Exceedingly Mundane

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! 😀

Thanksgiving was a very busy, very fun week around our house 🙂 Then, the sickness arrived, horrible black plague that it is!

Let’s see, on Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we had about 16 people here. Suzanne’s son Kirk, his wife Nichole, and their three kids came over to visit. Gail and Don came down from Indianola and stayed with us till Friday. Kathryn, Jeremy, Katelyn, Sam, Elizabeth and David also came over to visit. Suzanne brought pizza and everyone stayed to hang out and visit for a while. It was the first time we had met Isabella, Kirk’s youngest baby, and other than seeing Lillie and Max at the funeral, we had not seen them much, so great to see everyone and catch up.

Wednesday, Tim had the day off, so he and Don went to play golf. Gail and I ran to Kroger for some last minute items and then I spent the next 5 or 6 hours in the kitchen, cooking and preparing stuff for Thanksgiving. I made Chicken Santa Fe in the crockpot for supper for everyone, and Suzanne came back over to eat and visit. Kirk, Nichole and the kids had gone to see his dad. Thursday morning, Suzanne had a run, then came over, along with Elizabeth and David. We all had the normal – turkey (Got up at 6 AM and Tim got it in the smoker), Gail’s dressing, broccoli rice casserole, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, rolls. Elizabeth made pumpkin pie for dessert and I tried a new recipe for pecan pie bars (the first attempt failed, but the second, with modifications, came out great). We all went to see Interstallar at Malco in the late afternoon. Then we came home and cranked up the fire pit for its grand inauguration and had cocoa and roasted marshmallows.

Tim and Don went to play golf again Friday morning, while Gail and I hung out here some, then went to get Margaret’s car over at Nancy’s house. We all got caught in traffic getting home (not Black Friday, but a bad wreck on the highway), and a little bit later, Don and Gail left going home and to the Lamb, Bass, Barger party. Tim collapsed when they left, and admitted he had been sick. He was sick all the rest of Friday, Saturday on his BIRTHDAY, Sunday and on into the next week, even though he worked every day and didn’t take a single hour of sick leave.

I went to Walmart on Saturday and picked up some Mucinex and a few items. I went back to Kroger Monday morning for more meds and some orange juice, clementines and a few things. I was already starting to feel bad Monday morning, but had to get up, since the Lowe’s repair guy was coming to look at the fridge (seal on the bottom freezer drawer has been leaking and holding water). By later Monday, I was running fever and feeling horrible.

We were both sick all week, so it wasn’t very merry around our house. Luckily, we had put up the Christmas trees (two, first time ever, since we had a short brand new one from the old house, and a new 9′ one for the new house, high ceilings) and the Snow Village before everyone came before Thanksgiving. When Tim got to feeling better later in the week, he hung the outside garlands and outside decorations for me. I didn’t feel like doing much of anything until Thursday or Friday. Friday afternoon, we had a new refrigerator delivered from Lowe’s. We had to get all the coolers out and unload everything and reload the new one, that job in itself wore me completely out! Tim took pity on me, plus rewarded himself LOL, by driving us to the gas station at the interstate and getting us Krystal burgers for supper. Hahaha, he loves them and I am still not up to cooking much (tried Thursday night and it was ok, I MELTED my plastic steamer basket that I had used for twenty years on an electric stove, I melted it to my aluminum pot on this new gas stove, sigh). So, I thought Krystal was a great idea!

Needless to say, with both of us sick, we’ve been sitting in our chairs in the keeping room, watching tv and movies. We had a free movie preview weekend around Thanksgiving and so we recorded a lot of movies on pay channels we don’t normally get. We’ve watched The Wolverine, Pacific Rim, The Book Thief, Red 2 and Tim watched Lone Survivor, The Escape Plan and A Good Day to Die Hard. We also caught up on most of our shows on the DVR 🙂 Lots of tv time, snuggled up under blankets.

Today is Saturday and I’m still not feeling great. We are supposed to meet Mark, Amanda, kids and friends later today, they are in town for one of Abby’s cheer competitions. After that is over, we’re supposed to catch up with them and have supper, I hope neither one of us get them sick. AND, I hope we get to church tomorrow, we’ve been sick and haven’t been able to go the last two weeks 🙁

I need to get back into the habit of uploading photos, I know these posts are boring, just an online diary, but at least I’m going to try to keep up with everything going on 🙂

We’ve had a busy weekend! Gail and Don came down on Friday and had supper with us, then we all went to see Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. Tim and I both loved it, good movie! If you don’t see it at the theater, be sure to rent it 🙂 I have several I want to rent (or in my case, probably request from the library) or watch on our Amazon Prime. We watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol the other night and enjoyed it all over again 🙂

Gail and Don spent the night, then headed out Saturday morning. We went by and picked up my dad and then headed to a get-together at my in-law’s house. We normally go to big get-togethers at Linda’s family, but this one was for Mitchell’s family. They are really good about waiting till after the holidays, we always get together in January for that side of the family. It’s nice that the hectic holidays have passed and we can get together and visit. We had a good time! And as always, lots of good food 🙂 We took a smoked pork loin and some brownies and had tons of other good stuff to eat. We missed seeing Terry and Zack though (they went to sign his letter of intent to play golf at a junior college southwest of here), and also Mark, Amanda and their kids (Mark had the flu). So thankful that neither of us have gotten sick this winter, although Tim has been fighting a sore throat and cough for a few days. And I’m even more thankful that my dad has stayed relatively healthy in the assisted living place. He kept getting sick late last winter, so I’m really glad he’s doing better right now. It’s hard to believe that he fell almost a year ago and we moved him up here. Time is flying by!

Enjoyed church this morning, great music as always and a good message. Current series: Reclaiming Life. We went to Corner Bakery again this Sunday after church for brunch (again, we went last Sunday too, always sad when our Saints are no longer playing football). Last week, I had more lunch-type food, a cup of clam chowder and half of an uptown turkey sandwich. This week, I was colder and wanted coffee, so I went with second breakfast (a hobbit thing!). I tried their power panini thin with avocado and spinach. While it tasted good, that was the smallest, tiniest, narrowest imitation of a panini I have ever seen! I got a small cup of steel cut oats on the side, and it did fill me up, but boy, it was a small serving!

I went to Kroger after lunch and got groceries, and after I got home, Tim and I looked at houses all afternoon. I wanted to come home and fix supper, but was overruled by Mr Pizza himself, who wanted to stop at Little Caesars and pick up pizza. Good news – we have tons of pizza leftover for Tim to have for lunch all week! I think I’m going to take it easy this week on the cooking front – I’m planning a lot of salads, some sandwiches, maybe one soup thrown in, and Tim has a boatload of pizza leftover 🙂

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

Last week was a fairly quiet one in our house. Tim is pretty busy with work, and his foot is still bothering him, so he is not playing any golf. The course was closed for a while last week, anyway, for “course beautification”, so he wasn’t able to play anyway. Hopefully, if he rests his foot a bit longer, it will feel better and he’ll be able to get back to walking, both with me and Beau in the mornings and on the golf course.

The Olympics ended yesterday. By the end of last week, I was pretty Olympics’d out! Luckily, we have plenty of other things to watch. Lots of sports, plus some shows we have stockpiled on the DVR. We went to see the new Bourne movie over the weekend, The Bourne Legacy (after a late lunch at Krilakis). Tim loved it, and I thought it was just ok. I don’t like Jeremy Renner a lot, and still think of Matt Damon as a requirement for a Bourne movie 🙂 Sunday was busy with church, a late breakfast at Corner Bakery (breakfast paninis for both of us, a deviation from my usual steel cut oats). We also ran to the auto parts store, so Tim could get oil and a filter to change the oil in the Explorer soon. We stopped by Bed, Bath and Beyond (with a coupon!) so I could get more steam mop covers for my Shark steam mop. And finally, we made a big trip to Sam’s. Avocados, Bisquick, chocolate chips, cocoa, bread, hamburger buns, butter, Chobani yogurt, Scrubbing Bubbles and other items on the list. I should have picked up more coffee for Tim, but forgot, so we’ll have to go back in a week or two.

Tim and I were sound asleep last night when his phone rang around 3:30 AM. Work calling. They had a problem and had broken something and so they had to call and wake Tim up to fix it. I do not know how he comes out of a deep sleep, answers the phone, jumps up and starts working on their problems for them in the middle of the night. I can hear them shooting rapid fire stuff at him, this doesn’t work, we did this, tried this, blah blah blah. Me, I can’t even get my eyes open and pronounce my own name, and Tim is jumping up and running to his computer, and then proceeds to spend nearly 2 hours fixing the problem they made. I’m so glad it’s him and not me! 🙂

Apparently, I don’t have a lot to talk about during the week, just on Mondays after another busy weekend 🙂

This one was no exception, lots of fun stuff going on! Our niece Elizabeth came and hung out with us all weekend. She is staying with her sister and brother-in-law (and their kids) down in Raymond, and the maintenance people came to put new flooring in the house. I told her to come visit us, no need to hang out there with strange worker guys all day! So she did, and ended up staying all weekend. Tim played golf Friday night, since he had not been able to play most all week, between work and the rain. Elizabeth and I went to Taqueria La Guadalupe, a place Tim and I have tried and really liked. It’s a small Hispanic place, and they have what we think is fairly authentic food. When Tim and I went before, it was not busy, but when Liz and I went Friday night, it was packed! They only have 4 booths, and one table, and a bar along the side with bar stools. Every seat was full, and it was standing room only to order, and wait for your food. We all got soft tacos (I got fish and chicken and they got a mixture of beef and chicken), we also got cheese dip for Liz, and I wanted to try their churros. It was all delicious, and I think I’m now craving those churros on a daily basis! Good stuff. We started the next Harry Potter movie (#6 Half Blood Prince) and watched about 3/4 of it before I got sleepy. Tim got in after dark and had a good time playing golf.

Saturday morning, I got up early because it was storming, and Beau was very upset with the thunder and lightening. We all had a big breakfast (eggs on english muffins, grits, sausage, fruit) and then Tim worked on Elizabeth’s car, changing out the oil and oil filter. He’s such a good uncle 🙂 We all went mid afternoon to pick up Gail from the airport (she’d been out in Houston visiting Trent, Shanna and the kids since Thursday). After she headed home, Tim, Elizabeth and I went to see The Dark Knight Rises at Malco. (It was weird, after the shooting in Aurora Colorado at the midnight showing Thursday night). Good movie, I actually liked it more than I had thought I would.

We came home Saturday night and had some sandwiches and finished the Harry Potter movie. I hate seeing Dumbledore die, it’s very sad 🙁 Sunday means church, and Liz went with us to our church, then we all went out for a late breakfast at Corner Bakery. Tim watched a bunch of the British Open on TV and Liz fell asleep 🙂 He left to play golf, and she left to run errands. We hope she gets to come back soon and hang out 🙂

Monday is always my big cleaning day, no exception today. The only thing disappointing is that the sun and heat and humidity is back out in force. I’ve really been enjoying the clouds and chance of rain we’ve had off and on for the last two weeks. That’s gone now, and the 10 day forecast has almost zero chance of rain. Boo. Hiss. I want more rain!

We’re headed out in a couple of hours for our niece’s GED graduation. We love Brittany and are so very proud of her 🙂 It’s a long ride though, and we’ll be late getting in. Tomorrow will probably be one of those days when I really want to take a nap! 🙂

It rained, it was colder, all of which make for a nice weekend for me!

Not a whole lot going on here, but we had a nice weekend (or at least I did, Tim prefers 70 degrees, and hours spent on the golf course). It rained most of the day Saturday, so we stayed in and watched tv, and movies, and I read some. That’s a pretty perfect late winter day for me. Much better than the early spring we were having the last two weeks of February. Warm weather will be here plenty soon, so I don’t prefer to rush it.

Tim worked on our deck last week, and it looks really great. He used a new type cleaner on it, then put protectant on it, so it looks really good. So nice to have a useable space outside.

Sunday, we went to church, then to Fresh Market, then to the movie “The Grace Card.” It could have been a rental, but we like to support faith-based movies that come out, so we went to our theater to see it. It was a good movie, with a good message. Grace is easy for the people you know and love, it’s bestowing grace on the unloveable, the hate-filled, that is so very hard to do. We had also watched “Like Dandelion Dust” on Friday night (Netflix), another faith-based movie based on a Karen Kingsbury book. A really tough movie to watch, but a good topic and it ended well, so that is also a big thing with me, LOL!

The weekend ended on a bad note. Tim was outside hitting balls at dark, Sunday evening. When he and Beau came in, Beau was bleeding. Tim didn’t hear him get in a fight, so he probably got into some briars or something sharp. That dog loves to roam and wander. His ear is cut and it was bleeding profusely. It’s hard to put pressure on a dog’s ear to make it stop bleeding 🙁 It finally slowed up and we put some Vaseline on it. I hope he heals quickly 🙂 I keep finding little droplets of blood everywhere, poor baby. He obviously doesn’t feel good today, he’s been laying around and very subdued. My sweet Beau-baby.

Here’s to a good week ahead – I hope to get a few more things cleaned out around here, I’m hoping to try a new recipe or two (we bought brussel sprouts at Fresh Market, going to try roasting them), and I am looking forward to reading more on my Kindle. 😀 Have a great week, everyone out there in bloggity-ville!