Why I Oughta...

I posted some photos of the batch of vintage glass ornaments I bought at an Estate Sale earlier this week and mentioned in that post that there was one more ornament that came with the set.  And here she is!  She's some sort of felt version of Mrs. Claus who has a bunch of bedazzling on her with her Christmas best on and she's carrying a pie with both hands.  She's maybe five or six inches tall and a mirror image on the other side of her.  And awfully cute. We have a few ornaments that look/feel like this and they all came from Anthropologie.  I could totally see something like her hanging in their store and selling for $12.99. As for us, she was a no-brainer.  We are always open to 'unbreakable' ornaments that we can hang low on the tree for the kids to see, touch, and yank on.  She'll go great down there amongst her brethren.

The top photo I took this week and the bottom photo is from the very end of May of this year.  It shows the DIY water garden that I built using a wine barrel bottom and a pedestal plastic planter (see the black pedestal planter next to the wine barrel?  That's what I put in the middle of the barrel to serve as the 'pond' of sorts.  I tucked in dirt all around the pedestal and then planted.  You can see in the bottom photo that there are various plants like spikes, sweet potato vines, asparagus ferns, geraniums and a few other filler plants. Back in May, you could see a lot of the pond (and the Big Beef was all up in it!), but today?  Not only can you not really see the pond, but you can't see the barrel!?!  The fountain is still in there and bubbling away.  And when the air conditioner unit is off (which, thankfully, with the cooler temperatures recently it has been!), it throws off a nice, gentle noise that a water feature should.

A trip to Madison - or anywhere for that matter - wouldn't be complete without trying some of the local pizza.  And when you're on campus at U of W, I think that means heading to Ian's for some Mac-and-Cheese slices.  I first came across Ian's when they opened in Chicago back in 2009.   Here's a post from Slice/Serious Eats that talked about their 'kinda-famous' Mac-and-Cheese slice .  First time I'd heard of something like that and ever since, Ian's has been on my radar.   Looks like Ian's in Chicago didn't make it and is now a Dimo's? But, back to Madison.  With some time to kill and a walk around campus towards the State Capitol, we went to Ian's on State Street and ordered a wide range of slices.  Of course, we had the Mac-and-Cheese.  But the girls also tried the cheese.   We also ordered the Macadilla Killa - which has Mac-and-Cheese in it but also buffalo chicken and a weird tortilla top.  Didn't love it.  And I t

Second in the series of Lemax Spookytown structures as featured at our Menards this Halloween season is this Black Cauldron Bootique.  I posted some photos of another building last week that was called the 'Scariest Halloween House' here on the blog .   This one retails for $10 more but it seems that you get a bit more including a taller structure, more lights and a few different witches in various spots around the place. Still not able to convince myself that Mantleburg needs a fall season.  Might have something to do with our housing situation.  Next year, I might be in a different mood come late summer for Spookytown.

A few weeks back, I picked up this ornament case and these 14 vintage Christmas ornaments at an Estate Sale in Elmhurst.  It was the same sale where I picked up this hobnail milkglass pitcher and this vintage White Sox book .  Quite the haul... The ornament case was found where most Christmas stuff ends up - buried either on the floor under a table or in the basement.  When I opened the case, it was totally full, but I pulled out the ornaments that I didn't want that were newer and the seller at the sale was glad to keep them to try to sell to someone else.  We see these type of ornaments all the time at sales and most of the time they want anywhere between $2 and $4 a piece for each of them. Sometimes they're not even really that old, but just look old.  And each time, I usually pass. Both, because glass ornaments like these aren't destined to last super long on our tree with the three savages roaming around and shaking the tree, but also because we have a tree ful

If you walk by the storefront just south of TCBY on the west side of York Street in the Elmhurst City Centre these days, you'll notice that there's a 'for lease' sign up in the old Meeder Remodeling location.  They were in this spot for about a year or less only - as I posted about them moving out of their location further south here on the blog last December . If you drive down south on York near the Prairie Path, you'll see that they've relocated down there, which is great and means that they didn't close up shop. As for the City Centre, we need a mix of uses - from retail to restaurant to services to offices.  And Meeder was a part of that mix.  They didn't generate a ton of foot traffic, but I am guessing that they employed a staff that worked in the City Centre everyday that provided needed customers to the other tenants of the City Centre. Because storefronts are so scarce, I'm always going to advocate for office/showroom uses like thi

A few weekends back, we found ourselves up in the Madison Wisconsin area and decided to take a trip to campus.  And, after drinking a Spotted Cow up on the Memorial Union Terrace, I had to ask myself:  Who know that Madison was so great? I think it was the limited view of the collegiate world that Lincoln-Way gave me:  after all....if you were able to think about moving on from LWHS and think about a big, land-grant, state university, why wouldn't you go to the University of Illinois?  And if not there, it seemed like the other choice was Iowa.  Or...maybe Indiana?    But Wisconsin at Madison?  Nope.  Not on my radar.  Don't actually know anyone who went there from my high school days. Subsequently, have come across some folks who graduated there.  There's a bunch of guys in our neighborhood in Elmhurst who are Badgers.  And, now?  I kinda get it.  Beautiful place.  So alive, too.  Between the campus and the Capitol, and the lakes.  My god...the lakes.  There's a

Seems to be the week of 'international ciders', eh?   After the Canadian Danish cider earlier this week , here's a look at a Swiss cider called Swizly that I had with Nat, my sister and Equation Boy/Man earlier this summer at one of their favorite restaurants in Schaffhausen.  Same as the Somersby one .  Didn't love it.  But, it was a lovely evening dining outdoors on one of our last nights there. Oddly enough, if you go to the Swizly website , they're advertising the stuff by showing off a pair of underpants and a tramp stamp?  Seriously?  Kind of a weird way to market the stuff, no?

I came across these big wooden blocks called "Blazin' Buddy" at the Delta Sonic in Melrose and thought it was an interesting idea.  With the kids back in school, 'tis the season for snuggle wood, right?  You know...the bundles of wood that you pick up from the front display of the Jewel or out on the pallet of your local gas station? Well, they now have a competitor.  And it is this thing. It is like a 12" x 12" x 12" (I am guessing) block of wood with a hole drilled in the side and a big one on top under the label.  If you look closely, you'll see a little piece of kindling in the hole below.  You fish that thing out, light it on fire and stick it in the side hole to get the fire going. They claim you'll get 3 hours of burn time out of one of these and have posted a YouTube video that compares it to three packs of snuggle wood .  The fire out of the regular wood is clearly better/brighter/more desirable, but there's no doubt

Thanks to our good friend Dannee down the block, we were not only alerted to this awesome White House cookie kit - she also gifted one to us after one of her trips to Trader Joe's!  And guess what?  The girls loved putting them together.  Of course they did, right? What's more fun than a gingerbread house?  Nothing, I tell you.  Nothing. This is a pretty fun, seasonal item, that is a great way to do something fun with our kids, but also, kinda, sorta talk to them about the White House and the president and the upcoming election.  Did they listen to any of it?  Probably not.  But, still...frosting!  cookies!  Candy! And, from a business stand point, the person at the gingerbread factory who came up with this idea is pretty clever.  I can hear it now.... "Hey, Bob!  Fire up the ovens!  I have an idea." "But...it isn't Christmastime yet.  We have months to go until the public wants our stuff." "You're right...it isn't Christmas, bu