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! 😀

Well, here we are on the second weekend in December. Wow, this year has alternately drug by and flown by. Some days during the summer, it seemed like summer would never end. Some days when
my tinnitus was so bad, I wasn’t sure I’d make it through a day. Then, at night I couldn’t sleep and wasn’t sure I was going to ever sleep again. But summer finally ended, with our hot temps, and I’m glad to say that my tinnitus is a bit better, too. It’s not gone — I’ve given up hope that it will just go away, and although I pray daily for that mercy, I’ve resigned myself that I will hear it every second, for the remainder of my life. But I have made many changes with diet, food and medicines, and either a combination of those or something *has* helped. I’m thinking the gingko biloba has made the biggest difference, but it might not be that. Either way, it is better and I’m learning to co-exist with the noises in my head.

Summer finally ended, and my favorite time of the year began – football season! The Saints are currently 9-3 today (game in an hour or so, so hopefully 10-3 soon, LOL!), and we are cautiously hopeful about the remainder of the season and their playoff chances. We’d obviously love to see them do well again, after so many years of being perennial losers.

OK, for an update of this weekend:

We’re a day shy of two weeks (yikes, typo, thanks Michelle!) days from Christmas. Wow, where has this year gone?

This is the second weekend that Tim is having to work a ton, for his big project at work. Last weekend was so bad. He worked three nights in a row, including one night where he didn’t go to bed until 7:40 AM. I cannot pull all-nighters any more. Just can’t. I feel so bad for him, but am so grateful that he has a job and works so hard to take care of us and provide for us.

I’ve gotten most of the Christmas presents wrapped. I have 3 or 4 left to go. I got the Christmas cards finished and mailed a few days ago. I’m seriously contemplating NOT doing any baking at all this year. My mother-in-law does a ton, and we just don’t need it around our house. I won’t have anything to take the neighbors and that’s my only drawback. I’ll have to think a bit more on that.

Yesterday was semi-warm (60’s) and today a front has blown through and it’s COLD. Current temp, 39, wind chill 29. Cold for us.

Yesterday, I planted pansies. In years gone by, I always had pansies planted by Halloween. I didn’t even want to plant them this year, I’m OVER planting annuals, but Tim talked me into it. And he helped 🙂 I hope they survive our overnight temps of 20’s for the next couple of days.

And yesterday, I ordered, for the first time ever, Amazon’s Deal of the Day! LOL! They had a stainless steel Breadmachine bread machine on special and I used some of my Swagbucks money to order me one 🙂 I hope it is a good one. My last bread machine (Sunbeam/Oster) has been going strong for 11 years, and while it still works, it doesn’t mix the ingredients as well, and it’s gotten really LOUD. Distracts everyone in the house while it’s running. So, Santa Stacy ordered herself a new one 🙂

Oh, and I’m still LOVING, absolutely loving, my Kindle! Tim got me the Wi-Fi one for my birthday and I just love it. I’ve gotten so many great free books from Amazon and I’ve downloaded a couple of Christmas books to read. I really love reading on it, it’s so light and easy to hold 😀

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Once again, I don’t have anything earth-shattering to blog about. Just some random tidbits floating around in my head!

* The weather here is gorgeous! It finally feels like fall and not so much like summer. I’ve joked most of my life that we have two seasons here in the Deep South – really really hot and not quite as hot! Last week, it started cooling off some and was in the 80’s during the day and 50’s and 60’s at night. The last couple of days have been even better – 70’s during the day and 40’s at night. Awesome! I’ve had the windows open and been enjoying not only the cooler air, but hearing my birds at my bird feeder, the insects chirping and even occasionally my wind chimes singing 🙂

* Once the weather starts feeling better, I start thinking about needing a few new pieces of clothing for fall and winter. I have mentioned before that I really don’t like to shop (not for clothes anyway, food and electronics shopping make me happy though!). I particularly dislike shopping for shoes. And purses. And underwear. Ugh. But, part of me wants some new boots this year. I have never owned a pair of cowboy boots and some part of me wants a pair. Maybe even a pair of short ones, I saw some in a store when I was at the beach with my sister and her family. So – if you buy boots this year, will they be tall or short ones and what style? Is there anything that’s really “in”, not that I’m much of an in-style kind of girl!

* We got our replacement coffee maker in the mail, finally. Our Cuisinart On-Demand coffee maker started having problems after about a year. It’s under warranty for 3 years, so we called them and set things up. We had to cut the cord from the old one and mail to them, and then they told us that our unit was on back-order. So we waited, and waited. It finally came in last week! Tim is happy and I’m pretty happy too. I had bought a cheap Mr Coffee at Walmart to use while we waited on the new one to come in. Now, I drag that one out every day from the garage to use for my decaf coffee. So, I’m back to drinking coffee some days 🙂 If you remember, I gave up caffeine to help with my tinnitus, but I do miss sweet tea in the summer and coffee in the winter. I am now enjoying the Decaf Moose Munch flavored coffee I bought at Harry & David last month!

* I’m still on the fence about getting a Kindle. My birthday is coming up, and I actually have enough credit at Amazon to get one (from doing the Swagbucks and MyPoints programs). I’ve been going back and forth between thinking I want an iPad to thinking I want a Kindle, to most days thinking, I love paper books, why on earth would I waste money on an e-Reader. Tim encouraged me to download something to my Mac and read it on there. Luckily, Amazon gives away a lot of really good free books and I’ve downloaded quite a few. I read one, “The Pawn” by Steven James on my Kindle for Mac app. I really enjoyed it, good book and it was easier to read on the laptop than I had anticipated. So now I’m swinging more that way than before!

* I’ve been doing better on the cooking front. I’m making menu plans more often and sticking to them, and I’ve also made a concerted effort to try some new recipes. I’ve got a few that have been deemed keepers, so I’ll try to post a link to those soon – in case anyone is interested! 🙂

Hope you’re all having a great day and week out there in blog-land!