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links for 2008-09-26

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Illinois wildlife we can eat

6 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Questions and Answers /

mushroom mushroom




We’ve been watching this “thing” grow in our backyard for a few days now. It was pretty small when we noticed it, “normal” mushroom size and then suddenly, it wasn’t small. It was big. Really big. And it just keeps getting bigger!


TW suggested the construction workers might be playing a trick on us and just bringing a new, bigger white rock over to the yard every day. (Yes, I know she needs psychiatric help.) Finally she went over and touched it and I went over and touched it. Firm! Yet soft! Fascinating.


How big will it get? And just WTF is it?


A giant puffball?? Should we eat it?

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links for 2008-09-23

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Blogging brought to you by the letter “P”

5 Comments / Daily Dose /

I spent 8+ hours on planes to spend 36 hours in California. I used to like to fly, now not so much. Every flight is overbooked. Everyone on every flight seems to have some horrible disease and I’m sure some pandemic will be spread via air travel any second now.

My inbox is… well the word pandemonium comes to mind every time I open it.

Jenn left voice mail for me this morning at 7 freaking am and between her tone of voice and the “call me back, I really want to talk to you” I knew she was either pregnant and happy about it or capitulating to the patriarchy (again) – it’s the later. Whoopee. Geez.

The good daughter, I actually called her that several times today, just called to tell me she’s headed to Body Tech to get pierced – her cheeks this time. “And don’t be surprised if I have another tattoo when I see you in a couple of weeks.” Joy.

The letter “P” pretty much sucks ass, just sayin’.

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A little dueling hybrids update

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Money Talks /

I finally had time to call my father. Yes I’m a bad daughter. Yes he’d been calling my old phone number. Yes I feel guilty. We had a nice chat about the weather. He got to tease me about the cold so that eased the guilt from not calling him with my new phone number.

That led to a discussion about hurricanes. He drove through Hannah, from Charleston to DC and cackled about the dummies who stay home, leaving the roads open for him and the semis. Yes, my father is nuts. No I don’t take after him.

Of course I asked him about his gas mileage. Hah. Turns out he didn’t drive the Hybrid Honda to DC because a couple of weeks ago some woman hit him in Summerville and his car has been in the shop. Oops. Ya gotta hate that.

He did, however, admit that he wasn’t getting good gas mileage – 40ish (which leads me to believe maybe it’s less than 40.) He was pretty fascinated by my story of the 62.9 mpg drive home from GLNS, (today’s trip, I pulled into the driveway with 62.8!)

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TW’s Apple Festival Birthday

4 Comments / Daily Dose, Family Funk, Holidays, Travel Log /

Years ago, when I lived in the Upstate and TW lived in Florida, she brought the little kids up for her birthday. I searched the internet for some place fun and interesting to go and celebrate her birthday and I found the Hendersonville Apple Festival. So we jumped in the car and we drove up. It was fun but more importantly it started a birthday tradition – that’s what happens around here… you do something once and suddenly some people consider it a new tradition. So, every year I’ve struggled to come up with “apple festival” ideas for TW’s birthday.

It hasn’t been easy. Florida doesn’t really have a helluva lot of apple festivals! One year the kids painted still life apple paintings and we had our own apple festival with bobbing for apples in a bucket and stuff like that. Another year I took her to St Pete, to a quilt shop, and we looked for “apple” fabric (as well as other fabric.)

This year, I again turned to the internet and found Apple River Canyon State Park, Illinois and discovered they were in fact having an old fashioned family festival. I sent the driving directions to my iPhone and sent secondary driving instructions to my phone for another possibility just in case that festival was a dud…

We started the morning with breakfast at Hamilton’s which is right across the street from us, and a restaurant we had not visited. We all enjoyed it, RJ in particular. While paying the bill, I got a work related emergency phone call and had to run back home to resolve a problem – then we started our drive (about an hour later than I’d originally planned.)

We drove. And drove. And drove. And never thought we’d find it – but then, we did. Except there was no festival! It was just a park with very few people in it. WTF??? How frustrating to drive that far and then … nothing.

So we drove out of the park and proceeded to get lost. Driving around the “mounds” while amusing was really not anyone’s idea of a fun birthday and we were all pretty grouchy about being locked up in the car with no payoff when suddenly we stumbled into Elizabeth Illinois. Since we have an Elizabeth, that perked us all up. We perked up even more when we discovered Apple Valley Fort… which was apparently where the festival had been held.

Who knew there was an Apple River State Park and an Apple River Fort? We didn’t but we know it now, damn it.

We arrived at the fort about 15 minutes after the festival ended but the reenactors were nice and showed us around, one of them shot his gun for us (hah.) and we watched the special little Apple Valley Fort movie. And then it was back in the car for us.

Not quite the apple festival birthday I’d envisioned but whatever, we went with it and it was amusing. We also stopped at Beefaroo on the way home, for dinner. Interesting. Worst food ordering experience we’ve ever had, but interesting and everyone was happy enough with their food.

The next day, I decided we’d take a chance on the other apple birthday festival I’d considered before settling for Apple River…. we headed to Long Grove for their Irish fest.

Long Grove is a little like Helen, Georgia (not the Bavarian part but the theme touristy town idea) so I thought everyone would be both amused and entertained, even if they weren’t really interested in the Irish fest part of it. (though we did enjoy the Irish dancers.)

Long Grove has a shop called The Apple Haus and we all had apple donuty type things, apple cider, apple smoothies and we bought a couple of cookbooks (ask TW to blog about those, on Retro Food – they’re very amusing and very retro…)

They have a yarn store that we all enjoyed and an interesting craft store. There was a gift shop where we found a ton of great gift ideas for just about everyone and another gift shop that had some gourds that Liz and I really liked. I think Liz would like to try her hand at some gourd design.

Even with the confusion between Apple River Canyon and Apple River Fort, it was a pretty successful apple festival birthday weekend.

And TW, this year… you are 39:

39.png









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Yes I’m talking about the Prius again

5 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Money Talks /

Ya know if Toyota was social media friendly, they’d be paying me for this shit but they aren’t so I’m doing this just because it’s fun and I really do love my Prius. (If Toyota ever wakes up to social media and offers me money, I’ll let ya know – transparency and all that ya know.)

Anyway, I got y’all all excited with my 62.9 mpg photo last week and that was sort of unfair… it was the highest I’d ever seen my mileage and I knew it would go down – and it did, so let me tell you about that.

Right after I filled up, TW went to the doctor which is really close to our house and the next day we went to Starbucks which is also really close to our house. Then on Saturday we picked up Joy in Skokie which is not close to our house. When Joy got in the car, she can attest to the fact that the MPG had dropped significantly from where it was on Wednesday night – it was at 46.7 or 47.2 or something like that. Big drop right?

If you read my blog regularly, you know that we went to Evanston for brunch and then we drove around all over the place on Sunday. And then Monday was coffee day. Tuesday was a trip to the post office and to take the little kids back to their dad’s house. Wednesday was coffee day too… and today, I made my weekly trip to Great Lakes Naval Base for cheap gas & groceries…. and when I pulled into the gas station, this was what was on the display. Not 62.9… just my average 50ish MPG.

prius2.jpg




























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We don’t get lost anymore

3 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day /

I think that’s going to be my response to people who are still asking me how I like living in “Chicago” or how the move is going. Because really, that’s a high point in any move to a new place. When you don’t really get lost or you can pretty much manage a detour without thinking you’re never going to find your way to where you’re going – or home again – you’re settled.

On Saturday when TW and I picked up Joy and headed for Le Peep to have brunch with Lara I was worried about the construction. I knew Emerson was closed and parts of Ridge and sure enough, there were detour signs so I thought I might not be able to make it all of the way up Church. I asked Joy (lifetime resident of the area) if we could go x, y to z and she said yes! We didn’t need to do x, y, z but I was glad I knew what to do if we had to. (Brunch was terrific and I am no longer a gooey bun virgin. Next brunch, I hope more Chicagoland bloggers can attend.)

Today, we went to our beloved Skokie farmer’s market (Cheese Curds!) and then found our way to the Half Price Books in Edgewater Park Niles. (edited to add: WTF is that Leaning Tower of Pisa YMCA??? What’s the story? Suzanne, do you know??) From there we went to the Northbrook Apple store where the Apple website SAID they would have iPhones. They did not.

We hit The Container Store because I’ve never been to one and I was heading down Skokie toward Old Orchard. That was interesting. Overwhelming also. (To sales people required to ask for phone number when making a sale, don’t be so surprised when someone provides you with a Florida area code. In the land of cell phones, we don’t always have to change our phone number to a local – no roaming plans are more common than not. Sheesh.)

From there, I kept going down Skokie and found myself somewhere that I’d never been. I really didn’t have a clue – ok I had a small clue and sure enough, I ended up on East Lake with only a tiny doubt that I wasn’t where I thought I was. I wasn’t lost, just a little tiny bit unsure.

And, we can mostly navigate the Old Orchard Mall now. That’s a huge accomplishment. That thing is a madhouse and it’s confusing as hell. Or maybe we just avoid malls and no longer inherently understand them? Whatever. Apple Store near Macy’s, next to the very bright Pink Vicky Secret and in the wing where the rabid children play in the funky dragon looking park. Though now that I have Chris’s iPhone in hand, I hope to not visit the Apple Store again until Christmas. Damn Apple for forcing you to go into a store for the 3g. I much preferred being able to order my original iPhone online and activate it in the comfort of my own damn home. Oh well, at least I know my way around two malls.

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A day in the life of the Prius

8 Comments / Daily Dose, Day to Day, Money Talks /

OK so I’m not going to blog about a whole day in the life of my Prius because that would be sort of boring. I don’t drive that much so mostly it just sits out in the driveway looking pretty. This will be the story of one typical trip in the Prius, a trip I make once a week at almost the same time every week (though the day varies a bit, depending on what we need or what our schedule is.)

I head to the Great Lakes Naval Base every week, it’s a 17.5 mile drive through the suburbs of Chicago somewhere around 4:30pm. The highest speed limit posted is 45, the lowest 30 (except on the base of course where it’s 25 or less.) The traffic is usually relatively light, for the suburbs of Chicago at that time of day. Relatively light means if I hit some of the traffic lights properly, I can maintain the speed limit for most of the trip. It’s rare that I can exceed the speed limit, there’s just too much traffic and too many traffic lights for that, except in a few spots past Deerfield and Lake Forest.

When I get to the Naval base, I hit the NEX gas station and fill up with the cheap gas (thank you NEX) which means I put between 2 and 4 gallons in the tank – usually 2 gallons. I reset the mileage tracker, pull out of the gas station and drive just under a mile to the NEX/commissary. An hour later, I head for home. And this is where the fun starts.

When I first fill up the tank and reset the mileage, it starts really low – somewhere around 30-32mpg. When I pull out of the NEX to come home, I’ll probably hit 34-37mpg pretty quickly and from there… I just watch the gas mileage improve. It’s fascinating to watch it move from 34 to 40 to 44 to 47 to 50 mpg!!! and beyond. When it goes beyond 50mpg it feels like we should throw a party or something but I don’t want to get to confident that it’s going to stay there, I’m always sure it’s going to drop again quickly. But when it doesn’t and it’s at 52mpg and staying there – wow.

When I pulled into my driveway after the 17.5 mile drive home…

prius.jpg

I love this car.

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links for 2008-08-19

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