July 2012 – Not Content to Crawl

End of July

Posted onJuly 28, 2012August 7, 2012

Last Sunday we visited Joe’s brother and sister-in-law. We haven’t been to his place in years even though it’s only an hour and a half drive because a) all the other times we’ve visited I got ill (I think it was the water out there) and b) we were (incorrectly, we learned) under the impression the best day to visit was a Sunday and we don’t usually have the kids and have to work the next day so it wasn’t convenient. Joe took this past week off, and I took Monday and Tuesday off, since we had E for the entire week, so it worked out perfectly. We got there around 11 am and bullshitted for awhile, then my brother-in-law’s friend came by and took us out on the lake in his pontoon boat. E got to drive the boat, which he loved (and which made me nervous at first but he quickly got the hang of it). After that he went out on the tube and we pulled him with the boat. Then BIL’s friend was tired so we went back to the house and had a nice big meal of steak, baked potatoes, hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad, cucumber salad, etc. We played Uno Attack afterwards and ended up leaving sometime after 8 pm.

We slept in on Monday and didn’t do much but run a few errands (I scored a nice case for my Kindle at Half Price Books for only $4.79) and Tuesday we went to see Ice Age 4 which I thought was pretty good. I went back to work on Wednesday, which sucked, but Joe and E came by and took me out to lunch which was nice. We went to Meatheads because they have the best patty melt ever. I like to get mine without onions and a side of thousand island dressing. Then we went across the street to Red Mango which has the BEST frozen yogurt. I had the vanilla bean with chocolate chips and fresh strawberries and blueberries. Thursday and Friday was work and Joe and E had their pool time and went to some garage sales. Then E left Friday afternoon before I got off work.

Today we went out to Whiting, Indiana for the Pierogi Festival. We stopped at my parents’ house to pick up my brothers. We walked around the fest for nearly three hours and enjoyed lots of food. In addition to the headlining pierogis we shared some of the following: chocolate covered bacon, chocolate covered banana, deep-fried cannoli, chocolate filled churro, fried chicken on a stick, polish sausage, ice cream and more. We were total gluttons but it was so much fun and we met a nice family with a last name of Kielbasa. The boy was munching on a polish sausage and said, “I’m eating my own kind!” You’d think after leaving the fest everyone would be stuffed but the “boys” (that includes my husband) all stopped at Speedway and got massive slurpees. Where do they store all that junk? I passed on that, but you have to admit, 69 cents for a 44 oz slurpee is pretty awesome.

Butterflies and photos on canvas

Posted onJuly 15, 2012July 16, 2012

Last Sunday we decided to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden to check out their new butterfly exhibit. I was quite impressed. There were more butterflies fluttering about than I’ve ever seen at other similar exhibits in various states I visited and some species I had never encountered before, but I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Head on over to the complete set on Flickr for more, as well as some general pictures of the gardens.

They had an art fair going on the same day which was nice to browse. Some artists had taken their photos and had them printed on canvas which were stunning. Had they not been so pricey ($250) we probably would have come home with one to hang over the bed. It got me thinking about whether I should look into the cost of having one of my photos printed to canvas. It seemed the more abstract the photo (think minimal elements in the foreground with the background blurred), the better the effect. Some of them truly looked more like paintings than photographs.

Independence Day

Posted onJuly 5, 2012July 5, 2012

Hope everyone had a nice 4th of July! Ours was low-key since it was smack dab in the middle of the week. Brother #2 came over around noon and we went swimming for a couple of hours, then came back and grilled some hot dogs. We also had corn on the cob, chips, potato salad and pasta salad. We played a bunch of games off Uno Attack before he left around 6 pm.

We opted not to seek out any firework displays because a) I was in pain from being sunburned (I’m usually so good about the sunscreen but I wanted to get a little tan and went overboard), b) our city will be doing two firework displays later this month during their annual and c) we get up far too early (5 am) to justify going to bed late. As fate would have it I didn’t sleep very well last night anyway, probably because I slept until 10 am yesterday morning. Oh well. I would love it if we got a day off in the middle of the week every week, though, because it’s making this week fly by.

Storms & Air Conditioning

Posted onJuly 4, 2012

The above photo explains the last day and a half after a pretty brutal storm ripped through the area. While we were lucky to not have lost our power we were without cable, (home) phone service, and internet from Monday morning until yesterday around 5 pm. It was brutal. ;)

We fared better than our neighbor, however. This looks worse than it really was as I do not think their car suffered more than some scratches, but the gutters over their garage were dented. We also just learned their house is up for short sale which terrifies me as who knows what kind of people will move in next. We could get lucky and they’ll be quieter, pet-free, and non-smokers, or they could be the complete opposite and make us miss our current neighbors. I wish we could afford to buy the place ourselves and rent it out so we could control who we end up living next to since we’re going to be here for at least a few more years until the home prices recover.

Speaking of being without things, our air conditioning died on June 10th. Due to the high volume of requests we couldn’t get anyone to even look at it until June 20th because we had decided to bite the bullet and have the entire system, including the furnace, replaced. We knew there was a freon leak in the air conditioner which we had paid to be refilled at least twice (once each season if my memory serves me correctly) so we knew it was time to do something more permanent since the furnace was getting old as well.

At a coworker’s suggestion we went with ABT Electronics. Joe took the day off on Friday the the 22nd for them to do the install. When I got home from work I noticed it was running pretty loudly – a very noticeable and annoying humming was coming from the furnace. In addition to that the air stopped working shortly after it shut off and then was turned back on. We were not pleased. After many phone calls and being talked down to we finally got someone out on that Saturday to take a look and they found the cause of the air ceasing to work was a loosely connected wire in the outside unit. Fixing the noise wasn’t so easy. Try as he might, including using metal tape to seal all the joints in the ducts, he could not make the noise go away (although he did quiet it somewhat). As he was an installer we had an actual technician come out later that night and right away he knew the issue was the motor. He said he had seen the same issue in a few other units. Apparently there’s a fault in them and he said he’d have to order the parts from the manufacturer. Therefore we have to deal with the noise for a few more weeks but at least there’s some relief in sight, or so I hope. I’m starting to get a bit used to the noise but will still be happier once it’s been eradicated.

R.I.P. Bernadette

Posted onJuly 4, 2012July 4, 2012

Bernadette passed away last week. She hadn’t been looking well the week beforehand and had stopped eating, but interestingly enough she had been acting like her old self the day before I found her buried under the aspen with which we line the cage. I’m very squeamish with death stuff so I had Joe remove her from the cage because, and I’m sorry if this is too graphic, she didn’t look like a mouse anymore. She was bloodied like she had been attacked, or maybe even partially eaten. My apologies if that grossed anyone out, but that’s how it appeared although I wasn’t about to look too closely. She was buried out back near the patio and now we’re left with Penny.

We visited a shelter on Saturday to look at the animals and came to the conclusion we’re both too allergic to cats to consider adopting one. My whole face felt itchy and Joe’s eyes felt swollen, plus his asthma started acting up. So as much as we both love cats I think that we’ll end up getting a dog at some point instead. Something not too big, though. After having my sister-in-law’s very well-behaved dog come to stay with us twice in the last month I can say it’s not that bad having a dog in the house. I’m sure it depends on the dog but hers is no trouble at all. I even took her for a walk one day and she was pretty good about not pulling on the leash. Granted, I’d still rather have a cat, and am considering fostering kittens to see if perhaps the shelter bothered us due to the sheer number of felines in a small place, but I’m trying not to keep my hopes up with the cat situation.