! We buy Kellogg’s cereal anyway, and there were no charges for shipping and handling, so the movie only cost me the stamp to mail off the order form and coupons.

Cool beans, I love getting free stuff! Our first movie to arrive is Jumpin Jack Flash, with Whoopie Goldberg:

I finished another library book last night, “Goodnight Nobody” by Jennifer Weiner. I had not read any books by this author, and I must say, I really enjoyed it. It was a very good read, and a nice little plot. The basic premise of the book is a suburban housewife and stay-at-home mom with 3 kids under the age of five, finds herself living in a Stepford-like Connecticut suburb. She used to have a fun life, friends, parties, a cool job, and now she feels like her life is nothing. She walks in one morning and finds one of the perfect moms with a knife in her back, dead on her kitchen floor. She decided to do some investigative journalism and find out who killed her, about her life, etc. She used to be a reporter, after all (well, she was a tabloid, gossip type reporter!) The book goes from there, and the plot weaves in and out of her friends, family, children, fellow Stepfordites and the people she meets who knew the deceased. I really enjoyed it, and will be looking for more books by Jennifer Weiner to check out. She wrote the book “In Her Shoes”, which was made into a movie last year with Cameron Diaz (and yes, this movie is still on my rental list, haven’t gotten to it yet).

For the record, that makes #35 for the year, with a total of 12,547 pages read. Up next is one of the “Capital Crimes” series novels, “Murder at Union Station” by Margaret Truman. I only have a couple of days before this one is due back at the library, so I don’t know if I’ll finish it in time, or simply have to go back and renew it. So many books, so little time!

I used to do this meme a while back, but I had not seen it updated in a while. Then, I checked again today, and there’s a lot of questions for the last several weeks. Which is weird, because I didn’t think the site had been updated. Irregardless, I always liked doing this one, so hopefully I will be able to play along again. These questions had last Tuesday’s date on them, and there were no new questions up for today (maybe later, I’ll check again), so I’m going to do these.

Here we go 🙂

Grillin & Chillin

Warm weather and weekend cheer… Who does not love a great time with friends?

Do you have a BBQ? (85% of all households in America do)? Yes we do
Gas/Or Charcol? it’s gas
What do you LOVE to grill? anything and everything. We grill fish, chicken, ribs, pork chops, steaks, veggies, fruit, tons of stuff. Tim LOVES to grill
Grill disasters? None really, Tim truly is a grillmaster. Probably the only thing that has ever happened is that he has run out of gas in the middle of cooking and had to stop and change out the tanks (we have 2, one for the grill and a spare)
Fav recipies? My favorite things to do are very simple – just marinated meat or fish. And I love to do portobella mushrooms on there. Oh, and here’s a couple of good recipes that go together – one for grilled pineapple chicken and grilled pineapple. Yum!

From LizzieDaisy‘s site:

(¯`’•.¸(¯`’•.¸A Lizzie Quizzie!¸.•’´¯)¸.•
Early… am going out of town to see my family sans my own. Wheeee….

1. Are you doing anything special for Father’s Day? We went to Tim’s family and got to see everyone, eat lots of good food, play games, hit golf balls, eat homemade ice cream and just generally have a good time!
2. Have you ever rented a limo? Nope
3. Fingernails… like long or short? Short (except mine are all chewed up, a nasty bad habit 🙂 )
4. When was the last time you traveled out of town? Well, yesterday to my in-law’s house, about 1 1/2 hours from here
5. What was your favorite thing to do in the car on trips when you were younger? We didn’t go on many trips when I was growing up. But I did like doing the car tag game (spotting tags from out of state) and the ABC game, finding letters in order on billboards, road signs, etc.
6. Favorite current tv show? There’s not much on right now I’m watching. In the fall, the list is long 😀 You can check out the list on my sidebar if you’re just dying to know 🙄
7. On a scale from 1-10, how good a cook are you? I think I’m pretty good. Not gourmet or overly adventurous, but good. About a 7, I guess
8. When was the last time you told someone you loved them? This morning, to my husband
9. How good are you with directions? Pretty good, as long as I have precise directions and/or a map. I think I’m a decent navigator
10. What is the most amount of money you have ever lost gambling? Won? (cards, Vegas, bets, pools…) None, don’t gamble. I only bet on sure things 🙂

Monday, June 19, 2006

This week’s questions come from one of our fellow players, tricia! Thank you Tricia, for your fabulous questions. Look for more from Tricia in the upcoming weeks. Thanks to everyone for playing, and have a great week! =)

1. How many cop shows can you name? Hmm, the 3 CSI shows, NCIS, all the Law and Order shows, Without a Trace, things like that? If you mean those reality shows where they show footage from police cruiser videos, I don’t have a clue what they are called 🙂
2. Do you send text messages? No, so far I’ve been able to stay away from that vice
3. If you could be on a gameshow (current or old), which one would you be on and why? Probably Wheel of Fortune. I think I’d have a better chance of getting the answers than on a show like Jeopardy or Who Wants to be a Millionaire. I don’t like the new show Deal or No Deal, and I am drawing a blank on any other show at the moment!
4. What are some of your favorite websites? The list is long! I have several blogs I read (they are listed on my sidebar), SBA message board, CL message board, and I have several that I use for news, reference, etc. I also like Flickr, I think it’s a cool concept. I also use and recommend MyPoints and RewardTV, I’ve gotten several “free” items from there. There’s so many good ones out there!
5. What are your favorite things about the internet? That I can go look up anything I want, anytime I want, that I can shop at home in my pajamas, that I can read so many interesting blogs, that I can go find a recipe for anything, using any ingredient. And the list goes on and on!
6. What about least favorite?The nasty content that is out there, getting spam.
7. What are some good ways to deal with a pet loss? Well, I would have a hard time giving advice on this one. I still grieve the loss of my dog Sally. I think time helps, and I think, for me, getting another pet would be a good way to deal. I wouldn’t know though, we are still pet-less. 🙁

Happy Father’s Day to both of our dads, as well as all the fathers out there!

My dad is at the beach with my sister Suzanne, so we won’t get to see him today. Tim and I are headed out soon to go see his dad today. All of his brothers will be there with their families, so it will be really great to see everyone.

Hope everyone has a nice, relaxing Father’s Day 🙂

Happy Birthday to Shanna! Today is her birthday, and I hope it’s a very special day, and a wonderful weekend. She’ll get to celebrate with Trent and their kids, Grayson and Ava Clair. We really miss seeing them, and hope we get to see everyone soon. We miss you guys!

Have a great day Shanna!

I’ve eaten out quite a bit the last couple of days. Well, I’ve just plain eaten a lot the last few days. Ouch! And yes, the scales show that 😳

Thursday night, Tim offered to take me out to dinner, even though I had food out to cook. We had our date night a day early this week, I guess. 🙂 We went to the new Italian place near our house that recently opened (we’ve been once), called Alexander’s. It’s owned by the same people that own Panino’s, which is one of my favorite restaurants. Anyway, it was delicious. We had the homemade bread with dipping oil, and Tim had his regular (fettucine alfredo, but he added shrimp) and I have the raviolini of the day, which was seafood raviolini. I should have taken a picture of mine, it was beautiful – the pasta was a pretty green spinach pasta, and the filling was divine, with crab and shrimp and other good stuff. It was really delicious.

Friday for lunch, I went out to eat with my friend Wendy, and we also went shopping. We tried a new place out Lakeland that Wendy had been to before, but graciously agreed to go back again with me. It’s called Oby’s and it reminds me of a McAlisters, a deli type place. I had a shrimp po-boy and Wendy had a chicken salad wrap that looked really good. Again, I should have taken pictures, but didn’t. I did, however, grab a menu to scan, and so I scanned it in for you guys. You can check it out here if you’d like.

After a busy afternoon of shopping, I headed home. On the way, I decided to stop at Sonic and surprise Tim with another Hot Fudge Brownie Blast (one each, of course!):

And, even though I was tired from shopping, I made us some homemade soup for supper Friday night. One of my favorites, potato soup:

Yup, I’ve gained a couple of pounds in the last couple of days 😆

Friday June 16, 2006
Feast Ninety-Eight
Time to feast again!

Appetizer
What is a word that you use that would not be considered common? Well, believe it or not, as I was trying to go to sleep last night, I was thinking about a blog entry for today. I was going to write about how I’m so very Southern, that I use the word “fixin” all the time. I don’t realize it most of the time, but sometimes I catch myself saying it in conjunction with everything. It’s not really uncommon where I live, but it’s something that is probably not prevalent in other parts of the country. You know, “I’m fixin to jump in the shower”, “I’m fixin to head out right now”. 🙄

Soup
What theme of calendar do you have on your wall this year? It’s called Solitudes – very peaceful, beautiful natures scenes. Lakes, waterfalls, mountains, fields of flowers.

Salad
Name 3 people you speak with by telephone a regular basis. My sister, my husband, my dad

Main Course
If you could buy a new outfit for someone you know – who would it be and what would you purchase for them? Probably my sister Gail. We have very similar taste and I think I might could come closer to finding her something that she likes and would fit. We’ve been shopping a lot lately while our husbands are out playing golf. Second choice would be my nieces and nephews. They’d be easy – shirts, shorts, little skirts. You know, cute kid stuff 🙂

Dessert
What is the last beverage you drank? Orange juice and then coffee with breakfast

My first time to play this meme… hope I ‘m doing it correctly!

Thirteen Things I Need to be Doing Today Instead of Blogging 1. Thursdays are bread making days, have to make the bread and let it rise 2. The kitchen stove needs cleaning… it’s very icky 3. The flowers and plants all need watering. It’s in the 90’s regularly here now, and my pots dry out quickly! 4. Actually, the grass needs watering too. I really hate setting out and moving the sprinklers around 🙂 5. I need to fill up the bird feeders while I’m outside. We have hungry birds here 6. There’s always laundry to be done (but I’d rather blog or blog surf) 7. Father’s Day gifts need to be wrapped… running out of time! 8. Must mail other Father’s Day card to the dad we won’t get to see this Sunday 9. I need to go through my coupons and pull out the ones I will need when I hit the grocery store this afternoon 10. Ah, yes, grocery shopping today 11. Then there’s the items that need to be returned to Target 12. Really should work on decluttering some closets 13. And the biggie, that I keep putting off, starting to declutter the office. It’s a huge, giant, messy nightmare. I definitely think I’ll keep putting that one off!