Showing posts with label around the neighborhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label around the neighborhood. Show all posts

Friday, August 07, 2026

Five for Friday, Edition #47

1) Last weekend we went to the Wisconsin Dells with my husband's family. There were twelve adults and eleven children in one VRBO. It was an eight bedroom, four bath building with a kitchen that was smaller than it probably should have been, but there was an arcade with old-fashioned game cabinets in the basement. If you aren't from the upper Midwest, you might not have heard of the Dells, so let me describe it to you. It's a weird tourist-y area with lots of theme parks, especially water parks, and duck boat rides. There's also anything your childlike wonder would like to do - go-karts, ziplining, mini golf, whatever. 

VRBO decor

Our niblings are aged nine to nineteen and every single one of them had a fabulous time. 

If anyone wants to know, we went to Noah's Ark on a Thursday. It was a typical water park with long lines, but the kids had a good time. We rented a cabana and there was always an adult there for the kids to check in with. On Friday, we went to Land of Natura, which is not a typical water park. It's a man-made salt lake with huge inflatables that you climb on and because the lake is deep (up to 25 feet in places), our boys spent most of the day practicing dives, backflips, and somersaults. It was also COLD AND RAINY when went (what do I mean by cold? mid-60s! in July!), so that kept down the crowds. I swear our party made up about a third of the people there. Regardless, most kids said Land of Natura was their favorite part of the weekend, so if you're in the Dells and you have confident swimmers, this is a good option. 

2) Dells Escape Rooms - We had two big groups do different escape rooms. One group was a bunch of the kids with their grandfather and his wife. The rest was our oldest niece (19) and people of my generation. Both teams managed to escape, although I have to admit our room only had like twenty seconds to spare. LOL. If you like escape rooms, these ones are pretty fun. (You might note that I'm wearing a hoodie and my husband is wearing pants. WE WERE ALL VERY COLD. None of us were prepared for how cold it was that weekend.) 


3) Where were the girls when we were in the Dells? I'm glad you asked. Zelda stayed at home and our neighbor came by every day to give her wet food and clean her box. ALSO! SHE READS TO THE CAT. No wonder Zelda ignored us completely when we came home.

Hannah? Hannah was at the swank boarding place just outside Chicago where they take 80 pictures of her doing nothing every day.  Maybe I should have put all these photos in some sort of collage, BUT NO, you have to scroll by each one. 



















Nicole talks about how Rex comes back from boarding like he was at a frat party with messed up fur and fleas or whatever. Hannah came back with a powerful thirst, a smell like she has never had a bath in her life, and refusing to eat food. So, that's something, I guess. 

4) Our side and backyard recently became deer daycare. I cannot stress enough to you how crazy this is because WE LIVE IN TOWN. ON A BUSY ROAD. The deer overpopulation here is nuts. 


5) Anniversaries - Earlier this week was the one year anniversary of my mother's death. I am, in a very healthy fashion, ignoring this fact.

6) Giveaway winners - The giveaway winners are Lisa and Jenny! Congratulations! I'll send those packages out in the mail sometime in the next week or so. 

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Have you ever done an escape room? Had a fawn bed down in your yard? Been to Wisconsin Dells? 

Friday, July 17, 2026

Five for Friday, Edition #46

Let's see if I can come up with five topics. Can I do it? 

1) I was driving to work earlier this week when a sedan heading in the opposite direction flashed its headlights at me. The driver was warning me about a sheriff's car parked on the side of the road. How kind! There are nice people left in the world. 

2) Friends, the air quality is poor here right now because of wildfire smoke. I am struggling. That is all. Even in the house and at my office, I feel slightly nauseated and there's a smell that is permanently in my nostrils. I can't imagine what it was like at the point of origin in Canada and I have so much sympathy for people who work outdoors and the poor animals who live outdoors. I have taken to wearing a mask when I'm walking around campus and taking Hannah out these days. I feel like I have a better understanding of The Road now. 

3) This weekend! It's a big one in our town. There's a big fundraiser situation at the local community center tonight and Saturday there is an Adult Book Fair and there are lots of activities around town, including vendors, local author book signings, "Bookish Pilates" (I have no idea what that is, but you better believe that I signed up for it), DIY bookmarks at the library, and BOOK TRIVIA. My excitement about the book trivia is pretty high. I'm trying to get the best trivia team possible, but people keep telling me they "have other plans." *sigh* I guess that's allowed.

4) One of my goals this month was to text at least one person every day and that person could not be my  husband. This means I have taken to just randomly texting my friends and family random questions. What was the name of the dance club we went to in college? What is your interpretation of the song "Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw? Do you think that she died in childbirth? How many mittens could we make from the fur I brush off my cat in a week? 

Hey, if I text you a random question, it just means I love you.

5) Random songs Spotify has recommended to me in the last two weeks:

"Love Song" by Tesla - Do I secretly love this song?

"Hey Cinderella" by Suzy Bogguss - It's not even a secret that I love this song, but I had forgotten its existence. How did Spotify know?

Every fucking George Strait song in the world until I finally blocked him as an artist. I just feel like he's a second-rate Garth? 

"The Irish Rover" by the Pogues - I have to admit that my Pogues knowledge is pretty much limited to "Fairytale of New York," but maybe they are my new favorite band?

"The Unicorn Song" by The Irish Rovers - At this point, I thought Spotify was punking me because this song is such a throwback to my childhood. HOW DID IT KNOW?

"If I Had a Hammer" by Peter, Paul, and Mary - Speaking of throwbacks from my youth, this gem was immediately added to my daily playlist. It's the hammer of justice/It's the bell of freedom - Listen, I can pretend to be Mary Travers when I'm driving to work. 

I just looked up my top song for the month and it's Billy Ray Cyrus. I'd be embarrassed, but Some Gave All is a dope album and he had some great singles. ("Could've Been Me" is the song, but "Words by Heart" is also up there.) Speaking of embarrassed, as soon as Toby Keith died and I wouldn't financially support his anymore, I immediately unblocked him on Spotify and started listening to his songs again. The musical heart wants what the musical heart wants.

Okay, great, that was five meaningless things. How's your air quality? What is your interpretation of the song "Don't Take the Girl" by Tim McGraw? Would you do book trivia with me if you weren't busy tomorrow? 


Thursday, July 16, 2026

Photo Every Day: June 2026, Week 2

Thursday, July 9
When I took Hannah out this morning, it started raining on us. Hard. I got her to do her business, we raced home, the rain stopped 30 seconds later, and it rained no more for the rest of the day. Just our luck, I guess. I had to dry Hannah off with a towel and we made it into a game where I covered her and asked "where's my puppy?" and her little tail would wag and she would throw the towel off. I'd cover her again and the whole thing would repeat. 

I follow a lot of pet rescue places on social media and there have been a lot of "look at my rescue dog coming out of its shell" posts recently and, while I am so happy these dogs are happy, I sometimes wonder if Hannah might have been better off in a family with kids and other dogs and less neurotic humans. But then she plays with me like this and realize that Hannah is better off with us than she would be with so many other people. But I still wish she didn't look so worried all the time. 

Friday, July 10
Whoops. I forgot to take a photo. Enjoy a picture of lilies I took on Saturday instead.

Saturday, July 12
I had to pick up Zelda's steroid at the vet and as I was coming home, the gas tank fell below a quarter of a tank, which is when I feel like I need to fill up, as a responsible adult human. This was in the parking lot of the gas station where I stopped. USA! USA! Ugh. 

Sunday, July 13
I see that I keep forgetting I'm doing this photo every day exercise. I finished the graphic novel Raised by Ghosts today. The only photo I took all day was of the artwork at the front of the book. I love a pig, you know? 

Monday, July 14
There have been some very lame photos this week, so let's try some better ones? Maybe better ones?
First up, sunrise over the Rock! There's a mama duck with her ducklings. I was cooing over the ducklings. Hannah was not impressed. (We are standing on a dock. This is as close to the water as Hannah will get.)

It's crazy hot here this week and Hannah does this thing where she pretends she's super excited for a walk, but as soon as we get to our neighbor's yard, she lays down. IN THE DIRECT SUNLIGHT. When it's in the 90s. What a dog.  For anyone keeping track, note how Hannah is once again refusing to make eye contact with me. 


Who made homemade ice cream this weekend?! IT WAS ME!! YOU GUYS, IT WAS SO EASY. We have a KitchenAid bowl thingy and I chilled that bowl for about 48 hours. Then I made the ice cream base which I took from a random Reddit comment: 1.5 cups milk (I used whole), 1.5 cups heavy cream, 1/2 cup sugar, 2ish tablespoons vanilla extract (measure with your heart). For fun, I also split open two vanilla beans and threw them in. Heat this over medium-low heat until the sugar dissolves. Then you let that base chill for at least three hours. I put a piece of saran wrap right on top of the liquid mixture and then covered the bowl with a lid. 

When it was done chilling, I took off the saran wrap and the gross film stuck to the saran wrap! Win! Then I put the freezing KitchenAid bowl thingy on the KitchenAid and turned it on to speed 1. I dumped in the base and let it churn for 23 minutes. It was probably done at 20, but I wanted to be certain. It was a very soft serve at that point, so I popped it into a freezer safe container and froze it overnight before I took it to book club. 

It's a LONG process, but it's very very easy. 


Tuesday, July 14
This is what I saw as I was leaving for work today. MY PRECIOUS BABY GIRL. May we all be as relaxed as my cat someday. 

Sometimes people ask me if the dog and cat get along and I have to say that they sort of coexist in each other's world without much interaction except for when we first come downstairs in the morning and we greet them and Hannah gets so excited that she tries to stick her muzzle in Zelda's belly. Zelda does not care for that. But, look, if the cat were scared of Hannah, she would not be passed out like this at a height that Hannah could easily get her.

LOOK AT HER BELLY. (It's a trap. Don't touch it. You will get bit and/or scratched. She has all her teeth and all her claws and she's not afraid to use them.)


Wednesday, July 15
I went to the bookstore after work. I got a book. And some tiny books!


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Have you ever made homemade ice cream? What's your favorite recipe? Do you buy a lot of books? What's the last book you bought?

Thursday, July 09, 2026

Photo Every Day: June 2026, Week 1

Warning: A lot of caps lock in this post. I feel PASSION. (And I learned blogging from this lady here and reading her Instagram post that included caps lock and parentheses made me feel SEEN. This post is dedicated to Amy, she who has no idea who I am.)

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Wednesday, July 1
Driving home, I saw a family of sandhill cranes. I didn't get the whole family because they were scared of me, but what a pretty sight. You can see two big ones here and a baby's head!



Thursday, July 2
I drive by this beautiful church on a hill when I drive from work to the place where I get my hair cut. Today I had a few extra minutes and I stopped to take a photo of it. 



Friday, July 3
I went to our new local bookstore after work to order a book. I bought a book! Woot woot! Anyway, at the register, there were teeny tiny things and I could not resist. The quarter is obviously for scale. (What am I going to do with these things? I have no idea. I give it a week before the cat has batted them under the fridge or something.)

Look, the title Moby-Dick should technically have a hyphen. I KNOW. 

Saturday, July 4
For non-American friends, this is PEAK USA. We were celebrating 250 years of the Declaration of Independence, which is when my good friend TJ (Thomas Jefferson - known as a rapist of women who he enslaved) told the British to suck it. I went to a parade and a cookout AS IS MY AMERICAN RIGHT. Do I sound obnoxious? This is how I think the rest of the world thinks about us. And the rest of the world is right, I think? 

Anyway, THE PARADE. I have thoughts about parades. You need to be ON THEME. What I mean by this is that, if you are doing an American Independence Day float, you need it to be red, white, and blue OVER THE TOP. I want flags and bunting. I want streamers. I want the vehicle pulling your float to be one of those colors. (A black pickup on the Fourth? Pfft. GTFO.) I want music* BLARING. I want some sort of crowd participation. Chucking candy? Great. T-shirt cannon? Very on theme. Dogs teaching children a dance? AMAZING. 

*What I really wanted was Sousa marches. What I got was a lot of "God Bless America," "Proud to be an American," and the national anthem. Fine. I guess. Also, THIS IS THE YEAR CHICAGO HAS BEEN SINGING ABOUT

Hey, if you are doing a float for a parade and want me to consult, I'll only charge $100 an hour because you're a loyal blog reader who is reading this absolute trash nonsense I'm writing. But, for real, for real. I have parade thoughts. 

This one is visually pretty good (SMOKE! ROCKETS! black pickup pfft), but there was no music or crowd work. 

Also, this might make us all feel a little better about the world, but the Republican float had a giant inflatable DT and when it went by, there was a notable chill in the air. And this is a Republican stronghold. No chill in the air for the Democrat float because the people on the float were too busy handing out candy for anyone to realize they were Democrats. 

(I have such complicated feelings about this country.)

Sunday, July 5
Is this the ONLY photo I took all day? Yes, yes it is. I guess if you're going to do only one photo, you do a good one. My precious, precious baby KITTEH. 


Monday, July 6
I went to a fitness class at a local park after work. Was it in the high 80s? Sure, but I had plenty of water with me. This is our view. Can you even imagine? So beautiful.


Tuesday, July 7
A note on platforming. Getting Hannah to climb on things is one of the greatest joys of my life. BUT. There are so many caveats. Because of her dodgy back, I don't want her to jump very often. Because of her innate timidness, she doesn't want to climb on things that are much taller than this rock she's posing on below. Because we don't want her on furniture in the house, we don't want her to think she can climb on just anything. So this is sort of complicated.

I basically only have per platform on rocks and tree trunks. If she were a different dog, I'd have her up on picnic tables and chairs and the like, but I have This Dog and I have to work with her physical limitations and fears. But if you heard a woman squealing with joy in the six o'clock hour this morning in a park in southeastern Wisconsin, it was me BECAUSE LOOK HOW ADORABLE SHE IS. Those ears! The absolute sass of refusing to look at the camera! That grey muzzle! This is why I think it's okay to spend hundred of dollars a month on my precious girls. 


Wednesday, July 8
Friends! The price of a first-class stamp (and postcard stamps, if that's something that you are interested in) from USPS is going up by FOUR CENTS on July 12. If you are anything like me, this news sent you into a state of PANIC. 

Yes, I went to the post office after work and purchased TWO rolls (100 each) of first-class stamps and 30 postcard stamps. JUST BECAUSE. I'm hoping these rolls get me through the end of the year. Sorry, friends, you'll be getting flags on your holiday cards because I am not buying fancy ones just for that purpose. 

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Okay, who wants a teeny tiny book? Tell me what book you want in the comments and I'll try to find it for you. They had all sorts of books, not just classics. Do you have parade thoughts? What role do horses and cows play in the parades you go to? (There was also a BABY GOAT.)

Monday, June 01, 2026

May 2026 Photo A Day: Week Four

Saturday, May 23 - Look at this cat!! I can't stand the cuteness.


Sunday, May 24 - It was our anniversary. I forgot about the yearly photo until it was nearly bedtime. We took a selfie. It is horribly unflattering to both of us, but I guess in the interest of keeping this tradition alive, here's a terrible photo.


Monday, May 25 - Two photos that sort of touch on how weird it felt to be "celebrating" Memorial Day today. 

First up, $2.79 for a pint versus $1.50 for a pint is a difference that makes a difference in whether or not I'm going to buy these raspberries. WHAT'S THE PRICE, GROCERY STORE?

Then there's this. If there's never been a sadder execution of patriotism, I haven't seen it. Happy Memorial Day, America.


Tuesday, May 26 - My Tuesday night fitness class has ended for the summer, but we all walked over to our local ice cream stand for some sweet treats. 


Wednesday, May 27 - Tomorrow is our first registration event at work. It's a lot of work on our end and it meant we spent much of the afternoon in one of our academic buildings getting things ready. The theme: random animals. Also, the internet and phones went out for HOURS and we had no idea because we were busy cleaning, writing on whiteboards, and taking photos of random animals.



Thursday, May 28 - Zelda is basically allowed anywhere downstairs except for the table and stove/countertops. Anywhere else? Fine. Guess where I found her when I came out of the shower tonight?



Friday, May 29 - For the last two weeks, we've had to give Hannah this antibiotic that comes in a powder and is really bitter tasting. We have had to do this twice a day. It involves copious amounts of pumpkin and chicken HANDFED TO THE DOG. Today is the last day we have to do this. Now it will be a couple of weeks of once a day and then a couple of weeks of once every other day and then once every two days and then "as needed." 

I wish I could take a photo of Hannah's face as she eats this stuff. (I can't because my hands are covered in pumpkin.) She hates it so much. I haven't been to work on time in weeks because it's taking me twenty minutes to get her to eat two tablespoons of this what I can only imagine is a gross pumpkin mixture. Anyway, here's to only having to do it at dinnertime from now on! I can (maybe?) get to work on time. 


Saturday, May 30 - It's peony time!


Sunday, May 31 - Gratuitous photos of my girls. 

New Hannah habit: Doesn't want to be on a walk, but also doesn't want to come inside when we get to the house, so she just lays down on the driveway. 



Are you familiar with the rescue dog internet meme where they take photos of dogs before and after being told they were good. Here's Hannah's version.

Before:

After "you're such a good girl for eating that yucky pumpkin":



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What flowers are in bloom near you? Could you draw your favorite animal?