Exceedingly Mundane

Let’s see, we are seven days into the new month and new year. So far, we have…

* shoved all the Christmas decorations back into the attic. I haven’t mentioned it before, LOL, but we have a great new house. And that includes, a great big ole attic! It’s MUCHO larger than at our old house and a ton of it is floored, giving this packrat a lot of places to stash things. And, Tim loves his bigger garage, we got the extra third bay so he’d have places to store all his tools and guy stuff.

* went over to my sister Suzanne’s and Tim hooked up some electronics for her, helped her with computer and printer stuff, hung some stuff for her, etc. Just your basic 8 hours of free manual labor, LOL!

* in getting ready for Church Sunday morning (yippee, new sermon series entitled “First Things First” focusing on prayer and nice shiny new Sunday School books, that always makes me very very happy!), Tim got out the iron and ironing board to touch up his shirt. And proceeded to drop the iron on his foot. His toe was very sore for a couple of days and he hobbled around for a day or so, but it doesn’t appear to be broken and is healing now. Thank goodness!

* I took my sister to her colonoscopy appointment yesterday. Which required me to get up at 5 AM, which is not something I either like or enjoy. 🙂 The things we do for the people we love. So, after we got her taken care of (Starbucks run for her right after, nothing for me, then a baked potato delivered to her later in the day, since she needed to eat something and not just sleep), I ran a lot of errands. I’m back to working on getting new stuff for the house. Fun! See photo below for one of my purchases 😀

* We have two funerals/visitations to go to this week. Tonight, we go to one for Perry, Tim’s cousin Fannie’s husband who passed away. And Saturday we go north for Margaret’s funeral, my brother-in-law Don’s mother. She had been in ICU for over three weeks, and the family finally decided to take her off the ventilator. Margaret was wonderful woman and a vibrant, loving, joyful, thoughtful member of their family. I have been blessed to know her for over 40 years and she will be sorely missed.

* I’m trying to get back into reading. More on that in another post. Doing my first-ever chronological read of the Bible.

* This time tomorrow, I should be a happy camper. I have my annual check-up with THAT girlie doctor (had to reschedule from December, my appointment rolled around when I had the sickness and was running fever). I’m always happy when it’s over and I don’t have to think about going for another year 🙂

And finally, a couple of random photos, since I have my shiny new Mac and am back able to post photos:

I finally found some cute new baskets yesterday for my mudroom openings!

And, my old Kindle keyboard died back in October 2013, after a faithful daily use of four years. I ordered a new Paperwhite that night, but never got around to getting a case. I just got this one in from Amazon, it looks like an old book, I love it 😀

And P.S. That last photo looks blurry but I am just too lazy to go retake the photo, size it down, transfer it over and try again. Gotta get a move on!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another week down, closer to having the house finished! That can’t come soon enough for me 🙂

Let’s see, the week was fairly quiet. I did housework and normal stuff on Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday after work, Elizabeth stopped by and we took a pickup bed full of boxes to the storage unit, then took Liz to see the house for the first time. Wednesday, Suzanne stopped by for a visit.

Thursday, I had returns to make to a few stores. Then, Gail came and brought Sam and Katelyn back to their house, they had been staying with her since the weekend. She came here and we went shopping and to run errands. We ran by Marshall’s and TJ Maxx and bought a couple of small things. Then we stopped at Big Lots and actually found some food items, I was pleasantly surprised at what a large assortment of Bob’s Red Mill products they had. I’ll have to remember to go back there after we move and stock up on a few things. After that, we went over to see Suzanne’s apartment, as Gail had not had a chance to visit her there. We hung out a while, then ran by Fresh Market to get the Thursday Meal Deal. This month’s (July) deal was cheeseburgers. We got 4 burger patties (2 beef, 2 turkey), brioche rolls from the deli, cookies, coleslaw, and slice cheese. Next month’s deal is supposed to be noodle bowls, I’ll be interested to see what all that entails.

Gail spent the night and then headed out Friday. I ran to Kroger and did a big grocery run. Tim did not play golf all weekend, which is very odd. Saturday, he decided to stay here and work on the house. We’re down to the wire to get things fixed up around here to put our current house on the market, before we move to the new house. He cleaned up outside, washed down the siding and doors, painted around the front and back doors and also washed the gutters. I did some packing inside, in the master bedroom closet.

Sunday, I got up and was nearly ready for church when Tim came in the bathroom and said “I do NOT feel good, I can’t go to church”. Which for Tim to say, means he is near death’s door 🙂 He stayed home all day and rarely left the couch. Now, today (Monday) he is even worse with a stomach bug, but is working. Suzanne came over Sunday afternoon and stayed for several hours. She had a setback and is very upset. I went over to her apartment today (Monday) and tried to get her up and out of bed at lunchtime. She is not eating and is very depressed. Before I left, she called and got an appointment at an outpatient counseling place across town, and is hopefully going to be accepted and start a 6 or 8 week intensive outpatient therapy regimen. She is really struggling and we’re doing our best to help her.

We should be contacting a realtor soon, to list the house, which means we’ll shift into an even higher gear. I am going to have to clean more around here, bummer! And have things presentable at a moment’s notice, I suppose. I’m just itching to get a final date on the house and proceed straight to the moving phase 🙂 We ran up to the house yesterday with Suzanne and they had everything prepped for painting but had not started. They had, however, stained the outside doors and they looked really good.

Another week down, wonder how many to go before we have a closing date! At least July is almost over. Oh, and Saints training camp started, so that is wonderful news, LOL!

I’ve posted many times in the past, probably every July and August, about how these are always the two hardest months of the year for me. When I worked full-time, I rarely took vacation during this time, and it was a long time between July 4th and Labor Day. Now that I’m not working, Tim is but plays golf all summer (and we rarely go on vacation this time of year), and the heat is so bad (although this year not NEARLY as bad as normal), the two months of July and August always seem interminably long. And this year is no exception, and probably even worse, since we are trying ever so hard to patiently wait for them to finish with building our house!

We check on the house every week. Tim, usually 2-3 times a week, me usually once or maybe twice. He comes away uber-excited and pumped up. Me, I get dejected that they don’t seem further along and there seems to be *so* much left to do 🙂 It helps that we’ve been taking pictures every step of the way, and sharing them on an IOS photo stream for family, so I can look back to May when it was just dirt, then foundation, then framing and see just how far they HAVE come. But still 😀

We logged another week in the books. Tim and our neighbor Rick finished up the gates and the fence work, so that is now done. It looks really great. I teased them both that we should hire them out, they do really good work 🙂 Tim had a rough week at work, having to work late a couple of nights and having some really bad days where he was chasing problems and on conference calls pretty much the entire day. I hope next week is a lot better for him.

On Wednesday, Kathryn, Katelyn and Sam dropped by after work for Sam to come stay with us, just like his big sister did a couple of weeks ago 🙂 Sam and I had fun, when we spent time together. He was mostly happy to take his mom’s ipad, go in his room, close the door and binge-watch cartoon “movies” or tv shows from Netflix. He could do that hours at a time, unless he got hungry. He never seemed to get bored! If we tried to read a book (he did NOT want to do that!), watch something together on tv or play the Wii together, he got bored in about 8 minutes flat! LOL! We went to the library and got books for bedtime stories, had dinner at Newk’s (HIS choice, surprisingly!) on Wednesday night with Uncle Tim, and then went to check on the house. Sam had a ball playing in the mountain of sawdust in the garage, LOL! Thursday, Aunt Liz came over for a late lunch, then we went to Sam’s Club and Kroger to pick up some things that Sam likes to eat (chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, chocolate chip waffles, strawberries). We ran into Aunt Suzanne in the grocery, which was nice. Aunt Liz stayed for supper and waited for Uncle Tim to finish work late, so he could work on her vehicle when he finished. She was long overdue for an oil change 🙂 It was good to get to see her, and we look forward to seeing more of her as she winds down summer vacation and gets ready to get back to teaching in August. Sam watched a lot of Netflix on Friday, since it pretty much rained all day. His parents and Katelyn came by after work on Friday and we all visited for a while then went to eat. At Newk’s again, Sam’s choice 🙂 He seems to like their free breadsticks and cheese pizza.

Saturday, Tim had an early morning tee time and then stopped by to check on the house again. They are still finishing up cabinets and building the island and his vanity for his bathroom by the office, also known as one of the guest baths. He spent some time helping me visualize the kitchen and layout and where things might go after he got home. I’m still struggling with the difference in cabinets and drawers at the new house, versus what I have here, where it’s located and how I use it. It really helped when he tried to help me see it and work things out in my mind, but it will really just be after we move and get things unpacked and try to live in the space, before it’s actually going to click for me, I think. One of my big failings, I just can’t visualize things until I actually *do* them.

Today is Sunday, so church. Another good service in the same series, Characters who Teach Character. Guest speaker Floyd Vanderbergh, with Strategic Impact and also a member of our church. He spoke on Gideon and his experience from the book of Judges, good sermon. Afterwards, we ran by Kroger, since we were completely out of milk and almost out of bread. I’ve been trying to use more of what i have here, but still need milk, bread, juice, eggs and lots of produce 🙂

Tim is going to play golf later, and right now he is happily watching recorded British Open coverage on the DVR. I saw online today that there are 7 more Sundays until Saints regular season football begins. I cannot wait!

In other news, Tim’s parents left Monday morning on a cross country trip. They’ve been to Memphis, St Louis, Dodge City Kansas, Mesa Verde Colorado and are driving through Nevada today, headed to the redwoods in California. They’re having a great time, I think!

On the home front, I’m going to try to cook more from my pantry and freezer this week. Tonight (Sunday) we are going to have breakfast food. I don’t have anything nailed down, but am tentatively planning meals this coming week of hot italian sausage sub sandwiches one night, salads, oven bbq chicken with coleslaw and baked beans. I probably won’t get to the crockpot red beans and rice (with sausage), maybe next week on that one. And I have a package of frozen ravioli that I am going to use soon. As I’ve warned Tim, I’m spending less at the grocery right now, which is counter-intuitive to what is going to happen – that I’m going to spend a lot more re-stocking things after we move, when we have less cash to work with. But, oh well!

I finished a library loan book yesterday, the latest by Dee Henderson entitled “Undetected” about a US Navy submarine captain and a genius young lady in the field of sonar. Good book, and now I’ve got another library loan, “Missing You” by Harlan Coben. I don’t read a lot of fiction that is not Christian, but he is one I do enjoy. Not sure what I’ll read after that… We’ve got some stuff to watch on the DVR, since we didn’t watch much while Sam was here and Tim has been busy since Thursday watching British Open coverage.

OK, that’s it for another boring weekly update! 🙂 Hope everyone out there (if anyone is actually out there reading this!) is having a great week and weekend 😀

That’s basically the update for this past week: Tim and our neighbor Rick have been rebuilding fences. 🙂

Let’s see, this past week Tim did not play golf once. He played last Sunday, but has not played again. He and Rick worked on our fence and then Rick’s. They have all the 2×4’s up, all the fence boards up now and are working on gates (2 each).

Wednesday at lunch, we drove out to check on the house. Still working inside on cabinets and trim, putting up crown moulding and they had started on the inside brick. Friday afternoon, we got some rain showers around 4 PM, so Tim and Rick decided to take a break. We went back to check on the house, then went out to eat (Chinese buffet!) and to Harbor Freight. At the house, they had finished the inside brick, both the keeping room fireplace and the arch going from the great room into the kitchen/keeping room. They had the outside shutters built, but not installed. I’m hoping for garage doors, driveway and things like that soon. I am hoping they can do some outside stuff while the carpenters are still busy inside. Oh, and Friday evening, they had started on my screened-in back porch! Yippee!

Friday, I ran errands most of the day. I went to Kroger, to Harbor Freight (for a gift card) and the post office and also to Sam’s. Suzanne met me at Sam’s and got a whole cart full of stuff! I hope she has room to store it all 🙂 She also filled up her Toyota with gas.

Saturday was a work day around here. Tim and Rick started around 7:30 AM and finished up about 7:45 PM. I worked some in the attic in the morning (the only time it’s bearable up there), and threw down some stuff to take to the storage unit, as well as some stuff I dragged to the curb for the garbage to pick up. I found my old footlocker and got even more nostalgic and misty-eyed. 🙂 I’ve had that blue footlocker since I was a pre-teen or teen, and it contains papers from my childhood all the way through college.

Sunday was church (guest speaker from a church plant in New Orleans, but still on the same series, Characters who teach Character). The speaker used Jehosheba from 2 Kings 11, who saved the baby Joash from the queen mother Athaliah, who killed all of her grandsons after her son Ahaziah had died. Jehosheba saved the royal line of David, thereby keeping God’s promise, and showed tremendous courage. So this week’s character trait was courage, good sermon 🙂

After church, we stopped by Corner Bakery, but the line was out the door (we were late, had stopped to visit and chat after church), so we went to Walmart instead. I had to get some color safe bleach, mouthwash and I got 2 totes to store stuff from my footlocker in the attic. Since Tim had been working so hard on the fence all week and not playing golf, I told him to pick where he wanted to eat, so of course, he picked Dickey’s BBQ! I have a new plan of action for there, to stay away from some of the meat. I tried a baker (potato) this time and plan to try the Smokehouse Salad next time. I’m still eating pretty bad, but maybe not as much red meat and cholesterol for me. I got the pork tangler potato. Huge baked potato with pulled pork and fried onion strips on top, it was extremely tasty! After our free ice cream, I got Tim to walk next door to Home Goods. I had wanted to look for an Oxo container to store my flax in (I got a HUGE bag at Sam’s, and need something to parcel it out into). I couldn’t find the size I wanted, so I got a glass jar with green lid instead, cute for my new pantry! 🙂

Sunday, we got a rain shower around 1:45, so that sealed it for Tim, he was really too tired to play golf he said. I thought he might cave and go, but after the rain, it was a bit soggier and a lot more humid, so he decided to stay home and rest. After a couple of good naps for him, we rented “NonStop” with Liam Neeson from Amazon video. Good movie! Then we watched an old movie I had recorded on the DVR, the last Twilight one. Then we cleaned up a few tv shows. Oh, and we tried Extant this week on the DVR, the summer sci-fi show with Halle Berry. Tim is on the fence with it, but I sorta liked it. We’ll see how it goes and if we keep up with that one or not.

Now, it’s another Monday and I need to be cleaning house, but I’m very unmotivated. It is hard with boxes and junk everywhere. But we need to get things cleaned up, Tim wants to list the house soon and I dread having to have it ready to show at a moment’s notice. I also hate that he will have to figure out where to go to work if the realtor wants to show it during the day, but that’s a bridge we’ll cross when we get to it 🙂 First, he has to finish the gates and call the fence “done” 😀

Oh, and for food, I made pork fajitas last week, chili dogs, and then we ate out Chinese buffet Friday night. Saturday night I made veggie quesadillas. Sunday we had Dickie’s for lunch, then popcorn with the movie, then Tim made us homemade salsa for supper (I was going to do breakfast food, but he said he was fine with just salsa and chips). Tonight I’m making meatless stuffed peppers and a salad, and I will probably do fried rice and potstickers later this week.

Well… I certainly do ramble about nothing! Not much to report, but there’s another week in the books. One week closer to them finishing the house and us being able to move! I’m so antsy and ready for them to just be done already 😀

Another recap of our weekend, that appears to be the only blogging I do these days! But at least that’s better than nothing. I used to blog daily, when I first started, and do lots of memes and questions and fun things. I think those things are mostly gone in blog-land, or are they still out there floating around? I used to do Menu Plan Monday and I know that one is still going strong. I am just not as good at coming up with a firm menu as I used to be! I’ve learned to be more flexible with food, especially during prime golf season!

Anyhoo, I digress. Last week was pretty busy, with Zack here early in the week, then Elizabeth came over one day to hang out and show us her new Macbook from school. Wednesday and Thursday, Tim worked on the deck, cleaning it and putting on more protectant (man, I’m going to miss my deck!) We went after work on Thursday to take a few boxes to the storage unit and also check on the house. Tim played some golf, I did some reading (just finished Take a Chance on Me by Susan May Warren and The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd, both of which I loved!). The week flew by!

By the time Friday rolled around, we were ready for a weekend! Tim played golf after work and I made us a huge platter of nachos for supper. We both overate, but they were really good! Dessert was frozen chocolate/vanilla swirl yogurt. By the time Tim got in, it was too late for a movie, so we just watched TV shows from the DVR.

Saturday, he got up early for a 7:30 tee time. He was supposed to play 18 with a group, but he came in early, as one of the older guys in his group was dizzy and they were all afraid he was getting heat stroke, so they quit after 9. He was originally going to bring home Chick Fil A for him, me and Suzanne, but we shifted gears and called Suzanne to let her know. She came over and we all went to eat lunch at Majestic Burger. I got my regular fish sandwich (grilled mahi mahi on wheat), Tim got a chicken philly and we split onion rings. We also got the fried portobella bites to share with Suzanne, and I believe she got a big salad. It was all really good! We wanted to take Suzanne to see the house, but she had plans, so we went ourselves instead. The sheetrock was pretty much complete, there were 2 workers in there finishing up sealing the joints between sheets. The house next door that is nearly complete but not sold was having an open house, so I finally got to go look around. It’s a lot bigger than I thought, it’s two story, with a huge bonus room, bathroom and two large storage areas on the second floor. It’s about 200 or 300 more square feet, we thought, and Zillow lists the asking price at about 18,000 more than ours. So, hopefully we’ll have nice neighbors! Anyway, we looked at other houses in the area that are being built, and noticed that the other two lots by our builder down at the end of the street had sold, so he is completely sold out on our street. After we got home, we watched some tv and movies. Tim watched World War Z, streaming free on Amazon Prime, but I skipped that one to read my book. Then we both watched GI Joe:Retaliation, also on Amazon. I fixed us a healthy supper of panko baked cod and a big Caesar salad, since we had the two bad meals previously of nachos and Majestic.

Sunday was busy with church (still in the Characters who teach Character series, this week was Elijah) and then we went to brunch afterwards at Corner Bakery. Tim had a tee time of 3:05 but it started raining around 1 PM and he called at 2:15 to cancel. It stopped about 2:30 and then he and Braxton went to play 9 holes and practice at around 5 PM. I finished my book and worked on a pile of magazines while he was gone. After he got in, we had breakfast for supper, then watched the last 2 episodes of Crisis. I think that both Believe and Crisis were cancelled, which is a shame, we enjoyed those shows.

Now, it’s Monday and we’re back to the regular routine. We meet with the decorator on Wednesday, to pick out things for the house. Tim has to take another day of vacation, supposed to take the better part of the day. I’m sure this week will fly by, or at least I hope so! They are supposed to be starting on the brick for the house, so I’m hoping by this coming weekend, it will be fully bricked! Getting closer, but still a LONG way to go and I go back and forth, being anxious and not anxious to go ahead and move! LOL!

Another uber busy weekend in the books! Not interesting for anyone else, but I like to record some of what is going on these days. Especially when we do fun things like go check on the house (our new big thing, LOL!) and we spend time with family and have such a good time!

I had thought Tim was going to go play golf on Friday after work, but he surprised me and said he wouldn’t go, so we could go check on the house and go out to eat. Such a sweetie pie! We went and checked on our house (Tim had been there the evening before to meet with the builder and electrician). I had not been since last Sunday, when Tim’s family came to see. From Sunday to Friday, they had made a lot of progress – the roof was finished, the front and back doors all installed, all windows have been installed, the two fireplaces are in, and the duct work done for the heating/ac system, which was also installed in the attic. We also went and looked at a couple of others houses further along, being built by our builder, to get an idea of fixtures, finished details, etc. We have to meet with the decorator soon to pick out a lot of things. Lots going on!

After we left the house, we were hungry and couldn’t decide where to go eat. We both decided that since we’d been good all week eating salads, we deserved to splurge and be bad, so we went to Pizza Inn for the all-you-can-eat pizza buffet! That’s something we hardly ever do, it has probably been 3 or 4 years or more since we’ve done that. I usually make pizza and every once in a while, we order or pick up pizza, but we never go to a buffet. Plus, I wanted to check and make sure they would deliver to our new house (they will), since I think we’ll be too far away from the Papa Johns we both love. After supper, we went to Dick’s to look for golf balls for Tim and ran into my old buddy Braxton. We talked to him for a long time, and it was good to see him and catch up on things. We were going to go check out the new Harbor Freight, but it was getting too late, so we went next door and ambled through Home Goods till they closed. So many things I want to buy for the house. Tim is like, you have to wait, I don’t want to buy more we have to move!!

Saturday, Tim had an early tee time with his buddies. After he got home (I had cooked lunch, but he brought us Chick-Fil-A home for lunch, as a surprise, along with a chocolate shake for us to split, do you notice a pattern of splurges!) and we ate, we got ready and headed out on more errands. We went to the new Harbor Freight they just opened near us. Tim had a blast, browsing and shopping, and after nearly 2 hours, I finally coaxed him into leaving. We went to the dollar store and TJ Maxx after that, and then, even though I had food cooked from lunch, we were out, we were hungry, so we stopped for supper! We went to the Papitos near TJ Maxx and had a huge meal. Tim ordered the Fiesta Dinner, which came out on two huge platters. I got the Baja Fish Tacos and they were really good! We took leftovers home, but haven’t had a chance to eat them yet.

On the way home, we called to talk to Mark and Amanda. They actually had been trying to reach us at home, to see if we had any photos of the church Tim and Mark grew up in, as they were having their 100th Anniversary on Sunday. So I spent several hours going through old photos and sending to them, and Mark worked all night on the slide show for the anniversary. Sunday morning, we got up and drove over to Tim’s family and we had the celebration at church for several hours. They read the 100 year history of the church, we visited with lots of family and friends (Tim had not seen a lot of these people in 20 or 30 years), we had lunch, then singing from two different groups. Kindred Spirits, which has Steven in it, and the Leaf River Boys, which has Tim’s Uncle Richard in it, playing the harmonica. After all the festivities at the church, we all went back to Linda and Mitchell’s and visited for several hours. Tim had brought his pistol and everyone took a turn firing it. I, of course, was the worst shot by far 🙂 Ethan had a shell casing come back and pop him in the face, so he had a nice bright red shiner to show for his first effort with a pistol! Brittany took me, Amanda and Abby down to see her new trailer. She’s so excited! It needs a lot of work and I asked her if it would be ready before our new house, and she said she wasn’t sure! It will get all new paint, all new floors and a lot of other work before she moves in. We stayed pretty late, then left and swung through Wendy’s for a late, late, late supper on the drive home. Obviously, WAY too much eating out this weekend, but that always happens when we stay so busy, always easier to pick up food while we are out running crazy. Tim and I are both pretty tired today, but we thoroughly enjoyed our weekend! (Note to self: no pictures here from the 100th anniversary at the church, I posted them on Facebook instead).

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 have now experienced the phenomenon of cleaning out your parents house. We went to Hattiesburg yesterday for another trip, with another UHaul. This time, we cleaned out every last thing from my parents house. My sisters and I had done some cleaning out of my mom’s things about a year or so after she passed away (it will be 11 years this June, goodness gracious). And now since we’ve moved my dad into the assisted living place near our house, we have been working at whittling down the remainder of the contents of their house. We took everything to his new “apartment” as we call it, that we thought he wanted or needed. My sisters and their kids have gotten everything that they want out, we’ve sold some furniture and big items to some extended family, and now we’re down to the last set of items. I swore years ago I would never have another garage sale, but you know what they say about never saying never… LOL!

So, yesterday was another long day, about 14 hours in all, and this week will be a lot of prep work. Everything that I spent all day yesterday packing, has to be unpacked and setup and priced for the garage sale. Thankfully, we had most of the big pieces out, so there was very little furniture to haul. It’s just down to kitchen stuff, linens, old clothes, etc. I wonder what kind of prices to put on things these days. I don’t have garage or yard sales and don’t go to them, so I don’t have any idea what people sell these kinds of things for today.

Get this – we found 2 or 3 film cameras, and he was like, sell those. I softly told him, Daddy, today people have digital cameras and cell phones for taking photos! LOL!

Anyway, we have the house empty, so we can now move forward with trying to clean it up, getting it painted, cleaning or replacing carpets, listing with a realtor, etc. It’s such a big job. And in so many ways, it’s so hard. Even though this wasn’t the house I grew up in, my parents lived there for many years, my dad about 21 in all, 10 of those with my mom. All of their earthly belongings have been divvied up and sent to various family and friends, and the rest of it is sitting in my garage, waiting to be paraded out to strangers, to sell for little or nothing. There’s something so inherently sad in that, the end of things, the summation of a life.

Yes, I’m obviously a bit melancholy with this post, please forgive me. I still miss my Beau so much. Yesterday was one month since we lost him, and I still miss him so.

On to bigger and better things, but first, a lot of work to do with this garage sale!

I love winning things in online contests! I haven’t won anything big in a while (well, big is relative, of course). I have won a few books lately (and believe me, I LOVE to win books!), but nothing much “bigger” than that, money wise.

Just a few minutes ago, I got an email from the Rachael Ray Show’s website. I have watched (recorded to DVR and watch at my leisure) the Rachael Ray daily one hour show for several years now. I signed up when they first launched their “Club Rachael Ray” which is where they offer give-aways. They give prizes to their studio audience pretty much every show, and many of those they offer online. I try to enter them regularly, and have never won anything.

Today, they emailed me that I had won a Shark Steam Pocket Mop! Now, for someone who likes to keep house and cook, this is a great thing to win! The email said to watch my mail in the coming weeks, so I imagine it will just show up on my doorstep one day in a few weeks. Which will mean I get excited all over again! I’m sure I’ll post again then, with a photo 🙂

I’m pretty excited! It will steam clean my tile floors, without using any chemicals. On the Target website, it’s listed at about $120 bucks, so a nice prize to win 😀

I often joke with Tim about the saying “hunter/gatherer”, because that really shines through with the two of us. Tim is a hunter, but only goes out to get what he needs. I’m definitely a gatherer, and some would probably say, a hoarder. I don’t like to run out of things, like toilet paper, dishwashing soap, shampoo, and mostly – food! Tim is always joking, telling me, you’d think you lived way out in the boonies, instead of a mile from a grocery store, the way you stock up on stuff!

I have a big pantry, but mostly, it is just really deep. I know I should be grateful to have a lot of storage space in my pantry, but it’s sooooo hard to find things because whatever I put in the front of the shelf, obscures whatever is stored or stacked behind it. I’ve been going back and forth for a while now, wanting to declutter it and reorganize it, and I finally got around to it.

I threw out almost half a garbage bag of food. Things I had bought for a certain recipe and never used. Hey, if I haven’t used them in the past couple of years, I’m probably not going to use them now. Half opened packages of various seasonings. Cans that were past their expiration date. Etc.

One of the main goals was to clear up room on my counter-tops. I have a pretty set of white canisters to hold my flour, sugar, etc. But, I don’t have a lot of counter space and Tim was always fussing that we need more room. So, I bought a couple of the Oxo Good Grips storage canisters, and packed up my pretty ones “for when we get a bigger house, and I get a bigger kitchen”. 😀 I made more room on my counters, and right now at least, I have more room in my pantry.

I did NOT take before pictures. I would like to say that I forgot, but it’s more like I was ashamed. I had stuff packed in and really had no idea what was buried in the back of most of the shelves. I’m not sure how long my nice, clean pantry will last, but right now, I’m really enjoying it! It makes me more motivated to keep it this way, but I know that sooner or later, my hoarder/gatherer gene is going to kick in and I’m going to make a massive buying trip to Sam’s Club, and that will be the end of my clean pantry! LOL! 🙂

Here’s a couple of after shots…

Bottom of the pantry, the bottom shelf is so deep, it has a lot of wasted space, but, oh well!

A close-up of the Oxo containers, I really really like their products, and these are no exception:

Top of the pantry… I really like having that rubbermaid small basket on the top shelf. I can’t reach that shelf without climbing in a chair or ladder, but I can pull down that basket that has some small bags of rice and pasta in it. Works really well for me 🙂

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

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

Here’s the old one:

And the nice shiny new one:

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

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