Exceedingly Mundane

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 🙂

Wow, August drug its slow self and it seemed like September would never come. Now, I’ve blinked, and September is over 🙂

October, November and December are my favorite months. Holidays, birthdays, fall and the change of seasons and food. I’m ready!

Ok, a quick update. The toilet saga was obviously sooopo newsworthy! Otherwise, the weekend was fairly quiet. Lots of rain on Saturday and Sunday. We only ate out once (Friday night, at Mr Chen’s), and I’m working hard on a menu for the week. Today is still dreary, misting outside, and the high is only supposed to be 64 degrees. Highly unusual for us (it will be back near 90 before the week is over). So, I’m making potato soup and homemade bread for supper tonight! I’ll love it, and Tim, well, he’ll tolerate it. He’d much rather have a steak or meatloaf 🙂

Our sports teams were so disappointing again this weekend. Tim has been in a bad mood for two days, since the Eagles lost (0-4 now), the Saints lost to the Packers yesterday (0-4 now, boo), and even the Ryder Cup team lost on the last day. They started Sunday with a lead and blew it. Tim is not happy, very grumpy for Tim.

I’ve walked twice today – a little over 7 miles. I’m beat! Beau is sound asleep, and I wish I had time for a nap! I think tonight will be an early one for me.

Finished a good cozy mystery last night, Murder Most Maine (3rd in the Gray Whale Inn series) and started another good one, Mary Magdalene by Diana Wallis Taylor. Looking forward to all the new shows that are waiting for us on the DVR and the fact that I’ll have Dancing with the Stars: AllStars to watch tomorrow! 🙂

Was happy to find milk on sale this week at Kroger for 2.99! It’s the little things that make me happy 🙂

Unhappy to not see very many free books for my Kindle today. A while back, I seemed to find a ton of new, free books for my Kindle on the first day of the month. Now, it seems like most of the ones they are offering I already have. Now, mind you, I definitely do NOT need more books. I have a couple hundred I have still not read, I buy a few from time to time, and I can get them from the library. I just love to get good free Christian books for my Kindle. 😀

Hope everyone is having a great day!

We’re watching the second Saints preseason game tonight (in lieu of the Olympics, Tim tired of that quickly!). Wow, August 9 and we’ve already played 2 games. So weird to be so early. But, then again, the kids around here have already gone back to school at the first of this week. Seems like when I was in school, we didn’t go back until around Labor Day.

Anyway, today is a sporty kind of day. Tim recorded the first day of the PGA Championship (he is missing golf, he hasn’t been able to play this week, between his plantar fascitis and the fact that his club is closed for course beautification this week). I watched the USA women’s soccer team all afternoon, they played Japan for the gold medal and won! Go USA! The Saints game is on tonight. So lots of sports around here 🙂

Looking forward to another weekend! Gotta figure out food though 🙂

Another quick update…

Still enjoying the Olympics! Tim is watching some with me, and I’m watching a bit more during the day. I’m playing along on Viggle (on my iPad) and earning lots of points. Should be able to cash in a couple of $10 iTunes gift cards soon. We use iTunes money to rent movies through our Apple TV. We discontinued Netflix a while back, and have just been mostly watching tv shows and also recording movies on the DVR from the premium channels we get with our UVerse package. With the “free” iTunes movie from the Viggle points, we get free money for movie rentals. 🙂

Speaking of movies, we always go to a few movies at the theater in the summer. This year, so far we’ve seen The Avengers, The Amazing Spiderman and Dark Knight Rises (sensing a superhero theme?!). It’s still hard for me to go with my tinnitus (I look LOVELY in my yellow ear plugs), but it is a bit better than it has been the last two summers. I’ve also learned to sit as far away from the speakers as I can, in the middle, between the rows where the speakers line up! LOL! Anyway, Tim is also really looking forward to going to see the Total Recall remake and the new Bourne movie (Legacy, I think), soon. Hopefully this month.

The Saints play in the first preseason game this Sunday, the Hall of Fame game against the Cardinals! Football season cannot get here soon enough for me! Who Dat!

Terry got the Pineville store this past weekend. They opened on Saturday, and he’s been on vacation all week, at the store. Tim took a day of vacation today for us to go over and help out and see the store. On the way there, the warning system on the Explorer went off, saying “Check Charging System”. We stopped in Pearl at a gas station and Tim checked a few things, and decided it was probably the alternator. He decided to turn back and come home and go get parts (alternator and serpentine belt) and get it fixed. By the time he got it done, he decided it was too late to head over, so we stayed here. He’s gone to play golf and I’m catching up on stuff on the DVR.

And lastly, I finished the last Harry Potter book yesterday. Sniff sniff. I have been reading them pretty quickly the last couple of months, and I am quite sad to have them end. I’d gotten quite attached to Harry, Ron and Hermione. I will admit that the epilogue was wonderful, showing us what happened to the characters (although I knew from the movie). Very satisfying. All was well. 😀

We’re huge TV junkies. I always have been and Tim has become one (not much choice when you live with me!). Of course, football is on now, and that is our most favorite thing in the whole wide world. 😀 We’ve just finished up with several “summer” shows that we like, including Leverage, White Collar, Covert Affairs, Psych, Royal Pains, etc. I believe most of those will come back in January (when we’ll be missing 24, I imagine).

We have a ton of shows that start back in the fall, that we like to watch. Many nights, our DVR is nearly smoking from the exertion 🙂 There are even a couple of new shows that I would like to check out, but we already have 2 things in that time period, and that’s all the silly DVR can handle. Wouldn’t it be nice to have it record more than two at one time, LOL!

Some of the returning shows that we like and look forward to are:

Survivor
NCIS
NCIS: Los Angeles
The Mentalist
V
Chuck
Fringe
Human Target

Some of the new shows that we are wanting to check out are:

Hawaii 5-0
The Event
Undercovers

I miss watching Dancing with the Stars and Amazing Race, but those never work out for me. I love DWTS and would love to see Kurt Warner this season. But alas, those shows are on Sundays and Mondays, and we have football on those nights. And we have a lot of shows on Tuesdays, when I think the DWTS results are on. Sometimes I might record them and watch later, but it doesn’t happen often. I just keep up with them online and watch some clips.

How about you? Is there a returning or new show that you are looking forward to seeing this fall?

I haven’t been blogging for the last week or so. I’d like to convince you it’s because I’m so busy watching the Olympics (which we are, sort of!), but mostly it’s because I haven’t been able to think of a whole lot to blog about. It definitely comes and goes, ideas for blog posts 🙂

So, have you been watching the Olympics? If so, which sport or athlete has been your favorite?

We’ve really been enjoying the speed skating, a lot of the skiing, and the snowboarding (love the snowboard cross).

We watch a LOT of TV around here. I used to list all the shows we watch in my sidebar, but I took it off a while ago — the list just got too long!

We have a lot of shows that we are excited about, that are returning. To mention a few: Chuck, NCIS and NCIS: LA, Leverage, The Mentalist, Fringe, V (not sure when it’s coming back on, but we really liked it), Bones, etc. We’re also pretty pumped about the new Survivor: Heroes vs Villains. I hope it’s a good one! We also like a lot of the USA shows like Psych, Burn Notice, White Collar and In Plain Sight. I’m on the fence about a few, most notably Heroes.

Being Jack Bauer addicts, we’re really excited about 24! We’re also going to try the new show that comes on this Sunday with 24, Human Target. I hope it’s good 🙂 Also coming back is the final season of Lost. I’m a bit conflicted about it, wondering how they are going to finish it and how satisfied or dissatisfied we will be. Sigh. I would give it up, but I like to complete things, so I feel compelled to finish out the series.

Another spring show that we used to watch is American Idol — but we’re going to give that one up. We weren’t huge Paula fans, but we hated that they let her go. I always liked the dynamic of Randy, Paula and Simon. Last year, I was just not thrilled with Kara, and I do NOT like Ellen DeGeneres. So, we had already decided to just skip Idol this time, and now this week, they’ve come out and announced that Simon will leave after this year. I’m a little confused about the new show that he will come out with in 2011, the X-Factor. It sounds just like Idol to me!

OK, just some rambling… if you are excited about any show coming on, leave me a comment and let me know. I know most people are not tv junkies like we are 😀

Couldn’t think of a snazzy title… I tend to use misc, random and odd and things like that a little too much 🙂 “Stuff” will have to do, since it is just a bunch of silly stuff!

* Things are busy here, yet not in some ways. Tim is working most every weekend, in the middle of the night, which really messes up his sleep patterns. He was up all last weekend, and I got up at 4 AM to put a roast in the crockpot. I discovered that a) 4 AM is not a natural time for me to be awake and b) once I’m up, cooking in the kitchen with all the lights on, it is very difficult to fall back asleep!

* I’m so glad football season is back, as well as fantasy football. Once again, I tried to draft my own players and ended up botching up my team. Oh well, at least it’s all for fun. It will NOT be fun around my house this weekend, as Tim and I go up against each other in our fantasy football league this time 🙂 On a happier note, both of our teams are doing well. Our college alma mater (USM) and Tim’s beloved Saints. Oh, the hope for our Saints springs eternal every fall!

* Beau has been very worked up lately. We’ve had a lot of grey days and rain and “looks like rain”, so he has not been outside as much. He has a lot of pent-up energy and some days he is hard to deal with. Of course, I should be a good doggie parent and walk him regularly, but I tend to open the gate and let him run wild in the area behind our house 😀

* I’ve been cooking a lot, and finally trying some new recipes. I have been motivated because we’ve installed a new recipe system on our website (more on that in a future post, I have one brewing in my drafts). Of the new recipes, most have been hits but there’s been a couple of misses. One was last night, I tried a crockpot orange chicken. I should have known better, and I did, but I wanted to try it anyway 😀 Tim doesn’t do citrus in any way, shape or form. I liked it though, so I’m debating on whether to post it on our site.

* I haven’t been reading as much as normal. I haven’t been watching many movies. It’s hard to pin down just what I have been spending my time doing, LOL! But we are picking back up all of our fall tv shows. So far, we’re back into Heroes, NCIS, the new NCIS: Los Angeles, Survivor, Bones, Fringe, and Mentalist. I think we have a few more to go. I wanted to try Flash Forward, but we already have two shows recording in that time slot, hehehe!

* I had a bunch of credit built up at Amazon, including some gift cards I have won at Swagbucks (check it out, and use me as a referral if you’re interested!). I ordered a bunch of books and I’m eagerly awaiting their arrival. Of course, I just went to the library, so I have a stack of books to read, but still. I love to get a box full of books on my doorstep in that brown Amazon box! I’ll post a picture when they get here (I always use free shipping, so it takes a lot longer!)

Ok, I’m sure there’s more… I have an update to my recycling post that I made a couple of weeks ago. And then there’s the wildly interesting post I have in my drafts folder about cleaning out and reorganizing my pantry, riveting stuff, I tell ya! Anyway, I’m still trying to blog, but I think a lot of people have given up blogging, as well as reading blogs. I still do Facebook and Twitter though, so maybe that is where I’m spending most of my time!

Have a wonderful, blessed day!

I think our days of watching American Idol are now over. We didn’t watch in the beginning, but picked up around season 4 or 5. Last year, when they added Kara, it was okay, but we weren’t thrilled. It helped that they had a lot of talent. I personally really liked both Kris Allen and Danny Gokey, and am looking forward to their albums later this year. But, now with them getting rid of Paula and adding Ellen DeGeneres, I think we’ll probably skip this one from now on.

Here’s a link to the story, if you’d like to read more… click here.

How about you, did you ever watch and will you continue to watch if you did before?

Still not into blogging much lately. I do believe I prefer the “micro-blogging” of Twitter and Facebook more than this format. Or at least lately. I’m not ready to abandon my blog though.

My attempt to try to keep up, at least a bit. Here’s a few bulleted items, things just.right.off the top of my head! 😀

OK, well, that was a whole lotta nothin! I hope you’re having a great day out there in Internet-land! If you’re on Twitter or Facebook and we’re not connected, be sure to leave me a note. I’m definitely spending more time there lately than here 🙂

Where does one begin a blog post, when you have gone so long without posting? New territory for me. I’ve taken short breaks before, and longer breaks when we’ve had computer or Internet issues, but never a break this long.

For starters, I wasn’t sure I was going to post again. I’m still on the fence but willing to keep trying. Mostly, I don’t like to be a quitter 🙂 I have four years of blogging going on here that a part of me hates to just… abandon.

I haven’t felt the need to blog lately. One reason is that for the last 9 or 10 days, I’ve been sick. I haven’t been this sick in a while. I lost two days from running a fever, sleeping most of the time, and laying in a dark and quiet room for nearly 48 hours. Sinus migraine type headaches are no fun. When my head feels like the size of Jupiter and it’s trying to all fit inside my small cranium, then stuff hurts.

I didn’t turn my computer on at all for a week. That’s another first for me. You know what – I didn’t miss it at all! Not only was I not blogging, I wasn’t checking email, I wasn’t reading blogs, I wasn’t checking Facebook, I wasn’t reading tweets on Twitter, I wasn’t surfing online to read about stuff, look stuff up or even play games. I haven’t really wanted to get back to it, but I feel like I have to. Isn’t that sad?!

Anyway, I’ll try to think of something to blog about. I’ll have to go back to extremely mundane thoughts. A book, a song, a reality tv show, a picture of my puppy. Something inane, I guess. 🙂

How about this for starters – I actually watched Dancing with the Stars this week. I used to love that show. I don’t get to watch it much any more because, we also DVR Chuck, Heroes, and 24 on Mondays. The DVR can only handle so much, unfortunately. However, I was impressed with a couple of dancers, including whoever the Melissa girl is from the Bachelor (never watched that one). I also called and lodged my first votes for American Idol this year. I was a Danny/Anoop fan, and still am, but my new favorite contestant, hands down, is Kris Allen. I think he’s awesome, and I’m going to vote for him as long as he continues to impress me every week 😀

Hope all is well out there in blogland!

P.S. I’m trying out a new template for spring and summer. I’ve had another one on here that I liked better (red), but in IE, the comments are HUGE. I hope this one is alright in whatever browser you use. Please let me know if you have any problems or complaints about it 🙂 I like the ocean side of it, the “earth” side is a little dark for me, but still nice. The “ocean” part of it looks like summer to me 😀