Why I Oughta...

Although my days at Kellogg are now behind me, I found these photos on my phone over the weekend. During the 3 hour classes, we get a 10-15 minute break.  More often than not, I spent that outside.  Usually walking around the building, calling Nat, and NOT smoking (like most of the folks outside.)   The building's exterior has been under construction during a good portion of my time there and I always fancied this piece of stone.  I thought it would be a nice addition to our pavilion/patio.  But alas....I'm not a thief.  And...it probably weighs 3,000 lbs.   Above one of the doors at the school is this King Solomon quote that always struck me when I saw it. I'll miss this place.  Just a little.

Last night, Nat and I enjoyed the fireplace for the first time.  The temps were low enough outside to make it worthwhile.  Now that it is done, I'm thrilled with how it turned out. My nieces and nephews have already brought over a bag of s'mores fixings, so I'm certain we'll put it through it's paces this summer.

Back in March, Nat and I wandered by a "coming soon" sign for a new coffee shop in Downtown Elmhurst called "That Coffee Shop" .  They've opened their doors a month ago, but we've failed to go in.  Today, on our walk to the library we spied their new hours of operation. Cute, but the late start on Sunday isn't smart.

How about this?!?! Via EW by way of Fratty Matty's FB page.

The house is cleaned up, the yard is cleared.  The party is over.  I've spent entirely too much time in my yard over the past week.  Nat put together a great party....with carrot cake cupcakes (purple frosting!). Have 10 days of vacation time in front of me to kick off the Summer of Jake.

I've been at it all day long.  Put down 10 yards of mulch, planted a Ginko tree, set up the low-voltage lights, and most of the patio/pavilion got done. As I type this, I have 18 pounds of Boston Butt in the smoker. The Yankee Smoker - which looks like a dorm refrigerator.  14 hours at 185 degrees, and we'll have lots of pulled pork for our party tomorrow.

I've all but written off the grass.  I was thinking it would come back in time for this party we're having Saturday, but that's clearly NOT going to happen. But....the rest of the stuff?  I assumed it was a slam dunk - everything would be done by today at the latest. Guess what?  MOST everything isn't done yet.  The contractor hasn't been around for 6 days.  In fact, he called me back last night after I left him messages for the past five days.  He's apparently taken another job.  I begged him to come today after he's done and get the electric done.  He thinks he can get it done this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon.  If he doesn't, I'm sure I'll write a post about him specifically.... I've also had to quickly find another contractor to install the stone on the fireplace.  It showed up over the weekend.  This was on the original contractor's contract, but with so little time, I needed to turn elsewhere. That's the box of corners

When we built the garage, I made plans for a future addition:  our own brick pizza oven.  I left a space for the footprint just to the north of the garage.  For the past 18 months, I've been lurking on the Forno Bravo forums ; watching the builds, keeping track of all the details/modifications and planning my oven all along.   After a long search, I came across this oven as my inspiration.  Once the backyard gets finished, we'll sit back and enjoy it for a while, then when winter comes, I'll begin my preparation for getting started early in the spring of 2011.

Earlier this year, Nat and I bought Nat's mom the Pioneer Woman Cook s cookbook for Mother's Day.  We sent the book away via the USPS and also sent the PW a note via email telling her that it was coming.   (We also paid for the return shipping ahead of time.) A few weeks later (kind of disappointing that we didn't get an email response), this arrived back in the mail. While I am thrilled to get the book back, the whole process made me re-think my expectations of "people on the internets".  I held the PW in pretty high regard, and, at the end she delivered (the signed book), but the process and no email response back were a bit of a bummer.  I bet she gets A LOT of email, but a simple "I'm on it" response would have been perfect.  (and would have allowed us to actually print it out and give it to Nat's mom on Mother's Day instead of giving her an IOW.   In the end, she still makes tasty food.  And...the Crash Hot Potatoes are in regular

We're half-way home to having the pavers finished.  The weather has been throwing us some curveballs, but the crew is saying they're going to get it finished up in the next few days - if they can get 8-10 hours of work in.  I'm really like the way the patio has turned out, but I was very concerned when it started. They have the patio and the walk-way done all the way to our deck.  Next is getting it to the front driveway.  I'm also desperately trying to resurrect our grass.  As you can see in the photo above, because of all the work and lumber laying on it for too long, the grass is in some sad shape.  We bought some fast-germinating seed, which says it takes 3 days, but so far....nothing!  Party is in 5 days.