Exceedingly Mundane

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

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

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

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

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

Pot of Chili, yum!

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

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

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

Hope everyone is having a great day!

I’m still playing catch-up. Just posted two entries trying to catch up somewhat from everything going on in July. I’ll attempt to do that here for the first nine days of August!

Well, July 31st was a blue moon – second full moon of the month. I decided I wanted to play with my camera, so I got out the tripod (after a half hour of searching, Tim finally found it for me… something we had not had occasion to use since we moved and even though I knew where we kept it in the old house, I had no idea what closet or space it got shoved into here at the new house, LOL!). I won’t post any pictures here, as I posted a couple on Facebook. I was pleased with how they came out 🙂

I worked on my china cabinet in early August. I ordered some plastic display stands and some felt dividers for the china I wanted to display in a big ole stack (I know, you’re not supposed to do that, but I wanted to get it all in there and not have to store half of it again). It took me a while to unpack it all, but thankfully, several years back, I had unpacked it all, washed it and rewrapped it in tissue paper and bubble wrap (when my dad originally packed it up for me in big barrels, he just used newspaper and it all needed washing). Here’s my cabinet now:

I also have been working on a spot on my granite. I discovered the Saturday that Mark and Amanda came that I had a large discolored spot on my granite by the stove, where I store my olive oil dispenser and salt cellar. Tim said the oil had leaked and discolored the stone, so I did some research online. Tried a few home remedies, but nothing worked, so I ordered some stone oil stain remover from Amazon (a duPont product). Here’s a test area, that I tried first:

It came out looking a bit better, so now I have much larger area covered in the paste, where it must sit for at least 72 hours. The picture doesn’t show how bad the stain looks in real life, because the flash lit up the discolored spot. Trust me, I’m not happy that I’ve already ruined my granite 🙁

Tim is back to playing more golf, although it’s as hot as blue blazes. Today, the forecast high is 104 degrees, with a heat index of 115 predicted. Yikes. He stayed home one night and we watched the second Hobbit movie, the Desolation of Smaug. We also started re-watching all of the Star Wars movies. This girl is more than ready for The Force Awakens to come out in December! We watched the original ones first, the ones I know so well that I can quote most every line of dialogue. 🙂 We are nearly through; we finished Attack of the Clones last night and started Revenge of the Sith, although it may take the rest of the week to finish it 🙂 We also watched the last Hobbit movie, Battle of the Five Armies, this past weekend and I was a little sad to see those movies end. I love me some Lord of the Rings!

Our new Sam’s Club opened in Madison last week! We went on Free Preview night, along with nearly everyone else in town! I had some items on my list, and we got those, and were able to use the self-checkout area, which is really nice. I’m not a normal Sam’s shopper, in that I don’t fill up a flat bed cart or big shopping cart. Most of the time, I get 10-15 items and it’s nice to be able to grab the scanner wand in the self checkout, scan my items and skee-daddle!

I got a haircut last week, then ran errands to Kroger and Walmart one afternoon. I got a bunch of food to fix to take to a couple at church. The wife had tonsil surgery and I wanted to take her some juice (she’s on clear liquids for 10-14 days) and take her husband and son something to eat. I thought a lot of people would do dinner stuff like lasagna, chicken spaghetti or pulled pork, so I decided to take Gail’s idea and do a breakfast casserole and some refrigerator fruit. I made all of that one afternoon late, and got up and took over to their house before 7 AM, so they could have breakfast.

We went to dinner at one of our neighbor’s house last weekend and had fish tacos, black beans, and rice. I made a chocolate skillet cookie and Tim had made salsa earlier in the day, so we took both of those. After eating and visiting a while, we walked down to the cul-de-sac and went to the block party that the younger crowd with small kids were having. They had all grilled out burgers and hot dogs for the kids, and they had a big blow-up slide and all the kids were in their swim suits having a blast! We visited a long time, till nearly 10 PM and got to meet a few more new neighbors. We still have so many people we have not yet met. We just don’t see a lot of them out, some of them work a lot of crazy hours, we assume, and some of them have yard crews to do their yard work so we never see them outside. I’m still hoping we can meet more people soon.

Here’s Tim making his salsa earlier in the day before the parties:

After church yesterday, we met Suzanne for a long lunch at Broad Street Bakery. Suzanne and I had a turkey and brie panini and Tim had the Reuben. Good food, and we got to catch up with Suzanne. She closes on her new house at the end of this month and is very excited!

This week looks to be equally busy – especially at the end. More dinners and a birthday party. Hopefully I won’t fall too far behind again on my blog (famous last words!) 😀

And tada- all caught up! 🙂

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope everyone is having a blessed day!

Boom Shaka-laka, now June is almost over! Good grief. My mom always told me that the older you get, the more time seems to fly by, and as I’m learning, she was right about that too. She was right about a lot of things. I wish she was here for me to admit that, sheepishly, to her. I observed the thirteenth anniversary of her death this past week. 13 years that I’ve missed my mom every day. And over a year since we lost my dad, good grief, I’m getting old.

OK, back to the topic. June mostly flew by. I had my follow-up appointment after my second surgery and got a good report, it all seems to be healing. I have one final appointment, a 3 month follow-up, in late September. Maybe most of the bruising, numbness and tingling will be gone by then. Either way, I’m no longer wearing the hose, I am no longer in real pain (just the aforementioned numbness, tingling and occasional shooting pins and needles stuff), and I am so tearfully happy to have it all behind me!

My sister Suzanne also had surgery in mid June. She had a torn meniscus (I don’t think I know how to spell that word!) in her left knee and had it repaired. Crutches and PT are in her immediate future. Tim and I got her a few days after her surgery and took her out to lunch, brought her here for a change of scenery and a shower, and to visit. Gail and I saw her this past week for lunch at Jason’s Deli and she seems to be doing better.

My mother-in-law and Tim’s Aunt Jackie both had colonoscopies on the same morning at a place near our house. I went to check on them and keep Aunt Sandra company. They both had a bad time, getting sick and vomiting, which I did not experience with the prep you have to do, drinking the stuff, and I felt so sorry for them. Thankfully, this type of procedure is over fairly quickly and I think they are both fine now. Good reports, no polyps and no cancer, thank goodness!

We went to Tim’s parents house on Father’s Day weekend. Tim helped Terry all day in the new store and I got to visit with Linda and Emi and also to help snap a few bushels (it seemed like!) of green beans. Tim was wiped out by the time we got home, about 15 hours later 🙂

Gail came last week and stayed with us. It was my “make-up” shopping day, as we called it. I spent 4 1/2 weeks mostly home, recuperating from the two leg surgeries and wearing those hot, ugly hose, limping around, so I didn’t want or feel like going shopping. So we made up for it this past week! We hit most of our favorite places like TJ Maxx, Marshalls, Home Goods, Target and Steinmart. Maybe next time we can hit Belk, Penneys or Kohl’s, because I wanted to find some shorts and couldn’t find a single pair that fit. I did, however, buy 4 new tops (3 casual and one for church) and some jewelry. I got a few kitchen things like a set of 3 red bowls, new measuring spoons, a grill basket, some food specialty items, etc. Needless to say, we had a blast and I look forward to her next trip down to visit and shop! 🙂

It’s gotten really hot. We had to turn the sprinklers back on and run them this past week. Then, we got a good rain one night and I was hoping for more, but alas, just hot and dry. We finally hit 96 or maybe 97 one day, which is our hot summer weather, considering how humid it is. Tim is doing his norm, continuing to play a lot of golf, no matter how hot or whatever the weather is. The only thing that keeps him from playing is when he is at the course, a thunderstorm with lightning blows in, and they blow the horn to get everyone off the golf course. That’s the only reason he is at home and not playing golf these days 🙂

I don’t tend to blog about current events or hot button topics, so I’ll only remark quickly that I was saddened and grieved for our nation, with the Supreme Court decision that was handed down two days ago. Legalizing gay marriage is something I expected, but was holding out hope that it would not be the law of the land. It doesn’t change my feelings, I believe in God and in his Son Jesus Christ. I believe the Bible is His holy word and what we all need to live by, I know it is what I try to live by always. It is clearly stated in God’s word that homosexuality is a sin before God, so our nation legalizing it doesn’t change anything for me. I deal with this personally every day, but that doesn’t mean I love my sister or others any less.

Lastly, we knocked another place off of our to-try list. We went to The Gathering at Livingston today for lunch after church. Their Sunday blue plates are fried chicken and pot roast. We both had the roast and it was deeee-licious! Good sides, good cornbread and a nice new fun place to eat. I hope we go back again soon 🙂 Of course, we have more new places to try, plus all of our regulars we love. Not enough time!

Not much to report on the tv,movie and book front. Tim thoroughly enjoyed watching the US Open and watching Jordan Speith win his second consecutive major. He’s anxiously awaiting the British Open in a few weeks, to see if he can keep his Grand Slam hopes alive 🙂 We watched a couple of movies we’ve seen before and tried to watch Noah, with Russell Crowe, before deleting it about 6 minutes in. Too far off track for me. We’re back into Major Crimes and Murder in the First. Rizzoli and Isles is on the DVR, but we haven’t gotten to those yet, and I think Falling Skies returns tonight for the final season. On the book front, my reading is subsiding now that my legs are healing 🙂 Let’s see, since my last blog post, I’ve completed “The Dance” by Dan Walsh and Gary Smalley; “Mucky Streak” (Squeaky Clean #7) by Christy Barritt; “A Simple Faith” by Rosalind Lauer (an Amish book I downloaded from the library for something different); “52 Steps to Murder” by Steve Demarree and “Attracted to Fire” by DiAnn Mills. Well, that looks like more than I thought! LOL! Still, that was most of June, so not as many as I would have liked. Not sure what’s up next, maybe I’ll get off the computer and go find a good book to read!

Coming up this week, a haircut, then the big family reunion we go to every year on the Fourth of July. Fun stuff! 😀

This blogging stuff appears to be harder than it looks!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

Last weekend flew by (again) and I never got a chance to blog about it. Time to catch up 🙂

Last Friday night, we went over to Suzanne’s new apartment for Tim to help with some stuff. He worked on the dryer (and we had to make a quick trip to Lowe’s) and was going to work on some of her electronics, tv/surround sound, but she was tired so we didn’t get started on that. She is settling in and I hope she is doing better. Sometimes hard to tell 🙂

Saturday was busy. I had originally thought that Tim would play golf, since he almost always does, but he said he wanted to get some other stuff done. We visited a long time outside with our neighbors, Rick and Sharon, whom we are going to miss horribly. We will see them at church, but it’s not the same as living next door to someone for 20+ years 🙁 Main objective of the day: We went and rented a storage unit to start moving stuff into. Tim cleaned out the garage for a while, loaded a pickup truck bed full of stuff, and we moved it into the storage unit. It’s near the new house, so of course… we had to go check on the house! We spent more time there than I would have liked – it’s still in the wiring stage, so right up Tim’s alley. But I can only look so long at electrical wiring, surround sound wiring, internet/ethernet cables, plumbing, etc. After that, we came home and I made a pizza using the items from the Fresh Market Big Meal deal that I had gotten on Thursday with Gail. (Did I blog about that? Gail and Don came down Thursday, so Tim and Don could play golf. Gail got her first visit to the house, then we went to Fresh Market and Marshalls and TJ Maxx. They left early Friday AM, like 5:30 AM!!). Anyway, the pizza was good and we watched either TV or a movie, I have already forgotten!

Sunday was a tough day, but turned out better than I had hoped. My first Father’s Day without my Dad. We went to church (where I teared up multiple times). Our pastor’s father (also a pastor) gave the message, part of the series we are in, Characters who Teach Character. This week was Abraham. Our pastor’s father is also celebrating 50 years of ministry, and had once been a pastor in our church, so it was a really nice, really moving service. After church, we changed clothes and headed to Tim’s parents house for the day. We got to visit all day with Tim’s parents, Terry, Emi, Brittany and Zack and also had lunch with Jackie, Stephanie, Tony, Ramsey, Tyler and the twins. The only ones missing were Mark, Amanda and the kids. We were so hoping they would come, since Tim took off work for Monday and Tuesday, as we were planning to bring Ethan home with us for a couple of days. Anyway, we stayed until dark and headed home, and Zack followed us back. He did stay and played golf both days with Tim.

Monday, I caught up on housecleaning and also did some cooking. I made banana bread and crockpot maple bbq chicken for sandwiches and fresh green beans that Linda had sent home with us (YUM!). Tim got Zack to help load up the treadmill and they took that to the storage unit, then played golf all day at Lake Caroline. After they came in around 5 PM, we had supper, and then headed to Malco to see “Edge of Tomorrow” with Tom Cruise. We all really enjoyed it!

Tuesday was another day of golf for Tim and Zack. They played twice out at Patrick Farms, then Zack headed home. Tim came in really tired and a bit sunburned, but he had a great time playing, so he was happy. We had leftovers for supper and caught up on more tv on the DVR.

Today, today is hump day and the time is still flying by. On one hand, it is and on the other, more dominant hand, the one that wants to move to the new house, time seems to be dragging! Several more months on the house. I’m ready for it to be done. Tim and Zack stopped by Monday and they had started on the insulation, including the special Pro Pink insulation we are adding to our custom build. They should finish insulation, do sheetrock and probably brick in the next 7-10 days, so it will look more like a real house then, no more studs showing! 🙂

* I’m reading a free Kindle book, “Abducted” by Janice Cantore. The second in the Pacific Justice series. Read the first and enjoyed it, so thought I’d go ahead and read the second one. I also recently read two from my library’s website, the first two books in the slightly Amish themed series “The Inn at Eagle Hill” by Suzanne Woods Fisher. Was glad to find them at my library and get them for free. I also recently read the latest by Francine Rivers, “Bridge to Haven”, also from my library. Deciding what to read is the only problem I ever have. I think I have over 830 titles unread on my Kindle, a nice wish list at the library, Kindle Prime books I can borrow, etc etc etc. Finding time and selecting the book is the only real issue for me these days 😀

* I’ve started my annual summer watch-a-thon of the Harry Potter movies. Most of our shows have ended for the spring and even though we pick up a few shows in the summer on cable, I still have plenty of time to watch Harry and his friends. We are also re-watching several of the Marvel movies together lately… Tim and I have watched Thor, Iron Man 3 and The Avengers in the past couple of weeks

* I’m not cooking much. We had a ton of food last week leftover from our Memorial Day cookout, then Tim grilled burgers over the weekend. After all that meat (ribs, hot dogs and burgers), he decided he needed to eat lighter. So, Sunday he declared that this week would be salad week. We got some grilled shrimp at Sam’s, a big thing of lettuce, veggies and mushrooms, and have been having salads every night. Tim, bless his heart, tells me that he is losing a pound a day. Me, on the other hand, I’ve gained about .8 of a pound. Go figure.

* We started a new summer series at church. Looks like another good one, as always. The title is “Characters Who Teach Character” and focuses on patriarchs and figures from the Old Testament. Solomon and wisdom was the first week. This week will be Daniel, but we won’t be there to hear it. We’re going to Tim’s family’s church for their 100th anniversary celebration.

* The sun is shining today, for the first time in a while. We’ve had very unseasonable weather since Tuesday of last week (the day after Memorial Day). It has rained every day. I have so enjoyed not having to get out and water the grass, plants and flowers. I was very dismayed though, since they were framing the house (wood and water don’t mix in my mind) and then trying to get the roof on. The contractors know what they are doing, I suppose, so I’m not supposed to worry, Tim says 🙂

* I’ve packed about 10 boxes and still haven’t made a dent in anything. I want to pack more, but keep thinking, I will need that or use that or whatever. I guess the majority of the packing will have to be done in the last couple of weeks before we close.

* I’m not walking or exercising at all. Big fat slug. But it has been raining and I’m just not motivated.

* My sister and her husband celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this week! Congratulations to Don and Gail 😀

* On a snack kick lately of honey mustard pretzels. Cannot seem to eat enough of them. And my summer drink is an organic strawberry lemonade I found at Kroger. So good, I could drink a whole jar every day, but try to limit myself to one glass every day or so. Oh, and I still have chocolate every day, of some kind. Life is too short not to enjoy it 🙂

Ok, boring post, but it catches me up a little on what’s going on.

We had a quiet, uneventful (but sort of busy!) Memorial Day weekend. I spent a lot of it thinking about my Dad, whom I really miss. I went and got him last year and he spent the day with us, and loved the ribs that Tim fixed for him 🙂

Let’s see, Tim got off a bit early Friday afternoon and went to play golf with a buddy from work. He had worked the Sunday night before, so left a little early. I tried to make good use of the time and started doing some cleaning, purging, packing. I got some books together for the library and packed my first box. Tim got back earlier than normal, so I offered to take him out on date night, to his choice. He loves Dickie’s BBQ, even though I do not. I can’t make healthy choices in a place that mostly has meat and carbs. They do have salads, but I have yet to try one, as I never see one on anyone’s plate! I was good though, and only ate half of mine and brought the rest home. He always says the allure of Dickie’s is the free ice cream, and we both had that, so maybe I wasn’t so good after all 😀

Saturday, he had a really early tee time, 6:20 AM, so he was up in the 5 AM hour and out the door. I tried and tried to go back to sleep, but couldn’t. So I got up and went walking, logged 4.45 miles. I did some chores around the house and more cleaning, tossing, purging. I went down and visited with one of our neighbors for a couple of hours. That has been one of the hardest things, telling our wonderful neighbors we are moving and leaving here. We will sorely miss them, I’ve lived next to them for over 20 years and they are not only neighbors, but friends.

Tim brought us home Chick-Fil-A for lunch, then after a bit of a rest, he got busy painting the doors. He had stripped the front and back doors of paint and primer a couple of weeks ago. He went to Home Depot and had intended to order new doors, but ended up just getting new glass inserts. He installed those when he first stripped them. So, now he just put on a fresh coat of paint, and they look really good. Saturday night, we relaxed and watched Thor (recorded from TV on the DVR). I do love me some Marvel movies. We also caught up on Agents of Shield tv shows on Saturday and Monday nights.

Sunday was busy with church (we had a patriotic program by Denver and the Mile High Orchestra, which I really enjoyed). We went to brunch afterwards. Tim got a second breakfast, pancakes and eggs and I opted for lunch. I got the trio, with lemon chicken orzo soup, fruit and a side salad. We stopped by Kroger after that, to pick up all the stuff for me to make the stuff for Memorial Day. Tim went and played golf late on Sunday, but had a good time. He got back a bit before dark, which worked out perfectly. One of our wonderful neighbors had brought us over some crawfish. I wanted to sit out on the deck and eat crawfish one last time, so we did. Good memories 🙂

Monday, we got up early to start food preparations. Tim smoked a couple slabs of ribs, and also grilled hot dogs and corn for me. I made potato salad, crunchy slaw, and baked beans. Suzanne and Elizabeth came over to eat with us and stayed for a while to visit. We started watching XMen:First Class on our blu-ray, but Suzanne left before it was over. Elizabeth stayed and finished it. We were glad to see both of them. We spent time Monday evening catching up on stuff on the DVR. It had gotten really full the last couple of months, so we are slowly whittling our way through shows and movies.

Tuesday means back to the regular routine, except that Tuesday after a holiday always feels like a Monday. I have all of my Monday chores to do, plus watering too. This will be my last summer of hauling hoses and sprinklers around our yard – the new house will have an in-ground irrigation system installed, hooray!

Let’s see… today is Tuesday August 13. Maybe, just maybe, I might make it through August after all! Seeing light at the end of the tunnel!

* 18 days till kick off at The Rock, which is the beginning of college football season for us! Hoping for a better season than last year (0 wins, truly deplorable, and the worst in 18 seasons).

* Preseason football has started. The Saints won their opener (yes, I know it’s preseason and it doesn’t count). This just means one thing – real football is just around the corner!

* Quiet weekend for me – Tim played in the Whisper Lake club championship this past weekend and was gone almost all day Saturday and Sunday. He was so disappointed – he didn’t putt well and came in fourth in his flight (the top three win prizes!). He was still so upset about it on Monday that he didn’t go to play golf! Bonus for me, he stayed home, grilled out chicken and veggies for me. And then we rented a movie from Amazon Prime, the remake of Red Dawn. Turned out to be a pretty spectacular Monday for me 🙂

* Last Friday, we got to see Tim’s old Air Force friend Beth and her husband. They came through town, driving a US Army 18 wheeler, transporting stuff to Fort Polk. We went to Cock of the Walk to eat and visit, then back here for a bit before they had to get back on the road. I had never met Beth or her husband Mike, so that was great 🙂

* Going to be a busy week this week – haircut for me tomorrow, got some errands to run. Then taking my dad to his retina doctor appointment on Thursday. Friday I’ll probably grocery shop and might go to Sam’s. Saturday we’re tentatively scheduled to go over to my in-laws, for Tim to help more on the kitchen renovation. Depends on what they get done this week. Cabinets should be in, and Tim is needed to help with flooring and mouldings.

* Since Tim was gone most all weekend, I didn’t have to cook a lot. We ordered pizza one night (cashed in my Papa Johns points, so the pizza was free!), and I make homemade ice cream another night:

New recipe for snickerdoodle. We both liked it, very cinnamon-y. Mine, of course, was better with chocolate syrup poured on it. Tim did say that the last new one I tried (hot cocoa ice cream) was better than this one though, so file that away for next summer!

* Current Kindle book I’m reading: Heart of Stone by Jill Marie Landis. Just finished two I really enjoyed – “The Deposit Slip” by Todd M. Johnson (legal thriller, sort of like a Grisham) and “Paid in Blood” by Mel Odom (NCIS book, very similar to the series, but obviously a different team, good characters though). I’m currently ahead of where my goal shows I should be, on track to read at least 100 books this year. I’m hoping to top my all-time record, which was 104 a couple of years back.

* Currently watching: still enjoying summer shows. Looking forward to football and new fall shows. Recording several movies off pay channels. Rented Red Dawn last night from Amazon Video (love the new apps on our Samsung Smart TV!). I’ve been re-watching all the Harry Potters in order. On my third or fourth time through, currently about to start Order of the Phoenix.

* Current weather – finally got hot in August. Did have a nice rain last Friday. Most of my flowers are nearly dead, and I’m good with that 🙂 Hopefully will rain today and/or tomorrow – 60 % chance both days.

* Current want – I still want to get a dog. Tim is not ready. Sigh. I’ve found two on Petfinder and have tried to get him to go to the shelter and check them out. Now, they’ve both been adopted. While I’m glad they’ve found good homes, I want a dog. I miss my Beau, horribly, every day, and want a new puppy to love. Tim doesn’t seem to understand, he’s busy with golf and not really wanting a dog these days. Sniff sniff.

* Current time waster – Pinterest. Man, can I lose a lot of time just going through pins and reading blogs and stuff. Ugh.

I’ve been a TV-aholic most of my life. Lately is no exception. We keep our DVR humming most all year long, recording shows and movies. We’re still watching old favorites like Survivor and NCIS, and we’ve picked up new shows along the way, like Person of Interest and Elementary.

There are actually a fair amount of shows we watch in the summer now, since USA, TNT and other networks are coming out with off-season type shows. Some of the ones we are watching this summer include:

Falling Skies (icky aliens)
Major Crimes (I LOVE Mary McDonnell)
Continuum (a new favorite on SyFy)
Under the Dome (trying it out, not sure at this point)
Rizzoli & Isles (I like both of the lead characters and actresses)
Burn Notice (final season, thank goodness)
Motive (still not sure of this one either)
Crossing Lines (Tim likes this more than me)
Covert Affairs (when it comes back in a couple of weeks)
and our new favorite, King and Maxwell

Tim has some he watches (Suits, Graceland, etc) and I have some I watch (Masterchef, which I love! and other cooking and daytime shows).

We’ve seen 3 movies in the theater so far this summer: Ironman 3, Star Trek into Darkness and Man of Steel. I’ve liked all 3, but of course, my favorite by far was Trek into Darkness. There’s a few more coming out that I’d be ok with seeing, but I’m more likely to want to wait and get them on DVD or a pay channel. We’ve got a lot of premium channels right now, since Tim changed our bundle with the cable company. I’m recording a lot on the DVR for us to watch the rest of the summer. Which is a good thing, since…

Our receiver went out and Tim had to mail it in to be repaired. Boo. Hiss. It’s the new fancy Internet Onkyo receiver Tim bought a couple of years ago. It’s at the end of the warranty, but the good news is that a) it was still under warranty and b) even if it wasn’t, Tim had bought an extended warranty! We FedEx’d it last weekend and it’s been received at the repair place in Minnesota or somewhere up north. Not sure how long it will take to be repaired or replaced. In the mean time, we can’t watch DVD’s or Blu-Rays without him rewiring everything, so we’re just not going to pop in discs for the time being. The only downside to that – all of my Harry Potter movies are on Blu-Ray. So sad 🙁

Luckily, we have plenty of TV watching to keep us busy. And with Tim playing golf most every day until nearly 9 PM, we don’t have a lot of time in the evenings to catch up on the DVR. So, it’s pretty full these days 🙂

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, the last 10 days or so, since my last post, have gone by in a blur. I’d like to say that I had something fun and exciting to report, but alas, I do not. We’ve just been busy with life. Tim is busy with work, and we’ve both been watching tv, watching movies, reading books, ordering Christmas presents online, etc. Tim has played golf a couple of times in the last few days, since the weather has warmed back up. 70’s during the day and 50’s at night do NOT feel like Christmas to me, but Tim thinks that is great golf weather, LOL!

Let’s see, last weekend, we watched a bunch of movies, mostly on the DVR that I had recorded from a free preview weekend. We watched “Contagion” with Matt Damon, “Tower Heist” with Ben Stiller, “This Means War” with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine, and Tim also watched Contraband with Mark Wahlberg. It was nice to get those free while Uverse offered a free weekend of HBO and Cinemax. I tried to watch one of my Harry Potter blu-rays a few days ago, but the blu-ray player is messed up again. Tim had trouble with it before, with the audio, so he re-wired some stuff. Now, the audio works great, but no picture coming from the blu-ray to the TV. Blah.

Brittany had a birthday a couple of days ago. I cannot believe that girl is 19 years old already. She was two when Tim and I got married and lots of days I still think she must still be a little girl 🙂 She’s all grown up though, we just miss seeing her and her brother and their cousins.

Tim has been working some lately on our web camera. He’s got a recorder set up for it now, onto Hambones. I like being able to pop it up and see what’s going on outside and see who’s at the door! Now, he can record the events to disk, in case we need them for any reason. Nice 🙂

I need to get busy with wrapping Christmas presents and doing cards. I think this may be my last year for cards. We don’t do pictures of us or Beau or anything fun, and I don’t really know if it means much for others to just receive a card that I sign. I just do so much online now, that doing anything in the mail seems like a waste these days, LOL!

I’m enjoying having my Snow Village and tree lighted up all day and most of the night. I always miss them when we take them down in late December, it always seems empty after enjoying them for a month!

My best intentions about blogging more regularly appear to be sliding yet again!

So, a few thoughts about what we’ve been doing and a few other things.

Weekends continue to be busy, while the weekdays are filled with the same ole-same ole, and yet fly by equally fast. Last weekend, we watched some movies (two I got at the library: The Debt and One for the Money), and also watched some football and stuff on the DVR. We ate out at a new-to-us place, Kent’s Cajun Kitchen. It was delicious, a bit overpriced, but good food. Tim played golf, so the weekend flew by.

This weekend is more of the same. Tim won’t be playing golf because he hurt his back again (this time helping me, he was getting the Christmas dishes out of the attic for me, in time to use for Thanksgiving). We had plans for the weekend, but they got tabled due to his back. So, we’re hanging out at home and watching more movies, football, tv, etc. I’ve been making regular trips to the library (2 more movies: Cowboys & Aliens and Joyful Noise) and I also checked out some “real” books. I read two of them (Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber and The Hidden Flame by Davis Bunn and Janette Oke). I have one more book, but Tim wanted to read it (The Rook by Stephen James), so I’m happily back reading on my Kindle. I much prefer my electronic devices to read on.

OK, a few bullets!

* Football season is flying by. Sigh. The Eagles are 0-10 (worst record in college football), and it’s time for our new coach to leave. The Saints are doing better, 4-5, and hopefully on a upswing. I hate to see football season closer to the end than the beginning.

* Thanksgiving is this week. Lots to do! We’re going to do the turkey in Tim’s new smoker. Lots of the other regular sides (dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, broccoli casserole, bread, etc)

* Yesterday would have been my mom’s 88th birthday. I still miss her every day.

* Tim’s birthday is coming up, and once again, I don’t have a clue as to what to get him!

* We both go to the doctor soon. Ugh. At least Tim is going, for the first time since we’ve been married. So glad he’s going to go get things checked on, and find out about his blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.

* Madison opened up a Christmas on Ice yesterday, through the first week of January. Looking forward to going soon! I won’t get on the ice rink, but will enjoy the music and the Scripture trail.

* My new favorite snack: Chobani Vanilla Chocolate Chunk. Bummed that I can’t find it at Kroger and have to trek to the Walmart to get it. But trek I do, that stuff is sooo good!

* I used up a bunch of my Swagbucks and Amazon gift cards and ordered myself a Cuisinart griddler, and also got the waffle plates. I’ve been having fun using it, I’ve done paninis, grilled salmon and made waffles. So far I love it 🙂

* I’m in denial, as usual, as to how close Christmas really is. I have no idea of what to get anyone. It seems to get harder and harder each year. Everyone just seems to have anything they might want or need.

* The nights are getting cold, and we actually had to start turning on the heat for a bit in the mornings, last week. When it gets down in the 30’s the house cools off enough to need it in the AM. Also, I’m back to enjoying hot tea and some decaf coffee in the mornings. Extra calories, but oh so good!