Exceedingly Mundane

Yes, I know it’s been almost a month since Memorial Day. 🙂

I had thought Tim would play golf on his long 3 day weekend, but he surprised me a few days before and offered for us to go away for a short weekend trip. We haven’t been to the coast and New Orleans in a while, so he picked that. I had picked Dallas, as I want to continue our tour of presidential libraries and had thought we could hit both Bush libraries on a long weekend. We’ll have to save that one for another time. Tim absolutely loves to go to the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. We’ve been 3 or 4 times, but not in several years, so he picked that. And it’s a good time to go, Memorial Day weekend 🙂

We booked a room for two nights in New Orleans, but drove down Saturday morning late to the MS Gulf Coast. We had eaten years ago at a restaurant we loved called Shaggy’s. Come to find out, there’s now several of them (3 or 4, I think!). Years ago, we apparently went to the original one that they built after Hurricane Katrina, down in Pass Christian. This time, we picked the one on the beach in Biloxi (so we actually drove right by the Shaggy’s in Gulfport, which is across Beach Boulevard, in order to eat *on* the beach!). We had a late lunch and probably the best food of our trip. We didn’t make great choices in New Orleans, so this was my pick for food on our short trip. We were late getting there, so of course, we were both starving! Tim ordered an appetizer, fried crawfish tails with remoulade sauce, and of course, we scarfed them all down! By the time we ate those and I had finished my salad, I was stuffed! I had the crab cakes and Tim had the catch of the day, which was redfish. I tasted his and it was equally as good as mine, if not better.

Tim at Shaggy’s:

And the reason we drove out of the way to go to this one, the view from our seats:

After we ate, we walked on the beach for quite a while. We ran by the outlet malls in Gulfport on the way out, but I found I was way too full to look at and try on clothes!

Tim at the beach after we ate our late lunch:

So, we set out down the highway and went on to New Orleans. Crossing the bridge over Lake Pontchartrain:

We checked into our hotel, the Hyatt Regency, and got cleaned up, then headed out into New Orleans. I was NOT hungry, but Tim was, and he wandered around until something grabbed his attention, which in this case was Bubba Gump. Chain restaurants, that’s what he picks in a foodie town! We were not hungry, so we split an entree and a dessert. I’d like to say they were great, but they were just ok. We split shrimp and grits and then a chocolate chip skillet cookie for dessert. Tim commented as we were eating that he prefers my shrimp & grits and skillet cookie to theirs 🙂

Wandering around the French Quarter, dodging the trolleys. I love the trolley!

Bubba Gump shrimp & grits we split:

And dessert at Bubba Gump, chocolate chip cookie skillet with ice cream:

Sunday morning, we went downstairs and contemplated having the big breakfast buffet in the hotel, but opted for the Starbucks instead. We both had coffee and breakfast sandwiches. We headed out on a nice walk to the World War II museum, where we spent most of the day.

Luckily, we had bought tickets online, since the Will Call line only had 3-4 people in it, and the main ticket line snaked all the way through their barriers! First up, we watched the Tom Hanks narrated 4D movie, “Beyond All Boundaries”. Tim chose “Road to Berlin” first, which is the war in Europe. Then we did “The Road to Tokyo” about the war in the Pacific. There were several new things since we had been, and another building under construction. The New Orleans Marine Corp band was there in the Boeing Freedom Center playing around lunchtime. We had a great time going through the whole museum and checking everything out. We’re both such history buffs that this is right up our alley.

Selfie in front of the Higgins Boat:

I will say, I had a great time except for one thing – Tim walked us up to the top of the Boeing Freedom Center, to the catwalk overlooking the planes. I got a serious case of vertigo and had trouble, since the walkway was fairly open. He took some pictures, thank goodness, as it was all I could do not to hyperventilate and feel like I was going to pitch forward and fall over the railing. Ugh.

Tim’s photo from the catwalk:

We stopped early afternoon and had lunch at one of the restaurants at the Museum, The American Sector. We had really good food there, Tim had a burger and I had an orzo with grilled chicken dish.

Tim’s cheeseburger:

And my delicious orzo with grilled chicken and roasted broccoli:

After the museum, we walked around New Orleans a bit more, then headed back to the hotel to clean up and rest a bit. We had a snack, watched some tv, then laced up my walking shoes again and went back out. We took the trolley down into the Garden District and rode it until dark. By the time we were walking back to the hotel, it was too late for me to eat, and honestly, I wasn’t hungry! Tim was, however, so I let him pick. He picked a local pizzeria near our hotel, which was fabulous. I had one slice of his pizza and it was delicious!

Cute menu on cardboard at Reginelli’s Pizzeria:

Ultimate pizza for Tim (NO green peppers for me, ick!):

Monday morning, we had to do one last thing before we left, which we always have to do while in New Orleans. We walked down to Cafe du Monde and had beignets and coffee. Nothing else quite like it!

We stopped in front of the cathedral to take a selfie, but had a nice lady offer to take our photo. I bet we have at least 6 or 8 of these through the years, but I always want to take one in Jackson Square!

We checked out of the hotel and headed home. Once we got back, it was a trip to the grocery store for me, then laundry. Tim, of course, headed straight to the golf course! Lucky for him, we have a big vacation planned later in the summer that is nothing but golf! Needless to say, he’s looking forward to it a LOT more than I am 🙂

I’ve never cross-posted between GoodReads and here on my blog, but today I was updating GoodReads with some books I’ve finished lately, so I thought I’d put a blurb here as well. Here’s a few I’ve read in the last month or two that I’ve enjoyed:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr:

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was on the wait list a long time at my library for this book. I was getting close to getting it, and then my library switched digital systems, but luckily, I was #2 or #3 on the list for it. I had to use Tim’s Kindle fire to read it, long story. The book itself was very long (for me, my limit is around 400 or so pages usually), and I was initially worried about finishing it in time. I was wrong. The story picked up speed, and mostly, I adapted to his style of writing. I found it hard to put down after a certain point. The writing is very…lyrical, stylized, poetic, I’m not sure how to describe it. It didn’t end the way I would have liked, but I think that’s part of the story. I would recommend it to others, along with The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, also a WWII book I read and enjoyed last year.

View all my reviews

The Shepherd’s Voice by Robin Lee Hatcher:

The Shepherd’s Voice by Robin Lee Hatcher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another enjoyable read from a reliable author. I found this one available for Prime loan, so this was my book for May. I hope next month the other Hatcher book I found on Prime is still available. I believe these are older books that have been recently re-released. However, since this one was set right after the Great Depression, it’s quite timeless.

View all my reviews

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was on the wait list for a very long time for the digital version of Harlan Coben’s new book, but it was worth the wait. Once again, he rarely disappoints me. The book was intriguing and hard to put down, true to Coben’s style. I don’t want to give anything away, but I didn’t figure it all out! I read it so quickly and on Tim’s Kindle Fire (since my dumb library switched digital systems and I can no longer download books in native Kindle format, still sore about that!), that I’m going to hang on to it and try to convince Tim to read it. I have a two week loan from the library, so that gives him 9 days to try it. But, he is too busy with golf, so I doubt he’ll read it. Another good one from Harlan Coben!

View all my reviews

I’ve bought 6 books from Amazon recently, two sets of trilogies. I’ve read the first one in this trilogy, The Chicago’s Worlds Fair Mysteries by Shelley Shephard Gray:

Secrets of Sloane House by Shelley Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

First of three books I recently bought from Amazon, and I’m so glad I did! I thoroughly enjoyed this cozy mystery set against the backdrop of the Chicago World’s Fair. Good story and good characters. I look forward to continuing on with the characters in the next book 🙂

View all my reviews

I’ve also read two of three of the Appleseed Creek mysteries by Amanda Flower, A Plain Death and a Plain Scandal. Good cozy mysteries set in Amish country in Ohio.

A Plain Death by Amanda Flower
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

First in the Appleseek Creek trilogy that I purchased from Amazon. Good little mystery set in an Amish community, most of the characters are not Amish, they either used to be or they are related to Amish. I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading the others in this series 🙂

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Weekly boring update, installment seventeen. Busy week around here!

Glad That… We were able to go see our nephew Zack graduate from East Central Community College. He’s off to Delta State in the fall, to play golf and hopefully do really well academically. We are so very proud of him!

Sad That… Hmmm…???

Book I’m reading: – I finished reading my library book, “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr. Took a breather for a day or so and then picked up the one I had started earlier, “The Pepper in the Gumbo” by Mary Jane Hathaway.

Things we ate: Monday, we ate leftovers and worked on cleaning out the fridge. Once again, I’m very grateful to be married to a man who will actually EAT leftovers. And one that tries anything I decide to make. Very grateful! Tuesday, I had out stuff to make, and Tim saw a commercial on tv for some burger. Suddenly, he only wanted a burger. So, off to Sonic to make him happy! I went grocery shopping Wednesday and bought stuff to make more burgers, so we had some beef and some chicken burgers Wednesday night, along with grilled corn on the corn and grilled potatoes and onions (cooked the potatoes almost completely inside first). Thursday was Cinco de Mayo, so I made bean enchiladas, spanish rice and an avocado salad. Friday, we were out of town at a graduation, and ate at a steakhouse afterwards with the whole family. Tim had a steak and I had grilled shrimp. Saturday was leftovers and Sunday we went to a family dinner at my in-laws for Mother’s Day.

Burger with the sides:

TV and Movies: – Regular shows like Blacklist, Blue Bloods, NCIS, etc. I rewatched Star Wars (again) and am back to Harry Potter for a bit. Tim watched a lot of NBA playoff games. We caught up on all the Supergirl shows backlogged on the DVR. We have an even larger count of Marvel Agents of Shield to get to!

A Happy for Me!! – Tim ordered some stuff for him and got me another happy! I love the Kendra Scott pink necklace he got for my birthday a year and a half ago, so he got me another Kendra Scott, this one is black mother-of-pearl and believe me, the photo doesn’t do it justice!

Bonus! A couple of photos from Mother’s Day yesterday, first the boys with their parents then Emi and I with Linda:

Random Thought du Jour: We’ve realized as we’ve aged, that we can’t do what we did in our teens and twenties, as far as food goes. It’s sad. In college, we used to order pizza at midnight and a couple of skinny girls devour a whole pizza. I never gained a pound doing that. Now, I look at a piece of pizza or cake and I gain a pound! Tim is really, REALLY good at being disciplined with food and eating. I, however, am NOT. One thing that does help me though is trying to watch my portions. I try to use smaller plates, smaller bowls, etc. And here’s one thing we use all the time:

Ramekins work well for us in portioning out things like salad dressing on the side, fruit, desserts (one very small scoop of ice cream), etc. Ramekins are my friend!
Do you have any ideas or tips on eating better or healthier or something you try to do in your world? Please share, I’d love to know!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take sixteen! How many times do you have to do something before it becomes a habit? I am not doing any other posts, but at least I’m keeping these up regularly! 🙂

Glad That… We got a little rain over the weekend. We got small showers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Not the gully-washers they had predicted, but good soft rain instead. Good for my grass and good for all the flowers I planted Saturday morning:

Purslane in two baskets, for the sunny part of my backyard:

Moss Rose for my window boxes along the back of the house. I’ll post a picture (hopefully) in a couple of weeks of them actually blooming! They are one of my favorite things to plant, I do a bunch every spring:

A pretty light purple wave petunia in my upturned fleur-de-lis (aka Saints) pot, hopefully a similar color to the clematis:

Lastly, probably the only time my basil will look good and healthy. I have an annual habit of killing every single basil I plant. Doesn’t matter the location, the pot, the plant, the sun, the shade, the water. I kill them all quickly!

Sad That… My Bible study is over for the summer. While I think I’m going to enjoy the break, I am going to miss all my buddies from my small group. We reconvene in August.

Book I’m reading: – Still reading “A Spy’s Devotion” by Melanie Dickerson, my Prime book loan for the month of April. Finished that one and picked the next one, but didn’t even get 5 pages read when I got a notice from the library that one I had been on the wait list for AGES for was available. So I downloaded and started “All The Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr. Again, I’m not happy with my library website’s new system, I can’t download in Kindle format, so I have to use Tim’s Kindle fire and open it in the OneClickDigital app. Sigh. I prefer reading on my Kindle, but I’m very happy that he is willing to loan me his Kindle and let me read. He’s not reading these days since he plays golf almost every day, so he’s ok with me confiscating his device for two weeks (or so I keep telling myself!) 😀

Things we ate: Monday, I made Crockpot Chicken Santa Fe, one of my oldest recipes but one we still enjoy. It doesn’t look pretty (let’s face it, most stuff coming out of a crockpot looks icky) and is pink once you combine the salsa and cream cheese, but we love it! I eat mine over brown rice and Tim eats his just over tortilla chips, like a chunky nachos. Tuesday, I got Tim to grill out a flank steak and a piece of salmon for me. Baked sweet potatoes and salad on the side. Wednesday, I had something on the menu, but decided to clean out the fridge instead, so leftovers. 😀 Thursday, I made the croisssant french toast casserole again and we had eggs and grits with it. Friday, I made a sausage ragu to go over pappardelle pasta, rolls, and a big salad. Saturday, Tim took me out to eat Chinese and Sunday we ate leftovers.

Here’s the sausage ragu and then my yummy chinese food!

TV and Movies: – Nothing too spectacular here, regular shows during the week and a couple of old movies on the DVR on the weekend. It was rainy one day and we were in a movie mood one night, so we re-watched Bourne Legacy and Avengers: Age of Ultron. I think Tim might have watched Mad Max:Fury Road, but I’m not sure!

A Happy for Me!! – Tim finished his latest project for me, wanna see?! 😀
Here’s a hint!

Tim hand drew and cut out letter H’s for my front door! He painted them and helped me do bows and here’s the finished product!

And hanging on my front door, I LOVE them!

A Happy for Tim – I spent a couple of hours on Saturday trying something for Tim. Normally on Saturdays, I get in the kitchen and bake something to take to our Sunday School group. This week, I tried for the first time to make sausage/egg/cheese sandwiches for Tim for the freezer. I’ve been buying him boxes of storebought ones to put in the microwave on Saturday mornings. He normally has a 8 AM tee time at the golf course and usually is out the door by about 7:15. The boxed ones are easy, just 90 seconds in the microwave and he can eat it on the way. He *had* been buying them every Saturday morning at the clubhouse, and I finally asked him how much they were. Not much, he said, five bucks. For one sandwich, I asked?! Yes. So, I started buying them at the store, they work out to about 1.25 each, big savings. These homemade ones should work out cheaper, although I didn’t do the math (bought canned biscuits, a roll of sausage, eggs, etc). I put him 8 biscuits and 2 bagels in the freezer, but it took a while to get it all together. Not sure I’ll do it that often, it might be worth the 1.25 to me to buy them at the store, hahaha! We’ll see how they taste and how they hold up. I hope I wrapped them enough in the freezer!

Random Thought du Jour: There are certain household chores I don’t like to do. Among them are “spring cleaning” type chores such as cleaning windows, cleaning out the fridge and cleaning the oven. I read a tip a few weeks ago and finally got around to trying it for the oven. Now, mind you, I have always had a self-clean oven, but I have never ONCE done a self cleaning cycle on the oven. For whatever reason, I’m a bit scared of it, plus most of the year, I don’t want it to heat up the kitchen. Anyway, that’s another question of the day. Here’s the tip I read – try using a Magic Eraser to clean the glass part of the oven door. Mine was fairly spattered up because I’ve been baking bacon in the oven for a while now and mine was pretty greasy. The Magic Eraser worked great, and I even swiped a couple of times on the ceramic part of the oven, the dark grey of the oven itself, not sure what the material is! I was glad to find that tip. So, here’s a question – do you clean your oven often? And also, what household chore, (seasonal, not regular) do you like or dislike?

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take fifteen! Warning: this one is pretty photo heavy!

Big Thing that Happened: We had a full day of yard work on Tuesday! Tim took the day off and went early and rented an aerator and aerated the entire yard. We went and returned the aerator and also got pine straw and the first of two pickup loads of sand. He cut the yard before we put the sand out, and in cutting the yard, the front left wheel broke on our mower 🙁 He left to go to Lowe’s and Home Depot and I thought he was coming back with a new mower, but instead he came back with a replacement wheel. We spread the two pickup loads of sand in the front, back and both side yards. I thought it was a lot of sand, but it only covered spots. Tim said we really could have used 4 or 5 yards, but we started with “just” one! We were so tired when we finished, that we just stacked up the pine straw and saved it for another day 🙂 Needless to say, we were both exhausted and sore the next day or two 🙂 But, it was good to get it done and hopefully it will help our struggling grass 🙂

Tim aerating the yard:

Tim dumping out sand for me to spread:

Sand in the back yard (it looks worse than the front with all the big trees):

And an up-close shot of what the aerator does, the holes it makes and plugs it pulls out:

Glad That… It has been just beautiful weather here. I think our 60’s and even our 70’s are mostly gone. The 10 day forecast has 80s and low 90’s in the forecast and the rain is starting to ease up. Spring will give way to summer very quickly here. I’m really hoping to make it to the end of the month without turning on our air conditioner. So far so good, but this upcoming week, we may have to turn it on. We shall see!

Bonus Photo: I had a bluebird one day on my feeder, a bit blurry, but this was as good as I could get without scaring him away!

Sad That… We only have one more week of Bible study. I’m going to miss seeing everyone all summer and doing our studies. I’m hoping to do some on my own this summer, we’ll see how I do without the structure and instruction.

Book I’m reading: – Spent almost the entire week working on the first in the Appleseed Creek trilogy of Amish mysteries, “A Plain Death” by Amanda Flower. Finished it up Saturday and started one by Melanie Dickerson, a new-to-me Christian author. I found one of hers on Amazon Prime, so my Prime book loan for the month of April is “A Spy’s Devotion”.

Things we ate: Monday, I tried something new (another item checked off my culinary bucket list!), shrimp and grits. We both loved it and I’ll definitely make it again. Tuesday (after being in the yard all day), we had tostadas, beans and an avocado salad. Wednesday, we had pan fried flounder, zucchini patties and corn on the cob. Thursday, I was feeling adventurous and tried another new dish. I had seen a recipe here for Korean Beef Bowls and had everything but the gochujang. Surprisingly, I found it at Kroger (a big tub of the stuff!) and got it to try. Tim, predictably, loved it! He lived in Korea a year when he was in the military and he LOVES spicy food. Me, not so much. Just the beef with the red chili flakes was enough for me! The gochujang is too spicy for me, so that entire container is now all his 🙂 But he was glad to have something new, Tim is great to try anything I make 😀 Friday night we ate out at Newk’s with my sister Suzanne. Saturday I was on my own (translation: fruit, avocado toast, cereal, etc) while Tim played in a crawfish tournament at his golf club. I thought he was going to eat there, but he came in a few minutes before dark with a styrofoam to-go container of crawfish. Sunday after church we were originally headed to get a salad, but we smelled them grilling at church in the back parking lot and so we switched and went for burgers instead! The power of persuasion 😀

Food Photos from the week, first shrimp and grits:

The gochujang is a red spicy paste in a tub:

My delicious already bitten-into mushroom swiss burger from Majestic:

TV and Movies: – Tim and I watched Pacific Rim, an older one we had recorded from TV. I watched bits and pieces of Star Wars: The Force Awakens every chance I got! We watched a lot of regular tv shows, trying to catch up on our favorites while our less than favorites (SuperGirl, Agents of Shield, etc) pile up on the DVR. Some shows, we have 5 or 6 episodes languishing there! Others, like Blindspot, Blacklist, Blue Bloods, etc get watched as soon as humanly possible! 😀 Blacklist was quite the shocker last week as promised, and this week they made no indication that things will change. We shall see, we shall see! Saturday, while Tim was gone all day for his tournament, I watched Star Wars all the way through, some of the extras and then started my summer annual Potter-a-thon, starting with Sorcerer’s Stone. 😀 Sunday night, we watched an older one on the DVR that we’ve seen, Taken 3.

A Happy for Me!! – Tim has a new project going for me, can’t wait to show you what he’s making me next 😀

Random Thought du Jour: Here’s something that makes me happy:

Now, I know a random photo of shoes by the door doesn’t look like much to anyone, but it makes me happy. It means that Tim takes his shoes off when he comes in from outside and doesn’t “track up the house”, as my mom always used to say. It means that he’s being thoughtful and considerate and not making extra work for me. That makes me really happy! So, a question for the day, do you try to take off your shoes when you come inside? Does it not matter to you about bringing outdoor dirt and stuff in? Maybe you have a housekeeper, but I don’t, so it matters to me! 😀

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take fourteen!

Glad That… We were able to go to a concert at our church Friday night! Third Day and Steven Curtis Champman were playing together. Apparently this was just the second stop of their collaborative tour, they mentioned it a couple of times. Tim told me on the way home, he was worried on the first couple of songs, that they didn’t sound great. I didn’t notice and enjoyed the whole thing! It was loud, but thankfully, my tinnitus was not much worse after we left, which was a very pleasant surprise 🙂 We had a great time, first time we’ve had date night in a while. Tim has been playing golf on Fridays, and we haven’t had a date night since February, before the time changed. I really enjoyed the whole evening!

Here’s a shot we took with Tim’s apple watch before we left (the phone was low, so the angle is off, but oh well, it was quick and easy!):

At the concert:

Sad That… Is it bad that I’m not coming up with stuff for this category?! 😀

Book I’m reading: – I *finally* finished “A Passion Most Pure” by Julie Lessman. That book has taken me longer than anything I’ve read in a while. I can’t quite tell if I was just busier (probably half of it) or if I just got bogged down in the book. It was good, but it was a little on the “wordy” side, is the best way I know to describe it! Moved on to the first in a trilogy of Amish cozy mysteries, this one is called A Plain Death by Amanda Flower. Plugging right along with it!

Things we ate: Monday, I made some ranch chicken burgers for Tim to throw on the grill. The only problem was, he cranked up the grill right before a big thunderstorm came swooping in, and he had fun (NOT!) grilling in the pouring rain! The burgers were good though, and I made coleslaw to go with them. Tuesday we had leftovers. Wednesday I tried a new recipe for a french toast casserole using mini croissants, and we had grits, eggs and sausage to go with it. Thursday was more cleaning up out of the fridge, aka leftovers. Friday and Saturday night we went out to eat! Friday, to my favorite Greek place and Saturday to a Mexican place out of town, where we met his brothers and our sisters in law. 🙂

The french toast casserole was made with mini-croissants and was a keeper. I’ll try to get it on the recipe section of the website soon:

TV and Movies: Tim finished up his Masters coverage Monday, so now we can get back to regular shows on the DVR. I have a couple of movies taped that I want to watch, but haven’t gotten to them yet. Dancing with the Stars for me, Tim won’t watch with me any more. To be fair, I’m amazed he ever watched AT ALL with me! We finally got to Blacklist Sunday night, and it was quite the bombshell, as promised. I’m sure they’ll figure a way out of it though!

A Happy for Me!! – look what I ordered myself from Amazon! I’m such a huge Star Wars fan, I’m surprised I waited this long to order it 🙂 Oh, and I just love Amazon Prime. Click, and it shows up on my doorstep a couple of days later! We use it for everything. I ordered some 3 way LED bulbs a couple of weeks ago. Poof, they show up, it’s like magic! 😀 I’m sure the Star Wars movie will be on constant rotation all summer. I tend to go on movie binges in the summer once all of our network shows end in May. I do Harry Potter-a-thons, and Lord of the Rings-a-thons. Now I can watch The Force Awakens all summer long! 😀

LOVE!

Random Thought du Jour: In Bible Study this week, it was raining, and all the ladies were unhappy about the rain. Now, granted, I don’t particularly like to get out and about in the rain. But, for the most part, I love rainy days! I love the grey, overcast skies. I love the free water for my flowers and grass. As I told everyone in my small group, I love the rain because then I appreciate the sunny days all the more 🙂 So, how about you? Do you like rainy days or do you really dislike them? I really love a good, rainy, grey day. My favorite thing is to curl up and read a good book or watch a good movie.

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take thirteen… had a moderately busy week and then a really busy weekend, this year is just flying by!

Glad That… We were able to go this weekend to see Tim’s dad for his 74th birthday. We had a great time visiting with family and friends 🙂

Something that makes me happy…. Tim finished my surprise! Well, I knew what it was going to be when the lights came in. I swear, I have never seen such tiny lights. They are on an adhesive strip, which he cut into sections, and wired up and stuck under the shelves in my pantry. See, when we built this house, I wanted a BIG pantry! As in, walk in, shelves on three sides, very deep, lots of floor space. But we compromised with a door pantry in the hall right off the kitchen, that had enough shelves, but it wasn’t a walk-in. The builder put in the pantry and I was like, where’s the light? He said, light, you want a light? Yes, I’d like to have it lighted since it’s in a hall and has a door on it. So, he got the electrician to throw up a small fixture on the ceiling, over the top shelf. Well. The good news is that it was wired and “lighted”, but in actuality, only the top shelf had light! Here’s a really bad, blurry, before picture, I took it in the daytime and you really can’t see, but I promise, only the top shelf is lit:

And, so one night last week, I went to bed, and apparently the lighting fairies came to my house, because the next morning, I had this!

Now, the pictures don’t do it justice. It’s lit up, every shelf, and the floor, with these tiny hidden lights. I’m still rather amazed that a strip of stick-on LED lights that are under the lip on the front of the shelves, light up the whole shelf, front to back. Anyway, it makes me really happy and giddy and very appreciative of my very handy, thoughtful husband 🙂

Book I’m reading: – Still slowly working on an old one I had downloaded for my Kindle a while back, called “A Passion Most Pure” by Julie Lessman. I don’t seem to be making very good head-way on this one. Which brings me to something that makes me really sad, bordering on mildly upset!

Something that makes me SAD! – I was so excited all week, waiting on my library’s website to switch to the new version. They said it would be online sometimes between 4/4 and 4/8. The old system had been shut down so I was anxiously awaiting the new one. They started loading it on Thursday evening, apparently, because I was able to see the site and sign up. Friday, I went back to the site and was SO VERY disappointed. The selection is even less than what we had before. There’s several bestsellers I was on the wait list for, that I can’t even find when I search. I’m still holding out hope that they haven’t gotten everything loaded or setup. The Christian fiction section is noticeably smaller (my preferred genre). And worst of all, on the old system (OverDrive), I could simply click and download books in Kindle format. I searched and looked and looked and finally found in an FAQ on the new system, that they do not support Kindle format. So. That means I can’t download any library books to my primary reading device (my Kindle Paperwhite). I can, and have, downloaded the app to my ipad, but my sweet tablet is four years old and very slow, basically on its last leg. Plus, I really don’t prefer that screen to read on. Sigh. I’m still grateful to have a way to use it, but boy, am I disappointed to have had such a great system, them go through an “upgrade” and now I have so much less available for me.

Things we ate: Monday, we were feeling the effects of overeating on the weekend, so we had a salad for supper! Tuesday, I got Tim to grill a bunch of meat for him (so he could have leftovers all week), and salmon for me. Wednesday, I made Chinese (fried rice, steamed dumplings, edamame). Thursday we had leftovers. Friday, he wanted to order pizza, and so we worked on that some over the weekend. Saturday, we had lunch with Don, Gail and David at Dickies after the guys finished playing golf. Sunday, we had a big family birthday lunch for my father-in-law. They had so much food, I couldn’t even taste everything, there was grilled chicken, grilled sausage, ribs, hamburgers, potato salad, baked beans, veggies, rolls, banana pudding and then cake and homemade ice cream. Needless to say, we didn’t eat supper Sunday night!

TV and Movies: Nothing much to report on this one. Tim watched the Masters golf tournament the last part of the week and all weekend. I tried my best to clean up the DVR and have him enough space. We did watch Blindspot and Survivor, but didn’t get to Blacklist, Hawaii Five O or Blue Bloods.

Around the house: My grass is still fairly brown, but some other things are blooming!

My azaleas:

My clematis that we planted not long after we moved in and never bloomed last year, I’m so excited to see it with so many buds and blooms!

Lastly, my knockout roses in front of the house:

Random Thought du Jour: Can anyone explain to me why so much dust accumulates UNDER furniture? I can understand on top. But up under the middle of a big couch or big chair or big bed? How come so much dust and dust bunnies gets up under there?! Sigh 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take twelve…

Glad that… my sister Gail was able to come this week and visit for a couple of days. We always have so much fun together, hanging out, going shopping (buying stuff!), grabbing some “girl food” out, etc. I get most of my clothes shopping done when we go together. This time was no different, I got a lot of clothes for spring and summer.

Sad that… I think the cool weather is almost over. We’re still having a few nights in the 40’s but they are getting fewer and farther between. Not quite ready for summer yet. Also, pretty sad that I didn’t have a great reading month in March. I think I read five fiction books, and also finished up a book with my church Bible study group (Armor of God by Priscilla Shirer). Six in one month is not great towards meeting my GoodReads challenge!

Something that makes me happy…. Lots of shopping this week produced new spring and summer clothes for me, some casual shoes, and best of all – two new lamps for the house! 🙂

An Unexpected Happy… got a check in the mail we were not expecting!

Book I’m reading: I had started “The Forgiving Hour” by Robin Lee Hatcher last weekend. I finished it late Monday night and then had a busy couple of days. I finally picked an old one late in the week, from my Kindle library called “A Passion Most Pure” by Julie Lessman. Slow going, I seem to be doing more shopping and tv watching this week than reading!

Things we ate: Monday, I made breakfast for supper, and made a double batch of biscuits for Tim for the week. Foodwise, Tim’s love language is biscuits. Mine is chocolate! 😀 Tuesday Gail was here and we were shopping all day and had a really late lunch (about 2:30 PM) and so we just had a snack and Tim had a sandwich. Wednesday, Gail was here (weather was bad and we talked her into staying!) and I thought Tim would want more than a sandwich, so I fixed turkey cutlets with gravy, and pasta for the sauce, roasted broccoli and mushrooms and a salad. Thursday, we had a lot of lettuce in the crisper, so I grilled some chicken breasts and we had a big grilled chicken salad. Friday, I put in a roast all day in the crockpot and we had that with mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, yeast rolls and honey butter. Saturday was corn dogs for lunch and leftovers for supper. Sunday was leftovers too! Need to work on some menu ideas for this week! 🙂

TV and Movies: Regular tv shows. Nothing out of the ordinary. We didn’t get a lot of regular shows cleaned off the DVR, which is bad news because the Masters (big golf tournament every April) is next week, and Tim will need LOTS of space to record all that HD golf coverage 😀 I was able to clean up 3 of my old movies, two parts to Hallmark Channel’s The Bridge (book by Karen Kingsbury, I was mildly disappointed in the movie adaptation). I also watched an old one I had recorded, The Lucky One, with Zac Efron, based on the Nicholas Sparks book.

Around the house: Tim put out fertilizer Wednesday, so hopefully our grass will start greening up! Everyone else’s is miles ahead of ours 🙁

New Project in the works: Tim ordered a surprise for me and has a new project in the works! Hope to update in the next week or two. In the mean time, any guesses? Gail already knows, so she better not guess!

Random Thought du Jour: Do you like cereal? I eat cereal one day a week, usually on Sundays before church. It’s my splurge! I try to be healthy and eat oatmeal the other days of the week. I always loved cereal growing up. I used to beg my mom to buy the sugary ones. She rarely splurged but I remember that I used to love one, they were called Sugar Smacks!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take eleven…

First up – Happy Easter from the Hammons! 🙂

Glad that… I married a man who happens to be a very handy guy! Tim grew up in the country and learned to drive tractors, work on cars, and do a thousand other things long before I met him, so I have his parents and family to thank for that. This week, he changed the oil in one vehicle (other slated for this upcoming week) and put new spark plugs in both vehicles. He probably saved us several hundred dollars in labor fees. The cost of the parts were under 50 each and I know the spark plug job would be expensive if we had to take it to the mechanics. I’m so glad and grateful that he is so handy with everything! 🙂

Sad that… Once again, I’m not coming up with anything! Good Friday is always a reverent, very sober time for me as a Christian, as is Saturday. But come Sunday morning, it is the most joyous day of the year. He is risen, he is risen Indeed, Halleluiah! 🙂

Something that makes me happy…. We got CRAWFISH!! I love to splurge once or twice a spring and get crawfish and pig out. We never did last year, we didn’t have any outdoor furniture and I don’t prefer to eat them inside since they are so messy. Tim stopped Saturday at lunch, after playing golf all morning and got us 5 pounds of crawfish in Gluckstadt, along with corn, potatoes and sausage. We pigged out and ate them all and it was DELICIOUS! 😀

An Unexpected Happy… Tim ordered his dad’s birthday present from Amazon, and himself a gadget he had been wanting. He surprised me and ordered me a pair of earrings as a happy! He’s very sweet sometimes, that guy 🙂

Goofy thing that happened… Well, as if I haven’t posted enough of these, but they never fail to amuse me and put a smile on my face. My little chalk artist was at it again! I came in the kitchen one morning to make his coffee and found new art:

Book I’m reading: I had started one last week, an older book I had downloaded a while back and not gotten to. It’s called “A Table by the Window” and is by Lawanna Blackwell. She sets most of it in fictional Tallulah, MS. Took me 9 days to read (cut me a little slack, I have been busy with other things!) I did enjoy it though, and was surprised to find that the author Blackwell was living in Baton Rouge at the time she wrote this one. Anyway, after I finished that one, it took me a bit to pick my new book. I searched through Kindle’s prime loan program and found an older book that was recently re-released by Christian author Robin Lee Hatcher called “The Forgiving Hour”. Downloaded that Saturday and started on it, another good book. Touches on broken families, divorce, adultery, and obviously, forgiveness.

Things we ate: Monday, I tried a new recipe for a stir fried pork and cabbage. Had steamed rice, egg rolls and crab rangoon with it. It made a ton, so we’ll work on leftovers all week. Tuesday, I made homemade pizza and a big salad. Wednesday was recycled Chinese, this time with steamed dumplings and more egg rolls. I forgot to take my edamame out of the freezer, darn. Thursday was fish, roasted asparagus, sweet potatoes and salad. Friday, continuing the theme of weeks past, was Junk Food Friday – hot dogs, fries and fruit for me. Saturday, we had crawfish for lunch and leftover hotdogs for supper. Sunday, we went to a huge Easter lunch at Tim’s aunt’s house.

Homemade pizza:

TV and Movies: Mostly just regular tv shows. I watched the original Cedar Cove movie from Hallmark. I was sad they cancelled this series, especially since we just got Hallmark back last year on our Uverse cable system. Also re-watched an old movie I like, “Devil Wears Prada”. Meryl Streep is just so entertaining in that movie! Tim watched a lot of golf, since his started on Wednesday this week, match play rather than stroke play. He watched some March Madness and I watched some cooking shows. Mostly, just our regular stuff. And I was glad that Dancing with the Stars started back – a few really BAD dancers and some good ones. The deaf guy is amazing!

Around the house: Our yard is still very brown, while almost every single yard in the neighborhood is green and growing. I am too ashamed to post a picture here, since ours looks terrible. I sure hope it comes back and isn’t dead or something. I’m starting to wonder, since everyone around us is as green as Ireland. We’ve had a lot of rain, so ours should be greening up. Sigh. I wish I had a green thumb. I do, however, have two things trying to grow in the yard. We have several near dead azalea bushes, but we have 2 that we dug up last fall and planted new ones, to see if they would do better, and one of them is blooming like crazy:

And we planted a clematis last year that never bloomed and hardly grew, but it seems to have settled in now, and is trying to grow! I’ve had our first little bloom. I told Tim when I came in from snapping a picture, it never bloomed and I couldn’t remember what color we picked out. Apparently, it’s a lavender or light purple 😀

Random Thought du Jour:Which do you prefer: jelly beans or a chocolate Easter bunny in your virtual Easter basket?! 🙂 I cannot tell a lie, I could not pick. I would have to have them both!

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take ten…

Glad that… My ladies Bible study at church is back for the last study of this season. We did two last fall and one so far this winter (Armor of God by Priscilla Shirer) and now we’ve started our last one till we break for the summer. It’s “Hosea” by Jennifer Rothschild and I’m betting it’s going to be another good one.

Love the title, Hosea: Unfailing Love Changes Everything!

Sad that… Hmmm… not coming up with anything! Most people would be sad that it was getting warm and starting to feel like spring, only to suddenly have the temps take a dive the last couple of days. It’s been downright chilly. But not me! That does NOT make me sad! I’m glad to hang on to what little bit of cool and chilly is left. I have a feeling a long hot summer is on the horizon 🙂

Something that makes me happy…. It sounds silly, but I’m so happy to have a china cabinet now! It gives me a place to display my grandmother’s china and crystal. And even more – I now have a place to store my winter/Christmas dishes. I used to have a big Rubbermaid tote that we lugged up and down from the attic every season to pack the dishes up in. I would wrap each one in tissue paper, then newspaper and then bubble wrap and we’d store them around early March until November, when I pulled them out before Thanksgiving. Now, I am able to store them in the bottom enclosed portion of my china cabinet. It makes me happy! 🙂

Book I’m reading: Last week, I had started on the third book in the Wings of the Nightingale series by Sarah Sundin, called “In Perfect Time“. I had a slower week in reading! It took me a lot longer to finish this one, but I did, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. This was a good trilogy, overlapping characters and a very satisfying finish (aka, happy ending) for each of the three main characters and storylines. I started a new one, an older book I had downloaded a while back and not gotten to. It’s called “A Table by the Window” and is by Lawanna Blackwell. She sets most of it in fictional Tallulah, MS, and even though I’m not even half way through with it, I’m really enjoying reading about my home through some one else’s eyes. And admittedly, enjoying the parts she gets right (places, tidbits, details) and the things that aren’t quite right. Like, so far, she keeps talking about how cold it is here, well below freezing, and let me tell you, that doesn’t happen much here!

Things we ate: Monday, I tried to fix something moderately healthy. We had kettle crusted cod, roasted veggies and cranberry/feta couscous. Tuesday, I tried something completely new, but it was a big hit here. Marinated chicken for souvlaki to have in pita pockets with tzatziki, red onion, feta and kalamata olives. We also had pita mozz and grilled romaine. The romaine, I turned into a greek caesar, with the same stuff from the pitas (red onion, feta, kalamata olives, topped with caesar dressing). Delicious! Wednesday, I found some thick cut butcher’s bacon marked down at the grocery, so we had breakfast for dinner again (eggs in purgatory, bacon, grits, same ole, same ole!). Thursday, we had more Greek salad with grilled romaine. I followed last week’s trend of junk food for Fridays, so we had wings (some leftover in the freezer from the Super Bowl) and another big salad (this one with apple, toasted walnuts, craisins and cheddar). Saturday we ate out lunch at a Mexican place and then had leftovers both Saturday night and Sunday.

Here’s what the grilled greek romaine looked like, it was so good, we had it multiple times (I’ve now mastered grilling it indoors on my cast iron griddle!):

TV and Movies: Mostly just regular tv shows. The time has changed though, so Tim is later getting in each night from the golf course, so we will start getting behind on our shows. We had two movies from the library.. one old one (Avatar) and one new one (Woman in Gold). I asked all week for Tim to watch Woman in Gold with me and finally, on Thursday night, he said “I’m not interested in it, you go ahead and watch it without me”. So I put it in the blu-ray late Friday afternoon, and guess who meandered into the room and ended up watching about 3/4 of it with me? 😀 We watched Avatar Friday night. We’d seen it once at the theater, I think 9 years ago or maybe 7, when it first came out and probably once since. I had forgotten most of it and it was very visually stunning in blu-ray. I’m finishing up Major Crimes on my own, Tim gave up on that one with me also. And I’m personally looking forward to the new season of Dancing with the Stars that starts on Monday 3/21.

Random Thought du Jour: I got an email from Twitter, celebrating their 10th anniversary. It made me curious to see how long I had been on Twitter, so I looked it up. I joined May 2008, so nearly 8 years. I admit, I don’t use twitter as much as I used to. I much prefer Instagram these days. Do you use Twitter or Instagram or some other platform, and what is your favorite? 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take nine…

Big Thing that Happened… – we celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary! Big one, I love the big ones as well as the little ones like 18 and 19 🙂 I wouldn’t trade one minute with Tim for anything in the whole wide world 🙂 We did absolutely nothing to celebrate! Stayed in (was pouring rain) and watched movies and ate junk food 😀

Glad that… The rain is over! It rained for three days straight (Thurs-Fri-Sat) and now, the sun is out! The time has changed (I should put that under the “SAD” category, but Tim is ecstatic, more golf for him!) and things are starting to look like spring around here.

Our lorapetalums blooming up front:

Sad that… Downton Abbey is over. For, like, forever. Sniff Sniff. At least it ended well! We had two deaths at church this week, our co-leader in our Sunday School, his mother passed away, and another lady in our class, her sister passed away unexpectedly. All very sad.

Something that makes me happy…. I’m doing well with my reading. Late in the week, I finally got around to updating Goodreads with the books I’ve completed in the last few weeks. My count was 17, which is a good pace for me and hopefully I can meet (60) and maybe even surpass the reading count I’ve set for myself this year at GoodReads. 🙂

Goofy thing that happened… I was outside, taking a picture of my shamrocks on the front door, and Tim popped his head out and startled me!!

Silly Tim:

An unexpected happy… I bought it for us to share, so not all that unexpected! But I’ve been eyeing the “Limited Edition” blueberry mini crullers from Krispy Kreme in a bag at the grocery, so they hopped in my shopping cart (we call them buggies here, I don’t think other parts of the country use that redneck term!) and came home with me. They were SO GOOD! We don’t splurge on donuts often, so it was a nice happy every morning to have a mini donut with my breakfast 🙂

Book I’m reading: Monday night I finished the Tracie Peterson one I had started over the weekend, “What She Left for Me”. It was actually a really good book, about forgiveness and grace and redemption, but the underlying subject matter was a bit hard (molestation, rape, abuse). It was very well written though and did not dwell heavily on those subject matters. I took a break for a day or so from reading, since it was a bit heavy and then (sadly) started on the third book in the Wings of the Nightingale series by Sarah Sundin. I’ve really enjoyed this series and hate to see it end. This one is called “In Perfect Time”.

Things we ate: Monday we had leftover (from the freezer) smoked pork, mashed potatoes and gravy, roasted veggies and salad. Tuesday, I decided to stick to the theme of Taco Tuesdays (notice I rarely if ever stick to the Meatless Monday trend! Haha!) and we had a big taco salad with lots of homemade guacamole and chips. I had bought a 6 pack of avocadoes last week at Sam’s Club and they were needing to be used, so there ya go. Wednesday was sandwich night and Thursday we worked on more leftovers (fridge is full to overflowing, I tend to go to one or more grocery stores a week and buy a LOT OF FOOD for two people!) 😀 Friday night, we celebrated our anniversary by splurging on a huge platter of nachos I made and watching movies. Saturday, we ran some errands and were starving by mid-afternoon, so we picked up burgers on the way home.

Anniversary Nachos!

TV and Movies: Regular tv shows. Last Sunday we watched and really enjoyed Bridge of Spies. The other movies I got from the library were ones we had seen, but I was still able to talk Tim into watching all of them again. Thursday night we watched Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (had just seen once at the theater, so I had forgotten most of it…. so it was like a whole new movie to me!) 😀 Friday night, it was a double header of Bond (Quantum of Solace and SkyFall). Saturday was Jack Reacher. Tim has nearly finished reading all the Jack Reacher books at our library in digital format (maybe 14 or 15 of the 20 Lee Child has written). We’re looking forward to the new one later this year with Tom Cruise. We took those 5 movies back to the library and got 2 more for this week.

UPDATE from a previous post: I posted a few weeks ago that I really need to get a new wallet. Well, I think I found one I like, although I haven’t put it to use yet. I found a cute polka dot one that has RFID protection slots for two credit cards, so I thought I’d try one of those out. I hope it works and it holds up, I don’t tend to buy things like wallets very often. I want to get one that lasts for a long time! 🙂

Random Thought du Jour: When I am reading a book and I run across a word or a character’s name that I don’t know how to pronounce, I just make up a pronunciation in my head. Then, later I often find that I was mispronouncing it. But still, I always prefer my pronunciation that I used in my head. Does that make one bit of sense? Does anyone else do that? 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take eight… it is getting a lot harder to come up with even boring things to chat about. I might need to switch to every other week!

Glad that… My sister Gail got to come to town and go shopping with me. I got a few new pieces of clothing, but still need a lot more, so she will have to come back again to shop more with me. My wardrobe (or lack thereof) needs a lot of help! We had fun though, and a good lunch at Panera, so a good thing 😀

We ordered the same thing at Panera (you know, great minds think alike!):

Sad that… Our most recent Bible Study ended on Thursday. We finished up the six week “Armor of God” study by Priscilla Shirer. We have this week off for Spring Break, then pick up on St. Patrick’s Day with our last study of this session. I have to get my book for “Hosea” by Jennifer Rothschild at church soon.
And… there’s only one more episode of Downton Abbey. Sniff sniff. (Monday morning update: I have it recorded on the DVR and have to watch it, but I don’t want to, I don’t want it to end!)

Something that makes me happy…. We found a new Chinese place! We discovered a little hole in the wall up in Canton that has probably been there for 25 years or more. We didn’t have high hopes, but we were really surprised, everything we ordered was delicious! Also, they seem to do a better takeout business than dine-in, so that is good news for us in the future. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to order take-out Chinese and have leftovers for days 🙂

My shrimp with lobster sauce (I always like a brown sauce and not the white one so many restaurants here use!):

Tim’s Dragon and Phoenix (which at this particular restaurant was General Tso’s chicken with sesame shrimp):

And a first for us! The ticket was written in Chinese!! Very cool 😀

An unexpected happy… After eating out Friday night, I didn’t expect to eat out again over the weekend. On Sunday after church, we went to lunch with some friends, and had a great time, so that was unexpected. And even better… on the way home, Tim treated us to this!!!:

Book I’m reading: I had just downloaded a book from Amazon (my February Kindle prime loan) when I posted last week. So I had not really even started it, it’s a Dan Walsh book entitled “When Night Comes”. Read on that most of the week! Finished it up late Friday night and Saturday started a new one I’ve had in my Kindle cloud for a while, looks like tough subject matter about abuse and infidelity. Not sure yet if I’ll finish it but it’s called “What She Left for Me” by Tracie Peterson.

Things we ate: Our nephew Zack came to stay with us on Monday, as he had a two day golf tournament at Tim’s club on Monday and Tuesday. I took chicken out to cook, but got outvoted by the two guys, who both wanted pizza. They have different tastes (Tim=supreme and Zack=Meats), so I ordered what they wanted and we pigged out when they got home with the pizza. I did *try* to be good and made me a big salad to go with my pizza. Tuesday, I made a big pot of chicken tortilla soup with the chicken I had defrosted for Monday. Wednesday, I ate out a late lunch with Gail at Panera and wasn’t all that hungry. I made us an egg white omelet with ham and cheese and some fruit (Kettle chips for Tim). Thursday we ate leftovers! Friday night was date night at a new-to-use Chinese place. We got steamed dumplings, and Dragon & Phoenix (for Tim), shrimp with lobster sauce (for me), see above! It was all delicious 🙂 Saturday was more leftovers, and Sunday was lunch out, and breakfast for supper. Here’s what I had most days for lunch (leftover pizza, chips and fruit, OINK OINK!!):

TV and Movies: Not a lot of anything to report here. Zack was here Monday and we watched a couple of episodes of Brain Games with him. Tuesday we watched BlindSpot and a couple of other normal shows. Glad that Blindspot is back and wish we were getting Blacklist too. We lost internet plus cable tv and home phone service on Wednesday and didn’t get to watch anything that night. We finally watched Survivor from OnDemand on Friday night. The DVR is pretty full, and we don’t seem to be making much of a dent in it! LOL! 🙂 Tim had a library book due back and was on a deadline, so we spent several evenings reading our books (one of my favorite things, it won’t last much longer, I’ll be a golf widow till dark most evenings). Sunday night, we watched Bridge of Spies that I got at the library.

Random Thought du Jour: I think I’ve *finally* made the switch from regular milk to organic milk. I resisted for so long, because of the cost. I don’t know what groceries cost in the rest of the country, but here things seem expensive. Plus, we pay 7% tax on groceries here, so things add up quick. A gallon of regular, store brand skim milk is about 3.65 here, and the organic store-brand one is 7.00 a gallon. Plus tax. But, I bought organic a time or two and Tim commented on how much better it tasted, so I decided to bite the bullet and upgrade. I don’t drink a lot of milk. I use almond milk in my oatmeal every morning, and have cereal on Sundays before church, and don’t tend to do milk any other time. But, it’s good for him and I do like cereal more now, so I guess it’s worth it! 😀

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take seven!

Glad that… Tim finished my jewelry holder that he had been making me! He started on it a week or two ago, and we had to make a couple of trips to Lowe’s and then across town to Hobby Lobby to get knobs. It looks great, and is so wonderful for holding so many of my necklaces! I have 3 jewelry drawers built into my dresser in the bedroom, I’ve had them for years and love them, but I have so many necklaces (I never get rid of jewelry, most of it comes back in style one way or another eventually), that I needed more room for necklaces, they were constantly getting tangled and mixed up.

Sad that… There’s only one more episode of Downton Abbey. Sniff sniff.

Something that makes me happy…. we finally got a flag bracket installed and our American flag hanging out front!

Book I’m reading: Reading “No One to Trust” by Lynette Eason. It was a great paced book about a couple in witness protection (except that the wife had no idea her husband was not who he said he was). I loved it except (mini-spoiler), it had a bad mafia boss who kept pet snakes! ::shiver:: Really enjoyed it, and then moved on to the second in the Wings of the Nightingale series by Sarah Sundin, “On Distant Shores”. I read the first earlier this year and enjoyed it so much that I bought the other two in the series. These are Christian historical romances, set during WWII, about flight nurses. Finished that one Sunday and downloaded one from the library, a Dan Walsh book entitled “When Night Comes”.

Things we ate: Sunday night, we grilled out before it started raining – alFresco chicken burgers (I had mine plain, no bread), mixed grill veggies (asparagus, onions and mushrooms was what I had on hand) and grilled pineapple. Monday, we were really off schedule from Tim’s near all-nighter on Sunday night, so we didn’t eat lunch till nearly 3 PM. By supper, what I had planned to cook didn’t happen, as neither of us were really all that hungry. So Tim had leftovers and I had an egg sandwich with fruit. Tuesday, I made an old recipe, chicken crescents, and heated up some store-bought soup. Wednesday, I tried another new recipe, for a crockpot mexican enchilada style casserole. Once again, mixed reactions, Tim really liked it and I … did not. Luckily, he was happy to eat leftovers the next couple of days. I also made a new recipe for a baked oatmeal that I really liked and had several mornings for breakfast. Saturday we had a late lunch after Tim finished playing golf. I let him pick, and he picked… drumroll please!!! No surprise here, he picked Dickey’s BBQ rather than anything else in town. I cooked for a friend whose mom had passed away, and kept us back a smidge, so we ate that on Sunday (maple bbq pulled chicken, coleslaw, chips, chocolate chip skillet cookie and banana bread for breakfast). I am happier on the days we eat leftovers, I am not really in much of a cooking mood these days 🙁

Grilled aspargus, onions and mushrooms in my favorite grilling basket:

New baked oatmeal (yes, I added chocolate chips, chocolate makes everything better!):

TV and Movies: Last Sunday night, we finished up the last Garage Sale mystery that I had recorded on the DVR, I think there have been 4 of those so far and we’ve watched them all. I’m really happy that Tim will watch some of these Hallmark mysteries with me. I like that they are clean and easy to watch, just like the cozy mysteries I like to read. Ready for them to make more! This weekend, we watched a couple more I had recorded on the DVR from free preview weekends. Blended, with Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, and then Last Vegas with Robert deNiro, Michael Douglas and Morgan Freeman. The rest of the week, we watched our regular shows.

Random Thought du Jour: Today is a Leap Day. I feel really sorry for people born on February 29 that only get to celebrate every four years. And I don’t remember why we have an extra day every four years, I guess I need to google that and learn something new today! I’m a little sad that January and February are over. I love my two month hibernation period when it’s colder, darker, wetter and I can stay inside and enjoy the solitude. Spring is just around the corner, and the time changes soon! 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take six! This one is short and sweet, not a lot going on this week and very little to blog about 🙁

Glad that… Things are quiet and nothing earth-shattering is going on! Nice, quiet, even-keeled week. We had a beautiful sunset on Tuesday; I dragged out the big camera and took a few shots, but believe me, it was more breathtaking earlier, I took a wee bit too long to get my camera:

Sad that… I tried a new recipe for frosted brownies to take to Bible Study this week. They were ok, but nowhere near as good as my regular brownies. Why I try new recipes sometimes, I don’t understand. I sort of feel like I threw away many dollars worth of ingredients trying something new 🙁

Book I’m reading: Finished reading “Midnight on the Mississippi” by Mary Ellis – it’s a library download. I was very discouraged to see a small notice on my library’s digital website that they are changing systems, and I will have nearly a month long period where I can’t download titles. You would think that I don’t have approximately 1300 free and paid books in my Kindle cloud reader. Sigh. No, I’m just a wee bit upset that my library won’t let me download for a few weeks, LOL! Anyway, Midnight on the Mississippi was good and that was my first book by Mary Ellis but hopefully won’t be my last. Went back to the one I had been reading before, “Blue Moon Bay” by Lisa Wingate. Finished it Saturday and started a new one, another library download, “No One to Trust” by Lynette Eason. I always enjoy her books, and look! Another library download while I still can! 😀

Things we ate: Sunday, Tim surprised me after church and offered to take me out to eat Chinese! My favorite, so he knows I never turn down an offer like that. We ate so much at lunch that I didn’t have to cook Sunday night, we just had popcorn. Monday, we were both feeling bad for indulging so much lately that I just fixed us each a huge salad. Tuesday, I made pork chops with sauerkraut. Wednesday, I had to bake to take food to Bible Study Thursday morning (frosted brownies), so I took the easy route and made a big pot of taco soup. Thursday, I was in the mood for breakfast food (yes, again), so we had egg mcmuffins, grits and sausage for supper after Tim got in from playing golf. Friday and Saturday, we had a big lunch out both days, so we ended up eating either cereal or popcorn for supper.

TV and Movies: Nothing stand out here, regular shows and lots of back episodes of “Brain Games”. They had a marathon last weekend and I recording approximately 30 episodes, it seems like, on the DVR. We’re working through them one or two a night. Watched all the regulars like Blacklist (not as creepy this week, thank goodness), Elementary, Blue Bloods, Hawaii Five O, NCIS, etc.

Something that makes me happy: – new chalkboard art crafted by my husband (I’ve figured him out, each time I change the wreaths on the door for a new holiday, he keys in on drawing a new design on his coffee bean jar!):

Fun Thing We Did: – Tried a new-to-us restaurant, a chain called Genghis Grill. We were across town running errands and stopped in to try the “create your own stir fry” concept. Mine was really good, and Tim enjoyed his. I used mostly ginger and citrus seasoning and he used hotter stuff, so we were both happy 🙂

Random Thought du Jour: Does anyone else feel guilty to spend money going through the car wash? I grew up washing cars in the driveway. You drag out the garden hose, get some soap and wash it. It’s cheap, but it is work. Tim really enjoys driving the vehicles through the car wash. Now, don’t get me wrong, I like having a clean vehicle and I’m even giddier knowing he thinks of me and does mine for me. But I always feel more than a wee bit guilty that we’re spending that money driving through the car wash….

Hope everyone is having a great day!

Weekly boring update, take five! Nothing really exciting going on this week. Tim is having to work every weekend in February, but he took off one day of vacation during the week to go play golf when it was warm. He’s starting to get antsy for the time to change and him to switch to golf mode. Which means I will turn into a golf widow for 7-8 months. Sigh.

Goofy thing that happened… We were watching this week’s Elementary, and there was a character on there that is a high functioning autistic. She’s interested in Sherlock and they had her in a couple of spots on the show. Tim looked at me and said, “she reminds me of you!”. I’m like, you think I’m autistic? He was like, well, she’s literal and routine oriented and very honest and that’s you. I still can’t figure out if he meant it as a compliment or a put-down. 😀

Glad that… Happy to report that I tackled my Walmart list/trip this week. We were a lot poorer when I left, but we aren’t out of anything now! 🙂

Sad that… Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia passed away over the weekend. The court had a balance between conservatives and liberals and I’m afraid that the scales are going to tip away from the conservative side. Very sad day indeed.

Book I’m reading: Finished “With Every Letter” by Sarah Sundin, very good book! Started “Blue Moon Bay” by Lisa Wingate, second in the Moses Lake series. I was only about 25% through with that one when one became available at my library’s download site (I’ve been on the wait list for a few weeks). So I downloaded and started on that one, “Midnight on the Mississippi” by Mary Ellis. This is a new author to me, so I’m hoping that it’s a good one 🙂

Things we ate: Sunday night, we had wings while watching the Super Bowl. Monday, we had tomato soup and grilled cheese, something I’ve been craving for a while. Tuesday I made a crockpot ravioli and a big salad. Wednesday night, from a choice of 3 items, Tim picked eggs in purgatory again (we had bacon and cheese grits with them again, any one want to guess why he picked this one?!). Thursday night, I got Tim to grill out, we had grilled salmon, grilled asparagus and wild rice. Friday night we had chili dogs and chips. Saturday we ran late to Lowe’s, so rather than coming in late and fixing food, we swung thru Chick-Fil-A and got sandwiches. Yummy!

TV and Movies: I don’t think we watched any movies this week! We were mostly watching regular TV shows from the DVR. I truly think the only thing we watch live all year long is the Super Bowl, and that was a struggle. Tim was constantly grabbing the remote to fast forward thru the commercials, and I was like, “I wanna watch the commercials!!!” It doesn’t take long to form SOME new habits, now does it?! 🙂 DVR’s have definitely changed the way we watch tv. We never watch a show live and rarely watch it on even the same night it is on. We gave up on Duck Dynasty and deleted it from the DVR. We tried a couple of episodes of Brain Games and liked it. We’re nerdy that way 🙂 Kept up with our regular stuff on the DVR (NCIS x3, Limitless, Scorpion, Blacklist, Elementary, Blue Bloods, etc). Looking forward to Survivor starting back next week.

Something that makes me happy: – I came in Thursday to discover an early Valentines happy from my sweetheart!!!

Fun Thing We Did: – It won’t seem like fun to anyone else, but we went to Sam’s together 🙂 Tim also went with me into HomeGoods first and we bought some new kitchen glasses for him. He *hates* stores like Home Goods, so this was a biggie for him. He does, however, like Sam’s so he will go there willingly with me. We walked out with a cart full and a couple of hundred dollars poorer. I’d call that fun, but I am rather odd 🙂

Random Thought du Jour: OK, this random thought popped into my head one day. I was skimming through some of Amazon’s deal of the day that they have. I kept seeing a bluetooth shower speaker. I’ve seen shower speakers for years, long before there was a cell phone in existence. I don’t quite think I’ve ever understood the allure of a shower speaker. I know people sing in the shower, although I am not one of those people. And my husband was in the military so he takes very quick showers. So I guess I just don’t get it. Do you have a shower speaker, have you ever had one, or do you know of anyone who has ever had one? And secondly – do you sing in the shower?! 🙂

Hope everyone is having a great day!