Exceedingly Mundane

I have blogged a couple of times lately about food products that we have bought, tried and liked. Among them, the Wheat Thins Veggie Chips, the Skinny Cow Vanilla Ice Cream Cones and the Lipton Green Tea Citrus tea drinks. We really like all those, and I will buy them again and again.

However, my streak has come to an end. This is one product I will not make the mistake of buying again:

This looked really good – I like rice, especially the flavored ones, you microwave it for only 90 seconds, right in the package, so it’s quick, easy and no clean-up. Well, it is also awful. Gooey and clumpy and not much flavor and just generally bad. I won’t be buying this again. I’ll go back to doing rice in a pan on the top of the stove.

Just my .02 🙂

Here’s a couple of new acquisitions we picked up over the weekend…

For Tim, a new chipping net:

If you’ll notice in the picture, there’s a white blur on the top right, I think the golf ball glanced off the rim on this particular shot! You can see in the background what he was using, an old flower pot planter. I used to have several terra cotta pots in the back for repotting in the spring (I stored them back there in the winter). They are all gone – they’ve been broken by various and sundry golf balls. 🙄

For Stacy, a new bird bath hanging from a shepherd’s hook:

Simple Things…

How many simple things have you learned to appreciate more, for one reason or another? Please list them and feel free to elaborate on each.

Oh my, this could be a long list! Here’s a few things off the top of my head:

1. Watching the birds on the fence and at their bird feeders

2. Watching the squirrels play and eat corn at their own feeder

3. Listen to the birds singing

4. Listen to the geese quacking on the way to the lake in our subdivision, as they fly over our house

5. Fresh warm sheets and towels, right out of the dryer, love the way they smell

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I finished another library book last night, “Reunion” by Karen Kingsbury. This was the fifth and final book in the “Redemption” series, and I really enjoyed these books. This one had some really sad, gut-wrenching parts to it, but as with all of her books, they always end on a positive note and leave you feeling uplifted and content, even though you’re sad about whatever bad has happened in the book.

I like reading series books, where you get to follow characters and see them grow and change and basically, just find out what happens to them in their life. I think this book set up characters and situations for another set of books she is writing, and I’ll eventually read those as well. After reading over 1500 pages about the Baxter family, I really hate to see them go away. I get sort of attached to characters after a while, sort of like Father Tim in the Mitford series of books. I don’t really want to say good-bye to them quite yet. 🙂

For the record, that makes book #28 for the year, with a total of 10,223 pages read. I’m going to read another “Miss Julia” book next, a series of books by Ann B. Ross about a witty and charming Southern woman and the very lighthearted escapades she and her friends and family get into. This one is called “Miss Julia Hits the Road” and I believe it involves her and a Harley Davidson motorcycle. 🙄

As always – so many books, so little time. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, I would read more if there were more than 24 hours every day

Another busy Saturday for us. I got up early (before everyone else, that doesn’t happen very often!) and went outside to water all the plants. I think our coolish days and chance of showers are over for a while. It’s hot and dry and very humid here now. High today around 92º. My flowers and all my new shrubs needed water, so I got out while it was still cool and watered everything – took nearly an hour!

We all had breakfast and got ready and drove Suzie out to the airport. We were so glad she got to come visit and stay. We went out last night, to Pepitos, and then watched another movie from our collection (The Saint, Suzanne’s pick). I hope she enjoyed being here, we really enjoyed having her.

After the airport, we headed out to our new Bass Pro Shop. The restaurant has opened since we were there last – Islamorada Fish Company. We looked around a while and then went in for lunch. Check out the lunch menu here. There was a coupon in the paper a couple of weeks ago when they opened to get a free appetizer with entree, and we decided to try the alligator. Tim had had alligator before, but this was a first for me. It was pretty good, not really like fish and not really like meat or chicken (I thought it would taste like chicken, isn’t that a standard response – it tastes like chicken?!) They also bring out some really good fresh baked bread, so by the time our entrees got there, we were nearly full I got the Islamorada Fish Sandwich with fries (grilled, mahi mahi instead of grouper) and Tim got the Angus Sirloin burger. It was all really good. Pricey, but good.

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Friday, May 19, 2006
Feast Ninety-Four

Appetizer
What is the last thing you had to have repaired? I can’t think of a single thing. We haven’t had to take cars in, or have an appliance or any thing in the house worked on. Drawing a total blank!

Soup
If someone gave you $2,000 with the stipulation that you had to spend half of it on yourself and give the rest to charity, where would you spend the $1,000 and which charity would receive your remaining $1,000? I’d probably put the $1,000 of mine either towards a big screen TV for Tim or a new kitchen appliance for me (oven, dishwasher or refrigerator). As for the charitable portion, I’d either give it to the local animal rescue league or to the American Lung Association

Salad
What is one of your favorite songs from the 1980s? Wow, this is my timeperiod for music! Very hard to pick. I’d probably pick either “Livin on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi or “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard

Main Course
You enter a pet store. Which section do you go to first? Puppy Dog stuff usually, although these days, I might have to look at the bird feeders. I really want a dog, soon, badly, very much. 😕

Dessert
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how athletic are you? About a 2 or 3, unfortunately

Yesterday was a good day, my dad and both sisters came into town and we all got to spend some time together. That doesn’t happen very often, maybe a couple of times a year, so I always really enjoy it when we can all be together.

Gail got here first, and we ran a couple of errands together, including Walmart and the library. She’s a bad influence on me, I’m telling you. I struggle with narrowing down my book choices in the library to just 3 or 4 books. With Gail with me, I walked out with six, count em 6, books 😆 Oh well, some of them will read quickly, and I can always call in and recheck them out if I can’t read them in time. Check out my sidebar for all of the books.

Dad and Suzanne got here not long after we got back from Walmart. We all went to Vasilio’s, a little Greek place near our house. We had hummus and pita bread, and then we all had sandwiches (gyro’s for me and Suzie, chicken gyro for Gail and souvlaki for Dad). The sandwiches were good, but a little dry (we all wanted more tzatziki sauce on our sandwiches ). It was good though, and I always love going there. We came back to my house and hung out for a while. Dad took a nap, and Gail and Suzanne and I visited, worked some Sudoku’s and I showed them all the flowers and shrubs we had planted in our yard. We hated to see Dad and Gail have to leave, but they had to head out in the late afternoon to drive back.

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I have blogged some lately about new food stuff that we’ve tried at the store. Both the Skinny Cow Ice Cream Cones and the Veggie Chips are stuff we really like, and now I have another one to add to that list. Based on a recommendation from Julie, I bought us a pack of these:

Yum, these things are good! They don’t really taste like tea to me, but I really like the taste of them, especially this time of year. They’re really light and refreshing. They won’t completely take the place of my peach tea I’ve been hooked on a for a while, but they are good. (Pricey, but good – this 12 pack was nearly 6 bucks at Walmart!).

I finished reading another book (from the library, again!) last night – “Hard Eight” by Janet Evanovich. I really love these books – they are light and funny and highly entertaining. They don’t have great language or scenarios in them, but that’s because she’s a bounty hunter out hunting murderers and rapists. They are so funny though, I will often just laugh out loud, really loud, at some of the passages in the book. Always a good diversion if I’ve read something a little heavier recently.

Anyway, for the record, this makes #27 for the year, with a total of 9,856 pages read. I’m headed back to the library this morning to get more books. 🙂 I’ll try to post later what I get and what I’ll start reading.

My dad and both sisters are on their way to town, and we’re going to go out to eat lunch and visit, so I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to post. Sometime later today!

I blogged briefly over the weekend about how we spent all Saturday working in our yard. Tim and I were both worn out by the time we finished, which was right before dark. I’ve been fairly sore ever since, from stretching muscles that I apparently don’t use regularly. 🙄

We got a lot done, though, and we were really pleased. We had originally planned to redo one of the big flower beds in the backyard and maybe build an arbor or swing, or (Stacy’s idea ONLY) make a patio type area where we could put chairs and a firepit (I was outvoted quickly on this one). 🙂 Instead, in the end, we decided to basically redo the bed like we had it before, except with some new plants. We even put some plants back in that we had in that bed before (which drives me nuts, we dug up perfectly good plants and put them at the curb for the garbage man to take away, then went back and bought the same thing). Enough to make a penny-pincher like me nuts.

Anyway, we got most of it done, and I took a few pictures. Check out the extended page if you’re so inclined.

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I normally cook during the week and sometimes on the weekends, but we often splurge and eat out on either Friday or Saturday night. Sometimes on Sunday night, we will go and pick up Chinese food from a little place close to our house.

However – we hardly ever eat out during the week, or pick up food. Tonight, though, was an exception to that rule. I had stuff on the menu to cook, but I just didn’t feel like cooking. Tim had a rough day at work and had to work late, so I talked him into picking up Chinese food. Anyone who knows me in person, knows that I LOVE Chinese food.

Click on the extended entry if you’d like to see what we got!

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Isn’t that the name of some really old movie, or maybe a line from a really old movie? “My Little Chickadee” ?? I’m thinking some kind of Mae West line or movie, which, of course, I’ve never seen.

Anyway, I’ve been trying for months to get a picture of some of the different birds that visit my bird feeders. The chickadees are some of the hardest to get – they skirt in and out in a heartbeat. And they’re so small, that they really don’t show up when I try to take pictures from inside the house (where I take 95% of my bird and squirrel photos).

I was out in the yard a couple of days ago, taking pictures of the flowers and flower beds, and a chickadee swooped past me to the feeder, so I was finally able to get a picture:

And yesterday, I took this picture of a dove perched on the roof of the little boathouse/shed next door:

OK, that will hopefully be all of the wildlife photos for today. I’m going to post some pictures soon of all the plants we planted in our yard over the weekend, and some of my flowers blooming in the yard. Don’t all jump up and down at one time, yelling and screaming in anticipation

I finished another library book last night, my first by the author Jodi Picoult. The book was “Plain Truth” and I really enjoyed it. A very engaging book, with a good plot and lots of interesting issues and points it brought up. The book is about an Amish girl who is accused of murdering her newborn infant, yet she does not remember being pregnant or having the baby. A distant relative, Ellie, is caught up in her case and agrees to be her defense lawyer. The book covers the storyline as it unfolds, the relationship between the women, and offers an intriguing glimpse into the Amish life.

For the record, this makes #26 for the year, with a total of 9,545 pages read. Up next is another Stephanie Plum book, “Hard Eight” by Janet Evanovich. 🙂 I’m ready for one that is sort of light and funny!

I hope you all had a very good weekend! Thanks for playing Monday Madness, and have a blessed week ahead! Now, for this week’s challenge….

Fill in the blanks…

1. If I could change ONE thing from this past weekend, it would be to not be so sore from all the yardwork!
2. One of my favorite recipes includes cocoa, butter, eggs, sugar, etc. It’s my Fudgy One-Bowl Brownies 🙂
3. If things don’t go as originally planned, I tend to get stressed and upset a little, I like things to be planned and executed.
4. My daily routine is very structured, but mundane.
5. The one television show I will probably miss, since the season is coming to an end, is either 24 or Lost, or maybe Amazing Race or Survivor!
6. I have a calendar hanging/sitting on my wall in the computer room/office.
7. I’m really pretty bad about changing the calendar when the day/month changes.