Exceedingly Mundane

Wow, I have REALLY got to start blogging more often. I’m missing recording a lot of what is going on because it is taking me so long to get a post written. Three or four weeks is a lot to catch up on! Of course, it’s because we are staying fairly active (and I’m trying to stay off the computer a bit), is why I’m not able to blog that much. Six one way, half a dozen the other 🙂

Let’s see, I last blogged in late June. It’s now July 16, which means we are just past the half way point of one of my two least favorite months of the year. I lament year in and year out about how much I struggle in July and August. It’s hot, there’s not a lot going on, I’m waiting for football and new tv shows and cooler weather and generally, my favorite time of the year (Labor Day through New Years, including both of our birthdays). At least July appears to be zipping by at a fairly quick rate this year!

We had our yearly big get-together with Tim’s mom’s family on the Fourth of July. We were actually a bit late getting there, and most everyone had already started eating. So a lot of the food I took didn’t get eaten and I didn’t get my camera out to take more than just a couple of random shots of people shoveling food in their faces! It had been raining when we left the house that morning late, and then at Aunt Becky’s, it started raining early afternoon. When we got a break in the rain, we headed out and ended up going to Raymond to Kathryn and Jeremy’s rather than straight home. Gail, Don, Elizabeth and Suzanne had gone there earlier in the day to the parade, which got suspended due to rain, then they all grilled out, played games, etc. They waited on us to go see Kathryn and Jeremy’s new (older) house. It’s in a great location and a great school district and the kids are pretty excited for a new house and yard, and a lake across the street with ducks and geese and fish. Kathryn is not excited about the small kitchen, very old flooring and walls sorely in need of paint. So they are hiring a contractor and having a lot of work done before they move in (knocking down walls, moving appliances in the kitchen, etc). The house has so much potential though, and like I told Kathryn, it will be a home in no time, a place to make more wonderful memories with their kids 🙂 I took the food with me to Kathryn’s and they helped eat the two new things I made (my mom’s fruit, which Gail has made many times but I had not) and a new recipe from Pinterest for an Oreo refrigerator cake. Tim and I got in a little before dark and heard a lot of fireworks in the neighborhood, but didn’t go out to see any. Thankfully, they stopped around 10 or 10:30, unlike New Years where they went off until well after midnight.

Tim had the day off Friday before the 4th on a Saturday, and also took vacation the following Monday, so he had a nice four day weekend. He played golf on Friday morning with his buddies, and I went to Kroger then made food for the big get-together. After he got in and I finished cleaning up the kitchen, we set out to go furniture shopping. I was apparently in a rare mood, a buying mood! That doesn’t happen very often for me when it comes to big decisions or spending more than say $100 bucks 🙂 We went to two places and I actually found stuff at both, but at the second place, we decided to go ahead and get some stuff. We’ve got dining room furniture (table, six chairs and a china cabinet/hutch) and a couple things for the keeping room on order. They had to special order some stuff, so it’s going to take 4-6 weeks to come in. I’m being very patient, waiting on it to come in! Pictures when it does 🙂

We had a good rain on the morning of the Fourth of July, then another rain shower that Sunday (recording this because we haven’t really had any rain since then!). After church on Sunday, we came home and ate some leftovers and then decided to go see a movie. He picked Terminator Genisys (I was surprised, I had been expecting him to pick Jurassic World) and went to Malco to see that. We splurged and got a big tub of popcorn and drinks, and that cost more than the tickets! I was so surprised that the popcorn was not great. First time at that theater, so here’s a note to myself in the future, just get a small bag or smuggle in candy from outside, the popcorn was definitely not worth the 8 bucks or whatever it was for the big tub. Oh, and the movie was good, but I didn’t think it was anything special. Seemed like just another Terminator to me, with a very old Arnold! He had a couple of good lines though, and Tim loved it, so that’s all that matters 🙂

Monday, after the 4th, he took a day of vacation to play golf with Corey and Zack. He told me repeatedly that day and for several days afterward, that he had a bad round of golf and golf had “left a bitter taste in his mouth”! This is *SO* not normal behavior for Tim, but I was determined to enjoy it while it lasted. He didn’t play for the next several days; in fact, I think it was the following Sunday before he went to hit balls! For one thing, he was gearing up for a huge project at work the weekend of the 11-12th. He was working late during the week and just not wanting to play (again, very unusual behavior!). On Friday at around 4:30 PM, they postponed the project for another week, so he is now gearing up for a big weekend of work this weekend (July 18-19). More on that later, he is expecting to be hugely busy.

This past weekend, he had been expecting to work, so we had planned not to be able to go to our niece and nephew’s baptism at their grandparents pool (the Cole’s). I hated to RSVP we weren’t coming and then show up, so we didn’t go. Instead, we went to Canton to explore 🙂 We went to an auto parts place for Tim to get stuff to work on the transmission on the Explorer (turned out to be an easy fix, he just added more transmission fluid), then to the new Walmart they opened last year, and to (of all places) Tractor Supply. We bought a lot of stuff in Tractor Supply! We stopped at the truck stop on the highway on the way back and picked up Arby’s for lunch. He worked on the vehicles, cut the grass and then we had an appointment at the Genuis bar at the Apple Store at 7:40 PM. His grandmother’s iPad was not working and he was fairly sure the display had gone out, but we setup an appointment to go in and see what they said. They concurred and said they do not work on the display, we would just have to get another one. On the way home, we stopped for a slush at Sonic. Tim wants me to figure out how to make them at home, so I’m on a quest to duplicate Sonic’s strawberry slush at home. I plan to try this weekend, after I get a couple things at Kroger tomorrow 🙂

He played golf Sunday, Monday and Wednesday of this week. Wednesday, last night, he called and said one of his golf buddies was having a birthday and his kids were not available to take him out to eat, and we should. I totally agree, no one should have to eat on their birthday by themselves! We all went to Mermaid Cafe and had an excellent dinner. Tim had the stuffed catfish and I had sautéed shrimp over angel hair pasta. I told Tim, you can tell it’s good because I’m eating the green olives and tomatoes, two foods I don’t normally consume! We had the “Gia Gia” pie (which they pronounced ya-ya) for dessert. It was all good and I think his buddy enjoyed hanging out, even on his birthday 🙂

On the mundane side of things, I’ve been cooking, although making a concerted effort to cook less. I’ve been reading books, and we’ve been watching tv and movies. Today, the (British) Open started (golf) and of course, Tim is hugely excited for that 🙂

Food: I’ve made tacos, a veggie lasagna, breakfast food (a couple of times, pancakes and sausage one time and eggs/grits/biscuits another time), we’ve grilled out hot dogs (and had a big batch of potato salad) and also this week, we grilled out fish (tilapia for Tim, salmon for me), a big basket of grilled zucchini/onions/mushrooms and I did some crash hot potatoes in the oven. I’ve made a batch of pimento cheese that we devoured and I’ve made one batch and in a few minutes will make another bowl of chicken salad. I’ve baked for the Fourth, and also for Sunday school, including a new recipe for Nutella No Bake cookies last weekend. I ended up eating most all of them, yikes! I’ve made a couple of batches of homemade ice cream in my little Cuisinart. Tim likes it better when it’s been in the freezer a while and hardens up (I like it soft right out of the machine, go figure!). Even though we’ve been trying to walk, with the baking, eating out and coffee I’m now consuming daily (loaded with cream and sugar), I’m up a couple of pounds. So we decided for the next few days (where the temps are forecast in the 96-100 range for the next 10 days), that we will be eating a lot more salads, some sandwiches and trying to consume a lot less calories.

Movies: We saw Terminator at the theater and have watched our copy of XMen: First Class here. I used some Viggle points and purchased XMen: Days of Future Past on M-Go and we watched that on our smart TV last weekend. I’ve also bought Divergent on M-Go with Viggle points, which we had watched a while back but will rewatch soon. Insurgent is due to come out on DVD in August, I think, so I’m saving Viggle points to try to purchase that one, once it’s available on M-Go. We also watched Expendables 3 on Amazon Prime streaming the other night, found that one for free 🙂

Books: Since the last blog post, I’ve finished the following books: “Courting Morrow Little” by Laura Frantz; “Poison Town” by Creston Mapes; and “Taken” by Dee Henderson (library digital loan). A couple of days ago I started “Trial by Twelve” by Heather Day Gilbert, my Prime loan for July.

I had several picture I want to share, maybe I’ll get motivated soon to transfer files from my camera card, size them and get them out here 🙂

Hope everyone is having a blessed day!

This blogging stuff appears to be harder than it looks!

Another month has gone by with no post from me, and even though we’ve been busy and had lots of fun things for me to blog about, I don’t seem to be able to get it down. I do keep trying though 🙂

Brittany and David’s wedding was this past Saturday. Hard to believe that she was in diapers when Tim and I got married and now she’s off and married herself. She was just a beautiful, stunning bride and they seemed so happy, so we had a great time at the wedding. Outdoors, and we were both pretty sweaty and melted down by the end, but it was worth it.

Sunday was busy, church and Sunday School, then we went to Corner Bakery for lunch. Tim offered, so I accepted. Then, he said as we were sitting down waiting on our food… “I really don’t like the food here”. So. I guess we’ll go to Dickie’s next time, his favorite place! I do love their food, and places like Corner Bakery. I love Newks and was glad to see posted on Facebook their new soups for the spring and summer. And just yesterday, they announced that we are finally going to get a Panera, down in Ridgeland. I can’t wait for it to open! Tim tolerates these kinds of places, but really doesn’t like them. Me, well, I LOVE them!!! 😀

Sunday afternoon, he went to play golf and I caught up on some stuff on the DVR. My shows are piling up, with everything else going on. Sort of looking forward to several of ours shows ending (Survivor, etc) and the rest going on break with their season finales. But then again, I will miss them and be looking for more fun things to watch!

Monday, I did some laundry and housework and got outside for a while to help Tim wash my car. I can’t remember the last time we washed a car together, it has to be over 10 years or more. Tim had gotten in the habit of taking them through the drive-through car wash. But this house is bigger, the driveway is a lot bigger and we are further away from a car wash place, so apparently I talked him into it! It was a lot of work, but fun, and I enjoy doing things with him. We cleaned that puppy inside and out – tires, rims, bumpers were blacked, leather was Armor-all’d and protected, everything vacuumed, all glass cleaned. So it’s clean and sparkly now. Today, Wednesday, we did his truck and it’s equally as squeaky clean. I felt I needed to blog about this because a) it’s been so long and b) it’s a remarkable event and c) I’m hoping it happens again soon!

Tuesday, I cleaned bathrooms and ran errands. Normally, I go to Kroger on Tuesday, but this week I had something to return to Walmart, so I grocery shopped there. And proceeded to spend 3x what I normally spend at Kroger! So, I think I’ll be going back to Kroger soon 🙂 To be fair, I got other stuff, like makeup and toiletry stuff, and I did get a lot of meat, so that’s why the bill was higher. I also dropped Tim’s suit off at the cleaners (read Saturday’s blurb, it was dirty and sweaty from the wedding) and picked up some photos I had printed at CVS. A Mother’s Day happy for Tim’s mom 🙂

Today was more housework, three loads of laundry and washing his truck. Tim is playing golf this afternoon, then having to work tonight starting at 11 PM. I imagine we’ll sleep in a bit tomorrow morning 🙂 We had been walking this week. We walked 4 miles Monday, 3.3 miles Tuesday, but when the alarm went off this morning, he said he didn’t want to go! Oh well. I have 2 surgeries coming up soon on my legs, so my walking days are dwindling for a while anyway, until everything heals.

I need to go back and blog about April and other stuff going on… let’s see – how about some highlights?!

– planted flowers and herbs (just basil, brought everything else in pots from the old house) in April in pots in the back yard. Still not planting in beds, they are just clay with construction trash and need lots of work

– saw 2 movies – The 50th anniversary showing of the Sound of Music (with Gail and Elizabeth, SO much fun!) and the new Avengers movies, Age of Ultron with all the Bargers. Fun times and movie popcorn at both!

– we got our belated anniversary presents – Tim got a new driver (golf club), a new hybrid (golf club), new golf shoes and hats (noticing a trend?!), and I got new porch furniture for our screened-in back porch.

– we had a Sunday School party in April at a new members house and had a good time and Tim went the next morning to see Zack play in the regional golf tournament, but he didn’t make it to nationals. He’s doing good though and about to finish his freshman year of college

– we had a minor earthquake about 4 miles from our house, a 3.2 (which we didn’t feel, in the car) and a second one we did feel, a 3.0, last weekend. Weird! My first earthquake!!

More stuff going on, but that’s the high points. I’m ahead of my schedule for reading, and will soon pass what I read ALL of last year, so I’m happy with that. Currently reading “Always on my My Mind”, #4 in the Christiansen family books by Susan May Warren. A bit bogged down at the moment, but hopefully will get back in the swing of things. Shows we are watching: Dancing (me), Gotham and Following (Tim), all the NCIS shows, Person of Interest, Survivor, Blue Bloods, Blacklist, Grimm (Tim) and a few others. He really enjoyed the Masters on TV in April (always on his Dad’s birthday weekend) and he watched the match play last weekend, along with the NFL Draft. Gotta get ready for football season and get some new Saints players!

Ok, maybe that catches me up a bit. Hopefully can get back in the swing of blogging, and maybe post some pictures too! I tend to do that on Facebook and Instagram and not here any more 🙁

If anyone reads this, whew, you made it! Hope you are having a great day! 🙂

Well, I apparently didn’t do very well in March, blogging only once. And now I’ve blinked or something and the long month of March is over and April has begun.

I don’t really have anything to blog about. Must be why I went so long without putting up a post of any kind. Let’s see, a few of the high points of March:

* I had a dentist appointment. Still sliding by with no problems, just a cleaning and an appointment to come back in 6 months.

* We had a little bit of company – Tim’s buddy Tony came with his mom, as they had an appointment in Memphis and wanted to stay here to put them a bit closer (still quite a drive, but shorter for them). I fixed supper for everyone (lasagna, texas toast, salad). They got up and left before 4:30 AM, so they didn’t get the traditional breakfast at our little B&B 🙂 The good news is that we got a report a bit later that the appointment went well, and there was no sign of the cancer in Ms Ina’s eye that the other eye doctor reportedly found, which is why they sent her to a specialist in Memphis

* I attended a bridal shower for Brittany and David at Tim’s parents church. We went early and I helped set up a bit, although Amanda did a very neat movie theme and did the brunt of the decorating. I do better being told, put this there, sit that there, mix this up just like this, etc. I’m not a party planner or decorator by any stretch of the imagination :). Anyway, it’s hard to believe that a month from today, Brittany will be getting married. When Tim and I got married, she was still a baby in diapers! I’ve always told Tim that I always felt so blessed that his nieces and nephews never knew a time when there wasn’t an Aunt Stacy with Uncle Tim. My nieces and nephews were all grown up when Tim and I got married, so they’ve had to get used to him as teenagers and young adults.

* We went and helped a lady in our Sunday School group with some handy-man and electronics stuff at her house (well, obviously Tim did all the work, I just visited and played with her dog!). She’s a recent widow, having lost her husband in January. The more I read my Bible on a daily basis, the more I realize how important it is that God compels us to help the widows and orphans 🙂

* I went once with Tim and walked 18 holes at his golf course. Got a lot of steps on my FitBit that day! I won’t go when it gets so oppressively hot, but I try to go once or twice a year in the spring or fall when the temps and humidity are more bearable

* Tim took me not once but TWICE to my favorite Chinese restaurant! We came home with leftovers both times, which makes Stacy a very happy camper 😀

* I got my hair cut and setup an appointment for a few days before Brittany’s wedding, so that timing worked out well 🙂

* Gail came and we got to go shopping, which is our THANG 🙂 Also met David, Elizabeth and Suzanne at Majestic Burger for supper that night – Gail and I split my favorite, the grilled mahi-mahi burger. This time we tried the greek fries, which I was just slightly disappointed in. They were basically their regular fries with some greek seasoning barely sprinkled on. I was hoping for feta or something on them!

* I read 7 books in the month of March, I’m ahead of schedule on my reading plan at GoodReads. I might revise it later in the year. Books I completed in March: Firewall by DiAnn Mills, Miracle at the Higher Grounds Cafe by Max Lucado, The Frontiersman’s Daughter by Laura Frantz, Scum of All Fears (Squeaky Clean Mysteries #5) by Christy Barritt, Claudia, wife of Pontius Pilate by Diana Wallis Taylor, Dark Justice by Brandilynn Collins, and Against the Tide by Elizabeth Camden. I enjoyed each of them!

* We are mostly watching our regular tv shows. Seems like we might have seen one or more movies, the only one coming to mind right now is one I recorded off tv, Million Dollar Arm, a Disney movie with Jon Hamm.

* I’m trying to walk a bit more, now that the time has changed and mostly because it’s warming up a bit. I do enjoy walking in our new subdivision, but it is hard sometimes to walk by myself, the motivation is never there. I’m not walking every day, but a few days is better then the none I was doing over the winter 🙂

We have a semi-busy April coming up, with a particularly busy weekend this Easter weekend. We are going to attend Suzanne’s re-affirmation ceremony at her Episcopal church Saturday night, then get up early for our regular sunrise service at our church Easter Sunday morning. Then we’ll head down to the family get-together we go to every year for Easter. We have Tim’s dad’s birthday in April, as well as a crawfish boil to go to. The farmer’s market near our new house opens up late in the month so I’m hoping to go check that out.

Hope all is well out there in blog-land!

Well, it’s been months and so much has happened, I don’t even know where to start. I should have been blogging through this time, but of course, I did not. I really should have been private blogging, to capture some of my thoughts and private things that have happened, but alas, I didn’t take the time.

Let’s see, not long after my last post, my dad fell, and Tim and I went after midnight to the assisted living place where he was living, to take him to the hospital. He refused to ride in the ambulance that they wanted to call for him, as was their policy. When we got him into the ER, they had a hard time getting his oxygen level to register. As it turns out, his oxygen was very low and his carbon dioxide very high. We later learned a lot about respiratory failure. Dad was in congestive heart failure and respiratory failure. He was at the hospital a few days, then we moved him (via ambulance, he would have been so upset had he realized it) to a hospice facility near our house. He was only there less than 48 hours. A week after we took him to the hospital, on a Wednesday, I was sitting with him, I had tried to feed him some lunch, and he was having trouble breathing. I told him to just rest, and I sat right at his left arm, and read my Bible and just prayed and prayed. Daddy took his last breath and we’ve missed him ever since. The funeral was that weekend, and we were glad that my nephew David was able to get back from his trip in Southeast Asia (Thailand and other spots) in time for the burial. We then started the work of handling his estate (I had his power of attorney in life and the executor of his will and estate after death), and we cleaned out his apartment at the assisted living place. I still have boxes and bags of stuff piled up in my dining room.

My sister Suzanne then proceeded to have a period of about 6 weeks of turmoil, then an extreme tragedy. Gail, Don, Tim and I flew to South Florida to help her, and then flew back a week later for a funeral. After a few days of staying with her son and his family, she drove here and stayed with Tim and I for 5 weeks. She is now moving back here and is having a lot of issues and complications. We’re just hoping and praying that things get better for her and that she starts feeling better soon.

So, it sounds like 2014 has been a tough year, and so far… it has. However, we do have some really happy news. After living here for 21 years (Tim and I together for a little over 18), we are going to finally move! We just signed a contract to build a new house a little bit north of where we live now, close to the golf course where Tim plays golf most days of the week. We’re really excited about the house! It will be early fall before it’s ready, which seems at times so far away, and then at other times, I realize it will probably go by in the blink of an eye. I’ve already started a tiny bit of purging, cleaning and packing. I packed up some books, donated several bags of books to the local library, and packed up our old music cd’s. There’s so much more to do, but most of it can’t be done until it’s a bit closer to moving time. In the mean time, I’m trying to enjoy this house, and the yard and my flowers and my deck as much as possible. As happy and excited as we are, our word of the day is always “bittersweet”. It’s hard to leave our neighbors and the only house we’ve ever lived in. All of our family has spent so much time here, including my parents who are both now gone. Sad, but happy too, thus, bittersweet.

I’d like to get back to everyday blogging. About food, books I’m reading, tv shows and movies we watch, things like that. That’s why I named my blog “Exceedingly Mundane” all those years ago, because I thrive on the daily mundane stuff. Maybe so much time won’t go by next time, we shall see!

Another block of time has passed since I was able to update the ole blog. Let’s see…

I spent all of last week getting ready for the garage sale for my dad. We had gone down and filled up a UHaul with the remainder of items from his house. It’s empty now. We had the garage sale last Saturday. We put out a few things we had here to donate, and actually made almost $100 for us, in addition to all the stuff we sold for my dad. What didn’t sell, we boxed up to donate. And we took 6 or 7 bags of books to the library to donate. I had gone through and cleaned out three bookshelves and put them out to try to sell. Only 5 or 6 books sold, 3 of them being my mom’s old “Bell’s Best” cookbooks. Oh well. I read almost exclusively on my digital readers (stand-alone Kindle or Kindle app on my iPad), so I felt like I should get rid of a lot of books.

Saturday was the garage sale, and then last Sunday, we went over to see my father-in-law. My dad went with us, and all of Tim’s family was there to celebrate Mitchell’s big day (a couple of days late!). We had steaks with all the trimmings, and cake with strawberries and whipped cream, and a great time visiting. We got to meet Brittany’s new boyfriend and even see Zack, so it was a good trip.

This week flew by. I started this post on Monday and attempted to work on it on Wednesday, but never got very far. I actually deleted it by mistake, so I had to start over!

Wednesday, Tim went to Zack’s district golf tournament, held at Tim’s home golf course, and drumroll please… Zack won! So he will get to go back to the state tournament to defend his 3A golf champion title again this year as a junior! Tim and Mitchell went to cheer him on, and Tim was so very proud of him! I imagine he’ll have a much bigger gallery at the state tournament in a couple of weeks 😀

I went Wednesday afternoon to visit with my dad, pick up a couple of things for him at Walmart, stop by the library to get a book for me (Six Years by Harlan Coben) and a couple of movies for us to watch (Argo and Snow White and the Huntsman for Tim, and IronMan 2 for both of us, as a refresher before we go see the new one in May). I also ran to Sam’s Club and made a big run on household stuff. Thursday, Gail came down and we all went over to Ridgeland Pointe for “Family Night”. Basically, we visited with my dad in his room for a bit, then went down to the dining room and had dinner with him. Tim came home starving and had to eat again! LOL! He said, he could never live there, they don’t feed you enough, hahaha! I noticed that both my dad and the nice resident, Ms Myrtis that we shared a table with, neither of them ate much at all. I guess by the time you hit your 80’s and 90’s, you don’t eat as much as we do now, LOL!

Today (Friday) was spent on the road. We picked up Dad this morning and went to Hattiesburg to meet with a realtor. Tim had talked to her several times and emailed a bunch, and told my dad that he was pretty satisfied with her. So we met her at the house, went over a ton of things, and signed a contract for her to sell the house. She is going to have to oversee a ton of work (cleaners, painters, people to replace fixtures, install new appliances, etc) and then put it on the market. She hopes to have it sold in 3-4 months, but we signed a 6 month contract. I hope it sells then! At least there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel – we’ve moved my dad, got him new doctors, got him settled at his new “apartment”, gone to the house to get items for family members, sold furniture, and moved everything else out to sell. The house is empty now, and ready to be cleaned and gotten ready to sell. We’ve come a long way since February 15!

Tim has a busy weekend ahead – two tee times at the golf course, and a busy night of work this weekend. Me, I hope to catch up on some shows on the DVR, do laundry, read and maybe even watch a Harry Potter movie 🙂

P.S. I don’t often talk about current events here on my blog, but this has been a very news-worthy week. The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, then the huge explosion at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas. So much sadness and sorrow 🙁

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!

Monday afternoon, June 25, 2012

Not a lot really blog-worthy happening around here, yet still I feel some sort of urge to blog again.

We recently took a short trip to Nashville (with a stop in Memphis for ribs at Rendezvous) and a stop on the way home for Tim to play golf at one of the Robert Trent Jones golf trail courses in Alabama (this one was in Muscle Shoals, he played the Fighting Joe course). After we got home, I got a bug about getting back into scrapbooking. I have done about 12 pages or more in the last few days. I finished up our last trip before this one to Nashville, the one we took two summers ago to Atlanta with Tim’s family. I also worked on some Christmas pages (I’m still 7 or 8 years behind though!). Along with scrapbooking apparently comes the urge to blog.

Tim is playing a lot of golf, and is tired, but so very happy to get to play a lot. He’s only missed two days in the last week (Tuesdays, his club Lake Caroline is closed, and he took off last Friday, so we could have date night). He’s left again today after work. Current temperature, 98 with a heat index of 101. Beau and I are happy to stay inside in the air conditioning.

This past weekend was fun, and sad at the same time. Sad because yesterday (6/24/12) was the tenth anniversary of Dodie passing away. I’m better about it than I used to be, but I do still miss her every day. Anway, the weekend: Friday night, we went out on a date, and tried a new restaurant. Krilakis in Ridgeland and we were both very pleased. Tim had a steak gyro and I had the lamb gyro and they were delicious! We both thought they were better than Kristos and Keifers. We tried one of their appetizers, a pita melt and it was like a double decker mozzarella sandwich on pita bread. Yummy, and next time we’re going to try the hummus, which I hope is equally as good! We also went to Sam’s Club after eating. Our refurbished Cuisinart coffee maker bit the dust while we were in Nashville, and we needed a new one. Along with various and sundry other things we tend to buy in Sam’s. Tim also got a couple of new shirts, including an orange polo, which tickled me no end 🙂

Saturday, he had a mid-morning tee time with friends, and I worked on scrapbook pages. When he got in mid afternoon, we went to Corner Bakery (near our house, so glad this one opened last December) and had sandwiches and caesar salads. We ran some other errands (he dropped me at Joann’s and Office Depot while he picked up a few things in Home Depot) and then came home. He promptly fell asleep on the couch, watching golf! Sunday was church, good as always. Our pastor is leaving on a mission trip and won’t be preaching at our church for 3 weeks. I hope the substitute guy is good! Our current series is called The Way of the Worshipper: A Summer in the Psalms and I’m really enjoying it. After church, we went to Waffle House and had waffles, eggs, bacon, etc. So good! I was stuffed the rest of the day. Guess what, Tim played golf again Sunday afternoon! After he got in, we watched some things on the DVR.

OK, I’m off to read (current book on my Kindle: A Necessary Deception, after which I hope to get the next Harry Potter from the library in an ebook loan, something my library added in April of this year) or maybe work on a scrapbook page.

Boy, you get old, you blink and a month goes by in a flash!

It seems like we wait all year for football season, and when it FINALLY gets here, we’re so happy. Then, before you know it, BAM! It’s the end of January and it’s almost over. Although for us this year, for the first time EVAH, our team is going to the big game. Can’t wait! We’ve never really experienced a true Super Bowl experience. We have a party every year (not this year though!), so we always watch the game, but we never get to root for our team. Not so this year!

Ok, I actually meant to post about what little was going on around here in January.

* The month started out cold, then our water heater went out. It was an ordeal to get it replaced, but it all turned out fine in the end. It definitely gave me a whole new appreciation for HOT water, as well as for all of the little things in life that I can so easily take for granted. 🙂

* We went to our great-niece’s 4th birthday party, which was fun. We weren’t able to make it to our niece’s 5th birthday party, as it was out of town, on the same afternoon as the NFC Championship game and we had invited some people over to watch the game.

* We had the whole Saints in the playoffs, going to the Super Bowl thing that I just blogged about (and yes, I know I blog ad nauseum about football and the Saints!).

* I didn’t cook a whole lot in the month, we ate a lot of sandwiches and soups and easy stuff, plus we picked up food on the weekend. We’ve been going to Fresh Market every Sunday after church, and usually get stuff that we can “eat on” for a few days. Or we have leftovers from the football food that I fix (or pizza that we order!) from the weekend. I do have one or two new recipes that I have tried, that I need to post on our family website (but I haven’t gotten around to that yet) 🙂

* I didn’t read a lot of books in January. I finished three books and I’m about 20 pages away from finishing another book, here on Feb 1. I completed “Home for the Holidays” (part of the Grace Chapel Inn series), “Leaving Yesterday” by Kathryn Cushman and “Latte Trouble” by Cleo Coyle (part of the Coffeehouse mystery series). I enjoyed all the books, even though I didn’t blog about any of them. I am also working on the five books in the Chronicles of the Kings series by Lynn Austin and thoroughly, thoroughly enjoying them. I have so many books I want to read!

* We spent one very productive Saturday in January, when it wasn’t so cold, doing a lot of outside work. Tim got all the bushes and trees cut back, and raked leaves. He also cleaned up a lot in the garage and stuff. I spent a lot of that day working inside, getting the office cleaned up (and a bunch of stuff thrown out), gathering up some stuff for Goodwill. And, the biggie, I got all of the yearly “paperwork” done from last year – shredding things we won’t keep, getting papers organized for the taxes, and going thru receipts. The shredder got a workout that day!

* I spent a lot of time on Facebook. Mostly on Farmville and Cafe World. I continue to be addicted. 😀

* I got back into walking with my walking buddy Julie. She wanted to start the C25K (couch to 5K) training program, so we did that. We’re into week 2, but I think we’re repeating week 1 on the program. It’s going to take us longer than the 9 weeks that the program thinks 😀

* We played some of our new Wii games, in between football, tv and Netflix movies. I’m really enjoying Wii Fit Plus and Wii Sports Resort 😀

Ok, February, bring it on! I have a dentist appointment and haircut to start the month off right, then there’s that all important “greeting-card” holiday that Tim loves to avoid. Mostly, we’re excited about the Super Bowl! February is a short month, so I expect it to fly by with equal speed, if not faster, than January did.

And to think, I wrote 2009 on a check the other day! I’d better get used to 2010 and a whole new decade, because it’s here with a vengeance!

Happy New Year and here’s to a wonderful 2010! I hope to keep up with the blog, at least some, in the new year. I had a couple of long breaks in 2009, and missed out on “documenting” some of the things we were doing, and things going on. I hope that I can do a little more of keeping up in the new year.

I won’t go back and blog about Christmas, although it was a good one. We had three Christmases – one at home for me and Tim on Christmas Eve, one at my sister Gail’s with her family and my dad on Christmas Day, and one on the next day (Saturday) with Tim’s family. We had a great time seeing everyone and hanging out. We brought our nephew Zack (14) back with us on Saturday and he stayed several days. Tim took him to play golf, we took him out to eat every day (bad for the waistline, but nice not to have to cook or clean up much!), we went to see Sherlock Holmes, and we played a lot of Wii!

I fell short of my reading goals for the year 2009. I only read 59 books which is not a lot for me. I think I also failed to blog at all about any book during the year. I have been doing updates and “blurbs” (not reviews, I am not very good at writing reviews of books) over at GoodReads, so hopefully if you are a reader too, we are hooked up over there. I didn’t complete either reading challenge that I joined, although I was close, just one or two books short. I won’t join any this year, I think, but just read for the sheer pleasure of it. 🙂

We’re trying to get back into a routine, after the holidays and Tim having a week off from work. Routine is a good thing for me. I thrive on it and suffer when I get out of my schedules and routines.

The weather outside is frightful! Or delightful, depending on which camp you’re from 😀 I love the cold weather, but only when I get to stay inside, have the heat running, drink hot tea or hot cocoa, and bundle up under my favorite afghan, LOL! The highs this week are predicted to not go out of the 30’s and 40’s, so that is cold for us, definitely winter. I always appreciate my creature comforts more during weather like this!

Hope everyone had a very blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year – here’s to a great 2010 for all!

Still not into blogging much lately. I do believe I prefer the “micro-blogging” of Twitter and Facebook more than this format. Or at least lately. I’m not ready to abandon my blog though.

My attempt to try to keep up, at least a bit. Here’s a few bulleted items, things just.right.off the top of my head! 😀

OK, well, that was a whole lotta nothin! I hope you’re having a great day out there in Internet-land! If you’re on Twitter or Facebook and we’re not connected, be sure to leave me a note. I’m definitely spending more time there lately than here 🙂

Just some random thoughts…

Life is busy, but life is good! I just need to blog more often, LOL!