Why I Oughta...

In typical fashion, my mom threw a great Halloween party in Frankfort over the weekend.  Here's all the grandkids - plus a few great-nieces/nephews - all dressed up in costume.  The Babe got a good seat right on Papa's lap.

The basement walls are starting to take shape.  Lots of dust in the air, so the photo is a bit blurry, but on the left is going to be a fridge and bar area.  On the right is a closet and a bathroom.  Electric is going to go up this week, plumbing at the end of the week, followed (quickly) by drywall next week!

The main room ends up being 18' X 24' with just one post down the middle.  Going to be a fun rumpus room for me and a perfect playroom for the Babe.

Not the best attempt, but a good first round.  More here .

After a quick glance, it appears that the winner this year from Lemax is this Frosty's Christmas tree lot table piece.  It isn't lighted, but it is the cutest one.

Back in August, I speculated that the house a few doors to the south of ours was going to get torn down - based on the fence that someone put up.  We woke up this morning to the sound of heavy equipment.  Guess today was the day that the house was coming down.  The machine made quick work of the house. With the housing market still not that hot, the builder must have a buyer for the new house, right?

Of all the Lemax Christmas Village buildings that spoke to me at Menards, this Brewery building was one of the standouts.  There's a ton of things going on - with movement, lights, and sound so it is a fun piece.  I didn't look to see what it was priced at, but if it goes on red-tag sale, I'll try to scoop one up.  What's not to like?  Giant beer stein?  Big pipe and gnomes?  Yes, please.

Thanks to my brother-in-law* Bill, I now have a plan for hiding our water meter, our electric ground and house some A/V equipment in the corner of our basement.  I asked him to help me conceptualize what something could look like and he whipped up this beautiful rendering. Pay no attention to the scrap paper he used - but focus on the drawing.  The bookshelves on the right have 'rails' that run from floor to ceiling that 'contain' the pipes.  Pretty clever design.

I was driving home from Kalamazoo on Friday evening when I got burned out of Howard Stern replays.  I was driving my own car, so I had my original Sirius player with me.  With Stern only doing 3 days a week, by the time Friday rolls around, I've likely heard *most* of the bits/segments, so if I'm in the car, it is either tie for sports radio or a spin around the Sirius dial. One of my stops is Channel 31 - the Coffeehouse.  I heard this song from Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and *had* to take a photo of the display so I could remember the name of the song. After my love of Christmas Village buildings , this might be my second-most-embarrassing guilty pleasure.    Here's an AMAZING live effort from Herb and the boys.

They've gone ahead and set up the Lemax Christmas Village at Menards.  Yes...I'm still starry-eyed by these things.  And...yes, I'm still embarrassed to say that I'm into them.  The Babe liked them too.  There's a set of these things that are Mickey Mouse-themed, so that got her to chime in with some "Micky!" and points and grunts.  There are a bunch of structures - from all of the various collections that I'll post in the coming days/weeks.  We spent a lot of time in front of the display over the weekend as it is really big.  With the Halloween stuff still taking up prime real estate in the store, the display is in a different spot this year. So...did I buy anything?  Nope.  Not yet at least.  My (personal) rule is that I can't/won't buy anything that isn't on sale.  We'll see if my impluse resistance will stick through December 15th - when these type of things go on sale.