Why I Oughta...

Here's another 'vintage' coaster that I've added to the online [ coaster collection ] here on the blog.  This one comes just a week or so after t he Contemporary Resort one that I found in my office closet when I was cleaning things out.  This one is from a brewery in Colorado (Idaho Springs, to be precise ) that we went to more than five years ago.  This is also the second 'vintage' coaster - a long with the Half Acre one - that I've added in recent months from breweries.  I have a vague memories of being at this brewery, but I'm not exactly sure why this coaster came home with me and why it went into storage in my closet for all these years.  But, now that is memorialized into the collection here online, it will get used on my home office desk for a bit, then tossed. 

We have a room in our #newoldfarmhouse that goes by a bunch of names:  the front room, library, green room, quiet room.  It is your normal formal(ish) living room.  But...Whatever we call it, it also is home to our more 'formal' Christmas tree.  And is a nice little tree to experience. I posted a photo of our Family Room tree yesterday.  That tree is big, gangly, colorful and full of ornaments of various shape and kind.  This tree?  It is understated.  Short (like seven feet tall), white lights, nicely-shaped and has all of our vintage Christmas ornaments on it.  It fits perfectly into our Green Room.  Like last year, it is a Fraser Fir and glows from the front window .  I've posted about our Christmas trees since 2010 including yesterday's tree. Here's our family room tree from this year (2018) that I posted yesterday . 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

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