Exceedingly Mundane

It’s still really hot and dry here. We haven’t had rain in over a week, and today it got so hot. I was inside, working on the computer, and noticed that my little weather icon on my computer was blinking red for a heat advisory – it was 100º with a heat index of 108º. Sheesh, I sure wish summer would wind down and we could get a break from this heat.

Anyway, it clouded up around 6:30 PM and started lightening and thundering. I got my hopes up that it might rain, and it sprinkled – for all of about 20 seconds. It barely dampened the pavement.

But, it was still cloudy and unsettled towards sunset and I got some decent pictures. I discovered, quite by accident, that I have a “sunset” mode on my camera!

I’ve had my iPod a little over a year now, and I still love the thing. Tim bought it for me last year (read about it here) before we left on vacation for Washington DC. He got me the red Toughskin that I wanted for my birthday last fall (it was documented here). I wanted the biggest, thickest, toughest casing I could find for it, since I’m very clumsy and seem to drop the thing a lot. Anyway, I’ve been really happy with it, except for one thing – the ear buds.

I am not sure what Apple had in mind when they designed the ear buds that they sell with their regular sized iPods. I mean, they seem really big to me! Maybe it’s just because I’m a girl, but these things are really too big for my ears. They’re uncomfortable and they fall out a lot, especially if I’m walking or really moving around at all with my iPod. So, for a while now, I’ve been looking for an alternative to these ear buds. I found a couple I thought I might like, but they were pricey. The ones that Apple wants to sell you are about $45 bucks and I just couldn’t see paying that, so I kept looking. I finally decided to try these ear bud covers from Griffin Technology. I got them a few days ago and so far I am trying to decide if I like them. I’ve used my iPod twice with them on (although not for walking because of my hurt ankle) and I think they fit my ear a lot better. I am not sure if they are going to stay in my ear any better though, because they stick out quite a bit further. So, on the comfort scale, they are better. On the sound quality front though, I don’t think they are quite as good. They are just snap on covers, but they seem to somehow change the overall sound of the music. The music doesn’t sound as “rich” somehow, it sounds a bit more “tinny” or something. I’m obviously not very musically inclined so I can’t tell exactly what’s changed, but it does sound different. The good thing is that I can snap them on and off, so overall, I think they’ll be ok. Best of all, I only paid 6.99 for them, so maybe it won’t be money wasted. I had bought a pair at Best Buy a couple of weeks ago, but they were 19.99 in there. When I came home and checked on Amazon and found them for 6.99, I returned those to Best Buy and ordered them!

OK, so do me a favor – if you have an iPod, please leave me a comment and let me know if you are still using the ear buds that came with it, if they fit well in your ears, and if not, what you are using instead. Thanks!

Oh, and here’s what they look like:

We rented a movie over the weekend and we stayed so busy that we didn’t have a chance to watch it until last night. It was Tim’s pick, and even though I was mumbling in the video store “I haven’t heard good things about that one, let’s get another one“, he got it anyway. We rented “The Matador” with Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear.

I almost hesitate to do book and movie reviews here, even though it is my blog and I think I’m allowed my own opinion.

However- Number one, I’m a pleaser and I don’t like confrontation. I like to go with the flow and do what makes everyone else happy. Number two – I also firmly believe that what one person likes, another dislikes. But, since it is my blog, I’m going to just state my opinion – we disliked this movie tremendously.

Even Tim, who picked it out, didn’t like it. It had a bad plot, not great acting, some raunchy parts, lots of bad language and it just drug on and on. Several times Tim and I glanced at each other and one would say “I wonder how much longer it’s going to be”. Ugh. Lots of people might like this movie (although it’s hard for me to see how), but we thoroughly disliked it. In fact, on a scale of 1-10, we give it a 2 or maybe a 3 at best. My recommendation would be to save yourself the money to rent it and that two hours of your life that you can never get back. I wish we had!

I finished a really great library book a couple of nights ago called “I Do, But I Don’t” by Cara Lockwood. This was my first book by this author and I hope it’s not the last. This one was, unfortunately, the only one available to me in my local library system, so I’ll have to head out to Borders one day and look for some more by this author.

After struggling through the last book, this one was a total and thorough joy to read. It was light, fun and frivolous, a true “chick lit” kind of book. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something light and engaging. It sort of reminded me of the movie “The Wedding Planner”, since the main character, Lauren, is a wedding planner in good ole Austin Texas. But the similarities end there and I must say, I really liked this book. It just ended too quickly. 🙂

For the record, that makes #46 for the year so far, with a total of 16,346 pages read. Up next is my last library book from the trip a couple of weeks ago, “Jewels of the Sun” by Nora Roberts. I might possibly be the only person on the planet not to have read any Nora Roberts (or J.D. Robb) books yet, but this is honestly my first. It’s also the first of a trilogy of books set in Ireland. I hope I enjoy it as well. After that, I’m not sure if I’ll get more at the library or actually try to read one I have bought and stacked in my bookcase. I have a feeling I’ll head back to the library and get more. I do so much better when I have a book with a due date on it, LOL! (Of course, that doesn’t stop me from buying books when I go to the bookstore!!!!)

I missed this meme on Sunday and meant to do it. Sorry I’m so late Sindee! 🙂

~Let’s Go Shopping~

By the way…
When out shopping, do you prefer to use cash, check, or a credit card? Credit card. We put everything on one card that pays us money back and then pay it off every month.
Would you describe yourself as a budgeter or a free spender? Budgeter. Saver. Frugal. Cheap. You name it, I’ve been called it 🙂
Do you use coupons and watch for sales? Absolutely, all the time.
Where do you do most of your everyday shopping? For groceries and household items, mostly at Walmart. With some Sam’s Club and Target thrown in for good measure
Name a favorite store where you buy clothing. Kohl’s. I’ve been buying most of my clothes there since our store opened 1 1/2 years ago. Love that place!
If you could go on a shopping spree in ANY store, which would it be and why? Right now, I would like nothing better than all new appliances for my kitchen. So, I guess Sears for Kenmore appliances, or Lowe’s or Home Depot for comparable ones. As a second choice, I’d get Pergo laminate flooring for our house and pay someone to install it so we wouldn’t have to do the labor!

Postscript: Even though these were easy to answer, the real “me” didn’t come out. I actually don’t like to shop that much. I’ve been married to Tim for so long, and he detests going shopping for anything. The longer we’re together, the more I am like that. I only go out of necessity, 98% of the time. I do like going with my sister or friends though. It’s much more fun to go shopping with the girls!

I ran across Org Junkie’s blog and post last week and saw that there was a new meme starting up revolving around menu planning. Yippee! I have been doing menu plans for quite a while now, and have been posting them over in the forums on our main website, Hambones.org. I have been a bit lax with posting them lately, mostly because I don’t think anyone looks at them. They help me tremendously though, both for grocery shopping, reducing stress, knowing what meat I need to take out to thaw, etc, on a daily basis.

So, this week, I’m going to start participating in this meme on Mondays. I’ll post my menu, some items with links to the recipes on our main site, and some will have “TBD” – to be determined. We tend to eat out on the weekends a lot. We like to have date night!

Anyhoo, here we go, first time to do Menu Planning Monday:

Monday – Grilled Chicken Salad, with Maple-Mustard dressing

Tuesday – Toss up. The hubby is going to try to play golf with a friend. If he does, I’ll make Maple BBQ Chicken Sandwiches, veggie, probably chips or fries. If he doesn’t play golf, he’s going to get to grill out. 😆 Chicken for him, salmon for me, baked sweet potatoes, veggie or salad.

Wednesday – breakfast food (probably eggs, oatmeal, toast)

Thursday – something new – Annie’s Organic cheeseburger macaroni, corn, homemade bread

Friday – Date Night (eat out) or Frozen Pizza

Saturday – Frozen Pizza or Date Night 🙂

Sunday – TBD

P.S. I’m also on the hunt for a homemade spaghetti sauce, preferably a crockpot one. If anyone has a recipe they’ve used and liked, I’d love to see it. I have been using a jarred Prego sauce, which we like, but I’d like to try a homemade one.

1. Are you working on any big projects around your house right now? Not at the moment. I have a lot I want to do, but we haven’t found or made the time to start any of them. I also have a long to-do list for Tim, but he hasn’t touched that in a long time! 😆
2. If so, tell us about it; if not, do you have any plans to do so in the near future? We want to pull up the carpeting in the living room and dining room and put down laminate flooring. We’re also looking at rearranging the den, getting rid of some furniture, and getting a bigger entertainment center to hold the big screen TV that Tim wants to buy 🙄
3. How do you generally pay for merchandise at your local store? Debit, credit, check, or cash? Credit. We put everything on one card that earns us money back and then pay it off at the end of the month.
4. Which month of the year seems to go by the fastest? Probably December
5. Which day of the week seems to go by the fastest? Friday
6. Have you taken up any new hobbies lately? No, but I’m doing a lot of reading and loving it. I want to pick back up scrapbooking, but I can’t seem to make the time to dive in, between blogging and reading (and staying so busy with Tim at night and on the weekends)

Nada, nothing. Got nothing blog-worthy today

We were gone all day yesterday, helping my dad. We also got to stop and see Tim’s brother Mark, Amanda, Ethan and Abby and go out to eat dinner with them before heading home. Which is always nice 😀 Today, we’re going to go run a bunch of errands, maybe watch a movie, and then settle in tonight to watch the first NFL preseason game on TV. We’ll have to tape The 4400 and watch it later in the week.

We’re headed out again today, out of town for a short trip. We had wanted to go to more of the Saints training camps, but alas, all of their practices this weekend are closed to the public. They’re getting ready for their first preseason game next weekend, which we were very glad to see, will be shown on one of our local TV stations. 🙂

My dad called and needs some help moving his computer, so we’re headed south to his house to help out. He had a toilet overflow and soak a couple of rooms worth of carpet and padding. The service people are coming to start drying the padding and carpet, and he wants to move his computer out of the way and set it up in another part of the house for a while. So, since we’re the computer experts in the family, we are needed elsewhere today. 😆

Hope everyone has a great day!

I finished a really long library book last night, “The Falls” by Joyce Carol Oates. This was my first book by this author and will probably be my last. I didn’t really like it, and was mostly just ready to be finished with it and start something else. I very nearly stopped reading it (something very difficult for me to do) several times, but I kept plugging away at it, but there was no joy in the reading.

I really hate to write negative reviews, or reviews in general, to be honest, because what one person likes and loves, another dislikes. Books and movies can be so subjective, you know?! But this book, I just didn’t like, and that’s a fairly strong statement for me – I generally like most every book I read. But, this book was not that way for me. The long, drawn-out plot and the writing style of this author just did not appeal to me on any level. I did not really enjoy it, and I was soooo glad when it was over. I rate it a 3 out of 10 stars, a very low rating for me.

For the record, that makes #45 for me so far this year, with a total of 16,011 pages read. Up next is a much lighter, more frivolous book, “I Do, But I Don’t” by Cara Lockwood. This is another new author to me, but I think I’m going to like this one better. Looks like some really good “chick lit”, yippeee! 🙂 From what I can tell, it’s going to be like a book version of the movie “The Wedding Planner”, which is a movie I really like. Check back in a couple of days for a review, I’ve got some time this weekend to read, and I expect to fly through this one in no time, LOL!!

Appetizer
Name an actor or actress you think is totally underappreciated. Well, this requires more brain power than I possess at this time of the morning 🙂 How about Clive Owen (King Arthur) or Christian Bale (Batman Begins)? I really like both, but I don’t think they got nearly enough press for those movies or others.

Soup
Impress us by using a big word in a sentence. {Spoken to Tim}… You’re trying to be very surreptitious, but I know what you’re up to!

Salad
What is something inanimate that you’ve given a name to (such as a pet rock)? I’ve named cars in the past. We bought a Pontiac Bonneville several years ago, so I named her “Bonnie”. Then, Tim got his big honkin 4×4 pickup and I named him Clyde. We traded in Bonnie for my new SUV (as yet unnamed), but Clyde stuck. 😀

Main Course
What color would best represent your personality and why? My favorite color is green, so I guess I’ll go with that. Green is rather calming and peaceful, earthy and homey to me. There ya go 🙂

Dessert
Fill in the blanks: ____________ is so ____________. Chocolate is SO Good!

I have blogged in the past, briefly, how years ago I thought the idea of bagged lettuce was a silly fad that would pass. After all, I’d seen lettuce for sale in the grocery store all my life, and for a lot cheaper, and more of it, than the price that they wanted for bagged lettuce. Then, as I realized that I was willing to pay more for the convenience of it, I started to think it a lot less silly idea. Now, I often buy bagged lettuce, although I still do buy the heads of lettuce (romaine or spinach, I try to stay away from iceberg since it has no nutritional value) and wash them for us to have. But, if I’m pressed for time or feeling particularly lazy, I go for the bagged stuff.

Same explanation applies to the concept of tuna, chicken, and salmon in those round aluminum tin cans vs the ones that are sold now in foil packs. I resisted even buying them for the longest time. After all, tuna is tuna right, and the foil packs cost a lot more. You’re paying for the convenience of not draining them, or whatever, right? Well, I finally caved a couple of years ago, and now I almost always buy the foil pack. Yes, I pay more, I know. But, I honestly think some of it tastes a lot better coming out of the foil pack than that old rusty tin can :mrgreen:, especially the tuna. I really like the new flavored tuna fillets that Starkist sells in the foil packs. I’ve tried the lemon pepper one and teriyaki ones and I like both of those a lot.

I’d love to hear if you still buy the cans exclusively, you now get foil packs exclusively, some of both, or you could basically care less – so be sure to leave me a comment. No, never mind, don’t comment if you could care less 🙄

Here’s a sample of what’s in my pantry today:

What’s that on the ceiling? A bird, a plane, a UFO? No, it’s the time and temperature displaying constantly.

HUH? Please let me explain. We love gadgets. All kinds of gadgets, but being the geeky techie people that we are, we really love electronic gadgets. For Christmas last year, I bought Tim a new atomic clock, probably this one. It’s made by Lacrosse Technologies and is an atomic clock with time, temperature and humidity displays. There’s a separate piece that goes outdoors to monitor the outdoor temperature. It sets itself automatically by the US atomic clock service, which I think is very cool. He tinkered with it Christmas afternoon and it’s been running fine ever since.

Then, the lights blinked one day last week, and for whatever reason, for the first time ever, this thing lost track of the time. So, as Tim was resetting it, he figured out how to get it to project not only the time, but also the outdoor temperature on our bedroom ceiling.

He’s tickled pink with it. Me, not so much. I am starting to get used to it, but it is a little disconcerting to wander into our bedroom after dark and see these large red numbers displayed on the ceiling. Or say, you’re laying in bed having trouble falling asleep and all you can focus on is these numbers above your head in red.

Needless to say, I tried to take some pictures, but it was hard to get it focused at night without activating my flash. I tried several modes and finally came up with a couple of shots. Of course, these are zoomed in, but you get the picture. Just imagine these numbers are on the ceiling above your bed in your bedroom. 🙄

Tim had to work late last night, so I stayed up late reading and finished another book – “A Good Yarn” by Debbie Macomber. This is the sequel to a book of hers I read last year and really liked, “The Shop on Blossom Street”.

This book is your typical women’s fiction – 4 women get together (in this case, for knitting classes) and form a bond, in spite of their different backgrounds, relationships, age, etc. Even though this was a sequel, it could easily be a stand-alone book as it introduces each character and covers who they are and why they are there. I like the way these books are ordered – each chapter is devoted to one of the women and tells their story of what is going on in their life, either in the knitting class or the other things that are covered with their storyline. A very enjoyable book (I don’t know a thing about knitting so I just skim over those sections, they are not involved and don’t distract from the storyline), and a good read. I own this book, if anyone would like to borrow it sometime!

For the record, that makes #44 for the year, with a total of 15,530 pages read. Up next, I’m going to read one of the 3 library books I checked out last Friday. I will probably start with the Joyce Carol Oates book, “The Falls”, but I’m going to read through the jacket covers again tonight and see if I don’t want to start on one of the others instead. See what I’m in the mood for, I guess 😀