Exceedingly Mundane

I finished another library book last night – finally! I’ve been plodding through this one for the last couple of weeks and I finally finished it. I think I’m still in a bit of the summer doldrums as far as reading and books go. I really love to read, but I can’t seem to find what I want to read right now, if that makes any sense. This was a good book, not fantastic, but your good basic murder mystery. Not too deep, not too technical, not too far-out-there, just a good basic plot that weaves in and out a little. I enjoyed it, and will probably read more of these in the future. Margaret Truman has a lot of these, part of the “Capital Crimes” murder mystery novels. I think she’s written anywhere from 12 to 15 of these, all based in the D.C. area, and all entitled “Murder At…”.

For the record, that makes #36 for the year, with a total of 12,874 pages read. Up next is a fictional account of Noah building the Ark, called “The Preservationist” by David Maine. I hope it is half as good as the book on Dinah I recently read called “The Red Tent”. That was a terrific book, and these that I’ve read since pale in comparison. 🙂

Tim calls on his way home from work every day, and we talk the whole way home. It’s something I look forward to every day, and a ritual that I’m so glad we have.

Today, I heard him go through Sonic and order a Hot Fudge Brownie Blast while we were talking, and I got excited, knowing he was bringing me home “a happy”. Which he did. Those things are really good! But, when he got home, he had not only the Blast, but 2 bunches of beautiful irises as well!!! Isn’t he sweet?! I told him I had to take pictures and put on my blog, and he was like, “you don’t have to do that, people will think I’m a wimp”. WRONG. Mostly women read my blog and I think everyone else will think it was as sweet as I did. 😆

Anyway, he changed clothes and went in the backyard to hit golf balls for a while. He called me to come out with my camera (I was taking flower pics inside). He wanted to show me a bunny, who was hiding in some brush behind our fence. He said when he opened the gate, he was out in plain sight, but had hopped to some bushes for cover. We walked up ever so slowly (you know, hunting rabbits), and I got a picture of him:

So, even though they are totally unrelated, I thought it would make a cute blog title. You know, some bunny loves me:

I was headed out my back door a little while ago, to water some of my flowers and take a few pictures (I’ll post those later today or tomorrow, lots of pretty flowers blooming here!). I saw this bird fly into my tree in the backyard. I assume he’s a regular ole red cardinal, but he’s either really dirty, crossed with something else, or something. I wish I was smart enough to know what 🙂 He has a lot of black on him!

This week’s questions are all about photography! Have fun and thanks for playing! =)

1. Do you own a digital camera? Yes!
2. What is your camera of choice? I’ve had only Kodak digital cameras and I’ve been very pleased with them
3. If you’re a digital camera fan, do you print your own photos, or do you send them in to be printed? If you send them in, do you have a favorite place? If they get printed at all – they get sent in. This happens very rarely though 🙂 I have only printed them at Sam’s and Walmart, and sent some off to online places. I think I’ve tried Snapfish (happy) and Picturebug (ok, but happier with Snapfish).
4. How many pictures do you take a month? Oh my, lots. Some months I just take “nothing” pictures, but I still take at least 75-100. On months where there’s a holiday or event, I might easily take several hundred.
5. How many of those pictures actually get printed? Lately, zero. I’m probably 3 years behind on printing pictures 😳
6. Are you planning on purchasing a new camera in the near future? No, Tim just got me a new one this past Christmas. It’s a Kodak P850 and I love it!
7. CHALLENGE: Go check out Favorite Five Photos and Foto Pherrets and choose just ONE photo to share. Hmm, will try to do this later. Instead, I’ll post one I took of some of my flowers a couple of weeks ago (you can also check out my Flickr stream on the sidebar for more scenic pics):

I blogged just a couple of days ago in my Thursday Thirteen post, about some movies I wanted to rent and watch over the summer. I found one of them at the library on Friday, “Because of Winn Dixie”, and checked it out on DVD. We watched it tonight, and I’m happy to say it is a really good movie – very clean, very charming, very heartwarming, very sweet and not at all sad (as I was afraid it might be). What a wonderful movie 🙂 I’m so glad I got it and that we were able to watch it. I’ll have to return it to the library soon and see what else I can find!

~Land Lines~

By the way…
Not including cell phones, how many working telephones do you have in your home? We have 4 that are plugged up, they are part of a system. One base unit with answering machine and 3 cordless units scattered in various rooms. We keep one corded phone in a closet to pull out just in case. Although, realisitically, we would probably be using our cell phones if at all possible.
Got any really old phones that you still use? Oops, see above, keep one corded one. No rotary ones!
Are you planning on going completely cellular and ridding yourself of landlines? We’re going to keep a house phone. It’s not technically a land line, we have switched to Vonage and our house line is VOIP (voice over IP). It uses our internet high speed line that comes in through our cable company. We like the feature that if the signal is out at the house, Vonage automatically forwards all of our calls to our cell phone

I haven’t done much “personal” blogging lately, because, frankly, there just hasn’t been a lot going on that is even remotely “blog-worthy”. 🙂 Tim has been working and playing golf non-stop, and I’ve been hanging out and keeping busy with chores, TV, computer time and reading. Hardly exciting stuff. So, to fill the space, I’ve been doing some memes lately, and really enjoying them. I love when new people come to visit my site and leave comments. Way cool

Anyway, we finally had a night out, and while it’s not very exciting, I thought I would blog about it! Tim had to work a bit late yesterday (Friday), but after he finished, we left and went to Red Lobster. I’ve been really hungry for seafood, and so Tim took me to eat to my heart’s desire. 🙂 I tried to be good and semi-health conscious; so I got the broiled seafood platter. It was really yummy – broiled scallops, shrimp scampi and stuffed broiled flounder. Good stuff and I really enjoyed it. After dinner, we had a couple of extra minutes, so we stopped by Barnes and Noble on the way home. Tim gets the football magazines every summer, in preparation for the upcoming season. I hadn’t been able to find his favorite at Walmart, so we went to B&N to look for it. We found it, and also bought a couple of books from the bargain table (see my sidebar for the latest one for me by Anita Shreve). We got Tim a Robert Ludlum book, but I’m not going to hold my breath about when he might actually sit down to read. The current obsession with golf is still very strong. He plays or hits balls about 7 days a week lately, if the sun is shining. Since it doesn’t get dark till about 8:30 around here, he’s out till pretty late every night.

Anyway, we came home to watch the last” Love Comes Softly” movie on the Hallmark channel. We watched all 3 movies back to back this week, and I really, really enjoyed them. I am looking forward to reading the books one day. The one last night was “Love’s Long Journey” and it was as good as the others. I’m so glad I found them on the TV lineup and we were able to watch them.

Saturday is more of the same – golf for Tim and Don, and probably shopping or hanging out for me and Gail. Maybe we’ll have something else to report other than the guy’s golf scores later today or tomorrow. 🙂

I *heart* the library! I just love being able to go and get books and bring them home to read and never have to pay a penny. I think libraries are very cool institutions

I had to recheck the book I was reading “Murder at Union Station” by Margaret Truman, as I was not quite finished with it. Here’s a neat factoid: I was reading the book the other night and Tim saw her name and said “is she related to President Harry Truman?” I had no idea, so I do what I always do. I went to the computer and got on Blingo, and come to find it, she is his daughter! How cool is that.

Anyway, I checked out 2 more books, you can see them on the sidebar. They are “The Preservationist” by David Maine, a book I had seen on Susie‘s blog, which is about Noah and building the ark. The other is a book that I think was on the bestseller list for a while, a few years ago – “The Secret Life of Bees” by Sue Monk Kidd. Tune in over the next couple of weeks for book reviews.

Also, in my Thursday Thirteen post below, I listed 13 movies I wanted to see this summer. I found one at the library that seems to be a favorite, so I rented it for a week. For free. 😆 I got “Because of Winn Dixie”. I hope I don’t cry for days afterward, I’m a total sap when it comes to dog movies.

Time to feast again! Yeah!

Friday, June 23, 2006
Feast Ninety-Nine

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how much do you like your job? Well, considering I have the best job on the planet (housewife), I’d have to say a 10. I had a fairly high-pressure job for years before (IT analyst, on call 24×7) that wore me out and so I left to take a short sabbatical. Short term turned into long term, what can I say, it’s wonderful

Soup
When was the last time you think you were lied to? I have absolutely no idea!

Salad
Share some lyrics from one of your favorite songs.Wow, this is really hard. I have tons of songs I love and listen to. Lately, I’ve been listening to the new Brad Paisley album I got. There’s 4 or 5 songs on there I just adore and I can barely pick between them. Ok, I pick “She’s Everything” – here’s a link to the entire song, but like most lyrics, it sounds tons better when you actually hear it. Here’s some excerpts I love:

She’s a yellow pair of running shoes
A holey pair of jeans
She looks great in cheap sunglasses
She looks great in anything
She’s, “I want a piece of chocolate”
“Take me to a movie”
She’s “I can’t find a thing to wear”
Now and then she’s moody

Chorus:
And she’s everything I ever wanted
And everything I need
I talk about her, I go on and on and on
‘Cause she’s everything to me

Another section of lyrics I love:
She’s the voice I love to hear
Someday when I’m ninety
She’s that wooden rocking chair
I want rocking right beside me
Every day that passes
I only love her more
Yeah, she’s the one
That I’d lay down my own life for

And a snippet or two: She’s a bubble bath and candles, a stealer of the covers, She’s the answer to my prayer, And she’s the song that I’m playing

OK, that’s most of the lyrics! I also love “The World” and “Waiting on a Woman” from that album. They are great love songs, funny and sweet, that I think Brad Paisley probably wrote for his wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley. They all remind me of Tim and the things he says to me, the way he treats me and the way he loves me. I can totally hear Tim singing these to me, and telling me the same things in his sweet country-boy way 🙂 Of course, I can hear myself saying “I want some chocolate” and “I don’t have a thing to wear” to Tim over and over, ad nauseum 😀

Main Course
What do you do/take when you are in pain? Usually just Tylenol or maybe Advil.

Dessert
Fill in the blanks: My love for Tim is very strong and deep. (OK, no fair, the sappy song lyrics got me going on this one!)

I haven’t found a whole lot that I want to watch this summer on TV. We watched the first episode of Treasure Hunters the other night and liked it, so we’re going to give that one a try. Yesterday, I was reading the newspaper and saw on the TV grid that a movie was coming on the Hallmark Channel last night called “Love Comes Softly”. It sounded really familiar, like a book my mother-in-law and sister might have read and liked. So, using one of my favorite online tools, IMBD, I looked it up, and sure enough, it’s a movie made from that book. I watched it and really enjoyed it. I coerced Tim into watching it with me, and even though he didn’t want to admit it, I think he really liked it. Another one is coming on tonight, “Love’s Enduring Promise” and I plan to watch that one as well. These are from the books by Janette Oke, which I have not read, but now have on my library list. She’s a Christian fiction writer, and I like reading books like that, and watching movies like that – clean, simple, old-fashioned and with a good message. I really enjoyed it, and am so happy to have found something on TV to watch. Can’t wait to watch the other one tonight 😆

Today is “officially” the first day of summer, otherwise known as the summer solstice. It’s also the longest day of the year, and I for one am looking forward to shorter days, and cooler temps!

Anyway, it’s been summer here for several weeks, maybe a month or more. It’s been really hot, and up until a few days ago, we had had no rain. I think we went 2 weeks or more with no rain, and it was so blazingly hot and dry. Thankfully, we had a shower over the weekend, and another one on Monday. Irregardless, it’s still really hot. Part and parcel of living in the Deep South. 🙄

I took this picture several weeks ago with my cameraphone, I think it was in late May. So, we’ve been hot here for a while!

OK, today seems to be a “don’t have anything to blog about” kind of day. I’ve been doing a lot of memes lately, and I couldn’t find one I wanted to do today. Plus, my days have be minorly boring, with nothing really interesting to blog about (I could blog about the amount of golf my better half is playing, but, I won’t!).

So…. Let’s do a simple poll… please feel free to leave a comment with more info, if you’d like 🙂

Have a great day!

I went out to get the mail today and was really surprised to see the first of our free DVD’s from Kellogg’s arrive in the mail. I blogged about this originally on 5/31 and had just mailed off for the first two that week. So, in less than 3 weeks, we already got our first totally free movie. Granted, it’s not a blockbuster and probably something we would never buy, but it was free! We buy Kellogg’s cereal anyway, and there were no charges for shipping and handling, so the movie only cost me the stamp to mail off the order form and coupons.

Cool beans, I love getting free stuff! Our first movie to arrive is Jumpin Jack Flash, with Whoopie Goldberg:

I finished another library book last night, “Goodnight Nobody” by Jennifer Weiner. I had not read any books by this author, and I must say, I really enjoyed it. It was a very good read, and a nice little plot. The basic premise of the book is a suburban housewife and stay-at-home mom with 3 kids under the age of five, finds herself living in a Stepford-like Connecticut suburb. She used to have a fun life, friends, parties, a cool job, and now she feels like her life is nothing. She walks in one morning and finds one of the perfect moms with a knife in her back, dead on her kitchen floor. She decided to do some investigative journalism and find out who killed her, about her life, etc. She used to be a reporter, after all (well, she was a tabloid, gossip type reporter!) The book goes from there, and the plot weaves in and out of her friends, family, children, fellow Stepfordites and the people she meets who knew the deceased. I really enjoyed it, and will be looking for more books by Jennifer Weiner to check out. She wrote the book “In Her Shoes”, which was made into a movie last year with Cameron Diaz (and yes, this movie is still on my rental list, haven’t gotten to it yet).

For the record, that makes #35 for the year, with a total of 12,547 pages read. Up next is one of the “Capital Crimes” series novels, “Murder at Union Station” by Margaret Truman. I only have a couple of days before this one is due back at the library, so I don’t know if I’ll finish it in time, or simply have to go back and renew it. So many books, so little time!