April 2013 – Page 2 – Not Content to Crawl

Wild Birds

Posted onApril 15, 2013

I love wild birds which is why we’ve had a bird feeder well before it was “legal” to do so (association rules). The weekend before last I added a second feeder that has suet since it claimed to attract woodpeckers. Much to my excitement, within days we had a cute little downy woodpecker visiting daily to get his fix.

Menards had suet, bird seed, and feeders on sale this past weekend so we bought 12 blocks of suet since they were only $0.75/ea (most sell for about $2.50 although the brand in question is typically $1). One block seems to last a week so that’s $4 monthly to feed the woodpecker, who, by the way, patiently waited in a nearby tree yesterday morning as we replenished his food (as soon as we went inside he went straight for it). We also returned a bag of unopened bird seed we had purchased a week ago since the stuff on sale was twice as much for only $1.50 more.

In addition, we got a hummingbird feeder for only $5. I plan to make my own nectar since I read that the dye in the commercial food isn’t good for their little bodies.

I recently started thinking about attracting hummingbirds since I’ve yet to see one around here but my research tells me they spend April-September in the area. I sure hope the feeder draws them in!

The Cure

Posted onApril 4, 2013October 12, 20151 Comment

I made the decision not to buy tickets to see The Cure at Lollapalooza and what did I read today? That Robert Smith apparently said he’s retiring at age 55 which is next year. I sure hope that’s just another empty threat, or he comes out of retirement shortly thereafter, otherwise I’m going to be pretty sad that I passed up my last opportunity to see him live again (tickets are sold out so it’s not like I can get them now even if I wanted to).

Lollapalooza 2013

Posted onApril 1, 2013October 12, 2015

I’ve never attended Lollapalooza and had no plans on ever doing so; crowded outdoor festivals in the summer heat hold no appeal to me whatsoever. Then I learned that The Cure is one of the headliners this year. I was eagerly awaiting the official lineup announcement, which came this morning, to find out which day The Cure would be playing and what other bands might be sharing the stage with them.

Much to my dismay, The Cure is playing on Sunday, August 4th. As headliners they will likely be playing in the evening which means we would have to get there early to secure decent seats even though there aren’t any other good bands playing on Sunday (why oh why does New Order have to be playing on Friday???) and we would have to take that Monday off or suffer the consequences of lack of sleep (I’m going to assume for the moment that I’ll have a job by then). Basically we’d be trekking downtown in the heat and battling the crowds to pay $200+ just to see The Cure. Needless to say, as much as I love that band I’m leaning towards not going.

Making a final decision would be so much easier if I knew whether The Cure plans on touring the U.S. anytime soon. If so I wouldn’t hesitate to skip their Lollapalooza appearance. As it stands now there’s a 25% chance I’ll be begrudgingly purchasing tickets on Wednesday.

Easter

Posted onApril 1, 2013April 10, 2013

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.

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.

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.

All in all it was a nice holiday.