Why I Oughta...

Recently, we were up in Wisconsin just puttering around town when I spotted a sign for 'Auction Today' coming out of the gas station.  I followed a few other signs back into this light industrial park and arrived at this place:  Blue Toad Auctions.  Nat and the kids were with me, so I just left the car running, begged for forgiveness and hopped in to check things out.  The auctions take place on Saturdays at 10 am with a 'preview' session starting at 9 am.  I got there about 10:15 and the auction was already running. The place has seating for more than 100 people and has items displayed up front and down the sides of the building.  The auctioneer was moving fast and getting people to bid on the various items.  The day I was there, the place seemed VERY heavy in sports memorabilia.  And very little antiques and what appeared to be almost no furniture.  Perhaps that's how it always is?  If so, this might not be for us. Nat and I have had luck at the Shipsh

I gawked at this kitchen table and chair set at an estate sale a few weeks back in Elmhurst.  Such a neat set, right?  Look at those chairs and the legs on them?  I think if you were a serious buyer and had a home for this, it was going to be yours for a great price.  The chairs needed to be refreshed, but the tabletop was just fine.  I thought about buying it for like 10 seconds and then realized that: 1.  we don't have a place to live that is our own right now. 2.  we don't need a set like this. 3.  I'm not the guy who makes home furnishing decisions in our house. So...say it with me folks: It is enough to enjoy the existence of things without possessing all of them.

If you walk by the construction site of the new Beerheads Bar on the Northeast corner of First and York in the Elmhurst City Centre, you'll see a bit of progress on the building.   I last posted about the status of the project here on the blog in February .  You can go down the whole rabbit hole of posts related to the site here on the blog . But, in addition to seeing the exterior construction progress, if you look inside one of the new doorways, you'll also see this - the photo above. It is a relic from the past. And was a stonework 'welcome mat' for Burny Brothers.  I had never heard of Burny Brothers, but 'teh Googles' quickly educated me. From this Burny Brothers archive site : Burny Brothers Bakery was founded in 1910 in Chicago, Illinois by a working-class immigrant family, and grew to become a successful, uniquely American enterprise. The founding family sold its interest in 1963 to Beatrice Foods Co., which in turn sold the wholesale divisi

(image removed by me in late 2022 because it showed kids faces) Six years ago today, I posted her on the blog about our friend and neighbor Dannee Polomsky winning her first seat on the Elmhurst City Council and I showed a photo of the then 2-year-old Babe who came with us to vote.    Fast forward those six years and you'll see this animated image above of me and all three kids outside of our polling place from Tuesday.  We didn't get to vote for my sister (she's up north from here), but we did have a handful of races that were contested. Glad to have brought the kids along and they got to wield their own dry erase ballots to vote between the Cubs and Sox and Leno and Letterman.  I think we've brought them to the polls every time we've gone, so we're doing our little part to do as Neil Steinberg called it yesterday : our little 'act of faith' in democracy. My little sacrifice of time, some drops of routine life sprinkled on the altar of democracy

That image above is from the Cook County Clerk's election results page and shows the results of the ballots cast in the Maine Township District 207 School Board race.  The top vote getter?  My big sister Linda.  She worked hard to get that top spot.  (So did my Dad!)  Now when we address her Christmas card, we'll have to change the address to The Honorable Linda Coyle, I guess? She has a tough job ahead of her, but I know she's going to do a great job for the community and help make Maine South, West and East High Schools some of the best in the State of Illinois. Congrats, big sister.  We're all very proud of you!

We're at the point in the building of our new old farmhouse that we're starting to think about some finishes.  That means Nat is trying to wrangle all the choices with counters and tile and colors and trim and such.  But it also means things like railing hangers and garage floor epoxy and doorbells. Yeah...doorbells.   And Nat and I have been looking around online to find a doorbell that we both like and while there are some neat ones that seem right , I just haven't found anything that I'm in love with. I know...it is just a doorbell.  But, I loved our last one.  And I want to love this one. That's lead me to this crazy idea:  what about a mechanical doorbell?   See the photo above?  That's the 'outside' part of the mechanical doorbell.  You have to 'turn' the dial to ring the bell.  Below is a photo of the 'bell' part that would sit inside the house.   Remember, we're trying to build a #NewOldFarmhouse.  We&

Just like the Port Orleans Riverside pin that I posted here on the blog in late February , above you'll find a Disney's Contemporary Resort pin that we picked up on our recent trip down to WDW.  I typically try to get the pin from the resort we stayed at during our trips, but sometimes it ends up being a holiday- inspired version like this Chip and Dale Christmas one from the Polynesian from the holidays in late 2015.   I kinda love how they've included the monorail buzzing around from the side of the hotel in this pin and at first, I didn't love the Contemporary.  What..with the real lack of theme-ing, right?  Well, I've learned to really like it...and not just for the easy walk to the Magic Kingdom.  (But, that is preetay, preetay, preetay nice, right??) Turns out, my parents stayed at the Contemporary during the first year of existence when they took my two oldest sisters down to WDW for a trip in 1971 during the inaugural year.  That's kinda awesome, r