Why I Oughta...

Last month, I posted about a few of our 'foster' plants out at Nat's folks' place in Naperville including the giant hosta that had emerged this Spring and Nat's Great Aunt's peonies and the miniature variety of Hosta Venusta that came back to my surprise.  But, there was also a big bunch of Ostrich Ferns that we transplanted into foster care.  Just about a month ago, on May 2nd, 2016, I posted this photo showing the ferns emerging from the ground  and in June, I posted this photo showing the giant Hosta and the Ostrich Fern all unfurled in their full glory.  They were doing so well last year, so I never thought for a minute that they wouldn't come back this year. That photo above is what they look like now:  they've not only sprung up ahead of last year's pace, they're also big, vibrant and strong.  How nice to see them doing so well.  I'm not surprised, because a few years back, we divided some of our ferns and gave them to Nat'

Above is a photo of the northern side of our new lot in our backyard that is almost immediately outside our backdoor.  That fence, it turns out, belongs to our neighbor to the north, but is installed incorrectly (with the 'good side' facing his side and a bit too tall), so things are changing, I believe.  We've heard from our builder that the fence might be coming down and getting readjusted.  But, we hope it isn't going away.  That's because it is shielding their driveway - which is currently occupied by a few project cars and some other larger items. We are investigating a fence for ourselves (btw, this would be our second fence. Here's a post from way back in 2011 when I was staining our newly installed fence at our old place .) , but because of the way the lot is graded, this part of the property is a lot lower than the middle part, where our house is located.  That means that it is really easy to basically see 'over' the current fence.  And if

With the weather turning, and the inside of the house moving along at it's scheduled pace ( like with the installation of this leaded window ), it is time for our builder to turn some of their attention to the outside of the house.  In this case, it means a look at what our patio is going to look like out back.   The world is, indeed, a small place, and on this project it meant that I was able to reconnect with a friend from my college days who it turned out was the subcontractor chosen to help us with our landscaping by our builder.  As part of the project, Chris, our landscape team lead went out and spray painted the outline of our proposed patio.  You can see that in pink above. Nat did what she does best:  picked some great materials, and soon enough, the team will be leveling and grading the site, cleaning up all the various debris and then installing the patio in pavers.  We have a good-sized yard, so we were trying to strike a balance between installing a 'large eno

Last year, I picked up a few plants at the Elmhurst Ladies' Garden Club annual sale including the Hosta Venusta miniature plant that we're fostering out in Naperville ( posted about it recently here ) and what was billed as a Cinnamon Fern.  I planted that here in Elmhurst at Equation Boy/Man and Vic's house  with some help from the Bird as a "Mother's Day" present to her God Mother.  (and a little, tiny token of gratitude for having us stay in their house!)   I put it along the south property line in one of their landscape beds that had some nice groundcover and a few other shade plants like hostas.  It looked great when I planted it ( see pic here ), but it didn't do that well after the transplant.  Must have had some serious shock, because it withered and just about looked dead a month or so after putting it in the ground.  I looked earlier this Spring and didn't see anything emerging, so I assumed that it wasn't coming back and had died, u

Over the weekend, I stopped into the Aurelio's takeout location in Downtown Downers Grove while I waited for the Babe to emerge from the basement setting for a birthday party at the Tivoli Lanes right next door.   When I was there, I came across three things:  First was this art glass piece above that is right when you open the front door.  Hadn't noticed it before, but I really like it and it seems like this belongs in one of their *real* restaurants.  And, by 'real', I mean a sitdown place.  This one in Downers is just a takeout joint.  Sure, they have 3 tables and sell (sadly) slices, but it isn't a restaurant, at least to me.  (Also, the fact that they are selling pie-shaped slices is a bummer, right?  I mean...Aurelio's is a tavern-cut pie by nature.  I get that they're trying to sell slices, but being a pizza crazy person, I don't like to see the bastardization of a tavern-cut pie.   Why not 'big squares'?) Anyway, on to the second and

Back in April, I posted a photo of the Jedi Training badge that the Bird was given after participating in the Jedi Training session at Disney's Hollywood Studios earlier this year.  This was the first time that we were able to do the training, but wasn't our first time trying.  The timing just worked out.  But, since it is May the Fourth, I figured it was time to show off some of those Jedi photos. She donned her robe, grabbed her lightsaber and listened to the master trainers.  "Sabers up!" She even took on the Seventh Sister .   For those keeping track at home, this is the 2nd time I've posted on May the Fourth.   Last time was when the Big Ten shop came out with a bunch of Star Wars-themed gear, but the Illini got left out .  Checking that campaign today, and the Illini still don't have any Star Wars gear .

I posted about the beer I drank in Tokyo last week and I've covered a bunch of my trip to Tokyo Disney in various posts over the past few weeks, but this coffee experience seemed like it warranted it's own post.  Coffee? In a can?  That looks like a Mickey's bottle from my college days? Yeah. We were there in Japan on-site working on a client project in a few of their facilities; one of them an office building and the other a more of an assembly or manufacturing plant.  That's where I came across this Premium Boss Black Coffee in a hand-grenade can.  It came out of a vending machine (I forget how many yen it was), but what was cool was that there were two options:  hot or cold.  You got, what I think is the same exact can and same exact coffee, only one of the cans was piping hot and the other was ice cold.  Pretty neat.