Exceedingly Mundane

Been awhile since my last post. Lots of topics I could post about. I’m going to *try* to be better about blogging, but we’ll see. I seem to be enjoying the “micro-blogging” of Twitter and Facebook status updates better lately. Easier to be brief and just as mundane 😀

Anyway, thought I’d jump back in the fray with a post about our credit card woes. Like most of America, we have a couple of cards that we use regularly. We don’t carry credit card debt, so we’re very lucky in that respect. I monitor and pay our credit cards online and it’s usually a very seamless process.

About 3 or 4 weeks ago, I noticed a charge on our account that did not belong to us. Just one, for about $120 dollars. No others before or since. I called the credit card company then to dispute it, and they issued me a temporary credit while they investigated the matter. I noticed today that the charge was back with a note of “reversal of credit” beside the line item. Sigh. So, after a lengthy call, they have closed our account due to “fraud”. What I want to know is how or why someone in a totally different state is charging their electric utility bill to my credit card? Or why they can’t just stop it without closing my account and issuing me a new account number and cards? I know it’s a small price to pay, but it is inconvenient to have to wait on a new card to arrive in the mail and be without it for a week or two. It’s also going to be inconvenient to notify every company and account that I have tied to this card, online and brick and mortar and get a new number established. Oh well, it could be much worse. Our card was not stolen and there was only the one charge. 🙂

So, how about you? Have you ever had trouble with your credit cards? Vote in the poll or leave me a comment. Oh, and have a great day!!!!

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Or at least, washing dishes is fun for a few days, LOL!

The sprayer on my kitchen sink broke in early December, and I told Tim we should just wait till after Christmas to replace it. That led to early February, but it all worked out really well for me. We looked at Lowe’s and didn’t see just a replacement sprayer (although Tim told me later he did find one), so we decided to get a whole new faucet set. My sink and faucet are original to the house, so they are over 15 years old. One of us said something to the effect of “it sure would be a shame to put a nice, shiny new faucet on that old, scratched up, rusted sink”. I can’t remember who said that at the moment 😀 Anyway, I picked out a new sink too. I really like being able to pick out fixtures and lighting and stuff to replace what we have here. Everything put in by the builder was the lowest level possible, so now I have a nicer sink, two inches deeper, and a nicer faucet that doesn’t leak, with a sprayer that works. Ah, washing dishes is fun again!

Here’s the old one:

And the nice shiny new one:

So, that leads to an unusual Question of the Day: Do you have a good cleaner for stainless steel? Or any tricks to keeping my new sink as clean and shiny and protected for as long as possible? I have always used BarKeeper’s Friend (a powder, sort of like Comet) or SoftScrub on my sink, but I’m wondering if I should be using something else. Something for stainless or something special for sinks. It sure has a lot of water spots all the time!

Leave me a comment and let me know if you have any tips or suggestions on keeping a stainless steel sink clean. And have a great day!

Do any of you keep an inventory of certain items in your home? Do you have some type of inventory system, or a video recording, of your possessions in case of theft or fire? We did this years ago, but really need to update it.

I also want to do an updated inventory of some of the things we own, like books, movies and games. Years ago, I downloaded a free movie inventory system, since we had started buying quite a few VHS and then DVD movies. When I got my laptop a couple of years ago with Vista on it, I never could get that old program to run on it. So, me being the procrastinator that I am, I never got it updated and never got it running on my new computer. I decided this week that I would work on rectifying that. I found a free program online to download, and I downloaded it last night to my laptop. I don’t know if I will like it or if it will work for us, but so far it looks pretty good. It can keep track of books, movies, games and cd’s. I am keeping an inventory of the books we own at GoodReads.com, but I am going to try to get this program updated with our movies and games (since we got the Wii last year, we’ve bought a few games). It’s that time of year, you know. I always get a bit of the organizing, cleaning up, throwing out, decluttering vibe going this time of year, in January 😀

How about you? Do you have a listing of any of these at your house? Whether in a Quicken inventory type system, on a video recording for insurance purposes, or just a list in Word or Excel? Or are you not like us, and you don’t have a lot of books, movies, games, and music CD’s peeking out of every corner of your house?! Leave me a comment and let me know. I’ll be busy entering books, movies and games into my new inventory system 🙄

Have a great day 🙂

I really like doing jigsaw puzzles around the holidays. They’re cheap, they’re fun, and they are really good for someone like my darling husband (who is very driven, and likes to work on things until they are completed. In other words, type A) 🙂

Here’s the one we did this year. It’s a 1000 piece puzzle, and I must admit that Tim did way more than half of it. It took us a little longer than normal to finish, since we were gone a couple of days over the long holiday weekend. It felt like a big achievement when we finally put in the last piece yesterday!

Isn't it pretty?!

So, how about you? Do you enjoy puzzles of any kind? Jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzles, Sudoku, or any other kind of puzzle game? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Today’s Christmas-themed “Question of the Day” is an easy one! It’s all about the presents or gifts under your tree. Do you wrap more presents using wrapping paper or do you use more gift bags? Do you try to wrap your presents as you go, or do you have one marathon wrapping session? Does your wrapping paper have a color theme or other theme? Or is it a mish-mash of colors, patterns and styles?

Here’s my answers – I try to wrap most of my presents, and I use an assortment of paper. Not the expensive stuff, or something with a nice coordinating theme. I buy a lot of paper from Walmart and Target the day-after Christmas and put it up for the next year. It’s whatever colors or patterns or paper catch my eye. It’s a total riot of color under my tree, not well-coordinated at all 😀 I try to wrap as I go, but I usually end up having at least one marathon wrapping session. I like to put on a Christmas movie and wrap while watching one of my favorite classics. Tim will help if I ask him – he’s good about doing the paper, then I do the bows, tags, etc. He won’t volunteer but he will help if I ask 🙂 I usually end up putting a couple of things in gift bags, but I try not to overdo it on the bags. I think it’s more fun to unwrap something on Christmas morning, rather than just opening the top of a bag and finding the present under a layer of tissue paper.

Oh, and for the record, I have only wrapped one present so far this year. I hope to get started today. The weather is dreary (raining and sleeting, we were supposed to get snow flurries, but so far, nada) and it’s a good day to stay inside and try to wrap some presents.

How about you? Do you have a well-coordinated tree as far as the presents and gifts go? Are there a lot of bags under your tree? Are you up late on Christmas Eve, still trying to wrap everything and get it under the tree, or do you have yours wrapped a couple of weeks (or months?!) ahead of time? Leave me a comment and let me know!

It seems that the only thing I post about lately is either a Question of the Day or a poll, but hey, they’re fun and I enjoy doing them! I really enjoyed reading everyone’s answers on last week’s Thanksgiving polls. We had a really good Thanksgiving. My dad stayed with us for four days, and then we celebrated Tim’s birthday over the weekend. Needless to say, we’ve been really busy.

I took a lot of photos over Thanksgiving and have posted some on my Flickr account. Family shots 😀

So, since Christmas is just a couple of weeks away, and I have yet to buy the first present, I thought I’d at least try to get my decorations up. I got my Snow Village put up on Friday, and Sunday night, I worked on the tree. We still have the outside decorations and lights to do, but I’m not sure they’re going to get done this year. Tim does those, most of them on a ladder, and he’s feeling quite a bit of pain in his back and shoulder. He’s not sure if he pulled a muscle or has a pinched nerve (I personally think he swings a golf club entirely too much, LOL!), but it hurts from his neck down to his shoulders and upper back. So, the outside lights might not get up for a while, if at all 🙁

While I was getting ready to put up our tree (yes, it’s artificial), I had to move furniture. It made me wonder – does anyone else have to move things around to put up a Christmas tree? So, that’s today’s Question of the Day — do you have to move furniture or other stuff to make room for your tree, or any of your Christmas decorations? Leave me a comment and let me know!

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’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!

Everyone knows that old saying – An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Luckily, I have always liked apples, and along with bananas, they are a fairly year-round fruit in our house. I’m trying to eat more apples lately, especially at this time of the year. Something about fall makes me want to buy and eat apples. I have made 2 batches of Crockpot Applesauce lately and have been loving that.

So today’s Question of the Day is all about apples. Do you have a favorite kind of apple? Do you like sweet apples or tart apples? Do you only like your apples in something else or not at all? Tim and I differ on apples. He likes the sweet red ones, like a good Fuji or Gala. I like the tart green Granny Smith ones. But this time of year, I love to buy HoneyCrisp apples. They are a fairly recent discovery, either last fall or the year before, and I only heard about them on a blog. I wish I could remember whose! I do like those though and found some really good ones recently at our Fresh Market.

How about you, what kind of apple do you like? Leave me a comment and answer today’s QOTD! 🙂

P.S. Thanks to Michelle for suggesting this for a QOTD!