Exceedingly Mundane

Yes, I’m doing it again. At least some blogging is better than nothing, right?!

The weekend of 10/17-19 was a very busy one as we celebrated my birthday multiple times. Tim took off Friday and we went shopping and out to lunch. I got some clothes and had a Hambrosia sandwich at Steak Escape. We met my side of the family at my favorite Chinese restaurant, Mr Chen’s. We came back to the new house (gotta stop calling it that!) and had a cake I had made on Thursday. Chocolate, with chocolate frosting, which would have been good, except that my OLDER sisters put a great big 5-0 in green dots on top and ruined it 🙁 Saturday, my actual birthday, we got up and went to Tim’s parents house. His mom, Emi and Brittany surprised me when we got there, and they had the house decorated with pink and black balloons and lots of banners 🙂 Linda made my special request, egg custard pie, which my mom used to make for me when I was a teenager and in my early 20’s. I hadn’t had one in probably 15 or 20 years and it was delicious! I quickly learned, however, that no one, not one single person in Tim’s family likes egg custard, so I will never ask for that again. We’ll stick to chocolate which I love equally as much (and most everyone will eat!) 😀 We visited all afternoon and headed home, fairly tired. Our neighbors, Becky and Francis, came over late and brought us cupcakes 🙂 Sunday was church, and our Sunday School party. Come to find out that 10/19 is our co-leader Skip’s birthday, so we had chocolate cake again to celebrate 🙂 I had a great birthday weekend. Tim got me a Kendra Scott necklace (thanks Gail!), some Bath and Body Works, and a 3 month subscription to Harry and David’s “Chocolate of the Month club”. That, by far, is my favorite gift! I was SO hoping for a dog, as I got Beau for my birthday in 2006, but Tim is not ready yet to talk about a dog… sniff sniff.

Monday (10/20), Tim was on vacation again all day (all that shopping Friday wore him out, LOL!). He cut the grass for the first time in the AM. Then his buddy Corey W got here about 11 AM for burgers. They had lunch and visited, and then left to go play golf at Lake Caroline. Ms Maridine, our friend and neighbor from the old subdivision, dropped off her computer for Tim to work on and visited just a few minutes. Suzanne was here a while in the afternoon to say goodbye before her trip Wednesday to Colorado. After Suzie left, I got in the kitchen and made a cake for Becky (new neighbor across the street) for her birthday.

Tuesday was my favorite kind of day, a “hanging out around the house” kind of day. We got Boo’d that evening (someone surprised us with a Halloween basket of goodies and we have to pay it forward to two other unsuspecting neighbors in the next 24-48 hours). Tim grilled out pork chops and salmon Tuesday evening, and I fixed pan roasted potatoes and salad to go with the meat.

Wednesday was another busy “be gone most all day” kind of day. I went to our old subdivision to return Ms Maridine’s computer that Tim fixed. I had to go to the tax collectors office and get a tag for the truck (even though we never received the renewal notice in the mail. Not getting mail is a whole other story, and not a good one). I also went to Walmart and Dollar Tree to fix Boo baskets for two neighbors. Boo’d Tim and Becky and Brian and Jill late afternoon, before they all got home from work (you’re supposed to Boo them when they are home, ring the bell and run, but that won’t work with our setup here, we can easily be spotted!). Tim started installing speakers in the ceiling of the keeping room Wednesday after work. I was staying out of the way, in our room trying to read on my Kindle and it started having problems, freezing, rebooting, having to download the complete library. Then would read a page or two and it would freeze again and start the cycle all over. I tried several things and finally got online about 10 PM and ordered a new Paperwhite, set to be delivered Friday. Sigh. I probably should have called Amazon customer service, but I just wanted it DONE and wanted a new one 🙂

Thursday was another mostly hanging out at home kind of day. Tim finished the speakers in the keeping room Thursday evening. He got his cooker out of the attic and boiled peanuts on the back porch, first time ever trying that (Note to self, 1 hr and 30 minutes in his cooker, lots of salt, turn off and let sit for 45-60 minutes). I made butternut squash soup in the crockpot (for me, Tim won’t touch the stuff) and then fixed breakfast food for both of us for supper. Our new neighbor Autumn brought over “Mississippi Roast” for Tim to try, which of course he did. I didn’t even think twice about making that recipe when I saw it online, because it has pepperoncini peppers in it, and I do NOT do peppers in any form 🙁 Of course, now he’s wanting me to make him one!

Friday, we turned the irrigation system back on and ran the sprinklers in the yard for probably the last time. It’s been cool in the mornings most all week, been in the 40’s but it is warming up again. AT&T Uverse guy came in the AM to replace the wireless receiver in the keeping room that was not working. I waited impatiently all day for my new Kindle to arrive and it was FINALLY delivered by UPS at 3:35. I got it setup and going in about 10 minutes and am happy so far 🙂 Tim offered to take us out to supper, so I didn’t have to cook! We went to Bill’s in Flora and tried it for the first time. Nice laid back atmosphere and good food. We both had fried catfish, next time Tim wants to try a steak and I may get either fried shrimp or shrimp and grits. We stopped at the new Livingston Mercantile on the way home to look around, as it has just recently opened. Bought a Sasparilla drink to try, something new. Came home and watched TV in the keeping room!

Saturday was a GREAT day! We slept a little late (getting too old to sleep very late, I keep waking up!) and then went for an exploratory walk in subdivision. We looked at several houses, stopped at the clubhouse to visit with Bradley, Kelly, Cage and Hutt. Then, we walked around the new area, just dirt before paving the new area behind us. We got back late morning, almost too late for breakfast, but I just called it brunch and fixed us some eggs, bacon and grits 🙂 We hung out in the keeping room a while to watch some TV and part of the movie Frozen. We worked around the house and watched college football most all day. Tim fixed us some salsa and queso for snacking on, I miss his salsa!

Sunday was another busy day. Church, still in the series “Next: A Study of Joshua” and then our Sunday School group. We couldn’t stay and visit, had to hurry and drive downtown to Sal and Mookie’s and meet Don, Gail and Elizabeth for a birthday lunch for Elizabeth. We had extremely slow service and ending up being there over 2 hours. Gail and Liz shared a pizza, Don and Tim got burgers and I had a grilled shrimp panini. After, everyone came here for the strawberry birthday cake (Liz’s favorite) Gail brought and ice cream. Gail and Don stayed and visited until dark, and Liz stayed for the game and to spend the night. The Saints beat the Packers (finally, they seem to only win at home!) on Sunday Night Football. Elizabeth got up early and left for school from here. We are SO glad she is coming to see us more in the new house 🙂

Monday (10/27) was a busy day with contractors at the house. Tim is back on the bandwagon with getting sub-contractors back here for items on the punch list. The electrical contractors came and fixed the items on their list, including getting the oven moved so there was no gap. Josh the trim guy came and knocked out a lot of items, including my drying rod, robe hooks and towel bar. He also worked on the front door lock, but couldn’t get it fixed. I got online and pre-ordered the new Amazon Fire stick since we have the TV setup now in the keeping room, but it’s not a smart TV like we have in the great room. That will let us watch streaming stuff through Amazon Prime in the keeping room. It won’t come in until December, but I guess that will be like a Christmas happy! LOL! For supper, we had leftover pulled pork (from Sunday night’s Saints game I had fixed) along with the homemade buns I made Monday. Lots of leftovers here 🙂

Tuesday (today, whew, finally caught up!), I got up and went walking, about 3.4 miles. Right after I got back, the plantation shutter guys came. We had been waiting since mid-September on the shutters, and when they came, he said, “this can be good or this can be bad”. Tim was like, did we get blue shutters, trying to make a joke. Then he proceeded to tell us that they had ordered the wrong CUSTOM shutters, and would offer us a $500 discount if we would accept them; if not, we’d have to wait another 8 weeks for them to order them again. They were NOT what I wanted, not what we ordered, so we are going to wait. Sigh. Tim and I are both very disappointed 🙁 The plumber also came by, to work on the drain problem with Tim’s copper sink. The insulation guy came by, but we couldn’t convince him we needed more insulation in one area of the attic, where the house seems to be getting a lot hotter. Sigh. I guess it’s always something with houses, new or old!

OK, I guess I’ll try once again to “regular” blog and not this daily running diary format. I don’t have a lot of hope in that right now! Halloween (this Friday) is going to be busy this year! We are so excited to be having a lot of people coming, should be about 17 of us if everyone comes who says they are. I’ll be busy with that Friday and probably doing last minute food shopping on Thursday. Not sure about this weekend, maybe I’ll do another diary post soon! 😀

Ha! So I can remember everything that is going on 🙂 I guess I really should make these private, but oh well! Here’s my diary for the week 😀

Monday was busy, we had the glass guys here and they got the three new windows installed on our current house. Tim is still painting the office, but finished up the guest bedroom after the windows were in. He’s still painting late into the night, unless he has to do work “work”. 🙂

Tuesday we hung the new custom blind in the guest bedroom. I could be heard muttering repeatedly “this looks good, why didn’t we do this YEARS ago”? Tim finished up painting in the office. Also touched up window sills in the kitchen and breakfast room and repainted the inside of the back door. I cleaned every kitchen cabinet and drawer with those Mr Clean Magic Erasers. Nearly went through two boxes, those things disintegrate!

Wednesday was a yard day. I spent a couple of hours in the morning watering grass, then at lunch, Tim finished trimming bushes. I cleaned up behind him for nearly 2 hours. Keep in mind, the temps were in the high 90’s and heat indexes in the low 100’s and we were out in midday. Yikes. Wednesday evening, Elizabeth stopped by for a bite to eat, so we had an early supper. I left the dishes and we headed to Lowe’s to get another blind (the first one we bought for the kitchen didn’t fit), some pine straw and a couple of other items to use around the current house. After we got back from Lowe’s, Suzanne came over about 7:30 PM and stayed till my bedtime! She is having a better week, she said, and doing well in therapy. I think it helps her to talk about stuff.

Thursday was another busy work day for Tim, but he didn’t work too late. The flooring guys had told him that we had to stay out of the house until Thursday PM, so we couldn’t wait any longer! We loaded up another load for the storage unit, and dropped that off. It was lightening really bad, but it never rained on us at either house. The floors in the new house look great! We were surprised to see a lot more done, the sod was laid, the fence posts were up (no boards yet), and electricity was on in the house! We were able to play with lights and fans 🙂 After we looked around and took photos, we drove through Chick-Fil-A for late supper on the way back.

Friday was the second meeting with the realtor, Kristi. She came late morning and we signed the paperwork. She planned to come Saturday while we were gone to take photos and get the sign in the yard. It’s official now! Our current house is for sale and we are counting down the days to close and move into the new one. After the realtor left, I went to Kroger for food for us and stuff to take Saturday for Linda’s birthday. After work, Tim took me out on a date to McAlisters, since I wanted to eat light. I had their pecan berry salad, which was delicious. Tim had a grilled chipotle chicken sandwich. After we ate, we ran to Lowe’s for a new American flag and a couple more items and to Walmart to look for a cake for Linda (I didn’t like the choices at Kroger). The lady who writes on the cakes had already left for the night, so I had to run back Saturday morning and get the birthday cake.

Saturday was a busy day, but nice that it was the first time we’ve taken a break from working on the house since July 4th. Tim has worked every night and every Saturday since then on the house. Saturday was Linda’s 65th birthday, so we headed over to celebrate with the whole family. Tim was busy before we left, putting out new pine straw, hanging the American flag, changing out a receptacle and a few other last minute touches. We left mid morning and had lunch with the whole family – burgers, hot dogs, sausage dogs, potato salad, baked beans, greens and birthday cake with ice cream. We had a great day, visiting with Linda, Mitchell, Mark and family, Terry and family (Zack came and brought Kelli and Brittany and David were there too). Jackie, Stephanie, Ramsey, Leila and Rylan came to eat and visit. Mid afternoon, we all went to see the new store Terry is building. We got home in time for me to make ham and cheese paninis and us watch the Saints 3rd preseason game on TV. Oh, and when we drove up, there was a For Sale sign in the yard and a lockbox on the door. Starting to sink in now 🙂

Sunday was probably the busiest day of the week! It started out with church (still in sermon series: All In, this week focused on Matthew 13:44-46 and Matthew 6:33, and the symbol was a treasure chest). Had a really good Sunday School, more people there than in weeks past (and lots of new ones to us), and we focused on Psalm 104:1-5. “Everything in creation is the work of God who loves us”. We visited with another couple after Sunday School, then left headed to lunch. We knew Terry and Emi were coming to shop and thought we would catch up with them at Dogwood for lunch, so we headed that way. Then when we got them on the phone, they were at Northpark and not hungry, LOL! So we stopped at Applebee’s on Lake Harbor and had a nice lunch. I had the Bourbon Street chicken and shrimp with a caesar salad, and Tim had a 9 oz sirloin with veggies and a salad. It was really good and we had a nice lunch together. We met up with Terry, Emi and Zack after that. I picked up a couple of pieces of clothing while out, skirt and shirt for late summer and a jacket and sweater for fall. After that, we ran to the new house, where we met one of our neighbors (Ms Maridine) who wanted to see the house. We stayed a while and looked around and then visited with more neighbors. Got to meet the Williams down the street, very sweet couple with two young boys.

Now, it’s Monday and the day count is at 16 days and counting. We have the first showing on the old house tomorrow evening, Tuesday. Let’s hope this one sells quickly and painlessly! I’m glad I don’t have to keep the house “show ready” for any longer than I have to. It’s already a bit hard to keep it clean and so many things picked up, it’s hard to live and work and cook here with everything put out of sight. Plus, I still have most of the kitchen to pack. Guess that’s the goal for this week, start in hot and heavy packing the kitchen 🙁

Hope everyone had a great week and weekend! Here’s to the week leading up to Labor Day! 😀

Well, I haven’t posted in two weeks. Our server was down for a few days. I’m not exactly sure what was wrong, but Tim did a lot of work on it, and things are mostly back to normal. I think he swapped out the power supply, and also had to rebuild stuff on one of the hard drives.

I never blogged about my birthday, now nearly 2 weeks ago. It was a quiet day. I understand fully now what my mom always said when I was young and growing up. I always got so excited about my birthday, and others too, and my mom would always chant “it’s just another day”. I thought she was so silly. And now, I totally understand! They don’t hold the same appeal as they did in years past! This year was very low-key. I stayed home and watched some tv, played on the computer and read a little. Tim gave me two things from a list I had given him, some perfume and a Wusthof santoku chef’s knife. I had kidded him for a while that he had run out of electronics to give me. I’ve got the Mac, I got a Kindle and then last year an iPad, so he was out of tech toys to give me, LOL!

Gail came late in the day and brought a birthday cake! No one ever makes me a cake, so that was a nice surprise 🙂 It was delicious too! Chocolate with a chocolate glaze, that’s just perfect in my book. We grilled out, some ribeyes and some salmon strips, and had sweet potatoes, homemade bread and a big salad. I couldn’t have had a better meal out in a nice restaurant, it was delicious.

Friday after my birthday, Tim was off again, but his golf course was closed because they were hosting the PGA Q-school there all week. Gail stayed and left around noon, then Tim and I headed out to run some errands. I had wanted to do our Operation Christmas Child boxes, so we went to the dollar store and had fun shopping for one box for a boy and one for a girl. Maybe next year we’ll do more, they were fun! We stopped at Party City to get some Halloween stuff, then went to Newk’s for a late lunch. Gail was still in town running errands, so she came and met us. I had lobster bisque and a salad (I love going on Friday when they have that soup!). After Newk’s, we went to Walmart to get a bunch of items and headed home. Our neighbor had left us a note that she got a new TV, so we headed over to setup her new tv and DVR. Always good to be able to help people out 🙂

Saturday, we were supposed to hang out all day with Mark and Amanda and the kids, but Mark had a problem at work and they couldn’t make it. So, we slept in and then headed to the Ridgeland Multi-Purpose trail for a walk. The weather was beautiful and we walked a long way – nearly 7 miles by the time we got back to the truck. Beau loved it though, he was so happy! Afterwards, we were headed to get the truck washed, and on the way, we saw signs for a fundraiser from the Lions Club. We stopped and got two bbq chicken dinners (which Tim ate, one on Sat and the other after church on Sunday) and then came home and rested! Sunday was church, then we stopped at Fresh Market afterwards so I could get sushi. I also splurged and got some late season figs, they were so good 🙂

To be continued in the next post!

Hard to believe it’s Friday… another week has flown by. I had to hear on the news that it is indeed Friday the 13th, and the third one we have had this year (apparently a bit rare). There was one in January and another in April. We appear to be clear now for superstitious days through the end of the year! 🙂

In the news… Tom Cruise is divorcing Katie Holmes. Yeah, I’m thinking Scientology and their control of that child might have had a bit to do with it. Presidential politics is on daily – Barak Obama will run against Mitt Romney in November. Steven Tyler and J Lo are leaving Idol.

Local news … our local paper is raising rates and also going to stop allowing “free” access to their website. Boo. Hiss. I guess I’ll follow the local news stations on Twitter and check out their Facebook pages more.

Local weather … we’ve had a nice, cooler, wetter week. It’s rained almost every day. Tim has not played golf at all this week. It’s been nice for me, but sheer torture for him.

Tomorrow is Tim’s brother Mark’s birthday… Happy Birthday Mark! We need to get him on Facebook or Twitter so we can talk to him. 🙂 We need to get Tim’s other brother Terry onto the Internet, email and Facebook. He doesn’t have a computer or email, so he’s REALLY hard to get in touch with, LOL! I think they actually expect us to pick up a real phone and dial them or something, hahaha!

Oh, and a bit of aggravating news for me. The 10 pounds I had lost late last year before my colonoscopy have now all returned. Boo. Bad Stacy. Nothing like eating more carbs, bread, sweets, ice cream, etc to really pack the pounds back on. I need to get back to more veggies and less fattening stuff.

UPDATE: And right after I posted this, it came across the news that our favorite quarterback, Drew Brees, FINALLY signed his contract with the Saints today. Whew. Now we can rest easy and know that he’ll be in camp and heading up our offense this fall. Good thing, since we’ve lost so many players and our coach this year, to the much publicized “BountyGate”. 🙂

You know what they say about the best of intentions? Yes, that was me a couple of months ago when I thought I was back into blogging. Oh well, I really have been meaning to update the old blog! I actually don’t know where to start 🙂

Since I blogged last, we’ve been busy! We have:

gone to our great-nephew Sam’s 3rd birthday party
Tim hurt his back and was out of commission for a short while
I’ve had a birthday (and got a Kindle!)
my sister Gail ran her second 5K
Had Halloween at our house and went trick or treating with small kids for the first time
my sister Suzanne came to visit from Florida
I went to my yearly doctor visit and found out my cholesterol is high (ugh)
I’ve been trying to cook and eat better (haha!)

and now… we’re about to have Thanksgiving and Tim’s birthday. A lot going on, and I’d like to record some of it to remember, but a lot of it is “old news” by now!

Let’s start here – I wrote this post a couple months ago about a prize I won online. I watch the Rachael Ray show pretty regularly, and try to enter most of the contests they offer online. I won a nice prize, a Shark Pocket Steam Mop, and it came in a couple of weeks after they notified me that I had won. It was very cool, because it was delivered the morning that I clean our floors in the kitchen and breakfast room. I already had the room empty, swept and ready to mop when the doorbell rang!

So, I gave it a good test and I have to say, I really like using an electric steam mop as opposed to a wet mop. It uses just water, so I no longer use chemicals on my floor. The pads are interchangeable (it has 3 sizes of “heads”, one regular, one extra large, and one triangular which is great in the bathrooms) and you can wash the microfiber covers. They’re white, so you can REALLY see what dirt is coming up off your floors. The best thing, hands down, about using this steam mop is how quickly the floor dries. It’s dry just a couple of minutes after I mop over it. I love it 🙂

I’ll try to update soon with a picture of my Kindle and the cute case I ordered for it, and blog about that soon. I might update with some photos of family events, but then again, I may just put them on Flickr.

Hope everyone is having a great day, week, and great fall! 😀

Well, here I am, falling behind on blogging again! I have lots of things to share, but I can’t seem to sit at the computer and get them translated into any kind of “meaningful” blog post, hahaha! Most recently would be my birthday, but shhhhh, we don’t have to talk about just how old I really am! 😀

I had a nice birthday this year, although very low-key. Tim took me out to eat (dinner at Chili’s, lunch at Zaxby’s), and let me pick out whatever I wanted for my birthday. He wanted to buy me a camera (and I just might “let” him get it for me soon), but I didn’t think I needed another camera. I have a wonderful digital Rebel that he got me a couple of years ago for my birthday, but it is heavy and sometimes cumbersome to lug around. He wanted to get me just a small point and shoot to keep in my purse, and after thinking about it and “chewing” on it for a while, I think I might ask for it as a belated gift, after all 🙂

While we were out shopping the day before my birthday, he asked what I wanted and I said, well, if I see something I like, let’s just get that. So, that’s what we did! I got a book I wanted (the new Nicholas Sparks, “The Last Song”), and a warm fuzzy blanket to wrap up in now that it’s feeling more like fall around here. I also got this:

It’s not a Le Crueset, although I had mentioned to him a while back that one day I’d like to splurge and get a red one. He said, I’ll get you that if you want, but I just don’t see paying 250 bucks for one of those. And he’s right. And I’m sure this one will be great, and I can replace it several times over if it doesn’t hold up like the name brand one. This one came from Sam’s, and we usually have really good luck with the things we buy in there!

Also, on the day of my birthday, he sneaked off to Fresh Market and got these for me:

My birthday was on a Sunday this year, and our beloved Saints were playing a big game against the Giants. I kidded Tim all week that I was going to tweet Drew Brees and ask him to be sure and win on Sunday, since it was my birthday, LOL! I didn’t but they did pull out a win, going 5-0 for the first time since 1993. For this converted Saints fan, that was a pretty nice gift too!

Back soon (hopefully), with another post. Hope everyone is having a great day, and week 🙂