Why I Oughta...

The Annabelle Hydrangea plant that I put in a few years back is really popping this summer.  It has a partially sunny spot on the north side of our backyard landscape beds.  It is sitting right up against the fence and has filled in the spot really nicely.  We have a few 'Incrediball" varieties close to this Annabelle that are doing well this year, too.  I lost one of them two summers ago, but the other two quickly filled in the space.  *Those* blooms, while not as many as this one, are much more spectacular.  They're currently running a little big behind but will catch up by mid-July, I'd think.

I was at one of the Middle Schools for a ballet recital for the Babe this month and when I was wondering around outside (walking the Bambino in his stroller), I came across this exterior walk-in refrigerator with this ICS or CIS seal on the door.  A quick search for both of those + refrigeration + Chicago turns up nothing, so either they've changed their name or I have something wrong.  (Which...totally is the likely case!) I was struck by the seal/logo.  So much so, that I had to document it here on the blog.  Felt like an artifact from a time not too long ago, but something that wouldn't be put on a new product today.  And that's too bad.  I'm no designer, but this evokes a timeless feel.   Something that has been around a long time and something that will stand the test-of-time. Anyone familiar with the logo?  What's the company behind it?

Back in May, I posted with glee about Reddit having a Disney gift exchange and charged right into the process by getting matched with a fellow Disney Redditor.  We dutifully filled out our preferences/answered the 3 Disney-related questions and awaited both being matched and who our 'match' was going to be. We ended up with a woman from the East Coast who loved all things Wendy Darling from Peter Pan.  Working with Nat and the girls, we packaged up and shipped a "Think of the happiest things" shirt from Etsy (Nat picked it out), a letter explaining things (from me!) and some pins and a MagicBandit from the girls collections that featured her favorite characters.  She posted the photos and description I screenshot above.   You can view it here in the gallery on the site . We haven't received our box yet, but based on the intel from the RedditGifts site, ours is on the way and has been verified as shipping.  I'll try to capture some video of the girls op

Back in April of this year, The Runner's Soul closed on York Street in the Elmhurst City Centre  and consolidated their operations to their LaGrange store.  Now, just two and a half months later, it looks like we're getting a new tenant in the spot called The Pilates Room. They bill the store as "The Best in Classical Pilates and Movement Apparel" on the sign, but a little snooping around on the web shows that this is a current Elmhurst pilates place that is relocating and rebranding. From the Lifestyle Pilates site : A new space & a new name with same great pilates instruction...   The Pilates Room - Elmhurst!   A full-service pilates studio located in Elmhurst, IL. The studio offers private, semi-private and always small group instruction for mat & apparatus-based pilates. Looks like they were on the 3rd floor in the bank building on Schiller/York before and now they're moving down to street level.  Great to see a local small business

On my walk to the train this morning, I spotted this poster plastered up on one of windows of a downtown business in Elmhurst advertising a screening of a Banksy film called "Exit through the Gift Shop" at the York Theatre in the Elmhurst City Centre.   On the Classic Cimemas' site, they have a page set up talking about the event .  They're planning a series of these art shows with this first one screening on Wednesday, July 8th at 1 pm and 7 pm. In response to many requests over the years for more art at the York Theatre, we are beginning special screenings on the second Wednesday of every month. Join us at the York Theatre for the Art @ York presentation of Exit Through the Gift Shop shown on Wednesday, July 8th at 1:00 & 7:00 PM. General Admission. Come early for preshow entertainment at 12:30 PM on our baby Barton Theatre organ with Dave Rhodes, Tivoli Theatre house organist.   We need your help to make this successful by emailing, blogging and telling

Last week, I posted about the 'new' logo Egg Harbor was using on their to-go cups  and tweeted about it.  This morning, they responded and shed some light on the situation: they're going back to their original logo from 1985.  Sweet retro 80's egg instead of the rooster.   Egg Harbor isn't the only thing turning 30 this year.   Check out this full list from Mental Floss .  

A few weeks back, we went to check out the models at the Nitti Development in Elmhurst on the property of the old Elmhurst Hospital site .  It is just a few blocks away from us and we were more than curious. There's been some criticism of folks about the development, but I think most of that is a case of the sour grapes.  When you go into the models, there's A TON to like.  The folks at Nitti have done a nice job of building quality homes and finished them really well with decorator-level touches all over.  The only downside it seems is that your house - while it will be REALLY nice - will look and feel just like all of your neighbors.  That's not common in Elmhurst, but it certainly is common in further out suburbs where entire new subdivisions spring up. We went into two of the models we both really liked the layout and floorplan of them.  One thing that stuck out was the upstairs layout.  Here's a photo of it.  Check out the circled part in red: This part -

Back in May, Nat and I joined some of our closest friends (and family!) at Solemn Oath Brewery's "2015 Oath Day " - which was a celebration for their third anniversary.    We had a great time with some good beer (and one bad one!  One of the 'tea' ones was terrible!), lots of laughs and a new appreciation for what it takes to grow a brewery from scratch to a major regional player. The folks at Solemn Oath bill Oath Day as "Arcades, Beer, Vans, Babes, Motocycles, DJ, Miniramp".   From their site : There’s no need to dress up, but Oath Day 2015 will rock a not-so-subtle ’80s vibe. Again we’ll be skipping out on long lines and obnoxious crowds in favor of closing down for the day and opening up as much of our entire facility as we can, including a massive chunk of the parking lot and brewery. Oath Day is Saturday, May 16th, and here are the details. Again this year we’ll have two sessions and there will be even more room to spread your wings. We’ll h

Last week, we received the latest quarterly issue of the D23 fan magazine. In addition to the regular magazine, we received this #Fanniversary kit featuring items to celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Disney's Lady and the Tramp .  There was a background from "Tony's Restaurant" (which you can see in the photos on this post) as well as some 'punch-out' cardboard props. We set up the background in our living room and the girls took over.  After putting all the props on sticks, they hamm'ed it up for the camera.  The Bird loved the mustache (or...'moo-stache' as she calls it) and The Babe wanted to try ALL of them. Here's a shot of all the props.  You can see the mustache, but there were also some fun Lady/Tramp-related prop like the accordion and dog bone. The D23 folks also included this instruction card: We're (obviously) Disney nuts, but the girls really loved this D23 Fanniversary stuff and said they can't wait for

I just peeked down at the total number of posts right here on the blog and noticed that although we're just in the sixth month of the year, 2015 has become the #4 in terms of ranking of total number of posts.  I took this screenshot you see above from the right rail of the blog.  If you're reading this on your mobile phone, you're likely seeing this either in your email or the mobile version of the site, so you can't see the sidebar.  You can click "view on the web" at the bottom of the mobile version if you'd care to see the archives.  Or...just trust me that the screenshot above is all you need to see?!? There's certainly no talk about ranking in terms of quality over the years, but we're just talking quantity here.  Total number of blog posts. Back in 2012 and 2013, I had back-to-back years of writing a post every.single.day.of.the.year .  Then things dropped off in 2013 and 2014.  With the advent of Medium and Facebook and the various ot