Exceedingly Mundane

Like yesterday, I missed some of the segments on the Today show about “Where in the World is Matt Lauer”. Sigh. I like to sleep too much, I’m afraid. I did see most of the second half of it though.

Today – Matt traveled to the Panama Canal. Matt went up into the control booth (gate house) and turned some dials and levers and opened the gates for a cruise ship (the Coral Princess with about 1,900 passengers on board) to begin its trek through the canal. He talked about the history of the canal, how many ships go through, how long it takes, and surprising to me – the cost. I had never thought about the ships having to pay, and the price is pretty steep! I believe for this cruise ship alone (don’t quote me, my memory is terrible), the price was about $265,000 dollars. I watched the video blog on the Today show website (today.msnbc.com) and the administrator of the Panama Canal Authority said that they generated over 1.2 billion dollars in revenue last year. So, it is very much a business. They also did a segment on the history – the locks and canal were built by the US Army Corps of Engineers and lots of people lost their lives due to accidents and things like yellow fever. President Carter agreed in the 70’s to turn over the management of the canal to the country of Panama, and this was done at the end of the century, December 31, 1999. The country of Panama and the Panama Canal Authority now run the canal.

It was very interesting, and you can go check out the video blog on the Today show website, or you can go here and read more about the locks, canal, lakes, and history at Wikipedia. Lots of good information here.

The clue for tomorrow’s stop – to quote Matt “The gold flowed here for a second time, after a bust in the Rocky Mountains”. Anyone got any ideas? 🙂

Fill in the blank questions (my blanks are in bold)…

1. Sometimes I wish I could just play all day without feeling guilty (read, watch movies, play on the computer all day). But I just can’t.
2. If I could take a long weekend to the mountains, I’d be very happy.
3. The world would be a better place if more people would just be more polite, respectful and considerate of each other. Gosh, what a long diatribe I could go on about that!
4. One of my greatest qualities is that I’m very thorough and organized.
5. The one thing about me that I need to work on is worrying about all the little things a lot less and learning to let things slide more.
6. Happiness is spending time with my best friend and partner for life 🙂

All of my life, I’ve been a TV addict. Now, that I am at home during the day, that means I watch a lot more daytime TV. I turn some of the talk shows on in the AM, and mostly just keep them on for noise. I enjoy some of the segments (some actors on promoting their latest movie, author promoting a new book, the occasional singer or band, etc). But, for the most part, I really just have it on in the background.

However, one thing I truly enjoy is the “Where in the World is Matt Lauer” series they do on the Today show once a year. Or less, I don’t remember him traveling last year. Anyway, I saw a couple of weeks ago that they were promoting this for November, and I wanted to be sure to tune in every day.

Today, I was not disappointed. Matt traveled on Day 1 to Easter Island. I have heard and read of this place before, but earlier this year, in reading the book “Three Weeks with my Brother” by Nicholas and Micah Sparks, I had a renewed surge of interest in the place. Located in the South Pacific and a province of the country of Chile, Easter Island is the most isolated inhabited island in the world. The famous stone statues, the Moai, line the coastline and have given rise to many questions as to their origin, use, how they were carved and erected, etc. You can read more about Easter Island here at Wikipedia.

Can’t wait to see where he goes tomorrow! Tune in!

I am a happy camper today, because we watched Revenge of the Sith last night. Or, at least, I watched it. Tim watched parts of it, as he was working on something on his laptop. I truly think that episode 3 is the best of this trilogy, and I like the darkness of it, but mostly, how it ties the two trilogies together. I am ready to watch it again, but I imagine that won’t happen for a while. Tim doesn’t seem to enjoy my Star Wars or LOTR movies nearly as much as I do. Come to think of it, I haven’t watched a single LOTR movie in eons, probably a year or more. Tim won’t watch them with me, and so I usually wait till he leaves on a business or hunting trip.

Hmmm, wonder when one of those is coming up again?! 🙂

I just realized that I was tagged by Dawn over at her blog, with this fun little “two things” quiz… thanks Dawn! There’s several of these, so be sure to click more to read the rest in the extended section. 😛

2 names you go by
1. Stace/Ace
2. Boog

2 parts of your heritage
1. Scottish
2. Irish (I think, I really don’t have any idea!)

2 things that scare you
1. losing Tim
2. snakes

2 of your everyday essentials
1. Internet access
2. being with Tim

2 things you are wearing right now
1. navy track pants
2. red t-shirt

2 of your favorite bands or musical artists (at the moment)
1. Faith Hill (“Fireflies”)
2. Rob Thomas (“Something to Be”)

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Tada! We have ceramic tile in our guest bathroom now 😀 (see pictures in the extended section.) It was a long day, and even Tim admitted towards the end that “this is harder than I thought it would be” and also said it took longer than he thought it would.

Disclaimer – we know why it took longer. We followed the instructions in the tiling book and found the center of the room and worked out from there. With this room, that means we had to make cuts on tiles that touched each surface (cabinet, wall, around toilet base, and bathtub). If we had done what we thought, we would have laid them out to maximize the tiles, i.e., using the most full tiles and only making minimal cuts. The way we did it, following the book, we had to make twice as many cuts. I don’t think we’ll be doing that in the other rooms. It just took too long, way too long. We’re going to try to lay out the kitchen, laundry and breakfast rooms to use the most tiles. As it stands right now, we’re probably going to have to go back and buy more tile because of all the cuts we had to make in the first bathroom. We wasted a lot of tile and used some of what we bought for the other rooms. Bummer.

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Adhesive cleaned up in the guest bathroom. Check.

Measured and marked lines for tile. Check.

{Yes, this room is very oddly shaped and is going to require tons of cut tiles. Darn it.}

Getting ready to mix the mortar and start laying tile. Check.

Pictures in the extended section. Check.

Another update later today or tomorrow… keep your fingers crossed for us!

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I was on the computer some yesterday afternoon (Friday) while Tim was working on removing the last of the adhesive from the floor in the guest bathroom. I turned around and looked outside the window in the computer room, and realized it looked like fall outside! One of the things we really like about our little subdivision is that they have in the covenants for everyone to have one of these big oaks planted… and they are starting to get bigger and show some nice color in the fall.

Click to see some pictures, one that I took yesterday, looking out the window in the computer room, and a couple I took this morning. 🙂

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I swear, all the best memes are on Friday! Here’s another one I just found, over at Kelly’s blog, “The Woman Wonders”
More good questions! Play along if you’d like, either in a comment here or {gasp} at your own blog! 😀

1. Do you prefer to work out at home, outside, or the gym? I prefer to walk with Tim, our 2 mile route through the subdivision. My second choice is working out at home to exercise tapes/DVD’s.

2. Laundry soap, powder or liquid? Liquid for almost everything. I do keep a box of powder for washing towels we use outside or for mopping up messes. I use All Free & Clear, by the way, since we both have somewhat sensitive skin

3. While you are home (during the day and/or night) do you keep your doors locked or unlocked? I’m not asking about overnight, I am assuming we all lock our doors then. Yes! Tim can tell funny stories about this. He says I stay locked up in here like it was Fort Knox! I’ve even been known to lock him out during the day on the weekend, like on a Saturday if he’s working in the yard. I do it out of habit, I just automatically lock a door when I come inside!

4. Sock shoe, sock shoe OR sock sock, shoe shoe? Hmmm, probably a little of both. Mostly, I think I do sock, sock, shoe, shoe

5. Do you take any prescribed medicine on a DAILY basis? Yes, I take 2 prescribed meds and 2 over-the-counter ones (multivitamin and calcium chewie thing) every day.

Tim stopped at Home Depot yesterday on the way home from work and picked up a gallon of Krud Kutter. He had read online somewhere that someone had used this stuff and had good luck with getting the underlayer of the vinyl and all that adhesive up. He spent about an hour last night in the guest bathroom, and used some elbow grease and the Krud Kutter and got most of the stuff up. Picture included on the extended page. I think he’s going to spray it down one more time and scrape the rest of it up, and then he’ll be ready to start laying the tile! Yeah!

He’s working from home today, so whenever he finished this afternoon, I think he’ll start back on the project. Or else, we’ll go shopping or something (yeah, right!). 😀

Click for picture…
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Redrum

1. What is your shoe size? 7

2. How many hours did you sleep last night? about 8 1/2

3. Area code of your phone number: 601

4. Last grade of school completed: 4 year college/Bachelor’s Degree

5. Time it takes you to get ready in the morning: between 45 minutes and an hour

I finished the second book in the Zion Covenant series, “Prague Counterpoint”, by Bodie Thoene last night. That makes #33 for the year! I started the third book in the series, “Munich Signature”. I like that these books pick right up where the last one left off… without going back and laying the ground work, explaining the characters, etc. For someone like me, who reads these books back to back, it helps to not have to skim through all that background. It’s nice to just open to the first page and hit the ground running!

I imagine that this book may very possibly be the last one I read for the year. I want to read the book that Tim gave me for my birthday, that Wendy recommended, but I’m not certain that I will make it to that one or not. Even if I don’t read it, that still leaves me at 33 for the year. 33 is sort of a nice, round number, don’t cha think?! 😀

I thought I would jot down a few of the good and bad things that are going on around here for me, big and small things during the course of my day. I think I’ve been watching too much of Martha Stewart’s new daily talk show… the phrase “it’s a good thing” keeps reverberating through my brain! I do like her show though, and especially, this new feature she is doing every day in the month of November. It’s called “30 Things Everyone Should Know” and so far I’ve really enjoyed them.

I digress. Here’s some good, bad, and ugly things going on around here:

Good – giving out all the Halloween Candy on Monday night so it won’t be in the house to tempt us to eat more

Bad – finding Halloween candy marked down Tuesday at the store, and buying the ones I loved the most (Butterfinger Crisp) to bring home so we would have more candy in the house!

Ugly – the big zit I have on my face from eating all of said Halloween candy

Good – buying new sweats for the winter (tops, bottoms and even matching jackets for some!). Yeah for me! 😀

Bad – after washing said new sweats, going to put them in the drawer and finding new ones you had bought last year and forgotten about (ok, it’s just two pair of pants, but still, I forgot I had bought them!)

Good – making homemade soup for supper

Bad – that the soup is not healthy – full of potatoes, milk, cheese, no veggies, and the white bread (no whole grains) that we’ll be eating with said soup

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I found this neat little map while surfing earlier this morning…. go sign up and put a pin in our map!

“I know where most of you live” you know! 😆 But, I still thought it would be fun! After we get a few more pins on the map, I’ll move it over to the sidebar.

I’ve lived in this house for 12 1/2 years. For over 12 of those years, I have wanted to get rid of the white floors that the builder put in here, and I have always disliked immensely. My patience is finally being rewarded, as we have purchased some ceramic tile from Home Depot and Tim started last night on “the great tile project of Fall 2005”

He is going to start in the guest bathroom and use that room as a test run (aka, guinea pig room). He started last night when he got in from work – he removed the toilet (it’s front and center in the garage though, in case anyone stops by and needs to use the guest bathroom!), the baseboard moldings, and starting removing the vinyl that was in there.

Click to see some before and after pictures, and to read more about the beginning of the project:

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