pics

waaaalllllll eeeeeeeeeeee

hmmm a socially conscious movie with very little dialog... made for children you say? and they enjoyed it?? and you did too?

well i did .... wall e is too cute with his hello dolly and his earth trinkets. and i think the distopia movie is a better message for kids that shoot em up over sexed movies. it might be a bit depressing but the warning isn't far off its mark and i don't think it's a bad thing for kids to learn.

Taste time

which translates to "its the hottest week of the year lets fill up the city will meandering tourists who don't know how to walk down the street or ride the train."

But really i love the taste of chicago. you couldn't pay me to go on the weekend or on the 3/4 of july, but next tuesday you will most likely find me milling about eating my fried ravioli, curry fries, pirogis and potato pancakes, frozen banana, and holy cow chips (so healthy i know) maybe ill have a slice of cheesecake to balance out the fried food

Have a great weekend i am working on not melting this weekend

deep in the hundred acre woods...

....where Christopher robin plays you'll find the enchanted neighborhood of Christopher's childhood days...

well, my Winnie the pooh is doing well, but I think this humidity and heat is bugging her, because she been acting a little off. she is just as cute as ever, and she has mastered all basic commands well. right now i am working on the stay command and giving her "false releases" as in I will say things like "bread, and banana and brain" and she knows she can't move until she hears the true release word "break"

Our long awaited deck was finished on Saturday, and on Sunday my dear co-worker Nancy gave us her patio furniture set. so we have been able to sit out and enjoy the deck this week.

the garden is doing well... i now have small little peppers and a few tiny green tomatoes.

outside of being outside, not much going on. work is as busy as ever for me right now, and bill's beach volleyball team is even going into tonight's game (match?).

I will get some pics up soon.

garden update

so my garden is growing nicely, and yesterday i was able to harvest my first broccoli head. it was de-lish! i think all of the broccoli was stunted a bit by the 40 degree weather we had when i first bought them, but they are tasty even if they are small.



My bean plants have little beans coming out on them the longest is about 3 -4 inches right now. again, the bean plants are on the smaller side, but that might be more due to the soil conditions. I am now thinking about if i should seed a fall batch of beans and broccoli. or seed something to put in these guy's place after i have harvested. i know i will continue to get some small side shoots from my broccoli, but with the beans i am not sure if they continue to produce as you harvest.



the tomatoes are like a jungle right now. my early girls being the biggest, but not that much bigger than my big boys. the romas are all about 6-9 inches shorter than their bigger siblings. and the potted ones look stunted.



the pepper plants are as big as i would hope at this point, especially since they are all flowering right now. i guess we'll just hope that i won't be eating 3in long bell peppers all summer :)



and lastly my deck is progressing nicely...

deck part 2

This is our deck as of Monday night

This is our deck as of Tuesday night

The planks weren't nailed in last night mostly just laying in place. it is very exciting to see progress though. I thinkWinnie is more excited than Bill or me because this will provide a quicker access to chasing the bunnies and once complete her bed will move back into the family room. I don't think she has appreciated the displacement.

deck deck deck

we real progress was made yesterday and as long as the weather stays as predicted (70s and clear all week) my deck should be enjoyable by friday. yay!

reunions left and right

so this weekend was my 5 year reunion with u of c. it was fun to go to the "dinner" event on Friday and see some people that i haven't seen in a while. more importantly it has made me start thinking about next year and my 10 year high school reunion. i still have a hard time believing it has been that long... so much has changed in the last 9 years moves, marriages, babies, school and more school, careers and other life changing events. a year from this September will mark 10 years of my life in Chicago -- it's crazy!

the other reunion was with friends for BJ's wedding reception. It was good fun and a lot of dancing to "Indian-ized" dance music.

because we were gone during the day and then well into the night for errands and the wedding we missed the tornado that ripped through right south of us. we have had so much rain recently that even if we had had a permit for our deck i am doubting if anything would have happened.

things are busy at work for bill and me. Winnie is doing well, I'll try to put up a pic of her new trick "dance"

later

adventures in building

yesterday i found out that our builders hadn't gotten the permit to build the deck yet.... had i not called the builder would i have found this out? nope.

but this whole permit business really irks me. had we just built our deck and not bothered with the village i would have a deck, but because of some "problem" with the village engineer we rule followers are stuck with 5 foot holes in our back yard and not allowed to proceed until the village figures out its own internal business.

Why do we need a permit? well.... because the village wants to make money.... why don't they just call it a tax, because then it would seem like they want to make money. this way they pretend to care about your personal safety by hiring an "inspector" to make sure whatever you are doing to your property is sound. now in theory i don't have a problem with protecting the people. but this is my property (or in the most legal sense partly mine and partly countrywide's) and if i want to hire shifty people and not make sure things are sound why make me? and if someone wants to buy my house without inspecting it first, then why "protect" future buyers. could a future buyer really sue the village for a unsound deck if they didn't have an inspection/permit process but can they sue if they do have a process but it isn't good and something happens to a structure that was inspected? (isn't that what had happened with the fire escape collapse?) this talk can go in circles i guess, but i just don't like village politics and antics. the permits and licences you need to obtain are all taxes but not called that so you can't write them off. and so they continue to nickle and dime you.... a large flat tax at the federal level would be so much better than all these stupid things.

wow ..that got me off on a tangent

aside from the hiccups the deck is getting there eventually. and the back yard is looking pretty good. i guess this means bill and i have to start thinking about our next projects.