Exceedingly Mundane

Well, I survived another Mother’s Day weekend. It’s always my least favorite day and weekend of the year, and if I had my druthers, I’d probably crawl in bed on Friday morning, pull the covers over my head and not come out till Monday morning. But, I have a incredibly spectacular mother-in-law who I love like a mother, so I get out of bed for her 🙂

Let’s see, Friday I ran a lot of errands, including picking up Tim’s suit at the cleaners and getting 10 bales of pine straw. Note to self – 10 is a good round number for pine straw bales at the new house. We could get away with 4 or 5 at the old house, but this one has a much bigger yard and more flower beds. We fluffed up what the landscapers put in last fall and added to it. More than 10 will always work, but for posterity’s sake, 10 is a good starting number!

Tim offered to take me out on date night, something we are doing less of living in the new house. Mostly because… a) he plays more golf, including Fridays after work and b) it’s easier for me to cook and c) we are not that close to any restaurants. Living out in the boonies is a bit of an adjustment 😀 Anyway, there’s a nice restaurant on the grounds of his golf club that is separate from the club dining facility. We went there Friday night, to the Mermaid Cafe and had a great dinner. Tim got fried catfish and I got pan sautéed redfish. It was delicious and nice to know we have such a good restaurant close by. Saturday morning he played golf and had lunch at the clubhouse with his golf buddies. I made food for Sunday while he was gone, and after he got back and rested a bit, we worked in the yard. Saturday night we had some beef stroganoff that I had been cooking all day in the crockpot. My Tim, though, insisted on mashed potatoes rather than egg noodles. Silly boy 😀

Sunday was Mother’s Day and we went down to Mount Olive to see his mom and grandmom. It was great to see everyone again, having just seen most of them the weekend before at Brittany’s wedding. We stayed much later than normal, visiting, and then headed home. Watched some tv and then Elizabeth came in from the Delta, and spent the night with us.

Now it’s Monday and back to some semblance of a routine 🙂 The next few weeks, I’ll have to alter my routine and cleaning and laundry schedules somewhat, to accommodate the two leg surgeries I’m scheduled to have. I keep trying to prep Tim for taking care of me, fixing food, etc, but he seems unconcerned about being prepped. He keeps saying, I can just go to Sonic and get you something 🙂 Unfortunately, I don’t want 3 meals a day from Sonic!

Oh, and besides the pine straw, one more detail for posterity – I believe this is the longest we’ve been in years before turning on the air conditioning. I turned it on briefly Saturday night (5/9) and then turned it on when we got home Mother’s Day afternoon late. I think the extra insulation we added when building this house, plus the high ceilings, are helping. It was nice to have that break on the electricity bill too!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!

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!

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!

Catching up on a few things we’ve been doing lately. It’s gotten HOT, after a fairly mild summer. It’s now hitting the mid 90’s every day with heat indexes in the 100-105 range every day. That does not deter Tim from playing golf, however!

Let’s see, last week turned out to be fairly busy. Gail came Tuesday evening, so she could spend the whole day with Katelyn and Sam on Wednesday. Tim and I went over to Elizabeth’s on Wednesday during lunch. We brought her lunch and Tim took the battery charger, since she had called to say her car wouldn’t crank. We thought we had her fixed, and headed back. Gail spent all day with the kids, and decided to stay Wednesday night too. Thursday, we ran some errands, had lunch, and went to visit Fred. We went to Corner Bakery, one of our favorites, to have lunch. I like their trio (you can pick from 3 of their side salad options or soup), and I had spring asparagus soup, caesar salad and mixed fruit. Yummy! We stopped at Freshway Produce on the way back from visiting Fred, and picked up some produce. I also found some metal door hangers like I have been wanting. Instead of opting for the letter ‘H’, I ended up buying a beautiful multi-colored cross.

Gail and I got home and tried to hang the cross, and realized it wouldn’t work on the metal door hanger I had for our front door. So, I realized I needed to go get a big suction hook. So, when Gail left heading home, I went to Walmart (should have gone to Michaels, thought about it, but decided to pick up a few other things at Walmart). I found a set in the crafts section, but when I tried one at home, it wasn’t strong enough to hold the metal cross. So, Tim and I headed out Friday night, and we stopped at Michaels and got a much bigger and stronger one. We also went to Mr. Chens for supper. We splurged and got an appetizer (crab rangoon), then 3 entrees to split (to be fair, I like to get vegetables, so that always adds an additional dish). We got the mixed veggies, sesame chicken for Tim and rice noodles with shrimp to split. We had a lot of leftovers to bring home, which is always nice! We also went to the grocery in the back, since I wanted to get a new wok:

I haven’t even taken it out of the wrapping yet! I like the look and feel of it, but I’m a little hesitant to use it. I’ve always, only, ever had a nonstick wok. This one is going to take some getting used to, I think, especially on my new smooth top stove. I’m still struggling with a few things on the new burners. Anyway, I can always go back and get a nonstick one if I don’t like this one. I hope to try it in the next week or two, so an update soon 🙂

After supper, we walked down to Northern Tool to look for a new grill brush for Tim, but they were closing. So, we got in the car and were heading to Academy to look for the brush, when we came up towards Bops. Tim offered ice cream for dessert, so I was bad and took him up on his offer! We were good and just got frozen yogurt with one topping each (Tim got Snickers, I got butterfinger). Mine was in a waffle bowl, so mine was more better 😀

At Academy, we got the grill brush and also looked at patio furniture on clearance. I found something I liked but I don’t think Tim liked it as much. I guess we’ll wait till next year to spend money on that. Ours is 12 years old and all but one of the chairs has a torn seat (the fabric has just given out and rotted, out in the sun). I think the grill is enough to tide us over and get us through football season. We don’t tend to spend much time on the deck this time of year, or during football season. We just grill out, then hurry back in the AC to eat 🙂

Saturday, Tim had an early tee time, and got home around lunch. I made hummus (still have to work on the recipe, my seasoning needs to be better) and had that with pita bread and fruit for lunch. Tim picked him up Chick-Fil-A on the way in. After we ate, he had a long nap, and we watched a little TV, we decided to go to Ace Hardware and get Fred another grabber stick. He had mentioned to me and Gail on Thursday that he wanted another one for his front door, to get his paper he had just started getting delivered. We got that, then went to visit Fred, who promptly informed me he didn’t want another grabber stick, he already had two! But, he took it, and we visited awhile. We moved furniture twice for him, he is not happy with the way his unit is laid out. I see furniture shopping in his future, from the way he was talking! After we left there, we went to Lowe’s to pick up a few things, then swung through Tony’s Tamales for the first time, for Tim to try their food. I opted to go home and eat more pita bread, hummus and fruit. He got the tamale dinner with chili and cheese and really enjoyed. I tasted it and would be ok with it. Next time he wants to try plain, traditional tamales.

Sunday was busy with church, swinging through Fresh Market, then Tim going to play golf. Elizabeth had more battery trouble, so Tim went to jump her off, then she came over here later Sunday to hang out, eat dinner and spend the night with us. She is busy at school, getting her room ready and getting ready to begin her new teaching career. She’s very excited, and we’re so happy and excited for her 🙂

OK, that mostly wraps up our mundane weekend. 😀

No, I couldn’t think of a good title for a blog post. I’m so not creative and not good with witty titles, witty retorts, or witty anything 🙂

* Had a fun night Friday night. Went out to eat at Krilakis with Tim and Elizabeth. Yes, the same Krilakis we went to the previous Friday night. We appear to be on a roll lately with Greek. In honor of Elizabeth and celebrating her new job, we got double appetizers – pita mozz and hummus. Lamb gyros and fries for Tim, lamb gyro with Greek salad for me. I leave so stuffed, I’m nearly miserable. Came home and watched the Avengers on the new big screen. 🙂

* Busy Saturday. Up early, loaded up food and tools and headed over to my in-laws. Quick stop at Pilot/Flying J for breakfast (souped up decaf coffee for me, Krispy Kreme and scone, Coke and 2 sausage/biscuits for Tim). When I met Tim, I had never been indoctrinated into the world of gas station food. Now, I’m a bit picky about it, but Flying J is one of my favorites. They have good stuff!

* Tim spent all day Saturday working extremely hard at his parents house. They tore out kitchen cabinets, counters, flooring, paneling in the kitchen and dining room. He was tired, but Terry and Mitchell were completely worn out. I visited with Linda, Emi and Brittany. We went to Walmart for totes to finish packing up the dining room, and did a lot of sweeping and toting. We also played on our ipads, so not too tough of a day for the girls 🙂

* We left in time Saturday night to swing by the FedEx place and pick up the delivery we had diverted from our door. Our Onyko receiver has come home! Yippee!

* Sunday, Tim is still worn out. You know he’s tired if the sun is shining and he doesn’t go to play golf! He hooked up the receiver, and… it works! Yippee. So much better with the surround sound and the new TV. He’s happily watching the British Open on his big 5 foot tv 🙂

* Went to the grocery store and got some good deals. Lots of good prices on seasonal fruit and veggies. Had some coupons from Kroger and got good prices on frozen chicken breasts (saved 1.50 on a 3.00 bag), and a prepared baked chicken (saved another 1.50, so instant lunch!). Grapes are 99 cents a pound this week, so I bought a big bag of white grapes. Got them home and washed them. Tasted one, and … ICK! Soft squishy grapes. I do NOT like soft squishy grapes. I like firm grapes. These are almost sour, they are so icky. I’m so disappointed 🙁 On the bright side, I have lots of good sweet strawberries from Sam’s, and we had 2 ears of bicolor corn on the cob with the baked chicken, and that corn was delicious 🙂

Another good weekend in the books!

A busy weekend at Casa Hammons! Going back to last Wednesday…

Wednesday was the day my dad needed to do his pacemaker check. He has had a pacemaker for about 8 years or more, and does a quarterly check where he hooks a machine up to his chest and it transmits info on the pacemaker to his doctor’s office. He never had any problems (that I know of!) when he lived in his house in Hattiesburg. However, he doesn’t have a dedicated phone line in his apartment at the assisted living place here, and so he never could get it to work. He said he tried 3 places, different things, and finally called the doctor and setup an appointment. He called me Wednesday to “inform” me that he would need me to pick him up Thursday afternoon and take him to the heart clinic at 3 PM. They checked him out, and the machine and said nothing was wrong except maybe user error, and to try it again. So, he’s going to try again this week. Fingers crossed that he figures it out… else, I’ll be driving him to the heart doctor every 3 months!

Thursday was also a fun day, in that Grayson, Ava Clair and Sam came with Gail and met us all for lunch at Newk’s! Elizabeth had gone to Texas the week before and brought Grayson and Ava Clair back with her last weekend. They went to Gail’s for a few days, and then she brought them back on Thursday (plus Sam!), and they got on a plane going home to Texas Thursday night. We were so glad we got to see them. They’ve grown up so much and are so much more mature than in visits past. We had a great time seeing them, we just wished we had been able to spend more time with them 🙂

Friday, my dad was having issues with a prescription, so he wanted me to take him to the doctor’s office to get it fixed. He likes to do things face to face, as opposed to me, who likes to do things over the phone, on the fax, by email, internet, etc. Such polar opposites! So, we went to the doctor, then to Walmart to drop off his new prescription, then over to see Elizabeth and her new house. We visited a while there, then went back and picked up his medicine.

Tim decided not to play golf Friday night, so we had date night! We went to one of our favorites, Krilakis. We splurged and had an appetizer of pita mozz, then each had a gyro. Tim gets his with fries, I get mine with a Greek salad and then we share with each other 🙂 We were so stuffed that we didn’t have baklava for dessert, or go anywhere for sweets afterward. After dinner, we went to Best Buy and Sam’s to price tv’s. I finally gave Tim the go-ahead to get a bigger tv. Our 42″ plasma was fine with me, but he has been wanting a bigger tv for a while now. Our receiver is still being repaired, and we hope it is fixed and sent back soon… definitely need all this stuff in time for football season!

Saturday was golf day for Tim. He played twice, once at 7:30 in the morning and again at 3:30 in the afternoon. I made a big trip to Kroger Saturday morning, and got home around lunch. Not long after, in between his two golf sessions, Tim managed to swing thru Chick-Fil-A and pick us up lunch, which we wolfed down before heading to Sam’s to buy this:

I helped him get it inside, he took the old plasma off the mounting bracket, hung the new Samsung 60″ LED SmartTV one up, and then took off for the golf course 🙂 Leaving me to do the setup on the tv and start to learn how to use it. He still hasn’t gotten all the peripherals hooked up (receiver is in shop, blu-ray not hooked up, dvd burner not hooked up, Apple TV not hooked up, Wii not hooked up), but he will hopefully get to them soon. It’s big and it has a great picture! Saturday night, we watched an old movie I had recorded on the DVR, Mr and Mrs. Smith. Good action one 🙂

Sunday was church (current series: Recreate, our pastor still on sabbatical till mid August) and then brunch at Corner Bakery. I had the trio with soup (asparagus soup, caesar salad and fruit) and Tim had the BBLT (double bacon on a BLT). We went to Lowe’s after that to buy a new weed eater. This seems to be the season of buying! First my stove, then his tv, now the needed weed eater. He was cutting the grass and weed eating a few days ago and said his weed eater was not working right. He’s fixed it before, replacing hoses and different stuff, but it was time for a new one. I think the old one was 8 or more years old, so time for a replacement. He played golf again Sunday afternoon. I made homemade pizza and a new recipe for hot cocoa ice cream for supper:

Sunday night, Gail flew in late from Texas and stayed with us. Luckily, Tim was up since he had to work Sunday night. I tried to stay up, was reading, and got so sleepy, I didn’t make it. Sorry I missed seeing Gail in and seeing her reaction to the new tv 🙂 Monday morning (today), we got up and got dressed and picked up Fred mid morning for two doctor appointment. He went to see his retina doctor in the AM and the pulmonology doctor at 1 PM. We picked up Chick Fil A and ate lunch at his assisted living place after we had finished. He has to go back to the retina doctor in another month, for another shot in his eye. :shiver: I can never watch!

Ok, I think that catches me up. Going to try to catch up on cleaning, laundry and stuff in the next couple of days, and hope I don’t have to take my dad to the doctor again. Four appointments in three days, I’m ready for a break!

The long holiday weekend is history, and it’s back to a normal schedule. Although our holiday wasn’t all that spectacular. In fact, it was very normal and uneventful. We went on Thursday (July 4th) to Tim’s Aunt Becky’s house, as we always do. She is setup great for a big get-together (probably 70 people or more), and we always have a great time. We took my dad and he had fun. He enjoys getting out and seeing people. I tried to get us out in a timely manner, but Tim was visiting with cousins and other family members, so we didn’t leave until after 3. That put us back a little late for him going to the golf course. So, he hit balls behind the fence for a while and we watched tv. He made up for missing playing on Thursday by playing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

He had to work on Friday, but they cut them loose a little early (4 PM, which we found hilarious, since Tim works 7-4 this time of year anyway), so he went to play. I cooked fish and roasted veggies, and we tried to eat healthy. Which was a good plan, since we ate out, and badly, the rest of the weekend. Saturday morning, we ran errands, to Lowes and Academy, then stopped and picked up burgers at Dairy Queen on the way home (Tim’s choice, obviously). He played golf till dark and ate chicken santa fe when he got home (one of my oldest and most favorite recipes to throw together). Sunday, we went to church. Our pastor is on a 6 week sabbatical, but they did start a new series in his absence, Recreate. Yesterday’s sermon was about the Sabbath and keeping it holy, a very good message. We went to brunch at Waffle House (again, Tim’s choice, obviously) and then to look at a few houses close to Tim’s golf course. We couldn’t find any in our price range that we liked. No surprise there. After that, Tim left to play golf at The Refuge and I went to Kroger for groceries. I keep meaning to go over to FreshWay produce or maybe the farmer’s market, but keep just hitting the grocery store instead. I did buy two new things, new to me, a fresh pineapple and an eggplant. I’ve never cut a whole pineapple, I always wimp out and buy one already cut up. And I’ve had eggplant out (parmesan, in Italian restaurants), but never bought one and tried to cook it before. I need to get busy Googling ideas for how to cut and cook the darn thing! 🙂

Today is election day in our country, incumbent Barack Obama against Republican governor Mitt Romney. We got out and voted this morning, and it only took a few minutes. There are reports that there are long lines, a few here in our state and a lot more across the country. Hoping for a good outcome!

David was here all last week, hanging out and visiting friends in Jackson. He stayed with us from Monday-Saturday. Wednesday night was Halloween and we had a great time this year! Kathryn and Jeremy came and brought Katelyn and Sam. Katelyn was a witch this year, and Sam was Captain America! Tony and Stephanie brought the twins, Leila and Rylan, and also Ramsey, and Jackie came too. Jackie stayed here and gave our candy for us while we went out, in two shifts (the older kids got here earlier and headed out first). Leila was a mouse and Rylan was a dragon. They’re just two, but got the hang of saying thank you and bye quickly, and Rylan starting having too much fun ringing doorbells! I made witches brew and vampire juice (both punch drinks), mummy dogs, witches brooms and taco soup for the adults. Tim and I had a great time, and we hope everyone else did too!

We went out and ran errands Friday night, and then picked up Chick-Fil-A on the way home. Such is date night sometimes around here, aren’t we exciting?! 🙂 Saturday, we ended up vegging. Stayed home and watched movies, popped popcorn, ordered pizza and caught up on stuff on the DVR. Sunday was church, and we dropped off our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. They have some missions speakers for the next couple of weeks, so no new series at church.

Sunday the time changed, so we got that extra hour back. It was awesome, probably my favorite day of the year, hahaha! Sunday afternoon, I went grocery shopping, and Tim stayed home to watch football. I was shocked, Saturday and Sunday, daylight, no rain, and he didn’t even venture towards the golf course 🙂 He’ll slack off until early spring and then go back hot and heavy, I’m sure!

Sunday night, I made steak sandwiches and Monday I made a new soup, sausage and kale with white beans. Today we’re making a practice run for Thanksgiving, trying our first turkey in the new smoker that I gave Tim for Christmas last year. We’ve tried chickens, ribs and pork tenderloins in it this year, and they’ve all come out delicious. I’m hoping the turkeys will too. We could buy a larger container for our propane thing and he could deep fry them, but I’m thinking the smoke flavor will be great, so I’m hoping it comes out. We’ll be able to do turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas to take to family get-togethers. We’ll need to try a ham soon 🙂

Monday morning we got up and walked, back to our normal morning schedule, now that it’s light in the AM and not pitch black dark. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to walk in the AM. It’s been in the 40’s, and later this week, it’s supposed to be in the 30’s overnight. I don’t want to get sick, so we usually walk during Tim’s lunch break when it’s really cold in the AM. Tim got on the treadmill Monday afternoon, he says he’s going to do that again this winter. He tried to guilt me into getting on, but I fought that with all I had 😀

Today is election day. We’ll probably watch some of the results come in tonight, as well as some stuff on the DVR. Just another blessed day around here!

Last Monday (Oct 22), it was time for Beau’s yearly visit to the vet. He’s so cute, I tell him we’re going to see the doctor and he hides his head in his bed and doesn’t want to get up. I finally coaxed him into going with me, and he had a good trip. He’s happy, and healthy, and hopefully will be with us a while longer. We’ve had him six years now, and I worry about him aging. I see a lot of grey, but he still has a lot of energy and gets a lot of exercise. He’s gained a pound or two every year, so he’s doing great. He was skin and bones when we adopted him, and I’ve always aimed to make him a healthy weight.

Hambones was down for a few days this week, so Tim was busy working on that. The week ambled on by until Thursday. I got my hair cut Thursday morning and then ran errands until mid afternoon. It was Elizabeth’s birthday and she came over late afternoon and hung out with us for a while, until we went to Biaggi’s for her birthday dinner. Her parents came down, and Kathryn and the kids came out to meet us (Jeremy was out of town). We had a great dinner (most everyone had pasta, but I had the tilapia with steamed green beans and it was delicious!), and then came back here for cake. Gail made another homemade cake, this time Elizabeth’s favorite which is strawberry. We all sang, including Beau who did a fine job! Kathryn and the kids didn’t get to visit long, since it was a school night. Elizabeth stayed a while and of course, Gail and Don spent the night. The guys got up early Friday morning to go play golf, and Gail and I took Beau for a walk. After that, we cleaned out and went shopping at Target. The guys had lunch at the golf course, so Gail and I came home and ate leftovers. Don and Gail stayed a while to visit, then left to pick David up at the airport and take him home to Indianola. Tim and I went to run errands. I’d been wanting to go to Steinmart and look for some church clothes. I found a couple of tops and some new shoes. If you know me at all, you know that is a HUGE statement. I detest buying shoes. Shopping for shoes ranks right up there with underwear and bathing suits for me. So for me to find two new pair of shoes was nothing short of amazing. Those should last me 3-5 years, or so I hope! LOL!

Saturday, Mark and Amanda and the kids came. The weather had gotten cold and it was pretty chilly all day. We visited a while inside, the kids had a snack, then we went out back to hit golf balls and play with Beau. We came inside to warm up and played the Wii for a while. Before dark, we headed to the park for the kids to play in Liberty Village. They’re nearly too old for that now, although Abby had fun. Tim brought the football, so he, Mark and Ethan tossed the ball till it was nearly dark. We all went to Majestic Burger for supper. I had my regular there, a seared tilapia sandwich (on homemade sourdough, I was bad and got that huge bun!). Soooo good. After dinner, we came home and visited a while longer, till they had to head back. We were so glad they came, it had been ages since we’d seen them and really had a chance to hang out!

Sunday was busy with church and Tim once again graciously agreed to go grocery shopping after church with me at Kroger. He had lunch, then headed to the golf course to play. I caught up on some stuff on the DVR, some laundry and picked up around the house. The Saints played the Sunday night game and I had such high hopes, only to have them dashed and they lost. Again. Our teams are just not doing well this year, and it’s hard. I love football season so much and it’s awful to have both teams not winning.

Monday was busy with cleaning house after all the company. Then, David texted and called and wanted to come stay a few days. So he headed down and now we have more company, although he’s gone most of the time. We’ll have a crowd here tomorrow for Halloween. I’ll probably try to post again later, after trick or treating! I should be posting pictures with my blog, but I’ve gotten bad about just putting them on Twitter or Facebook, it’s just easier. To put them here, I have to transfer them from my camera, size them down, FTP them to the server, blah blah blah. I’m so lazy these days!

Another busy weekend around here. Last week was fairly busy, with David and his friends coming to stay for a night, and cleaning up before and after they were here. Tim had another Friday off (he’s off every Friday in October, using up that vacation he hasn’t taken all year!), and he went to play golf. We all slept in a bit, and Beau and I left for a walk and Tim went to play. He brought us in a late lunch of Chick-Fil-A. Don and Gail came in time for supper, and we all went to eat dinner at Signa’s Grille. Gail and I had the “Godmotha”, a vegetarian sandwich (grilled eggplant, grilled squash and onions on foccacia), Tim had the Swamp Burger (burger bathed in chili and cheese) and Don had the 2 AM Patty Melt. Good food! The portions seemed a little bigger this time 🙂

Don and Gail spent the night, then the guys went to play golf Saturday morning. They finished up around lunch time, then pulled through Chick-Fil-A again to get me another grilled chicken sandwich. Gail had already left going out to Kathryn’s to help set up. We went out at 2 PM for Sam’s birthday party and got to visit with everyone. Daddy came up, just for the party, from Hattiesburg. Tim and I headed home late afternoon, and I made my big shopping run at Kroger around 6 PM, and got back in time for the USM game on TV. They are now 0-5, horrible start to what looks to be a bad season.

Sunday was busy too. The Saints had their bye week, so we thought that was a great time to go visit Tim’s parents. We left after church and visited all afternoon. Beau had a great time playing with the other two dogs, Teddy and Snoopy. Roscoe is gone, and so is sweet Rosie. I miss the other dogs 🙁 Anyway, we left before dark and got home and watched some TV. I was fairly tired!

Monday was busy with cleaning house, and making supper. I tried out my new baking stone that Tim and I got for me on Friday afternoon. It’s a rectangular black Emile Henry stone. I preheated it in the oven, and used it to make a pizza. My regular pizza dough I make in the machine was too much, so I cut some off and made breadsticks with the extra dough. The crust was crispier, which is what I was hoping, but the pizza is a lot smaller than what I make on my normal large round pan. I’m going to try the pan for other things, like freeform bread rounds, chicken strips, oven roasted potatoes, etc. It scares me a little, how hot it gets in the oven! I need new oven mitts. I feel like mine are going to get me burned!

Another busy week ahead. I’m turning another year older and we have another busy weekend on tap. Another post on that next week 🙂

Let’s see… last week Gail came to visit some, and Don came in Thursday night. Gail and Don went to the homecoming game at Hinds, out in Raymond, for Katelyn to be a part of the homecoming court. We didn’t go (we went out to eat at Krilakis and then watched some tv), but we were glad they were able to come for their granddaughter! Friday morning, I got up early and went walking with Beau, nearly 5 miles. Tim and Don left early for the golf course, and Gail left to go pick up Kathryn, Elizabeth and the kids to go to Hattiesburg. Katelyn was also in the homecoming court at Presbyterian Christian, and they went to visit Dad and pick him up for the parade. Don and Tim finished golf around lunchtime, so they swung by to get me and we all went to eat at Chili’s. Don left after lunch, having more work to do, but Tim had taken a day of vacation, so we went to run errands. We had some returns to make at Marshall’s and TJ Maxx, and we also went by Toys R Us to get Sam a birthday present (party next weekend!) and to make another big trip to Sam’s.

Saturday, we watched USM lose another game on TV, this one to Boise State. They are now 0-5 and it’s just heartbreaking. They’ve had winning seasons for the last 17 or 18 years, so it’s hard to watch. After the game, Tim went to play golf, and Beau and I stayed home. I caught up on some shows on the DVR and did some stuff around the house.

Sunday, we had church (current series: Give Yourself Away) and then we went to Corner Bakery afterwards. Tim had breakfast (breakfast panini and oatmeal) and I had lunch (cup of potato soup and a small harvest salad), and it was delicious as always. After that, we ran by Kroger to get gas (3.41 a gallon, but we had a discount from buying groceries), and to pick up food for the week. The Saints played the night game, and I made a big pot of taco soup before the game. Finally, the Saints won a game, beating the Chargers at home, so their record is now 1-4. Let’s hope this breaks their losing streak and they can turn the season around.

It was great weather over the weekend, and today (Monday). Low’s in the upper 40’s and low 50’s and high’s in the upper 60’s and low 70’s. Feels like fall! We got up at 6:15 to go walking, it’s dark and it was chilly, about 50 degrees. I love it!

Got more company coming this week (David and some friends are staying with us a night) and then a busy weekend ahead, with Sam’s birthday party.

Life is good!

The Saints played their last preseason game last night. Our USM Golden Eagles open the season tomorrow at Nebraska. Our family fantasy football league has the draft on Monday. Yes, finally, football season is upon us!

I’m so glad, it’s definitely my favorite time of the year!

Hurricane/Tropical Storm Isaac has come and gone. My dad wanted to come and stay, but Tim and I both felt that he was better off staying put, and not getting out on the roads, in the wet, rainy, windy conditions. He was mad at me for a couple of days, he thought he wasn’t welcome, and never thought that Tim and I just had his best interests at heart. Well, and I was being a bit selfish. Tim works from home and he’s been incredibly busy at work lately. The last couple of weeks, he’s been working 10, 11 and 12 hour days. He’s got a big project he’s working on and it’s just better for him for it to be quiet in the house (something it’s definitely NOT when my dad is here, he can’t hear and he talks loud and blares the tv at about 90% volume). Anyway, alls well that ends well. We had some rain, about 3 or 4 inches, a little wind, no damage, no tornadoes, no loss of electricity. Dad had more rain, 7-8 inches or so, but no damage, no power outages, etc. The sun is back out now and I was even able to take Beau for a walk this morning! We only missed one day due to the weather, so that was good.

Got a busy 3-day weekend ahead. Tim is planning on playing a lot of golf, we have a birthday party for Zack, football games, the draft, etc. Looking forward to it! I’ll get to be lazy some and read and watch movies while Tim is out playing golf. I’m grateful for some quiet time 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day and will have a great Labor Day weekend!

Another busy weekend! Saturday morning, Tim played golf. I refused to get up at 6:05 AM like he did, so I tossed and turned till I finally went back to sleep. Victory! He played till nearly lunch, then came home and cleaned up and we went to eat at his choice, Krilakis. He does love that place right now! Good thing I love Greek food 🙂 Their food is always delicious and we always enjoy it. We went to Marshalls, TJ Maxx (still hunting cookware, found 2 more pieces!), and then a trip to Sam’s. Saturday night we watched the Saints third preseason game. At least they won this one 🙂

Sunday, we met most of the family in Magee (Mark and Amanda were sick so none of them got to come), and celebrated a belated birthday for Linda. My dad came too. We visited a while and then headed home. I thought Tim would play golf, but he decided to stay home and rest, as he had to work Sunday night, for several hours. Sunday afternoon he watched golf, and then Sunday night we watched a movie I had recorded off a pay channel, Battle Los Angeles. Nothing like Marines fighting aliens 🙂

Monday brings new issues… tropical storm Isaac is in the gulf and headed our way. I made a trip to get gas (and wait in line, it was 3.53 on the pumps, but I had a 10cent discount from Kroger, so I paid 3.43), and then some groceries at Kroger. The store was as crowded on a Monday mid-morning as it normally is on the weekends, crazy. I don’t think we’ll get more than rain, but you never know. Right now, it’s supposed to hit around New Orleans on Wednesday, which is 7 years to the DAY that Hurricane Katrina struck. My dad is mulling over whether he will drive up and ride out the hurricane here, and I think he will. He’s 89 and just doesn’t want to get stuck down there with no power. I know the trip will be hard on him, just going out to eat in a restaurant wears him out.

More later as the storm takes shape. I hope we just get some rain and light wind and nothing more.

P.S. I don’t know if it’s weather related, but good golly, my tinnitus is horrible today. So loud and so very high pitched, it’s bugging the stew out of me. I’ve noticed before that I think it gets worse when the weather changes, maybe barometric pressure or something. Good grief. It’s going to be a long week if the storm doesn’t pass for days and my ears are like this the whole time 🙁

Mondays are apparently the only time that I think to blog! Well, that’s not true, but since I am back to blogging to mostly remember what is going on with us, and we mostly just stick close to home during the week and do “fun things” on the weekend, Monday is logically the time for me to do a catch-up type blog post. 🙂 There. That’s why!

Last week was another busy one for Tim. I went to get my hair cut on Wednesday, and then to run errands and grocery shop. That was it for me leaving the house during the week! Tim never set foot in the car until Saturday. He worked all day, every day, and several nights. He’s got a big project at work, and they’ve suddenly decided to hit him with a lot of other issues, so he’s stayed really busy. He works from home, but I’ve gone almost all day, every day and not seen him at all. He only ate lunch one day last week. He did eat supper, albeit late a few nights. I even planned burgers for him to grill out one night, but he was busy, so I bit the bullet and cooked them inside in a cast iron skillet. Owie, the mess from the grease! They were good burgers though (turkey ones!).

Anyway, that is good news, him being so busy, since his foot is still bothering him and he’s not playing golf. It’s about to kill him mentally, but he realizes his foot is not 100%, so he’s not going to play. So, I know it bothers him. Not enough to go to the doctor, but enough to keep him off the golf course 🙂

Friday night, we didn’t go out for date night, since the Saints were playing a preseason game and we could get it on TV. Tim finished work a few minutes before it started (poor thing), and we watched the Saints struggle and lose to the Jaguars. Sigh. I hope preseason is not a sign of things to come. 🙁

Saturday morning, we slept in a bit and then decided last minute to drive down and visit my dad for the day. We got there around lunch and visited a bit, then took him out to eat at the new-ish Cheddars there in Hattiesburg. We had tried to take him on our last visit (Father’s Day weekend), but the wait was over an hour, so we went to Logan’s instead. This time, the wait at Cheddars was about 25 minutes, so we stuck it out. Good food (I had salmon, broccoli and carrots, Dad had salmon, broccoli casserole and loaded potatoes and Tim had a sirlion/rib combo with a loaded potato). Some of us were obviously trying to eat healthier than others! LOL! We had planned to visit more after we took him home (I’d asked if he wanted to go anywhere else, but he didn’t… I think just going to a restaurant wears him out), but on the drive home, it was cloudy, dark and lightning. We had left Beau on a stake outside, so I was worried he was soaking wet. Thankfully, that smart puppy had the presence of mind to stay up under his deck, so he was mostly dry when we pulled up. Dad had asked for Tim to help with something on his truck, so after we did that, we headed out. It was pouring rain, and there was apparently a wreck on Hwy 49, for traffic came to a dead stop. Tim does NOT like to sit still, so we made a U-turn as soon as we could, ventured off and took back roads a while till we could get back on the highway. The back roads were slower, it was pouring rain, and we ran through two big places of standing water on the road, a good ole flash flood! Anyway, it took about 45-50 minutes longer to get home, and we were glad to make it home safely!

We had that big lunch at Cheddars, a bit late, so we weren’t overly hungry. Tim was good with eating leftovers, and I had a big bowl of cereal, and we settled in to watch the last Harry Potter movie. I am still missing the books and am now ready to watch the movies again. Tim, however, says that is not going to happen, that I’ll burn him out, and he doesn’t want any more of Harry, Ron and Hermione for a while. Sniff sniff. 🙁

Sunday was church, and then we came home and changed and headed over to my pick, Mr Chen’s for lunch. We ordered a bunch of good stuff, all dishes we have had before, and enjoyed every last bite. We got steamed buns, I ordered a veggie combo to share, Tim got sesame chicken and I got fish in black bean sauce. Deee-licious! Enough left for lunches for a couple of days too! I asked Tim if he wanted to go anywhere else (I had a couple of returns I could have made), but he didn’t want to walk much more on his foot. So we came home and had a mini movie-marathon. We watched some I’ve recorded on the DVR… The Core, then Hancock (both of which we’d seen), and then finally Real Steel.

All in all, another good weekend!