Exceedingly Mundane

Boring though it might be, I’m going to give this another try 🙂 Nothing really going on around here to blog about, but the blog is called “exceedingly mundane” for a reason!

Glad that… – Tim is still walking with me! I’m determined to enjoy every minute (even though it’s nearly wearing me out!) until March 13. The time changes that date and I magically turn into a golf widow till the fall. 🙁 Of course, the end of this week turned out wet and COLD, so we didn’t get to walk all that much. But next week looks much better, so I’m still hopeful 🙂

Good thing that happened… The Bible Study I attend at our church started back up on Thursday Jan 21. I go to the one called Manna and this time, we are doing “Armor of God” by Priscilla Shirer. I think it’s going to be really good!

Book I’m reading: I finished “Random Acts of Malice” by Christy Barritt (my January prime loan book) and started “The Girl from the Train” by Irma Joubert. Finished it last night and started “The Crimson Cord” by Jill Eileen Smith. I have usually loved every single historical Christian fiction book I’ve read by Jill Eileen Smith, so I’m very hopeful that this one is great too.

Things we ate: Worked on leftovers, chili and restaurant leftovers from the weekend. Tuesday I made fish and veggies. Wednesday I made homemade chicken meatballs, sauce, noodles, roasted broccoli and sauteed green beans (Liz was here and we had cheese toast with ours, no bread or cheese for Tim). Thursday I made party cheeseburgers and fries, as Elizabeth was here again hanging out with us. Friday lunch we ate at Tim’s favorite place, Dickie’s BBQ, at lunch before the movie. Tim’s mom fed us two meals on Saturday, since we spent the whole day there 🙂

Pot of Chili, yum!

TV and Movies: I watched a Murder She Baked from Hallmark, and we watched some regular tv shows on the DVR. NFC and AFC Championship games today, Sunday January 24. Which means the Super Bowl is two weeks from today! We went Friday afternoon to a second viewing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Loved it just as much the second time around 🙂

Weather – Cold in the early part of the week, some days I had a hard time warming up! Tim even broke out a hand warmer one day and let me keep it in the front pocket of my hoodie all day, LOL! Really rainy on Thursday, grey and rainy all day. So much so that I wore my rain boots to Bible Study and out running errands 😀 Friday it was SO cold, and snow flurries on and off all day. We were in and out and I froze to death – temps in the mid 30’s and wind chills in the low 20’s. BRRR!

Random Thought du Jour: Very grateful for family. We spent the whole day on Saturday with Tim’s family. It was so great to see everyone and catch up and just hang out 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!

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!

I’ve survived the first of my surgeries and although I was led to believe it was a walk in the park…. believe me, wimpy me has decided it is NOT as easy as they said 🙂 However, the doctor and nurses were great, I had good drugs and Tim (poor Tim) did his best to take care of me the first day, when I was totally out of it, and the next day, when I was still recovering (yesterday, Tuesday). Bless his heart, Tim doesn’t have a big streak of empathy or a caregiver personality, so when he sees me hurting, he tries humor first, and when that fails to work, he gets upset with me. He tries, but I have a high bar and he just can’t get there with the “rub some dirt on it” mentality that he employs. 🙂 Anyway, today was supposed to be “return to your normal routine” day, but I’m telling ya, I’m nowhere near 100%. My leg hurts, everything is tender and swollen and hurts. It hurts to sit down, it hurts to get up, it hurts to walk and even worse, it hurts to lay flat in the bed and try.to.sleep. The compression hose, heaven help them, while they are impossibly hard to get on, are my only lifesaver. I can’t put weight on my leg without them on. With them on, I’m able to hobble around and at least try to resume some form of normalcy. And whoo baby, am I hobbling! I look like a 90 year old woman, wobbling around and trying to walk 😀

I have another week and a half to recovery from the left leg, then I go back for the procedure on my right leg. I’m looking forward to being past both of these and having everything healed and healthy and not hurting or tender. Maybe then my summer will be spectacular! 🙂

In other news, Tim is ready to get back to playing golf. He played on Saturday, but Sunday was a rainy day and he didn’t get to play. Monday he had to stay around to keep an eye on drugged up me (doctor’s orders), so he didn’t get to go. He did however get a new golf club delivered (which I have no memory of seeing, although he said he showed it to me, haha!) and hasn’t had a chance to play with it yet. Tuesday is the day his golf club closes for maintenance, so he’s raring to go today. We have the Survivor finale tonight, which I’m looking forward to, quite a bit. Dancing ended last night (Rumer Willis won) and The Blacklist and Person of Interest and most of our other shows have finished for the season. It will be time to catch up on the DVR and then maybe watch some streaming shows.

We went to the grocery store on Sunday after church and I tried to stock us up with easy to fix food, like scrambled eggs, baked potatoes, salads, etc that Tim could fix for me while I was out of commission. Instead, I got Chick-Fil-A and pizza (full of bell pepper, which I refuse to eat!). Someone took advantage of my drugged up state to order HIS favorite kind of pizza, LOL! I’ll try to fix something that is healthier the rest of the week and maybe the weekend. Not sure yet what we are doing for Memorial Day next Monday. I will probably get Tim to grill some burgers or hot dogs. I had him do some brats last night, since I had sauerkraut left in the fridge from a pork chop and sauerkraut recipe I made last week.

Nothing else exciting really going on… hope all is well out in blog land 😀

Another two weeks have come and gone and still no blogging on the home front. It must be boring around here, not a lot to blog about! At least February is gone and March is here!

We’ve had some company the last two weeks. Our niece Elizabeth who teaches history at the high school nearby (not the closest one to our house, but still fairly close) has come and stayed a few days both weeks. We’ve had “bad” weather for our part of the country, really cold, chance of sleet and icing and hints of snow, although we never got any snow. Suzanne has also come over to visit one day each of the last two weeks. Once when Liz was here and then this past Friday. Suzanne very graciously brought us some homemade soup and cornbread, and brought me the soup tureen that matches my china from our grandmother. She had just the one piece and I was so glad she came and brought me that one to go with the rest of my set! Now, I just have to find a cabinet to display my grandmother’s china and crystal in. I’ve had it over 25 years and have never been able to put it out. Still it sits in Rubbermaid totes (upgraded a few years back from the boxes and barrels my dad had packed it in for me, all those years ago).

I’ve done a lot of cooking, for two weeks straight. We went out to eat catfish at Penn’s (we tried the one in Canton, probably the original place) two weeks ago and I’ve been cooking non stop since then. With Elizabeth here 3 nights each week, I have been doing a lot more cooking 🙂 Let’s see, we’ve had:

Mexican night – tacos, beans, chips and salsa and guacamole; Sausage dogs with crash potatoes and caesar salad; chili, cornbread and salad; Meatless night (greens, black eyed peas and cornbread for Tim, wild rice and fruit for me); two different panini nights (one with ham and cheese and one with roast beef); Roast, mashed potatoes, cheese bread and roasted brussel sprouts; Breakfast food two nights (spinach and feta omelets, toast and fruit one night and egg mcmuffins, grits and turkey sausage the other night); Lasagna, salad and texas toast; and some semi-chinese one night (Fried rice, egg rolls and egg drop soup).

I was rewarded (or rather, I asked to be taken out to eat) last night with date night! We went to Signa’s Grille and enjoyed a nice meal out. Tim got the swamp burger with sweet potato fries, and although I usually get a great salad there, I splurged and got a grilled shrimp po-boy with sweet potato fries. I should have taken a photo of our food, it was really good!

Tim is at Terry’s today (Saturday), helping with the store. I’m headed down to meet everyone in Magee in a couple of hours for supper at Berry’s Seafood. I stayed home today to catch up on some things around the house. I did 3 loads of laundry, cleaned off everything on the DVR except the last of Downton Abbey (maybe tomorrow!), made homemade cinnamon rolls for Sunday School and packed up my Winterberry winter dishes to be stored away till Thanksgiving.

We’ve had cold weather for most of the past two weeks and some sleet and freezing rain, although we missed the snow (I think Gail had 4 or 5 inches last week!). I’ve enjoyed hot tea, spiced tea, hot cocoa, coffee, bundling up by the fire, reading books, watching tv. It’s supposed to start warming up now and this coming week, they are forecasting rain every.single.day. I think spring is coming! The time changes this weekend. Tim is uber excited to get in more golf, so he is happy about it. Me, I prefer the shorter days, dark nights and cold of winter. I know, I’m weird. But I’ll enjoy spring and summer and look forward to next fall and winter 🙂

We had a squirrel saga a few days ago. I chronicled it mostly on Facebook, so will just highlight here. Tim went to play golf Wednesday after work. I thought he would get 9 holes in before dark, but he only got one. On hole #2, he said some squirrels charged him, and the two babies ran into his golf bag! He spent the next hour trying to get them out, back to their momma who was hovering off to the side. He finally gave up, walked back to his truck with his golf bag, golf clubs and 2 squirrels in his bag. Came home, and we spent another 30 minutes trying to get them out. We left the bag on the front porch for two nights and one day, and nothing, squirrels still sequestered in the bottom of the bag. On the second full day (Friday), he tipped the bag upside down and left a space for them to get out. It took most of the day, but they finally came out some. One ran back inside when Tim went out, and he slung and heaved and threw that bag up and down till the dazed baby squirrel finally came out, scared and dizzy. He jumped on my screen on the window and hung out a while, then limped off to hide under the pine straw. We left to go eat supper and go to Sam’s and when we came back, there was no sign of either of them. I wonder if they are ok and how much they miss their mother, who is 5 miles away on the golf course!

Been reading some good books, started a podcast and listening to some good music lately. Will try to update again soon!

Let’s see, time for another catch-up post! I suppose it’s a triumph for me to try to blog every week or so, that’s a lot better than trying to blog every month or four. Ten years ago (GOOD GRACIOUS, it’s been 10 years!) when I started this blog, I blogged every day. But those days, sadly (or perhaps happily!) are gone.

Last week, Gail was here Thursday night through Saturday. Elizabeth came over to eat with us Thursday night (we made fajitas and had a smorgasbord of leftovers). Gail and I went shopping on Friday (I bought some fabric crosses for the front doors for Easter, a new black & white scarf, some food, including ditalini and pappardelle at Big Lots of all places). We came back and picked up Tim, who had to work a bit late, then headed to the airport to pick up Don, who had been to a Valley conference in Nebraska all week. We stopped to eat at Logan’s out on Lakeland on the way home. The guys had steaks and Gail and I got shrimp dishes and I think it’s safe to say that we all ate too much free bread 🙂

Saturday morning, Don and Gail got up early to go out to Katelyn’s first soccer game of the season, then we all met for brunch afterwards for an early celebration of Gail’s birthday. We tried to go to Another Broken Egg, but as expected (a: it’s a weekend b: it was Valentines Day), they had an hour and a half wait. So we met Gail, Don, Kathryn, Jeremy, their kids and Elizabeth at Corner Bakery for brunch. Kathryn took a photo of me with her kids, whom I love and adore, can you tell?! 🙂

We visited for a while there, then all walked over to Menchie’s for frozen yogurt. After that, we tailed Don and Gail over to Miskelly’s to look at furniture. After looking at lots of things there, we went to Lowe’s and bought new porch rockers and also to Kirklands to get a few art things for the walls (one clock, since I LOVE clocks, can’t have enough).

New rockers for front porch:

A few new things for the walls at the new house, this is going to be a SLOW process, I’m *SO* not good at any form of decorating 😀

Sunday was church and Sunday School. We had the last sermon in the series “First Things First” in church about prayer, and tackled the tough subject of homosexuality in Sunday School. We came home afterwards and had leftovers and hung out all afternoon watching tv (Tim is still working on binge-watching The Walking Dead and I cleaned up some cooking shows and watched an episode or two of Downton Abbey).

This week was fairly quiet. I’ve happily entered my yearly “hibernation” mode where it’s cold and dreary outside, I don’t have anything pressing to do most days, so I’m totally content to stay home, cook, clean, watch tv, read books and sit by one of my two beautiful fireplaces in the new house. I only got out on Wednesday, to get my hair cut and colored, to swap out Walking Dead season DVD’s at the library for Tim and do a big run of weekly grocery shopping at Kroger. Every other day, I was happily ensconced at home.

I did do a fair amount of cooking. I made a homemade pizza using my new wooden peel I got for Christmas, makes it a lot easier to get the from-scratch pizza onto my hot cooking stone 🙂 I did some tilapia, roasted sweet potatoes and greens, a new Pinterest pin for crockpot pork chops, a new Pinterest pin for an orange chicken (supposed to be Chinesey but not a good success, I won’t make that one again). We have a fair amount of leftovers, so I haven’t had to cook for the last day or so. Always nice 🙂

I read a couple of really good books this week: Dirty Deeds (#4 in the Squeaky Clean Mystery series by Christy Barritt) and Deceived, #3 in the Private Justice series by Irene Hannon, that I got on Kindle loan from the library.

Nothing else exciting going on around here! Today (Saturday) has been quiet as well. Tim went to practice at Lake Caroline for a couple of hours before the rain starts, and I made a loaf of banana bread to take to Sunday School. This past week has been really cold – the Northeast is getting dumped with snow again and we’re having colder than normal temps, in the 40’s for highs most of the week. We’ll have a slight reprieve for a day or so, temps in the 50’s and 60’s, before we go back to another 4-5 days of highs in the 40’s. I’m burrowing in and enjoying every bit of it. I know a long hot summer is coming, where it will be unbearably hot and humid, so I plan to enjoy my fires, blankets, slippers, sweats, hot tea and coffee as long as humanly possible. That’s me, a hibernating happy bear 😀

Time for another quick weekly update, along with some snippets of what is going on around here 🙂

Since my last blog update…

1) NEW HOUSE: We filed for homestead exemption on the new house. Always glad to get chores like that out of the way. We’ve requested a new escrow analysis from the mortgage company, so waiting on that to see the updated (higher) payment on the house. Sigh. I do LOVE this new house, but I also miss those days of living debt free at the old house, which we had paid off early.

2) WEEKEND: Had a busy weekend last weekend – I did a lot of baking and cooking on Saturday (made another batch of potato soup in the crockpot, then tried a new recipe for donut muffins to take to Sunday School). Tim practiced golf on Saturday and played on Sunday, since we were having a bit warmer weather. Kathryn and Jeremy had a date night on Saturday night, so we got to hang out again with Katelyn and Sam! I fixed them cheese pizza and chocolate chip cookie bars, and we had fun hanging out with them and teaching them to play Parcheesi 🙂 I think board games are mostly forgotten these days with all the digital media. They both brought iPads to play with, but I think they really enjoyed playing a board game with the old folks instead! 🙂

3) TV: Tim is in the middle of a “Walking Dead” marathon. I had gone to the library over a week ago and gotten him the first two seasons, which he binge watched in less than a week. Yesterday (Wednesday), I went back to the library and got him season 3 on Blu Ray. They didn’t have season 4 available, so he’ll have to wait on that and hope that it’s back in next Wednesday. In the mean time, we’ll start recording the new ones on the DVR for him. I will not watch with him, but that’s ok by both of us, LOL! Meanwhile, we’re busy watching shows that keep piling up on the DVR (Person of Interest, Blacklist, State of Affairs, Blue Bloods, all 3 NCIS shows, Sleepy Hollow, Grantchester, which I enjoy but I don’t think Tim does, The Mentalist (which I’m so ready for it to end, 3 more episodes), and many more. I’m nothing if not a TV hound 😀

4) BOOKS: I’ve been reading some good books lately – have recently finished “The Queen” by Steven James (Patrick Bowers #5), Traces of Mercy and the follow-up Finding Mercy, co-written by Michael Landon Jr and Cindy Kelley, Christmas at Rose Hill Farm (a spur of the moment library download, not sure why I’m reading Christmas themed books in February!), and have just started Dirty Deeds (Squeaky Clean mysteries #4) by Christy Barritt. That’s my free Kindle Prime download for February. I’m trying to be better about getting one book per month as part of our Prime program. I went several months last year where I forgot and could have gotten some good books for free.

5) COOKING: After eating leftovers from the Super Bowl most all of last week (did I mention it was a MEAT FEST?!), I’m back to cooking. And trying to do some healthier foods. Tim is back with his P90X every day at lunch, and determined to eat healthier, so that makes things easier for me. Let’s see, so far this week I’ve cooked:
Weekend – crockpot potato soup, donut muffins, chocolate chip pan cookies
Monday – grilled chicken, oven potato logs, oven roasted radishes and a sun dried tomato/artichoke quinoa
Tuesday – baked brown sugar salmon, salad, leftover quinoa
Wednesday – crockpot chicken caesar sandwiches, fries, roasted asparagus
I think tonight we’ll probably have fajitas, beans, chips and salsa. Easy!

6) TODAY: Today is the one year anniversary of my father passing away. I was there with him, by myself, at the hospice place, having no idea that he was so close to being gone. What I considered then an awful thing, I now look on as a blessing. I realize now what a blessing it was to be there at the end with just my Daddy and me. I still miss him every day, and my mom too, but I’m trying very hard to be ok with it. This day is hard, but I’m trying to do things I enjoy and remind myself of the happy things, and not look on the sad ones. So, today I’m staying home, and puttering around the house, and watching tv, and looking at old photos, and scanning some in of my dad and family (boy, I forget how long to takes to sort through photos, scan them in, size and crop them and save them to my computer, very time consuming). Tim surprised me and brought me home breakfast (again, second week in a row!) from Chick-Fil-A, after he finished his Bible study with the Band of Brothers mens group at church. Such sweet things from him really make my day 🙂

And lastly
7) VALENTINES DAY – this Saturday is Valentines. Last year, we were planning a funeral, but either way, it’s just not a holiday we celebrate much. When I worked, Tim used to send me roses or flowers, but that is sort of useless now that I’m at home. We no longer go out and eat, neither of us like crowded restaurants and long waits, plus we eat out regularly on date night anyway! I ordered me some dark chocolates, which came the other day, so that will be my Valentines day present. Poor Tim, he may not get anything! 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!

I blogged briefly at the end of the last post about the plans for the weekend, which has now ended. It’s Monday, the second day of February, and if years past are any indication, I know this month will just FLY right on by 🙂

We had a great weekend. Tim and I went to get gas and buy a cartful of items at Sam’s Club for the Super Bowl party. We stopped first to visit Jackie and Beth at the old neighborhood (and return a tool Tim had borrowed before we moved). Beth was out running errands, but we were glad to catch up with Jackie. We went to eat at Krilakis, after first going to Cazadores, our favorite Mexican restaurant. In days, months and years past, we could walk into Cazadores and almost immediately get a table. We pulled into the parking lot, and I told Tim, man – it looks really busy! He’s like, nah, it’s a big place. We could barely squeeze in the door, and would have put our name way down on a list, so Tim decided not to wait and we went up the street to our favorite Greek place, Krilakis. Tim got a gyro burger this time, with home cut fries (lamb meat on a hamburger bun as opposed to the regular pita) and I got the Greek salad with grilled redfish fillet on top. Delicious! We got ribs, hamburger meat, lots of buns and other items at Sams and headed home.

Saturday, I started making stuff for the party. Tim left after lunch to meet Zack at Patrick Farms to play golf. Zack played really well, and Tim… did not. He was very good natured about it, but I know it’s hard for him to not score well. I got the potato salad and brownies made, and all the stuff for the crunchy slaw. Tim came by to pick me up after golf and we again tried to go to Cazadores. Zack swung by the campsite where his girlfriend Kelli Grace and her family were camping for the weekend. Zack and Kelli got there first, and Zack said there was a ton of people waiting and their name was on the SECOND page of the wait list. We haven’t quite figured out what’s going on with our favorite Mexican place – obviously the word is out and we’re not the only ones who like it! We wanted to swap out the propane tank for the gas grill anyway, so we went to El Potrillo next to Walmart. Food was good, but I don’t like their salsa. Not as good as Cazadores! LOL! Zack and Kelli came back to the house for a while to visit, before Zack left to get her back to the camp grounds.

Sunday morning, we all got up early for church. Zack went to get Kelli, then we all rode together. This was the Disciple Now weekend for the youth at our church, and the program was different. They had a band in for the youth weekend, so they played rather than our regular music and choir. They had the speaker from the weekend, Jeremy Kingsley, speak instead of our pastor in our sermon series. The second service had the last session for Disciple Now, with about 700 teenagers, so I hated that Zack and Kelli missed it. Instead they went to the early service with us and then to our Sunday School (with the old folks, I kidded with them). They were really great about it and we really enjoyed them going with us. After that, we stopped for ice and then headed home to start party preparations.

I did more food, Tim started the ribs in the smoker and made up a couple dozen hamburger patties, and then when Tony got here, they started on the sausage and chicken wings on the grill. Lots and lots of meat! I posted some pictures on Facebook, but I forgot to take one of the food 🙁 Here’s one I did not share on Facebook:

We had a cold front move through and had a couple of periods of rain, but thankfully it wasn’t bad while the guys were doing meat or anyone was trying to come in or out, so no one got drenched.

The game was a good one, close, and thankfully we didn’t like either team so we were not disappointed! The Seahawks made a bad call at the end and instead of scoring and winning the game, they threw an interception and the Patriots ended up winning. Whatever! I thought the commercials were more sad than uplifting, and everyone but me liked Katy Perry at the half time show (I just don’t like her that much and I thought the show looked like an Olympic themed opening, but at least she was clean and it apparently was pretty good). I didn’t watch much of it, by half time I was ready to start putting up food and cleaning up a bit. I can’t just leave things in a huge mess, you know 🙂

Now, it’s Monday and much colder, high today probably only around 40 degrees. I’ve been cleaning like mad today, heavy deep cleaning after the party and so many people here. We have a fair amount of leftovers, so I will get a couple days break from cooking, yippee!

A few more random thoughts on this Monday:

* We didn’t get to watch the return of “The Blacklist” last night, it was about 9:45 when everyone finally left and Tim was raring to start it, but I was tired and wanted to read and get some sleep. So I owe him that episode tonight 😀

* Finished up a good book today, “The Tutor’s Daughter” by Julie Klassen and will be starting on the next Patrick Bowers one by Steven James, “The Queen” later tonight. Looking forward to that!

* I am now 3 episodes behind on Downton Abbey. Hope to get to at least one of those this week!

* About 5 weeks until the time changes and Tim probably starts back playing a lot more golf

* We need to get our homestead exemption filed on the new house. I’ve had the paperwork out and we just need to pull everything together and find a time to go to the courthouse and file, but that requires a block of Tim’s work schedule, so that has to be worked out. Hoping we can get that done this week.

* I imagine I’m in quite the minority when I say that I have absolutely no desire to go see the new Fifty Shades of Grey movie that comes out around Valentines Day. I didn’t read the book, don’t want to, and certainly don’t want to see the movie adaptation from it. Of course, I don’t watch any R-rated movies, but this one is so far outside my realm of possibility, it’s just ludicrous! Ok, got that off my chest!

Hope everyone had a great weekend and will have a blessed week ahead!

Let’s see, the second half of January is proving to be about as busy as the first part 🙂

We’ve had three funerals so far this month… I think I mentioned in the previous post about losing both Tim’s cousin’s husband (Perry) and my brother-in law Don’s mother Margaret. And now we’ve gone to one for Bobby, a guy from our Sunday School group at church. Been a tough year so far…

We had our annual homeowners meeting for the new subdivision on the 14th. The dues keep going up every year, things are not being done the way the residents want, since the builders/developers are the only ones on the board and make all the decisions and decide how the money is spent that is collected from each and every homeowner. It was very eye-opening and we learned… a LOT! Apparently, they say now that the dues will hold steady for at least a year or two, and within the next year or so, when the last houses are built and sold in this subdivision, the developers will turn over the board to the actual people who live here. Sheesh.

We had a family get-together at our house on the 17th, for Tim’s dad’s side of the family. Two of Mitchell’s siblings didn’t make it, Uncle Hilton and Aunt Annie Myrle, and we hated not seeing them. Tim’s parents, brother Terry, Emi, Lazarus, Brittany and David came, (Mark and family didn’t make it), Aunt Judy, Candy, her daughter Brooke and her two kids (Peyton and Aubrey), Jan and Steven and their boys (Justin and his girlfriend Keily and Turner), and Pat and Carl and their kids (Megan, Emily and Tyler) all got to come though, so it was great! We hadn’t seen everyone in a while and it was great catching up and visiting with everyone 🙂

Mitchell and his sister Judy who did come to the get-together:

After everyone left, I cleaned up a bit, then Kathryn and Jeremy dropped off Katelyn and Sam for us to hang out with while they attended a party. We had such a great time! We pulled out a bunch of puzzles and sat at the island and played with them for hours! We did s’mores in the fireplace (note to self: Even if Katelyn and Sam SAY they want more than one s’more, they won’t eat but one, LOL!) and generally had a great time 😀

I shoved the camera in Tim’s hand and asked nicely for him to take a photo with me and the kids, since, in looking back through iPhoto, there are very very VERY few pictures of me:

Now I know why, I really don’t take very good pictures, but at least this one is tolerable, LOL! 🙂

OK, let’s see…. Tim is in another spate of working at night on the weekends. So far in January, he’s had to work three Sunday nights (starting at 11 PM) and one Saturday. One of those Sunday nights, he didn’t get to bed until 4:30 AM, which really messes up his sleep and work schedule for several days after that.

We had a funeral visitation for Bobby from church last Friday night. After that, we went to a fairly new Chinese restaurant (we had been once before and Tim loved it, I liked it ok) named Fortune and had dinner. Tim got spicy Mongolian beef and I had sauteed shrimp (first time I’ve ever had shrimp with the heads on). It was cold that night so we got a huge bowl of egg drop soup. It was delicious 🙂

We finally saw “Unbroken” at the theater this past Saturday. I had read the book over the Christmas/New Years holiday and knew that it was going to be hard for me to watch. It was actually easier than I thought to watch, still hard, but it helped that it was sort of broken up between his earlier times and Olympic running with all the war stuff. Tim wants to go see “American Sniper” next, and I know I will not be able to go see it. First, I have a rule about not watching R-rated movies (which no one seems to understand and accept, although Tim tolerates it from me), I don’t like to put that garbage or violence or language or sex or whatever into my brain and life. Even though we’ve heard great things about the movie, I just can’t do it 🙁 Poor Tim!

Let’s see… I made a loaf of monkey bread and took to Sunday School this past Sunday. I’m trying to bake and take something every 2-3 weeks. Everything so far has been sweet. One of the guys in our group keeps saying he is going to bring sausage and biscuits, so I don’t want to “steal his thunder” and bring that. I need some ideas of other stuff to take and make (I’ve done cranberry bread and monkey bread so far). It can’t be like a hot casserole, since we do things out of order, we go to church first and then Sunday School, so I have to carry the food into the sanctuary (another class meets in our room while we are in church service). Anyway, really enjoying our Sunday School group, as well as the sermon series we are having at church (Still on “First Things First”).

This week has been fairly busy as well. Tim worked Sunday night, then had to get up early Monday morning and go to the doctor. He got a good report though, so that really helped. He was really expecting his blood pressure to be up again this year and the doctor to prescribe him medicine, but it was good and he came out without new pills 🙂 I cleaned house all day Monday and made a new recipe for crockpot potato soup. Tuesday, I did a lot of laundry and more cleaning, and our neighbor Bob came over and brought me a beautiful daffodil (we had taken him some homemade soup Monday night, and he apparently really enjoyed it, LOL!). Late Tuesday, Gail came to the house in time for supper. I made turkey piccata, roasted veggies, tried roasting radishes (Success!), mashed potatoes and a new recipe for a crockpot cherry cobbler. It was all really good! Wednesday, Gail and I got up and went shopping all day – two different Home Goods, TJ Maxx, Sam’s, Target, Walmart along with lunch at Chick-Fil-A. We came home and met Elizabeth, and Tim who had gone to play golf, and we all ate some of the leftovers in our fridge. Elizabeth stayed and visited a while and Gail spent the night and left early Thursday morning. Tim got up at 5:20 for the first meeting of the big men’s Bible study at church, called Band of Brothers. He really enjoyed it! Me, I’m such a light sleeper that I had a hard time going back to sleep, so I wasn’t fond of getting woken up so early 🙁

Photo from this week, the daffodil our new neighbor brought over, it’s already drooping and starting to look withered – any tips on keeping daffodils inside in a pot? I hate to kill the beautiful thing with my horrible black thumb that I have with plants like this! LOL! 😀

We’re having unseasonably warm weather across the middle part of this week. High’s in the 60’s for a couple of days, and right now, it’s 73 degrees and sunny. I imagine Tim will play golf again today! He’ll start getting spring fever soon and once the time changes in early March, he’ll be playing most every day of the week!

Got a busy weekend coming up – we’ll go food shopping Friday night for the Super Bowl party we are having Sunday. Zack is coming to play golf with Tim on Saturday and then stay this weekend (his girlfriend Kelli Grace and her family are camping at a park nearby). Then, we’ll have most of Tim’s family and Tony here on Sunday. Can’t wait! I don’t care a whit about either team, in fact, I dislike both teams pretty much (Seattle Seahawks vs New England Patriots). So it will be nice to visit and not worry about the outcome of the game, LOL!

Hope everyone is having a great day! 😀

Or any meme for that matter! They used to be all the rage out in BlogLand, but they appear to be very few left. And of the ones I have found for Monday or any other day, there are always questions that don’t apply to me, or else I would be answering the same thing every.single.time. So I guess I’ll stick with regular blogging and see how that pans out 🙂

Speaking of blogging, I’m coming up on my TEN YEAR anniversary of my blog. Hard to believe, but when I go back in my archives, I started in February of 2005. Good golly Miss Molly, where did the time go? I’ve taken a lot of breaks, but find it’s a great way to keep up with what is going on with us, so I keep coming back.

Ok, back to the original topic, today is Monday. We are zipping through January, hard to believe it’s already almost half way through the month. Today is a grey, bleak day. It rained some yesterday and quite a bit last night, but had mostly ended this morning. Tim had to work last night, for about 3 or so hours until the wee hours of the morning. He started a new fitness challenge at work, to log steps walked with a pedometer, so he wanted to go walking at lunch. Yippee! First time he’s walked with me in at least a year, maybe two. I showed him the route I had mapped out in the new subdivision, and we had a nice long walk during his lunch hour today. That makes me all kinds of happy 🙂

I’ve got some ham and bean soup in the crockpot today. I tasted the beans a while ago and they were still hard as a rock. I guess I’ve added too much salt, got old beans from the bin at Whole Foods or something, because I soaked them all night long and threw them in the crockpot this morning. I guess we’ll eat leftovers if the soup doesn’t turn out.

We had a busy weekend. We went to Greenwood for the funeral for Don’s mom Margaret on Saturday. It was nice to see Trent, Grayson and Henry though, since we missed seeing them at New Years. Just a really sad occasion though 🙁 We stayed to eat and visit, but the church ladies ran out of food, so we stopped at Sonic and picked up fast food on the way home. After we got home, I made a loaf of cranberry bread to take to Sunday School. Sunday was busy with Sunday School, church and going to Kroger afterwards. After that, I cooked lunch (pepperoni crescents, really easy and so not healthy) and then Tim took a long nap and watched the NFL playoff games. I cooked supper, thereby breaking my rule that I don’t like cooking on Sundays 🙁

Currently weather: as stated, grey and bleak

Currently reading: Rachel by Jill Eileen Smith

Currently watching on TV: the new Agent Carter … I need to watch Downtown, I’m already two weeks behind, but don’t seem to have much time lately for catching up on the DVR

Currently Cooking: ham and bean soup today, potato soup later in the week, winging a couple of days

Week Ahead: have to take Suzanne to the airport, get my hair cut, make a run to Sam’s for food for the family get-together we are hosting this Saturday, take Tim’s suit to the dry cleaners and a few more errands. I’d much rather stay home, but these things have to get done!

And a photo from the weekend, I made a new recipe Friday night for a skillet chocolate chip cookie cooked in a cast iron skillet. It was DELICIOUS!

More next time, hope everyone is having a great day!

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! 😀

I keep promising myself I will actually blog, and here I am again, just doing a snippet-a-day diary-of-our-life blog post. Things are still just zipping along, with not a lot of time to do things like read, blog, catch up on the DVR, etc. Oh well, maybe in January! LOL!

Let’s see, last week was another blur. Thankfully, I had a draft post started, where I could jot down tidbits every day or so. Here’s what I came up with:

*Monday (10/6/14) I went grocery shopping at Kroger. When I got back, the carpenter was here, replacing all 4 screws in every drawer in the house (except for the two that they managed to get right). I found the screw issue when I started to line drawers, and nearly cut my finger on a screw sticking out of the side. Every drawer now has holes where the screws came through, but at least no one will cut a finger now when they reach inside a drawer. For supper, I tried something new, a chicken parmesan meatloaf, along with mashed potatoes and salad.

* Tuesday, I was home all day, cleaning, doing laundry and I probably unpacked a box or two. 😀 For supper, we had sausage dogs with peppers and onions, with oven fries and fruit. Tim stayed up till 2 AM installing the shower door in guest bath. It’s a bit short, but looks great! He’s a much better worker than anyone who worked on this house! LOL!

* Wednesday was a very busy day. I had a haircut at 9:30 AM, then I met Gail for a few minutes, before we went to Hamil’s to meet up with Suzanne, Tim and our cousin Scott and his wife Karen. Now, that probably sounds normal to most people. For Tim, seeing cousins is an everyday thing, he grew up with like 27 first cousins. But for me, I had never met any of my cousins. My dad was estranged from his only brother, and for years, I didn’t even know his kids names. The youngest is Scott, who is older than me but younger than my middle sister Suzanne. He and his wife drove down from Colorado to see parts of the South and visit places his dad had grown up. I think he was as curious about us as we were about him! It was WONDERFUL to meet him, and I hope both his dad and mine would be glad that it finally happened after all these years 🙂 After a long lunch visiting with Scott and Karen, Gail, Suzanne and I left to go shopping (we went to Barnes and Noble, Walmart, and the dollar store). I got home late, but made a quick supper here for us and Suzanne (roast beef paninis with salad and chips), while Gail went to see Sam for his 7th birthday. After that, Gail came here to visit with us and Suzanne and stayed overnight, leaving early Thursday AM for her Bible study. See, busy day!!!

*Thursday was a recovery day! From being gone so much on Wednesday, I was craving being home. I did laundry, cleaned house, and spent the afternoon making beef stew and homemade bread for supper.

*Friday, Zack and Kelly stopped by mid-afternoon on their way to the fair, and Tim left to play golf at Deerfield. After he finished playing golf and came home to clean up, we drove to Ridgeland to meet Suzanne for supper at Papito’s Mexican, then we all made a quick run to Sam’s for a few things.

*Saturday, Tim had an early morning tee time, so I stayed home to pick up the house, and then do more unpacking. Tim came home for a late lunch (leftover sausage dogs), then we both got out in the back yard and worked on raking leaves. We watched the MS State game after that (they beat #2 Auburn and are now the #1 team in the country, something that has never happened!). We made nachos for supper, then watched stuff on DVR and also some of Ole Miss-Texas A&M game. Lots of college football today 🙂

*Sunday is my favorite day of the week! We went to church (still in the series “Next: A Study of Joshua)and then Sunday School. We didn’t linger to visit, since Tim had a 12:50 tee time. I went to Kroger, then walked around to look at a few new houses in subdivision. Elizabeth came over for supper (she very graciously agreed to stop and pick up the pizza we ordered at Dominos) and she spent the night with us.

*Monday, Elizabeth was here most of the morning, then she headed to school (even though she has the day off for Columbus Day). It was cloudy all day, and then we had strong storms in the PM – wind, rain but nothing any worse. I had been looking forward to a rain storm, so I could sit out back on my screened in porch and watch it rain and the wind blow in the trees. I did, and it was marvelous! For supper, we had a true Meatless Monday… I made eggplant patties, sauteed cabbage and sesame green beans for supper. Yummy. While it rained, we stayed in and watched some shows that are piling up on the DVR.

OK, that about catches me up! Today is Tuesday, 10/14, and I did finally drag my lazy butt out of bed this morning and go walking. It was 59 degrees when I left and I was nearly chilly! I’m SO looking forward to fall and having more time at home. We’re going to be busy this weekend, with lots of fun stuff going on. More about that soon!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

More daily ramblings, as we get closer and closer to the closing on the new house (and giving away investing all of our savings for a downpayment!), and hopefully closer to selling our current (aka old) house.

I posted on Wednesday morning 9/3. Tim had a really bad night, Tuesday night, and didn’t sleep much. He’s pretty sick with a sore throat, cold type symptoms, scratchy voice, congestion, etc. I think he got up once or twice during the night and watched tv or worked on the computer because he couldn’t sleep. Poor thing. He won’t take a day of sick leave though, which is why he has more accumulated with his company than he could ever use 🙂

Wednesday turned out to be a nice, quiet day! I kept thinking to myself all day “enjoy the calm before the storm!” I went to Kroger and got a few groceries, then came home and just did some odd jobs around the house, played on my ipad a little, watched a little tv, and basically ignored packing. Until about 4 PM, then I packed a couple of boxes 🙂 We had no showings on Wednesday, so we didn’t have to rush out of the house and be gone, especially at dinner time. I thought I was done with cooking, but still eeking out a smidge more, although what we had for supper wasn’t really cooking. Tim’s friend Tony came around 6:30 to eat, hang out and spend the night, as he has a really early doctor’s appointment Thursday morning. I made tomato soup and grilled cheese, one of my favorite comfort meals. After supper, we were watching NFL Network and got to talking about the house, so of course, we roped Tony into going to see the new house 🙂 We’re horrible!

Thursday started out as another quiet day. I washed sheets and towels and cleaned up the guest room and guest bathroom. Tony might have been our last houseguest in the old house, since I can’t seem to talk Gail into coming before we move 😀 Tim is feeling a little bit better, but digging around looking for OTC meds to take, so apparently he’s not as well as he lets on! We didn’t have any showings, but ended up with another houseguest. Suzanne called around 5 PM and said her power was out, so she was coming over to stay the night. Tim and I worked in the yard till dark. Might be the last time cutting the grass here, without having to load up the mower on the truck and bring it over 😀

Friday morning, I had a haircut appointment. While I was there, Tim texted me that we had another showing Friday morning late, so I ran home to finish putting everything away and tidy up (again!). We were walking out the front door and the realtor and client drove up, that’s the first time that has happened! She didn’t look like someone who would buy our house, and sure enough, about the time we got to a restaurant to order lunch, the realtor texted they were done (less than 15 minutes). Oh well, we had a nice lunch at Krilakis anyway 🙂 Friday afternoon, after Tim finished work, we headed to the new house (yes, again!) to look for more punch list items. I keep telling Tim “they are tired of us adding things to the list” and “they are only going to fix so much”, but he keeps persisting. 🙂 After we got home, we heated up some leftovers for Tim, popcorn for me, and settled in to watch some things on the DVR and clean up a few shows.

Saturday, Tim had an early tee time, but woke up feeling bad still, so he decided not to go play. Which is VERY unlike Tim. Usually if he makes a commitment, he keeps it. But that is indicative of how bad he’s still feeling, if he doesn’t want to go play golf! We had a lazy morning, then got busy with more packing. My inclination is to get everything packed, everything, even though we still have 4 more days to closing and a week before the “big” move. Sigh. Suzanne popped over (unannounced!) around lunch and visited for a while. We packed (and sweated) all afternoon and into early evening. I can tell I’m going to be sore for the next couple of weeks, LOL!

Sunday is SO my favorite day of the week! We are loving church and our new Sunday School group. I told Tim today after we got out, I was just the epitome of happy, because they gave us new Sunday School books for the fall period (“Bible Studies for Life” from Lifeway). I nearly squealed in delight when I was handed one 🙂 I was always a teacher’s pet, you know 🙂 Anyway, we are nearing the end of the sermon series “All In” and had another good sermon from our regular pastor, this week’s symbol was the altar. And he did a play on words, and urged us all to live All-In, “all-tered” lives. Sunday School started in the new book, and this week we talked about church membership, and what it means to be a “member” of a church versus a part of the body of Christ (from Ephesians 2:17-22).

After we left church, we stopped at the auto parts store to get some injection cleaner for the engine of the Explorer, since the “check engine” light keeps coming on, unless we put in ethanol-free gas. Then we went to Taco Del Mar, where we have not been in ages. I had two avocados left at the house, so we decided to pick up enough tacos, burrito (for Tim), rice and beans to go along with the guacamole and chips, to last us for lunch and dinner. I packed all the cookware, all the dishes, all the glasses yesterday, so we are down to using paper plates and plastic cups. We got home late, changed into Saints shirts and started the recording of the first Saints game against Atlanta (which they ended up losing in overtime by a field goal), when our phones started going crazy. We got a text from Tim’s mom that they were headed to town and wanted to catch up and maybe see the house and do some shopping, and we got a text from one realtor, and then a phone call from a second one, wanting to show the house, one at 4:00 and one at 4:30. We finished eating, cleaned up the house, changed clothes, turned on all the lights and left around 2 PM. We met Tim’s family at the outlet mall, where Linda got some clothes for the Gideon meeting and Mitchell got a new suit (he’s going to go back to speaking in churches in the area for the Gideons). I got a pair of black ankle boots for fall/winter at the Clarks outlet, not sure if they are what I want, I might should have looked around more, but I don’t have a lot of extra time right now to clothes shop! LOL! Tim’s family ate before we got there, so we met them to shop, then headed to the new house. Brittany and David saw the house for the first time, and we got to meet Emi’s brother Lazarus, who arrived recently from Mexico. After that, we all headed back to Pearl and shopped for Terry’s store until closing. Tim and I came home, ate leftover tacos and finished the sad Saints game. Now, we are watching Sunday night football. I’m glad football has returned! This is our ONE Saints game in this house, next week we will be watching (hopefully!) from the new house!

I expect Monday and Tuesday to be very busy… lots of calls to make, I’m sure last minute things will pop up, and we are waiting to hear on the closing time and location on Wednesday. After we sign papers and give them all our money, we’ll get keys and start moving in! The big move is scheduled for next Saturday, we should have a crowd, all of Tim’s family and a lot of mine who are here. We can’t wait!!!

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! 😀

I hope we are at the five week mark, or even less! The last time Tim talked to our builder, he said on one hand, we are 90% complete with the house, but on the other hand, he said September 15 for a closing date. So that should be five weeks from today, or maybe sooner. Tim hopes he is “managing our expectations” and that is the latest and it might, just might, be finished and we can close sooner.

Another busy, really busy week, in the books. It certainly helps that we are staying so busy with so many things, it does make the time go by faster. This past week was particularly rough for Tim. He was still crazy busy at work. He worked so many hours, all day, most every night, most nights till 1 or 2 AM. He was chasing the problem on his new project all week and it was driving him nuts. He told me one day, I’m so tired of looking for a needle in a haystack and not being able to find the needle.

Ok, a quick recap of last week. Tuesday night, we had to go to a family support group therapy meeting at Suzanne’s outpatient facility. I’m not really the sharing with strangers type of person, so this was rather difficult for me. I didn’t really feel like we got anything out of it, the counselor just talked in broad terms, platitudes is what I described it to Tim as, afterwards. They want us to attend the next one in two weeks, we’ll see where we are with the house and if we are able to go. After the meeting was over, I let Tim pick someplace to go out to supper, and he of course picked something really unhealthy! We went to CiCi’s all-you-can-eat pizza buffet and proceeded to pig out. Ugh. It was good, but soooo bad for us!

Wednesday was a busy day for me, which worked out well for Tim, since he was nose down all day at his computer. I got my hair cut and colored that morning, then met Gail, Elizabeth, Katelyn and Sam at Chick-Fil-A. Gail had come down for her second annual day with DeeDee before school starts. She and the kids had a busy day, but thankfully came to our part of town so Liz and I could meet them for lunch. The kids had a good time playing and it was nice to catch up with Gail and Elizabeth. Elizabeth was getting ready for school, which started on Thursday. After I left them, I ran by HomeGoods to look around (I want to buy some things for the house SO BAD, but Tim refuses, saying “it’s more to move, just wait”.) I offered to stop and pick up Tim’s favorite, Dickey’s BBQ. He had “forgotten” to eat breakfast and was a couple hours late for lunch. He gets like that when he is busy working. He did stop work at the normal time since we had an appointment to meet with the hardware people at their warehouse in Gluckstadt. We picked the last of the hardware and also got the name of a glass guy to replace some windows in our existing house. After the meeting, we went by the new house to check on progress and found that they had started installing fixtures and ceiling fans. We also dropped off another load at the storage unit, it is getting full!

Thursday was another fairly busy day. I made a grocery run to Kroger, then Suzanne came over after her treatment and brought a huge bag of clothes that she had bought, to try on for me. She stayed a while and visited, and ended up staying for supper. I fixed an Asian chicken salad for everyone and we had frozen yogurt for dessert.

Friday, I tried to get some things done around the house. I spent the morning dragging around sprinklers and watering the grass, as it has been so hot and dry. The grass at our current house was nearly dead, and we want to try to keep it alive for when we put the house on the market (which we still have not done, with Tim so swamped at work). The glass guy came by mid afternoon to look at the windows we need replacing and said he would get us a quote on Monday. A bit later, Tim finally found a solution to his problem at work. He was ecstatic to finally find his needle and get it fixed! We decided to stay in and I fixed a new recipe from Pinterest, Philly Cheese Sloppy Joes (a big success!) along with some oven fries and roasted veggies. We watched the Saints first preseason game, which they won.

Saturday was a busy work day around here. About mid morning, I cut the grass for Tim, as he had started painting. He painted ALL day. He was doing walls, baseboard and trim in the front hallway and front guest bedroom. The rest of my day did not go as planned (I was going to clean, purge and pack more). Suzanne came over to trim the bushes but it started raining, so instead we went to Renaissance to go to Chico’s, Lucky Jeans and Barnes and Noble. She did great in the clothing stores, but then had a breakdown in Barnes and Noble, too many memories she said. So I drove her back, and we stopped at CVS to get another prescription filled for her. She’s going to have good days and bad days for a long time, I would imagine.

Sunday was by far my favorite day of the week! I spent the entire day with Tim, every minute, so that made it spectacular 🙂 We went to our regular service at church. We started a new sermon series, called “All In” (our pastor has been reading that book by Mark Batterson). This week was “Promotion Sunday” for all the kids moving up, so we thought it would be a good time for us to try our first Life Group! We picked from the list an open group led by one of the staff and it turned out to be a fairly small group, about 10 people this week. But we liked the teacher (Tommy Jarrett) and the passage he chose 1 Peter 4:12-19. We really enjoyed it and plan to go back and try this group again. We had several people tell us that people move around and we can do that till we find one that fits and feels right. We got out a little after noon, so we had a late lunch afterwards at Corner Bakery. I had the turkey on a pretzel roll, Tim had a Steak and Cheese sandwich. After stopping at the house to change, we were anxious to go see the new house! They had not only started on the tile work but it looked to be 40-50% complete. Our tile shower was nearly done and some in the other bathrooms and laundry room. The best part — the granite is installed in the kitchen on the countertops and island! It looks awesome! And the second best surprise, they had started the landscaping out front! Most of the front has flower beds, bushes planted and pine straw in the beds. No sod yet, but probably soon, at the rate they are going. We texted Suzanne before we left, and she texted back before we were leaving, so we stayed (and sweated profusely!) till she could drive up to the house to look around. We came home and waited for Terry and Mitchell to come with the trailer. They were going to load up the old wood from the fence Tim replaced and also take our old patio table and chairs. After they got here, it was so hot, Tim suggested we take them up for a tour of the house, which we did. They had not seen it since it was in the stud phase, prior to insulation and sheetrock. When we were at the new house, it started pouring, so we knew we couldn’t get back and get all the wood loaded. They ended up leaving the big trailer on our driveway and Tim and I (and maybe the neighbor) can try to load it this week for them to come get and take the stuff back. They visited till dark, then headed home, and poor Terry, he called about an hour and a half later and asked if we had seen his wallet. Which I found in a chair, so someone will probably come get that today. i hate losing my phone or wallet somewhere! After they left, it was late and I didn’t really want to cook, so Tim offered to drive us through Wendy’s for more bad fast food.

Here’s hoping that this week is equally as busy and goes equally fast, or faster. I’m pretty antsy these days to get a firm closing date and get busy packing the last of the house to move! 🙂

Another week down, at least we’ve finally pushed through July and are into August. September cannot get here soon enough for me! 🙂 Sensing a theme to these weekly posts, LOL!

Let’s see, by the time the weekend gets here, I can rarely remember what I did earlier in the week. Oh, this was a week with a lot going on with my sister Suzanne. I spent several hours with her on Monday, trying to get her up and out of bed and then she called and got an appointment with an outpatient intensive therapy treatment. I went with her Tuesday morning to the evaluation interview. I stayed with her while she filled out paperwork, till the counselor came to get her, then let her take it from there. She started on Wednesday and came over most every day this week. She borrowed our truck on Friday to move some stuff to her storage unit, and also had a bad night that night. We saw her today after church, had lunch at Corner Bakery. I hope next week gets better for her.

Tim had another busy (aka bad) week at work. He worked late most every day and also at night late (think, 11 PM or midnight) a couple of nights. He only got a chance to play golf one day, on Thursday. After Suzanne borrowed our truck Friday afternoon, he worked till about 6:30 PM, then we went to check on the house. They started painting and have most of the first coat sprayed on most of the surfaces (ceilings, walls, cabinets, etc). They have the outside painted, the cedar parts and also the eaves and door frames around the garage doors. The builder warned us that the painting will probably take 2-3 weeks, but in looking back, the cabinets took 3-4, so I guess that’s ok 🙂 Friday night, we stayed at the new house till nearly dark, then swung by Krilakis for a late supper. I had the regular, lamb gyro with Greek salad. Tim let me snatch two of his french fries 🙂

Saturday, he got up early and went to play in a golf tournament with the church. They played out at The Refuge and Tim and his group came in second! He won a gift card to Lowe’s, which definitely comes in handy right now 🙂 After he took a good nap, he started prepping and then painting up front in our current house. He finished the guest bathroom cabinets and baseboards last week, so started on the front bedroom and hallway. We have furniture all over the house, along with stacks of boxes that need to go to the storage unit. It’s lovely around here right now 😀

Sunday, we went to church, where we wrapped up the summer series on Characters who teach character. Today our regular pastor spoke on Samuel. He pointed out something I had never noticed, that the Bible never says anything bad about Samuel! He talked about his unconditional surrender and devotion and it really struck a chord with me. We will start a new series next week, I guess, they didn’t mention what the topic would be. School starts back this coming week, so the church and life groups will have a new start as well.

We came home after church and waited on Suzanne, and then went to a late lunch with her at Corner Bakery. Tim had pancakes, Suzanne had a scrambler and I had a half panini (California grille, a vegetarian one) and mixed greens salad. I made soft tacos and beans last night, and think I’ll do eggs and breakfast food tonight. Still working on cleaning out the freezer and pantry. It’s hard for me not to buy stuff to replace what I’m using. I’ll have a huge shopping trip once we move and I have the new fridge and pantry. Looking forward to that!

It’s late afternoon Sunday and Tim just left to play golf with Corey at Patrick Farms. Corey flies back from North Carolina every month or two to work and play golf with Tim 🙂 I’m not sure how much golf he’ll get to play this week, so I hope he enjoys today! We’ve got a lot of work to do with the painting, blinds, trying to find a realtor, getting insurance stuff worked out and probably going to pick out hardware. Also, we have to attend a therapy session for Suzanne and I have to get my hair cut this week. I prefer it busy right now though, more to do makes the time go by faster. I’m ready for August to zip by and be ready to move in early September sometime!