Category: Family

Father’s Day

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On Sunday we picked E up at noon and decided to have lunch at Lone Star Steakhouse since there is one between his house and my parents’ (our final destination) in good old Crestwood, IL which happens to be one of my old stomping grounds. Even with a $5 off coupon our meal came to just over $60 (including tip), but damn was it good! I got the five star filet, E got a sirloin, and Joe got a sirloin with chicken breast. It’s probably a good thing that there isn’t a Lone Star by us anymore because I just love their steaks but cannot afford to eat there often, and much to my disappointment Discover card doesn’t offer a gift card via their cashback program for them even though they do for the inferior Outback Steakhouse.

Side note: I just ordered a Buffalo Wild Wings gift card from them and am looking to visit the newly built one that replaced the local Ruby Tuesday. I hope their food is good! We had their wings once several years ago so I can’t remember what they were like.

We killed some time after lunch by taking the “scenic” route to my parents’, including crossing into Indiana to get some gas and then riding past my grandparents’ old house (ahhh… memories – I spent my whole summers there for years). When we got to my parents’ we immediately headed to Brother #1’s room in the basement to hook up the new computer he had commissioned us to build him. He got the works, including new speakers and an HDMI monitor. I must admit, I’m slightly jealous, because there’s nothing better than a brand new computer, but I’m pretty happy with my machine overall so I really can’t complain. Plus we made $100 for doing the work. :)

After dinner and two rounds of Aggravation we had to leave to drop E off and get home at a decent hour since Joe had to work.

As for me, I’m still looking for work but not aggressively. I’m looking forward to the 1st week in July when Joe is off and E will be staying with us as we have a bunch of fun things planned and in years past I’ve always had to miss some of that time working. That being said, I spoke with a recruiter today and if she finds me something interesting I will definitely consider it but I don’t just want to end up at any old job. I have a feeling the right thing will come along. Despite how much I worry about money and the future (and trust me, I worry about it a lot), on the flip-side I’m actually optimistic that things will work out in the end and I will find the fulfillment I crave.

MSI Chicago

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Monday was a free day at the Museum of Science and Industry so Brother #2 joined me and Joe for an excursion into the city. After much deliberation, I opted not to bring my camera along because a) other than the baby chicks, nothing in the museum thrills me that much to photograph (not to mention I’ve been there many times before) and b) I’m tired of lugging my heavy camera around everywhere. My back and neck were killing me after our day at the zoo thanks to my zoom lens and the backpack I was carrying with my wide-angle lens. I decided to travel light and depend on my iPhone for any photos I was compelled to take.

Baby Chicks

I was a little worried I’d regret my decision not to bring my camera but it turned out to be a great idea because even the baby chicks exhibit wasn’t as interesting as our last visit, plus the lighting in the museum is very dim so it was too dark in the majority of the exhibits to get any good photos anyway, not to mention how crowded it was. By the time we left around noon the place was bursting at the seems with people!

We decided to drive up North to grab lunch from our favorite BBQ place, Smoque. As we neared the restaurant I had a feeling something wasn’t right because there wasn’t a line out the door like I would expect at lunch time. Turns out they are closed on Mondays! What a bummer. We ended up checking out a little food stand called Hamburger Heaven instead. Their double cheeseburger was really good – it reminded me of a Big Mac from the 80’s (because they were bigger and tastier back then) minus the special sauce. Hamburger Heaven puts their own special sauce on their burgers which is a pale yellow (mayo mixed with a little mustard perhaps, although mild as I didn’t taste much mustard) and really compliments the burger. Their crinkle cut fries are damn good too. I know we’ll be back again sometime this summer.

Changes on the homefront

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I’ve seen very little of my husband this week compared to usual. Monday morning he left for a work trip to Michigan, returning Thursday afternoon. Today he’s working and then taking his son out to dinner, so I won’t be seeing him until later this evening. Then tomorrow morning he’s doing a work thing and I’m attending a conference, but we’ll be meeting up later to see my family for my brother’s birthday.

I didn’t do much while Joe was on his trip, and his sister was kind enough to stay over those days since he worries about me being alone while he’s so far away. His sister technically moved out last weekend after getting her own apartment. Bella is staying with me this week but will be going to her new home on Saturday so I’m going to be awfully lonely come Monday when Joe’s at work and I’m all by myself with no one to talk to except a fish, snail and hamster.

Bella Post Petsmart Trip

We’ve been contemplating getting a dog of our own but without me working I think that added expense isn’t wise. Besides, I’m not sure we’d be lucky enough to find a dog as awesome as Bella – she’s playful here and there but also content to lounge around the house and never get into any trouble. She doesn’t even need to go out that often! We’d be hard pressed to find a dog like her.

I’ll be pestering Joe to fix the door on the spare bedroom this weekend so I can start fostering kittens again. It will give me something to do during the day. Working out, cleaning, keeping things organized, and cooking only take up so many hours of each day.

Easter

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Wow, that ham I mentioned in my last post came out better than I expected. Instead of getting the Archer Farms spiral ham like we usually do we got a shank ham from Meijer. I made a glaze from a recipe I found on Pinterest and the ham came out moist and delicious! I will never buy a precut ham again because they always come out dry.

Easter Ham

Yesterday morning I gave E his Easter basket (which he liked, especially the baseball cards and Darth Vader candy holder) and found that Joe had made me one too. I was so excited because holidays make me feel wistful – I want to be a kid again and get excited about the little things. Case in point – we colored eggs on Saturday which was pretty fun. This year we used Neon food coloring which I liked better than the egg coloring kits.

Easter Basket

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I kept checking Cute Overload throughout the morning as I had submitted a portrait of Nougat last week. I was happy to see he was featured on their 11:11 post. I’ve submitted a few photos to the site over the years but this is the first one that actually made it on the site.

Nougat-EasterPortrait

All in all it was a nice holiday.

What’s going on

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Right now I’ve got chili in the crockpot and I still haven’t showered for the day because I’ve been pretty busy. In addition to throwing that together this morning, I also worked out on the elliptical machine, descaled the coffee maker, did two loads of laundry, put away the St. Patrick’s Day decorations and replaced them with Easter decor, re-organized my glass beads, went through the mail, dusted and decluttered the house a bit, and created a cute Easter basket for my stepson.

I stopped making baskets for the kids on a consistent basis because they never seemed to care, and perhaps they still don’t, but I really like doing it so I made one anyway. Nothing big, but I like how it came out.

E's Easter Basket

I noticed that I really don’t spend a lot of time watching tv during the day, yet it still flies by. Sure, I’m on the internet a lot, although last week I watched a few movies thanks to the local library. I’ve been getting through my list of movies I’d like to see with all this time on my hands. I like that I can rent 5 movies at a time for “free” (I put that in quotes since my property taxes pay for the library’s services). My local library has even started getting new releases in on Bluray. You can only rent them for one night but I still think it’s great. The library is less than five minutes away and not much further than the local Redbox. I just have to be flexible in what I want to watch.

Yesterday my brother came over since he didn’t have to work. We hit the library to borrow a few video games and went to lunch at Buona Beef since I’m restricting myself to eating at places where I have a gift card. The card I have for them is so old I was surprised it worked! I also forgot how good their cheeseburgers are and not a bad price at $5 either. I still have almost $10 left on my gift card too.

I’ve been put in charge of updating Adopt-A-Pet and Petfinder with the rescue organization at which I’m volunteering but that doesn’t take up much of my time – probably a few hours a week, give or take. A lot of that time is due to waiting for the Petfinder site to respond; it has to be the slowest website I’ve ever dealt with! I can post five cats on Adopt-A-Pet in the time it takes to post one on Petfinder. In any case, it’s been busier lately because of all the cat shows in the area which causes the adoption rates to rise. I don’t mind, though, because I like keeping busy.

My brother asked me the other day why when he’s not working he is lazier than when he is, and I’m not sure why, but I’m the same way. The more I have to do in a given day the more motivated I feel. The less I have to do the more depressed I feel and the lazier I become. This is why I’ve been doing what I can to keep busy, including entering sweepstakes. I know it sounds a bit silly but whatever. It’s free, keeps me occupied, and I won $15 from VISA so far.