Exceedingly Mundane

Yesterday, I blogged about some of my purple flowers that are blooming in the yard, and that they make me happy. The simple things make me happy, they really do. I have really made an effort in the last several years to slow down and enjoy the small, simple things in life. Sometimes, a blast from Sonic or watching the birds at my birdfeeder is the most exciting thing in my day, and yet, those sweet simple things make me the happiest. I could name lots of simple things that make me happy, but today, on the Ides of March, I’m going to blog about just one.

My wind chimes make me happy:

Now, don’t get me wrong, this simple thing hanging out back, outside my breakfast room window, make me happy all year round. I love them. I love to hear them singing in the breeze. Sometimes I hear them at night before I go to sleep and sometimes I hear them and the birds singing in the mornings when I wake up. I get great joy from them. I get joy from knowing that both of my sisters have the exact same one, we all got ours (at different times) from a nursery a block from my house called “Gardenworks”. I love the tone that they have and how they sound. I love to sit out on my deck this time of year, and read a book, and feel the sun on my face, and hear my wind chimes tickling the wind.

So, today, in the middle of the month that comes “in like a lion and goes out like a lamb”, I pay homage to one of my most favorite things. My wind chimes.

(And yes, they’ve been getting a workout lately. This March seems extra windy to me!)

I was so happy to see this book out on the “New Arrivals” shelf at my library on the last visit. It’s not often that I read a book on the NY Times Bestseller list, much less one that just came out (I blogged here that I was the first one to check it out!). This was definitely a different kind of book for me. I normally read what I call “women’s fiction” – very light, entertaining and quick, or lately, more Christian fiction by authors such as Karen Kingsbury. So, this book about a courtesan and her dwarf in Renaissance Italy in the 1530’s was something a little different.

Having said that, I really enjoyed it. It’s good for me to break out of my norm and read something different. This book, being historical fiction, had a different tone and cadence to it, but I got used to that fairly quickly. It has a very small amount of bad language or references (but considering the subject matter, she is a courtesan, it was to be expected), but not so much that it distracted me. I really enjoyed it, and I will put Sarah Dunant’s initial bestseller on my list to try to read in the future (“The Birth of Venus”).

For the stats: this is book #12 for the year, with a total of 4,272 pages read. I have entered a review of it on Hambones.org. In the mean time, I’ve started the last book I have from the library (due next week), another Karen Kingsbury book. This one is very current, it’s a fictional account of 9/11 and looks to be very, very good.

Here’s a couple of things that make me happy today… my purple verbena and purple irises are starting to bloom in the back yard! I’m not in a big hurry for spring and summer to arrive, but I do love it when all of my perennial flowers start coming back out and growing and blooming. Makes me happy 🙂

My verbena is just starting to bloom, within the last few days or week:

And I just saw the first bloom on my Louisiana irises open yesterday (it was a lot warmer yesterday and I was outside some before it rained, and spied this bloom):

Ooh, kind of a toughie this week, at least for me. This kind of meme is always more of a brain stretch for me

A good Monday to all! And now for this week’s challenge…

Using the letters in the word ‘MONDAY,’ list things that you do (or would like to do) in your spare time.

Move – or at least I try to. Walk, exercise, lift arm weights, I try to keep moving and stay fit and healthy
Oprah – I like watching Oprah, Martha and my soap during the day. Go ahead, give me one of those bon-bon comments, I dare ya
New books – I love to read and love getting new books from the library and bookstore. I rarely reread books, always want something new!
Drink – more coffee. I like trying out new flavors of coffees, new creamers, and new stuff at Starbucks.
Always – tell Tim I love him, I try to every day. 🙂
Yell – at the TV during certain reality shows like American Idol, Survivor and Amazing Race. Sometimes we see things at home that those people obviously don’t see and I just want to yell at them.

Lookie, lookie at what we bought each other for our anniversary! We shopped around all day on Friday, then went to a new Cingular store near our house on Saturday and got me one of these. And, to match, Tim got one of these. Yippee, these Razr’s are so cool! Then, we went shopping for cases. I was actually wanting something cute and girly, maybe pink or red, but we found this instead, and bought one for each of our phones. Then, we bought Tim a Blue Trek Bluetooth earpiece like this one. He’s going to test it out and see how it works, and I’m also going to give it a go and see if I like it and if it fits my ear. Then, we might splurge and get a second earpiece for me. Right now, I’m just tickled to have a phone with a battery that won’t run out after 10 minutes on the phone. PLUS, I have a camera phone, which I have been coveting for so long. Bluetooth is just icing on the cake!

OK, I couldn’t resist. Here’s a picture of our phones, side by side (Tim’s is on the left, the black one):

~A Meal Out~

By the way…
What are your 3 most favorite eateries? Hmm, very hard for me to pick. I LOVE to eat out, and we eat at tons of restaurants. Let’s see… off the top of my head I’d pick Golden Dragon (local Chinese place), Fratesi’s (local Italian place) and probably Sonic for fast food.
Why are they your favorites? Good food, some of the places I would pick if I were picking. But then again, I could easily add 10 more to this list – I love to eat!
What do you normally order at each place? At Golden Dragon, their shrimp with cabbage, at Fratesi’s a ravioli dish and Sonic…. either a burger and tots or a chicken sandwich with tots (Tim always wants to get fries though, so we usually do), and a diet Cherry Limeade.
Where will you absolutely not eat and why? Can’t think of anyplace off the top of my head 🙂

UPDATE – OOooh, I thought of one – I won’t eat one of those big chili dog things at Ward’s any more. I got sick as a dog off one years ago. I think they call them “The Big Un” or something. Tim wanted to eat at Ward’s this past fall, and I really had to suck it up to even go in there. Got something completely different and was so glad it didn’t make me sick. I don’t like that place, yuck.

Happy Anniversary to us – Tim and I were married 10 years ago today! We started celebrating Thursday night by going out to dinner. Tim took off from work on Friday, and we spent the whole day together, as we are doing today. I’ll try to post more tomorrow or the next day about what all we’ve been doing. 🙂

This week’s assignment from Kristine:

Click on the extended entry to see my pics and read more about the junkiness, or lack thereof, for these 😀

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Friday, March 10, 2006
Feast Eighty-Four

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how intuitive do you think you are? Not very, maybe a 2 or 3? I don’t read people or situations well. I’m too gullible 😳

Soup
What is your favorite kind of gum? Anything fruity or cinnamon-y. I used to love Big Red, but try to chew sugar free stuff on the rare occasion I chew gum. I like the Trident fruity ones, maybe it’s called Wild Berry?

Salad
Name a CD you own that you would never get rid of. Eric Clapton “Journeyman” or Tim McGraw “Set this Circus Down”

Main Course
When was the last time you said something you didn’t mean? No idea on the specific, but I do this a lot. When I get upset or mad, there’s no telling what will come out of my mouth. It’s one of my worst flaws. Open mouth, insert foot.

Dessert
What is the sum of the numbers in your birthdate? (Example: 3 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 9 = 31) 30

Yippee! I found a new meme today, that is right up my alley. I have been reading like a crazy woman lately, and I wish I had found this meme sooner. I would be doing these every Thursday, for sure. I considered going back and doing them all, but decided to just do today’s. Here we go:

Thursday, March 02, 2006
Finishing

Today’s questions are from Marie, who’s a relatively new blogger. Thank you!

1. Do you finish every book you start, no matter how bad it gets? Why? Normally, I do. I usually only choose books that I think I will really like, or by authors that I normally read. Only recently have I had one that I really struggled with, but the completion-oriented OCD in me forced me to finish it. Even though I didn’t enjoy it at all! 🙂

2. Do you ever sneak-read the ending before you finish the book? If so, what about the book tends to cause you to do so? I flip to the back and see how many pages there are, but I really don’t read anything towards the end. Usually, I’m really good about it. Probably only one book in every few hundred am I tempted to read the ending. It would just sort of ruin it for me, so I never do it. Only if I’m really worried about how it will end, or … I don’t know. I just don’t normally ruin the ending. I enjoy the process of reading a book too much to give it away.

::On the nightstand::

Onesome: On– a clear day I can see all the way to _____! across the lake in our subdivision? 🙂

Twosome: the– very next project I’m going to work on is _____. …and why would that be ? Ugh. The taxes. I really need to get them done, but I just hate it. Why, I don’t know why, ask the dumb IRS people. 🙄

Threesome: Nightstand– What are you reading this time of year? A thriller? Romance? The tax code? Right now, I’m reading a historical fiction book, “In the Company of the Courtesan” by Sarah Dunant. I’ll go back to more Christian fiction by Karen Kingsbury after that. I’m going to read “One Tuesday Morning” about 9/11 and then more in the “Redemption” series. 😀

As a follow-up to this post, I took a couple more pictures of our Bradford Pear tree in the back yard. It’s starting to bloom and hence, it’s starting to smell a bit! When we go walking our subdivision, we really smell the Bradford Pears blooming; they have a very distinct smell.

Anyway, Tim commented recently that the tree was looking kinda white and so I grabbed my camera and took a couple of shots:

{click -more- to see the pics}

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Tim and I went to Tee Time in Clinton late yesterday afternoon, and we stopped at the cemetery on the way. I had been wanting to get out and check on my mom’s grave, and put out some new spring flowers. They aren’t anything fancy, just some plain yellow ones. I have to be really careful and not get any flowers or flower combinations that have pink in them – Dodie hated pink! I love it, so I’m naturally drawn to arrangements that have pink in them, so it’s a struggle for me to get other colors!

I really miss her, even though it will be 4 years later this summer. I don’t think a single day goes by that I don’t think of her. Some days are better than others, of course, and certain times of the year are worse than others (the holidays, her birthday, Mother’s Day, etc). I always get a bit melancholy when we go here, but I’m always glad we go. I like putting new flowers out on her grave. I know she would be really glad to know that Tim and I go together and do that for her.

OK, here’s a picture of the new flowers for spring:

And click -more- for one more:

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Here’s a freebie for the day – I discovered yesterday a new music site online, one devoted to classical music. The website is www.eclassical.com. At the very bottom, you can scroll down and download a free mp3 – classical of course.

I’ve been collecting some classical music lately to have on my iPod. Sometimes I want to listen to something quiet and soothing in the background, while I read. Sometimes, I have to have it on to drown out the loud TV or other sound distractions that keep me from being able to read (I read best if it’s quiet, but if it’s loud, sometimes having soothing classical music in my ear will help me concentrate). Anyway, Gail and I have been ripping and collecting some classical music. Hence, the discovery of this website.

Check it out, if you’re interested in classical tunes. I love freebies!

or not to blog, that is the question. 🙂 Well, not really. I’m committed to blogging something each day. It may be a quiz or meme, it may just be a quick thought, or it may be one or more long rambling, verbose, boring posts. You never know.

Today, it’s a rambling blurb about what is and is not going on… click more to read on.

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