Exceedingly Mundane

I really love this menu meme that Laura over at OrgJunkie does each week. Be sure to check out all of the other menus posted this week!

OK, I really don’t have a lot to contribute this week. My husband has to be out of town on business for an undetermined number of days. When he’s not here, I don’t really cook. I’ll eat cereal or oatmeal, or maybe a can of soup, or if I get really industrious, I might microwave me a frozen eggroll!!! 🙄

Monday – Crockpot Chicken Santa Fe over tortilla chips. Yes, I’ve had this on the menu a lot. It’s a favorite go-to meal that I can throw together quickly and easily. But I haven’t made it in a long time, it is always one of those things on the menu that slides. 🙂

Tuesday – Free Night

Wednesday – Free Night

Thursday – TBD… either Free Night, or if Tim gets back from his trip, we’ll probably have spaghetti and meatballs and homemade bread

Friday – TBD … either Free Night, or if Tim is home, we may go out for date night

Sat/Sun – I’m not even going to try to plan. We have ended up eating out a lot on the weekends lately. I’d prefer to be home and cook, but Tim loves to go, go, go and eat out. If we are here, I might make the Taco Soup that I didn’t get to this past weekend

This week’s questions are, once again, from fellow participants! Thanks to all of you for your questions, AND for playing! Have an awesome week! =)

1. From bev:
Small town or big city? Well, I was raised in what I’d call a medium sized city, but I’d probably pick small town over big city.

2. From turtlemoonwave:
Do you have a favorite childhood memory, and if so, would you share it? I remember going to my grandmother’s house. She had a really cool old house, and lots of books, and I had my own big bed to sleep in. She would leave a jar by the bed with some change that she had saved for me. That was a big thing to me. I didn’t get a lot of allowance and any extra money was a huge thing. I loved going there because she would fix me whatever I wanted to eat, and I just loved being with her.

3. From cat:
How do you calm down when something has really upset and/or angered you? Do you swallow it? Call a friend and rant? Go in the bathroom and cry? Punch a wall? Walk around muttering to yourself, complete with scary hand gestures? Hmmm, let’s see… I am more a combo of door slamming, then going into the bathroom to cry. 🙂 I get upset easily, but I usually get over it fairly quickly.

4. From dna princess:
What attracts you to memes?I like the variety and creativity of the questions and subject matter. I like having something to post on my blog on the days when I can’t think of a single thing to write about! And I love visiting other meme participants, and having them visit my blog in return. I’m a sucker for comments 😀

5. From mads:
How reliant are you on computers to get through your day? Good grief, totally. We run our own website, and I have my blog, and I surf a lot. I rely on the Internet to look everything up, from a recipe, to a cleaning suggestion, to read something about an actor on IMBD, to window shop at Amazon, to look up the schedule for a TV show I want to watch, and the list goes on and on. I’m totally lost without my computer and Internet connection

6. From tizzie:
In a crisis, are you calm or do you panic? Probably more on the panic side, although I don’t know if I’ve truly ever been in a crisis. And I hope it stays that way 🙂

I have gotten fairly lax about blogging on the weekends; we just have too much going on 🙂 Sorry!

Let’s see, Friday was a busy day for me. I had a bunch of errands to run, then a big grocery shopping trip. Tim took me out for my belated birthday dinner to the restaurant of my choice – a local Italian place that always has excellent food. We both splurged and picked some delicious entrees. Tim had the special of the day, the chicken and artichoke lasagna and I had the seafood lasagna. Complete with a big salad, fresh loaves of bread with garlic herb butter, then we finished the meal with dessert. I don’t usually splurge on dessert, but I always do on my birthday, preferably tiramisu at an Italian place. This restaurant’s tiramisu is delicious. After dinner, we went to Academy and each got some new walking shoes. We’re hoping to walk more once Beau, the wonder dog, gets off his restrictions on activity that the vet placed him on for 2-3 weeks. Then, we came home and watched 2 of our favorite shows – Battlestar Galactica and Numb3rs. Both good episodes!

Saturday was equally busy. We got up and took Beau for a short walk and took him to the lake in our subdivision for the first time. He nearly choked himself on the leash, trying to go after all of the ducks and geese. I should have taken my camera! We took him over to the little island in the middle of the lake and let him run free, and he had a blast. He tried to dive off in the water after the ducks, but Tim called him back. He loved every minute of it 🙂 Tim helped me plant some pansies after that. I’m about 75% through with flowers… I have a few more pansies to get and plant, and I need to do that soon. I always like to have them planted by Halloween.

Tim left after lunch Saturday afternoon to go play golf with Don, and Gail and I did our regular shopping thing while the guys played. We hit Kohl’s, Hobby Lobby and Target. I bought Beau a couple of things, which I will blog about soon. 🙂

We had dinner out again on Saturday night with Don and Gail before they had to leave to drive back. We all went to Logan’s and it was as good as always. Tim, Don and Gail all had steaks and I was trying really hard to be good and got the grilled salmon. I feel like between all of the eating out and all of the candy that Tim bought me for my birthday (fudge and truffles!), that I’ve gained 6 or 8 pounds in the last 10 days. Plus, Gail brought us a bag of this candy corn mix and it’s ohmygosh good 😀 So, between all the sweets, I’m really dreading my doctor’s visit this week. I hate going period, but now I have to step on the scales and hear about how much weight I’ve gained since I was there last year. Oh woe is me 🙁

Today is a quieter day. I was so grateful for the time change and the extra hour of sleep. We’ve been watching some football today, and unfortunately Tim’s beloved Saints lost. On the bright side, he’s doing well in fantasy football (even though my team is tanking, big time). 🙂 It’s going to be weird to have it get dark so early, but I’m kinda looking forward to it. I am probably one of the only people on the planet that likes it getting dark early 🙂

Hope everyone has had a great weekend

I finished another library book last night (one that is on my Fall Reading Challenge), “Sophie’s Heart” by Christian author Lori Wick. My sister Gail had previously read this book and recommended it to me. She wrote a review of it here on our main site, Hambones.org.

I agree with what Gail wrote. This book is like a modern day fairy tale, told from the Christian perspective. Sophie is a young woman, living in Czechoslovakia with her grandmother. She works as a translator and speaks 5 languages. Her dream is to come to America, which she does. She starts off with a menial job of busing tables in a restaurant in Chicago. She meets a lady at a Bible study group at church, and is introduced to her brother, Alec, a widower who recently lost his wife and is struggling to raise his 3 children alone. Sophie ends up going to work as their housekeeper, and the book follows her life in America. It’s a good book, although a little on the long side (I thought it could have wrapped up a little sooner, but it was still engrossing). My attention span seems to wane after about 325 or 330 pages or so, and this book was 425 pages 🙂

For the record, that makes 62 books read so far this year, with a total of 21,814 pages. Up next is another library book, also on my Fall Challenge List, called “The Reading Group”, by Elizabeth Noble. After that, I’ll try to finish the other books on my challenge list. I have 4 more to go, then I hope to switch to some of the Beverly Lewis books I’ve bought, or the ones that Tim gave me for my birthday. So many books, so little time!

Friday, October 27, 2006
Feast One Hundred & Seventeen

Appetizer
Create a new candle scent. Hmm, I’m not very creative. How about chocolate vanilla caramel swirl? 🙂

Soup
Name one way you show affection to others. Hugs and calling them by a special name or nickname

Salad
What is your favorite writing instrument? Blue pen, fine or medium point. Blue, not black, please 🙄

Main Course
If you were given $25 to spend anywhere online, from which site would you buy? Easy. Amazon.com and I’d get books!

Dessert
Are you dressing up for Halloween? If so, what are you going to be? No dressing up. I might wear a Halloween t-shirt I have to give out candy at the door, depending on the weather.

1. I wonder how long it will be before I cave and dive into the Halloween candy
2. I want to go to Sonic soon and try one of those Strawberry Cheesecake Shakes 😈
3. I have to go to the doctor next week (female kind) and I so hate and dread going. You have no idea. I’m always afraid they’re going to find something else wrong with me
4. I didn’t get my birthday dinner out last week, since we were busy getting our new dog!! So, I hope we can go to eat Italian tomorrow night on Date Night. Complete with Tiramisu for dessert
5. My big goal in life right now is to get our new dog Beau to eat something
6. I’ve been burning the new Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candle that I got for my birthday, and it smells so good!!!
7. I got an iTunes gift card from Tim’s brother and family for my birthday, and I’m having a hard time deciding what music to buy next. 😀 Suggestions?!!
8. I’m out of straightening gel for my hair and need to find a place that sells Pureology… I can get it at my salon but I want to look for another place to get their products
9. I haven’t worn flip flops in two weeks and I’ve stopped painting my toenails. Hoorah!
10. We’ve had several rainy grey days lately, and the hermit in me has just loved them! I still open the blinds for a bit of sunshine, but I love staying home sometimes when it’s dreary out and just hibernating
11. I have some birthday money left … gotta decide how to spend it. Suggestions?!!! 😆
12. I signed up for a Pets Perks card this week at Petsmart… maybe not as exciting as my Borders Rewards card, but not too shabby 😀
13. OK, so I lied. I only have 12 Random Thoughts. Sue me 🙄

We took Beau to the vet this afternoon. We are going to try a different vet than we used for our last dog. I wasn’t totally happy with their care, so we are trying a place called “All Creature Great and Small” – I love that name! There are 4 vets, and we have a very nice female vet for Beau. He did pretty well and got a fairly good report.

It took a while, but they finally tracked down his records from when he was at the shelter (penal farm) and in foster care. It appears that he’s younger than we thought (which explains a lot!). The records said 21 months, but our new vet thought he was even younger than that, maybe a little over a year old. He does have a lot of puppy in him, and he has trouble focusing, so that would help explain that!

They are also a little concerned about his weight. He weighed 45 pounds, and the vet said she expects him to weigh about 60 or 65 when he’s bigger and healthier. As expected, they were not happy with the food we were feeding him. The foster family had warned us he was really picky, and didn’t have much appetite at all. They also said he had been eating Purina dry food mixed with Alpo canned food. The vet’s office, predictably, didn’t want us to feed him Alpo (especially) and Purina (although not as bad as Alpo). They sent us home with some samples of Hill Science Diet dry food. She really thought he would like it, and even opened a pack and tried to get him to eat some from her hand. He wouldn’t touch it! The vet seemed really surprised. I think it’s going to be an uphill struggle to get him to eat. I know I’m in for a battle with Tim over buying him expensive food. Tim is NOT a big believer in the brand names of dog food. We fed our last dog the Walmart brand of Old Roy and he thought that was just fine. He was semi ok with going to Alpo/Purina but he is probably going to fight me on getting Science Diet or Eukanuba as the vet recommended. Anyway, my whole focus right now is to get him to eat. As they said at the vet’s office, we need to find something he likes, a good quality food that has nutrition in it, something with a lot of protein in it and get him fattened up a little.

He has a great coat, and they all said how beautiful he was He had to get a rabies shot. We were told he was “up to date” on all his shots, but apparently the penal farm had given him shots and they can’t give out rabies shots, for whatever reason. So, he’s covered now. They were concerned that he has recently been treated for heart-worms. The foster family never mentioned that, just that he was on heart-worm medicine. She asked how much exercise we were getting him, and after we mentioned he was walking 2 or 4 miles a day, she recommended that we stop that for a while. She wants us to restrict his activity for another 2-3 weeks, in case he has recently been treated for heart-worms. So, we’ll have to ease up on the walking for a while. She said we could take him on shorter walks, but try to limit them to one mile or less. Tim’s not too happy about that either!

I had thought he might have ear mites and so they cleaned his ears out really good. The vet said they were red and infected looking, but after they took a culture and ran a test, we found out it was not ear mites. He apparently has a yeast infection in his ears! She said this, along with his licking and messing with his paws all the time, are both indications of food allergies. Which is very odd to me, but I will be glad to take her word for it. Anyway, they gave us some drops to put in his ears, twice a day, for two weeks to clear that up. Then we bought a bottle of ear rinse to use a few times a month to keep his ears healthy.

We have to go back in a few months for more shots… his records indicated he got his first shots in Jan or Feb of this year, not April as we were led to believe. Hopefully by then, he’ll be looking a lot better and have a little meat on his bones. I just want him to be happy and healthy, and know how much we love him and want to give him a good home. I hope he figures it out soon 😀

Today’s Question of the Day is all about nicknames.

Since we just got Beau a few days ago, we’re trying to teach him his new name. He was referred to as “Sonny Boy” at the foster home where he was living, although he didn’t really respond to it very well. Come to find out, I think our new dog has canine ADD. Do they have that for dogs? 🙂 Maybe he’s still just got a lot of puppy in him, but he doesn’t focus well. He’s all over the place. He has an incredible nose and is always smelling and winding everything. He’s always looking around and he seems to have great senses. But, the downside to that is that he’s not paying that much attention to us. He hasn’t really learned his name yet, but we think he’s starting to get the hang of it. We call him Beau all the time, but we’ve both started to come up with alternate names for him, nicknames really.

Tim’s favorite thing to call him is “Knucklehead”. As in, I’m trying to teach you “sit” or “stay” and you’re not listening, you knucklehead. I have been calling him Bo-Bo, and also sometimes pooper dooper, but we are trying to call him Beau all the time.

Tim has a couple of nicknames for me as well (won’t get into those in this post), and I have a couple that I call him. More terms of endearment than nicknames.

So, that’s today’s “Question of the Day” – do you have nicknames or pet names or terms of endearment for your spouse, your kids, your pets, etc? If so, what are they? How did they come about? I’d love to hear!

OK, in an effort to not talk about food or my new dog, I thought I’d ask another mundane question for today. I was cleaning up in the bathroom and got to thinking about how I store my makeup. Right now, I just have it in a travel bag shoved in one of our bathroom drawers. I guess I got into the habit of doing that years ago, when we traveled more and were often gone on the weekends. It seemed easier to keep it packed up so I could just grab it and go.

So the Question of the Day is – how do you store your make-up? Is it in the bathroom? In a drawer, cabinet, out on the counter? What kind of container(s) do you use to hold things in? Do you keep a separate travel size bag of things ready to go, or do you just pack up your make-up when you leave to go somewhere?

Hope everyone is having a great day… it’s just beautiful here and I’m so loving this weather!

Tim emailed me this, and I thought it was funny! In a redneck, gotta love the South, kind of way! 🙂

“Hello, is this the Sheriff’s Office?”

“Yes. What can I do for you?”

“I’m calling to report ’bout my neighbor Virgil Smith. He’s hidin’ marijuana inside his firewood! Don’t quite know how he gets it inside them logs, but he’s hidin’ it there.”

“Thank you very much for the call, sir.” The next day, the Sheriff’s Deputies descend on Virgil’s house. They search the shed where the firewood is kept. Using axes, they bust open every piece of wood, but find no marijuana. They sneer at Virgil and leave.

Shortly, the phone rings at Virgil’s house. “Hey, Virgil. This here’s Floyd …. did the Sheriff come?”

“Yeah!”

“Did they chop your firewood?”

“Yep!”

“Happy Birthday, buddy!”

(Rednecks know how to git-R-dun)

I hope that this does not turn into a Beau Blog any time soon, but you know that I have to post a few more pictures of our new dog! Lately, my blog has been heavily food-oriented, so maybe this is a welcome change! Either way, I took a lot of pictures of Beau over the weekend, so I just couldn’t resist!

Beau is settling in well, we think. He still has a long way to go on learning his boundaries (tile floor inside, no carpet) and in responding to commands (Sit, Stay, No, Come, Down), but he’s apparently never been trained, so we expect that to take a while. He’s actually responding really well, and he will already do “Sit” for Tim the majority of the time. He isn’t as consistent with me, but that’s ok, since Tim is his master and the authority figure. We expect that once he gets to where it’s automatic with Tim, it will overlap into me or anyone else giving him these commands. He seems to be really smart, so we don’t expect it to be too tough to train him.

Getting him to eat is another story. He doesn’t seem to have any appetite, which the foster people warned us about. I’m having a hard time getting him to consume one can of dog food mixed with two handfuls of dry food over the course of two feedings a day (morning and evening). He just doesn’t seem hungry. He has boundless energy, so he seems fine. He looks really healthy and his coat is incredibly healthy and pretty. His teeth are clean and white, his eyes and ears look good, and he has tons of playfulness in him, but he just doesn’t seem hungry ever. This is my new goal in life, to get Beau to eat and fatten him up a little. I can’t stand seeing his bones sticking out!

OK, here’s some pictures… hopefully in a few days or weeks the Beau-centric posts on this blog will ebb a bit!

Beau Up Close:

Beau, with his tongue hanging out, after playing ball with Tim:

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I really love this menu meme that Laura over at OrgJunkie does each week. I have been planning menus for a while now, but do admit to being a slacker sometimes. Doing this meme has really helped keep me on track! Be sure to check out all of the other menus posted this week!

OK, here’s the general plan for the week. I didn’t realize till I sat down to type it up that we’re having chicken every day!!! It’s a good thing we both really like chicken. I had fish on the menu originally, but we didn’t get to a meal I had planned for Sunday (yesterday), so I’m moving it to today.

Monday – grilled chicken sandwiches with honey mustard, oven fries, coleslaw

Tuesday – Sandra‘s Chicken and Mushroom Stew, brown rice, salad, homemade bread

Wednesday – Light Night before Tim weighs in at work — this week, grilled chicken salad with tons of veggies

Thursday – White Chicken Chili, homemade bread

Friday – Date Night or Sloppy Joe’s

Saturday – Taco Soup or eat out

Sunday – Game Day food… still working on that, probably a Frito Chili Pie and some dip using the new Harry & David relish Tim got me for my birthday!

Well, I had planned to blog today and post more pictures of our new dog Beau. But, life gets in the way of blogging sometimes 🙂 We’ve been staying really busy and I’m fairly tired 😥

My dad came up today, to go to lunch and Sam’s with us, as well as to meet Beau. Beau, predictably, didn’t like him. We think we’ve narrowed it down to men with glasses. Beau has barked at every middle aged or older white male with glasses that he has encountered. We told my dad not to take it personally 😆

We’ve been trying to spend a lot of time with Beau these first couple of days. We’ve played a lot, and taken him walking a whole lot (6 miles so far), and he even got his first bath yesterday. I have a bunch more pictures to post, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I’ll post my menu for the week tomorrow and some cute pictures of Beau

Meet the newest member of our family – Beau!

We went to the foster home yesterday afternoon where Beau (formerly Sonny Boy) has been living for the last several months. The couple there obviously loved Beau, but I think they could tell how much we loved him right away, and that we’d give him a good home. So, we loaded Beau up in the kennel and brought him home!

Beau is about 2 years old and was found at a penal farm in a nearby town. The foster family that rescued him has had him for six months and Beau was used to being with a lot of other dogs, so that may be a bit of an adjustment for him, as he’ll be an only dog and an only child here. But, we think he’s going to enjoy it quite a bit!

Beau is very skinny and seems to not be very hungry. We’re going to definitely work on that. 🙂 He’s a little hyper, but he’s already calming down and is settling in very well to his new surroundings. Beau has already learned about the leash and is not jumping as much as he was when we first met him. He’s very lovable, and loves for us to pet him and play with him. Beau doesn’t seem to be very used to staying in a house, so we think he’s probably been an outside dog most of his life. He will have the kitchen, laundry room and breakfast room for his inside space (areas where there is tile, not carpet). He’s already learning his boundaries and that he’s not supposed to come into the rest of the house, even though we go there. He’s crate trained and pretty much house trained from what we can tell. We keep offering for him to go outside and he’s been going to the bathroom outside so far, and we’ve had no accidents, which is good! He went to the door last night one time to let me know he needed to go out, so I hope that’s going to work well. I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Beau seems to have a lot of natural instincts and Tim thinks he would make a great hunting dog. He has the natural retrieving instinct, as we had hoped. We were tossing a toy to him last night and he got it and bounded back with it to start it all over again. 🙂

Beau did really well his first night. He whimpered once or twice then we didn’t hear a peep out of him the rest of the night. We are going to keep chairs up in the doorway so he learns to stay in the kitchen at night and not roam around the house. He did great last night, and was so excited to see us get up this morning! We took him for a long walk (our regular 2 mile walk we do in our subdivision) and he, of course, LOVED that! He’s going to have a great time going on walks, which will be good for him and good for us.

We have a lot of work to do with Beau, but I think he’s going to make a wonderful addition to our little family. He seems to be a good dog and very smart, so I think we will have him trained in no time. He is already responding to his new name, as well as the other things we are teaching him.

Oh, and we’ve learned a couple of other things about Beau. #1, he doesn’t like cats. At all! He barks and growls and wants to tear them apart. We had a cat on our back deck this morning and Beau starting barking like an intruder was in the house. He should make a great watchdog! #2, Beau doesn’t seem to like males, either canine or human! He loves Tim, but we’ve introduced him to two of our neighbors and while he loves the women and goes right to them, he’s barked or growled at the men. Same for male dogs. He encountered a female dog on our walk and he was fine, just attentive. A male dog made him bark though.

OK, click the extended entry to see a few more pictures. Warning, there will be plenty of pictures of Beau posted on this blog in the future!!!
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I’ve blogged before about making homemade bread. My sister Gail brought me some sourdough starter earlier in the year, and I’ve gotten into a routine of making bread for us once a week ever since then. I have only bought one loaf of store-bought bread since then, and that’s when we got back from vacation, before I had a chance to make bread. The sourdough starter she brought me uses potato flakes, and we really like it. I try to make it a little healthier by using some wheat flour mixed with the white bread flour. Currently, I’m using 1/3 wheat to 2/3 white. I am probably kidding myself that it’s better for us, but hey, I try 😀

Anyway, I started using my Kitchenaid mixer with the dough hook to mix the dough, and I really love doing that. I won’t go back to mixing the dough by hand and with a wooden spoon. The mixer does all the work for me and just makes it so much easier. I have also bought 2 nice Calphalon metal loaf pans, and I think they are working out better than the Kitchenaid silicone bread pans I was using.

I baked bread last night and when the loaves came out of the oven, Tim said “Wow! I think those are the best loaves yet!” And then he said, “You should take a picture of them” 😀 So, I had to take a picture!!! We sprayed the tops with some fat free butter spray right after they came out, and then took a couple of pictures. We were both pretty proud of the bread this week 🙄

P.S. I love making bread all year round, but I really love it this time of year. There’s something very comforting to me about smelling bread baking in the oven and eating it hot out of the oven, with butter spread on it. (Something very fattening about it to). I want to get my bread machine out and make different kinds of bread and dough, and branch out and make some other breads, but Tim is adamant about me sticking to this sourdough recipe. He loves his bread and every time I bring up trying something else, he will say “you can make you some other bread if you want, but I just want the sourdough” 😀