Exceedingly Mundane

Happy New Year and here’s to a wonderful 2010! I hope to keep up with the blog, at least some, in the new year. I had a couple of long breaks in 2009, and missed out on “documenting” some of the things we were doing, and things going on. I hope that I can do a little more of keeping up in the new year.

I won’t go back and blog about Christmas, although it was a good one. We had three Christmases – one at home for me and Tim on Christmas Eve, one at my sister Gail’s with her family and my dad on Christmas Day, and one on the next day (Saturday) with Tim’s family. We had a great time seeing everyone and hanging out. We brought our nephew Zack (14) back with us on Saturday and he stayed several days. Tim took him to play golf, we took him out to eat every day (bad for the waistline, but nice not to have to cook or clean up much!), we went to see Sherlock Holmes, and we played a lot of Wii!

I fell short of my reading goals for the year 2009. I only read 59 books which is not a lot for me. I think I also failed to blog at all about any book during the year. I have been doing updates and “blurbs” (not reviews, I am not very good at writing reviews of books) over at GoodReads, so hopefully if you are a reader too, we are hooked up over there. I didn’t complete either reading challenge that I joined, although I was close, just one or two books short. I won’t join any this year, I think, but just read for the sheer pleasure of it. 🙂

We’re trying to get back into a routine, after the holidays and Tim having a week off from work. Routine is a good thing for me. I thrive on it and suffer when I get out of my schedules and routines.

The weather outside is frightful! Or delightful, depending on which camp you’re from 😀 I love the cold weather, but only when I get to stay inside, have the heat running, drink hot tea or hot cocoa, and bundle up under my favorite afghan, LOL! The highs this week are predicted to not go out of the 30’s and 40’s, so that is cold for us, definitely winter. I always appreciate my creature comforts more during weather like this!

Hope everyone had a very blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year – here’s to a great 2010 for all!

Whoops, I did it again! I had the best intentions of keeping up with the blog, but again, I fell behind. Here’s a quick rundown of some things that have happened since my last post:

* Tim and I went with my sister Gail and her husband Don on a “birthday golfing trip” for Tim. Tim’s birthday is a big one this year, and a while back I asked what he wanted – something big, a trip, a big party, etc. He said, I want to go play lots of golf! So, we went to Alabama for a few days, for the guys to play 3 days of unlimited golf at the Robert Trent Jones golf trail (they played several courses in a couple of towns, even though there’s tons of them from the top of the state to the coast). The guys had fun (vacationing together and playing golf, LOL!) and Gail and I had fun together, hanging out, going shopping and eating at girlie food places. I’m not sure if I’ll go back and post photos now, but I might 🙂

* We celebrated Thanksgiving with my family at my sister Gail’s house.

* We celebrated Tim’s birthday with his family at his mom’s, a couple of days before his birthday. He went hunting with his dad, brother and nephew but didn’t see anything. The day of his birthday was quiet, with church, grilling out a humongous steak and watching football. We watched the Saints win (over the Patriots) on Monday Night Football the day after Tim’s birthday. He said that his golf and the Saints staying unbeaten were all the gifts he wanted, LOL! 😀

* We have decorated the house for Christmas and started Christmas shopping. Started – not finished, but we have started. I’m trying not to stress about it, but sooner or later I will, I think 😀

* Our church celebrated the last worship service in our regular sanctuary, and look forward to opening the new worship center this coming Sunday. Fun stuff 🙂

* I’ve been reading, but not nearly as much as I normally do in a year. I joined two reading challenges, but I think I’m going to fall short of both. By only one or two books, but I still probably won’t complete the list that I picked. I am, however, enjoying the books I am reading, so that’s all that really matters, right?! 🙂

* Tim and I are really enjoying this football season, of course! As lifelong Saints fans, we’re thrilled beyond words at the season they are having 🙂 Chris and Elizabeth have made it over for every game, so we have a great time watching and hanging out with them every week. We have a set of rituals we are following every week, and so far it’s working, LOL!

Some various, random and assorted items:

Living in the Deep South, we don’t have much fall and winter. I’ve lived here all my life, so I’m accustomed to it. As odd as it sounds, I’m very cold-natured, but I love the colder times of the year! Tonight, the weathermen are predicting a low temperature of 39. I’m ready for it to be 32 or below, but I’ll take what I can get 🙂

If the prognosticators are correct (and that trusty farmer’s almanac), they are saying we are going to have a colder than normal winter. Fine by me! As long as I don’t have to be out in it, LOL! For one thing, I think we need more cold weather here to kill the fleas and ticks, and mostly the mosquitoes.

For another thing, there’s so many things I love about this time of year. Enough for a bulleted blog post! Here’s some of the things iLike 😀 about fall and winter:

* wearing sweatshirts, sweatpants, jeans, boots
* wrapping up in my soft, cozy blanket
* smelling and feeling hot towels and sheets right out of the dryer
* watching some of the leaves finally change color a bit here
* once the leaves are off the trees, I can see all of my pretty birds in the backyard
* baking!
* football season 🙂
* burning candles and having them make our home seem that much more cozy
* if it gets REALLY cold, we might actually turn on the gas logs and have a fire
* washing dishes in hot soapy water, just to warm my hands up
* hot apple cider with red hots
* or hot cocoa with marshmallows
* making soup, stew, chili and homemade bread

Ok, I’m sure there are plenty more, but those are the first ones that come to mind. How about you, do you have a favorite thing about this time of the year?

I bought a new set of sheets for our bed a couple of weeks ago. Exciting, huh?! Believe it or not, it’s not something I do often. I change our sheets weekly, but I take the set off, wash and dry them, and put them right back on! I don’t change them out to a different set very often (I’ve blogged about this in the past, here, three years ago), and really – I only have a couple of sets that fit our bed (ours is a queen and the guest room is a double).

Anyway, I was always under the assumption that the higher the thread count, the softer the sheets were. I never paid any attention to the type of cotton – 100% cotton, cotton blend, Egyptian cotton, sateen, etc. Apparently I should have!

I washed our new sheets and put them on the bed, excited to have nice new crisp clean soft sheets. WHAT? Soft, you ask? They’re 450 thread count (100% cotton sheets), so I assumed they’d be soft. But — they’re not! They’re rough, scratchy and not at all what I had hoped for. So, what have I been doing?

Washing them. Repeatedly. The first week I had them, I washed them 3 times! And they are getting softer. Of course, not fast enough for me 🙂 To be fair, I had some old jersey knit sheets on our bed, which are very very soft. And I’m sure my last set that I used regularly before that have been washed so many times, they can’t help but be soft. But I was really hoping for these to be soft, right out of the package.

So – help me out for the time in the future when I venture out to buy new sheets again. What do you use? The highest thread count you can afford? Are you sure to buy Egyptian cotton? Sateen cotton? Some kind of blend? Leave me a comment and let me know!

P.S. Please note that flannel sheets aren’t “allowed” here, because I live with the human heater (aka Tim). Mr. Hot Natured thinks flannel sheets and electric blankets are horrid creations and aren’t allowed in the house under any circumstance! 😀

Who would have ever thought that our Saints would ever be undefeated, with an 8-0 record? Not us! Tim is a lifelong fan and I’ve been a fan as long as I’ve known Tim (15 football seasons and counting). The Saints have never been to a Super Bowl, so we’re really hoping that this is their year. They went to the NFC Championship game once (Jan 2007), and we went to that game, but they lost to the Bears. Maybe this year they can do it 🙂

Gotta record this here for posterity’s sake – it’s never happened before!

Go Saints Go!

My favorite fan, at last year’s training camp (it was HOT!)

You know, they say that men make the best chefs!

I actually like to cook, and I cook the vast majority of our food. Tim is great about helping out if I ask, although I try not to do that too often. He works really hard to provide us a great life and part of my job is to take care of the house and cooking (easy, huh, I know — I’ve got it made!). He does like to grill and he will always fix food for us when I’m sick or not feeling well. He makes a mean breakfast too!

The other day, he told me that he wanted to make some homemade salsa. We have a neighbor who makes some and brings it down for Tim… it is really hot and spicy and I can’t eat it. But Tim loves it! He said he wanted to try to make some, so I got him some fresh tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers and onions at the store over the weekend. He left out the cilantro, as an ode to me who dislikes it intensely! The first batch was really good, we thought. And now, just a couple of days later, he’s made another batch. This time, he’s trying canned tomatoes versus fresh (which we know won’t be as good, but this time of year, a lot cheaper and a lot easier to come by). He’s still tinkering with his spices and proportions, and he hasn’t measured the first thing yet, so a hard and fast recipe is not going to happen. I’m just really enjoying tasting the results and watching him have fun in the kitchen 😀

So, tell me, who does the cooking in your house? Vote or leave me a comment and let me know!

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Tim and I said a few days after we brought Beau home from the rescue that we almost wished we had waited to name him. They were calling him “Sonny Boy” at the doggie foster home where he was living, uh, not a name we would ever call him in a million years! I had already picked out Beau (short for Beauregard), but after spending some time with him, we’ve come up with several different names that we could have named him, based on his personality.

One of those is Bob. As in Bob Barker. Because the dog barks. All.The.Time! Beau is a very vocal dog and we have decided that he likes to hear himself speak, bark, howl and sing! I’ve posted a video of him before, singing along to Happy Birthday to you. Here’s a short clip of a normal day at our house.

Tim was trying to warm up some leftovers for lunch, and Beau decided he wanted to play. Or more precisely, to bark:

I go through phases of enjoying cooking, and loving cooking, and then some days, not so much. I love to eat, don’t get me wrong. I didn’t grow up learning how to cook. My mom didn’t teach me much, so I’ve learned slowly, over the years, through trial and error. My mother-in-law has taught me to make many things, including things that my husband likes and grew up with. I’m very blessed to have married a man who is not at all picky (a lot less than me), and who is willing to try most anything. There’s things that Tim does not like to eat and flavors he’s not fond of, but he’s always willing to try something once. That makes my job so much easier, and so much more enjoyable. I like trying new dishes, and I like making his favorites – it’s a win-win thing for me.

My love of cookbooks and recipes goes hand in hand with this whole line of blog-babble! 🙂 I love cookbooks and always have. I would have dozens more, except I ran out of room for them years ago. One day… one day, I’m going to have a lot more room for books and cookbooks! In the mean time, I “collect” recipes via the Internet, cooking blogs, message boards, forums and many, many favorite food and cooking websites. I print them out, I email them to myself, I bookmark them. I don’t have a great system for the ones I want to try. But, through the years, I have worked hard on a system for recipes that I have tried, and that we’ve liked.

Over a decade ago, I started using Mastercook. And when we talked about setting up our family website, the two main things I wanted were a place to share photos and a place to share recipes. The photos have migrated to other areas (mostly, Flickr and my local drive), but the recipes live on. We had an old recipe system on our website that I liked fairly well. Then… the spammers found it. And they started entering recipes that contained links to spam, and nudie pictures and drug sites and everything else unsavory under the sun. Sheesh, people, get a life! Some of us enjoy cooking and recipes, leave our recipe site alone!

So, my darling webmaster/guru husband installed a new, more secure system on our website a couple of months ago. He converted all 350+ recipes into the new system, those entered by myself, family and friends. I had to go into each recipe and edit it, but that is all done, and we’re now enjoying the new system. Our old system didn’t do photos, but the new one does, so I’ve been happily snapping photos of the food I cook, to add to our recipe database! And, having the new system has also spurred me into trying new recipes …. “so I can enter something on the new recipe system!”. Tim gets a kick out of just how much of a geek I can be on any given day!

Here’s a few pictures of the food I’ve been cooking lately:

And you can find our recipe system here. If you get a chance to visit, I hope you like what you see! 🙂

I got a belated birthday present a few days ago!

Tim had offered to get me a camera originally for my birthday, but I said, no, I already have a digital Rebel, I don’t need a smaller camera. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized he had a really good idea. It’s nice to have a small one to stick in my purse or tote around and not carry the digital Rebel (bigger, bulkier) in some instances. This one takes good pictures and little movies, something my Rebel doesn’t do (so we had bought Tim a flip camcorder for Christmas). Anyway, it’s nice to have, and I know I’m incredibly spoiled (or blessed, however you prefer to look at it!) to have two cameras.

So, that brings me to a question – is there anything useful I can do with my old digital cameras? I have a couple of older ones, that I used before I got my digital Rebel. They’ve been sitting in a corner, collecting dust, and not being used. They are each a few years old, and I doubt anyone that I know would want them (they all have newer nicer cameras, for the most part). Is there anyway to recycle this kind of digital device? Or any worthwhile charity I could donate it to? Does anyone have any good ideas? I’d hate to just take it to Goodwill or try to put it in a neighbor’s garage sale or something.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day! 😀

What does this look like to you?

To me, it looks like cough syrup. But, it’s not. It’s what I’ve been putting in my morning coffee for the last few weeks. I have blogged before about my love of flavored coffee creamers in the past, and we’re definitely coming up on my favorite time of year – when Coffeemate brings out their holiday flavors like gingerbread, peppermint, etc. I normally buy other flavors of Coffeemate (as many in the lowfat variety as I can) to use throughout the year. But a few months ago, I tried buying a bottle of flavored syrup at Sam’s Club, and just using fat-free half and half in my coffee. I think the syrup lasts a lot longer and I think it may be a bit cheaper to go this route. Either way, it’s always nice to change things up a bit 😀

This is the cough syrup flavored syrup I’ve been using:

The raspberry tastes good, although I think I like the vanilla and caramel flavored syrups better. I just can’t get past the look of it! It’s a bit disconcerting to put that red syrup in my coffee, it looks just like cough syrup! And, with the red syrup and white half and half, my coffee comes out looking pink! 🙂 Good thing it tastes good….

Have a wonderful day!

I know it’s been talked about ad nauseum in the media, and I don’t want to get into a huge discussion here. But, I’d still like to know! Do you normally get flu shots for yourself or your family? And if not, do you plan on getting a flu shot this year, either the seasonal flu shot or the special H1N1 (swine) flu shot? I know the H1N1 flu is serious and more likely to affect younger people and children, and it’s a big concern.

As for me, I don’t plan on getting either one. I should have blogged about this years ago, but I don’t think I ever did. Years ago, when I worked full-time, my company offered flu shots to employees, as a preventive measure I’m sure. I got one (this was a very long time ago, maybe 18 years or so) and boom, a couple of days later I was sick. And I mean, very sick! I had the worse case of the flu I have ever had. I was out of commission for 5 or 6 days, and I could barely get up to go to the bathroom. I remember being miserable, and I remember laying there thinking, I am *never* going to get a flu shot, ever again! And so, to this day, I have not gotten a flu shot since. And you know what, I haven’t gotten the flu again either!

So, how about you? Vote in the poll or leave me a comment and let me know what you or you and your family are going to do this year about this.

Hope everyone is healthy and happy!

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Well, here I am, falling behind on blogging again! I have lots of things to share, but I can’t seem to sit at the computer and get them translated into any kind of “meaningful” blog post, hahaha! Most recently would be my birthday, but shhhhh, we don’t have to talk about just how old I really am! 😀

I had a nice birthday this year, although very low-key. Tim took me out to eat (dinner at Chili’s, lunch at Zaxby’s), and let me pick out whatever I wanted for my birthday. He wanted to buy me a camera (and I just might “let” him get it for me soon), but I didn’t think I needed another camera. I have a wonderful digital Rebel that he got me a couple of years ago for my birthday, but it is heavy and sometimes cumbersome to lug around. He wanted to get me just a small point and shoot to keep in my purse, and after thinking about it and “chewing” on it for a while, I think I might ask for it as a belated gift, after all 🙂

While we were out shopping the day before my birthday, he asked what I wanted and I said, well, if I see something I like, let’s just get that. So, that’s what we did! I got a book I wanted (the new Nicholas Sparks, “The Last Song”), and a warm fuzzy blanket to wrap up in now that it’s feeling more like fall around here. I also got this:

It’s not a Le Crueset, although I had mentioned to him a while back that one day I’d like to splurge and get a red one. He said, I’ll get you that if you want, but I just don’t see paying 250 bucks for one of those. And he’s right. And I’m sure this one will be great, and I can replace it several times over if it doesn’t hold up like the name brand one. This one came from Sam’s, and we usually have really good luck with the things we buy in there!

Also, on the day of my birthday, he sneaked off to Fresh Market and got these for me:

My birthday was on a Sunday this year, and our beloved Saints were playing a big game against the Giants. I kidded Tim all week that I was going to tweet Drew Brees and ask him to be sure and win on Sunday, since it was my birthday, LOL! I didn’t but they did pull out a win, going 5-0 for the first time since 1993. For this converted Saints fan, that was a pretty nice gift too!

Back soon (hopefully), with another post. Hope everyone is having a great day, and week 🙂

I haven’t had a chance to blog lately. There’s several posts I have “brewing”, but first I wanted to do a quick catch-up.

Last weekend, my sister Suzanne came for a visit. We had a busy weekend, including a birthday party for our two year old great nephew, Sam. Then, we had a lot of family over for a visit, and we cooked out some hamburgers and hot dogs. My dad drove back and forth to visit several times, and my sister left on Tuesday flying back home. I got sick Tuesday morning and have been sick most of the week. Ugh, it’s never fun to run fever and have aches and chills. 🙁

I’ll try to be back soon with a “real” post, but until then, just wanted to do a quick update 🙂

I often joke with Tim about the saying “hunter/gatherer”, because that really shines through with the two of us. Tim is a hunter, but only goes out to get what he needs. I’m definitely a gatherer, and some would probably say, a hoarder. I don’t like to run out of things, like toilet paper, dishwashing soap, shampoo, and mostly – food! Tim is always joking, telling me, you’d think you lived way out in the boonies, instead of a mile from a grocery store, the way you stock up on stuff!

I have a big pantry, but mostly, it is just really deep. I know I should be grateful to have a lot of storage space in my pantry, but it’s sooooo hard to find things because whatever I put in the front of the shelf, obscures whatever is stored or stacked behind it. I’ve been going back and forth for a while now, wanting to declutter it and reorganize it, and I finally got around to it.

I threw out almost half a garbage bag of food. Things I had bought for a certain recipe and never used. Hey, if I haven’t used them in the past couple of years, I’m probably not going to use them now. Half opened packages of various seasonings. Cans that were past their expiration date. Etc.

One of the main goals was to clear up room on my counter-tops. I have a pretty set of white canisters to hold my flour, sugar, etc. But, I don’t have a lot of counter space and Tim was always fussing that we need more room. So, I bought a couple of the Oxo Good Grips storage canisters, and packed up my pretty ones “for when we get a bigger house, and I get a bigger kitchen”. 😀 I made more room on my counters, and right now at least, I have more room in my pantry.

I did NOT take before pictures. I would like to say that I forgot, but it’s more like I was ashamed. I had stuff packed in and really had no idea what was buried in the back of most of the shelves. I’m not sure how long my nice, clean pantry will last, but right now, I’m really enjoying it! It makes me more motivated to keep it this way, but I know that sooner or later, my hoarder/gatherer gene is going to kick in and I’m going to make a massive buying trip to Sam’s Club, and that will be the end of my clean pantry! LOL! 🙂

Here’s a couple of after shots…

Bottom of the pantry, the bottom shelf is so deep, it has a lot of wasted space, but, oh well!

A close-up of the Oxo containers, I really really like their products, and these are no exception:

Top of the pantry… I really like having that rubbermaid small basket on the top shelf. I can’t reach that shelf without climbing in a chair or ladder, but I can pull down that basket that has some small bags of rice and pasta in it. Works really well for me 🙂