Why I Oughta...

Oh Christmas Tree.  Oh Fraser Fir Tree.  This year, we went back to the Fraser Fir for our family room tree.  Or at least we *think* it is a Fraser Fir.  This tree is just about ten feet tall and just barely clears our ceiling.   Here (below) is a photo of me installing the tree into the stand (the Krinner XXL stand ) to give you a sense for the scale of the height of this tree.  Just like last year , our Christmas tree sits in our Family Room - in a corner near our patio doors.  Also like last year, we have two trees this year again, but I'll get to the other tree in a separate post.  I've posted about our Christmas trees since 2010. Here's v1 of our 2017 tree - our first in Downers Grove. Here's v2 of our 2017 tree - the one in our family room . Here's our 2016 tree - our last one in Elmhurst . Here's our tiny tree from 2015 at Equation Boy/Man and Vic's house . Here's the tree in 2014 at our old house . Here's the post of our 2013 Tr

A couple of days ago, I posted a photo of #188 Walt Disney Comics and Stories book featuring Donald Duck and his nephews .  Inside the book were stories about Donald Duck, The li'l Bad Wolf, " and of course Mickey the Mouse in "The Case of the Hungry Ghost".  I haven't read any of them yet, but will get to them soon (I hope!).  In the meantime, I flipped through the book and came across the advertisement you see above at the top of this post for Disneyland "View-Master". The photo at the top of this post is via Google's Photoscan app .  The one at the bottom of the post is just directly from my phone.  There's pros/cons with each one.  Here's a link to the photoscan version on Google Photos that is full-size that you can zoom in/around on if you want the details. There are a few other ads worth sharing, but for now, let's focus on this Disneyland one.  This is from May of 1956 - just ten months after the July 1955 grand opening o

Back in March of 2017, I posted a photo of a Storm Trooper Easter Egg-shaped Disney pin that one of the kids traded for on a trip down to WDW.  In that post , I mentioned that the Storm Trooper was one of six pins in the set.  Welp, recently, I was cleaning out my office closet and came across a little bag of Disney pins that included these two:  Darth Vader and Chewie egg-shaped pins.  That puts us at 50% of the set and gives us some new targets on our next trips:  find the rest of these: 1.  R2-D2 2.  C-3PO 3.  Boba Fett If you look closely, I'm pretty sure you can figure out that the Vader one is a scrapper .  The enamel is a little low in spots and that silver post on the left side of his mouth (our right) is standing out from the pin.  For now, I'll put these two on the pin board in the garage and keep a mental reminder of the other three. 

At some point earlier this year, I picked up this copy of #188 Walt Disney's Comics and stories book at an antique mall up in Wisconsin.  This one is from May of 1956 and is in good condition, but we're not retiring on this thing!  I paid just $1 for the book and it will go into the archives here at the homestead.   This is the third 'vintage Disney' item that we own with a few others that I've posted about here on the blog that 'got away'. The first are these Matchbox cars from the 70's/80's that were mine when I was a kid . Then there was this vintage Pooh Bear Golden book from a garage sale .   A prized possession:  this election-themed Pooh Bear glass from Sears .   Then this Summer, I shared this Mickey the Mouse back scratcher .   And finally, I found this vintage Disneyland pennant at an estate sale .  

One week in with our 2018 edition of the amaryllis bulb and I'm happy to report that there's a little bit of action going on here.  Here's the post showing the bulb both before it went into the pot and right after .  If you look closely at this photo above, you'll notice two things:  First, the tiniest little green shoot emerging from the middle (top part of the bulb in this photo) and a good-sized 'gap' that has been created near the bottom of the bulb in this photo.  Thinking that the 'gap' that is being made is the result of some growth down below and just kind of *making room* for even more green shoots to emerge.  As a reminder, this is a double-flowering Nymph bulb that has white flowers with some red/pink accents.  I'll keep an eye on this, but I'm hoping that by mid-December, we'll have a nice-looking plant beginning to head skywards.  Here's the bulb from 2017 on December 16th to give you a sense for what should take pla

Here comes #32 in the [ coaster collection ] here on the blog with this one from Disney's Contemporary Resort that features the neat retro-ish logo with the monorail running right through the hotel.  The most recent coaster I posted was one from Half Acre Brewery . This is also the #10 of the collection that relates to Disney.  10/32 or 31% are Disney-related with the most recent one from Enzo's Hideaway that I posted back in April of this year .  I found this in a pile of coasters that I had stashed in my office closet after cleaning it out over the Thanksgiving break.  It is now sitting on my desk along with a few others and will get used for a while before being discarded. The ten Disney-related ones include: 1. The standard one you see in your rooms @ Walt Disney World resort hotels . 2. This black and white one from the original Disneyland Resort Hotel . 3. This *new* Walt Disney World resort hotel version that updates the look of #1 above. 4. One from the

Via Can I Listen to Christmas Music? I neglected to post a link to my annual Christmas Music project earlier this season.  So, I'm getting to it now:  Can I listen to Christmas music ?  (v2).  Why V2?  Welp, that's because V1 is still up at the original URL , but I wanted to try something a little different - and more simple.  Once the season passes, I'll put in a redirect from the old site to the new one - which I think serves the most basic of purposes:  notifies you if you can or can not listen to Christmas music.  I posted about this project last year in November .  And on November 2nd of 2016 .  The old, V1 site, has lots more stuff - including a countdown clock , email subscriptions, etc.  I'll work to port those over, but for now, there's just one page and a simple answer:  Yes.    It is built on a responsive template, so it looks identical in both desktop and mobile.  Come January something, I'll flip it back over to 'no'.  The new