Exceedingly Mundane

Some more things going on around here… mostly just for me and my poor memory!

June actually seemed to go by pretty quick. Now July is here, and typically, July and August are my least favorite months of the year. BY FAR! I will be so glad when September gets here! Holidays, football, birthdays, September through New Years is my most favorite time of the year!

* Tim got the stove installed early on (it was ready for me to use on Saturday June 8), and I quickly began work on christening it. The first thing I used the oven for was homemade pizza. I have had to learn to use the smooth top ceramic burners, but I think I have it figured out now. They seem to take longer to heat up, but boy once they do, they stay warm. I made sloppy joes for Tim a couple of weeks later, and my recipe calls for simmering the mixture for 20 minutes. Once I got the mixture to a boil, then lowered to low, it was more than a simmer. I actually had to turn the burner off for a few minutes, just so it wasn’t bubbling furiously 🙂 I really like it though, and have been using it a lot. It’s so much better for baking things. Before, when I’d bake cookies, brownies, bread, etc, I’d get uneven results. Sometimes things would be overdone on the outside and still doughy in the middle. Now, I get a very even bake. I don’t think the oven is technically convection, but it does have a fan in the back, and I hear it running even after I’ve turned the stove off. It’s a Whirlpool Gold with Accubake, and Tim says that means it is convection. Whatever it is, it sure is a heck of a lot better than my 20 year old stove!

* I’ve also pulled out my Cuisinart ice cream maker and made a couple of batches of ice cream. Nothing like homemade fudgy brownies and homemade vanilla ice cream in the evenings!

* In spite of the new stove, we’ve still been eating out occasionally. We sometimes go to Corner Bakery after church on Sunday mornings. A couple of weeks ago, we broke out of our routine and got crazy and went to IHOP! We still enjoy going to the little Mexican place by our house, Cazadores. We went last Saturday night, and Tim got something new, the paradilla (spelled??) platter. Basically a huge platter, like a fajita skillet but not sizzling, filled with all kinds of meat. Chicken, beef, shrimp, chorizo, short ribs, pork, lots of stuff. It was really good. He brought home two take out containers of meat and fixings, and got several more meals out of it! We’ve been doing a Friday night date night at home a couple of weekends in June. One Friday night we went to Pizza Hut and got pizza, and came home to watch tv. Another night we ordered Five Guys over the Internet and ran in to pick it up. Nothing like greasy fast food on a Friday night!

* I read about 18 books in June! That might be a new record for me! I am still using GoodReads to track what I read. I’m doing really good this year and hope to read close to 100 books. My all time high is 104, which works out to 2 books per week, at 52 weeks a year. It would be nice if I broke that record, but I probably won’t make it. Of the books I read in June, my favorites were probably the 3 books in the French Twist series by Sandra Byrd (Chrisitan chick-lit) and my least favorite, I nearly abandoned, and wished I had. I got a digital download from the library of Wedding Night by Sophie Kinsella and I disliked it quite a bit 🙁

* Also in June, Tim played a lot of golf! On the first day of the month, a Saturday, he went with some golfing buddies over to a course in Louisiana called Black Bear. He had a really good time, but I had a long day. I think he was gone about 11 or 12 hours. He also played with his buddies on two Saturday mornings at 7:22. Nothing like getting up early on our one day to sleep in!

* Tim also helped our neighbor Ms Maridine with her computer, and also with the locks on her house. We saw her quite a bit and she took us out to lunch at the Strawberry Cafe to say thank you to Tim for all his hard work. We went over and helped Elizabeth one night at her new house. We took Fred with us on Father’s Day to Linda’s house, so we could visit with Tim’s dad on Father’s Day. We had a nice visit that day, and Fred enjoyed the trip. Also, I took Fred to see the new pulmonologist Dr. Westbrook twice, on two Mondays in June. He has one more appointment (I hope!) on July 15th. We also went on June 30th to a get-together at Tim’s Aunt Annie Myrl’s house. Mitchell’s sister in law Mary and her daughter Cheryl were here from New Mexico. I don’t think I had ever met them, so we went to visit and catch up with Tim’s dad’s side of the family. We had a really nice time 🙂

Let’s see… there’s probably more that happened in June, but that was the highlights. And of course, the anniversary of my mom’s passing, it was eleven years this June. And Fred closed out on his house around the end of the month. House paperwork and errands kept us busy for a while, but thankfully we did everything remote and didn’t have to make a trip to Hattiesburg.

We have the annual Fourth of July get-together at Tim’s Aunt Becky’s house tomorrow. We’ll go down, and take Fred, he enjoys going with us every year on the Fourth. I made brownies to take, as usual. Maybe one day I’ll get brave and take something new!

I’ll try to update more often, wanna keep up with all what we are doing and what’s going on. Even though I do stuff on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, I think the old blog is still the best venue for keeping track of the little and big stuff. Here’s hoping I can do better in the future 🙂 I’m sporadic, at best, these days, LOL!

I want to blog, I actually have time to blog, I just can’t seem to get motivated! Then, I realize that so much is going on, and I’m not getting it recorded in any way. And my memory is so bad, I know I won’t remember stuff and everything that is going on if I don’t write it down or take pictures or even better, blog about it!

This has been an eventful year for us. First my dad fell for the third time in February and that started a long chain of events. Then we lost Beau in March. Sigh. On my dad’s stuff, we’ve already gotten a lot accomplished on that front. We moved him in February close to us, we’ve emptied his house, updated it, listed it and now sold it. The papers were done last week and he received his check on Friday. That was sort of sad. Even though it wasn’t the house I grew up in, my parents lived there for 21 years (well, my mom about 10 of those and my dad all 21). Last week marked eleven years since my mom died.

Tim stays busy this time of year, as always. He works from 7AM to 4PM and then leaves for the golf course almost every day. He gets in around 9 PM right now, while the days are still long. I always struggle through July and August, they are definitely the two hardest months of the year for me. They are hot, they are long, and there is just nothing going on. Tim plays golf and I wait for football season to start! LOL!

Other than the stuff going on with my dad, we haven’t done a lot. No vacations and it doesn’t look like we will go anywhere this year. I want to get another dog, but Tim does not. We’ve looked at moving to a new house, now that my dad is settled, but we haven’t done anything on that front yet either. We did finally get a new stove here at our house, Tim ordered it online from Lowe’s on a Memorial Day sale. It was delivered in early June and Tim spent two days, cutting cabinets and countertops and putting in the new stove and vent hood. The stove and oven, I love! I’m enjoying learning to use the smooth top and the oven portion is a ton better! It still heats up my kitchen, which is awful this time of year, but oh well. I just tend to use my crockpot and griddler more this time of year anyway.

I am still going through spurts of trying new recipes, versus cooking old favorites, versus just not feeling like cooking at all! Tim, thankfully, usually takes us out to eat once or twice a week, usually on the weekends, so that gives me a nice break. Maybe if I find more motivation, I can blog more about the recipes I’ve tried and even the books I’ve read! For another day 🙂

Another block of time has passed since I was able to update the ole blog. Let’s see…

I spent all of last week getting ready for the garage sale for my dad. We had gone down and filled up a UHaul with the remainder of items from his house. It’s empty now. We had the garage sale last Saturday. We put out a few things we had here to donate, and actually made almost $100 for us, in addition to all the stuff we sold for my dad. What didn’t sell, we boxed up to donate. And we took 6 or 7 bags of books to the library to donate. I had gone through and cleaned out three bookshelves and put them out to try to sell. Only 5 or 6 books sold, 3 of them being my mom’s old “Bell’s Best” cookbooks. Oh well. I read almost exclusively on my digital readers (stand-alone Kindle or Kindle app on my iPad), so I felt like I should get rid of a lot of books.

Saturday was the garage sale, and then last Sunday, we went over to see my father-in-law. My dad went with us, and all of Tim’s family was there to celebrate Mitchell’s big day (a couple of days late!). We had steaks with all the trimmings, and cake with strawberries and whipped cream, and a great time visiting. We got to meet Brittany’s new boyfriend and even see Zack, so it was a good trip.

This week flew by. I started this post on Monday and attempted to work on it on Wednesday, but never got very far. I actually deleted it by mistake, so I had to start over!

Wednesday, Tim went to Zack’s district golf tournament, held at Tim’s home golf course, and drumroll please… Zack won! So he will get to go back to the state tournament to defend his 3A golf champion title again this year as a junior! Tim and Mitchell went to cheer him on, and Tim was so very proud of him! I imagine he’ll have a much bigger gallery at the state tournament in a couple of weeks 😀

I went Wednesday afternoon to visit with my dad, pick up a couple of things for him at Walmart, stop by the library to get a book for me (Six Years by Harlan Coben) and a couple of movies for us to watch (Argo and Snow White and the Huntsman for Tim, and IronMan 2 for both of us, as a refresher before we go see the new one in May). I also ran to Sam’s Club and made a big run on household stuff. Thursday, Gail came down and we all went over to Ridgeland Pointe for “Family Night”. Basically, we visited with my dad in his room for a bit, then went down to the dining room and had dinner with him. Tim came home starving and had to eat again! LOL! He said, he could never live there, they don’t feed you enough, hahaha! I noticed that both my dad and the nice resident, Ms Myrtis that we shared a table with, neither of them ate much at all. I guess by the time you hit your 80’s and 90’s, you don’t eat as much as we do now, LOL!

Today (Friday) was spent on the road. We picked up Dad this morning and went to Hattiesburg to meet with a realtor. Tim had talked to her several times and emailed a bunch, and told my dad that he was pretty satisfied with her. So we met her at the house, went over a ton of things, and signed a contract for her to sell the house. She is going to have to oversee a ton of work (cleaners, painters, people to replace fixtures, install new appliances, etc) and then put it on the market. She hopes to have it sold in 3-4 months, but we signed a 6 month contract. I hope it sells then! At least there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel – we’ve moved my dad, got him new doctors, got him settled at his new “apartment”, gone to the house to get items for family members, sold furniture, and moved everything else out to sell. The house is empty now, and ready to be cleaned and gotten ready to sell. We’ve come a long way since February 15!

Tim has a busy weekend ahead – two tee times at the golf course, and a busy night of work this weekend. Me, I hope to catch up on some shows on the DVR, do laundry, read and maybe even watch a Harry Potter movie 🙂

P.S. I don’t often talk about current events here on my blog, but this has been a very news-worthy week. The bombings at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, then the huge explosion at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas. So much sadness and sorrow 🙁

* I made progress today. I walked for the first time, by myself, without Beau. It was a sad walk, but I finally forced myself to get out and go. 3.3 miles, so at least I didn’t wimp out after the first mile 😀

* Had to make an emergency run up to the assisted living place to check on my dad this morning. More health issues, this time, thankfully nothing very serious. I guess being around so many more people than he was before (he lived alone and rarely saw anyone other than the checkers at Walmart), seems to be making him sicker.

* I’m currently decalcifying (is that how you spell that silly word?!) the coffee pot for Tim. I made myself some coffee once or twice in the last week (I use a different coffee maker that is stored in the garage, an el cheapo Mr Coffee from Walmart)… I imagine that will be the last coffee I make at home until fall and winter rolls around again. Tim, however, drinks it 365 days a year, so we have to clean his coffee maker fairly often.

* Getting warm, I guess spring is finally here. Supposed to be 80 degrees today.

* Current book I’m reading: on my Kindle, a cozy I downloaded from my library’s website called “A Slice of Murder” by Chris Cavender. So far, it’s a pretty good little cozy mystery 🙂

* Trying to work on a menu for the week, I think I’ll do stir fry tonight, get Tim to grill burgers tomorrow and do fish Wednesday or Thursday. Tim hasn’t opened up the grill in months. There might be small creatures nesting and living in there. He doesn’t grill much any more. He says he needs a new grill and he probably does. I bought myself a Cuisinart Griddler last fall, to use inside, with some of my Swagbucks winnings that I redeemed for Amazon gift cards. I’ve been using it a lot, but have yet to try to grill burgers on it.

* Also, obviously, trying to get back into the swing of blogging. I read through quite a few old posts yesterday, I was missing my Beau baby something fierce, and started reading and looking at pictures of him. It made me miss “the old days”, when I used to blog regularly. These days, with Facebook, Pinterest, GoodReads, my iPad and everything else, I rarely find time to blog. Trying, yet again, to work on that 🙂

* OK, time to finish cleaning up the house, work on unpacking some things for the garage sale of my dad’s stuff, and then time to cook supper!

Well, I have now experienced the phenomenon of cleaning out your parents house. We went to Hattiesburg yesterday for another trip, with another UHaul. This time, we cleaned out every last thing from my parents house. My sisters and I had done some cleaning out of my mom’s things about a year or so after she passed away (it will be 11 years this June, goodness gracious). And now since we’ve moved my dad into the assisted living place near our house, we have been working at whittling down the remainder of the contents of their house. We took everything to his new “apartment” as we call it, that we thought he wanted or needed. My sisters and their kids have gotten everything that they want out, we’ve sold some furniture and big items to some extended family, and now we’re down to the last set of items. I swore years ago I would never have another garage sale, but you know what they say about never saying never… LOL!

So, yesterday was another long day, about 14 hours in all, and this week will be a lot of prep work. Everything that I spent all day yesterday packing, has to be unpacked and setup and priced for the garage sale. Thankfully, we had most of the big pieces out, so there was very little furniture to haul. It’s just down to kitchen stuff, linens, old clothes, etc. I wonder what kind of prices to put on things these days. I don’t have garage or yard sales and don’t go to them, so I don’t have any idea what people sell these kinds of things for today.

Get this – we found 2 or 3 film cameras, and he was like, sell those. I softly told him, Daddy, today people have digital cameras and cell phones for taking photos! LOL!

Anyway, we have the house empty, so we can now move forward with trying to clean it up, getting it painted, cleaning or replacing carpets, listing with a realtor, etc. It’s such a big job. And in so many ways, it’s so hard. Even though this wasn’t the house I grew up in, my parents lived there for many years, my dad about 21 in all, 10 of those with my mom. All of their earthly belongings have been divvied up and sent to various family and friends, and the rest of it is sitting in my garage, waiting to be paraded out to strangers, to sell for little or nothing. There’s something so inherently sad in that, the end of things, the summation of a life.

Yes, I’m obviously a bit melancholy with this post, please forgive me. I still miss my Beau so much. Yesterday was one month since we lost him, and I still miss him so.

On to bigger and better things, but first, a lot of work to do with this garage sale!

Well, it was three weeks ago yesterday that we lost my precious dog, Beau. I still miss him terribly. He was so very loved. I talk about him all the time, and I think Tim is tired of it. I have looked on PetFinder and found a dog in a nearby shelter that I want to go see, he reminds me of Beau. But Tim is not ready. He wants to rebuild the fence. He wants to work in the yard. He says a dog will tie us down while we go back and forth to work on my dad’s house, cleaning it out and getting it ready to sell. We can’t go on vacation at the drop of a hat if we have a dog. He has a hundred reasons, but I just want a new dog to fill the humungous hole left in my heart by having my Beau go so fast and so suddenly. Sigh. I know he’s right, but still. I want my Beau back, or I want a new puppy to love.

It was three years ago this morning that I woke up with tinnitus. I hear it now, screeching away. I’m grateful that I hear it, and I hope that I never lose my hearing. I’ve learned to live with it, most of the time. I can now sleep most nights, although there are times when I wake up, hear it, and can’t get back to sleep. I’d like to think that’s part of the whole middle age insomnia thing. I know I’ll have tinnitus as long as I’m on this earth, but I have learned to be ok with that.

It’s been three days since I’ve seen my dad. That’s the longest he’s gone since we moved him up here in mid-February. It’s still been an ongoing thing with him. He can’t seem to catch a break. First was the kidney infection, dehydration that caused his fall. Then after we moved him into the assisted living facility, he was starting to get better, and he got a bad stomach virus. They shut the whole place down for several days until they could get everyone semi-healthy. Then he got an upper respiratory infection. Then, my sister Gail and I took him to the eye doctor for a steroid shot in his eye (an ongoing thing, he’s been seeing a retina specialist for about 18 months). The shot seemed to have gone ok (it’s an implant thing, a one time only thing, thank goodness), but he scratched his eye with the gauze patch they put on. So, a corneal abrasion necessitated 3 more trips back to the doctor to get his eye checked and repatched. He had a patch on his eye for about 5 days and he was so tired of it, and I don’t blame him. Now, the home health nurse says he is probably anemic. We just can’t seem to get him well and feeling better. I’ve stayed away this week, giving him time to feel better and try to get settled in. We think he’s in a great place, they have lots of activities and things for the residents to do, but my dad is not a social person. He has no interest in bingo, or card games, or movies or chapel or devotions, or going on the trips they schedule, or any of the other activities they plan. I keep hoping he will, but so far, he’s just not interested. He is getting therapy about 4 times a week, 2 times OT and 2 times for PT, which should help him. And he does get out of his room some, and go sit in the lobby and people watch, which most of the residents do, LOL!

Easter is this weekend, really early this year. We’ve had cold weather all week, very unusual for us this late in March. 29 at night and 50’s during the day have been awesome. I’ve worn my thick hoodies, snuggled under a big quilt at night, drunk hot tea and coffee and cocoa, trying to milk what last little bit I can out of winter. Spring is coming, and Tim will be gone a lot playing golf. He ordered a new bag and it came in today, so he’s really pumped up to get back to playing. He’s been doing P90X since right before Christmas and he’s doing great. He’s down nearly 25 pounds and looks very slim to me. He still says he has a long way to go, and I keep telling him, if he loses much more, he’ll be thinner than me! LOL! 😀

So much has been going on lately. My dad fell in mid-February, which started a cascading set of events. We went down, took him to the doctor, the ER and then stayed while he was in the hospital overnight. We brought him home with us, and less than a week later, we had moved him into an assisted living facility 10 minutes from our house. That was about 3 1/2 weeks ago.

This past week, I thought things were getting better. I had been telling Beau that soon, things would get back to normal. Soon, we would be able to start back walking, me and Beau. Soon the time would change (it did today), which means that Tim would start back playing golf, so that Beau and I could hang out more while Tim was gone. We go on walks, we go out back and play, he chases squirrels, we read together on the glider, we hang out on the deck and talk, and on and on and on. Beau was my constant companion, and especially all of the times while Tim is gone, he is my best friend, my comfort and my security.

Tuesday, he was out back playing, chasing squirrels. Tim was cutting down the last of the tree in the backyard, so he had to go behind the fence for his squirrel obsession. He seemed fine. Wednesday morning, we got up and he seemed really lethargic. He didn’t want to eat or drink and just wanted to rest. He seemed restless, not staying on his bed, but wanting to move some, and he never could seem to find a comfortable place to stay long. He had been sick the previous week, not eating and then throwing up, but he had gotten back to normal, or so we thought. Wednesday, early afternoon, I went to see my dad and do things for him (errands, paperwork, bill paying, visiting, etc). I left late afternoon, telling Dad that I needed to go check on Beau, that he wasn’t feeling great. By the time I got home, I could tell that Beau was not doing well. His eyes looked like he was in pain, and he could barely raise his head. I called for Tim, and we couldn’t get him to get up, he was so weak. We called the vet and ran him over. Tim and some of the vet helpers helped carry him in on his bed. They checked him out, and a few minutes later, they told us after the doctors looked at him and ran some tests, that he was in very bad shape. His belly was full of blood, from either a tumor on his spleen that had ruptured, or his actual spleen had ruptured. They didn’t think he was strong enough to survive surgery, and we made the most difficult decision, to let them end his suffering and go to sleep. We brought him home and buried him out back, where he had been playing less than 24 hours before.

My heart is broken into a million tiny pieces. I miss my baby. We should have had so much more time with my Beau baby. We only had him 6 1/2 years, but we loved him every single second of every single day since we rescued him. I see him, hear him … everywhere. I look for him constantly. I think of him constantly. We went through this when we lost our Sally girl, so I know that I will get better in time. But right now, it’s the toughest part. I miss him so, and just want him back.

My darling Beau, I hope heaven is full of squirrels and lizards and squeaky toys and your favorite treats. I hope you’re happy and at peace. Know that we love you and miss you. Now and always.

Yes, I’ve been away from my old blog for another long while. I miss it sometimes, but just never seem to think about sitting down and writing a blog entry.

I needed to look something up again, today, so of course I turned to my blog. It is great for looking back to see what we did, where we went, what we bought, etc. I miss that, and the interaction with my blog friends who used to come by and visit regularly, the most.

Anyway. I was reading some old entries and found it interesting to read about tv shows we watched, books I had read, meals I had cooked, etc. I thought I’d do a little of that right now:

I’m still using GoodReads to keep up with the books I read. Last year (2012), I read a total of 94 books, which is probably the second most since I’ve been keeping track of how many books I read per year. This year, I hope to read at least 60-70. So far, I’m off to a good start. I’ve read 6 so far this year:

1. The Homecoming by Dan Walsh (sequel to The Unfinished Gift, which I read right before New Years)
2. The Lady of Milkweed Manor by Julie Klassen
3. A Time to Love (Quilts of Lancaster County #1) by Barbara Cameron
4. The Negotiator (O’Malley #1) by Dee Henderson
5. A Time to Heal (Quilts of Lancaster County #2) by Barbara Cameron
6. False Pretenses by Kathy Herman

Almost finished with The Girl in the Gatehouse, also by Julie Klassen. Not sure what I’ll read next.

Tonight is the Super Bowl. We’re not having a party this year. We had them regularly until 2009, the year the Saints went to, and won, their Super Bowl. We haven’t had one since and I’m ok with suspending them. A lot of food, a lot of people, and you never really get to watch the game and commercials with a house full of adults and kids. They were fun, don’t get me wrong, but I think I’ve just moved on from having them.

Tim and I will watch the game tonight, just us. I’m not rooting for either the San Francisco 49’ers or the Baltimore Ravens. I’m just glad the Super Bowl is in New Orleans. Wish the Saints had not had “Bountygate” all year and had made it. Maybe next year 🙂 We were going to do ribs in the smoker, but Tim decided that would make a lot and have a lot left over. So, he’s going to grill a few brats, and we’ll have those with sauerkraut, some home fries and salad. He’s still doing his healthy eating thing. He’s down 16 pounds since he started in December and looks really trim to me 🙂 He was doing P90X daily until he hurt his leg, jogging with Beau last week.

My shoulder is still hurting. I’m trying to do some stretching exercises and procrastinating on going to see the doctor. Boo.

Ok, enough updating for now. Maybe more later, maybe not 🙂

Well, the last 10 days or so, since my last post, have gone by in a blur. I’d like to say that I had something fun and exciting to report, but alas, I do not. We’ve just been busy with life. Tim is busy with work, and we’ve both been watching tv, watching movies, reading books, ordering Christmas presents online, etc. Tim has played golf a couple of times in the last few days, since the weather has warmed back up. 70’s during the day and 50’s at night do NOT feel like Christmas to me, but Tim thinks that is great golf weather, LOL!

Let’s see, last weekend, we watched a bunch of movies, mostly on the DVR that I had recorded from a free preview weekend. We watched “Contagion” with Matt Damon, “Tower Heist” with Ben Stiller, “This Means War” with Reese Witherspoon and Chris Pine, and Tim also watched Contraband with Mark Wahlberg. It was nice to get those free while Uverse offered a free weekend of HBO and Cinemax. I tried to watch one of my Harry Potter blu-rays a few days ago, but the blu-ray player is messed up again. Tim had trouble with it before, with the audio, so he re-wired some stuff. Now, the audio works great, but no picture coming from the blu-ray to the TV. Blah.

Brittany had a birthday a couple of days ago. I cannot believe that girl is 19 years old already. She was two when Tim and I got married and lots of days I still think she must still be a little girl 🙂 She’s all grown up though, we just miss seeing her and her brother and their cousins.

Tim has been working some lately on our web camera. He’s got a recorder set up for it now, onto Hambones. I like being able to pop it up and see what’s going on outside and see who’s at the door! Now, he can record the events to disk, in case we need them for any reason. Nice 🙂

I need to get busy with wrapping Christmas presents and doing cards. I think this may be my last year for cards. We don’t do pictures of us or Beau or anything fun, and I don’t really know if it means much for others to just receive a card that I sign. I just do so much online now, that doing anything in the mail seems like a waste these days, LOL!

I’m enjoying having my Snow Village and tree lighted up all day and most of the night. I always miss them when we take them down in late December, it always seems empty after enjoying them for a month!

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, and another day filled with family and food 🙂

Wednesday was busy. I got my hair cut and highlighted in the morning, and also went to Kroger to pick up a few last things. We smoked a turkey this year, since Tim got his smoker last year for Christmas. We also put some sweet potatoes in there, but didn’t end up eating them, since Gail and Elizabeth brought sweet potato casserole. We also had appetizers (pickles, olives, cheese and crackers), bread with chive butter, green bean bundles, broccoli casserole, dressing and cranberry sauce. Gail made an apple cranberry crumble and I made a frozen apple cheesecake pie, but both Elizabeth and David commented that next year they wanted pumpkin pie! So the regular food went over better than dessert 🙂

Daddy came, just for the day. Everyone else stayed till late. Tim and I, along with Gail, David and Elizabeth all went to the first ever early Thanksgiving Black Friday sale at Walmart on Thursday night, starting at 8 PM. I wanted the Harry Potter movies on either DVD or Blu-Ray, and Elizabeth wanted the three Potter movies she didn’t have. We got the movies and got back home in about an hour, so a really good experience!

Gail and Don stayed both Thursday and Friday night, and we had a great time hanging out with them. Friday, we all went to see SkyFall, the new James Bond movie (which was really good!), and also went to Lowe’s and Walmart. We ate out twice, lunch at Corner Bakery and supper at Majestic Burger. All delicious 🙂

Saturday, Don and Gail left after lunch, and Tim and I started getting out Christmas decorations. Tim put out my garland, both front and back, and also the lighted trees out front. I put out my Snow Village, and Tim got out the tree and plugged it in, only to find that a whole bunch of the pre-lit sections were not lighting up. So, I wanted to just put lights on it and keep going, but Tim wanted a new tree, so off to Lowe’s we go. He picked out a new tree, and when we got it home, I realized it was smaller than our previous one. It’s just not very wide and full, it’s sort of pencil shaped, which I did not want. But I didn’t want to pack it back up and take it back, so it’s staying up. I’m slowly getting used to the smaller size, so I think it will be ok in the long run! 🙂

Monday, we both had our doctor’s appointments. Mine was a normal visit, but this was Tim’s first time to see a regular doctor since we’ve been married. All of his numbers were good, except his blood pressure was a bit high. So, we’re going to work on diet and try to exercise more and hope to get it under control without medication.

My best intentions about blogging more regularly appear to be sliding yet again!

So, a few thoughts about what we’ve been doing and a few other things.

Weekends continue to be busy, while the weekdays are filled with the same ole-same ole, and yet fly by equally fast. Last weekend, we watched some movies (two I got at the library: The Debt and One for the Money), and also watched some football and stuff on the DVR. We ate out at a new-to-us place, Kent’s Cajun Kitchen. It was delicious, a bit overpriced, but good food. Tim played golf, so the weekend flew by.

This weekend is more of the same. Tim won’t be playing golf because he hurt his back again (this time helping me, he was getting the Christmas dishes out of the attic for me, in time to use for Thanksgiving). We had plans for the weekend, but they got tabled due to his back. So, we’re hanging out at home and watching more movies, football, tv, etc. I’ve been making regular trips to the library (2 more movies: Cowboys & Aliens and Joyful Noise) and I also checked out some “real” books. I read two of them (Inn at Rose Harbor by Debbie Macomber and The Hidden Flame by Davis Bunn and Janette Oke). I have one more book, but Tim wanted to read it (The Rook by Stephen James), so I’m happily back reading on my Kindle. I much prefer my electronic devices to read on.

OK, a few bullets!

* Football season is flying by. Sigh. The Eagles are 0-10 (worst record in college football), and it’s time for our new coach to leave. The Saints are doing better, 4-5, and hopefully on a upswing. I hate to see football season closer to the end than the beginning.

* Thanksgiving is this week. Lots to do! We’re going to do the turkey in Tim’s new smoker. Lots of the other regular sides (dressing, cranberry sauce, green beans, broccoli casserole, bread, etc)

* Yesterday would have been my mom’s 88th birthday. I still miss her every day.

* Tim’s birthday is coming up, and once again, I don’t have a clue as to what to get him!

* We both go to the doctor soon. Ugh. At least Tim is going, for the first time since we’ve been married. So glad he’s going to go get things checked on, and find out about his blood pressure, cholesterol, etc.

* Madison opened up a Christmas on Ice yesterday, through the first week of January. Looking forward to going soon! I won’t get on the ice rink, but will enjoy the music and the Scripture trail.

* My new favorite snack: Chobani Vanilla Chocolate Chunk. Bummed that I can’t find it at Kroger and have to trek to the Walmart to get it. But trek I do, that stuff is sooo good!

* I used up a bunch of my Swagbucks and Amazon gift cards and ordered myself a Cuisinart griddler, and also got the waffle plates. I’ve been having fun using it, I’ve done paninis, grilled salmon and made waffles. So far I love it 🙂

* I’m in denial, as usual, as to how close Christmas really is. I have no idea of what to get anyone. It seems to get harder and harder each year. Everyone just seems to have anything they might want or need.

* The nights are getting cold, and we actually had to start turning on the heat for a bit in the mornings, last week. When it gets down in the 30’s the house cools off enough to need it in the AM. Also, I’m back to enjoying hot tea and some decaf coffee in the mornings. Extra calories, but oh so good!

Today is election day in our country, incumbent Barack Obama against Republican governor Mitt Romney. We got out and voted this morning, and it only took a few minutes. There are reports that there are long lines, a few here in our state and a lot more across the country. Hoping for a good outcome!

David was here all last week, hanging out and visiting friends in Jackson. He stayed with us from Monday-Saturday. Wednesday night was Halloween and we had a great time this year! Kathryn and Jeremy came and brought Katelyn and Sam. Katelyn was a witch this year, and Sam was Captain America! Tony and Stephanie brought the twins, Leila and Rylan, and also Ramsey, and Jackie came too. Jackie stayed here and gave our candy for us while we went out, in two shifts (the older kids got here earlier and headed out first). Leila was a mouse and Rylan was a dragon. They’re just two, but got the hang of saying thank you and bye quickly, and Rylan starting having too much fun ringing doorbells! I made witches brew and vampire juice (both punch drinks), mummy dogs, witches brooms and taco soup for the adults. Tim and I had a great time, and we hope everyone else did too!

We went out and ran errands Friday night, and then picked up Chick-Fil-A on the way home. Such is date night sometimes around here, aren’t we exciting?! 🙂 Saturday, we ended up vegging. Stayed home and watched movies, popped popcorn, ordered pizza and caught up on stuff on the DVR. Sunday was church, and we dropped off our Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. They have some missions speakers for the next couple of weeks, so no new series at church.

Sunday the time changed, so we got that extra hour back. It was awesome, probably my favorite day of the year, hahaha! Sunday afternoon, I went grocery shopping, and Tim stayed home to watch football. I was shocked, Saturday and Sunday, daylight, no rain, and he didn’t even venture towards the golf course 🙂 He’ll slack off until early spring and then go back hot and heavy, I’m sure!

Sunday night, I made steak sandwiches and Monday I made a new soup, sausage and kale with white beans. Today we’re making a practice run for Thanksgiving, trying our first turkey in the new smoker that I gave Tim for Christmas last year. We’ve tried chickens, ribs and pork tenderloins in it this year, and they’ve all come out delicious. I’m hoping the turkeys will too. We could buy a larger container for our propane thing and he could deep fry them, but I’m thinking the smoke flavor will be great, so I’m hoping it comes out. We’ll be able to do turkeys for Thanksgiving and Christmas to take to family get-togethers. We’ll need to try a ham soon 🙂

Monday morning we got up and walked, back to our normal morning schedule, now that it’s light in the AM and not pitch black dark. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to walk in the AM. It’s been in the 40’s, and later this week, it’s supposed to be in the 30’s overnight. I don’t want to get sick, so we usually walk during Tim’s lunch break when it’s really cold in the AM. Tim got on the treadmill Monday afternoon, he says he’s going to do that again this winter. He tried to guilt me into getting on, but I fought that with all I had 😀

Today is election day. We’ll probably watch some of the results come in tonight, as well as some stuff on the DVR. Just another blessed day around here!

Last Monday (Oct 22), it was time for Beau’s yearly visit to the vet. He’s so cute, I tell him we’re going to see the doctor and he hides his head in his bed and doesn’t want to get up. I finally coaxed him into going with me, and he had a good trip. He’s happy, and healthy, and hopefully will be with us a while longer. We’ve had him six years now, and I worry about him aging. I see a lot of grey, but he still has a lot of energy and gets a lot of exercise. He’s gained a pound or two every year, so he’s doing great. He was skin and bones when we adopted him, and I’ve always aimed to make him a healthy weight.

Hambones was down for a few days this week, so Tim was busy working on that. The week ambled on by until Thursday. I got my hair cut Thursday morning and then ran errands until mid afternoon. It was Elizabeth’s birthday and she came over late afternoon and hung out with us for a while, until we went to Biaggi’s for her birthday dinner. Her parents came down, and Kathryn and the kids came out to meet us (Jeremy was out of town). We had a great dinner (most everyone had pasta, but I had the tilapia with steamed green beans and it was delicious!), and then came back here for cake. Gail made another homemade cake, this time Elizabeth’s favorite which is strawberry. We all sang, including Beau who did a fine job! Kathryn and the kids didn’t get to visit long, since it was a school night. Elizabeth stayed a while and of course, Gail and Don spent the night. The guys got up early Friday morning to go play golf, and Gail and I took Beau for a walk. After that, we cleaned out and went shopping at Target. The guys had lunch at the golf course, so Gail and I came home and ate leftovers. Don and Gail stayed a while to visit, then left to pick David up at the airport and take him home to Indianola. Tim and I went to run errands. I’d been wanting to go to Steinmart and look for some church clothes. I found a couple of tops and some new shoes. If you know me at all, you know that is a HUGE statement. I detest buying shoes. Shopping for shoes ranks right up there with underwear and bathing suits for me. So for me to find two new pair of shoes was nothing short of amazing. Those should last me 3-5 years, or so I hope! LOL!

Saturday, Mark and Amanda and the kids came. The weather had gotten cold and it was pretty chilly all day. We visited a while inside, the kids had a snack, then we went out back to hit golf balls and play with Beau. We came inside to warm up and played the Wii for a while. Before dark, we headed to the park for the kids to play in Liberty Village. They’re nearly too old for that now, although Abby had fun. Tim brought the football, so he, Mark and Ethan tossed the ball till it was nearly dark. We all went to Majestic Burger for supper. I had my regular there, a seared tilapia sandwich (on homemade sourdough, I was bad and got that huge bun!). Soooo good. After dinner, we came home and visited a while longer, till they had to head back. We were so glad they came, it had been ages since we’d seen them and really had a chance to hang out!

Sunday was busy with church and Tim once again graciously agreed to go grocery shopping after church with me at Kroger. He had lunch, then headed to the golf course to play. I caught up on some stuff on the DVR, some laundry and picked up around the house. The Saints played the Sunday night game and I had such high hopes, only to have them dashed and they lost. Again. Our teams are just not doing well this year, and it’s hard. I love football season so much and it’s awful to have both teams not winning.

Monday was busy with cleaning house after all the company. Then, David texted and called and wanted to come stay a few days. So he headed down and now we have more company, although he’s gone most of the time. We’ll have a crowd here tomorrow for Halloween. I’ll probably try to post again later, after trick or treating! I should be posting pictures with my blog, but I’ve gotten bad about just putting them on Twitter or Facebook, it’s just easier. To put them here, I have to transfer them from my camera, size them down, FTP them to the server, blah blah blah. I’m so lazy these days!

Well, I haven’t posted in two weeks. Our server was down for a few days. I’m not exactly sure what was wrong, but Tim did a lot of work on it, and things are mostly back to normal. I think he swapped out the power supply, and also had to rebuild stuff on one of the hard drives.

I never blogged about my birthday, now nearly 2 weeks ago. It was a quiet day. I understand fully now what my mom always said when I was young and growing up. I always got so excited about my birthday, and others too, and my mom would always chant “it’s just another day”. I thought she was so silly. And now, I totally understand! They don’t hold the same appeal as they did in years past! This year was very low-key. I stayed home and watched some tv, played on the computer and read a little. Tim gave me two things from a list I had given him, some perfume and a Wusthof santoku chef’s knife. I had kidded him for a while that he had run out of electronics to give me. I’ve got the Mac, I got a Kindle and then last year an iPad, so he was out of tech toys to give me, LOL!

Gail came late in the day and brought a birthday cake! No one ever makes me a cake, so that was a nice surprise 🙂 It was delicious too! Chocolate with a chocolate glaze, that’s just perfect in my book. We grilled out, some ribeyes and some salmon strips, and had sweet potatoes, homemade bread and a big salad. I couldn’t have had a better meal out in a nice restaurant, it was delicious.

Friday after my birthday, Tim was off again, but his golf course was closed because they were hosting the PGA Q-school there all week. Gail stayed and left around noon, then Tim and I headed out to run some errands. I had wanted to do our Operation Christmas Child boxes, so we went to the dollar store and had fun shopping for one box for a boy and one for a girl. Maybe next year we’ll do more, they were fun! We stopped at Party City to get some Halloween stuff, then went to Newk’s for a late lunch. Gail was still in town running errands, so she came and met us. I had lobster bisque and a salad (I love going on Friday when they have that soup!). After Newk’s, we went to Walmart to get a bunch of items and headed home. Our neighbor had left us a note that she got a new TV, so we headed over to setup her new tv and DVR. Always good to be able to help people out 🙂

Saturday, we were supposed to hang out all day with Mark and Amanda and the kids, but Mark had a problem at work and they couldn’t make it. So, we slept in and then headed to the Ridgeland Multi-Purpose trail for a walk. The weather was beautiful and we walked a long way – nearly 7 miles by the time we got back to the truck. Beau loved it though, he was so happy! Afterwards, we were headed to get the truck washed, and on the way, we saw signs for a fundraiser from the Lions Club. We stopped and got two bbq chicken dinners (which Tim ate, one on Sat and the other after church on Sunday) and then came home and rested! Sunday was church, then we stopped at Fresh Market afterwards so I could get sushi. I also splurged and got some late season figs, they were so good 🙂

To be continued in the next post!

Another busy weekend around here. Last week was fairly busy, with David and his friends coming to stay for a night, and cleaning up before and after they were here. Tim had another Friday off (he’s off every Friday in October, using up that vacation he hasn’t taken all year!), and he went to play golf. We all slept in a bit, and Beau and I left for a walk and Tim went to play. He brought us in a late lunch of Chick-Fil-A. Don and Gail came in time for supper, and we all went to eat dinner at Signa’s Grille. Gail and I had the “Godmotha”, a vegetarian sandwich (grilled eggplant, grilled squash and onions on foccacia), Tim had the Swamp Burger (burger bathed in chili and cheese) and Don had the 2 AM Patty Melt. Good food! The portions seemed a little bigger this time 🙂

Don and Gail spent the night, then the guys went to play golf Saturday morning. They finished up around lunch time, then pulled through Chick-Fil-A again to get me another grilled chicken sandwich. Gail had already left going out to Kathryn’s to help set up. We went out at 2 PM for Sam’s birthday party and got to visit with everyone. Daddy came up, just for the party, from Hattiesburg. Tim and I headed home late afternoon, and I made my big shopping run at Kroger around 6 PM, and got back in time for the USM game on TV. They are now 0-5, horrible start to what looks to be a bad season.

Sunday was busy too. The Saints had their bye week, so we thought that was a great time to go visit Tim’s parents. We left after church and visited all afternoon. Beau had a great time playing with the other two dogs, Teddy and Snoopy. Roscoe is gone, and so is sweet Rosie. I miss the other dogs 🙁 Anyway, we left before dark and got home and watched some TV. I was fairly tired!

Monday was busy with cleaning house, and making supper. I tried out my new baking stone that Tim and I got for me on Friday afternoon. It’s a rectangular black Emile Henry stone. I preheated it in the oven, and used it to make a pizza. My regular pizza dough I make in the machine was too much, so I cut some off and made breadsticks with the extra dough. The crust was crispier, which is what I was hoping, but the pizza is a lot smaller than what I make on my normal large round pan. I’m going to try the pan for other things, like freeform bread rounds, chicken strips, oven roasted potatoes, etc. It scares me a little, how hot it gets in the oven! I need new oven mitts. I feel like mine are going to get me burned!

Another busy week ahead. I’m turning another year older and we have another busy weekend on tap. Another post on that next week 🙂