Exceedingly Mundane

Today, Monday, is going to be a major catch-up day for me. We were so busy all weekend, and I wasn’t able to do a single thing around here. I have a mountain of dirty laundry, and a dirty house to go with it (complete with dirt and grass that we tracked in all day Saturday). I am really sore from all the yard work on Saturday, and have a few pictures that I need to upload and post. We are really happy with all the work we got done in the yard. We have to go get more mulch, but we did get everything planted. I’ll need to “tend” to all those flowers and shrubs for the next couple of weeks, and baby them enough to get them growing and blooming. 🙂

We had a great time yesterday visiting with Tim’s mom. It was nice to be able to go to church with them, then have lunch and have a nice long visit.

Suzanne is headed to Hattiesburg later today, so it will be wonderful to see her later this week. I better get the guest rooms cleaned up before she gets here! 🙂

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

Unfortunately, this is still an especially difficult time of the year for me. I still struggle with the fact that I will never be a mother, and now, for the last several years, I have been without my own mother. Dodie, I still miss you every day 😥 Thankfully, I have a wonderful mother-in-law, whom we are going to see today, and spend the day with her. So, at least I still have one mom!

Here’s an interesting Mother’s Day tidbit – did you know that it was President Woodrow Wilson made Mother’s Day a national holiday in 1914?

Have a great day 🙂

Today is the first sunny Saturday we’ve had in a couple of weeks. So, we’ll be spending the day working in our yard. We’ve spent all morning out buying flowers, shrubs, roses, mulch, pavers, soil and sand. I think we have more to do than we have hours left in the day!

UPDATE: We worked all day, until almost dark, and got a lot done. Still more to do, but it looks a lot better around here! I took a few pictures and will try to post some in a few days. 🙂

Friday, May 12, 2006
Feast Ninety-Three

Appetizer
What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? World Class Chocolate or any other very rich dark chocolate

Soup
What are 3 things you would like to put in a time capsule? Photos, scrapbook, some piece of electronics like a cell phone, PDA, iPod (because these things are changing so fast now, imagine what people would think in 100 years!)

Salad
Name something you are 100% sure of. That Jesus died for my sins

Main Course
What is something you do to calm yourself when you’re stressed or upset? Some deep breathing (in through the nose, out through the mouth). Also, getting away from whatever or whoever is stressing me out helps sometimes

Dessert
If you could receive an invitation to any important event, what would you like it to be? Well, it’s not an “important” event, but I’ve always wanted to go to the 4 Grand Slam tennis tournaments. Wimbledon would be my first choice, the French at Roland Garros my second

Tim and I both have a long history of saving our change. When we got married, he brought with him 3 large jars that he had been using to sort and save his change in:

We’ve never filled them up; they hold a LOT of change! Also, Tim is adamant about keeping a bunch of change in each of our cars. He has several stories of having to cash in his change to buy a couple of gallons of gas to get him somewhere, etc.

Me, I have always had a piggy bank and collected change. Growing up, money management was taught to me by my parents from a very young age. I saved my pennies. A penny saved is a penny earned. I took part of my birthday or Christmas money and put into my savings account at the credit union. My grandmother used to keep an old glass jar on the nightstand (by the bed where I slept when we came to visit). When we’d go there, I’d run back there to see if there was any change in the jar (there always was!) for me to have. I’d pour it out on the bed and sit and count it and then get all excited about having money that I hadn’t expected. 🙂

Anyway, Tim and I have been rolling our coins and taking them into the bank since we’ve been married. We don’t have as much change as we used to. We tend to put more on our debit or credit cards than we did when we were first married. We just don’t spend cash as much as we used to, so we don’t have as much spare change as we used to.

I knew we had not cashed in our change in a while, and I’ve been seeing this Coinstar machine at my local Kroger. I tried to talk Tim into letting me take the change up there and getting it cashed in. He wouldn’t hear of it though, once he found out they charged a fee for it. Duh. They have to make money somehow! But, he was right, and instead, we decided to buy a small, cheap coin machine at Walmart to keep and use. We bought this:

It was only 10 bucks at Walmart, and we bought a package of the pre-formed coin rolls, and we were able to sort and wrap our change in no time. We rolled a little over $100 worth one rainy afternoon a couple of weeks ago. I took it to the bank, and updated my spreadsheet. I was very pleasantly surprised to see that we have cashed in a little over $1000 dollars in change in the 10 years that we’ve been married.

So, the moral of the story is – save your change! It really does add up. And if you want to borrow our coin sorter and roll your change, just let us know. We’d be glad to help you out! 🙂

I was putting out a new medical poll on the homepage of Hambones earlier, and I noticed that the word of the day is “turgid”. That’s not a word I’m familiar with. I consider myself to have a decent vocabulary and to be an average or above average speller (yes, I’m conceited today :mrgreen:). Learning new words is something I don’t do enough of these days, so I thought I’d pass this along.

According to Dictionary.com, turgid means swollen, bloated or puffed up. Hmmm. Not a word I’d use everyday, but still.

Also, I’ve had a lot of things on my mind lately, and I wondered earlier today – do other people respond to things like I do? More specifically – do they eat more when they are upset, stressed, mad, angry, depressed or whatever. I know I do. I wish, wish, wish I was one of these people who didn’t like to lose myself in a candy bar or a bowl of ice cream, but I am. I tend to just eat more when I’m concerned or stressed about something, so I thought I would do a quick poll. Please vote and let me know if you’re the same way, or you’re one of the lucky ones – do you actually not eat any more when you’re stressed?! Lucky you if you are!

I finished another library book yesterday, “A Thousand Tomorrows” by Karen Kingsbury. I’ve read several of her books, and this one was a little different. Good, but different. Most of the books I’ve read of hers have been really good Christian fiction, about common people and common situations. This one was a really clean book, but not what I’d call Christian fiction, in that, it was not “preachy” in any way. In fact, it rarely even mentioned God or prayer or leading a Christian life. But, the characters were very good people, living life to the fullest and experiencing events that changed them. The basic storyline is about a bullrider on the professional rodeo circuit who falls for a female barrel racer, who (he comes to find out) has a life threatening disease. It follows their careers and relationship, and it was a very quick and easy read.

For the record, this makes #25 for the year, with a total of 9,140 pages read. Up next is a book by a new-to-me author, Jodi Picoult. I know she’s had several books on the bestseller list and her novels are popular book club choices, so I’m looking forward to reading this one (Plain Truth). 😀

Yippee! I won an auction on another points-type reward site. I have been playing the TV/movie games at this site for a while (over a year) and had accumulated a bunch of “points”. I tried cashing the points in for gift cards (similar to MyPoints.com), but you had to be one of the first 15 or 25 people to cash in points for a gift card. Needless to say, with the thousands of people (probably) trying to cash in gift cards, I could never seem to snag one. So, finally, I thought I would try their auction site. I bid on a gift card and didn’t win, and then bid on a DVD and didn’t win. I have never done eBay or any other auction site, so I didn’t quite understand about bidding. At least at this particular site, I finally learned — bid HIGH. So I bid a lot more points than the last person who bid, and put in an even higher maximum bid, and I won!

The site is RewardTV.com and I’ve been playing the games there for a long time. I answer questions about the TV shows we watch at night and occasionally about movies we see at the theater. I had only ever won a $5 Hollywood Video rental card before, so it’s nice to finally get something else from this particular site. The DVD I won is “The Wedding Date”, which we rented a few months ago and I thought was a cute movie. It cost me most of my points that I had in my account, so it will be awhile before I can bid on anything else. Especially with the summer coming up, we watch less TV in the summer, since all of our “shows” are on hiatus. Anyway, it’s nice to get something else for nothing!

P.S. If you’re interested in joining either the RewardTV or MyPoints website and giving them a try, please let me know and use me as a reference before you go and sign up. I’ll get points, so it would help me out a lot if you “used me”.

Thanks to everyone who voted last week in my little gift card poll. I ordered myself a $25 Barnes and Noble giftcard yesterday. They said to expect it to be delivered in 2-6 weeks, but I think when I’ve redeemed gift cards from MyPoints in the past, that they’ve usually come in after a week or two. So, hopefully it will be here soon and then I can go spend it and report back on what books I bought!

If you’d like to suggest any books for me to buy, please feel free to leave me a comment. 🙂

OK, some of what this says might be true. But, I’m definitely not a morning person, I’m a night owl! I don’t function well in the AM 😀

You Are Sunrise

You enjoy living a slow, fulfilling life. You enjoy living every moment, no matter how ordinary. You are a person of reflection and meditation. You start and end every day by looking inward. Caring and giving, you enjoy making people happy. You’re often cooking for friends or buying them gifts. All in all, you know how to love life for what it is – not for how it should be.

The theme for today is Medical.

1) Amanda had surgery this morning to have her tonsils removed, and we’re waiting to hear from Mark on how it all went and how she’s doing. They are supposed to do it outpatient and she should go home this afternoon. I think she’s planning to be off a couple of weeks from work to recover.

2) Tim’s dad came to town today for 2 appointments at the VA. He came to the house between his appointments and we all went to lunch together. He is having a lot of things looked at, and also has to come back next week for more appointments, so hopefully we’ll see him then also.

3) I’m doing new polls on the homepage of Hambones in honor of all these medical going-on’s. There will be a new poll every day. Today’s poll is “have you had your tonsils removed” in honor of Amanda and her surgery. 😀

UPDATE: We just heard from Mark and everything went well. They took out Amanda’s tonsils and what adenoids they found in there also. She is at home now, and resting, and has some pain pills to get her through the next few days. 🙂

Pop Culture Pesonality Quiz
I’m trying something a little different this week. Not really for any specific reason, other than to be manic on Manic Monday.

1) In high school I was a nerd!.

2) If I were to be on “American Idol” my audition song would be nothing. I would never audition. I can’t carry a tune in a bucket.

3) Choose One:

Simon/Garfunkle
Window Seat/Aisle Seat
Desperate Housewives/Soprano’s

4) After a long hard day, I like to kick back with mindless TV shows like Survivor, Amazing Race, NCIS, House, etc.

5) The first R-rated movie I ever saw was I have no idea, I can’t remember that far back!.

6) The first person I call when I have good news Tim.

7) What is in my glove compartment: Anti-bacterial wipes, flashlight, Kleenex, car manual and registration info, etc.

8) My porn name is: Chessie Beasley 😐. (childhood pet’s name + Street You Grew Up On)

I finished another library book this afternoon – “Can You Keep a Secret?” by Sophie Kinsella. I’ve read most of Sophie Kinsella’s books, and I think that this one and the last one I read (The Undomestic Goddess) are the best ones yet. I really enjoy all of her Shopaholic books, but maybe I was getting tired of the same character, and these have had new and different characters. Maybe it’s just me, but these others seem more multi-dimensional and just plain more funny and entertaining. I really enjoyed this book. It was very light and very entertaining. A very, very quick read.

For the record, that makes #24 on the year, with a total of 8,902 pages read. I am going to read another Karen Kingsbury next, called “A Thousand Tomorrows”. I also have a new book I bought yesterday at Target that I’ve added to my ever-growing “nightstand” list on my sidebar. Yes, I buy books and I let them sit on my nightstand while I traipse back and forth to the library to check out books. No, I don’t read the ones on my nightstand or those we have in our bookshelves. I think it’s a goal-oriented thing. If I have a book from the library due back on a certain date, I’m more apt to read it in the time I have allotted. Not so with ones I own and that I can read any ole time. It’s some kind of disease, I know, but it’s just the way I’m wired.

FYI, I bought “Memoirs of a Geisha” because I wanted to read the book before I rented the DVD. I’ve been trying since January to check it out of my library and it’s always checked out, and I’ve just never gotten around to putting my name on the reserve list for it. They had it in paperback at Target, so I picked it up while I was there. 🙂

Oh, and I think people may be tired of seeing me blog about books, so if you are, pipe up and let me know. I know how much I enjoy reading, and how I love every minute of the day or night that I can sit curled up with a good book, lost in a story or plotline or a good character development. So, if you’re tired of seeing these blog entries about books, I’m sorry. I love books and I am loving reading so many good new ones, and I’m loving writing about them. 🙂 Hope everyone else enjoys them too; drop me a comment and let me know either way.

Yesterday was a busy day, and I spent a part of it plodding around in the rain. I hate plodding around in the rain, especially in flip-flops or sandals. I hate getting my feet soaked in a puddle-filled parking lot 🙄

Don and Gail spent the night with us on Friday night (after we went on our double date). Tim and Don got up and left really early (about 7 AM) to go play golf, and Gail and I got ready and headed out shopping. We went to the mall and tried on clothes for a while. It was not a good day for me clothes-wise. Some days you can try things on and they fit and look good, and some days they don’t. Yesterday was one of those “don’t” days. 😥 However (drum roll please), I bought two new outfits anyway. Two shirts, a pair of drawstring capris and a pair of cuffed pants (longer than capris, shorter than regular trousers). Not totally happy with them, but they are better than nothing, I guess. Anyway, we shopped most all morning, and then met the guys plus Elizabeth for a late lunch at Jason’s Deli. All the girls went to Target after lunch, and the guys went home to take a nap. 😕 We got wet getting out of lunch, into Target, and then on the way out, it was pouring and we all got drenched. Such fun in sandals 🙄

Gail and Don left not too long after, and we hated to see them leave. We had a great time and were so glad they got to come visit.

We were both pretty tired, so we just stayed in, made some phone calls, and then watched one of the movies from our DVD collection (Bourne Identity). I think we’re going to watch Bourne Supremacy (tonight) Sunday night. Then it will be back to lots of good shows on TV all week. I love May, lots of new shows and some season finales too.

Tim and I went on a double date last night with Don and Gail. They drove down and we all went to supper at our new Applebee’s. Tim and I splurged (since he’s doing so well on his weight-loss challenge at work, and me, I just wanted to splurge!) and got some of their new steakhouse entrees. I had the sirloin and crab cakes and Tim had the ribeye. Don had a fajita burger which he said was just ok, and we made a mental note to avoid that one on a future trip. Gail had the roasted garlic and asiago chicken and it looked really good. We all enjoyed supper, and then went over to our new theater for Mission Impossible 3. I would have preferred to boycott the movie because of my intense dislike these days for all things Tom Cruise, but I knew the movie would be good. We’ve always enjoyed the MI movies in the past, and actually own both in our DVD collection. This was was just as good, if not better, than the past two. I asked the guys and they both rated it an 8 out of 10 stars. 🙂

After the movie, we considered going to Cold Stone for ice cream, but decided to go back to Applebee’s and order Don some dessert to go (the Blue Ribbon brownie). It looked really good! Don and Gail spent the night with us, and Tim and Don left really early to go play golf. Gail and I are going to run errands and shop today, so that should be fun. We’re really glad they came down!

Hope everyone has a great weekend! 🙂