Exceedingly Mundane

randomness…feed your mind and your blog
March 9: The Internet
Do you remember time before the internet?
websites, memes, blogs, message boards?
When did you first ‘log on’?

Well, this is a blast from the past! I’ve been working on computers all of my adult life. I earned one of the first computer science degrees (minor, in my case) that was offered at the small, private college I attended, way back in the 80’s. I did all of my programming on an original IBM XT with dual 5 1/4″ floppies. I started a computer network in the engineering department I worked in at my job. I was using our company’s mainframe for email in the late 80’s and then migrated our section to PC-based email. I can’t remember exactly when I got on the Internet, but it was sometimes around 1994 or 1995. I know that I spent a lot of time online once I discovered the Internet. And I still do – actually, I spend more and more time online as the years go by!

Although I can remember what life was like before the Internet, that doesn’t mean I want to go back. I like being able to look everything up in the blink of an eye. I like paying my bills online. I like blogging, sharing photos, uploading them to get printed, ordering stuff online, searching for recipes online, ordering my movies through Netflix, etc. I can remember having a rotary dial telephone in the den of the house I grew up in – but that doesn’t mean I want to give up my VOIP phone or my cell phone I take with me everywhere! 🙂

Have a great day!

I mentioned in a previous post that I had ordered a couple of books from Amazon. They came in the other day…. not very exciting for others, but they are to me! I love getting new books 🙂 All of them are part of series books that I am reading or going to read. All of them are Christian fiction, which I love to read.

One is the first book in the “Smart Chicks” series by Mindy Starns Clark, which I have not started yet. The Kristen Billerbeck book is the third book in the “Spa Girls” series. My sister Gail gave me the first two for Christmas, but I have this weird thing about having all of the books in a series available, in case I want to read them all together, back to back. The other two are the latest in the Grace Chapel Inn books (Guideposts books). Ahhh, new books!

Happy Reading!

Feast One Hundred & Eighty Two
March 7th, 2008

Appetizer
If you could be any current celebrity for one whole week, who would you want to be? Oh, do I have to pick? I don’t want to be a celebrity. I don’t want people following me to the grocery store to take photos or seeing me with no make up on and a baseball cap. Ugh. Please. I just want to be normal!

Soup
On a scale of 1-10 (with 10 being highest), how much do you enjoy talking on the phone? Ugh, about a 2. I am so not a phone person.

Salad
Name a charitable organization to which you have donated (or would like to). The Red Cross

Main Course
What is a food you like so much you could eat it every single day for a month? Hello, is chocolate a food? Then definitely chocolate. I have some almost every day anyway! As for traditional food, probably something like pasta or chinese food. 30 days would be a long time to eat just one food though.

Dessert
Have you or anyone in your family had the flu this year? No, thank goodness. Just some sinus and gunk. I’ve only had the flu one time in recent memory. The only year I got a flu shot. So, I don’t get them anymore!

I mentioned the other day in my Nada, Nothing post that I had a few books I wanted to talk about. I really hate doing “book reviews” or trying to come up with something original to say about a book. And I almost hate posting about books in general, because I tend to sound like a broken record. I usually like most every single book I read. I think because I tend to pick books and authors that I know I’ll like, so I’m rarely disappointed.

In spite of that, I wanted to do a quick recap of some of the books I have enjoyed lately 🙂

I recently read “On Mystic Lake” by Kristin Hannah. I think I have read one book by this author before, but I can’t remember! I know I have 2 or 3 of her books in my TBR pile, that I have picked up at a library sale. This book was what I call “typical women’s fiction”. All about a woman who thinks she is happy, with a good marriage, until her husband looks over at her in the car and tells her he doesn’t love her and wants a divorce. It’s about her journey after that, her return to her childhood home in the tiny town of Mystic Lake, her reconnecting with a past love, and the story flows from there. I was in the mood for this kind of book, I guess, because I really enjoyed it!

After that, I switched gears. Already missing football season and dreading the long months until training camp, I decided to go ahead and read “Playing for Pizza” by John Grisham. I enjoyed this one also. I’m hoping to get Tim to read it. But, with the silly time changing so early this year, I envision him out playing golf every chance he gets. Not much chance of him staying inside with me and reading a book now!

For several years now, Tim has been wanting me to read the “Bourne” books by Robert Ludlum. These are the books that the movies with Matt Damon are supposedly based on. However, Tim has told me for ages that the movies do not follow the plot of the book – not at all. So, after much prompting from him, I started this series. I must admit, I struggled a bit with the first one, “The Bourne Identity“. It’s not that the plot wasn’t good, but it was just so long. And wordy. Ludlum seems to take a few pages to tell one little bit of info, he’s very long-winded. The hardest thing, though, was that this was a small paperback with really small type. My eyes are starting to show my age and I have trouble with really small print. We own these books, so I didn’t go check them out of the library, but I might need to do that for the next two. I did enjoy it, but boy, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I finally finished it!

After I struggled through The Bourne Identity, I decided I wanted to read something light, so I picked up the 7th of 8 books in the “Southern Sisters mysteries” by Anne George. Oh, how I love these books! If you like cozy mysteries or especially, if you like reading about the South and how we really live down here (such as, stopping at the Piggly Wiggly to pick up something for supper), then you will like these books. Me, I LOVE them! I am so sorry to see them coming to an end. I’ve got one more, since I just finished “Murder Carries a Torch“. Sigh.

I saw at Amazon that Sophie Kinsella had a new book coming out, so I immediately went to my library’s website and did what I always do now – go to their new books section and look for the book, then get myself on the wait list. Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather when they called and said I could come pick up the book! I was the first one on the list, apparently, and so I went and picked it up. I LOVED this book as well! I have read every Sophie Kinsella book, and while I love the Shopaholic ones, I must admit that I love the stand-alone books of hers more. I really enjoyed “Undomestic Goddess” and “Can You Keep a Secret”, and the new one, “Remember Me?” was no exception. I devoured this book and had it back to the library in just a few days. Loved it!

For the record, I’ve read 15 books so far this year, for a total of 5,013 pages. Up next is a book I borrowed from my sister Gail called “Lost in NashVegas” by Rachel Hauck. I think I’m really going to like this one! It’s a Christian fiction book about a girl moving from small-town Alabama to Nashville to pursue her dreams of being a songwriter. Now, if that kind of book doesn’t have my name written all over it, I don’t know what does 😀

Happy Reading!

P.S. I ordered a couple of new books from Amazon and they are supposed to be here today or tomorrow. Do you want to see a photo of what I got?! 🙂

OK, sometimes I really like taking these things! This one is about half right – I am very ordered and I do love to make lists! The brilliant stuff though, well, that’s just poppycock!

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven. You aren’t concerned much with theories or dreams… only what’s true or untrue. You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched. You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren’t subject to whim or emotions. Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice. (But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!) You excel in: Leadership positions You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What punctuation mark are you?! 🙂 If you hop over and take the quiz, be sure to let me know how you scored!

Ooh, fun topic this week! List your ten favorite drinks. Now, this is right up my alley 😀 I’m a huge drinker. I just don’t drink alcohol, but boy, do I love a ton of other stuff

Such as…

Coke Zero
Cherry Coke Zero
Mountain Dew Code Red, diet or regular
Dr. Pepper (regular, but I rarely splurge; not as fond of the diet)
Coffee with splenda and a good flavored creamer
English Toffee cappuccino
Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash (only available Thanksgiving to Christmas)
White Chocolate Mocha from Starbucks (again, I rarely splurge on any Starbucks drinks, too many calories)
Sweet Tea (McAlisters or my mother-in-laws are the BEST!)
Orange Juice, Apple Juice, Grape Juice
Cranberry Juice with Ginger Ale
Sonic Diet Cherry Coke with Chocolate (sounds yucky but it’s wonderful)
Sonic Java Chiller (with mocha or caramel or both!)
Hot Chocolate
Hot Green Tea
Raspberry Zinger herbal tea

Oops, more than 10… told ya I was a big drinker. I could have easily come up with 20, probably, LOL!

Well, here it is the fourth of March and I have yet to post anything this month. That’s a new one for me. Maybe after 3 years of blogging, I’ve finally run out of things to say 🙂

We’ve been staying busy. Tim is still working a lot at night and our schedules are all wonky. We sleep late, eat breakfast late, eat lunch in the middle of the afternoon and then a late dinner. Tim is up most nights until 1 or 2 AM, somethings 3, 4 or even 5 AM. I’m trying to keep to some kind of schedule, but it’s a losing battle. I’ll be glad when things normalize a bit around here.

We had a busy weekend. We drove down to see my dad and work on some things around the house for him. He’ll be 85 next month but he still lives alone and can do most everything for himself. We worked on his computer a bit, and Tim climbed up on the ladder and cleaned out his gutters all the way around his house. We definitely didn’t want him on the ladder 🙂 We’re still trying to teach him to use his DVD player. He got it a couple of years ago and I’ve been buying him old John Wayne movies, but he can’t figure out how to get it all going. Hopefully, he will soon. 🙂 I know he gets lonely and misses my mom.

I’ve been reading some really good books lately 🙂 I’m going to try to do a book post later in the week.

I haven’t been cooking a whole lot. Well, I cook every day and we eat three meals a day here most of the time. But it’s easy stuff like sandwiches, breakfast food, po-boys, soup, tacos, etc. I made a loaf of banana bread over the weekend that was really good though 🙂 We’re going to have a friend over Thursday to watch Lost and we’ll order pizza. Then Tim’s parents are coming for a visit on Friday, so we’ll all go out to eat. That’s one reason I haven’t been posting my menu every Monday. Too boring.

Hope you all have a wonderful day! I’m going to try to get some time in on the treadmill. That, cleaning and laundry!