Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted about this Bob Dylan song that I really like and included a YouTube video embed.  If you looked closely, you'll see the worst of humanity on display at the bottom of the video. Seriously...The.Worst.

Where have I been?  Bob Dylan put out a record in 2009 called 'Together Through Life' that has evaded me for five years.  What have I been doing to ignore this?  Turns out...it charted at #1 in the US and the UK.  Really?  It is his 33rd studio album and includes his touring band and a guy named Mike Campbell from The Heartbreakers.  That's pretty cool. From Google Play : Together Through Life is the thirty-third studio album by singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on April 28, 2009, by Columbia Records. The album debuted at number one in several countries, including the U.S. and the UK. It is Dylan's first number one in Britain since New Morning in 1970.   Dylan wrote all but one of the album's songs withGrateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, with whom he had previously co-written two songs on his 1988 album Down in the Groove. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan commented on the collaboration: “Hunter is an old buddy, we could probably wr

For Christmas, the Babe picked up a few more Goldie Box sets including the 'Builders Survival Set' that includes lots of parts and some new builds.  One of them - and the one that the Babe immediately gravitated towards was the tea cup ride .  You can see what she built here and I was really impressed that it actually worked! Some of the parts weren't a super tight fit and the orange band kept falling off the wheels, but when you turn the handle the thing whirls around.   And...most importantly...light up her face.  She was geeked out over building it and wanted to show it to everyone who was around. And...isn't that the point?  This is, after all, a super girl-y girl.  She likes dresses and ballet and shopkins and pink.  Anything pink.  But...Goldie Blox scratch her right where she itches.  She's into them big time.  And is learning how to solve problems and build things. So...thanks, Goldie Blox!

A few weeks back, I was invited to watch the Chicago Blackhawks take on the Dallas Stars by a friend who lives in Elmhurst.  I *think* I've been to a couple of 'Hawks games before (I believe Matt - the Mayor organized a trip to the United Center during one of the Christmas Breaks while we were in college (the late 90's) and I have a faint recollection of going to the Blackhawks game with my little league baseball coach and his son when I was really small. But...I can't quite confirm those things in my memory...so I'm claiming this as my FIRST Blackhawks game.  It *is* the first one I've been to since the team has been good the past few years, so that's something, right? Oh...and they won in overtime, too!  It was pretty awesome.  We then ran to the car and got out of the parking lot pretty easy. I do have one beef, though.  They Hawks wear red jerseys at home.  That's too bad.  If I was a season ticket holder, I'd be pushing the team to reve

This tray was one of Nat's finds this past trip to the Great Lakes Antique Mall.  She picked it up, looked at the price, then did some comparison shopping on Etsy and said it was a deal. So...it is now ours!  It went away for the year, but will be a nice surprise next season when we pull our stuff out.  It fits the criteria for me (made in Japan) and for her (has a pretty cute set of Santas on it), so it is a winner. Check out the back below here for the mark and Japan stamp:

Back in November, I posted a photo of the foursome of figures that we picked up from the 50th Anniversary Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer set at Menards . Part of the deal was that when you buy all four, you get 4 different codes you have to enter on the distributor's website and you unlock the code to get a free mail-in Bumble.  We did that back in November and right before Christmas, this guy showed up in the mail. The four we bought at the store all came with little batteries in them, but this guy requires AAA batteries to be put in.  Because he arrived so late, he didn't get much attention this year, but I packed him away with the other four, so he'll be in heavy rotation with the girls next season, I'm thinking.

I've been on an oatmeal kick in 2015.  Eating it at home.  Even eating it out at restaurants.  The stuff is billed as being great for your health and cholesterol.  So...I'm giving it a shot and I've kind of figured out a way to make it taste good (brown sugar, bananas, vanilla almond milk). So, Nat came home with this box of Quinoa and Oatmeal combined.  It takes a bit longer than normal steel cut oatmeal (20 min for this vs. <10 min for the normal stuff), but it was pretty good.  I don't know if it filled me up any more than normal, but I'm willing to give it even more tries.

These guys above are called Vinylmation s.  They're a collectible series of things that Disney sells both in the stores and at the parks that you buy 'blind'.  You buy one from a series, but you aren't sure which one you'll get. And...they're HUGE in parts of the web.  There are literally thousands of 'blind box' unboxing videos of these things on YouTube .  We now have three of them.  The two on the ends are from Toy Story and the guy in the middle is from Sleeping Beauty (I think). They aren't cheap but people seem to be glomming on to these things in a big way.  So far, the Babe and the Bird, not to mention the Champ (the newest Parrillo!) are into these just yet.  They like the pins (more on that soon) and the Bird is all over Shopkins (which is basically the same thing but not Disney and cheaper), so as long as I don't cave when we go to the DStore, we'll be free and clear of these things.  But...that is a big 'as long as'

Just placing this photo here as a reminder to myself this fall when I try to drag all the Christmas stuff out of our crawlspace.  This year, I put away 10 tubs, the advent box, the nativity box and 2 other small boxes on the top right.   Now I'll have a reference photo to understand if I have everything out for the 2015 Christmas season. The reason for this is that this fall, I pulled out ALL of the tubs that had *some* Christmas stuff in them.  There was like 22 tubs total.  Lots of them were half filled with stuff and a bunch of them had things in the bottom of the tubs that we stopped using at Christmas (like old lights, plastic ornaments, old tree skirts, etc). This year, when re-packing our stuff up in January, I consolidated everything into these slightly smaller tubs.  (That was the other problem...last year, we were using lots of big tubs - you know the kind - the ones that you have to spread your arms really far apart to carry them).  These are easy to handle, can

I participated in the Reddit Secret Santa gift exchange this past Christmas season and was matched with a woman in western Massachussets who was a foodie/cook.  I bought her the Flavor Bible based on her profile. My Secret Santa had sent me a note before Christmas saying that my gift was delayed because it was on backorder.  I waited and waited and waited.  In fact, Reddit bugged me to mark my gift as 'not received' because I think they wanted to close down the exchange and re-match folks.  But...my Santa was persistent.  At first, I thought I was getting scammed.  That...this dude was just emailing me to cover his rear in the Reddit system but that I was going to get shut out.  But...what was in it for him?  He could have just used (as I did) a throw-away account and moved on. He emailed me a few times saying that things were on their way and then last week, he finally delivered a UPS tracking number.  So...he was legit.  My Secret Santa gift was on the way. When it