RSS
 

Archive for June, 2009

Cross Stitch From Hell's North Pole

30 Jun

CLICK PHOTO TO ENLARGE!

Recently I finished an epic counted cross stitch project. Before you think I’m crazy lemme explain! My mom loved Christmas. And she loved all Christmas things that were over the top and tacky. So I made this tree skirt with the idea that I would probably give it to her. She’s been dead for a year and a half so that tells you how many years this project has been in the works! So now, about five years after I started the stupid project I’m done! Whoooooo!

This project was epic! I’d worked on it during the holidays for the last few years but last fall I decided to just work on it until I was done. I’ve been working on it so diligently since then that I don’t even know what to do when I’m sitting around watching a TV show at night. I can’t do just one thing!

A detail of Santa’s sled.

So, yeah, it’s bananas. I haven’t cut it up to be a tree skirt yet because Dale feels it should be a runner instead–there are instructions on how to make it either of those things. Dale thinks it should be prominently displayed and not have the risk of getting sap on it and ruining it. He’s actually quite impressed with it (I’m guessing he’s just humoring me because he knows how much time I spent on this silly thing).

Anyway, no more cross stitch for me! And no more Christmas themed crap!

 
No Comments

Posted in crafts

 

Sidney

26 Jun
I wanted to post a couple pictures of Sidney because he’s still happy and relatively healthy but we don’t know how long that will last.

He’s getting a little older and he’s got a few health problems. He’s deaf, has pretty bad back knees, irritable bowel syndrome, and has a spindle cell tumor (which is almost always cancerous). We’ve decided not to take any drastic measures. If we had gone forward with treatment we would have to have his leg amputated and then we’d have to have him undergo chemotherapy, leaving him stressed and putting all his back weight on just one bad leg.

Anyway, we’ve had some time to digest and we’re so lucky that he’s been pretty healthy so far. He’s lost a tiny bit of weight (but nothing scary) and he’s had some increased stomach upset but is overall very happy and sweet-natured.

I’m making Dale take lots of pics of him while he’s still very happy and healthy. Poor little guy. He really is the snuggliest and sweetest pet anyone could ever ask for.

 
No Comments

Posted in cats

 

Images from Dale's Commute

26 Jun
Dale took a few photos of his commute last week and wanted to share them. He takes the green line everyday from Oak Park into the Loop.

A street level view look toward the Loop.

Dale also walks across this bridge everyday.

And he takes the same route home.

My commute is similar but I don’t have to walk across the bridge since I work right in the loop. I only have to walk about a 1/4 of a block to get from the train to my building.

 
No Comments

Posted in dale, photography

 

Freaky Storm

24 Jun
Last Friday a super freaky storm settled over Chicago at 10:30 in the morning.

Here it is next to the Hancock Building. Anyway, it got crazy dark and the sky lit up with lightning and shook with thunder. It hailed. It was a serious storm–and kind of neat to watch from our city views at work so Dale snapped a couple of pics from his office.

The neatest thing was that you could see the nice weather beyond the storm and the sun shining out somewhere over Lake Michigan, quite a few miles out over the lake.

 
No Comments

Posted in Chicago, weather

 

Dale's Birthday

24 Jun

So Dale’s birthday was last week. I made him a cake and bought him a couple of presents that did not arrive in time for his birthday! GAH!

Happily, his coworkers made up for my hugely sucky planning! They decorated his cube!

And his desk. And then took him out for his favorite–sushi–for lunch.

Thanks Armi and Caroline! I appreciate you picking up my slack.

Dale picked Pizza Fusion for his birthday dinner. Organic pizza and a gorgeous garden salad…yummy. One of his presents STILL HAS NOT ARRIVED IN THE MAIL! I can’t take it.

Anyway, we’re also going camping this weekend as part of Dale’s b-day celebrations so we’ll share pix of that adventure later (after it happens, natch).

 
No Comments

Posted in birthday

 

Sushi Boats and Mini Golf

22 Jun

Watch the sushi boats go by!

We recently invited ourselves out to our friend Anne’s neck of the woods to check out the sushi boats in St. Charles at a cute sushi restaurant/Japanese steakhouse.

You sit at a bar and the little boats go by and you snatch the food you want off of the lil’ boats. Scooby is there for your protection (and he’s wearing a plastic cap to keep hair out of the food).

The sushi making chefs will make anything you ask, put it on a little plate and hand it to you. Then, at the end of the meal, they simply add up your empty plates and charge you per plate. Very cute!

After dinner we enjoyed a round of mini-golf! Round Two in our summer-long quest for mini-golf dominance.

My favorite hole at the Stone Creek course in Geneva was the barn! It featured actual plants and veggies that would be grown locally. So that’s real corn growing there. Very adorable.
And, of course, Dale won! I tied with Anne, which made me feel slightly better about it all.

Dale-2, Rebecca-0.

 
No Comments

Posted in dining, mini-golf

 

Herrick Lake

21 Jun
Dale and I have gone to Lake Herrick a couple of times this spring–on the rare sunny day.

Dale took a few photos that he liked enough to share.

On one of our walks we noticed a couple of caterpillars crossing the road–and we helped them across on our fingers and dropped them off on some leaves.

The path we took where we met the caterpillars.

It was a very pretty day (minus the mosquitoes).

It’s a lovely forest preserve.

A knotty tree.
 
No Comments

Posted in photography

 

Behind on blogging…

20 Jun


So our server died. It’s where we keep things like photos. Don’t panic. Dale can save it all but he had put all the photos I was going to post on the blog on there. So since our server is down–we are going to replace the main hard drive and then start saving for a new one–we’ll be lacking updates for a few more days.

And it turns out that our server is soooooo old that we had to buy a discontinued hard drive to get the thing running again. Yeah, we’ve got to scrape together the big fundage to buy a whole new she-bang pretty soon.

Sucky!

Anyway, more soon!

 
No Comments

Posted in update

 

Mini Golf Tourney

08 Jun

Dale and I are in the early stages of a heated Mini Golf Tournament…that I have no chance of winning, sadly.

So, Dale played in the CANUSA games in high school in golf. I sat in my bedroom and scowled. So he’s at an unfair advantage for putting. Anyway, that’s no matter because it’s really about checking out the wonderfully odd themed mini golf parks around Chicagoland…

First up: Haunted Trails in Burbank, Illinois, and it’s RIVER OF BLOOD. This place was fantastic, obviously. This place had great themed holes and lots of fabulous sound effects–including added “burbling” to make it sound like the river of blood is, well, blood!

Poor clueless fisherman dude!

You gotta hit the ball and get it in the haunted house!

The final tally? We each got one on the last hole. So it was 50 to 59. So, yeah. Dale 1-Rebecca 0

 
No Comments

Posted in mini-golf, sports

 

Since Memorial Day…

06 Jun

What have we been up to since Memorial Day? It’s been pretty random…

I made Dale his favorite pancakes! This mix is from American Spoon and is one of our favorite things. They turn out brown and thin and tasty!

When my Aunt Diane and Uncle Randy came to visit a few weeks back we took them on a little mob tour and we meant to stop at Al Capone’s grave but it was closed when we got there. Dale and I just happened to be driving past the cemetery on Memorial Day and stopped to get a couple of photos. The gold cross is made from clothespins, oddly enough.

For some reason Mother Theresa Capone seemed like a funny name to me.

Matthew Capone was Al’s brother and somebody left him an offering. He couldn’t refuse it, obviously.

Further Randomness…
Dale reached way back in our hall closet and pulled out the crate that holds the hats and scarves. And he thought, “Gosh this feels heavy…” and out popped Sidney. Heh. And, oddly, Dale rifled around under him, got what he was looking for and put him back in the closet without Sidney ever feeling the need to get up.

I was making us some eggs and I cracked the egg and as I went to put it in the pan the egg FLEW out of the shell and landed under the pan. So, yeah, that’s not something you see everyday.
 
No Comments

Posted in celebrities, favorites, hobbies, kitchen