Exceedingly Mundane

I haven’t done this one in a couple of weeks, and I keep meaning to. But, I’m definitely going to play along this week.

This week’s question is – If there were no blogs, what would you be doing right now?

Well. Good question! I can barely remember what my daily routine was like before I started blogging, a little over 2 years ago. I used to spend a lot more time running and maintaining our main website, Hambones.org. I used to post some of what I post on my blog on the main site, in the forums. We used to play trivia, but the interest in doing that online at the website has faded. I also used to do a lot more scrapbooking than I do now, and visiting scrapbook message boards. Sadly, I haven’t done much of that lately. Well, not really any, since I started blogging.

Let’s see, if I wasn’t blogging I would probably be:

a) Reading more
b) Maintaining our main website with content that I would put on my blog
c) Scrapbooking
d) Watching more TV and movies

Honestly though, I can’t see me giving up blogging any time soon. I really enjoy it, and I’ve met so many wonderful friends online through blogging. I really think blogging is like a current-day form of being pen pals. Or better really! I have met some of the most wonderful ladies through this, and I have zero plans to give it up!

Great question, Karen! You can click here to go to the BlogTalkers blog. New questions are posted every week 🙂

Time for another Question of the Day! I had a survey up on our main website, but it only got 3 responses, so I thought I would ask the same question here. Do you have any wish lists online? I use Amazon’s wish list system, but I know there are others out there, although I can’t think of any off the top of my head! Do you use Amazon or another site, or do you not have a wish list? What is on your wish list? Mine has books, movies, kitchen items, personal items, etc. In fact, I have several separate lists at Amazon, by category.

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day: Do you have a wish list at Amazon? What kind of items are on it? Do you ever order for yourself from your wish list, or do others order things for you from your list? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Romance

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day . . .

Love stories? Yes or No? Yes, I love a good romance or love story, or even a good fiction book about relationships. I seem to read a lot of what I term “women’s fiction”, where there’s some kind of conflict, often between the man and woman, and of course, they end up together and in love. As long as it’s got a happy ending, I’m good with it!

If yes, “romances” as a genre? Or just, well, stories that have love stories? (Nobody’s going to call “Pride & Prejudice” a “romance,” right?) I like “romance” as a genre, but don’t misunderstand, it’s not a Harlequin type thing I like. I like stories that have a love element to them, but it’s not always the main plot. An exception might be a book like “The Princess” by Lori Wick, which is mostly about love and falling in love, but it does have the Christian theme to it. OK, I’m just rambling here, I do like stories that contain love, not just a plain love story.

I’ve seen this great meme at several places (Laura, Susie and Cam, among others) and thought I would “save” it for around Valentines Day. Since Tim is my sweetheart and my forever Valentine, I thought this would be an appropriate time of year to do this one 🙂

Here’s Tim, doing his favorite thing, playing golf:

His age: 37

How tall is he: 5′ 11″

How long have you been together: together almost 12, married almost 11

How long did you know each other before you got together? about 2 months

What physical features attracted you to him first?: his eyes and his smile

Eye color: sort of hazel, depends on the light if they look more green or brown

Hair color: brown

Hair style: short!

Normal Outfit: jeans and a polo (winter) or shorts and a polo (summer)

How did you meet: at work

How serious is it: lifetime serious

Are you “in love�: Most definitely

Do your parents like him: Yes, my mom always loved him and even though my dad wasn’t thrilled with him at first, he loves him to pieces now. I joke now that my dad would rather call or see Tim than me, his baby daughter!

Do his parents like you: I think so, I adore them 🙂

Do you trust him: Implicitly

Would you share a toothbrush with him: Only if I had to, but yes, I would

Would he let you wear his pants: Yes, and I’ve worn some of his old sweat pants before when I was sick!

Do you have a shirt of his that you sleep in? I used to, but not any more. I used to have some of his t-shirts from his military days

Do you like the way he smells: Yes, especially right after he gets out of the shower!

Can you picture having kids with him: Yes, I would have given anything to have kids with Tim

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It’s time for another “Question of the Day”. Today, I’d like to talk about milk. I know a lot of people don’t drink milk, and that’s cool, but we are definitely milk drinkers in our house. There’s just two of us, and we usually go through about 2 gallons a week. We have milk every morning on our cereal, and we usually have milk at night. Sometimes with cookies or something sweet, and sometimes it’s just milk. If we have breakfast food for dinner, we often stir Hershey’s syrup into milk and have chocolate milk with dinner. We love milk. But, here’s the thing, we drink only skim milk. We can’t afford the calories of the higher-fat content milks. Love them, but we’re perfectly happy with skim milk. I went through a phase where I drank soy milk, but I haven’t done that in a while. I mostly stick to skim.

On a related note, our milk has gotten really high here. I always buy the store brand, and at my Walmart last week, one gallon of skim milk was $3.36. I was shocked! Of course, it could be worse. A small, half gallon carton of organic milk is that much, but still. Thankfully, our Kroger runs a sale fairly often, and sells their store brand of milk 2 gallons for $5.00.

So, that’s today’s Question of the Day: Do you drink milk? If so, what kind (whole, 1%, 2%, skim, organic, soy, etc) and how much do you usually drink in a week’s time? If you remember, how much do you pay for milk where you live? Inquiring minds want to know!

Swiped from Dawn… thanks Dawn!

Pick one!

1. peanut butter or jelly? Both, silly! Can’t have one without the other 🙂
2. hiking or swimming? Hiking
3. football or baseball? FOOTBALL!!!!
4. christmas or thanksgiving? Both, but if pushed, Christmas
5. grade school or high school? High School
6. summer or winter? Winter
7. romance novel or mystery novel? Both!
8. mickey mouse or barney? Mickey, please make Barney go away!
9. road trip or airplane? Road trip

Just got back from a quick trip to the library. I had wanted to get a couple of books in different series I am reading, but the ones I wanted were checked out. I was looking for the fourth book in the Cedar Cove series by Debbie Macomber (44 Cranberry Point) and the third book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Series by Alexander McCall Smith (Morality for Beautiful Girls). I’ll have to get those on another trip.

So, to compensate, I got an armload of books that I won’t finish in my 3 weeks time, but that’s ok. I would have just gotten 3 or 4, but one of the books is the first in a trilogy and they had all three on the shelves, so I went ahead and grabbed them while I could. I can call on the phone in a couple weeks time and renew any of these for another 3 week block.

Oh, and yes, I have tons of books here to read. I have at least 35 or 40 in my TBR (“to be read”) pile. No, I didn’t want to read any of those next. I wanted something else. Doesn’t that make perfect sense? 🙄

Here’s what I got, and they are also on my sidebar now:

Susannah’s Garden by Debbie Macomber
We are All Welcome Here by Elizabeth Berg
Miss Julia Stands her Ground by Ann B. Ross
Treasures of the North (Yukon Quest, book 1) by Tracie Peterson
Ashes and Ice (Yukon Quest, book 2) by Tracie Peterson
Rivers of Gold (Yukon Quest, book 3) by Tracie Peterson

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s a quick pic:

I don’t have much of a menu to post this week. Tim is going to be out of town some on business, and so I won’t be cooking a lot. He doesn’t really want me to advertise when he’s going to be gone, so I won’t do it by day, but here’s the general idea for the week:

Grilled Salmon (me)/Grilled Chicken (Tim), steamed green beans, rice or potato
Leftover take-out Chinese food
Ribeye Steaks, Baked Potatoes, salad
Spaghetti

I will probably also have one night where I’ll just have something easy like a bowl of cereal or oatmeal and some cinnamon toast.

Be sure to hop on over to Laura’s site and check out the rest of the menus. There are tons of links to some really good-sounding menus, a lot of them with recipes or links to recipes. I’m sure everyone’s menu looks a lot better than mine this week! 🙂

Hope everyone has a great week!

I just posted my photo for today over on my Project365 blog – my favorite picture I took of Beau today. It was really pretty here today, and we had Beau out on the deck for a while, to brush him off good and have a little play time. Then, Tim and I headed out for a while and left Beau outside to enjoy the warm weather and the sunshine. He did really good today, he didn’t dig any holes while we were gone! YEAH, that’s progress folks, real progress 😀

I had several pictures I thought were cute, but then again, I’m really biased when it comes to our dog. I’ll post the others on the extended page, but the cutest one is over on my Project365 blog. Check em out if you like cute dogs, LOL!
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I spent pretty much the entire day Friday laying on the couch. I felt like a big pile of dog poop. I don’t know why, maybe it is a seasonal thing or maybe the start of a sinus thing. All I know is that my head hurt, my shoulders hurt and I was just really tired. I took several naps throughout the day and a bunch of Tylenol and thankfully, I am feeling better today. It’s a good thing, because Tim has cabin fever and wanted to get out. We went out to lunch at a new-for-us place, Taco Del Mar, and then hit a few stores. You can check over on my photoblog for today’s photo of some of the stuff we picked up. In addition to the stuff posted there, we also got a new Cuisinart coffee grinder and a decorative plate for our entertainment center. The coffee grinder is below, ain’t it purty?! It matches my Cuisinart coffee pot, which I love. We don’t have a stand yet for the plate, so I didn’t take a picture of it 🙁

Also, as a sort of recap for other stuff I’ve been working on the last few days and not blogged about…

I’ve posted some misc photos over on my Project365 blog about a couple of projects I’ve been working on this week. This time of year, I’m always overcome with the need to declutter and reorganize and just basically pare some stuff down. I’m glad to say that I have made a big stab at this in the last week. I had bought a 3 drawer storage cart at Target in January, and I finally got it into one of our junk closets and organized. I took everything out of that closet, vacuumed it out and then went through it all. When I was done, I had 7 Walmart/grocery bags full of stuff for the trash. Everything else went back in, and I was even able to put my vacuum cleaner in that closet (it used to sit out in that spare bedroom, in a corner). That felt really good, to throw stuff out and get the rest of it organized. Then, we tackled the taxes. I hate doing them, so I begged Tim to work on them this year. He threw himself into it with regular “Tim gusto” and got them done. They’re efiled and we’re all set, so that’s another wonderful feeling. Lastly, I had posted here about annuals and yearbooks. I had a shelf of them in one of our old bookcases in the hall. I gathered them all together in one of those ZipLoc big bags and shoved them up under the guest bed. I used that bookshelf to organize a bunch of my cookbooks (look for a post soon on cookbooks, riveting stuff, I tell ya!) Yippee! I love and adore cookbooks, although I don’t splurge on them too often. I love to get them for gifts though, and I got several new ones this past Christmas. I love going through them, I read cookbooks like regular books! I don’t cook from them as often as I should (I seem to get so many great recipes from the Internet), but I do love having them. One day, I hope to have a really big kitchen with some built in shelves for all of my cookbooks.

Anyway, that’s about it, not that much exciting going on around here. We’ve been watching a lot of TV and are so glad all of our shows are back and not in reruns. We’ve got 24, American Idol, NCIS, The Unit, Lost and Survivor all with new shows. Not to mention, on Friday nights, we’ve been watching Monk and Psych, and on Sunday night, my beloved Battlestar Galactica. Good stuff, good stuff! Barely leaves a bookworm like myself time to read 😀

Friday, February 09, 2007
Feast One Hundred & Thirty

Appetizer – Have you been sick yet this winter? If so, what did you come down with? Not really sick, but a minor sinus thing here and there. I got really run down around Christmas and it took me a few days to feel better and get my strength back. Thankfully, nothing very serious (knock on wood, I don’t feel that great today!)

Soup – What colors dominate your closet? Black and khaki mostly, with some white, red, pink and blue thrown in for good measure.

Salad – How would you describe your personal “comfort zone”? OK, maybe it’s because I have a headache, but I’m confused by this question. Does comfort zone mean where I’m most comfortable? If so, then at home or around family and friends. I’m not fond of big crowds and I have this thing about my “personal space” when I’m in a crowd with strangers. If comfort zone means what is a place where I’m comfortable or what does it look like…. again, home. Big comfy chair, wrapped up in a quilt, with some hot chocolate and a book, that’s comfort for me

Main Course – On which reality show would you really like to be a contestant? None of them, but if I had the guts and the abilities to do it, I’d like to do Amazing Race with Tim. Thankfully, I’m smart enough to realize my limitations and know that I would NOT do well in a stressful situation like that 🙂

Dessert – Which holiday would you consider to be your favorite? Probably Christmas, although I like them all!

I finished another book last night, “Blue Smoke” by Nora Roberts. This is a paperback I picked up at the library sale last weekend for a whopping 50 cents. I got it because I knew that this was the next movie coming up on Lifetime TV (Nora Roberts, 4 movies, 4 consecutive Mondays). I have been enjoying the movies and wanting to read more Nora Roberts anyway.

This book was really good! I read it fairly quickly and had a hard time putting it down, which is always the sign of a good book for me. It wasn’t hard to figure out, no big twist, but I did love the characters and the story (and the ending!). Good book, and I’m looking forward to reading more Nora Roberts in the future.

For the record, that makes 8 books so far this year, with a total of 2,724 pages read. Up next is the 4th book in the Abram’s Daughters series by Beverly Lewis. I really love these books too, but am spacing them out, and mixing in other books and types of reads in the middle. I tend to get burned out when I try to read series books back to back to back. Weird, I know, but that’s me and I usually do better not to read them all at one time. One reason is that I really enjoy these books and sort of don’t want to see them end!

Today’s exhilarating post is all about soap. Yes, the difference between using bar soap and body wash. It’s always a thrill a minute here at “Exceedingly Mundane” folks! 😀

I’ve discovered yet another generational thing, at least in our family. When we have house guests of a certain age, they don’t understand why we have this bottle of stuff in the shower/tub called “Body Wash”. They are always like “where is the soap?”, which to them, means a bar of soap. Now, most everyone under the age of 50 understands the concept of a liquid body wash, but some don’t. So, I’ve learned to keep a bar or two of soap on hand for certain overnight guests to our home.

But for us, we like and use body wash. Tim, thankfully, was willing to try switching years ago (even though I was worried he would think it was girly and not try it!) and decided he likes it. He likes the Lever 2000 brand, so I keep us stockpiled with that body wash. Me, I love the ones from Bath and Body Works, but I also buy some cheaper stuff (Suave, store brand) to use from time to time. My current body wash favorite is B&BW Cherry Blossom. Love the stuff.

So, how about you? What do you use? I’d love for you to leave me a comment and answer today’s “Question of the Day“. What kind of soap do you use at your house, bar soap or body wash? Do you have a brand preference? Do you use the smelly, girly stuff or just something utilitarian, just to get you clean and half-way fresh smelling?!

Have a great day, everyone!

I haven’t been able to come up with 13 of anything lately, so I haven’t been playing along with the Thursday Thirteen meme. Instead, I’ve really been enjoying this book-related meme. Click here to go play along 🙂

Booking Through Thursday – TLC

What kind of care do you take of your books? Let’s review, shall we?

1. Are you careful with the spines? Or do you crack your books open to make them lay flat? I’m very careful with my books, whether they are mine, borrowed from a friend or family member, or from the library. It’s just something I was raised with, you take care of things and they will last. I’m as careful as I can be with the spines, but sometimes, on small paperbacks, they will crack a little and be a little worn out from being opened. I don’t crack them open intentionally to flatten them out. Never.
2. Do you use bookmarks? Or do you dog-ear the corners? If you do use bookmarks, do you use those fashionable metal ones? Or paper? I am a bookmark user! I never dog-ear the pages, and only rarely will I use a scrap of paper to mark my place. I have several bookmarks, and a new book “thong” from a dear friend, and I love to use those to mark my place.
3. Do you write in your books? Ever? If you do, do you make small marks, or write in as much blank space as you can find? Pen or pencil? Highlighter? Your name on the front page? OK, sounding like a broken record here already, but no, I don’t write in my books, or highlight them, or write in the margins. I didn’t even do this with books or workbooks in school, any more than I had to. I don’t like to mar or degrade my books in any way. The only exception to that is that sometimes I do write my name in the front, or a small inscription if the book is a gift to Tim (I’ll write the date, like Valentines or our anniversary and the year). I’ve had to start putting my name in some of them, because I’ve had some misunderstandings about loaning my books and not getting them back 🙁
4. Do you toss your books on the floor? Into bookbags? Or do you treat them tenderly, with respect? Well, I tend to treat them pretty well. I must admit that I will stack them up on the floor, on the nightstand, in the bookcase, or shove them into a bag or my purse to take with me.
5. Do you ever lay your book face-down, to save your place? Rarely, I mostly always use bookmarks.
6. Um–water? Do you bathe with your books? Hold them with wet hands? Read out in the rain? Anything of that sort? Rarely, if ever. I haven’t done that in a long time. And now a days, I think if I were to read in the tub, I would probably take a magazine and not a book.
7. Are your books lined up on a bookshelf? Or crammed in any which way? Stacked on the floor? They’re mostly in bookcases, because I’ve been working on that since Christmas. But I do have some piled up in a pile on the floor of my bedroom. I’m a piler. Piles everywhere. 😀
8. Do you make a distinction–as regards book care–between hardcovers and paperbacks? Not really, I treat all my books really well.
9. And, to recap? Naturally, you love all of your books, but how, exactly? Are your books loved in the battered way of a well-loved teddy bear, or like a cherished photo album or item of clothing that’s used, appreciated, but carefully cared for? Cherished and cared for, especially the hardbacks.
10. Any additional comments? Nope, I feel like a broken record, plus I did this book meme below yesterday, so this is pretty redundant!!!

I saw this over at Debi‘s place a couple of weeks ago, and filed it away “for a rainy day”. Thanks for letting me swipe it, Debi!! I love any and all things bookish!

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?I read all three, but I probably prefer hardbacks. I do like the larger size of paperback that I’ve been finding more of lately. Bigger than the traditional 4×6 or whatever it is, but a bit smaller than a hardback.

Amazon or brick and mortar? Both! I love Amazon, and browse there often. I have tons of wish lists, including a “books seen on blogs” wish list! But I also love going into a bookstore and browsing, maybe having a cup of coffee, and looking through all the books. Bookstores and libraries are like drugs for me 🙂

Barnes & Noble or Borders? Can I possibly say both? I have a Borders card and prefer to shop there because a) their card is free and b) they send me coupons! I don’t like having to pay for a card at B&N. BUT – the Borders here is a lot further from my house, and the B&N is closer, and going to be much closer in the next year. They’re relocating the current B&N to a mere mile or so from my house later this year.

Bookmark or dogear? Bookmark, I never dogear any book I read. Never.

Alphabetize by author or alphabetize by title or random? This is hard to believe, since our DVD’s are sorted alphabetically, but I don’t sort my books. I do group them by author, and sometimes genre, but I don’t alphabetize them. GASP!

Keep, throw away, or sell? Mostly keep. I do occasionally sell some books in a garage sale, donate them to Goodwill or the library, but mostly I keep them.

Keep dustjacket or toss it? I always keep the dustjacket on our books.

Read with dustjacket or remove it? I read them with the dustjacket on.

Short story or novel? I don’t read much in the way of short stories, so novel.

Collection (short stories by same author) or anthology (short stories by different authors)? See above, I don’t really read short stories

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? Believe it or not, I haven’t read either yet. But I have given our niece and nephew a bunch of the Lemony Snicket books and one day, I might borrow them back from them and read some of them 🙂

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? Mostly when I’m tired, but I do try to get to a stopping point. If I’m reading before bed and about to nod off, I will just stop where-ever.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Hmmm, not sure, maybe a mixture of both

Buy or Borrow? Both. I buy them new at bookstores, buy them used at library sales, borrow them from friends, and especially, borrow from my local library.

New or used? A year ago, I would have answered New. But now that I’ve discovered the library sales at my local library, I would have to say both!

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Great question. Another mixture of both. I must admit, I am a sucker for a good book cover. An intriguing cover will draw me in every time. Mostly, I buy books from authors I already read or who have come on a good recommendation. I tend to prefer to try new authors by utilizing my local library. I do love to browse, I love browsing at bookstores, even discount stores like Target, Walmart and Sam’s, and I love to go to the library.

Tidy ending or cliffhanger? Easy one, tidy ending. And it better be happy!

Morning reading, afternoon reading or nighttime reading? All of those listed. I love to read and read every chance I get. I mostly read at night before bed, but if I can, I will read at any time during the day.

Standalone or series? I read both, but I love series books.

Favorite series? Ooh, tough one. There’s so many I love and so many I’ve started and not completed. Favorite so far would have to either be the Mitford series by Jan Karon or the Redemption series by Karen Kingsbury

Favorite book of which nobody else has heard?Hmmm, not sure. I mostly read mainstream type books.

Favorite books read last year? Gosh, that’s too hard to narrow down. I read 70 books and I just looked through the list, and I could easily name 15 or more books as “favorites”. Some of those would be The DaVinci Code, The Red Tent, the Redemption series by Karen Kingsbury, the Cedar Cove series by Debbie Macomber, The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and the list would go on and on!

Favorite books of all time? Gosh, these are hard! September and Shell Seekers by Rosamund Pilcher, The Testament by John Grisham, all of the Mitford books by Jan Karon, and on and on and on