I’ve been terribly remiss the last several days at checking some of the meme sites I like to visit. A couple of them had memes that I liked, so I’m going to do a big huge catch-up meme blog post here. I know a lot of you don’t like these, so I’ll put them on the extended page. Just click the -More- link if you want to go check them out. And, as always, please play along and put your answers in a comment if you want! I love reading all of your answers, and seeing what we have in common and where we differ! 🙂
Well, we’re still trying to recover from Hambones dying yesterday. Tim was able to get a lot of the data back from the backup system, but we lost a lot of stuff from my blogs, some pictures, and a few various and assorted other things. The GUI interface is not working, and several other components are either barely dragging along or not functioning at all. We ordered a newer version of SUSE today, and Tim is going to completely wipe the server and start over on Hambones once the software is delivered. Not upgrade as I had previously thought (or hoped). He wants to do a clean install. I hope we get all of the data backed up now! We are also going to need to get another hard drive soon. If it ain’t one thing, it’s another. Always something that costs mucho $$$. 😥
I went to the dentist this morning for a scheduled checkup and cleaning. All good on that front. We didn’t get up and go walking because it was raining. We had a nice set of thunderstorms move through last night – had lots of thunder, lightening and rain. We were still getting residual rain this morning, but it stopped by lunch and was mostly sunny and hot all afternoon. I did the grocery shopping this afternoon, and some chores. I didn’t get nearly as much done as I had wanted, but hey – there’s always tomorrow! I bought Tim some happies today while I was out, since he worked so hard on Hambones all weekend and was able to restore most of the data. He’s enjoying them right now (some new football mags and a new handheld game). I think I’ll head back in there and play the game some more with him!
Well, I haven’t really had (or taken) the time to blog about the last couple of days. We’ve been fairly busy, although most of it is pretty mundane and I imagine pretty boring to most people. However, if you like to live dangerously, then read on! WARNING: Extremely long post ahead! 😀
Well, I haven’t blogged about what we did yesterday, and now I haven’t blogged about what we did today (Saturday). I’d like to say that I will get on Sunday afternoon and catch up, but I’m not so sure about that. Tim has been working some on Hambones and it may not be available tomorrow. We just got back from CompUSA where we purchased the full version of SUSE 9.3, so he can reload Hambones. So, I don’t know when it’s going to be down, or for how long. Might be a long week! I will have to try to remember everything to blog about later on. 😀
I have decided that I don’t like my 40’s. Granted, I’m just a few months into them, but they are not going to be that great, at least in the weight department. I don’t seem to be able to lose a pound to save my life.
When I was growing up, I was rail thin. I could eat whatever I wanted, in whatever quantity I wanted, whatever time of day, and I would never gain a pound. All through my teens, and through most of my 20’s. The 30’s got a little harder. It wasn’t as easy to lose weight, and it got easier and easier to gain it. Now that I’ve turned the corner on my 40’s, I think it’s going to be a lot harder. I have cut back, cut out soft drinks and sweet tea, cut out most sweets, use reduced fat or low-fat products, and still I’m gaining weight left and right. I don’t think it’s my meds. I get my thyroid checked every year, and it’s supposedly in range. If it’s out of whack, I will gain more weight. But, it’s supposed to be in check. Anyway, I guess it’s just age and metabolism. It sucks. It really does. I want to eat a big bag of M&M’s if I want and not gain an ounce. I want to have a huge piece of chocolate cake with chocolate icing and not see it on my thighs two days later. HAH. I wish.
So, in our ongoing effort, I thought that getting a better pair of scales to weigh on might help. Ours were the old kind and not very accurate. I knew this because when I went to the doctor, they weighed me a LOT heavier. But, I forged ahead anyway (like the blooming idiot that I am!), and bought us a new set of scales, one that keeps track of our weight, as well as measuring our BMI.
Be Careful What You Wish For.
I got these scales, and I wish I had never brought them home. Not only do they weigh me about 4-5 pounds more than our previous ones (a sudden and immediate blow to my ego), it rated my BMI much higher than I thought it would be. Therefore, it proves that I’m a lot heavier and in worse shape than I should be. Which I had a sneaking suspicion of all along, but now I have proof, glaring back at me every time I go near the darn thing.
It saves my previous weights, and mine are going up, up, up, .5 or 1.0 pounds at a time. Geesh. Can’t we just roll the clock back and let me have my thighs that didn’t touch and flat stomach from my 20’s? Please. Someone invent a magic pill for this, please.
P.S. For all of you wiseguys out there, I know what the real problem is, it’s my portion control and my lack of more exercise. We walk, but we don’t jog, and I stretch but I don’t do aerobic stretching and exercises. I know I should. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I know I should eat less, and leave more on my plate, but I just can’t bring myself to do that either. Please don’t lecture me. Please. And if you do, the mean nasty fat fairy might come visit you. 
What color are your kitchen plates? well, mostly white. I have 12 place settings of Mikasa French Countryside, and also 4 burgundy ones from Target. I love the Target ones, but they are chipping badly. I’ve been looking at new ones lately… mostly burgundy and yellow, to match the kitchen. The problem with that is that when we move or paint the kitchen again, I will want to change them yet again! I’ve been looking at these from Pfatlzgraf, and also at Fiestaware in Cinnabar and Sunflower Yellow. Just daydreaming though! I imagine we’ll keep the Mikasa for a long time. It holds up really well, it’s never chipped or cracked and barely shows any kind of scratch from knives. Good stuff.
Favorite Board Game? Trivial Pursuit, or Mexican Train Dominoes, although that’s not a board game!
What’s on your mouse pad? Legolas
What’s your favorite color? Green
What’s your least favorite color? Hmmm, dunno
Not a whole lot “blog-worthy” going on. The sun is actually out today and it’s rather pretty outside. I just finished watering some of the flowers and deadheading my moss rose and petunias. I took some pictures of some of the flowers blooming in the yard and might post some later (yeah, I know, don’t everyone get all excited at once 🙂 ). It didn’t really rain much yesterday either, so Tim decided to mow and do all the yard work when he got in. It all looks really good. The grass is really green from all the rain we’ve had recently.
I finished my latest book last night. I give it an enthusiastic two-thumbs up, my highest rating, etc. I loved it. No other words to describe it. I do believe it’s one of the best books I have read in a long time. Maybe not everyone would like it, but I thoroughly and completely enjoyed it. I read it in two nights flat – I believe that’s a new record for me on a book like this. You can read more in the review I just typed up at Hambones.
More good news on the Vonage front. I got an email from Vonage today that BellSouth had accepted our letter of transfer and they should be transferring our phone line soon; in fact, it’s scheduled for tomorrow. Which will be wonderful – we’ll have unlimited nationwide long distance, caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, Internet voice mail, and lots of other features. All for $24.99 a month. You can’t beat that. I mostly wanted it for the caller id. I have wanted it for a while but just didn’t want to pay what BellSouth wanted for it every month. Now, it’s “free”, or so I think, gotta look at it that way! We’ll have to do some work tonight with the VOIP box, the new phones, and other various hardware issues (read: Tim will be busy doing this stuff tonight!), but hopefully it will all go smooth. Let us know if you can’t get us at the house though! 😀
Well, it took me a few days, but I finally got the few pictures that I took over the weekend loaded into the Photos section on Hambones. I didn’t take a lot, as we have been many times before, and have even been to the D-Day Museum once before. Most of the pictures are of the hotel and our room! First time we had stayed there, and it was really nice, plus I knew from Gail’s comment on my previous blog entry that they had looked into staying there, so I took a bunch of the room (I LOVE having a digital camera!). There’s not a lot of pictures, I guess that’s why I wasn’t in a rush to get them on the website. But they are there now if anyone wants to glance at them! 🙂
Well, it’s official now. We’ll be going to Washington D.C. this summer on our vacation. We booked a hotel room last night, once Tim got approval at work for the days off that he had requested. We’re going to leave 6/29 and come back on 7/5 or 7/6. Right now, we’re going to drive, but I am going to look around and see what kind of flights I can find. I think we’d both rather drive though (although I say that now, we may think differently later on!).
Well, so far today has been really good. We got up early and went walking. It always makes us feel better to get up and go, even though it’s sometimes difficult to drag ourselves out of bed so much earlier than we would like. I’m definitely not a morning person!
Tim worked quite a bit on Hambones last night, and I read my new book I got at the library. All I can say is “Wow”, I’m loving this book so much. I do believe it’s one of the best I have read so far this year. I’d definitely put it up there with “The Testament” and “The Wedding”. I’m reading “Three Weeks with My Brother” by Nicholas and Micah Sparks. I want Tim to read it after I finish with it, but I see a losing battle on the horizon with that proposition! I’m already nearly half way through it. I absolutely could not put it down last night. I read till my eyes were bleary and nearly popped out of their sockets!
Wendy called at lunch today, from the hospital! They had her scheduled for a c-section today, but as often happens, the baby decided to come on his own terms, and they actually came over Monday morning and Nathan made his appearance! Wendy said she and Nathan were doing fine, so that is wonderful news. Nothing else really matters except a healthy baby and a healthy mom. Wendy said they would go home tomorrow, which is great news.
I’ve been working really hard at getting back into a swing of reading books. I started reading right after the Super Bowl ended, around the first week of February, and I’ve been reading pretty much non-stop since. I have finished 16 books, and have high hopes for reading a lot more this summer, now that all of our TV shows are over till the fall. It’s a goal, but it’s also something I love to do. I have loved reading and books all of my life, it’s something that was instilled in me at a very young age, I think by my mom. I can remember growing up, I either had my nose stuck in a book or in front of the TV.
Anyway, last week I finished two more books (to bring my total to 16) – High Five by Janet Evanovich (still working my way through these numbered books), and a Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. You can read my review of “A Year in Provence” here.
Today, I dropped those two books back at the library, and got 3 more. That should keep me busy till we leave on vacation the last of June. I plan to take the new Nicholas Sparks “True Believer” with me on vacation and hope to read some. I would rather take one that I own rather than a library book out of town… just in case!
I just added the 3 new books to my sidebar. They are:
1) Three Weeks with my Brother – by Nicholas and Micah Sparks
2) Sushi for Beginners – by Marian Keyes
3) Hot Six – by Janet Evanovich (yes, I’m reading them in order, even though you don’t have to, I’m very anal about things like that).
I better get busy with these! 🙂 They are due back in 3 weeks. 🙂
Well, not much going on today to blog about. We had a nice long weekend, and now it’s time to get back into some kind of normal routine. We got up this morning and went walking at 6. Come to find out, Tim had stayed up till about 2:30 or so, working on Hambones, so needless to say, he’s probably pretty tired right about now. I went to bed at about 11:30 and I’m tired, but I’m a wimp, so… 🙂
It’s still very cloudy and grey here and it looks like it could rain at any minute. I’m sure it will wait until I head out to run errands. I’m going to run to the library and grocery shopping here in a bit, so I imagine it will come a flood about the time I wheel my cart out to the car, full of groceries. Murhpy’s Law and all. After that, it’s just a lot of picking up and cleaning. Back to the grind
Another good meme, so I gotta do it too! It’s tough being gone all weekend, lots to catch up on! 🙂
This week I’m asking you to choose a letter of the alphabet. Now list the ten items below that begin with the letter you chose….
OK, I choose the letter “T”
1. a family member – Tim
2. a movie– The Two Towers
3. a game – Trivial Pursuit
4. an automobile – Truck, as in Ford Truck, like Clyde
5. a fictional character – Theoden, King, from Lord of the Rings
6. a famous person – Tom Cruise, or Hanks 🙂
7. a food – Tiramisu
8. a household item – Telephone
9. a book – The Testament, by John Grisham
10. a song – Traveling Solder, by the Dixie Chicks (gee, that one was hard, I had to go look in my Real Player library!)
I say … and you think … ?
Crowd:: lots of people
Hamburger:: and fries
Choker:: necklace
Lights:: switch
Tinsel:: Christmas tree
Testament:: Old and New
Best part of the day:: Tim coming home
Election:: George W Bush
Clarinet:: instrument
Dead Sea:: Scrolls
Well, I’m going to catch up on a couple of memes. I know, I know, a lot of you don’t enjoy these, but I do, and as I’ve said before – it’s MY BLOG and therefore, I do the ones I like! 😀
Dining out
“The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums.” -Peter DeVries
1) Do you enjoy eating out and why? Oh. My. Goodness. Yes. We love to eat out, although I actually think Tim likes it more than I do, but we both love to go eat at different places. We have lots of favorites, Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, BBQ, etc. Tons of places we like to go, and we like to try new places too.
2) Where is your favorite restaurant? Can’t pick just one. I might be able to narrow it down to one per category, but that would also be difficult. For Mexican, I would probably pick either Cinco de Mayo in Madison or El Torero in Flowood. For Chinese, either King Buffet in Jackson or Hong Kong Buffet in Madison (for convenience). For Japanese, I’d probably pick Little Tokyo. For Italian, it would either be Panino’s or Fratesi’s. And for BBQ, I would pick Haute Pig in Madison, but I think Tim likes the new place Ubon’s better. And the list goes on and on!
3) What are your standards for tipping? We tip 10% if the service is marginal/just ok, 15-20% if it’s good to outstanding.
4) Do you have one entree, appetizer or dessert that you specifically go out to get at a restaurant from time to time? Well, I love desserts, but when I go to an Italian place, I love, love, love to get tiramisu. I love any kind of stuffed or fried mushrooms for appetizers at any place.
5) Describe a horrific experience that you had while dining out. Well, not horrific, but memorable. We went to eat at the Cuco’s on County Line (which is no longer in business), and we sat down, and then got ready to order, and still no chips and salsa. They brought out water, but no chips. So we flagged down our waiter and asked if we could get chips and salsa, and he says “we ran out”. What kind of Mexican place runs out of chips and salsa? We were a little put out, but hey, if they ran out, they ran out. Then, we proceeded to watch other waiters walk by time and time again with chips and salsa on their serving trays, taking them to other tables. We finally flagged down another waiter to bring us chips and salsa. Another person brought out our entrees. Finally, after we had eaten and waited about 10-15 minutes on the check, our waiter finally shows up. He makes a joke about how he was out on break, he had to go take a smoke, and hoped we didn’t have to wait long. Geesh. He lies about the chips, then disappears, then jokes about it. Tim left him one penny on the table. Needless to say, the place closed down months or years later. We didn’t notice. We never went back!
GoodReads
SwagBucks
