Exceedingly Mundane

Since my last blog post about what we have been doing was way back on July 16, I felt like I had a bit of catching up to do! I’ll try to break it up into a couple of posts. Not that anyone but me reads these, but I like having them down to remember. You know, for in a few years when I develop dementia or Alzheimers or whatever, all I know is my memory is bad and getting worse by the day! Haha! 🙂

July was a long, hot month of no rain. It looks like August is going to be the same way. We’re having problems with the new sod (as in, Tim sprayed some weed killer on a large portion of the front yard and some in the back, and it not only killed weeds, but has killed the grass too). We’ve lost 2 more azaleas, they will have to be replaced. We are running the sprinklers 3-4 times a week, and still things look terrible and are dying.

In mid-July, we took care of our neighbors dogs for a week while they were at the beach. I learned how to scoop kitty litter (they have a cat too!) and fed the dogs twice a day, checked on them a lot because it was so hot, and went over to read on their back porch and hang out with the dogs. It was blissful, it was like having two puppies all of my own for a week! Some days, I really miss having a dog.

We tried another couple of new restaurants in late July. One is a local place in Gluckstadt, Angelo’s. We went on a Friday night for date night. They have a strange menu – Italian, pizzas and barbecue! What an odd combination! We didn’t know what to try first, but Tim picked pizza. He picked an all meats one and it was pretty big, so we had leftovers to take home. Good thing, since Tim only ate one piece at the restaurant and I looked like a total pig, eating a whopping 2 slices! It was good, but pricey. I much prefer making my own pizza or order pizza hut than going to pay 23 bucks for a pizza! Next time, we’ll have to try the italian or barbecue.

Saturday July 18th was a fun day! Tim didn’t go play golf, so we hung out at home for a while, then headed out to Dogwood to shop all afternoon. We stopped at Panda Express for a late lunch, since I have been terribly hungry for Chinese food. It was ok, not great, but the first time I had been to one. I didn’t realize they had opened one out that way, we don’t have one near us. We shopped for rugs and art for the walls and came home with several pieces. No rug yet, we can’t agree on what we want to put on the floor in the keeping room.

Here’s some of my new wall art, I’m very happy with what we got, most of it came from Hobby Lobby:

Sunday July 19th was a tough day for Tim. We didn’t make it to church, since we knew he had to work all night. He did go play golf all afternoon, then started work around 8:30 PM. He came to bed around 5:30 AM, and I woke up and asked him, “did it all go okay?” To which he answered, “No, we had to roll it all back out”. He slept about 3 hours and got up and worked all day, trying to find the problems that had caused them to back out the code and put things back the way they were. He played golf that evening, Monday, and then was pretty exhausted the rest of the week! He has been searching for the problems and solutions ever since, and we know he has another long work weekend coming up, but we just don’t know when it will be.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hope everyone is having a blessed day!

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

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

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