Why I Oughta...

As we spend more time up at Twin Lakes in Wisconsin, we are beginning to get to know the local community a bit more including places to shop like Lake Geneva Antique Mall  and this place above"  Anderson's Candy Shop, which is actually in Illinois.  Richmond, Illinois to be exact.  Richmond is a border town.  Check out this map that shows the town of Richmond, the location of Anderson's and it's proximity to the Wisconsin border (which I've circled in green) as well as Twin Lakes of Elizabeth and Mary. Anderson's isn't the first candy shop that we've discovered.  Because of Google Maps rerouting us one time due to traffic and accidents, we came across the Riverside Chocolate Factory in McHenry .  It is shaped like a teepee, so it is hard to miss.  I'll try to post something on that place the next time we go because I think that the kids actually like that place better. Mostly because they have LOTS of little bins of name-brand candy. And t

Last year, I posted a very similar photo of these tulips popping up at Equation Boy/Man's place, but I posted it about two weeks later in the year.   Could these things have been prompted to emerge from the ground based on that week-long heat streak where temperatures were in the 60's everyday?    What happens if we get a frost?  Maybe they'll survive? Either way, this seems to mark an important moment:  Spring is right around the corner.  It also means that the countdown until we're in our new place is on!  It has been a few years since I've been able to putter around in the yard and add things and move things around because we haven't had a yard of our own.  I planted a few things in the yard in Elmhurst and over at my in-laws place that we'll likely try to transplant this summer if we can find a cool week.  Then it.is.on.  Gardening and bulb planting and tree planting to get us a good start on the lot this year, I'm thinking...

Chalk one up for YouTube and stumbling on new, interesting things.  I was watching a Bob Dylan/Johnny Cash "Girl from the North Country" video and then was offered up this Ray Charles video as a recommendation.  Had no idea that Ray Charles recorded an entire country record called "Love Country Style" in 1970.  Have to say that is is a pretty great cover version, eh?   My brother-in-law Shaun, who was the first person to turn me on to The Band and gave me his vintage copy of The Last Waltz also gave me a Ray Charles boxed set.  Those were among some of my most cherished ' pieces' of vinyl .  I've admired Ray and his music, but haven't gotten too far into it.  Maybe this country stuff is the ticket in? I use Google Music for all my listening needs, but I can only find this one song from a Greatest Hits compilation on there and the country album isn't available.  For those of you vinyl nerds out there, one of the ' pieces ' t

Check out that shoreline!  That's what they call Ice Jacking or Ice Heaving.  And best I can tell it is quite common in Minnesota.  There's dozens of stories like this one about it happening and damaging both the shoreline and occasionally, someone's property.   I took these photos a bit ago before the lake ice melted completely. We dealt with heaving with our old gate and the pavers underneath it as each winter they'd rise up by a small fraction of an inch, but it was enough to make the gate stick underneath it. That curling up of the earth and movement of the stones from the riprap is something I've never seen before in all my years spent around a lake.  Paw Paw didn't do this, but we also had a lot of beach area with a zero-depth entrance, so perhaps the ice had room to expand? If you look in the photo below, you can see it happening in the neighbors shoreline, too.  But, it doesn't occur everywhere.  Just in *some* spots. Based on what I'

Beyond mentioning it here in this post about Raglan Road , I don't think I've ever posted about the trip Nat and I took for the half marathon down in Disney earlier this year? Welp, that's a good, long story. But not for this post.   This post is just about a pin.  This happens to be one of the pins that they offered at the Race Expo that is a tiny replica of the medal they give you at the finish line.  This was the 20th running of the race, so that's why the double x's stacked on top of each other.  We scored two different half marathon pins, so I'll post the other one on another day.

I've posted a few times about Port Orleans Riverside down at Walt Disney World over the past few months.  First, I shared the sawn balusters on the luggage cart , then talked about the amazing Live Oak they built the resort around and then just this week, showed off the animated headboards in the Princess rooms .  All awesome. Above is the pin that we picked up from our stay there.  As we've done in the past, we always try to get the pin from our resort to mark the trip.  Here's one from the Wilderness Lodge , Animal Kingdom Lodge , and the Polynesian .  The girls pins have been accumulating in a zip lock bag because we've outgrown the one pin board we have and we're waiting for the new place to think about unpacking them even more. Oh, and by the way, that photo up top?  It was taken with the Google Photoscan app .  It is awesome.  I tried to take the same photo with my camera of the pin and it turned out all glare-y.  Photoscan gets rid of it.  

If you walk past Hartmann Jewelers on the east side of York Street - just across the tracks - in the Elmhurst City Centre, you'll see this:  papered up windows.  And a little note that says that they're closed.  The note says that if you left a piece with them, they'll be in touch to get it to you. There were once three jewelry stores in the City Centre.  There's Cottage Hill Diamonds (still there!), plus this place Hartmann and one other.  Can you remember? Well, it wasn't so much a jewelry shop as it was a pawn shop.  Yep, for a sad period of time, we had a "GoldMax" on the west side of York Street in the City Centre.  This was back in 2012 . We've been in Hartmann a few times, but it was ONLY ever on the downtown Trick-or-Treat days when the kids wandered in there to pick up a lollipop or Tootsie Roll.  Oh well, I guess part of why they're closing is the community didn't support them. There was once three.  Now there's just o