Exceedingly Mundane

Time for another Question of the Day! Do you take your car to the car wash? Do you wash it yourself at home? Does someone else wash it for you? (This sounds like a good job for teens and pre-teens!) Do you pull through an automated place or drive up to one where you get out and wand that sucker yourself? LOL! Or do you never wash your car?! 😀

I admit, we don’t wash our cars very often. One vehicle sits out all the time, so it gets rained on, but it does pick up pollen and stuff. The other stays in a garage and doesn’t get that dirty. Neither Tim nor I really like washing cars. Years ago, when we were first married, we would get out on the driveway, with the hose and some car wash detergent, and wash them ourselves. It’s either age or laziness or something, because these days, we drive them to one of the local drive through places that has the automated machines that wash it for you. It’s more expensive, yes, but it certainly is very convenient! As I said, we don’t wash them a lot, so we don’t spend too much money on this particular endeavor!

Tim worked on our vehicles on Saturday. He changed the oil in both (that saves us a TON of money, him doing it rather than taking it in to a car care place), and he also rotated the tires on both vehicles. Tim grew up working on cars and farm equipment, so he’s incredibly handy in that way. It is a wonderful trait to have in a husband, believe me! 😀 Anyway, we took both of them to a drive-through car wash place ($10 each), and got them both cleaned up. They’re all shiny and clean, and set for a while.

How about you? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Is cereal a staple at your house? It is at ours. We have a whole deep drawer devoted to just cereal and granola bars. I’m not sure why I have so much space devoted to one food category, or why we keep so much cereal. Probably because I’m all about options and having choices. I really could probably use that space more wisely and efficiently for something else 😀

I eat a lot less cereal than I used to. I have made a concerted effort to transition to oatmeal in the last couple of years, to try to keep my cholesterol numbers down. I try to eat oatmeal 6 or sometimes 7 days a week, most of the year. It’s really easy in the winter. July and August are a little harder, although I usually succeed. Most of the time, I “splurge” on Sunday mornings and have a bowl of cereal before early church. It takes less time and gives me enough energy to get through church. I tried skipping breakfast a couple of mornings, and got dizzy one time, getting up and down to sing during church. Now, I make sure to eat something!

Tim is a breakfast kind of guy. But not cereal. He grew up with his mom fixing him a “big breakfast” before he left on the school bus. Tim’s idea of breakfast is biscuits, eggs, bacon or sausage, and grits. Every. Single. Morning. Me, I can’t cook very well when I’m sleepy and I just don’t think it’s that healthy to eat that every day, first thing. So, he’s had to compromise over the years, and eat breakfast for dinner about once every week or so. In the mornings, he’s pretty much stuck with cereal or oatmeal.

I only buy “semi-healthy” cereal. I keep cornflakes, for when we have bananas (or I need them for a coating of some kind). I keep Raisin Bran Crunch for Tim, and two kinds of Cheerios for me (he eats them sometimes too). I also keep granola bars for Tim, he likes to take them to the golf course. 🙂

So, are you a cereal eater? Do you stick to one kind or do you like options or variety? Do you eat the sugary, good kind from childhood (Fruit Loops, Cocoa Pebbles, etc), or have you switched to a semi-healthy kind as an adult? Leave me a comment and let me know!

I wish I had something exciting to blog about. Here we are already half way through February, and it seems like just yesterday we were getting ready for the holidays! Time really does fly!

Let’s see:

* We never do much for Valentines Day. In the early years of being married, we both went all out (although Tim only did so, to make me happy). I was cleaning out some stuff in a closet the other day and ran across a box full of cards we sent each other the first couple of years. My goodness, Hallmark and American Greetings made a ton of money off of us, LOL! The longer we’ve been married, the more I’ve come around to Tim’s way of thinking. He loves me 365 days a year and doesn’t need a certain day to tell me or show me. He’s wonderful about doing it every day. I don’t want to wait for a day in mid February to get flowers or chocolates or a nice dinner out. I get those all through the year!

* We got AT&T Uverse installed last week. So far (knock on wood), we really like it! The Internet seems faster (although Tim had to do some work to bypass their combo router/cable modem – our equipment is better and faster and serves our needs, and they try to shut stuff off, which doesn’t work for us). He has everything running now, including all of the stuff for our website (my blog, mail, recipe databases, etc). The cable portion is miles above what we had with Comcast. I can now get all channels in the bedroom (via a second box that is $7 a month). I can watch any show in there from the main DVR, even while he’s watching something in the den. We have all of the channels, and tons more high-def ones than we had before. We’re tv addicts, so we’re both pretty happy!

* A new season of Survivor starts tonight, hooray! We miss Human Target but are enjoying other favorites like NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles, Fringe, White Collar, V, The Mentalist, Hawaii Five 0 and others.

* I’ve been reading more this year than last. I’m slowly adapting to the tinnitus and learning to read with the buzzing in my head. I’m really enjoying my Kindle and all of the free books I have downloaded on it. This year, I hope to surpass my reading goal from last year (the lowest I’ve had since I started keeping track). So far, I’ve read 12 books this year, which is a good start for me. (If you’re interested in what I read, let me know. I use Goodreads, and can hook up with you there). I’m currently reading “A Proper Pursuit” by Lynn Austin, free on my Kindle. And I’m REALLY enjoying it! 🙂

* After really cold temps most of January and February, it feels like spring this week. Last week, we had some ice and snow. The second day, the temperature never got above freezing, so none of it melted. Weird for us. This week, it’s sunny blue skies and temps around 70 degrees! Tim is getting “golf” fever, his version of spring fever. I’ll lose him soon to the lure of the golf course 🙂

* I’ve been making homemade pizzas fairly regularly. I go through phases with my cooking. Otherwise, I’m not a huge cooking kick. I’d like to be making breads and sweets, my favorites, but we’re both trying to watch what we eat and Tim keeps talking me out of brownies and bread 😀 Anyway, this is the last pizza sauce I tried, which we really liked – recipe here. Please note, I don’t claim this to be my recipe, I adapted it from AllRecipes.com. I named it that on our website, to distinguish it from sauces anyone else would enter 😀

* Sadly, there are apparently no Girl Scouts any longer in our neighborhood. They’ve all grown up and no new ones have moved in, apparently. No one rings my door to buy cookies. Sniff sniff. Of course, Tim would guilt me into not buying any, hehehe, so there. 😀

Anything exciting going on out there in blog-land? Just keeping on, keeping on here!

I appear to be a seasonal eater. These days, if we go out to eat lunch or dinner, I seem to want to go somewhere that serves a nice variety of soup choices 🙂 Especially at lunch, I love places that offer a combo of say, soup and a half a sandwich. I guess because we’ve had quite a bit of cold weather lately, I am drawn to soups, both at home and eating out.

In the summer though, I’ll do a salad and a half a sandwich. I love places like Corner Bakery, Newks, Sweet Peppers, McAlisters, etc — good soup/sandwich/salad places. I love paninis and get those a lot. I rarely order a caesar salad, for whatever reason. I also don’t love places that just have iceberg lettuce for their salads. (Have you noticed a trend, I appear to be quite picky!)

I admit, when I eat out, I tend to favor “fattening” foods. Especially this time of year, with soups. Something like a broccoli cheese or a loaded or baked potato soup. Or at Newks on Fridays, my favored lobster bisque. Yummy and fattening. At home, I tend to make a little healthier soup, a turkey or bean chili, a Cooking Light recipe for potato soup, etc.

How about you? Which do you prefer – soup, sandwich or salad? Are you a seasonal eater or does the weather not affect what you eat? Do you have a favorite place to eat this kind of food, and a combination that you like? Leave a comment and let me know!

So, today’s Question of the Day is about dreams. Do you remember your dreams? Do you dream a lot?

Me, I think I’m an oddball. I might dream, but I rarely remember them. I actually don’t think I dream much, but I’m sure, scientifically, I probably do. I am getting to an age now where I rarely sleep through the night. With the tinnitus, once I wake up, I have a really hard time getting back to sleep. But, right when I wake up, I never remember anything about a dream. Only once in a blue moon. If I do, I only remember a tiny bit, just a snippet, not a long or drawn out series of events or something. And mine are usually odd. Like a mixture of something from the distant past, mixed with something recent from my life, or a tv show or movie or something I’ve seen. Like they got thrown in a blender and came out, not making any sense! LOL! 🙂

Tim often tells me about his dreams, he remembers quite a lot. His retelling is pretty vivid and usually full of a lot of detail. And my mother-in-law is the same way. She seems to remember them and be able to recount details of what she dreamed, what she said and did, etc.

What about you? Do you dream a lot and do you remember any of them? Are they good, sweet dreams or really weird dreams?

Six years ago today, I wrote my first post on my little blog. It was just an experiment, something I thought wouldn’t last long. For the longest time, it was just my sisters that came by and visited. Then, slowly, I had other lovely people stop by to visit. Now, six years later, I’m still blogging, which is a bit of a surprise to me! I’ve taken several breaks, some quite long, but I’m still sticking with it. I think it’s a wonderful way to chronicle our lives, share ideas and thoughts, ask fun questions about the things we all have in common and that we’re different about, etc.

Happy Anniversary to my little blog, Exceedingly Mundane 😀