Author: Nicole

Weekend Recap (07/11-07/12)

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Saturday (07/11) we ate homemade breakfast burritos I had prepped on Friday before heading to the arboretum.

We arrived just after they opened at 7 am. The plan was to take advantage of the relatively cool weather and get a few hours of bird watching in before we had to get home to prepare to drive out to my parents house. Well, the mosquitos had other ideas so we mostly drove around the grounds, although we did stop by the visitor center to look at the flowers.

We made a quick stop at Walmart before heading home where I spent two hours on the patio reading a book before it got too hot and humid for comfort.

We left the house around 1 pm so we could get to my parents around 2 pm. We had some good food, helped my mom and brother with a few things, and left around 8:30 so we could be home by 9:30. I had a hard time sleeping which is typical anytime I socialize.

Sunday (07/12) we stopped at Old Time Pottery before heading out to the Bath & Body Works in Geneva to pick up an online order I had made on Thursday for this adorable light-up spooky kitty hand sanitizer holder.

It was sold out nearly everywhere else so I feel lucky I was able to grab one. I hate buying Halloween stuff in mid-summer though. Why can’t we live in the moment a little more? Call me crazy but didn’t stores wait until kids were back in school to start putting out the Halloween stuff back when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s? Now it’s out in early July. It’s very annoying. By the time any holiday arrives these days I’m burnt out on it because of this nonsense. But I digress…

After B&BW we went to the Barnes & Noble store in the same shopping center.

I love the smell of a bookstore; there is nothing like it.

I looked at their e-readers but they seem overpriced for what they do and seemed to operate slower than my very old Kindle.

I was also amazed by all the cool educational toys they had from stuff about bugs to things about our solar system. I would have loved so many of them if they had been available when I was a child.

We browsed the magazines last and this caught my eye…

Hmmm… that seems familiar. A little closer look…

Aha, I knew it was Robert Smith!

I was shocked to see that 2600 magazine is still being printed.

I used to think I was so cool reading that even though I never hacked a damn thing.

We were getting hungry so we headed home to eat the stromboli sandwiches and potato salad my mom sent home with us on Saturday. Then Joe washed both our cars while I attempted to install garden edging around the tree out front before giving up.

I got it because my next door neighbor put some around her tree and it looked really nice, but the soil was too hard and the plastic edging too flimsy. It just felt like more effort than I was willing to put in. Back to Walmart it goes!

And yes, I know that makes me a hypocrite after I said I was boycotting Walmart. I do admittedly buy things from there once in a blue moon if I can’t get in anywhere else, like the bike shorts I’ve been living in since my skin went all sensitive on me.

4th of July Weekend (07/03-07/05)

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Joe had Friday (07/03) off for the holiday. Since it was so hot and humid we decided it would be a perfect day to run errands, like dropping off an Amazon return at FedEx and hitting up Trader Joe’s since it had been awhile since our last visit.

Afterwards we stopped at Paris Baguette for some delicious pastries and Korean Iced Milk Coffee. It’s a good thing they aren’t closer because I’ve gained enough weight this year since I’ve been stuffing my face without discipline; I’m just so happy to be able to eat after what I went through last year. I do need to reel it in though.

We had Culver’s for dinner as our little holiday celebration since Joe had to eat light on Saturday in preparation for a medical procedure on Sunday.

Saturday (07/04) we hid in the house all day and didn’t do anything to celebrate. Not sure what is worth celebrating right now anyway. This current administration is fucking up anything and everything it can get its hands on. That’s what happens when you put a bunch of narcissistic, unempathetic, rich, brainless cretins in office. Not saying the other side are angels, but this group of people takes the cake.

I temporarily unfroze our credit at all three bureaus so we could apply for Amazon’s Prime VISA. They sent an invitation in the mail and we had just been talking about how annoying it is that Costco only takes VISA or debit and how much we hate using debit, so they caught us at the right time. Plus we got $200 just for signing up!

Now we have all the frickin cards – AMEX, Discover, Mastercard, Target, and VISA. I literally had to put together a cheat sheet for both of us so we know which card to use where to maximize the cash back benefits on each.

Obviously the VISA will be used at Amazon, as well as Costco. We have no choice but to use Discover at Woodman’s since they do not accept any other card, and we’ve been using the AMEX at Aldi since we get more cash back for groceries on it vs the other cards. Frankly the Mastercard offers the least incentives lately so it barely gets used. Target doesn’t get used a ton, although with having to get our prescriptions at the CVS inside, I have been using it more this year than previous years.

Surprisingly I was able to fall asleep before midnight and wasn’t woken up by fireworks even though I know they were popping off.

Sunday (07/05) after grocery shopping, my B12 injection, and Joe’s procedure we headed to REI so I could look at binoculars. I do not understand how an outdoor store has so few binoculars on display to try.

In fact, it doesn’t seem like ANY store really offers the ability to try most of the binoculars they sell, although to be fair the variety is always lacking. Are people really buying them without trying them first? This seems like yet another example of the patriarchy at work – chances are most binoculars are perfectly suitable for men, but for women, and petite ones with small heads, close-set eyes, and glasses like myself, it’s not that easy. I can’t even see through most of them because either the minimum distance between barrels is too wide, or the eye relief isn’t high enough. In fact, I tried two different Nikon models and I was able to see through the mid-range ones with my glasses on, which is the goal, but couldn’t with the higher end pair.

I’m a buy it for life gal so it’s frustrating that I might have to resort to ordering thousands of dollars of binoculars off Amazon just to see if I like any of them. That makes me feel icky and I’m trying to avoid that, but none of these retailers are making it easy.

We even stopped in Best Buy briefly because they sell binoculars but we couldn’t find them. It’s amazing how much I used to love that store and now abhor it.

We stopped in Disc Replay to look around but didn’t buy anything, then picked up Potbelly since we were starving by this point.

We made it home just in time to watch The Cure playing a festival show in Belgium. Since it was being streamed on YouTube we watched on the TV which was especially nice.

June 2026 Recap

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06/02 (Tue)
Went for my first dental cleaning since October 2024. I was dragging my heels on my next cleaning in early 2025 and then I started having health issues so I wasn’t in a position to go. When I started feeling better this year I didn’t want to go until after getting a COVID booster, which I finally did in May. In any case, I love my hygienist and dentist; they’re both so kind, caring, and easy to talk to. I got the once every five years mega x-rays and despite the time elapsed, my teeth look great. I did keep up with flossing and brushing even when I was in the worst time of my life, so I’m sure that helped.

06/05 (Fri)
Joe had a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy. Afterwards we came home and I made us breakfast. Then in the afternoon we picked up Culver’s. Usually we just get kids meals, but this time we also added pretzel bites and a baked potato soup. The bites were soooo good, even better than I remembered; they have a hint of sweetness to them. The soup was awful, though. I was shocked since their broccoli cheddar and stuffed pepper soups are really good (or were, it’s been awhile since I last got them).

06/07 (Sun)
Took a walk around East Branch in the morning and then decided to check out 7-11’s breakfast options. Got a vanilla latte and a waffle breakfast sandwich. First off, why did the guy attempt to charge us full price for the sandwich even after we confirmed we could get the free latte with a reward and still qualify for the discounted price for those with the 7-11 app? If you ask me, I think they try to see what they can get away with. He managed to fix it when we pointed out the discrepancy. How many people don’t notice? I won’t be going back there because I think they are shady. As for the actual drink and food, I was not impressed with the flavor of either. For the price I’d rather give in and get McDonald’s.

Lou Malnati’s was running a BOGO special on their medium pizzas so for a late lunch we got a deep dish cheese and Mike’s Hot Honey thin crust.

Both were delicious, as always. They ended up feeding us for dinner on Mon and Tue too so that’s a great value for $25.

06/12 (Fri)
Ran to Aldi and Costco by myself. Right before I left I realize I don’t carry a debit card (to pay at Costco), only Joe does. Luckily I remembered I could pay cash, but couldn’t use the self-checkout. I ended up grabbing a variety pack of chips in addition to the rotisserie chicken I went there for so I had both hands full when I arrived at the Costco check-out area. There were three lines and everyone seemed to be in the closest one, so I went to the furthest one that only had two people. A guy with the big pallet of items in front of me let me go ahead of him after he confirmed, twice, that I only had two, as if he thought someone else would creep up with a cart out of nowhere. Maybe someone did that to him before.

06/13-06/14 – Weekend recap

06/15 (Mon)
When Joe got off work we grabbed a healthy (lol) dinner from Burger King* and took it to Cantigny where they have a plethora of picnic tables. There were many people also taking advantage of the nice weather and grilling/picnicking at the park. And there were no leaf blowers for once!

In addition to the beautiful scenery, we got to see dogs! It just so happened to be Paws in the Park day which is every Monday from March through October. Talk about a wonderful evening!

* We haven’t had BK in a hot minute and I enjoyed their double cheeseburger and fries way more than I expected. It might have had something to do with the ability to select “off the broiler” in the app so the burger was guaranteed fresh.

06/18 (Thu)
We spotted a tiny cute bunny hanging around the patio recently and today we noticed all the zinnias have been eaten, but not fully, so hopefully they will recover. I put more fencing around the area to keep Mr. Cottontail from a repeat feast.

He needs to go next door and eat the neighbor’s large plot of mint instead (which he did, in fact, do a few days later).

06/19-06/21 – Extended weekend recap

06/23 (Tue)
I went to Great Clips for a haircut as soon as they opened and had the least friendly hairdresser I’ve ever encountered. He was very curt, bordering on mean, and didn’t make any conversation with me whatsoever. He didn’t even ask me to move my head, he just pushed it around like I wasn’t a person. It literally made me feel like crying.

When I came home I went on a walk to try and relax and a guy’s two unleashed black labs came running out of his garage (that he had opened after I had already walked past) and were jumping all over me. I’m glad they were friendly, but this is why there are leash laws! What if I was a small child?

Needless to say my nervous system remained on high alert after these encounters. Joe jokingly suggested that I need to avoid Asian men because the guy with the dog was Asian, as was the hair dresser, and the creepy guy at the library last week. What are the odds?

06/24 (Wed)
I had to run some errands and ended up walking around Target for an hour just browsing which is something I don’t do much these days. But it was nice and empty customer-wise. There were a lot of employees, however, and all of them were so friendly – many of them asked if they could help me. I found some awesome gifts for the kids that just so happened to be on clearance and cost 70% less than usual so that was cool since I planned on buying them regardless.

06/25 (Thu)
We had Popeyes chicken sandwiches for dinner before going to Carol Stream’s concert in the park. I’m glad we did that because it seemed like 2 of the 3 food trucks they said were be there didn’t show up.

We purposely got there late so we could sit in the back and off to the side.

We thought this was a safe place to be. We were wrong. Unfortunately that is where all these boys were running amuck and throwing a football which sailed over our heads and near us multiple times. I was legitimately worried I was going to get hit in the head, and it’s not like it was a soft Nerf football either.

We kept moving to different areas but it seemed like there was no getting away from them since they were taking up so much space with their football game. A couple with their baby angrily left due to their shenanigans, and it irked me that none of the police standing right there witnessing this said a word. Even if they just made the kids stay further back away from where people were sitting that would have been good enough. Shame on all their parents. They were probably way up front enjoying the concert while their brats disturbed other people instead of them. We never behaved like that when we were kids.

It wasn’t until about 3/4 of the way through the concert we discovered a quiet area more off to the side of the stage were no one else was sitting.

This will be our spot at the next concert. Even though it’s closer to the stage than I wanted to be, they don’t play overly loud so I don’t have to worry about my ears.

06/27 (Sat)
We stopped at Jewel to get some Bubblr since they sell them individually and I wanted to try some of their flavors. I had no idea they had 13 of them!

I picked up Wild Cherry Chill’r & Peach Raspberry Dazzl’r (spoiler alert: they sucked). There are plenty more to try in time, though. So far I only like Twisted Elix’r.

We also stopped at a local coffee shop to get a latte before heading to the Swedish Days festival in Geneva.

We usually go around 11 or so, but decided to get there early (around 8:30 am) so we could partake in the Lutheran Church pancake breakfast since it’s usually sold out by the time we arrive. It comes with two swedish pancakes (plain, lingonberry, or cinnamon sugar), two sausages, and your choice of coffee or apple juice. I got two cinnamon sugar pancakes which was a mistake since they were way too sweet. I have to remember to get plain in the future and put a little syrup on it (I hate lingonberry).

We ended up sharing a table with a young woman, her baby, and either her brothers or her brother and his partner. It wasn’t clear based on some of the info they shared with us, but they were all very nice. I love friendly people! At one point the woman picked a daddy longlegs off my back haha.

The downside to getting there so early was there wasn’t much to do since everyone sets up closer to 10 am. It was blowing our minds that many of the shops wouldn’t open early for that particular weekend to take advantage of the increased traffic. There was a coffee shop that wasn’t even open!

We did a lot of walking while it got increasingly warm and saw this cool mural:

We eventually left and went to Kiss The Sky (record shop) and then the Batavia Farmer’s Market. Apparently they pack things up at noon, though, and we arrived shortly before that so that was a quick and unproductive visit. We then went to Ollie’s where I got a rainbow pinwheel to replace the one that disappeared last year (I suspect it was stolen). Then we grabbed food from Just Kabobs and went home.

Around 8ish we were watching TV and a firecracker blew off right near our window. It was so loud it made me jump. I ran outside to see who could have done it but it must have been around the corner and traveled over a building to get by us.

06/29 (Mon)
I got an email from Disney+ that says “We noticed that you have more than one subscription associated with this email address. If you take no action, you may continue to be charged for all subscriptions.” As far as I can tell this is not true. We have Hulu free via T-Mobile and pay Disney+ $1 to add it to the free Hulu.

I wonder if T-Mobile is messing around with something because on the same day Joe got a text from T-Mobile saying they are removing the $10 kickback given to anyone who stayed below 2 GB every month.

Lately I’m the only one who was getting it, but now I won’t so our already expensive T-Mobile bill will be going up to $178 per month because they also raised our portion of Netflix from $11 to $13. Just last year we were closer to $150 monthly. I am done with them. I did an analysis and even if we pay Netflix $19.99 and Hulu $12.99 directly we’d save $75+ every month by moving our lines to Tello so we are probably going to do that next month.

Notable media this month:

Hoppers – Pixar movies are always full of laughter and tears. This was no exception. I love animals so I especially loved it.

Project Hail Mary – Was the book better? Absolutely. Was the movie adaptation better than I expected? Yes, especially because I don’t love Ryan Gosling for a reason I cannot explain.

As a side note, we finally watched La La Land this month and my instincts were accurate – we hated it. So much so about 1/3 of the way through I read how it ended and then fast forwarded so we could see the last few scenes. I don’t get the hype.

The Sex Lives of College Girls

I discovered this series this month and promptly binge-watched it all. I can’t believe Reneé Rapp left the show to pursue music. Good for her, but bad for us as she is such a good actress! Her departure might even be why the series didn’t get picked up for a fourth season since it felt a little flat after she left.

Extended Weekend Recap (06/19-06/21)

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Friday (06/19) Joe took a half day from work so we ran some errands, including a stop at Costco. We tried the new strawberry shortcake sundae to tide us over for a few hours before going out for a late lunch.

It has been years since we’ve eaten at Village Tavern Bar & Grill because I think their prices are rather high, plus I don’t like how dark it is inside. Joe wanted to have the fish fry and I realized they have a patio, so I said lets do it. I had a coupon for a free appetizer so we got the cheese quesadilla and I got the BLT which was not the best because of the mayo they use. I should have gotten a photo of the quesadilla because I would order that as my meal next time, that’s how good it was. They put pico de gallo inside and also give you a very generous helping of sour cream and guacamole.

The weather was perfect and we really enjoyed ourselves. I even had a little alcohol which is unusual for me. We split this flavored vodka.

Saturday (06/20) morning we hit up a community yard sale and headed to downtown Glen Ellyn to look for some food. We drove around a bit but couldn’t find anything appealing. I took to Yelp and found a place in a different area called Paris Baguette and decided to check it out. Upon entering I was thinking the case of pastries looked really familiar. I even remarked to Joe, “these look like those pastry cases we saw at H Mart” (spoiler alert, that’s because they were). We got a few pastries and a Korean Milk Iced Coffee which we took to Panfish Park.

They were so good! Definitely will be back especially because they open early and are on the way to the arboretum.

After eating, we took a walk around the park. A guy passing us in the opposite direction said “hi hi hi”. We both said hi back and he replied, “assholes, you’re assholes” or something like that. Joe called over his shoulder, “Huh? We said hi back”, as we walked away.

I’m not sure what the deal was with that guy, but if I had to guess based on his behavior, he might have Tourette Syndrome. I noticed he was wearing headphones, so I guess it’s possible he just couldn’t hear us, but either way I think something was going on with him. As we were leaving the park we could see him near the same section of the path as if he was simply walking back and forth looking for more people to call assholes. After the initial shock of being called an asshole for no reason, it was pretty funny.

In the afternoon I visited my neighbor and her adorable dog briefly before watching The Cure’s livestream at the PinkPop festival in The Netherlands.

They played so many good songs for two hours, including A Forest followed by From The Edge of the Deep Green Sea.

I’m so thankful they chose to air it live. The only thing that would have made it better was if they aired Sofi Tukker’s earlier performance at the same festival. Yeah, that’s right, Sofi Tukker and The Cure were at the same festival on the same day. Talk about a dream event!

The next door neighbor’s daughter had friends over in the evening and they were blasting music and carrying on. Her parents were working which is the only time she does stuff like that I’ve noticed. Apparently at some point they were on the roof running past our front windows at like 2 am. Joe was so pissed off and yelled at one of the guys to get off the roof immediately, which he did. Can’t believe people in their twenties act like that!

Sunday (06/21) was a pretty low key day. We left the house to get groceries from Aldi in the morning and KFC in the afternoon because we had a T-Mobile deal.

I learned why we never go to KFC even though they have a location extremely close to us.

Their food is only good IF you get a fresh batch like Joe did. I got the bottom of the barrel. It’s wild to me they’d see two orders come in with the same last name and still give completely different chicken nuggets and wedges, as if we couldn’t see the obvious difference between them.

They also gave us sauces based on what I had selected in my mobile order instead of giving Joe the sauces he actually ordered (which were completely different from mine).

And something is wrong with their app – it cuts whole sentences off. Whomever they hired forgot to add code for word wrapping to accommodate different sized screens. So dumb.

What a bummer, especially because I love their wedges (when they aren’t hours old) and Wendy’s stopped offering breakfast around here so they don’t have the delicious potato wedges anymore.

Weekend Recap (06/13-06/14)

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Saturday (06/13) we hit up the Wheaton French Market before 8 am so we could get in line for the Cooperage coffee booth right away. We tried their vanilla iced latte and now it makes sense why they have a mile-long line within a few minutes of opening – it’s delicious!

We grabbed some pastries and people-watched for a long while before walking around a bit of the downtown area. We discovered they have an entire block cordoned off with a row of tents with seating for all the restaurants on that block. I found out they keep it up all summer and into early October, so I added that to my list of things I want to do this summer on a nice day – breakfast one weekend and dinner on another.

Once we got home I prepped lunch (chicken salad) in preparation for Joe’s son and girlfriend who were arriving within an hour. We don’t get to see them often enough because he works long hours which really sucks because they’re both such a pleasure to be around.

We exchanged our long overdue Christmas gifts. We gave E money and a little 3D printed Pokémon (Charmander) who looks like he’s made of yarn. I felt bad we didn’t get anything specifically for his girlfriend so that will be changing this year. And hopefully we can see them closer to the holiday too since it’s been years since that has happened.

In any case, these are the thoughtful gifts he gave us:

E has been adding to my Cure vinyl collection for years now. The latest is The Top picture disc. And he’s also our personal UNO game dealer; I’m excited to try the Uno Flip Attack. They couldn’t stay long enough to play any games, unfortunately.

Sunday (06/14) we rested from all the people-ing on Saturday. If you’re an introvert then you understand.