Why I Oughta...

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.

Behind the main drag - York Street - there's this hidden parking lot that usually has parking.  On the rare occassion that we drive and park in downtown, I usually check there first.  Some of the older businesses that have been in town for years have signs that face this lot.  The newer ones do not.  When this was the only parking in Downtown, this must have been a good marketing expense. There aren't any Arcade Stores any longer, but their entrance is - apparently- still there.

Too bad , Cubs fans.  Nothing like a little bit of Blackhawks bandwagon-ing to point this out.

With the rain holding off so far this morning, the paver guys are hard at work trying to get the job done.  I don't think they'll get it done, but at least a portion of it is underway. I was nervous about the pattern, but after a bunch of them went in, it became more understandable.  Will they be ready for our party?  We'll see.

When we went with the LOW bidder (and I mean really, really low), I assumed that we'd have some difficulties with our patio installation, but I didn't think it would take *this* long. The good news, is that we're finally progressing on the installation.  After all the rains fell, they finally excavated and started to put down the paver base. They're putting down more base, then comes the sand and finally....the pavers.  Hopefully, we'll have something to walk on by Saturday.  We still don't have a pic-a-nic table (Nat hates that I call it that), so that is on the agenda this weekend.