Why I Oughta...

Nat and I are proud to be a part of the Host Committee for a Tom Cross for Illinois Treasurer fundraiser that is taking place on Wednesday June 11th in Frankfort. For those of you who don't know Tom Cross, he's running for Illinois State Treasurer.   I've worked for Tom earlier in my career and know him to be a honorable, trustworthy man.  He's exactly the type of elected official we need to clean up Springfield and Illinois. You can find out more about Tom Cross here on his Treasurer site . We'd love for you to join us for this event.  If you're interested in attended, drop me a line!  Alternatively, if you want to donate to the event, click here to visit this link which will track your donation coming in from me .

We now have three hops vines in our side yard.  The one pictured here is - by far - the biggest and was planted back in 2012 .  It is a Golden variety.  Over on the far right of this photo, you can see another trellis'd vine - that's a Cascade variety, one of the other two we have growing. Last year, I was pretty bummed out that we didn't get any fruit off the Golden, but I've committed to staying on top of the plant with water and care, so I'm hopeful I'll be able to turn over to my brother-in-laws a bucket full of green hops come this fall.

I put down three of these Sedum plants behind the fireplace in the backyard this past weekend.  Marking the spot here to document when/where they were put in.

Here's the full photos (below) of the varieties that the girls and I planted this week right in front of our fence line on the south side of our house. It is a nice mix of some giant ones and some smaller, more colorful varieties. Here's a post on last year's sunflowers .   It looks like some of them re-seeded themselves as we had a few seedlings coming up in the same spot this year. And... here's a post from 2011 showing the annual sunflower planting .

I put down these three bulbs on the north side of our house along the walk as that's where our 'shade garden' is growing these days.  They're supposed to pop up this summer, so we'll have to wait and see what happens.  I've had mixed results with flowering shade bulbs, but I'm eternally hopeful.  (aren't all gardeners?!?)

My 'shade garden' grows.  I picked up these Storm Seas bulbs at Costco and put them in the ground this weekend on the northside of our house next to the hostas and ferns.    They're supposed to be a hearty bunch (much like a hosta), so I'm hoping they'll produce some nice (non-green) color on this side of the yard.

Last week, we went to Menards to pick up some plants and I'll be honest:  we were a little disappointed with their selection.  They don't seem to have given a lot of care to the plants and many were already dried out. In the shade section, however, they had some nice hosta varieties that were thriving.  I picked up three kinds - mostly so I could have a firm grasp on the differences between the ones in our yard. First is the Brim Cup Plaintain Lily.  Has nice yellow tips.   Planted a few of these on the west side of the fence on the northside of the house in the shade of the Cleveland Pear Tree and south of the walk.   Next is the Great Expectations.  Light green variations on the center of the plant.  Planted these on the northside, both east/west of the fence.  One in particular is right on the walk in the backyard on the north of the walk. Finally, is the Fragrant Blue Hosta.  We have some of these around, but I wanted to add a new one for comparison.  This

My favorite of all our plantings in our yard are my Ostrich ferns.  I've successfully transplanted some of them from the south fence line to the north fence line.  Since then, I've tried to add a few different varieties of other ferns and have only had one come back year/over/year:   a Japanese Painted Fern .  It has come up again this year and I've worked hard to pay some attention to it over the past few years. This year, I picked up three small containers of these (above photo) "Autumn Brilliance" ferns.  They're adored by fern folks.   I put in all three on the northside of our house, just south of the walkway in between some of the hosta plantings. From Wayside Gardens : One of the showiest Ferns in recent years, Autumn Fern 'Brilliance' is a dazzling display of color for every season. The fronds turn from bright copper to soft green to russet-orange again, all on an evergreen habit that looks great in the partly-shaded bed or border!  

Bad news here at the Parrillo homestead.  Our trusty double jogger had one of the front forks snapped right in two.  I've put in an inquiry to Valco Baby to see if they sell the part.  Fingers crossed.

Just like in year's past, Nat's peonies are popping up - and that is what really means Spring to me. Here's my post from 2013 .   And here are the photos of these same peonies in 2010 , 2011 , and 2012 .

 I'm loving my new Chief Illiniwek shirt.  Nice way for the athletic department to cash in on the Chief without really using the Chief! Thanks, Nat!

Most every year, I document the return of the peonies in our yard, but this post isn't about that.  Hopefully, I'll get to that later this month when they emerge. This post, is rather, about this unknown bulb poking through the mulch.  I don't quite remember what it is, but give us a few weeks and we'll know!  Our yard is finally emerging from it's long winter's slumber.  I've gone out and done poop patrol once, but as we start to play more in the backyard with the girls, I'm going to have to get back out there and clean up even more.

I came across this jacket in the basement of an estate sale in Elmhurst over the weekend.  They wanted just $2 for it, but I couldn't pull the trigger.  Had never heard of St. Lawrence University.  A quick Google search tells you it is in upstate New York .  The house had a lot of artistic items in the Estate Sale - including paintings.  The jacket made a long trip both from New York, but also from way back in 1956.  Hopefully, someone else found it and it found a nice home and not in the bottom of a dumpster.

I was expecting something different from Martha.

We start 'em young at the Parrillo household. If you read our family blog (which you most likely don't!), you've seen a few of the photos over the years of the girls on this very important day in our house:  election day.  I think I've chronicled (over there) every time we've taken them to the polls. For some history from this blog: Here's a photo of  the Babe back in 2010 when she voted for the 2nd time. And  here's the first time The Babe came to the polling place back in 2010 when she was just a month old . After all these years of supporting Tom Cross, we got our first chance to vote for him on the ballot.  It felt nice!

We're going to get started this weekend with the water putty.  This guy is 'vintage-y' looking, so he'll fit right in with some of the past year's editions. Here's the mold we used in 2013 . Here's the mold we used in 2012 . Here's the mold we used in 2011 .

We picked up this kids bank at Affordable Antiques some time last year but we had to wait until this Spring to give it the intended target:  my brother-in-law. He's a hardcore Sox guy and also has an appreciation for old stuff, so it was a perfect fit.

Today marks ten years since I put up my first 'blog' post.  At the time, it was on a different domain, for a different purpose, but you can see the archives from February of 2004 here on JakeParrillo.com as I pulled them here .

Seems crazy to me to buy a $10 bag to stick your potatoes in so you can microwave them.  Wouldn't a paper towel wrapped around it do the same thing? While I was waiting to pick up a photo at Walgreens, I looked at all these "As Seen on TV" items.  The burger stuffer seems promising?!?

Saw a sign on Polay's in the Elmhurst City Centre this morning saying that they're moving up the block from 100 N. York to 378 N. York.  Which... looks like Google Maps is saying is North of North Ave .  Close to the Burger King up there.  Bad news for the City Centre - as another vacancy comes up - but potentially great news as this signature corner, which is just north of the tracks as you enter our Downtown can be reborn as something that has more foot traffic than the interior decorator.

Kind of hard to see, but in the middle of that photo is a guy wearing a jacket that says "Super Bowl Champions" on it.  Big Broncos logo. Do they distribute the loosing gear to people already?  Is this guy down on his luck and got the jacket for free?  So many questions after a loss like that.

Pancakes?  Eggs?  Playground?  Done. Done. And Done.

A few weeks back, our magic bands arrived.  Don't know what they are?  Well...they're part of an evil plan by a massive corporation to harvest huge amounts of data about your location, spending habits, personal information and more all for profit. And...I can't wait to use them.

Nat picked up this 2nd edition (I think) earlier this year.  She has a warm spot in her heart for the Red Cross after serving there as an employee for a few years.  They're typically our #1 place we turn for donations it seems because of her guidance. The book looks great along side the rest of her antique books.  But, this one is special to her!

This morning, University of Illinois Athletic Director Mike Thomas sent out a mass email asking for local farmers (and Illini Fans) who might be interested in putting up Burma-shave signs along one of the major highways in the State. Based on the map they've included , they're interested in putting them all the way up towards Chicago, so hopefully we'll see them pop up soon. Think it is a pretty cute idea and a nice way to boost enthusiasm for the programs.

Over the weekend, we went to see the Walt Disney Archives (traveling version) at the Museum of Science and Industry.  We arrived right when the museum opened, so we had very few lines to deal with - which was pretty nice. The exhibit is really broken down into three four parts: 1.  Walt's early life, launching his companies, failing, hitting on the Mouse 2.  Growing his animation Studio 3.  Developing the theme parks 4.  Some 'artifacts' from Disney productions I really loved 3/4 of it and found the whole story of Walt's entrepreneurship pretty compelling. The Bird - who is four now - didn't love it.  By the end, she just wanted to get going so we could go see the baby chicks hatching in the other part of the museum.

I picked up one of these at the Great Midwest Train Show before Christmas.  It was billed by the dealer as being "basically a perpetual motion machine".  Unfortunately, one of the plastic pieces in the box was broken, so it didn't work too well. So, I went looking on Ebay for another one to use as parts.  Found one for just a few bucks.  When it arrived, guess what?  Had a break in the exact same spot.  Thinking I've found the vulnerable piece in the production, huh?

The final piece (for now) of our Vintage Christmas binge after the New Year are these gift tags.  In this box is 15 different cards.  They're all 3 dimensional and each one different.   And they're stamped "Japan" on the back.  Pretty cute stuff.  

This was the first Grandma Moses piece we've come across - and Nat reminded me that she gets covered on the Roadshow from time-to-time, so we had to pick this up and put it with the rest of our Christmas stuff.

With the demise of Elmhurst's "My Favorite Toy Store" plenty of folks around town were pretty bummed both because everyone loved the store and tried to support it as a local merchant but also because it was leaving a gaping hole right in York Street. The good news is that it appears that we won't have that hole in our City Centre as there are now signs in the empty storefront for a place called Main Street Candy and Toys.     You can find them over her on Facebook .    They posted a 'we're expanding' note you can see here. Post by Main Street Candy and Toys . We're excited to see them come to town and hope they open up quick.  We'll be one of the first in line to support them!

We had a pretty incredible sunset earlier this year up in Michigan. Shot from Rocky Gap Park - which is technically - in Benton Harbor.  We hit up the park on the way to St. Joseph, so it is St. Joe's to us!

This stuff was for sale at Menards in the Christmas clearance sale.  It is little green flakes that look like grass that you can use to 'scene' your Christmas Village or Train set up. But...'known to cause cancer'?  I love me a good deal, but...even though it is 75% off....I think I'll pass.

She's growing up so fast.  And...man-o-man..does she have some personality.  Plenty of it.

Unfortunately, the dealer only had this guy.  Didn't have the other one ( see the set here ).  But, that is why the set is interesting to me.  Now I have a hunt. Will I ever come across the other one?  I'm going to try to refrain from pickup up the full set if I see it.  I'd like to try to just find the "Christmas" partner to this guy. The bottom is stamped the right way (below), so this one will find a nice home alongside his brethren.

This piece is marked Taiwan (see the mark below), so it normally isn't something that I would pick up.  I've passed a bunch of Taiwan-made Santas. But, this one had that Relpo sticker on the bottom.  And...it says "Chicago, ILL".  So, I couldn't pass it up!

Just like last year, the fine folk over at  +Fitbit  mailed me my 'year end summary' of activity. This year, I traveled 1926 miles.  And that's with a pretty sad December.  My device was on the fritz for the most of part of the month and I was just waiting until Christmas to get a new one.  (Which...thanks to my mother-in-law, I did!) To compare to last year:  I went 576 more miles this year over last . Some of the stats make a lot of sense.  For instance, Tuesday being my most active day sounds right.  I play Cardio Tennis every Tuesday morning.  I get in 3-4 miles every Tuesday before 7 am. The fact that April was my most active month is interesting to me.  I started a new job in April.  I went from working from home a lot to commuting on the train and walking from Olgivie to Aon almost every day. June 23rd is a puzzle, though.  It is a Sunday.  I think it might have been the day that we had the Bird's 1st Birthday party?  I must have been hustlin' ar

I make about 4 trips to Trader Joe's every year.  About once a quarter, I'll head there with Nat and the girls on one of their bi-weekly trips.  Sometime last year, I found this sauce on one of the end caps.  I grabbed a bottle and fell in love.  Now, my experience with Trader Joe's is that they don't keep products on their shelves very long if they don't sell well, so I was concerned that when we went back a week or two later, it would be gone. But, much to my surprise, we've been able to buy the stuff at regular intervals over the last six months.  I've been using it on a Detroit-style BBQ Chicken Pizza that I've been making and - for my money - the sauce is the boss.  I have 2 bottles sitting on the shelf in the pantry and I've just added it to the list for our next trip to TJs. I better stock up in case the fine folks at Trader Joe's change their mind and stop carrying the stuff.

Walking by the storefront of Gur Sweets on York in the Elmhurst City Centre, you'll see this sign.  They're closing their store but will continue to take orders. I first covered Gur Sweets back in October of 2012 .  They tried to ride the Cronut craze this past summer.  But, unfortunately for all of us in Elmhurst, it appears it wasn't enough. Add this to the other vacant storefronts on York Street:  Jamba Juice (gone), Plass Appliances ( gone ), My Favorite Toy Store (gone), Cash for Gold ( gone ..thankfully!). The City Council is talking about building a huge parking deck on Addison Street.  Some think that *might* help with the vacancies and it will make it easier to park and shop.  That's probably a good first step, but the government can only do so much.  These businesses operate in a free economy, so it is up to us - the residents of Elmhurst - to decided which businesses we want to support and keep in town.   We have a vote.  We cast that vote with our