Why I Oughta...

I've always liked the tomatoes Lou Malnati's put on top of their pies.  They tended to have some chunk-age to them and provided nice bursts of flavor/juicy-ness when I bit into the slices.  In fact, as I started to experiment with my own deep-dish pizza recipes at home, Lou's was always the pie I aspired to ape. I ended up using a combination of 6-in-1's and whole peeled (de-seeded) hand torn tomatoes.  They came pretty close to the real thing. This past trip to Lou's, I spotted a note about their tomatoes on their menu.  ( and...no!  This is not turning into a all-Lou Malnati's blog. )   If you can't read it, it says: The Malnatis travel to California each year to hand select vine-riped tomatoes at their peak.  The tomatoes are chose based on their rich color, plumpness, and full flavor. From the photo in the menu, it seems like they can and label their tomatoes specifically for Lou's.  Wonder if they sell them like that?  Or...if they will?  

When we bought our house, a mean, unhappy woman was living there.  She lives in our neighborhood still and we see her driving by slowly from time-to-time.  I have a feeling that she doesn't really care much for what we "did" to her house.  After we had our house inspection, we were set to close the deal.  A few days before the closing, we drove by the house and saw the evil woman frantically digging up EVERY SINGLE PLANT that was in the ground.  She eviserated the flower beds and took every hosta, tulip bulb and anything green and growing, she ripped out.   She was probably smiling the whole time she was ripping out her plants thinking that us two young people who bought her house were NEVER going to get her flowers. Unfortunately for her, she was wrong!  Although we didn't see much action last year, I am pleased to report that we have a bunch of hostas that came up this Spring in some of the beds that were devastated when she tore the place up. And even better, w

Monday night I got home late (after class) so I wasn't able to fully inspect all the newly poured concrete, but I was able to give it a good soak with our garden hose.  They say that we're supposed to "keep it wet" for a few days to slow the curing process.   Tuesday morning I had to head into the office early, so I was relying on Nat and my dad to steer the process/answer the issues/questions.  The contractors showed up early to finish the garage and pour our new driveway. Here they were finishing up our "apron" that approaches the alley and they poured the slab to the north (on the right hand side) where we'll be doing some cool things with bricks! (can you say Pompeii-style brick pizza oven!) They quickly finished in back and moved to finish up the driveway in front.  We're getting a "California Finish" on the driveway - here they are cutting expansion joints. I'll soak it once again, then it is time to apply the concrete sealer.

Early this morning, the City of Elmhurst building inspector showed up and gave his blessing to our footings.  The process allows for the City's inspectors to make a "pre-pour" inspection to ensure that the contractor has complied with the code and requirements.  Thankfully, we passed the inspection. About 15 minutes after the inspector signed off, this guy showed up. They got busy right away filling in the perimeter footings.    They had to cart the concrete by hand to the far edges of the garage.  Once they filled the footings (16" deep), they moved on to filling the entire frame with concrete.  I had to run to work, so Nat kept me up-to-speed with her iPhone.   They smoothed it to a nice, level surface - using a piece of lumber as a screed board. They moved on to more sophisticated equipment when they wanted to get the surface real smooth. They filled the main garage, then moved on to the little 3X6 foot framed area adjacent to the garage.  We're going to bu

Wednesday and Thursday were spent clearing and prepping the site of our garage and driveway/slab, but Friday was for actual construction:  framing of the foundations. They put together the woodwork quickly, then dug some-more and filled in with wire, plastic and plenty of stone.  The plastic is a vapor barrier.   The garage takes up 3/4 of the width of our yard.  Makes me nervous to see our yard shrink so much.  We're also putting in a "driveway".  I put "driveway" in quotes because it isn't a typical driveway that leads to our garage.  Instead, we've put our garage backwards to face our alley and our driveway starts at the street and goes for 35 feet and stops.  It is more of a "parking pad" than driveway, but we're still calling it a driveway.  It was previously made of some pretty ratty asphalt and was mostly broken up into little pieces.  We're pouring concrete at the same time of the garage.  We've also made it 2 feet wider -

Guess who turns four months old today?!?  The Babe is happy we're celebrating, but she's concerned that you might take her giraffe away, though.  Look at those brows! The Babe is getting to be such a big girl.  I couldn't be a prouder dad.  However, I'm even more proud as a husband.  The last four months have been challenging, but I've experienced NOTHING compared to what Nat has gone through.  And...she's done it with an amazing level grace and patience that I am simply in awe of. I do my best to be a part of my daughter's life and we spend countless hours together.  However, Nat is really the one doing the hard work.  She's there when the Babe wakes up, there when she goes to sleep and is there (really there!) every time she's hungry.   She could NOT be a better mom. The development I've seen in the Babe's physical and mental acumen are directly attributable to all of Nat's dedication and effort.   She's the one reading the books

Have you ever walked by your neighbors yard and saw something that looked like this and wondered what the heck they were doing?  I admit, when I was younger everytime I encountered grass that had been aerated, I always thought that they were a bunch of turds.  They kinda look like it. Well...guess what?  We're now the house on the block with a lawn that the kids in our neighborhood will think is full of turds.  Late last week, we had a company called Pluggin A Lawn come out and aerate the yard and parkway.  They say that the benefits of aeration include enhanced root growth through moisture and air circulation which all lead to a greener yard.  This will be our second summer with the yard and while many of our neighbors have companies come take care of their lawns with maintenance and fertilization products, we're going to go it alone.  We won't have the best looking grass right away, but hopefully we'll get there with steps like this. I'm not totally sure that