Exceedingly Mundane

I finished another good Stephanie Plum book last night, “Three to Get Deadly”. I am really enjoying this series. I like reading books where I know the character is going to come back, and we get to learn more about them, and follow them through more plots. Of course, in Stephanie’s case, it’s just more wackiness and her trying to learn to be a “fugitive apprehension agent” or bounty hunter as her 80-something year old grandmother calls her. 🙂

I’m going to start on “Four to Score” today… then it will be time for another trip to the library to track down the next ones in the series. I know she’s written at least 9 in this series, maybe 10. So, I’ve got several more to go! 😀

I know in the grand scheme of things, that things like a “bad hair day” don’t really matter. I’m grateful to have all my limbs working, to be able to see, to hear, to not be grossly disfigured from a fire, things like that. And, I’m not really even trying to impress people, but darn it – I hate it when I have a bad hair day! Another thing that really chaps me is to have a huge zit on my face. Such is the case today. Not only am I having a bad hair day, but yesterday this red zit started growing on my lower cheekbone, and today it’s an Uber-Zit. Able to terrify small children in a single glance. Large enough to reach out and smack people if I should get too close. So, that’s what I’m headed off to do – terrorize small children and old people. I’ve got to run a couple of errands up in Madison. With my bad hair and Uber-Zit. Gee, I wish I had something to counteract those two, like a cute new pair of shoes or a pretty new bracelet. Not that it would really work, I suppose. 👿

Yes, I know, I’m silly and shallow. No smart comments. I will delete them! 😀

I posted a couple of days ago about the plants, planters and bird feeder we picked up at Lowe’s last Friday night. I took a few pictures on Saturday, and they are posted on the next page. Just click the -More- button to have a peek, if you are interested!

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It started raining here about an hour ago, and it was getting dark before that. Something inside me said, go light one of your beloved Yankee Candles. So, I went and lit two 😀 Anyway, it made me realize that I really just burn candles mainly in the winter, when it’s darker and colder and greyer. I don’t burn them much in the summer, when it’s 95º and bright sunshine. Something about it getting dark and cloudy makes me want to burn them! Is everyone else like that too?

I do LOVE my Yankee candles. They are a recent obsession for me, I finally broke down last year and splurged on one and was instantly hooked. They smell so good, and they burn really well. The big jar candles burn for hours and hours. And, being the little frugal thing that I am, I love being able to get them at Bed, Bath and Beyond with a coupon!

So far, I’ve tried Pumpkie Pie, Cranberry Chutney, Mistletoe and Clean Cotton. The first three are seasonal ones for me, although I’ve got a little bit left in each one! I love Clean Cotton in my bedroom and bathroom, it smells so clean. Tim thinks it smells like a dryer sheet though (like a Bounce sheet)!! If anyone has a scent to recommend, let me know. I’m always willing to branch out and try new ones! 😛

1. On what day of the week were you born? (If you need to find out, click here .) Sunday 🙂

2. Were you born in the morning, afternoon, or evening? Morning, I’m almost sure. I think during church!

3. How many siblings do you have? Brothers or sisters? 2 sisters, both older

4. Do you (or did you) ever wish you were an only child? And if you ARE an only child, did you ever wish you had brothers and sisters? I sort of grew up like an only child, since Gail and Suzanne are so much older than me. Gail left for college when I started kindergarten. I always wished I had brothers, and a younger sibling

5. Did you (or do you) dream of having a big family of your own? Yes, always. I wanted at least 4 kids, preferably 6.

6. In your opinion, which is (or would be) easier to raise; boys or girls?boys. I always wanted boys

7. In looks, do you favor your mother or your father? I think I favor Dodie quite a bit. Several older relatives told me that at her funeral, you look just like your mother!

Well, as I posted, we spent most of yesterday with Tim’s family. His dad’s birthday is today, and they came over after church to go to lunch with us at Ryan’s out in Pearl. Then we all went shopping at Lowe’s. Tim took me afterwards to the Walmart in Madison, so we could do the big grocery shopping for the week. He found a cordless fillet knife also, that he wanted, to use to fillet fish.

We looked at trees at both Lowe’s and Walmart. I want to plant a tree in the backyard, where our maple tree was that Tim had to cut down last spring. We found some pretty nice red maples at both stores. Hopefully we’ll get to go back soon and get one of them and get a new tree growing in the back yard.

We watched another funny movie from our collection last night… “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”. Not great language, but very funny.

We set the alarm early this morning, to get up and go walking. We got up a couple of minutes after 6:00 and were trying to decide whether to go, knowing it was supposed to rain. Then we heard it thundering, and by 6:12, it was already raining, so we went back to sleep. 🙂

Appetizer – What is a symbol that inspires you? Well, the cross. Also, the American flag. Both evoke strong emotions.

Soup – Name something (either serious or funny) that has happened in your life that you would consider a miracle. meeting Tim

Salad – How do you handle criticism? Very poorly. I have extremely low self-esteem and I don’t handle a lot of normal comments well, I usually construe them as criticism or put-downs. Actual criticism is usually worse, unless I ask for it from someone and know to expect it, then I do take it better. I try to remain calm and accept it as constructive, but that doesn’t always work.

Main Course – Complete this sentence: I feel alone when… Tim is out of town overnight

Dessert – Name one TV show you wouldn’t want to be caught dead watching. Something like Fear Factor or something on the Discovery channel about snakes!

I didn’t get a chance to do two memes I saw on Friday, so here they are, two days late! 🙂

This one is from this site.

1. Describe your telephone: We have several older cordless phones in the house. Looking to upgrade to a new 5.8 mhz system with caller id phones soon. We’re going to try to switch to Voice over IP phone service soon, and we’re probably going with Vonage. I’m mostly just looking forward to getting Caller ID, we don’t have it with our current plan

2. Do you have a cell phone? Yes, I’ve had one for about 12 years. I originally got one for safety reasons. But, obviously, now we are like everyone else, we think we can’t live without it!

3. Why do you / do you not have a cell phone? OOPS! See above!

4. Who is your favorite person to call? Tim 😀

5. What is the longest time you’ve spent on the phone? Probably a couple of hours talking to Amanda when she was home on maternity leave

Well, we had planned to drive over to Linda and Mitchell’s today, to surprise Mitchell for his birthday tomorrow. We were going to go to church, then maybe take them out to eat lunch and visit some this afternoon. About a half hour before we were ready to leave, Linda called and said they were going to come over to Brandon for lunch, for Mitchell’s birthday, and didn’t we want to come meet them? So, so much for that surprise! But we’re really glad they are coming! 🙂 We’ll get to see everyone, have lunch, and then I think we’re going to go to Lowe’s and do a bit of shopping. Terry and the kids are coming too, so it will be a really nice afternoon.

I need to go to Super Walmart late this afternoon, and do the weekly shopping run. I’m going to drag Tim with me. Poor Tim!

Last night we watched one of the movies we bought a week or so ago for 7.50 – The Rock with Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. Good movie, we had not seen it in a while. I imagine we’ll watch another one tonight, since there is not much on TV on Sunday nights that we like.

We worked outside almost all day, me in the flowers and Tim with his woodworking. I took some pictures of the new planters and will try to post them in a day or so. We ran to Lowe’s tonight to get a gift card, then stopped at Applebee’s for a salad for dinner. I think we might watch a movie now 🙂

I found this while blog-surfing tonight – wow, I can remember hearing about this all the way back to the first one in 1977. Fans are already starting to line up for the last Star Wars set to premiere May 19!!

Read all about it here 😀

(Continued from “Plants and Planters” below…)

After we left Lowe’s, we headed down Lakeland to the new Stix restaurant that has been open for several months, but we had not yet been to. It’s similar to other Japanese places around here, of which there are many. Nice having the Nissan plant here, it has really helped the explosion of Japanese food places! So far, we have tried Kyoto, Little Tokyo, Nagoya and Bonsai. Now, we can add Stix to the list. Stix is larger, I think, than most of these places, with the exception of maybe Bonsai.

Tim ordered steak and chicken and I ordered shrimp and scallops. I’d like to say that I enjoyed it as much as I do the food at Little Tokyo and Nagoya, but it wasn’t quite up to what I was used to. It was good, no doubt about it, but not great/excellent. It was standard Japanese teppanyaki fare – soup, salad, then the chef cooked fried rice, vegetables and our entree. I did like the vegetables better. The other places we go to normally have just zucchini and onions for the veggies, but Stix had broccoli, carrots and mushrooms in there as well. The veggies were very good.

I hate to sound “down” on the place – it was good, but I think I will vote for Little Tokyo or Nagoya next time. They are both closer to us, I think they are comparable in price, or maybe a little cheaper, and I enjoyed the food more. As Tim said, this place’s “pink sauce” was not very good! And, anyone who has eaten Japanese with us before should have noticed – Tim LOVES his pink sauce! 😀

Of course, it goes without saying that this was another enjoyable Friday Night Date Night. I’m getting rather used to these! (I wouldn’t have minded cooking, but I can always move it to another night!) The nice part about date night is the company – I love getting to go with Tim; I enjoy his company so much! It’s so wonderful to me that after all of these years, we still have such a great time together. I still love going on dates with him. He’s a really good date! 😀

Tim got off a few minutes early, and wanted to go out and eat tonight. I already had something planned for dinner, but had not started cooking, so he talked me into it – very very easily!

We went out to the new Lowe’s on Lakeland first. Boy, I’ll be glad when they finish building the one by our house in a few months, I really like this store! Tim wanted to look at tool boxes to go in his pickup bed, and I wanted to look for a bird feeder. The only tool boxes that they had were the silver battered looking kind, and Tim wants a black one. We can special order one from Home Depot, so we may end up doing that. He also found a tool storage thing he was interested in, but wasn’t ready to get it today.

So, we didn’t end up getting anything Tim was looking for. What we did do, however, was end up walking out with a buggy full of metal planters, hanging baskets, flowers, potting soil and a bird feeder. Guess who’s going to be busy tomorrow planting some flowers? Of course, this won’t even scratch the surface of what I need to plant. We have several others planters, and then there are all the beds – 3 or 4 – that will need annuals planted in them. It’s a good start though.

We bought ….
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I’ve been having such a good time this afternoon IM’ing with Shanna and telling her all about the different programs I do online – reading emails, answering surveys, answering questions, etc, to earn points at reward sites. I do three different programs, and earn points or credits that I can apply towards gift cards, to places like Hollywood Video, Blockbuster, Walmart, Target, Bath and Body Works, Linens and Things, Eddie Bauer, etc. It takes a while to earn the points, and you have to read a lot of emails, answer a lot of questions and surveys, but like I told Shanna – heck, my time is real cheap, I enjoy doing it, and then I love getting a $5 or $10 gift card in the mail. 🙂 I know, I’m a geek, but I like it!

Shanna, if you’re reading this, I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you start getting some gift cards soon! Have fun!

Thursday night was a good night!

Tim got in from work and we got a chance to go on our walk, and talk about our day, and get some exercise too. We also picked up some wood (from a dumpster at the construction site on the far side of our subdivision, where they are building some nice office buildings) for Tim to use in his woodworking, to play with. Gives him a chance to try different cuts and things with his router and table saw.

We had supper and then watched Survivor. That poor Ulong tribe, two members and now down to one, Stephanie. How can you have a tribe of one? If I was that girl, I would not want to be out in that wilderness beach jungle all by myself!

CSI and Without a Trace were both reruns, so we decided to watch a movie. Tim was very sweet and agreed to watch one of “my movies”. We had picked up some movies for 7.50 apiece at Circuit City a couple of weeks ago, including one of my all-time favorites, The Princess Bride. I love that movie! Tim is not too keen on it, but he watched it with me nonetheless, which was very good of him. 😀

I think this weekend, we’ll have to watch some of “his movies” 😆 I suppose I “owe him” now!