Exceedingly Mundane

::Painted Garden Gnomes::

Onesome: Painted– Hey! Are you getting all painted up on Monday and going out and about? What are you dressing up as? …or are you staying home and handing out goodies? …or sitting in the dark and wishing they would all just go away? Come on ! Nope, not getting dressed up this year, but we’ll hand out candy (what’s left that we haven’t eaten!). I’m wondering now if the kids are coming Monday night or Saturday night. Read a blurb in the paper yesterday that Jackson is observing trick or treating on Saturday night and not Monday. What’s up with that? Not sure if Madison will follow suit or not.

Twosome: Garden– In the garden of your mind, where do you go to relax for a few moments? Off to the beach? …to the mountains? …to a different world? …or maybe a stroll though an old Victorian landscape? To the mountains. Some of my most wonderful memories are of our wedding, honeymoon and subsequent trips back to Gatlinburg. I love love love the mountains. 😀

Threesome: Gnomes– Okay, we have to know: what do you think about garden gnomes and pink flamingos and such? I mean other than there seems to be a local ordinance that you have to have at least one or the other in your front yard if you live in South Florida? They don’t really bother me. One of our neighbors has a couple of pink flamingos mixed in with all their other garden “art” (or junk, depending on how you view it). But, they’re the only ones. Some people get them placed in their yards by one or more local companies that plant them in the middle of the night for people’s birthdays and stuff. We’ve seen that a few times in our neighborhood, always really funny!

Happy Birthday Suzanne! Hope you have a great day! We wish you were still here, but we had a great time while you were here visiting 🙂

P.S. I might scan some pictures of Suzie and post later, so check back 😆

I posted over 2 weeks ago (here) about our Confederate Rose and how I was patiently waiting on it to bloom. There are now about 20-25 blooms on this thing, and still I look every day for one to pop open. Finally, today, we’re looking like it’s really close!

I wonder if the thing is going to be pink?

Stay tuned!!!!

Forgot to post this picture the other day… me in my birthday suit.

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One of the things I disliked about my former job (besides the Nazi boss, the hours and being oncall 24×7) was the commute. Now, granted, we don’t live in a huge city so I know it’s tons worse other places. Still, here it was bad enough when I was working. These days, I avoid rush hour like the plague.

Except for today, since I had to take Suzanne to the airport, so she could fly home to Chicago (bye Suzie, we miss you, we had fun while you were here!).

Today, I got to re-experience rush hour. We couldn’t even pull out onto the main road by our subdivision because the traffic was backed up past our subdivision entrance. A nice man let me in, and then we inched down the road for a while, trying to get to the interstate. The interstate did flow pretty well for the most part, but the other main road out to the airport (Lakeland Drive) was pretty backed up. I had thought that our trip to the airport would take 20-30 minutes, but it ended up taking about 35-40. I think Suzie got there in enough time, but I hated to be running late. Traffic. Gotta hate it! 🙂

Happy Birthday Elizabeth – hope you have a great day and a wonderful birthday!

Keep reading for links to a couple of pictures of Elizabeth from her younger days!

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A double whammy is when your sister is here from Chicago and wants to eat out twice in one day.

Ouch. My pants are tight now. 😳

It was all really really good, don’t get me wrong. But eating out one good, over-sized meal a day should be my limit. Definitely. Keifers for lunch (hummus and gyros) and The Haute Pig for supper (ribs, slaw, fries for me, baked beans for Tim & Suzie) and Texas Toast. Yum-O

10 Great Things About Autumn:

1. New fall TV shows
2. Cooler weather
3. Football games
4. Opening up the windows to let the fresh, cool air in
5. Wearing long sleeve shirts, sweatshirts and jeans
6. Cooking more soups and stews
7. Mine and Tim’s birthday
8. Candy corn and Halloween candy
9. Buying and burning seasonal Yankee Candles (pumpkin pie, cranberry, toffee, etc), since it gets dark earlier!
10. Halloween and Thanksgiving

I had a busy day today, because I had a lot of things to do around the house (Tim worked from home, yeah, I love days when he works from home!!), and then a few errands to run. And then, drumroll please, I drove down to pick up Suzanne! Yippee, she decided to cut short her visit with Dad by a little bit and come up and hang out with me and Tim. We’re so glad! We got home about 5:00, and then we all went walking. Such great seasonal fall weather we’re having, it was in the mid to low 50’s when we went walking. Home for supper (beans and sausage, home made cornbread, total comfort food), and now Suzie and Tim are watching a guy movie (Predator). We’re so glad she’s here!

How about one more week of ‘this or that?’ Have fun! And thank you for playing!

1. diamonds or pearls? don’t have either, but I’d pick diamonds in a heartbeat! 😀
2. paperback or hardcover books? hardback books
3. carpet or hardwood floors? again, don’t have them YET, but I’d pick hardwood floors
4. dogs or cats?DOGS!
5. fluffy or firm pillow? Fluffy
6. fine point or medium point pens? fine
7. clocks a little fast or on time? on time
8. mahjong or spider solitaire (or other)? mahjong
9. wall calendar or desk calendar? wall calendar
10. ‘Survivor’ or ‘The Amazing Race?’ Both! 😆

Tim got called last night with a problem from work, and ended up working pretty late. I was sound asleep, but I think it was 1:30 AM or after before he finally came to bed. I’m really glad he’s going to be working from home today, which he had already planned. It looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous day. When I woke up, it was 39 degrees, and the high today is only supposed to be 61. Finally, it feels like fall around here! Tim said yesterday that he would probably work outside on the deck some today, so that should feel great! 🙂

Another action-filled weekend around here. 🙂

– Friday afternoon, I went and ran errands (bank, Lowe’s, grocery shopping). When Tim got in, we worked outside in the yard. He cut the grass, did the weed-eating and edged, and I planted all the snapdragons and violas I had bought. Still need to finish the front flower bed, rework the dirt and buy some big pansies. Maybe next week!

– Friday evening, we watched USM beat UAB on ESPN. Grilled some brats and had brats with sauerkraut, yum. Gail and Don came over late to spend the night. Visited with them till late. 🙂

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I’m a day behind… found this one recently at this site:

Night & Day ~ I Say, You Answer

1. Misty Morn…you answer? dew on the ground, light drizzle

2. Foggy Day…you answer? gotta turn the headlights on in the car

3. Full Moon…you answer? darn, lights up our bedroom like a football stadium when it’s a full moon at night!

4. Quiet Night…you answer? curl up by a fire, with a mug of hot chocolate, and read a good book

Cool – I wonder which one I missed!! 🙂

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations – you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Had a busy day yesterday (Friday) and super busy today… will try to blog tomorrow and catch up! 🙂