Exceedingly Mundane

Oooh, cool new design over at the Friday Feast meme site. Check it out!

Feast Ninety-Two

Appetizer
From which country(s) are some (or all) of your ancestors?Hmm, not completely sure, but probably England, Ireland or Scotland

Soup
How would you describe your sneeze? Quick and to the point, but kind of high pitched and shrill 🙂

Salad
What is the last thing you cleaned? Washed dishes and unloaded the dishwasher this morning. Last thing I scrubbed was the sink

Main Course
Who made the strongest first impression on you? Tim

Dessert
Name one thing you want to accomplish in your lifetime. Being a great wife

As seen on Bill‘s blog “View From the Bench”, a meme from this site:

Are you more…

01) Lawyer or accountant? Oooh, accountant. I’m a penny pincher, a math major and a stickler for finances

02) Dentist or family doctor? Neither, but if forced to pick, probably dentist. I can nag about flossing a lot better than tend to bleeding wounds 🙂

03) Chiropractor or massage therapist?Massage Therapist, definitely

04) Engineer or architect? Engineer (more of that math and computer background)

05) Sports announcer or news meteorologist? Meteorologist (especially considering how much of The Weather Channel I watch!)

06) Garbage collector or sewage system inspector? Garbage collector. I’m a packrat, plain and simple

07) Plumber or electrician? Neither. Period. You can’t make me decide between those 2, more one than the other.

08) Lead hand/foreman or supervisor/manager? Supervisor/Manager

09) Astronomer or astrologist? Astronomer. I love space, planets, comets, meteors. I try to catch the Perseid’s and Leonid’s every year 🙂

10) Advice column writer or editorial column writer? Advice Column Writer (what woman isn’t?!)

I blogged a couple of days ago about the Wheat Thins Veggie Chips that I had found and we were liking. Here’s another new find:

I have been buying the Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches for the last couple of summers, and I really like them, but Tim didn’t. Which, YEAH, meant more for me! But last week when I was grocery shopping, I didn’t see them, but found these ice cream cones instead. Now, Tim loves ice cream cones. Doesn’t like ice cream sandwiches. Go figure. 🙂

Anyway, they had these vanilla with caramel ones and I bought a box. We tried them the other night and they’re good. I got online at the Skinny Cow website and found that they also have Chocolate Fudge ice cream cones. I would like these more, but Tim is more of a vanilla and caramel guy. Anyway, these are good, give them a try!

Tim and I went walking in our subdivision this morning. We’re trying to walk more, and the last couple of weeks, we’ve been averaging about 10 miles a week. It was really nice and cool this morning, very pleasant. When we turned the corner to our street, we saw a turtle on the sidewalk. Tim said it was a snapping turtle (not that this city girl would know the difference, I think he told me so I wouldn’t go stick my hand near it!), and so, of course, I said, let me go run get my camera. We went home, and I came back with my camera. By that time, he had crawled towards this sewer grate; I guess he was trying to make his get-away before I got back.

So, rather than a bird or squirrel, tada, today I have a turtle picture

Oh, and our squirrels are coming every day now, usually several times a day, to our corn feeder. We’ve determined that the most frequent visitor is the squirrel we nicknamed “Right Ear”. But, we’ve seen other squirrels on there that aren’t Right Ear, and one afternoon this week, we had a showdown: two squirrels on the fence, headed toward the corn feeder. We had hoped for a fight or a showdown, but alas, one squirrel just ran the other one off and proceeded to eat to his heart’s content.

Click on the extended entry to see a close-up of “Right Ear” and you’ll see why we named him that. He came up on the deck and sat on the deck rail for a long time, watching us watching him from the window!

Read the rest of this entry »

::Wuthering Heights (and lows)::

Onesome: Wuthering– What kind of word is that anyway? Do you have a word you think is just strange? “Kangaroo” comes to mind … Well, there’s lots of words that I read or hear sometimes and think – how do you spell that, why is that word like that, who thought up that word. Let’s see… I’ve always liked the words oxymoron and superfluous. We had a word in trivia last week that always strikes me as odd if I hear it – sassafras. Conundrum and ostentatious are good ones also. 🙂 Then, there’s Google. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love Google. But, I’ve started using it as a verb, as in “let me go Google that”, as in look it up.

Twosome: Heights– Are you afraid of them or can you dance along the rooftop coping like a character in a movie? I’m scared of heights. I’m semi-ok if I’m enclosed (plane, elevator), but if I’m out in the open with just a bridge or a rope or a hand railing, I get pretty scared. I have to grab onto something solid.

Threesome: (and lows)– What kind of insect or bug sends you low and scurrying? Do spiders do that to you? Wasps? …or do you just squish everything that “bugs” you? I don’t like spiders, but I will squish them and kill them. Same with beetles, earwigs and roaches. I don’t like snakes, lizards or frogs, but those aren’t insects or bugs. I am scared of flying, stinging things like wasps and bees. I can’t ever remember being stung, but I’m always afraid this is going to be the first time. My sister is allergic to them and I’m always afraid that I am also and I just don’t know it yet!

I finished another library book this afternoon, “Rejoice” by Karen Kingsbury with Gary Smalley. This was book 4 in a series of 5 books in the “Redemption” series. I went on ahead to the library after that (since Tim was at his last golf lesson for a while :mrgreen:), with the intention of checking out the last book in the series. But, someone had beat me to it! It was checked out of the branch I went to. I should have looked online before I left, to see which branch had a copy available, but I didn’t. Actually, I was too excited about going :grin:. I love books, love the library (I’ve blogged about it ad nauseum before), but this time I had something else to be totally excited about – I took my new Palm PDA with my library list on it! 🙂 Yes, I was in a hurry so I could go into the library and browse for the books on my list. Sorted by author, library branch, ranked in priority of what I wanted sooner than later, and even (gasp), if they were books for me or Tim. Needless to say, my Tim list is, um, rather short. 😯 He is not “into” reading these days, and even though I have bought him books lately, they sit on the bookcase shelf collecting dust. Me, on the other hand, I have over 50 books on my library list! 🙂

Anyway, I digress. This makes #23 so far this year, with a total of 8,545 pages read. I couldn’t restrain myself, and rather than checking out my normal 3 books for a 3 week time period, I went ahead and got 4. I’ve been reading 3 in about 2 weeks or less, and the ones I picked out are mostly light, entertaining or quick reads, so I splurged and got 4 books this time. I’ve listed them on my sidebar. They are:

1. Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
2. A Thousand Tomorrows by Karen Kingsbury
3. Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
4. Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich

Yippee, I can’t wait! New books to read

I have enough points accumulated at My Points to get a gift card. I’ve redeemed several in the past, including several for movie rentals and some to Target.

They have a lot of gift card choices to pick from, but I’ve narrowed it down to either a Barnes and Noble $25 gift card or a $25 gift card to Bath and Body Works.

I can’t decide – some days I want books and some days I want more smelly stuff 😀 Tim voted for the books, so right now I’m leaning that way. I’d love to get more feedback, so please lodge your vote below. Help me decide!

I’ve read recently in my sister’s blog (here and here) about some good sounding snacks and splurges, and also at Dawn’s blog (about her Craisins Trail Mix). Food – now that’s something I think about all the time, so I guess I should blog more about it! 🙂

So, here’s my contribution, I’ve been buying these the last few weeks – in my effort to keep healthy snacks in the house and not things I would rather have like Oreos, full fat ice cream, etc. I think they’re pretty good! They also remind me of a snack I used to love as a kid. Does anyone remember, well, maybe they still make them, those Chicken-in-a-Biskit crackers? I used to love those things. These are good too!

Well, well, well. I love these things, whether the results seem right or not! 🙂

You’re Oregon!
When people talk about peace in the valley, they often think of you.
After all, you’ve inspired countless people to traverse rough terrain in search of you
and even think about you when playing popular computer games. Are you really up to all
the hype or are you all wet? You take shelter from the storm beneath trees, felled by
either loggers or beavers. If you were a shade of pink, it would be salmon.

Take the State Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

This week’s assignment, list your 10 Favorite Romantic Movies. Mine are in no particular order:

1. You’ve Got Mail
2. Casablanca
3. An Affair to Remember
4. While You Were Sleeping
5. Sleepless in Seattle
6. My Big Fat Greek Wedding
7. Notting Hill
8. The Princess Bride
9. Return to Me
10. Sweet Home Alabama

Honorable Mention and one I probably need to add to my collection: Hope Floats

Other Honorable Mention movies that I do own and enjoy: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Maid in Manhatten, Wedding Planner, My Best Friends Wedding, One Fine Day, Pretty Woman, both Princess Diaries movies 😀

I saw a new kind of bird (to me) on my bird feeder this morning. I was walking through the den and saw him sitting on top of the bird feeder, just looking around. I walked into the office to get my camera, back into the den, and got all setup to take pictures, sure that he would fly away before I could get any. But, he was very happy hanging out on the top of my bird feeder. He must have sat there 4 or 5 minutes at least, and he let me inch towards the window and take over a dozen pictures of him.

I have been looking at several bird watching sites on the Internet, and based on this picture at birding.com and also this article at Bird Watcher’s Digest, I’m sure now that he was a rose breasted grosbeak. I’ve not ever seen this kind of bird here before, and by one of the maps that I saw at some site, he may be a little further south than normal. Or maybe he’s just making his spring migration back to where ever he should be.

He didn’t seem frightened by me and my camera at all, and I got several shots of him. Here’s a few:

And, towards the end before he flew away, he seemed to see me there and sort of started moving around as if to say …. “I see you, do you see me?!”

From LizzieDaisy:

1. Should I quit blogging? Sigh. No… maybe take a break, but don’t quit 🙂
2. Toilet paper… over or under? 🙂 OVER. If it’s under in my house, I will take it off and put it back on correctly – over the top, please.
3. What brand names are you completely loyal to? Tons. Some examples – Crest toothpaste, Pantene shampoo, Quilted Northern TP, Kodak digital cameras, Yoplait Yogurt, Kellogg’s cereals, Community coffee, and the list goes on and on
4. Do you like your job? What is your dream job? I am living my dream job – I’m on long term sabbatical from work. Home is my job now, yippee!
5. On a scale from 1-10, how computer savvy are you? Probably an 8 or 8.5. The DH is probably a 9 or 9.5, so we’re both fairly nerdy
6. Do you make your lunch or buy it? Make it, at home every day, unless I go out to meet friends for lunch
7. What color is your front door? White. Boring. I want a hardwood front door (dark brown) or a red one 🙂
8. Jeans or kakhis? Jeans
9. What is the longest distance you have ever run? 1 mile
10. If you could buy one thing for yourself (cost is no matter), what would you buy? probably a really nice laptop

I finished another library book last night, “The Summerhouse” by Jude Devereaux. It was good, not great. Definitely not the best book I have read lately! It had some “time travel” in it, so reading it on the heels of “The Time Traveler’s Wife” was probably not the best idea. Too much of that motif in one short span of time. 😀 I seem to be reading a lot of books lately about groups of women friends who get together, either for book clubs, for later-in-life reunions, etc. Perhaps I need to branch out more! I’ll try to work on a book review and post it on Hambones.org later today 🙂

For the record, that makes book #22 for the year, with a total of 8,198 pages read. Up next is book 4 in the series of 5 books in the Redemption series by Karen Kingsbury. I’m going to finish these soon, I think. After that, I will probably head back to the library for more books. Now that I have my handy dandy Palm PDA with my library list on it (tons of books that I *might* want to check out), all categorized by branch, author, who recommended it, etc. Yup, I’m a book nerd AND a gadget nerd, great combination, yes?!

Good Monday to you all! Let’s fill in the blanks this week! Thanks for playing! =)

1. Sleeping in for me means sleeping until 9 AM or after .
2. Staying up late means I don’t go to bed until after midnight or 1AM.
3. I probably spend more time goofing around on the computer than I would like.
4. And I don’t spend nearly enough time exercising.
5. I have zero tolerance for people who hurt children or animals .
6. I have a lot of patience when it comes to hopefully, my friends and family!

Yardwork~

Spring has arrived and the yardwork begins…mowing, trimming, gardening, etc.

By the way…

Who does the yardwork in your family, or do you hire someone? Tim does it all but the flowers and watering. He cuts the grass, weedeats, aerates, fertilizes, cuts down trees, makes flower beds, runs the tiller, and builds awesome decks 😀 He’s a keeper!

Are you a “no weeds in my yard” perfectionist, or do you let the weeds rule? I don’t like weeds. I will let them slide for a while, but eventually it gets to me and I have to pull them up. Out of the flower beds, that is. I have learned to live with them in the grass. They come, they sprout, we mow them. At least they’re green!

Thinking about the yardwork, does it make you want winter back? Sort of. As much as I love things blooming and buying all the pretty flowers to plant, the actual process I dislike these days. And the incessant watering of them all summer. I plant too many pots and planters and they really need to be watered every day in our heat. The grass will need it too… we’ll have a long hot, dry summer, I’m afraid, like last year.