Exceedingly Mundane

Saw this at a couple of blogs I peruse, and thought it might be fun to play along. If you do so at your blog, be sure to let me know so I can come by and see your responses!

Name a film that you have seen more than 10 times.
The Sound of Music, You’ve Got Mail, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, all of the Star Wars movies

Name a film that you’ve seen multiple times in the cinema.
Ooh, tough one. I don’t usually see a movie more than once in the theater. The only one that comes to mind is the original Star Wars. Saw it in 1977 and the 20 year re-issue in 1997.

Name an actor that would make you more inclined to see a film.
I see movies based more on plot and reviews than on a single actor or actress starring in them. That said, I do like Tom Hanks, Matt Damon, etc. For women, I like Meryl Streep, Sandra Bullock, etc.

Name an actor that would make you less likely to see a film.
Will Ferrell. Don’t like him and don’t watch his movies.

Name a film that you can and do quote from.
Ooh, lots of these! You’ve Got Mail, O Brother Where Art Thou, all of the Lord of the Rings, all of the Star Wars movies, etc

Name a film musical that you know all of the lyrics to all of the songs.
The Sound of Music. I know every song, every syllable, every note.

Name a film that you would recommend everyone to see.
Hmm, last year we recommended both Star Trek and Avatar, good movies to see, especially on the big screen. I personally liked The Blind Side a lot, we really love a good football movie. And I always recommend good clean Christian films like Amazing Grace, One Night with the King, The Nativity Story, etc.

Ever walked out of a film?
Dune, back in the 80’s, I think is the only one coming to mind. I fell asleep during one when Tim and I were dating, I think it was called Forget Paris (not sure though, we went to the late movie and I slept through most of it, LOL!)

Name a film that made you cry in the cinema.
Titanic, Marley and Me, many others…

There’s more questions on the following page, click here:
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I always have such good intentions about blogging. Take this blog post, for instance. I took this picture over a month ago, and stored it away to write a post about:

Now, here it is several weeks later, and I no longer have any of the dish soap or hand soap. I was going to blog about how I had bought my first Mrs. Meyer’s products last fall and winter. I love this pine scent that came out around the holidays. I was going to blab about how my local Target had this one seasonal scent, but I can no longer find these products at my store. And of course, they’re not at Walmart (where I normally shop, I know, I know!). I don’t shop at drugstore type stores (CVS, Walgreens, etc), so I don’t know if they carry them. I was pleasantly surprised to find some unscented Mrs. Meyer’s products at my local Marshalls / TJ Maxx stores. That’s where I got the countertop spray in the middle, which I do still have 🙂

I had the best intentions about doing a nice, little post about cleaning products, and what people use to clean their kitchen with. Are you a germophobe and very concerned about germs, and only use anti-bacterial products? Do you hand wash dishes, and if so, what brand or type of dish soap do you use? Are you adamant about your floors and countertops, and what do you use on them? Are you a sucker for a certain kind of dishwasher product – tabs, gel, powder, etc?

I must admit, I’m brand dependent, but only to the extent of what I can find in bulk at our local Sam’s Club, combined with what I like. I normally use Palmolive anti-bacterial dish soap. It’s an orange colored liquid that I buy in a huge container at Sams, then I fill up a glass olive oil with spout type container at home (did that make ANY sense?!) to use for washing pots and pans in the sink. I use Cascade tabs in my dishwasher. I’ve tried powder, gel and tabs, and I do like the ease and convenience of the tabs. Sam’s sells both Electrosol brand and Cascade brand, but I couldn’t tell a huge difference between them. The Cascade are a bit cheaper, so that’s what we use. I keep hand soap on my sink, but once I had used up all of my Mrs Meyers, I admit I went back to using the Equate brand from Walmart, an antibacterial one. I mop my floors with Armstrong floor cleaner. With a dog that is only allowed on the tile in the kitchen, my floors have to be cleaned pretty often 🙂

So, there, it’s not timely or well-stated, but I wanted to ramble on about cleaning products in the kitchen. I’m always interested in what other people use, and what they like and dislike. It’s usually a good way to find something new to try, that I might like better 🙂 I am a homebody and I work hard to keep our home a happy, healthy, clean, comfortable place. These topics are so mundane to most, but always so intriguing to me!

Leave me a comment and let me know what you use at your house, or if you really could care less about this type of stuff 🙂 Maybe you’re not the only cleaning up the kitchen, or maybe it just doesn’t matter. But if it does, and you’ve found products that you either like or dislike for whatever reason, let me know!

Oh, and have a great day!

It’s a little thing, but I’ve decided to go with more glass and less plastic in my kitchen. For quite a while now, I’ve been thinking about trying to get rid of most of my Rubbermaid / Tupperware / Misc Plastic containers. I have read (or as Tim thinks, bought into the hype) that there’s stuff in the plastic that can leach into your food. Plus, plastic gets stained with tomato products like spaghetti, chili, etc. Now, I like plastic for the no-breakage option, but I’m trying really hard to be careful and not chip or break my glass containers.

I bought a couple of 3 pack Pyrex glass storage containers at Walmart to give them a try. A few days later, Tim and I were at Sam’s, and he found this. He came and got me and said, “Let’s get this for you, I think you’ll love it!”. Such a sweetie 🙂

I told him, I really don’t need that many containers, nor do I have room for them. But, I started going through my cabinets and decided I could purge some other things that I had. I had a set of stainless /coated storage containers, some ramekins, as well as all of my Rubbermaid containers. Once I cleaned all of them out, I had enough room for all of my red Pyrex glass containers.

I’ve had them a few weeks now, and I really like them. I can mix up something like chicken salad in one of the containers, then just store it in the fridge. I can scoop up leftovers from supper, then when we want to warm them up for lunch the next day, I don’t have to worry about taking them out of the plastic and putting them on something else to warm up (that’s mostly what I had read about plastic, don’t microwave in it and heat them and the contents up). I can pop them in the freezer, I can put them in the dishwasher and they come out looking brand new. I really like this set from Sam’s Club, because I have some rectangular / oblong ones in addition to different sizes of round ones. Lots of variety and lots of storage sizes. All good things 🙂

So, here’s a quick question – do you do leftovers at your house? Do you store them in plastic or glass? Do you freeze leftovers?

Have a great, happy, joyous day 🙂

I’m starting to feel like I’m missing out. The girls in our neighborhood that used to come around and sell Girl Scout cookies have all grown up, so we have no more doorbell rings to look forward to. Usually, I find a troop setup at a local grocery store with a table of cookies for sale, but this year I have not happened upon any. I’m starting to feel left out. Not that I need the calories, but sometimes, you just want a Girl Scout cookie, you know what I mean?

How about you? Do you buy Girl Scout cookies? If so, do you eat them right away, put them in the freezer? Or do you have Girl Scouts in your house and you dread the thought of all of those cookies, this time every year?! 🙂

How do you spell that? That’s what my computer did this week, it went ker-pluey, ker-plunk. It died on Wednesday, but I’m happy to say it is patched, bandaged and limping along at the moment. My HP laptop is 3 years old and has had only one problem, but this is the third time that this has happened. The first two times, it was under warranty, and extended warranty, so I was able to mail it back to be “fixed”. Not that they really fixed it, since it keeps happening over and over 😀

My video card (Nvidia GeForce Go 7600) and the processor on my computer, apparently, upon further research, have a major incompatibility. The video keeps going out on my laptop, which is really quite bad. Multi-colored vertical lines instead of Windows loading is really not all that fun. Nor is a black screen.

Tim, being the wonderful, sweet, smart guy that he is, figured out a way to switch my setup over to the basic VGA setting on the motherboard (you know, the one that works with Safe Mode, which does still run on my computer). So, now everything is really big and less crisp, but it’s up and running. It’s bought me some time to make sure all of my files are backed up (hello, don’t want to lose years worth of digital photos!). I don’t know how long this patch will last, but in the mean time, I’m happy to have a computer at all.

I was going to make a separate post, but I guess I’ll go ahead and spill the beans here.

Tim got a MacBook Pro a week or so ago!

It was a very belated birthday/Christmas/Valentines etc gift (and in fact anniversary gift, since yesterday was our 14th wedding anniversary)! He’s been wanting to get a Mac for a while, and we finally got him one. In fact, here’s the kicker:

Tim has never had his own personal computer :gasp:

He’s a full-time computer guy and his work has always provided him with a computer. He’s bought me 2 or 3 brand new computers since we’ve been together, and he has always, always taken the old one as a hand-me-down, to use for himself. He’s so incredibly unselfish and always gets me a new one, and has never ever had a new one for himself. So, this was way overdue!

P.S. Please note, not only does this photo show his shiny new Macbook, but you can also see one of our other new happies – Saints Super Bowl champions t-shirts! Woo-hoo 🙂

Note to self: Be sure to keep the garage door closed. All of those birds you’ve seen flying in and out of the garage the last couple of days have been up to something:

I felt really really bad to get rid of the nest they had started. I know they need to have one somewhere, this time of year. But, my opened box of kitchen garbage bags that I had stored on top of my shelf in the garage is not the best place to do it. I just know I’m going to need more garbage bags from behind the nest before too long 🙂

Poor birdies, no babies in my garage!

If you’re the only dog in a house where there are no children, no cats and no other pets, it stands to reason that you will be a little spoiled.

If you’re a dog who happens to live in OUR house, you will be very spoiled!

Beau doesn’t think so, but he is. I know he is, because I’m the one who spoils him. 🙂 I particularly love to buy him new beds, new collars and treats (lots of treats!). He is set with toys. He has a toy basket full and he only plays with them sporadically. He has 3 beds and I would have 5 more if I had room for them, LOL!

This winter has been particularly cold, so I thought it was time for Beau to have a newer, bigger, softer, better blanket. I mean, a dog gets cold in a climate controlled house, you know?!

So, here’s Beau with his new blankie:

Sometimes, we wrap him up so tight, you can barely find him in his new blankie:

On chilly days, when Beau wants to go outside and enjoy the sunshine, his mama thinks he gets cold, so she wraps him up (on his glider), in his new blankie:

Do you think Beau is spoiled? Do you think Beau is loved and well-cared for? I think somebody loves Beau the wonder dog 😀