Exceedingly Mundane

Hope you’re all having a wonderful Thanksgiving! I’ve got one last poll for you:

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As for me, I will more than likely stay as far away from a store on Friday as humanly possible!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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I know there are probably too many choices to list, but here’s a few to pick from. Hopefully one of them comes close to fitting your plans for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. Gobble Gobble – Happy Thanksgiving!

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I’m sure everyone is going to be busy this week. I know we are. We had a jam packed weekend and look to have a busy week and weekend coming up. This past weekend, we were only home at night to lay our head down on our pillow and sleep – we were gone most of the rest of the waking hours 🙂 We had a good time though, and are looking forward to a great Thanksgiving with family, and then Tim’s birthday next weekend.

I won’t be blogging much this week, or getting a chance to stop by and visit. I’m going to do a couple of things though:

1. Post a quick poll today about your Thanksgiving plans
2. Post a poll later in the week about Thanksgiving food
3. Try out a new theme for Christmas. Yes, I know I’m mixing holidays. Normally I don’t do that, but it seems that Thanksgiving is so late this year, that we won’t have a long time to enjoy the Christmas season. I may put up two themes. Let me know what you think (one will be blue and the other red).

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

At least down here in the South, it finally looks and feels like fall. Friday’s high was around 47 degrees, and Friday night was 25. That’s pretty chilly for us, more like winter! The trees in our yard are finally starting to shed a few of their leaves. Not all, mind you. We’ll have leaves falling for the next couple of months around here. And one of our trees in the front yard has this habit of hanging on to her leaves all winter. Next March or April, when it gets windy, they will all finally blow off. I sort of like it that way 🙂

Anyway, Friday around lunchtime, Tim and I raked some of the leaves up in the front and back yard. Beau, the wonder dog, had a blast! He’s still got some puppy in him. We have no idea how old he is, but I’d guess around four. We’ve had him two years now, but we have no idea how old he was when we adopted him. He had a blast playing in the leaves though! See…

Heidi, over at God’s Grace in Practice, tagged me with this book tag and meme. It’s easy, so I thought I’d play along. Here’s the rules:

Pass this on to 5 blogging friends.
Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56. Write the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that.

I’m currently reading “Till Morning is Nigh” by Leisha Kelly. This is the first book I’m reading as part of the Winter Holidays Reading Challenge. It’s part of a series of books I’m reading about the Wortham’s, a family living in Indiana during the Great Depression. These are Christian fiction books, and I’m really enjoying them 🙂

My passage is:

“You know he always buys us candy in December.”

Here’s what happened before this – the ten Hammond children are staying with the Worthams, whose farm is closest to theirs. Their mother died last Christmas and their father, George, is ill-equipped to raise one children, let alone ten. The task falls mostly to the oldest Hammond daughter, Lizbeth, and Mrs. Wortham. Last year at Christmas, George Hammond tried to end his life, but Samuel Wortham found him in time. This year, the Depression is even worse, and the economy even bleaker. They are struggling just to put food on the table for so many mouths, and to find sugar to bake cookies with and material to sew a small doll from as a gift. Anyway, George Hammond has disappeared and has left everyone else wondering where he is and what he is doing during a snowstorm right before Christmas.

As the tag suggests, here’s the next several sentences:

“He’d a’ took the horse and wagon if he was going to town,” Kirk echoed Franky’s understanding. “It don’t take no wagon to haul home Christmas candy,” Joe argued. He forced a little smile. “He didn’t have money for that much.”

“Well, he’s a grown man,” I told everyone. “And since it is December, it’s probably best not to keep up our guessing.” I knew the skepticism in the children’s faces, especially Willy and Kirk. But I deeply appreciated Joe’s optimism. Far better for the little ones to have a little ordinary hopefulness than a fearful doubting of their father’s intentions.

Let’s see, I’m supposed to tag five others for this… I guess I’ll tag:

1. Gail at More Than a Song
2. Lynne at Lynne’s Little Corner
3. Kim at Mom’s Musings
4. Karen at Over the Backyard Fence
5. Katrina at Callapidder Days

P.S. I haven’t checked to see if any of them have already been tagged. If you have, I’m sorry for not checking first! 🙂

Another long, rambling, assorted post 🙂

Our new great-nephew that was born yesterday now has a name – Max Colton. We got an email with a photo of the new family and they looked tired, but very happy. This makes our sixth great niece or nephew. We have another one on the “other side” of my family who we haven’t met – Henry was born in April but we have yet to see him. He and his big brother and sister are coming on Thanksgiving though, so we’ll get to meet him next week!

I did my weekly grocery shopping yesterday. I’m so happy to be finding two of my favorite seasonal things at the store right now – the Coffeemate flavored creamers (got Gingerbread this week) and the Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash. I can drink my body weight in that stuff, I love it. And I have to stock up, by the week of Christmas or the week after, it will be gone in our stores here.

I also went clothes shopping yesterday. I wish I were one of those kind of women who actually loved shopping for clothes, but I’m not. It’s a tedious chore for me. I do a lot better when I have someone go with me, but alas, no takers. I concentrated on sweaters and tops yesterday. I didn’t even try any pants, jeans or skirts on. This time of year, I mostly wear pants to church (rebel that I am), since I’m so cold. I think it probably looks odd to wear my three pair of black pants over and over, but hey, that’s what I am doing. I did buy some new sweaters and tops though. I tried on a dozen or more pairs of flats and boots and came away empty handed. I’ll have to go again and look for those.

I am starting to get a little panicked about Christmas. Thanksgiving is so late this year, and then Tim’s birthday is two days after Thanksgiving, so I won’t have a chance to start until after then. But, we are having our Christmas with my in-laws the weekend before Christmas, so that only leaves me a couple of weeks to get things and get them wrapped. I’m getting zero ideas from people (HINT HINT), and I really need some help and suggestions. HINT HINT.

I’m enjoying the heck out of my new iPhone. It’s so nice to be able to take it with me places and still be in touch. Tim and I both have downloaded a ton of free apps for the thing and it’s so easy and so fun. I have only downloaded one pay app – the shopping app that I have used for years on my Palm Pilot (SplashShopper). It’s not as user friendly as it was on the Palm, but at least I have all of my info. If you have an iPhone (or I guess a Blackberry, not sure they work the same where applications are concerned), which applications do you have and which ones do you really like?

Finally, Beau is the constant joy in my life. Tim and I talk about it all the time. The dog has such personality and so much energy. And he’s very vocal. He’s gotten to where he growls and barks a lot to communicate with us, in different ways. It’s very cute! And I’m also happy to say that this dip in cool weather has perked up his appetite! When we got him, he was skin and bones and it’s been my mission ever since to put some weight on him. Some days, he won’t eat much at all. Lately, he’s eating really well and that makes me happy. I took some photos of him in the past few days that I wanted to share:

1. Can you see him?

2. Maybe a close up will help – I had to part the shrub and zoom in, he was wedged inside this big shrub we have, hunting for lizards:

3. Beau takes every step that Tim takes, he loves and adores him. I’m constantly singing the Aerosmith song “I don’t want to miss a thing”, because he doesn’t want to miss anything Tim does, says or anywhere he goes. He rarely feels that way about me, but this morning, he was quite interested in the laundry. I did two loads and I bet I have 8 pictures of him doing this:

That’s my Beau baby!

I took this photo a few days ago, on Saturday, when we got back from the movie. It was actually really cloudy, some clouds dark and some white, and then there was this little strip of blue peeking out. It was like this almost the entire 360 degrees around, above the horizon. The photo really doesn’t do it justice, but it was the best I could do 🙂

I’m headed out today (Tuesday) to get my hair cut and run some errands. The big news today is that we have a new great-nephew! My nephew Kirk and his wife Nichole had their first baby last night. No name yet, but a happy healthy baby boy is enough! This is my sister Suzanne’s first grandchild, so I imagine she’s pretty excited! She’ll have to get some pointers from our other sister Gail, who already has five grandkids, and counting 🙂

Hope everyone has a great day!

Obviously I couldn’t think of a good title. I’ve used “Odds and Ends”, “Catching Up” and “This and That” so much that I probably have double digit posts under each of blog post names 🙂 But that’s what this is, a various and assorted post.

It’s cold here this morning and was pretty chilly all weekend. I feel the need to go buy warm sweaters and sweatshirts! We’ve done really good though, and have not turned on our heat yet. It’s cold at night, but we sleep under a big quilt, and we’ve just been sucking it up in the AM until the house warms up in the middle part of the day.

We went to see Quantum of Solace over the weekend. I had read a review that probably pre-disposed me to it before we went. The review said this was more “Bourne than Bond”, and I have to agree, although I love all three of the Bourne movies. But this one had a fair amount of hand-held camera work in parts of it and that bothers me sometimes. It was a good movie though, typical Bond, high-action, and we did enjoy it.

We’ve also rented a couple of new movies lately from Netflix. We really liked “Get Smart” quite a bit, didn’t enjoy “What Happens in Vegas” all that much, and Tim watched the newest version of “The Incredible Hulk.”. We also just finished Season 5 of The Gilmore Girls, and will start Season 6 soon.

We got a new window, courtesy of Tim and his brother Terry, a couple of weeks ago:

I spent a gift card I got for my birthday (thanks Mark and Amanda!) at Target, and got a small rice cooker to try out. I fixed some Chinese food over the weekend, and white rice, and it was good. I’m going to look for some new stir fry recipes to try. If you have one, let me know! Also, I think I may try to make some red beans and rice this winter and use it for that also. Here’s my little cooker with rice:

I’ve read several books lately, and have been entering them over at GoodReads. If you’re not hooked up with me there, and want to know more about what I’ve read, just leave me a comment and let me know. I’m currently reading the first book I chose for the Winter Holiday Reading Challenge, “Until Morning is Nigh” by Leisha Kelly. This book is part of a series I’m reading and that I’m really enjoying 🙂

And I hate to end on a sad note, but today is not the most joyous of days for me. Today would have been my mom’s birthday, so I’m a bit sad today. It’s always hard this time of year, through the holidays, and around Mother’s Day. I wonder if there will ever come a time when I don’t miss her…

Well. I hope you’re all having a good day! 🙂

Today’s Question of the Day is in the form of a poll. I think a lot of bloggers simply like to vote and move on, but feel free to leave a comment if you’d like! Today’s poll/QOTD is about what wakes you up in the mornings. Choose one and vote, although I realize that most people might have more than one answer. I wake up naturally most days, because I don’t have to be anyplace at a specific time. But on days where I need to be somewhere early and on Sundays (because we go to an early church service), I have to set my alarm. And then, I am always aggravated that the alarm went off in my ear and woke me up! 🙂

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Hope you have a wonderful day, thanks for playing along!

I saw this over at Lynne‘s blog (here), and thought it looked like fun. I always like to read some seasonal books at Christmas. Last year, I checked several out of the library, and this year, I asked for and received a couple as birthday gifts. So, I’m really looking forward to reading these before the end of the year, although the challenge runs until the end of January 2009.

The Winter Holiday Reading Challenge is hosted by BookinHand and the original post is here. Go check it out and sign up, if you want 🙂

Here’s the books I’m planning to read for this challenge:

1. A Cedar Cove Christmas by Debbie Macomber
2. Till Morning is Nigh by Leisha Kelly
3. The Spirit of the Season (Grace Chapel Inn book 8, Guideposts books) by Dana Corbit

Bonus: If I get to it, I might read a book that my mother-in-law gave me, an older book of several short stories with Christmas themes, called Christmas Dreams.

Happy Reading!

After a really terrific weekend, my Monday is off to a roaring start. Today is the day for my annual checkup, at that lovely doctor’s office all women love to visit. I can’t say that I love to go, in fact, I dread it every year, but I do go to make sure everything is ok. Hopefully, it will all be routine and nothing is wrong. I’ve posted a QOTD in the past about this topic, and surprisingly, quite a few people said they disliked going to the dentist more than the doctor! I can’t seem to think of another QOTD along these same lines, so I’ll just ask a simple one – did you have a good weekend and do you have anything special coming up this week?

We had a really good weekend, Tim and I. We did a lot of fun things together, watched some TV and a movie, got all of my pansies planted, visited a new deli for lunch and a new coffeeshop for a cup of coffee and just generally enjoyed every minute we spent together. I don’t have a lot planned for this week, after today’s trip to the doctor. How about you?

Hope you all have a great day! Mine will be much brighter when I’m all done later today 🙂

I’ve got another Question of the Day for you. Would you put on your blog, or somewhere else online, what your weight is? I read a lot of blogs, and have read several where women have been going on a diet, or trying to work out more, or trying to lose weight, and they post their current weight out there for the whole world to see. I don’t like to think I’m vain or weird or whatever, but I really don’t want the whole world to know what I weigh. So I won’t be posting my weight or sharing it with anyone.

How about you? Have you posted that type of personal info before, or would you, on your blog? Or are you like me and would rather keep that tidbit to yourself? Leave me a comment and let me know. I don’t want to know how much you weigh, just whether you are comfortable posting that info on the Internet. 🙂

Have a great day!

My mums, about a week ago, at their peak. They’re a little pitiful today. 🙁 But the trees are starting to change some here, so I’ll have to post a photo of those soon. We don’t get much color here, so I have to mostly look for it in my mums and pansies 🙂

Have a beautiful day!

Well, it’s finally here. I’m not sure how it will turn out, but today’s election could be quite historic. We’re going to head out in a little while to cast our vote. We’re trying to let most of the office workers vote on the way into work, then we hope to catch a lull mid-morning. We’ve been watching the news reports this morning on a local TV station and they’re showing video of extremely long lines.

I plan to cast a VoteReport via Twitter. I ran across a reference to it last night and thought it was pretty neat. They even have a free app for my iPhone that I downloaded, so I can log information directly from my phone when we leave – info about how long I had to wait, conditions at the polling place, if there were any problems, etc.

And, for your reading pleasure, I saw this on Yahoo this morning and thought it was interesting. It comes from this link:

Why do we vote on a Tuesday… in November?

The short answer: We used to be a nation of farmers.

The long answer: Congress chose November because the harvest was over and the weather wouldn’t be bad enough to prevent people from traveling.

As for Tuesday, people used to have to travel overnight to their polling location. (In 1845, horse was the preferred method of transport.) In an effort to avoid religious days of rest, Congress chose Tuesday, leaving Monday and Wednesday as travel days. Tuesday was voting (and horse-resting) day.

Have a great day, and God Bless America 🙂