Exceedingly Mundane

Anyone remember that old song, Rubber Band Man? Geesh, I think that’s the title. I can hear the melody in my head, which probably means it will be stuck there all day 🙂

I’ve had a “rubber band ball” for at least twenty years. I kept one in one of my deep drawers at work for years, and I have had one at home for the longest time. Don’t ask me why I keep rubber bands, but I do, and twistie ties too 🙂

I’ve been doing a lot of decluttering lately (more on that in a coming post). One of the things I cleaned out was one of the two junk drawers in my kitchen. I started with the smaller one, naturally! I found this nice Oxo drawer organizer at Marshall’s and bought it. But, my rubber band ball doesn’t fit in the drawer any more, it had gotten too big. So, I had to let go of it (although, currently, it’s in Beau’s toy box!).

Here’s my rubberband ball:

A picture of Beau playing with it, he was really confused by it, it’s heavy and bounces really funny!

And one of the final product of the junk drawer (sorry, didn’t take a “before photo”, but believe me, it was messier than this!):

It’s actually nice to open that drawer and look for something now!

I love this picture I took recently of Beau laying at the back door, in sunshine and shadow:

He’s my sweet baby 😀

Since I don’t have cute kids to post pictures and videos of, you have to see my furry child. 🙂

I told Tim not more than 10 days after we picked up Beau from the foster home where he was living, that I was so glad that we got a dog with “extra personality”. Beau is a very vocal dog. It’s funny, because the couple at the foster home told us, he never barks, he’s very quiet. Good grief, they could not have been more wrong! Beau barks all.the.time. He speaks all.the.time. He’s a very vocal dog. And we LOVE IT!

Usually, when I get out the camera or camcorder, he shuts up. But a week or so ago, he kept going, even after I turned on the camcorder. The video is a little over a minute long. Probably too long for most of you, but at least give it a few seconds. You can hear Tim in the background offering a running commentary:

“Oh be quiet”
“What are you doing?
“You’re not worth nothing!!”
“Oh good gracious”
And my favorite at the end … “Do you want a treat?” – to which Beau responds by whipping his head around so fast, he must have given himself whiplash! 😀

Here’s my sweet Beau, having a grand ole time 🙂

I gave Tim a new gadget this year for Christmas – a Flip video camera. It’s very small, and it was really sort of a selfish gift – I think I’m going to use it as much as Tim! Tim is always wanting me to tape his golf swing. He analyzes it on the computer, and then works on his swing with various clubs. I have an older Kodak camera that takes MPEG’s and we have a very old handheld camcorder, that uses Hi8 tape (so of course, he can’t use that with the computer). I got him the Flip Video because it is really small, and it has a nice little pop-out USB connector on it (which plugs right into the computer, or we can use the cables to hook it up to the plasma tv and watch the videos on the big screen). However, as I said, it was sort of a selfish gift. I thought I *might* use it sometimes to take videos of Beau. And of course, at family get-togethers and birthday parties and such. So, really, it was sort of a gift for both of us. 🙄

Guess what I have more videos of than anything? Yep, you guessed it – Beau. I only uploaded a couple, and I’m hoping they work. I have steadfastly refused to setup an account at YouTube so far, but I may have to do that soon. I’m trying to get these to work from Google Video. Please let me know if you have any trouble viewing these videos. If you even want to look at them. After all, he’s just a dog. He’s our furry child, but he is just a dog. 🙂

These are a LOT more pixelated and blurry looking online than they are on my computer. Oh well, you get the general idea. First, here’s Beau playing in the leaves a few days after Christmas. I uploaded it but forgot to post it!

Beau playing on his old bed, rolling around like a crazy dog. He does this a lot! (Note: Longest Video)

Beau playing with his new new Wubba (and Tim!) – he uses all his paws. Only fair!

P.S. My blog buddy, Desert Songbird, requested new photos of Beau, so I thought I’d try this. I can post photos of him too though. I still take tons of photos of him. Poor thing. He’s getting old. I found the first couple of grey hairs on his muzzle the other day. I nearly cried. I don’t want my puppy dog to grow up and grow old 🙁

Beau is the coolest dog around!

Lest you think this was an easy photo to get, think again! Beau does not like anything on him. He tolerates a collar but that’s it. I’ve bought him bandannas and scarves and camouflage vests for hunting, and even some cute reindeer antlers for Christmas. He doesn’t like anything on his head or body. If he keeps it on two seconds, it’s a LONG time. 🙂 He tolerated Tim’s sunglasses for a second or two this weekend though, long enough for me to snap these! 😀

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…

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!

What goes up, must come down. And so it goes after a really nice birthday weekend, after Tim got me lots of great stuff, let me pick where to eat out two nights in a row (calories, oh the calories!), and I generally had a lovely time. Alas, it’s back to normal now 🙂

* The weather here is wonderful. Almost fall-like! Upper 40’s or low 50’s at night, and 70’s during the day is wonderful for us. I’ve turned the A/C off and am opening the windows as much as possible. We haven’t turned the heat on yet, and I hope to prolong that as long as possible. Our electric and gas bill might look a smidge better!

* Monday 10/20 marked the two year anniversary of the day we first saw Beau and brought him home to be ours! Poor thing, he had to celebrate by going to the vet for his yearly check-up. Overall, he’s healthy and he’s such a good boy when we go in, they all comment about it. But he has persistent ear infections that we all thought were caused by food allergies. After taking another culture and examining him head to toe, his vet now thinks it could be something else, either a thyroid problem or just a nasty infection we can’t get rid of. So, we’ve got an oral antibiotic to give him for two weeks, and a newly mixed set of ear drops that have to be put in his poor ears for 7 days. I hope that helps. He has seriously had dirty, bothersome ears since the day we adopted him. But overall, I think he’s healthy and happy. I know he’s happy! We talk about it all the time – how much joy he brings to our lives, what a wonderful dog he is, how much he’s learned, and how well he’s adapted to our routines and what we ask of him. Beau no longer gets car sick, hooray! He’s eating 1-3 bowls of dry food a day, although he hasn’t gained any weight (all that running around and exercise with Tim). His favorite thing to do is hunt squirrels and lizards. His second favorite thing to do is to go to the golf course with Tim. He pulls the hand cart that holds Tim’s golf clubs and bag and walks with Tim for 18 holes. Tim says he LOVES it! I want Tim to take him hunting this winter, and I think that will become his new favorite thing 🙂

* I have a jury summons for next week. 🙁 At least it’s only for a week this time, and not a month like last time when I had a federal summons. So, if I don’t post much next week, you’ll know why…

* Our cable/DVR is through Comcast, and they finally got around to scheduling the On-Demand updates here. They warned us that they would wipe out our DVR and start over. I got up this morning (they were supposed to do it all last night) and nothing has changed. The good news is that they haven’t erased our DVR yet, but we don’t have the new On Demand stuff either. I wish they’d go ahead and do it – setting up all of our shows to record is going to be a pain. I seriously don’t know how we lived without a DVR for so long, we both love that thing to death. Greatest invention in a long time 😀

* I got a new Wii game for my birthday. I wanted to try to get one that I *might* be good at. Every game I get, Tim is wonderful at, right away, and blows me away. I think it’s just a guy thing – guys are just a lot better at video games. So, I asked for (and bought myself!) Dance Dance Revolution 2. I tried it a little and let me tell you – I have got to be the most uncoordinated person on the planet. I don’t know if I’m ever going to figure that game out. Plus, apparently I have zero rhythm. 🙁

Hope you have a great day – thanks for stopping by to visit! 😀