Welcome to the Carnival of the Mundane! When Dean first proposed the idea of a carnival of ordinary things, I thought the idea was great. That hasn't actually gotten me organized enough to actually submit anything for any of the previous carnivals, and I admit that my hosting of this one caught up with me before I even remembered I'd volunteered to do it. I have lots of excuses -- I volunteered before Christmas, then I got pregnant, then I put my house on a home tour, and besides all that I have three kids, a husband and a dog. Mundane and busy are clearly my strong points.

We have a wonderful collection of the every day things of life to present for you today in this, the ninth Carnival of the Mundane.

Many commercials leave me scratching my head and wondering if the advertisers were trying to make me buy their products or just run screaming from the room, the creepy Burger King commercials fall into this category, and for Tracy from Kaply, Inc there is a Chef Boyardee commercial that scares her more than just a bit.

Shoes! I love them, although not as much as my daughters -- one of whom declared that it didn't matter if the plastic dress up shoes hurt her feet, they were "pwetty" and the other daughter learned the word "shoe" right after Mama, Dada, and the dog's name. I like cute and pretty shoes, but I'm also more and more picky about them and their comfort to my feet. When I shop for shoes they must conform to certain rules -- no high heels, no pointy toes and preferably no backs. Muse of Me-Ander and I would get along well in our desire for flats.

Muse also includes a great thought in a recent post about exercise and teaching physical education, "The message is not to penalize the sports clutzes. The important thing is just to 'do it.' Exercise for fun not for winning."

The Everyday Goddess has a bone to pick with people and their use of quotation marks. She demands that everyone start putting their periods and commas inside. I think there may be a few exceptions to this hard and fast rule, and I hear they do it differently outside the US, but my quibbles are minor.

At The People's Republic of Seabrook thoughts have turned to the weather and what has or rather has not been done to prepare for the upcoming hurricane season. It's hard to believe a year has almost passed since last year's season began.

The Passover season is just behind us and Josh Cohen of Multiple Mentality has a post about Passover and what it would be like for him this year.

It only took me a year or so of teaching undergraduates while I was in grad school to figure out that teaching large numbers of people in a classroom was not my forte. I'm glad people like leesepea of But Wait! There's More are up to the task. And after a day in Junior High, a teacher has every right to need a little quiet decompression time.

What's in a name? I've been thinking on and off about what we'll name our fourth child when it's born. Kevin of kapgar.com's life in HTML/XML would like to see people in Hollywood bring back Kevin as a name for the good guys and stop making his name "synonymous with evil."

Watch out for those car batteries! At least in Indiana at Daisy Mae's, it seems to be Bad Battery Month.

Cooking can get mundane at times, but Josh Cohen keeps it exciting, while figuring out why they call it an omelet pan. Actually, I cook everything in mine, so I'm not sure why there were so many splatters and burns involved in the situation. Or if you are looking for a horseradish recipe to add spice to your average meal -- Muse has a recipe for you.

At a "family friendly dive" in New England, Claire of Taller Than Average Tales wondered what everyone was looking at.

While electric razors or many bladed disposable razors do the trick for most men, it seems almost every man who has to shave day in and day out, dreams, as Jack of Random Thoughts -- Do They Have Meaning?, once in a while of a nice shave with a straight razor. As long as they trust the person wielding the knife that is.

The joys of home ownership are just beginning for Dean of Inspired by a True Story as he begins the usual selling of his soul to the home improvement stores, and in the process acquires various tools for lawn maintenance and starts putting them together. My favorite part of the story is that after all those purchases, Dean's neighbor got tired of the jungle and mowed his lawn for him. Good neighbors are a wonderful thing.

Good neighbors don't only help out around the yard though, they also cheer you up, look out for you and chat in the elevator. Sometimes they pass on words of wisdom, such as "There has to be some benefit to being an old lady," which was said by Marissa's neighbor. Read the whole conversation at Apartment 2024.

Can a birthday get any worse? Hyperion relates part of a very bad birthday, but follow the links and you'll find out why it wasn't all bad.

Shiftwork is a relatively new blog about life, gargoyles, cats and hedgehogs, and a little bit of everything else.