Exceedingly Mundane

If you’re like me, then you often get stories, jokes, chain type stuff, and various and assorted other items showing up unannounced in your email inbox. I must admit, most of the time my spam filter works pretty well, and we’ve actually had a general “cutting back” philosophy lately from most of our friends and family, on the types of “forwards” they will send us. Most of the ones we do get, are pretty good. Most people know us, know what we like, what we don’t like (bad language, crass humor, etc), and they don’t send us that type of email. Thank goodness 🙂

Every once in a while, Tim gets jokes and things from an old military buddy of his. He recently sent him an email of funnies, jokes. For whatever reason, Tim and I both thought a bunch of them were funny!

Anyway, in case someone is in need of a laugh or smile of any kind, off-color or relatively clean, I’m going to post some of them here. Please don’t take offence, there’s a blonde joke in here and some on marriage, but I still thought they were funny! Smile, and have a wonderful day!

And lastly, Tim (my obsessed golf guy) said this was his favorite one:

Since I always get such great answers from everyone when I ask my mundane questions, I wanted to throw out one that I have been wondering about for a while now. What do you clean your floors with? We used to have vinyl flooring in our house, but a couple of years ago, we ripped all of that out and installed ceramic tile ourselves. I blogged about that process, extensively, while it was ongoing. It was a bear, but I do love the end result. I love having ceramic tile floors. Mine are darker than the vinyl was (which was off-white, horrid choice for flooring to me), and so they don’t show dirt as much. Which, in my mind, translates to not having to clean them as often! Of course, that’s just silly. They get as dirty or dirtier than they did before. Since we got Beau last fall, they are definitely a lot dirtier than they were before! 🙂

About 6 months ago, I decided to buy a Swiffer and try out the disposable wet mopping pads. Overall, I like them, and like the ease of using them to mop my floors (we have tile in the bathrooms, kitchen, laundry room and breakfast room). But, there are a few things that do bother me. One, using these disposable pads sure adds a lot of waste to our already overflowing landfills. Two, price of buying the refills. And three, although they are easy to use, I really don’t think they are getting my floors all that clean. Don’t get me wrong, I think they do a decent job, but maybe not quite as clean as I’d like them to be.

So, I’m looking for suggestions, and I’d also like to know what you use to clean/mop your floors. What products and equipment do you use? Do you do a minimal cleaning regularly and then a more thorough cleaning at later intervals? What products have you tried and not liked, versus what do you like? I’m especially anxious to hear from those of you who do have ceramic tile floors, but any and all flooring options would be great for me to read about. One day soon, we hope to rip up the carpeting in our den and put in laminate, so I’m also curious as to what you use to clean that type of flooring. I guess this can qualify as today’s Question of the Day! Leave me a comment and let me know what you use to clean your flooring 🙂

{{P.S This is a dual-reference blog entry – I’m also using this as my photo for the day over at my Project365 blog. 🙄 }}

I’m feeling a tad unmotivated again, at least in the cooking department. I’m going to give myself a break, since I have been really good lately and I’ve tried new recipes three out of the last four weeks. All with good or really good success too, I might add. So, this week it’s just going to be really easy, really simple, no-brainer kind of cooking 🙂

As always, thanks to Laura, for hosting this every week!

Monday – Spaghetti, Broccoli, french bread, salad

Tuesday – Cheeseburger Macaroni, green beans, salad

Wednesday – Light Night before Tim weighs in – Tomato Soup and grilled cheese

Thursday – Taco Salad, pinto beans

Friday – Date Night or Pizza

Sat/Sun – TBD; Tim playing in a golf tournament, I may pick up take-out Chinese for me!

I’m so behind on reading my favorite blogs. I’ve been trying to catch up some today, but still have a ways to go. I was so thrilled to find that I had won not one but two giveaways during the Bloggy Days of Summer Giveaways!!! Thanks bunches to Barb (at A New Chelsea Morning) for my Good Things book kit and to Karen (at Mommy of Three) for my homemade apple pie a la mode candle. I am so excited about both, and these ladies, and so many others, are so sweet to do these giveaways. 🙂

I also discovered that both Lynne (Lynne’s Little Corner) and Karen (at Over the Backyard Fence) nominated for the “Blogging Community Involvement Award – the Power of Schmooze”. You know, I think it’s sort of cool that you ladies think of me as a “schmoozer”! 🙂 As Lynne and Karen both wrote (and I am plagiarizing here):

Schmoozing as defined by Dictionary.com is the ability “to converse casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection.� When it comes to blogging, schmoozing is your ticket to making new friends, getting yourself noticed and building a reputation.

Now, I’m supposed to nominate some other wonderful, oozy schmoozy bloggers for this award. This is the hard part! There are so many wonderful ladies who come here and read my nonsensical posts and leave me lovely comments, as well as those who respond to the comments that I leave on their blogs. It’s so hard to pick, and I really could easily pick a couple of dozen of my favorite bloggers. So, consider yourself all tagged, but especially these ladies:

Cam at Ms Understood – Cam is one of the first friends I made in the blogosphere. She is wonderful about stopping by, leaving me comments, and answering all of my silly questions on her blog and via email. She’s a schmoozer in the very best sense of the word!

Debi at Nothing of Importance – Debi is another longtime cross-visitor and schmoozing bloggy buddy – she regularly visits here and I love stopping by her blog. She’s so full of energy – she homeschools her kids, she cooks, she crafts, she reads, she joins lots of great challenges and she is just the sweetest person.

Kim at Mom-Musings – Kim is a new blogging buddy, but we share so many of the same loves (books, cooking, family) and she’s just the sweetest blogger. She always stops by to visit, always leaves me wonderful comments and she’s just a great schmoozer. She also “introduced” me to my last nominee!

Sarah at His Little Wife – Sarah is my newest blogging buddy and fellow schmoozer. Sarah is Kim’s daughter and they are both great – fun, interesting, sweet, great bloggers, and great commenters.

CoachJ tagged me with this great 5 question meme, oh about a week or so ago! I’m so sorry I’m behind and that it has taken me this long to get “round tuit” 🙂 Here we go!

1. Are you a morning person or a night owl? How about both and neither? Seriously, I have some of both, but not enough of either one to classify me as one versus the other. Now that I’m not working full-time at a stressful job, I do sit up later than I used to. But, I’m definitely not a “burning the midnight oil” kind of person. My husband is, but I am not. I like and want to get my sleep. But, even after a good night’s sleep, I don’t bound up out of bed in the morning, all happy and awake. It takes me a while to wake up. And I’m a tad grumpy until I really wake up, especially if I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I love to sleep, I really do. 🙂 So, can I be half and half? Half a night owl and half of a morning person?!!!!

2. You have a free, uninterrupted afternoon. What do you do? Oh, an easy one! Read. Curl up with a book and read. Please let this free afternoon occur in the winter, so I can curl up under an afghan or quilt, and light a fire in the fireplace. I have a big comfy chair by my fireplace that I love to read in. Of course, we get about 5 days a year here where I might need to have a fire. Otherwise, it’s just not cold enough 🙂 Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ll make a big mug of hot cocoa and add marshmallows on top!

3. If you could return to a certain stage in your life, what would it be and why? Well, this one is much harder. I’d return and do something that is not physically possible. I’d go back in time and fix all that is wrong with my reproductive system. I’d wind back the clock and let Tim and I get pregnant and have a houseful of kids. Other than that, I don’t think I’d go back and change a thing. It’s taken a long time and at times has been a hard road, but I’ve learned to be happy and content with my life. I’ve learned the hard way that this is a wonderful life, a happy thing, I’m where I’m supposed to be and so grateful to be blessed with all that I have. I often wish for the things I don’t have and that always makes me sad (and I’m ashamed to admit, occasionally bitter). I realize that this is God’s plan for my life, even though I also know that I may never know the answer why. I don’t really wish to go back and change things, but neither do I wish to go back and relive things either. I certainly wouldn’t go back to high school or college and do that over again! I really don’t know how to answer this one, I am afraid I’ve really butchered this question, CoachJ! 🙂

4. What do you think of a woman being President of the USA? I don’t have a problem with a woman being President. I think Condeleeza Rice would probably make a good one. I think any woman that is strong enough to be in politics and “hang with the big boys” is a strong enough woman to make the decisions that need to be made and do the things that need to be done. My issue is not with whether our President is male or female. My issues are always with what the President believes, how he or she acts on those beliefs, and that they stand behind what they say and do. I don’t really ever comment on politics, because it’s a sticky subject. I know what I believe – I believe in our country, and its freedoms, I believe in what our forefathers said “One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”, I believe that our country needs to go back to the values it was founded on – faith and family, loyalty and respect, tolerance and freedom. I hold our President in the highest regard and if the right person runs for that office, male or female, that is who I would vote for. (Oh, and in case you can’t figure it out, I do not believe that to be Hillary Clinton. Or Barak Obama either). Nuff said.

5. What’s your favorite dessert? (Feel free to include a recipe!) I do believe that CoachJ is toying with me, asking me this kind of question. I cannot pick out a favorite dessert. I can easily tell you one I do NOT like – anything with coconut. After that, you’d be hard pressed to find a dessert I didn’t like. Favorites, well, that depends on the day, how hungry I am and what’s available. I never met chocolate anything I didn’t like. Chocolate cake, chocolate pie, chocolate chip cookies. I love cherry anything – cobbler, pie, cherry cheesecake. Put me in an Italian restaurant and you’re sure to see me order Tiramisu. Put me in Chili’s and I guarantee a Molten Lava Cake finds its way to our table. Put me in a cafeteria type restaurant where there’s cherry cobbler and just try to stand in front of me in line. But, a favorite? You’ve got to be kidding me!

Oh, and for a recipe – some of my favorites are on our main site – click here!

I’m afraid that the buck stops here with me and this great idea for a meme. I think the original intention was that I was to answer these, and in turn, come up with 5 new questions of my own and tag a different set of bloggers. I must admit that my creative juices are in the negative zone lately. Thinking up original questions is not something I’m equipped to do right now. But, if someone would like to play along with these questions from CoachJ, I don’t think she would mind! I’d love to see your answers 🙂

Thanks again, CoachJ for tagging me!

Still sticking with the “number of” theme that I’ve been blogging about this week. I think it’s so interesting to read all about how we’re all different on things, yet we are all so similar on other things. Some people might have 1 TV in their home, while others have 7, and it’s so cool to read about how and why everyone has what they have.

Today’s topic is telephones. Like radios and other devices that play music, I think that emerging technologies are changing the way we view and use telephones. I can remember growing up, we had a rotary dial, corded phone in the den. We didn’t have but a couple of phones in the house. Then we moved to touchtone phones, then cordless phones, and now today, the cell phone revolution. I think it’s so cool to look back and remember growing up – the idea of carrying a phone around with me was inconceivable. Now, most of us don’t think of going anywhere without our cell phones. And, many people we know no longer have a “landline” phone in their home. They just use their cell phones.

So, how about you? That’s today’s Question of the Day – how many telephones do you have in your home? Do you still have a traditional “land line”, or do you use a VOIP (voice over IP connection)? Do you have more than one line/number? How many cell phones are in your immediate family? Inquiring minds want to know!

As for me – we have VOIP using our Internet connection. We seriously considered totally dropping the house line and using just our cell phones, but we haven’t gone quite that far yet. We both have cell phones and keep them with us most all of the time, so that wouldn’t be a problem. As far as handsets go. we have a base station with answering machine and 3 expansion handsets scattered across the house. One of them is broken at the moment, and we’re debating whether to replace it. It’s funny because neither Tim nor I really like to talk on the phone. Neither one of us are phone people. We just don’t enjoy talking on the phone. You should see us when the phone rings, we have these battle of wills as to who has to answer it and talk 🙂 Guess who usually wins?! 🙂

Feast One Hundred & Fifty Three
July 27, 2007

Appetizer
Describe a toy you remember from your childhood. Awww, now, I can’t remember anything from my childhood, school years, and heck, most of college is a blank for me. We’ve covered this before, I have an atrociously bad memory. However, I do remember having 2 baby dolls. One had really smooth skin and a pink dress. I also had some stuffed animals, one of which I still have somewhere in the back of a closet. He’s a little brown stuffed dog that I named Rayford. 🙂

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how observant are you? I think I’m really observant, especially on little details, so I’d have to go all out and rate myself an 8 or 9. 😀

Salad
Where would you rather be at this very moment? I’m very content and happy with where I am, literally and figuratively. I’ve got my laptop in my lap. some coffee with Coffeemate Blueberry Cobbler creamer added, and the TV is on, playing Good Morning America. I’ve pretty much got it made in the shade, LOL!

Main Course
When was the last time you learned something new? Wednesday, when I went to the golf course with Tim, I learned that on a par 3, you don’t write down any statistics for “fairways” or “greens in regulation”. 🙂

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have ____________ but I haven’t ____________. I have tons of photos I need to get printed out, but I haven’t even started figuring out which ones to print first. Yikes. I’m over 3 years, yes THREE years, behind on printing out digital pictures.

In keeping with the “number of” theme that I’m doing this week, today’s topic is radios, or music devices that you have in your home. I know there’s lots of flavors and varieties out there. There’s old-fashioned radios, stereos, music channels on cable and satellite TV’s, iPods and mp3 players, music on computers, etc. I’m actually kind of wondering how many people really have and use radios any more, with all of the other choices out there available to us.

I admit, we don’t have any traditional radios left in our house. We had a clock radio in our bedroom, but we replaced that last fall with the iPod player/clock radio combo that Tim bought me for my birthday. I do still use it to play the radio though. The only other way I play local radio stations is through our surround sound stereo system in the den. Every other way I listen to music is via either my iPod, CD’s or some other electronic means. I listen to CD’s and mp3 music through both my iPod, my iPod clock radio that I just mentioned, my computer, as well as our stereo system. We don’t have any radios in other parts of the house like the kitchen, guest bedrooms or office.

So, how about you? That’s today’s Question of the Day: do you still have traditional radios in your home? Do you listen to music on them? How else do you listen to music – on a portable mp3 player, on a computer, or something else. How many of these devices do you have at home and who uses them? Leave me a comment and let me know!

I haven’t really blogged much lately about what’s been going on with us. Tim had a big project that kept him busy at work for a while, although most of that is over now. He stays busy with golf, and I can always keep myself occupied with the computer and reading. Then there’s Netflix and all of the movies we’re getting in regularly and watching. So, basically things have just been humming along. Same ole, same ole, which is great, but it doesn’t make for very interesting blog posts!

We’re going to get pretty busy soon, though. The Saints reported for training camp yesterday at a local private college just a few minutes from our house. Practices start tomorrow morning (Friday). We’re hoping to get to go to several of their practice sessions (all of them are open to the public this year, both morning and afternoon sessions) Then, preseason will start and then the regular season. It took me several years to learn to like and even love football, but I do now and I’m excited about this season. Tim is always really hopeful about the Saints, but of course now, after their success last season, we really do have a legitimate reason to be excited! 🙂

Yesterday was a busy day for us, but a good one. Tim took a day of vacation and we spent the day together. I blogged about it on my photoblog, and posted some photos; you can check it out here.

Let’s see, I’ve been doing a fair amount of cooking. I’ve been making a concerted effort to try some new recipes lately. I blogged about several of them a week or so ago, and I’ve also made a couple of new ones since that post. I made a Beef and Noodle Bake that we liked, as well as a Sausage Skillet Dinner that we both loved. Of those two, the sausage one was definitely my favorite, and I’ll make that one again. It was easy and fairly healthy too. We both love sausage, and even though I used low-fat turkey sausage, it was still really good.

We’ve been watching a ton of movies. I keep a list on my sidebar of all of the movies we’re watching this year. In the last couple of weeks, we’ve watched Ghost Rider, The Prestige, RV, Premonition, Yours Mine and Ours, Click, Shooter, Breach, Akeelah and the Bee, and several others. Of those, my favorite (by far) was Akeelah and the Bee. After that, I probably liked Yours Mine and Ours, Click and Premonition. Both Click and RV had a fair amount of crass humor, and we liked Click better of those two. Shooter was a good movie, and we liked it, but beware (there’s a lot of shooting, obviously, and a lot of head shots where they take people out with a sniper’s bullet). We had been told that Prestige was better than the Illusionist, but I liked Illusionist better (maybe because I saw it first!). Anyway, we have more coming from Netflix and I’m looking forward to more free movies 🙂

As far as books, I’m humming along with my reading. I’ve been going to the library which really helps me. The deadline to return them helps me read them in a timely manner, so I tend to read more when I have library books and a definitive date to finish them by. I need to do some book reviews, but I really sort of hate to do them. I’ve read several books, and while they are slightly different, in some ways they are very similar. Most of them are either Christian fiction or women’s fiction, or series books. Basically, I liked them all, and they were all very light and enjoyable to me. I hate to write reviews because that’s really all I have to say – I liked them, and I enjoyed reading them! For the record, I’m up to 57 books read so far this year, for a total of 17,125 pages read. I’m hoping to surpass my goal of last year, and so far I’m on track. We’re going to enter our busy time of year soon though (football and then hunting season), so I won’t get as much reading time in, but I still hope to at least meet my goal from last year. I really do love to read 🙂

Have a great day!

In keeping with the “numbers” theme I’ve started (first with outside doors, then windows), we’ll continue on today with TV’s. How many TV’s do you have in your home? For how many people? And if you want to get really informational, how many VCR’s and DVD’s do you have to go along with the TV’s?!

My Answer: I admit it, I’m a TV-addict. I have been my entire life. I’ve always loved watching TV. Once the new shows start in the fall, I’ll be glued to the TV most every night, and some nights we’ll have to record a show or two because we’re watching something else at the same time. We have 3 TV’s in our house (for the two of us!). The big plasma in the den, a smaller TV in the master bedroom that is mostly mine, and a small TV in our office (spare bedroom). We have lots of DVD’s and VCR’s to go along with those two. Our entertainment center in the den boasts a DVD recorder/VCR combo, as well as a 5 disc changer. To be fair, we not only play movies on it, but load it up with music CD’s, so it is really a multi-function unit 🙂 I have a VCR and DVD in the bedroom, and the poor lonely TV in the office has nothing to go along with it. Poor baby, just a tiny TV, all alone.

How about you? How many TV’s are in your house? Leave me a comment and let me know 🙂

I posted a “Question of the Day” over the weekend, about how many doors do you have in your house. Heidi, over at God’s Grace in Practice, suggested that I ask the same question about windows. So, we will do that today. Not only that, but that actually got me to thinking. I think I’ll ask a serious of inane questions about numbers this week. How many of this do you have or how many of that. Exciting stuff, huh?!

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day – how many windows do you have in your house? No bonus points for piping up and talking about how often you clean these windows. I really hate to clean windows and don’t do it very often. We’re talking years here, people. I really hate to clean windows.

Ok, now for my number, I had to stop and count! We have 11 windows in our house. This does not include the windows in our doors, just sheer windows. We really need to replace some of them and get more energy efficient double paned windows. You can feel the heat coming through them this time of year. Sigh. It’s always something to upgrade or replace when you own a house, isn’t it?! Leave me a comment and let me know how many windows you have in your house. 🙂

Have a great day!

P.S. The photo is of my dog Beau, peering out the kitchen window. There was a lizard out there, and he was watching it intently. He dislikes lizards and chases them constantly.

I have a question for those of you who do PaperBackSwap.com or a similar program. Or maybe even for those of you who occasionally mail books. Actually, it’s kind of a lame question, but I’m going to ask anyway! How do you wrap your books to go in the mail, and do you go to the post office every time you mail a book?

I have been considering joining PaperBackSwap or a similar program, but the one thing holding me back is that I hate (detest, loathe, abhor, etc) going to the post office. My small town has a really nice post office, not that far from my house, but it’s always SO crowded. I’ve never gone there and stood in line behind less than 4 or 5 people. I’ve been in there several times (and not even at Christmas) and there’s been 8 or 10 people ahead of me in line. There’s usually only one or maybe two windows open at a time, and I just hate to wait in line. I know, I know, I’m impatient and it’s really not that much time out of my day, but it’s one of those things I just really don’t like to do. Sort of a pet peeve of mine, I guess.

So, if you mail out books, do you always go to the post office? Is there any other way to make sure they get there with enough postage on them? And if you do PaperBackSwap or another book program, do you use special mailers? Do you just wrap regular paper around your book? Do you put it in a big manila envelope? Do you put it in a padded envelope or even a box?

Leave me a comment and let me know… I want to know exactly how you all mail books! 🙂

Last week’s menu included a couple more new recipes and both of them were pretty much hits in our house. I haven’t had a chance to type them up yet, but I will soon, and will try to post a link on my blog to them soon. I have one more new one on the menu for this week, and we’ll hope it’s a hit and not a miss as well. 🙂

As always, thanks to Laura, for hosting this every week!

Monday – Fish Sandwiches (didn’t get to this on last week’s menu), corn on the cob, grilled zucchini

Tuesday – new recipe for a Sausage Skillet dinner, whole wheat egg noodles, green beans

Wednesday – Light Night before Tim weighs in – Chef Salad

Thursday – Golden Potato Soup, homemade wheat bread

Friday – Date Night or Pizza

Today’s Question of the Day is another quick one, and a very mundane one (but hey, they all are!). How many exterior doors do you have on your home? In other words, how many doors can you open and go outside? We only have 3 (we have a small house) – the front door, the garage door and a door to the backyard. How about you, how many exterior doors do you have in your home?

P.S. The photo is not really of doors, but it’s one that I love. I took it last fall in Savannah, and I have always thought it was a great photo. So, any chance to post it again on my blog! To be fair, it does have doors in it! 😀

Have a great day and a great weekend!

Feast One Hundred & Fifty Two
July 20, 2007

Appetizer
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how much do enjoy watching sports on television? That would depend on the sport. Football is very high, a 9 or 10. Tennis is way up there, but baseball, basketball, golf, etc are much lower, probably a 4 or 5

Soup
If you could completely memorize any one work of fiction, which one would you pick? I have absolutely no idea! I don’t think I’d want to fill my memory chip in my brain with a work of fiction; I don’t think there’d be much room left for anything else! 😀

Salad
What is your favorite breakfast food? I love all of ’em! I love eggs, bacon, sausage, biscuits, grits, oatmeal, waffles, pancakes, french toast and the list goes on and on. Most days I eat a bowl of cereal (usually Cheerios) and I love that too. We often fix breakfast food at suppertime, because we both love it 🙂

Main Course
Name something fun you can do for less than $10.00. How about free? Go to a local park and take a picnic lunch or supper. Swing on the swings, slide on the slides, take a walk on a nature course, watch the kids play.

Dessert
How long does it usually take you to fall asleep? Not too long, maybe 20 minutes or less. I almost always read before bedtime and that helps tire out my eyes and makes me more likely to fall asleep. Also, when we are keeping up with our walking schedule, I find I don’t have very much trouble falling asleep.