Exceedingly Mundane

Feast One Hundred & Fifty Six
August 17, 2007

Appetizer
Describe your laundry routine. Do you have a certain day when you do it all, or do you just wash whatever you need for the next day? Well, if you’ve visited here much, I’m sure you know that I’m pretty regimented and routine-oriented. I function best when I have a routine, and that naturally extends to my full-time job, homemaking. I do have a routine on my laundry – on Mondays, all of Beau’s stuff gets washed, on Tuesday I do towels (I love alliteration!) and Wednesdays I do sheets. I usually do whites and colored clothes every 2-3 days, alternating days. It depends on when I’ve done them last, but I’m going to wash colors today 🙂

Soup
In your opinion, what age will you be when you’ll consider yourself to truly be old? Gosh, I don’t know. When I was younger, I thought 30 was old. Now, 30 looks awesome! How about 70?! 😀

Salad
What is one of your goals? Is it short-term, long-term, or both? I set a goal of the number of books I want to read each year (for the last 3 years). I read 70 books last year and I had originally set my goal for this year to be 75. But, I’m already up to 68, so I don’t think I’m going to have a problem meeting and exceeding my goal. So, now I’m trying to figure out a new goal to shoot for 🙂 My main long-term goal would be travel. Especially to England and Scotland – that’s my lifelong dream, to visit those 2 countries.

Main Course
Name something unbelievable you’ve seen or read lately. I’m drawing a complete and total blank on this one right now!

Dessert
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how happy are you today? About an 8, I guess!

I’ve finished several books lately and wanted to do a quick “book review” about them. Except that I don’t really “do reviews”. I like almost every book I read, in one way or another, for one reason or another. I merely wanted to say what I liked about each one of these, in a very simple way. 🙂 The books are:

The Art of Mending by Elizabeth Berg
This Pen for Hire (a Jaine Austen mystery) by Laura Levine
Marley & Me by John Grogan
The Body in the Moonlight (a Faith Fairchild mystery) by Katherine Hall Page

I read my fourth book by author Elizabeth Berg, “The Art of Mending”. I have discovered that I really like the way she writes and the pictures she paints with her writing. This was not my favorite by her, but I did enjoy it. I think the first book I read by Berg will always be my favorite (“The Year of Pleasures”), followed closely by “Dream When You’re Feeling Blue” (I liked the WWII era to that one).

The second book, “This Pen for Hire” by Laura Levine, was also one I really enjoyed. I’ve discovered recently that I like what I call “cozy mysteries”. I’ve read several by different authors, and enjoyed pretty much all of them. They’re light, fluffy, easy to read, with really no bad language or gory violence. They’re fairly predictable, but I’m good with that. I just enjoy the easy pace and the overall escapism of these kind of books. 🙂 This is the start of the series, about Jaine Austen, a writer who runs a service writing letters, resumes, brochures and such out of her home, her business aptly titled “This Pen for Hire.” A love letter she reluctantly helps a nerdy guy pen to a beautiful aerobics instructor results in murder, and Jaine feels compelled to investigate. Fun read, and I wish my library had all of the ones in this series. I’ll definitely read the ones they do have, eventually. 🙂

I also read another cozy, by author Katherine Hall Page, called “The Body in the Moonlight”. This is a Faith Fairchild mystery, and this particular one I picked up at the library is in the middle of the series. This doesn’t really matter a lot with these books, I don’t think. Faith is a caterer, and a minister’s wife in rural Aleford, Massachusetts. I like the foodie aspect of these, and there are a few recipes included in the back. I’m going to copy two of them and put them on the extended page. This is probably one of my least favorite “cozy” mysteries that I’ve read. I had a hard time getting into it. I don’t know if it was the plot of this particular one, or just the writing. I will give this author another try though, as there are probably another 5 or 6 of these mysteries at my library. I did enjoy it, but I didn’t just love it, you know?!

Marley & Me is probably my favorite of these four. Being a dog lover and dog owner, this was a wonderful book for me. It’s subtitled “Life and Love with the World’s Worst Dog” and is the true story of John and Jenny Grogan’s life with their new puppy Marley. It follows them through jobs, moves, children and Marley growing up and finally passing away at the ripe old age of 13. Marley was a precocious dog, one who shredded mattresses and couch cushions, who had an unnatural fear of thunderstorms, who poked his head in past the shower curtain and drank from the shower. I cried at the end, so be warned, if you’re a dog lover, grab some Kleenex toward the end.

Marley & Me had a couple of wonderful passages right at the end, that I loved. I thought I’d include them here:

What I really wanted to say was how this animal had touched our souls and taught us some of the most important lessons of our lives. “A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours,” I wrote. “Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things – a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me optimism in the face of adversity. Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness, and above all else, unwavering loyalty.”

A dog has no use for fancy cars or big homes or designer clothes. Status symbols mean nothing to him. A waterlogged stick will do just fine. A dog judges others not by their color or creed or class but by who they are inside. A dog doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his. It was really quite simple, and yet we humans, so much wiser and more sophisticated, have always had trouble figuring out what really counts and what does not. Sometimes it took a dog with bad breath, worse manners and pure intentions to help us see.

Sigh, it makes me want to go hug and love on my Beau baby. I’ve included two recipes from the back of “The Body in the Moonlight” on the extended page. I haven’t made them, but they look pretty good!

For the record, I’ve finished 68 books so far this year, for a total of 20, 204 pages read. Up next is the English Garden series by Lori Wick. My library had all 4 books in and available, and so I went ahead and checked them all out. This is not something that I normally like to do, read series books back to back to back. But, I do get frustrated with trying to check them out, in order (and not being able to get them when I’m ready for them), so I went ahead and got all of these. I’ve got two more on reserve that have come into the library this week, so I have to run later today or tomorrow and pick those up. Books, glorious books!

Click for the recipes… Read the rest of this entry »

One book at a time? Or more than one? If more, are they different types/genres? Or similar?

(We’re talking recreational reading, here—books for work or school don’t really count since they’re not optional.)

Ok, today’s question over at Booking Through Thursday is an easy peasy one for me. I am very OCD about my books. I start one, I finish one. I absolutely, positively, cannot start a new book until I’ve finished the one I’m reading. I don’t have the kind of personality or attention span to be reading two books simultaneously, even of different genres. I’ve tried to read a fiction book, and also have a non-fiction type book going at the same time, and even that doesn’t work for me. I have to start what I finish. Even if I don’t like the book, I will almost always keep reading, struggling through, despising every minute (I have a problem with abandoning goals too, obviously), until I finish. Then, and only then, do I allow myself to start a new one.

I wish I could read more than one at a time. It’s an admirable quality, if you ask me. I wish I wasn’t so regimented, but alas, it’s just who I am 😀

Apparently, today is National Relaxation Day. Hunh. Sounds like a great day to me! Unfortunately, I’ve already been pretty busy today and have a lot more to do.

We hit a record yesterday, 106º. Ugh. Today is only supposed to be 103. Double Ugh. I’m just so very grateful that we have AC. My dad’s unit broke earlier in the week and he’s been without cool air for days now. He had the people out to service it on Monday, then it went out and they came back on Tuesday to repair a part. It was working when they left, but Dad said it was blowing hot air a couple of hours later. He’s still waiting on them to come back and fix it. I couldn’t talk him into coming up here to where we do have A/C – he wants to be there to “supervise” and have them fix it. I can’t blame him, but I do worry about him in this heat. He’s 84 and no AC at that age worries me.

Let’s see, Tim played golf late yesterday, again in this heat. I think he’s nuts, but he says he is fine and he’s “getting used to the heat”. 😀 We went out and ate Mexican last night after he got back, yummy. I’m already off my menu for the week though, which I dislike. I love my routines! 🙂 We went on our walk really early this morning, then we went to the Saints last day of training camp. They travel later today and have another preseason game Saturday night. It was moderately warm. I’m just grateful we didn’t go yesterday afternoon when it was so much hotter. I have to load my photos, then I’ll post some later over on my Project365 blog.

I have some cleaning and chores to do today, but mostly I plan to sit inside, in the air conditioning! Maybe I can get some “relaxin” in too, since it’s a holiday and all! 🙂

Have a great day!!!!

We’re having a heat wave, a tropical heat wave, where I live! It’s been in the 100’s for the last several days, and we’re forecast to be in the triple digits until at least the end of the week. I’m already tired of summer, and have been daydreaming lately about wearing jeans and sweaters, candy corn and pumpkins, snowmen and angels, and mostly, just some cooler weather 🙂

My air conditioning unit is running nearly non-stop, and that’s mostly how I’m trying to stay cool. My preferred method though, would be to eat ice cream. When it’s hot like this, I could really eat ice cream every day. Seriously. Unfortunately, my hips and thighs are already large enough, so I’m trying to be good.

Today’s Question of the Day is all about ice cream – what’s your favorite flavor? Do you eat ice cream at home or just out, at an ice cream shop or specialty place? Do you have favorite toppings that you like to put on your ice cream?

As for my answers – I rarely meet an ice cream I don’t like. Chocolate would be my all-time favorite, but I do like a lot of other flavors. This summer, we’ve been trying the Oreo, Reese’s peanut butter and Snickers ones. I need to try a Butterfinger one next. I also have a half gallon of plain vanilla on hand, because I’ve been making some banana splits. A banana, some low fat vanilla ice cream, Hershey’s chocolate syrup, maraschino cherries and nuts on top. Yummy in my tummy 🙂

How about you? What’s your favorites when it comes to ice cream?

Well, the temperatures are forecast to be in the triple digits for the next five days, so cooking doesn’t rank high on my list. Sigh. So, I’m going to make poor Tim go outside and grill over a hot gas grill one night, and then I’ll cook the other nights. 🙂 As always, thanks to Laura, for hosting this every week!

Monday – Grilled chicken (Tim)/Grilled Salmon (Stacy), smashed potatoes, green beans

Tuesday – Fish sandwiches, oven fries

Wednesday – Light Night before Tim weighs in – Tomato soup, salad or sandwich

Thursday – Teriyaki chicken, rice, egg rolls

Friday – Date Night – eat out or pizza

Saturday – TBD

Back during the Dog Dogs of Summer bloggy giveaway, I won a “good things book kit” from the incredibly sweet Barb, over at A Chelsea Morning. It came in the mail earlier this week, and I haven’t had the chance to blog about it yet. Thank you so much Barb, I just love it!

I think this generous gift is just the impetus I need to get some things organized around here. I have recipes and cooking ideas, travel destination blurbs, decorating ideas and all kinds of stuff torn out of magazines and newspapers, just sitting in piles. This is going to be perfect for organizing them in. I’ve already got it started a little bit, and I also decided to bite the bullet and get another binder, just to put recipes in. I collect recipes. By the thousands, it seems like 🙂 Anyway, here’s a few shots of the project that I hope to work on a lot over the next few weeks.

In honor of Barb, I’ve also named my “Good Things”! (I haven’t decided what to put in the middle square – I’m open to suggestions!!! 😀 )

I couldn’t think of a better thing for an opening page, than the page from Petfinder.com last year, describing the doggie that would become our beloved Beau:

Christmas candle idea, using a glass mason jar, cranberries and a floating candle:

Cooking and description chart for apples:

Travel ideas!

As Barb and her hero would say, “It’s a good thing!” 😀 Thank you again, Barb!!!

Feast One Hundred & Fifty Five
August 10, 2007

Appetizer
What is your favorite kind of pie? Ooh, either cherry or a chocolate cream pie. Yum!

Soup
Name something that made you smile this week. Tim. He always makes me smile. He can be silly and funny and he’s always making me laugh.

Salad
What do you do to cool off when the weather is hot and humid? Stay inside in the AC!

Main Course
You receive $1,000 in the mail with a letter that says you can only use the money to redecorate one room in your home. Which room do you pick, and what do you buy to spruce it up? My kitchen, and I’d get a new stove/oven (range).

Dessert
Fill in the blank: My _________ says __________, but I __________. My husband says he is going to go play golf this afternoon, but I think he’s crazy! It’s supposed to be over 100º here today, and for the next 5-6 days. I think it’s nutso to go out in the sun for 4+ hours in the hottest part of the day to hit a little white ball. Ugh.

You know what? I’ve decided that reading the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich are one of my guilty pleasures (we can’t forget about chocolate though; I think that will always top any list of mine!) I know these books have bad language, mild violence and quite a bit of s*xual references, but they are laugh-out loud funny and I do enjoy them. They’re light and fluffy and always easy to read.

I’ve read three of them lately, trying to catch up and get current with this series. I am always asking myself – would I pick Morelli or Ranger? How about you? If you read these books, which one would you pick? Who do you think Stephanie will end up with? Or do you even think Janet Evanovich will end this and let us know which one Stephanie rides off into the sunset with?

P.S. I just finished “Twelve Sharp” and it sort of looks like Evanovich is trying to decide. I’m thinking when I finally get Lean Mean Thirteen from the library, that Steph will be right back where she was before – in a love-love situation with both Morelli and Ranger. If you’ve read it, and she decides somehow, please don’t let me know!!!

P.S.S. If you’re keeping up with my book count and my quest to read more books this year than last, you can check out my sidebar. I’m up to 65 books so far this year, with a total of 19,478 pages read 🙂

I briefly mentioned in a recent “update post” about some movies we’ve watched lately. I blogged about how my favorite of these was “Akeelah and the Bee”. I thought that was a great movie and I highly recommend it. I love words and spelling. That goes hand in hand with my avid love of reading and all things related to books.

So, it came as no surprise when Tim walked in the den one morning this week (he works in our spare bedroom, the “office” and I hang out in the den and kitchen with my laptop) and said “did you know you could do a spelling bee online?” Huh? How can you do it online, you will see the word? No, he says, it does a spoken thing and then you spell the word. Now, this is a game or feature I could spend a lot of time doing!

It’s at our favorite dictionary site – www.thefreedictionary.com. I like using this site versus dictionary.com because it has a spoken feature that is free, that you don’t have to be a paying member to get to. I like to hear a word pronounced, in addition to seeing it written out with a definition. This site also has a thesaurus, as well as specialized sections on computing terms, medical, legal and financial terms. We really like it. I had noticed a while back that they added a Hangman game on the main page, and I have played it some. But — I had not seen the Spelling Bee portion! Oh my, have I been having fun with that! Tim and I played for a while, then his break was over and he had to go back to work. Me, I am playing whenever I have any free time. Check it out if you like words, spelling and things like that 😀

P.S. I told Tim I was going to blog about this site and what fun I was having doing the spelling bee. He said “be sure to tell them it’s addictive”

Get a load of this thing!

{As seen on the Sur La Table website, here} It’s called the “SmartShopper Grocery List Organizer”. It …

Alphabetizes and groups items by where they’re found in the store. 7½” x 4″ x 1¼”.
Recognizes nearly 2,500 grocery items, or add your own to the database.
Coupon flag feature.
Add simple errands like bank or dry cleaning.
Built-in printer requires no ink cartridges
Uses four standard AA batteries.

Now, I love electronics and I actually really like grocery shopping. Heck, this time last year I bought myself the bottom level Palm PDA with an application called SplashShopper already loaded, just so I could keep my shopping, library, Walmart and Sam’s lists with me, electronically. But, this thing, geesh, I had no idea they made something like this! I think it’s pretty pricey at $150, but that’s just me. For years and years, I just kept a running tab of my grocery list on a magnetic pad of paper that was attached to the side of my refrigerator. The one thing that bothered me about that list was that it was inefficient. I added things to it as I thought of them, or if I used up one can of something from my pantry, I’d add another one. So, my list was not in order. Does that make sense? What would always happen would be that I’d get to the bottom of my list, or flip to the backside, and find something that I had missed several aisles over. An aisle I had already been down. Very inefficient, and that kind of stuff bothers me 🙂

Anyway! So, if you had the money, would you buy it? I am very happy with my Palm, but of course it doesn’t print anything out. Not a biggie for me. I like going totally digital 🙂

That’s today’s Question of the Day: How do you keep lists of things you want or need to buy? Electronically or on a piece of paper? Do you even go to the grocery store or Walmart or Target with a list? Is it organized, or do you find yourself circling back to get something you missed on a previous aisle or section of the store? How often do you go to the store to get groceries or household items? Do you sit down with the sales circulars and plan out your shopping trip, or do you keep a running list? Or no list at all! Leave me a comment and let me know!

I’m still not feeling like doing a whole lot of cooking these days. I think it must be the summer doldrums, or else our lovely August heat. Still keeping it pretty simple. 🙂 I’m also going to try to work in a night to have leftovers. I’ve been throwing food out at the end of the week lately, because I’ve been cooking every night, and we usually have food left. If we don’t eat it for lunch the next day, it usually doesn’t get eaten. And I hate throwing food out, so I’m going to see about a “leftovers” night. As always, thanks to Laura, for hosting this every week!

Monday – Chili Cheese-Black Bean enchiladas, pinto beans, guacamole and chips

Tuesday – Crockpot Creamy Italian Chicken, fettucine, steamed mixed vegetables

Wednesday – Breakfast Burritoes with hash browns, oatmeal

Thursday – Sandwich night or leftovers

Friday – Date Night: Eat out or pizza

Saturday – family get together; haven’t decided what I’m taking yet

I finished a really great library book the other day, “These Boots Weren’t Made for Walking” by Melody Carlson. This book is Christian chick-lit and I had seen it mentioned at someones blog a while back. While surfing my library’s listing online of new books, I saw that they were processing this one, so I immediately got on the reserve list for it. I could be wrong, but I think I was the first person to read this book after they got it in their system. Which, I thought was sorta cool 🙂

I really loved this book! This was my first book by Melody Carlson, but it won’t be my last. I thoroughly enjoyed it and really hated to see it end. It reminded me a lot of one I read recently by Kristin Billerbeck, “What A Girl Wants”, also Christian chick-lit, but I think I really liked this one better. I think it’s because this character was a little more relatable to me. She moved from the big city back to her small home town, and I think just that feel and flow of the small-town plot was more in line with what I like to read, whereas Ashley Stockingdale (in the Billerbeck book), lives and works in the Silicon Valley, big city life 🙂

Since I’m positively no good at devising my own synopsis of a book, I’m going to completely cheat and copy the back of the book for you here, to give you an idea of what it’s about:

Certain she’s paid her corporate dues, thirty one-year-old Cassidy Cantrell struts through the office in her chic Valentino boots to turn in her latest project. She’s confident she’ll make a spectacular impression and seal the deal on her long-anticipated promotion at the Seattle marketing firm. But when reality tromps over her expectations, Cassie quickly realizes those same stylish boots are all wrong for pounding the pavement in search of a new job – or for kicking her cheating ex-boyfriend out of her life.

Her self-esteem in tatters, Cassie limps back to her ski resort hometown – to find her rebounding-from-divorce mother transformed into a gorgeous fifty-something babe whose thriving social life only accentuates the dismal shape of Cassie’s own romantic prospects. What will it take for Cassie to jump back into life and regain her stride?

Maybe this book was just what I was in the mood for, but it really hit the spot for me. Good book, good characters, one I really hated to see end. If you like Christian fiction, I think you’d enjoy this one.

For the record, I’ve read 62 books so far this year, with a total of 18,595 pages. Up next is the second in the Firstborn series by Karen Kingsbury (“Forgiven“), and after that, I have a stack of books I got at the library yesterday. I loaded them in my sidebar, but the titles are: Twelve Sharp, The Art of Mending, This Pen for Hire, Marley and Me and The Body in the Moonlight. Yeah for new books to read 😀

Feast One Hundred & Fifty Four
August 03, 2007

*This feast contains leftovers from April 2006. Consume at your own risk!*

Appetizer
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how polite are you? Well, being very Southern and being born and raised in the Hospitality State, I think I’m fairly polite. I’d rate myself about an 8, I think 🙂

Soup
What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud? An older movie we rented from Netflix – 13 Going on 30 with Jennifer Garner. I had seen it, but Tim had not (I rented it a long time ago when he was out of town on business). It has several 80’s related scenes in it that are laugh-out-loud funny to me.

Salad
Who is your favorite cartoon character? I don’t do cartoons! How about Snoopy? Is he a cartoon character? 🙂

Main Course
Tell about the funniest teacher you ever had. Ugh, I don’t remember any of my teachers being particularly funny. Then again, I don’t remember most of my teachers. The few I do remember are the ones that were difficult, for one reason or another.

Dessert
Complete this sentence: I strongly believe that ______________________. I strongly believe that the media and the paparazzi in this country are out of control, with regards to celebrities and reporting what they are doing or not doing.

I haven’t posted very many pictures of our dog Beau on this blog in a long time. Mostly, this year, I’ve been using them as my photo of the day over at my Project365 blog. The other day, my sweet blogging buddy Lynne left me a comment that she missed seeing Beau, and would I please post more photos of him? Aww, so sweet! Goodness knows, he’s my furry child and I love and adore him. I take a lot of photos of him, although I hadn’t really lately. But after Lynne left me that comment, I decided to take a bunch. And I have for the last couple of days. I just posted 6 or 8 over at my Project365 blog (you can check them out here and here).

I’ll also put a few more on the extended page… I just couldn’t decide which ones to pick. We think Beau is a great dog, and getting better every day. Tim has been working with him, and he’s more disciplined than ever. He’s doing well on the leash, and in the last 9 days, Tim has been working with him to bring the newspaper in from the driveway every morning. After the first day, he had it. He now goes out every morning on Tim’s command and brings the newspaper inside and drops it at his feet 🙂 Beau is also learning more and more words, and does this cute thing with his head, cocking it to the side, when he’s really listening to you. We’ve also been working really hard at putting more weight on Beau. When we rescued him last fall, he only weighed about 45 pounds. The vet said she wanted him up at least 5 or 10 more pounds in the next few months. When we boarded him in May, I think he lost all of the weight he had gained, over stress of being at the kennel so long. So, I instigated a new plan. I’ve taught Beau that if he finishes all the food in his bowl when he eats, he gets a treat. He tries to pull a fast one on me and comes to get me after he eats, and if his bowl is not empty, I tell him “You Know the Rules”. He will then eat it all, if he wants his treat. Between the new food and the treats, he is starting to put on weight and look a lot healthier. In fact, Tim told me the other day, pretty soon, we are going to have to watch what we give him and cut back on the treats! He thinks he’s going to be too fat in another year or so 🙂

Photos over on my Project365 blog and some on the extended page. Click more…
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