Exceedingly Mundane

There was a widely bruited-about statistic reported last week, stating that 1 in 4 Americans did not read a single book last year. Clearly, we don’t fall into that category, but . . . how many of our friends do? Do you have friends/family who read as much as you do? Or are you the only person you know who has a serious reading habit?

I read this article in our local newspaper. I can’t say that I was surprised. With the advent of technology, and just how busy in general most people are, I was actually rather surprised that 3 in 4 Americans actually did read a book! Most people are either single parents, or dual-working parents, who barely have time to keep up with their lives and their kids lives. I know how lucky I am, that my situation allows me time to read and enjoy the things I like to do. I read a lot more than the average person. My sister Gail reads a lot, and my mother-in-law also reads a lot. I’m not sure that many other family members or friends read more than a handful of books a year. At least, none that I know of. I love to see people reading, and I love seeing a love of books instilled in children. We’re always really happy if we see or hear of our nieces and nephews getting read to, or learning to read when they get older.

Happy Reading, everyone!

Lynne tagged me with this “meme with no name” earlier today. 🙂 Thanks Lynne!

I won’t tag anyone specifically at the end, but please feel free to snag it and play along at your blog. Be sure to leave me a note if you do, so I can come check out your answers.

ACCENT: Um, Southern, definitely. Probably a lot heavier than I think. I’ve lived here my whole life and most everyone I know has, so I don’t think we realize how strong our accent is.

I DON’T DRINK: Alcohol

CHORE I HATE: ONLY ONE? You must be kidding! I dislike dusting. I dislike scrubbing our shower. Watering the flowers and grass come late August 🙄

PETS: Beau, the wonder dog. If you want to check him out, just skip on over to my Project365 blog, I’ve only posted a gazillion photos of him so far this year 😀

ESSENTIAL ELECTRONICS: Aren’t they all? This is a long list. My computer, my Internet connection, my digital camera, our HDTV, my iPod for starters. I wouldn’t want to live without my cell phone, but I might could for a short time. How about everything electronic in my little world?!

PERFUME: I only wear it occasionally, but I love Clinique Happy. Most days, I just squirt some Bath and Body Works Cherry Blossom spray on and go!

GOLD OR SILVER: Yikes, how about both? My wedding band is gold, my watch is a mix of gold and silver, and mostly, I wear silver hoops. I like and wear both.

INSOMNIA: Occasionally, the older I get. Since we got Beau, I rarely sleep through the night because he barks all hours of the night. If I’m getting exercise regularly, and cutting out caffeine in the afternoons and evenings, I sleep fairly well. If not, then I have a trusty little bottle of Tylenol PM in the bathroom.

JOB TITLE: Domestic Engineer

MOST ADMIRED TRAIT: I don’t think I have very many that are admirable! I like that I’m organized and a good planner, maybe that counts.

KIDS: None, sadly

PHOBIA: Snakes. Heights, if it’s open (I’m fine in planes and tall buildings, unless I’m outside on a ledge or balcony or overlook or something).

RELIGION: Southern Baptist

SIBLINGS: Two older sisters, Gail and Suzanne.

TIME I WAKE UP: whenever Beau barks to go outside. Anywhere from 5 AM to 6:30 AM. Lately, we’ve been doing our best to get up and go walking around 6:15. It’s dark then, these days!

UNUSUAL TALENT/SKILL: I have no idea!!

VEGETABLE: Love or hate? I love broccoli. I hate, detest, loathe and refuse to look at a beet.

WORST HABIT: Always apologizing and saying “I’m sorry”. Being negative and pessimistic. Worrying.

X-RAYS: Dental are the only ones I have on a regular basis.

MY FAVORITE MEAL: That would change depending on my mood. I love Chinese and Japanese. I love Italian food, fresh bread with olive oil for dipping, tiramisu for dessert at my favorite local Italian place. I love seafood – everything but oysters. I eat steak, but I don’t just LOVE it and order it or buy them to grill. I love comfort foods in the winter – soups, stews, chili. Fresh homemade bread, hot out of the oven with butter slathered all over it. Anything chocolate for dessert. Yikes. I love food, can you tell?!

I had “Good Morning America” on this morning. Today is the 2 year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting our state and devastating our Gulf Coast. So, I’ve been watching some of the morning shows (Today and GMA, I rarely watch the Early Show on CBS) and checking out some of the coverage. I was glad to see the announcement of the dancers – they have more this time, 12 couples and the show starts in late September (9/24). I can’t wait, I love this show 🙂

Marie Osmond – singer, actress
Floyd Mayweather – boxer
Melanie Brown – “Scary” Spice
Helio Castroneves – Racecar Champ
Jenny Garth – Beverly Hills 90210 actress
Cameron Mathison – from daytime soap All My Children (yeah, I LOVE him!)
Jane Seymour – actress
Albert Reed – Model
Sabrina Bryant – actress, singer (part of the group The Cheetah Girls)
Mark Cuban – Basketball Owner (Dallas Mavericks), billionaire
Josie Maran – Model (SI swimsuit, among other things)
Wayne Newton – Las Vegas entertainer

I’m really excited about several of these contestants! Do you watch this show and if so, who would you root for out of these (obviously, if they are decent dancers!)? 🙂

Time for a Question of the Day!

Today’s questions are an odd combination, but they all have a common theme – sleeping in your bed. 🙂 First, do you sleep with your bedroom door open or closed? Do you ever LOCK your bedroom door? Second, which side of the bed do you sleep on? If you spend the night at a hotel or another house, do you still sleep on that side of the bed? Do you ever switch sides for any reason? And Third – do you sleep on your back, your stomach, your side, or all of them?

Personal questions, I know. Sorry if it’s too personal. 🙂

Here’s my answers: 1) we sleep with our bedroom door open if no one else is staying at our house. If we have guests, the door obviously gets closed. We don’t normally lock our door, but I’m sure if we had kids, we might have been tempted! 2) The side of the bed thing is sort of funny. A little of my OCD tendencies coming out. I normally sleep on the left side of the bed. Always. We never switch at home (I flip the mattress regularly instead). But, sometimes in a hotel or at someone else’s house, I end up on the right. That has more to do with having a bedside table, with a lamp, and a place to put my alarm clock. I’m the “keeper” of the alarm clock. It never goes on Tim’s side, and he won’t fool with it. So if the only choice is the right side, I’ll have to sleep on that side because of the lamp/clock issue. Normally, I like to sleep on the left. 3) Lastly, I sleep either on my back or side. I can’t sleep on my stomach. It’s not something I can do at all. I really prefer to sleep in a sort of a modified fetal position, on my side with my knees pulled up some. 🙂

How about you? If you want to share your “sleeping habits” with me and the rest of the blogosphere, leave me a message and let me know! 😀

Last week went pretty much according to plan. I ended up shuffling a couple of meals around, but overall, I made most everything I had on my menu. Yeah! I love sticking to a plan.

I also finally got around to entering some of the new recipes we’ve been trying lately, on the recipe section of my main website. Check the post below this one to see the recipe names and links. Check ’em out 🙂

Now, for this week. Here’s the general plan… Labor Day weekend is still up in the air, so no concrete plans so far for the weekend.

Sunday – we had take-out Chinese!!!

Monday – Taco Salad

Tuesday – Grilled chicken, smashed potatoes, sugar snap peas

Wednesday – Light Night before Tim weighs in – eggs, oatmeal, toast

Thursday – Spaghetti with meatballs, french bread, salad

Friday – Crockpot Sweet and Sour Pork Chops, Rice or potatoes, green beans

Sat/Sun/Monday – TBD

As I alluded to in this post last week, I’ve made several new recipes lately, and wanted to share them. Some of them are from several months ago, and I realized when I was looking for one recipe, that they were printed out in a pile and had never been entered. Most of them I’ve made in August, and they’ve all been, by and large, successes for us, and something I would make again.

Several of these came from blogs that I read. Some are “food” type blogs that I peruse on Mondays (via Menu Plan Monday) or Thursday (via Slow Cooking Thursday) – two food related weekly memes that I really like.

I’ve entered them all on my main website – Hambones.org. Here’s a list of the recipes and links to them. Enjoy!

Crockpot Sweet and Sour Pork Chops – Tim really liked this one!
Crockpot Cherry Cobbler – Tim liked this more than I did. Will make again and make some modifications
Crockpot Parmesan Potatoes – very easy and a good side dish, but pretty mushy
Dilled Potato Salad – adapted a LOT from a recipe in Southern Living magazine, this is portioned for two people
Crockpot Meatball Soup – adapted from a recipe I found at a blog, but I didn’t note which blog. If it’s your recipe, thanks for posting, it was really good!
Jenna’s Teriyaki Chicken – a really good one; we had with a boxed teriyaki noodle mix and frozen egg rolls. Good, quick, Chinese type meal – thank you Jenna!
Claire’s Tater Tuna Pie – different from a regular tuna casserole, we really liked it! Thanks to Claire for posting it on her blog!

Yum, now I’m hungry! Here’s hoping that the weather cools off a bit in September, and I can start back making more soups, chowders and homemade bread 🙂

Very few things can make me want to jump out of bed early on a Saturday morning. A sale at my local library is one of them though! 😀

The library system in my county has 4 or 5 branches, but two of them are close to my house (a couple miles in either direction). They each have 2 book sales a year, so I end up being able to go 4 times a year. I went in February and again in May, and now this morning. I love going to the book sales, it’s always a blast to me to search through the books and see what I can find. You can’t beat the prices in my book, plus it benefits the library that I patronize on a regular basis. Today, the place was packed – more so than I have ever seen it before. I got the last parking spot in the parking lot, and everyone else was parking off in the grass or on the edge of the street. When I tried to go in the room, it was so packed I could not maneuver around. Unfortunately, the sections I wanted to get to were in the back, so by the time I could push my way over there, a lot of books I would have gotten were gone. How do I know this, you ask? Because I saw TONS of books I would have liked to have gotten in other people’s hands, and bags and boxes. Argh. Oh well, I had a good time and got 10 books for $7.00. You can’t beat that!

Here’s my haul for the day:

Feast One Hundred & Fifty Seven
August 24, 2007

Appetizer
Say there’s a book written about your life. Who would you want to narrate the audio version? Well, I’m assuming it would need to be a female voice, but the only one that came to mind (and Tim helped me with this) is Jamie Lee Curtis. It’s funny, though, a male voice pops right into my head. Tim and I were talking the other day about Dennis Hasbert – the guy who played President David Palmer on 24, and is on The Unit now. He also narrates the Allstate commercials – he has a rich, deep voice, sort of like James Earl Jones.

Soup
Take the letters from your favorite kind of nut and write a sentence. (Example: Perhaps every avenue needs understanding today.) People eat candy and nuts 🙂

Salad
If you could go back in time and spend one week in another decade, which decade would you choose? Ooh, I’d probably pick the 40’s. Something about the WWII area has always fascinated me.

Main Course
Name a song that brings back memories for you. Wonderful Tonight by Eric Clapton

Dessert
Do you prefer to wash your hands in cold water or warm water? Totally depends on the time of year. I do not like to wash my hands in cold water when it’s winter and cold. In the summer though, I like it quite well! Of course, warm works year round for me 🙂

Stole this one from Karen, at Over the Back Yard Fence, who stole it from Kelly at MyUtopia, who borrowed it…. you get the idea!

What are you reading right now? The last book in the English Garden series by Christian author Lori Wick

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? Absolutely, the rest of the books that I have checked out of the library (which are listed on my sidebar). After that, I need to read two books I have borrowed from my sister, so I can return them to her 🙂

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? I don’t have any magazines in the bathroom. In our living room, however, I have overflowing magazine baskets. Southern Living, Taste of Home, Woman’s Day, Better Homes & Gardens, Good Housekeeping, etc

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? Well, I have never been “forced” read anything. But I have read a couple of books in the last two years that I totally did NOT enjoy. One was “The Falls” by Joyce Carol Oates and the other was “Talk to the Hand” by Lynne Truss

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? Ooh, tough one. I guess I recommend books I love, like the Mitford books by Jan Karon, books by Debbie Macomber, books by Karen Kingsbury, etc. And now that I’ve finished “Marley & Me” finally, I would recommend that to anyone who loves dogs.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? No, I don’t think they know my name at all, but I think they are starting to recognize my face 🙂

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? Hmmm, nothing is coming to mind…

Do you read books while you do other things? Nope. I am easily distracted. I really prefer that it is quiet when I read. I don’t like music on, or TV and I have a hard time reading when there are other people around (hospital waiting rooms, airport lounges and on the plane, etc). I don’t even like to read in the living room if Tim is watching TV or a movie. I’ll go to our bedroom and close the door and get it as quiet as I can. The only other thing I might do if I read is drink something. I don’t multi-task when I read 🙂

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits? Not that I remember, but I grew up rather solitary and alone. There weren’t a lot of other kids my age around.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down? Oh my, I don’t stay up late for much of anything! I’m a girl who needs my sleep and gets irritable when she’s tired and sleepy 😀 I do stay up sometimes reading books that are hard to put down, but I’d never stay up much more than an hour or so after my “normal” bedtime. I am not the kind of person to sit up till 2 or 3 in the morning, reading. Nuh uh, no way!

Using a suggestion from Erin today:

Ok, today’s question over at Booking Through Thursday is another really good one! Unfortunately, it’s about one of those topics that is tough for me – remembering anything from my childhood! I can’t seem to remember a whole lot. But, I do have a lot of memories of reading,but they are pretty much all on my own.

I have two older sisters, but they left for college when I started kindergarten (and got married when I was 9 and then 10), so I basically grew up like an only child. So, I have no memories of reading with my sisters, or of them reading to me. I can remember my mom reading some, but what I always think of my mom is her working crossword puzzles. She did those every day. She did read some though, and I think she took me to the library some. I have vague memories of going to a library over on Northside Drive. I have always loved the library and I have always loved to read. I can remember taking my little flashlight to bed with me, and making a tent with my sheet, and staying up past my bedtime to read 🙂 I got in trouble a few times with that, but I got away with it a lot too! I mostly remember reading by myself. Oh, and I have no memories of going to a bookstore. I don’t think I actually bought a book until I was in high school or college and had a part-time job and my own money. I would occasionally get books as Christmas gifts (and I have still have a few of them, although I don’t have any of my Nancy Drew books anymore, boo-hoo).

Happy Reading! 🙂

I don’t know about where you live, but it’s still hotter than hot here. It’s supposed to be 100º again here today. I’m really sorta tired of this heat, humidity, lack of rain, constant watering of flowers, grass and shrubs, etc. I’m over it, really I am, and I’m ready for some kind of fall. Or at least a rain shower. Or 80’s. I know, I know. I’ve blogged (and complained about this before), and I really shouldn’t go there. But it seems like its never ending. These “dog days of summer” are getting old. 🙂

Let’s see, I’ve made a couple of new recipes lately that we liked. Nothing fancy, but they were good, and I’m going to try to get the recipes posted at our main site. One was for pork chops, one was for potatoes and another was from Jenna, for teriyaki chicken. I’ll try to post an update later and post the links, whenever I finally get around to getting them entered and on the main website. 🙂

I’ve also got a small update to the cleaning post I made a couple of weeks ago. I got a lot of wonderful feedback on how you guys clean your floors and such. After thinking about it and pricing some things, I’ve decided to jump OFF the Swiffer band wagon. I have a big box of Swiffer mop wet refills that I plan on using in our bathrooms until they are gone. I don’t like to waste stuff and just throw it out. But, I also don’t feel that these Swiffer things are getting my floors very clean. I’ve pulled my old sponge/squeeze mop back out, and unearthed a bottle of “Armstrong Floor Cleaner” that says directly on the bottle that it is safe for ceramic tile floors. So, for the last two weeks, I’ve been mopping my kitchen, breakfast room and laundry room with that, and I think it’s a lot cleaner. It looks and feels a lot cleaner, and even Tim has noticed. So, I won’t be buying any more Swiffer wet mop refills. After I finish that bottle of Armstrong floor cleaner, I’m going to either try Mr. Clean or Lysol all-purpose cleaner, diluted for floors. I keep meaning to look for “Simple Green” to try, but I haven’t gotten any yet. Can you use that on ceramic tile floors?

Along the same lines, I have an old microfiber dust cloth that I use a lot to dust. For quick dustings, I also have a Swiffer Duster. I needed some refills, and on my last trip to Walmart, I had them on my list (on my PDA, where I also track prices) to buy. Well, a box was like 7.86. For disposable, throw-away duster refills. I just couldn’t do it. I looked around, and found a handheld duster that has a microfiber, washable cover on it, that will basically do the same thing. Except I won’t have to buy refills for it, I can toss it in the washing machine, and the whole thing was under 3.00. I have been using it for quick touch-ups and I’m very happy with that. So, in summary, I’m no longer going to use Swiffer products. They’re convenient, but they’re also expensive, they’re disposable and add a lot of trash to our already overflowing landfills. I’m really glad to have found alternatives that work for me.

Lastly, here’s two foodie things I’ve bought lately that make me REALLY happy!

Borrowed from Lynne, way back in July.. Yep, I’m slow about some things! 🙂 Oh, and I know it’s called a ONE word meme, but there are not a lot of things in life I can answer in one word. I am not brief, I’m very verbose. So some of these will be longer than one word 😀

1. Where is your mobile phone? In my purse

2. Relationship? Happily Married

3. Your hair? Brown

4. Work? Long-term sabbatical (aka, semi-retired)

5. Your sister(s)? Gail, Suzanne

6. Your favorite thing? person – Tim, creature – Beau, thing – tie between chocolate and books

7. Your dream last night? no idea

8. Your favorite drink? Cherry Coke Zero

9. Your dream car? don’t have one

10. The room you’re in? Living Room

11. Your shoes? Socks, no shoes

12. Your fears? Snakes, heights

13. What do you want to be in 10 years? Happy

14. Who did you hang out with this weekend? Tim, Tim’s parents, my dad and our niece and her boyfriend

15. What are you not good at? Tons of things!

16. Muffin? Blueberry

17. Wish list item? Books

18. Where you grew up? Mississippi

19. The last thing you did? Clean

20. What are you wearing? shorts, Old Navy t-shirt

21. What are you not wearing? jewelry, shoes

22. Your pet? Beau the Wonder Dog

23. Your computer? HP laptop

24. Your life? Quiet, structured

25. Your mood? Quiet

26. Missing? Children

27. What are you thinking about? chores left to do

28. Your car? Explorer

29. Your kitchen? Clean

30. Your summer? Hot

31. Your favorite color? Tie – Green or Red

32. Last time you laughed? this morning

33. Last time you cried? When I read the end of Marley & Me

34. School? not any more

35. Love? Yes

Well, last week didn’t go quite according to plan. We ended up eating out a couple of times, and I pushed one meal to the weekend, and will have one carryover meal this week. Hopefully, we can stick to the menu this week! Here’s the general idea:

Monday – Meatloaf Patties, Parmesan Potatoes, butter peas

Tuesday – Carryover Meal: new recipe for teriyaki chicken, sesame rice, egg rolls

Wednesday – Light Night before Tim weighs in – Grilled Chicken Salad

Thursday – Tuna casserole, broccoli, bread

Friday – Date Night or frozen pizza

Saturday – Spaghetti, French Bread or TBD

As always, thanks to Laura over at OrgJunkie for hosting this every week. Go over and check out all of the great menus and recipes submitted by the other participants -there’s tons of them 🙂

Look what came in the mail yesterday!

Yes, it’s a candle, not a real pie! But, it looks and smells like a real apple pie. Isn’t that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I won this from Karen, at Mommy of Three, during the Doggy Dogs of Summer blog giveaway. It was specially made by Scentsational Creations Candles and Critters, and it’s called an Apple Pie a la Mode candle. After I opened up the box, I put it out on the kitchen counter, and when my husband came in the kitchen, he looked at it really funny and I could see the question going through his head (did she make a really small pie?!). He picked it up and smelled it and said “Man, this smells so good!”. I told him what it was and how I had won it, and he was like, “it smells so good and it looks so real”. I totally agree with him, and so far, I’ve been reluctant to burn it. I just love the way it looks and smells and am not quite ready to burn it yet!

Thanks again, Karen, for sponsoring this wonderful giveaway. I just love it!

Jenny, over at Slice of my Life, nominated me for this “Nice Matters” blog award. Thank you Jenny, you’re so very sweet to think of me!

This award is intended to:

This award will be awarded to those that are just nice people , good blog friends and those that inspire good feelings and inspiration! Those that care about others that are there to lend support or those that are just a positive influence in our blogging world!

Jenny very graciously nominated me and several others for this award, and I would like in turn, to nominate some of my favorite bloggers. I wish I could give it to everyone who stops by here – I think you are all incredibly sweet, awesomely nice, bloggers! I know a lot of the ladies I was going to nominate have already received this award. You guys are all so nice! 🙂

My choices are:

Judi, over at Mommy of Two

Deb, at Sugarfused

Jenny, over at A Coach For Life

Shawna, over at Scamp’s Place

Jen, at a Good Cup of Coffee

Go visit their blogs and see just how wonderfully sweet these ladies are 😀