Exceedingly Mundane

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! 😀

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

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

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

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

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

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! 🙂

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

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

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

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

New rockers for front porch:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Since my last blog update…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope everyone is having a great day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few more random thoughts on this Monday:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Currently weather: as stated, grey and bleak

Currently reading: Rachel by Jill Eileen Smith

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

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

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

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

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

Time for my weekly update as to what we did in the week past… boring, I know! But it helps me keep up with what’s going on 🙂

Last week we stayed pretty busy again. Wednesday, we met with the decorator who works with our builder, and spent pretty much the whole day picking out items for the house. First granite, then tile, backsplash, travertine for the master countertops, carpet, etc. Then fixtures, lights, fans, faucets, sinks, toilets, etc etc etc. Long day and I hope everything turns out ok. Tim picked the light fixtures for the foyer, dining room, breakfast room and the pendants over the island. He sees things better than I do, so I trust his judgement 🙂 We took the standard set of appliances that our builder uses. We picked out a fridge, but are probably going to end up getting it on our own from Lowe’s.

After we finished, in a nice soaking downpour, we met Kathryn and Katelyn in Clinton and brought Katelyn back with us, to stay till Friday. Katelyn got to pick what she wanted to eat and do while she stayed with us, so she picked pizza for supper Wednesday night. We all ate the pizza buffet at Pizza Inn near us, then went to check on the house. Katelyn was the first one to see some of the brick installed! They had the back screened in porch done, and some along the back. After the house, we ran by Lowe’s to look at refrigerators. We found one quite a bit cheaper than at the contractor’s place, which really surprised us.

Thursday was a busy day for Katelyn and I while Uncle Tim worked hard (he had a project going in this weekend, so had a lot of work to do on Thursday and Friday). I talked to Katelyn Thursday morning about what we were going to eat for lunch and dinner and found out she didn’t like those things! I thought all kids liked grilled cheese, but she vetoed that for lunch, so off we go to Kroger to stock up on things she liked to eat. We got hummus, carrots, Twizzlers, hamburger buns and meat, doritoes, cherries and a lot of other fruit. Aunt Stacy wanted to watch the USA play in the World Cup match, so we did that when we got home. After the soccer match (which we lost, 0-1 to Germany, but we’re still not eliminated!), we went to feed the ducks and geese. After that, we went to visit Aunt Suzanne and her cat Swatch. After that, we stopped at the library to get a new book to read at bedtime 🙂 Katelyn picked “Henry, the Dog with No Tail”, which was quite good! Katelyn watched some streaming kids shows while I fixed supper (Uncle Tim was at the golf course till dark) and we had supper. After a bath and the bedtime story, she got a good’s night sleep. She’s a very good houseguest 🙂 We stayed home on Friday and played games and Hayday on the ipad!

Friday night, we met Jeremy, Kathryn and Sam at Pizza Inn (yes, again, it was Katelyn’s pick and Sam was all for it, LOL!) and had supper. Suzanne came and visited with us while we all ate, then we all went to check on the house. Unfortunately, with the rain, they had not done anything since we were there Wednesday night, boo hiss. Jeremy, Kathryn and the kids visited till late, so it was great to see them and catch up.

Saturday was a busy day. Tim had an early tee time (7:20, so he left around 6:20) and shot a great round – he shot 71 at Lake Caroline! He had lunch with the guys he played with, and I had some fruit, carrots and hummus after he got home. I had spent the morning packing while he played golf. I got about 12 boxes packed and Tim helped me tape them up and get them stacked in the dining room, waiting for a trip to the storage unit. Tim went out to cut the grass, and it started raining before he was quite finished. I went out and helped for a while, picking up stuff he had trimmed and picking up golf balls in the back. We both got a bit damp (me, damp, Tim, soaked) 🙂 Saturday night we stayed in, and had leftovers (popcorn for me), homemade ice cream that I made and watched stuff on the DVR.

Sunday was church, brunch at Corner Bakery. Tim had a tee time for 2:30 with some buddies, but his parents had called Saturday late to say they were coming to town. So, I planned to go meet them for lunch and shop with the girls while the guys went to the new Harbor Freight. However, Tim’s buddies had other stuff come up too, so he ended up not going to play golf and went with me to meet his parents and Terry and Emi. They ate at Zaxby’s, while we visited with them. After that, we split up and the girls went to the mall and Tim, Terry and Mitchell went to the tool store. After the mall, the girls stopped at Walmart then we all met up at Sam’s. I had a few things to get at Sam’s so we shopped while Terry stocked up for the store. Emi had brought us tamales that her friend Rosie had made, so we had those for supper when we got home (along with guacamole that I made). We watched more stuff on the DVR and then Tim had to work starting at 11 PM.

Today is Monday and Tim has a busy day at work. We are supposed to go meet with the carpenter sometime today to go over the cabinets, closets, etc at the new house. It seems that the rain is going to stop for a few days, I think it rained every day last week, so I will have to get back into the habit of watering my flowers and herbs soon. Bummer. 🙂

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!

* 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, time to do another little catch-up post…

September, thankfully, has now come and gone, and it’s October! One of my most favorite months of the year, if not THE favorite. I’m ready for fall! It’s supposed to cool off a bit this weekend and one night is predicted to be in the low 50’s. I’m ready!

Last weekend was fairly busy. We went to see Katelyn and Sam (and their cousins) play soccer. We picked up my dad about 8:30 AM and drove out to Clinton to their soccer fields. Katelyn played first, followed by her twin cousins, Keaton and Logan, and then Sam played at 11. Well, Sam’s game was not really full blown soccer, but they were out there having fun and trying to kick the ball and score. Sam seems to enjoy the sidelines, drinking his Gatorade and spitting on the field the most! Like most 5 year old boys, I assume. I took a bunch of pictures of all the soccer players, but haven’t transferred them yet, hopefully soon! Afterwards, we all packed up (about 20 or more of us) and went to the Blue Rooster for burgers. Tim and I have been wanting to go to the Blue Rooster in Flora, not realizing they had one out in Clinton. It was really good. Gail and Don tried the vegetarian burgers and said they were good, I might get that next time. I had a good old fashioned beef burger, built my own, with sauteed mushrooms and swiss cheese. After lunch, we took my dad back to his assisted living place, and after we swung back by the house, Tim and Don left to go play golf at Lake Caroline. Gail and I decided to go shopping. We went to Target for a while (I got a new fall purse, burgundy or claret, whatever they call the color these days), and some things for Halloween. We also went by Sam’s Club for a few things. After playing, the guys wanted to meet at Dickies for supper. Neither Gail nor I were very hungry, so we mostly entertained the guys while they ate ribs.

Sunday was equally busy. We went to church (really good service, we’re in the Exponential series, a study of Ephesians) and then home to change. We picked up my dad again and headed to Tim’s parents house. The kitchen is almost completely done (everything but the oven), and it looks fantastic! Linda cooked a great lunch (pork roast, rice and gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, rolls and banana pudding for dessert) and we got to eat at the new kitchen table. I should have taken pictures, but didn’t. After lunch, we visited a few hours before heading home. After dropping off my dad, Tim and I went home to eat leftovers (Mr. Chen’s from Friday night, a full weekend of overeating!) and watch Sunday night football.

Monday, Tim was ready to start back with P90X. He’s doing his best to talk me into doing it with him. I’m not much into exercise, especially of the extreme variety. But, he said he’d start back walking some with me, so I agreed to give it a shot. I won’t be able to do it every day like he will, as this week was fairly free, but next week I get back to having to take my dad somewhere at least once a week. I am not overdoing it, in fact, I can barely do a lot of the exercises. Day 1 was an hour of pushups, pullups and situps. For the push-ups, I did 1 or 2, where the fanatics and Tim did 25 or 30. But, I am trying and that’s better than sitting my butt on the couch. I need to be better with my portions, the eating and snacking are what really help me pack on the pounds, I think.

Speaking of… I’ve been doing a lot of cooking this week, LOL! I’ve pulled out my crockpot for the week. Monday night, the Saints played the Dolphins (both undefeated going into the game, and we’re now 4-0!!!), and so I made a french dip all day in the crockpot, along with homemade buns, roasted broccoli and oven sweet potato fries. Tuesday, I made Tim biscuits and we had breakfast food. Wednesday, I made red beans and rice in the crockpot. Today, I’m going to try a new recipe I pinned on Pinterest for a crockpot beef and broccoli. I had also planned to make a pizza, but that may get pushed back a few days. The fridge is full of leftovers, plus food I bought at Kroger yesterday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that several items in the bulk bins at Kroger were marked half off. I certainly hope they are not getting rid of them, or phasing them out. Our Whole Foods across town has not opened yet, not sure how many months before it will be open, not to mention, it’s more than 10 miles down there. Anyway, I didn’t need a lot from the bulk bins, but since walnuts, dried cherries, steel cut oats and roasted pumpkin seeds were marked 50% off, I loaded up! 🙂

Most all of our TV shows are back on now, which is great. Tim cut our cable package the other day. We were in a promotion that gave us all of the premium movie channels and it expired on October 1. So he cut those and cut back on our tier. Not going to save us a lot of money, but every little bit helps. Plus, with football and all the new shows back on, we definitely don’t need the movie channels. We can stream movies from Amazon or Apple TV, or I can get most new releases at the library (just have to request and wait for them, most of the time). We still have several movies on the DVR that I recorded from the pay channels while we had them, that we still have not watched. I’m mostly about football these days, along with NCIS, Person of Interest, Elementary, Blue Bloods, and a couple of new ones, especially The Blacklist. Tim loves that one 🙂

I’m not reading nearly as much as I was earlier in the year. I’m reading my Bible and Jesus Calling Devotional every day, and plugging along with books. Current book I’m reading is one I actually bought, Double Cross by James David Jordan (read the first one, Forsaken, and loved it, so I knew that if I found the second one free or discounted, I would get it. Paid 2.99 and it’s worth every penny so far!). I will go over 100 in the next few weeks, well surpassing the goal I set. I might even beat my previous high goal of 104, if I can keep it up 😀

OK, nothing exciting, but I guess that mostly catches me up, LOL!

I’m SO glad that fall is here, even though we’ll still have plenty of hot days. At least maybe the nights will start cooling off a bit, and my early morning walks will be less sweaty and stinky 🙂

We got one or two new tv shows last week, but this week, it really starts cranking up. Some new favorites are returning and we’re going to try a few new shows.

Here’s some of the new ones we are going to give a test drive too and see how we like them…

* Sleepy Hollow – this one started on Fox last week and we both liked it! It reminds me a lot of Grimm, which Tim loves and watches by himself. I’ll give this one a try for a while, until the creatures and monsters and stuff start to get to me 🙂

* Hostages (CBS) and The Blacklist (NBC) – both start Monday night at 9 PM here. Not sure about either one, but they have some decent actors and a decent sounding plot. We’ll give them a try.

* Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD – Tuesday night on ABC, and I cannot wait! I love all the Marvel movies and loved the Avengers movie. I hope this one is great, and it’s even better because although Colson died in the last movie, he lives in this tv show! 😀

* Ironside starts in early October, I think on NBC. I remember Blair Underwood from a show a LONG time ago, I think it was LA Law. Boy, I’m getting old 🙂

And then we’ve got a lot of favorites coming back, including both NCIS shows, Person of Interest, Elementary, Blue Bloods and several others. I have a new season of Top Chef to look forward to, and a new Dancing (which started last week). I’m really on the fence about The Voice. I loved,loved,loved it last season with Shakira and Usher, and now they are gone and the two I dislike intensely (CeeLo and Christina) are back. Bleh. I will give it a limited shot, mostly because I enjoy Adam and Blake.

As far as fall goes, I’m ready for more. Cooler temps, more comfort foods, holidays, birthdays and of course, the football that I’m already enjoying. Our college team is not doing well (again, hard after a streak of 17 winning seasons), but the Saints… oh, my Saints! They are 3-0 and we have such high hopes and happy expectations every Sunday. I love this time of year! Bring on some cool temps, let me pull out jeans and my favorite long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts, light a good smelling candle, and I’m a happy camper 😀

Hooray! Made it through the two hardest months of the year for me, July and August. Today is September 1 and while it’s hot, and I’m sick, I’m grateful that the last four months of the year (my most favorite time of the year) have arrived.

Had a busy week. Had to take my dad to the dentist one day, to a new lawyer another day (and THAT opened up a whole Pandora’s box of problems, issues, decisions, etc), and then I had a dentist appointment another day. Tim got sick on Tuesday, maybe even Monday late. Sinus, we think. Now, I have it and it’s not fun. It’s not as bad as I’ve had before, so I am very grateful that I’m not feeling worse than I am. I’ve had bad sinus infections before, and almost always at this time of year (Sept 1-15 is notoriously when I get these) and so far (KNOCK ON WOOD), I’m not nearly bad enough that I need to go to the doctor and get a shot and some antibiotics. So very grateful 🙂

It’s gotten hot again, July hot, just in time for Labor Day. We’re not going to do a thing this year, for the holiday. In years past, we would have Labor Day parties here. But this year, most of my side of the family is out of town, Linda is just now starting to get her kitchen back, Terry has the store open, so we’re just not going to have anyone here or go anywhere. My dad is not very happy with me, but he’ll probably get over it by Halloween 🙂

As I saw posted today on Facebook, today is the last Sunday until February without football. Yippee!
Our fantasy draft is tomorrow morning, so we’ll have that to play with as well. USM played their first game last night, it was not on tv, so we listened to some on the radio. Once they had turned the ball over 4 times, Tim decided to turn it off and go back to watching golf (they lost, sigh, just like last year, when they were winless). Oh, and we watched a decent movie last night that I had recorded, Trouble with the Curve, a Clint Eastwood movie.

I’ve been reading a couple of secular books lately, and I’m sorely reminded of why I prefer Christian fiction. I was on the wait list at the library for a hardback copy of The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (pen name for J.K. Rowling) and while it was ok, it was not what I prefer to read. I just don’t like the language. I know she can write good books without all those f-bombs, I’ve read the Potter books! Such a shame. And then, as I was finishing that one up, my name finally came up for the digital download of Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I’ve been on the wait list for months, I think when I got on the list, I was number 23. It took months, and was bad timing to come available as I was finishing up the Cuckoo one. This one is better, the language is bad (but not AS bad) and the plot is better. After this one though, I’m going back to clean Christian fiction.

OK, well, just a quick post, glad September is here, not feeling great, sinus and stuff. And I have a bit of my summer doldrums left over, just don’t want to do much of anything other than play games, read, watch tv and be lazy. I’m not even motivated to cook these days 🙁

As Scarlett said, After all, tomorrow is another day! 😀

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.