REI

Grace woke up early today. I'm not sure why she's been doing this lately; it was 7 am today. She seems tired then for most of the day after she's gotten up early so I don't really understand, but there isn't much I can do about it either.

She had preschool today and then afterwards she was going to a friends house for a play date. That Mom picked her up from school so I had a few hours to myself. Unfortunately I talked for a while and then had to go back home and turn the Crockpot down because I accidentally left it on high and I only needed it on high for an hour, not most of the day. So I ran home and turned that down and then headed to Schaumburg.

Have you heard of the store REI? It's a cool outdoor store - they sell pretty much anything related to the outdoors. I've received their catalogs and shopped online at rei.com for years. And they've had stores kind of in the area but they were a long drive away. Now they have a new store in the town Julie works in so I drove down there and checked out the Grand Opening which today was the first day. I found some replacement gloves for myself since my gloves that I've been using have a hole in them. And I got Grace some new gloves too since she seems to outgrow everything for some reason. I also got a free t-shirt and nalgene bottle that both said Schaumburg Grand Opening on them. After that I picked Julie up and we went to lunch at Red Robin and then I came back home.

I had about an hour to do whatever I wanted since Grace was still at her play date, and I had planned on doing a little yard work since it wasn't too cold out and ALL of the leaves fell off the big box elder tree we have in our backyard last night because of a fairly hard frost (26 degrees.) But I ended up just relaxing for a while. It felt good, but now I have even more work to do this weekend.

So then I went and picked Grace up and we came home so I could finish making dinner. It was a good one: beef roast in the Crockpot with gravy, mashed potatoes and caramel apple pie for dessert. Unfortunately I didn't have time to make a vegetable but there was plenty of food.

We heard from our friends in Zimbabwe today and things aren't so great there. The electricity is out much more than it's on - if it's on at all. And that means they can't access the internet either. It's also hard to keep food fresh if the refrigerator isn't on.

So that was today in a nutshell. Tomorrow starts a weekend full of work around the house. Hopefully I can get a lot of those things crossed-off my to-do list.

DadStock 2007

Julie and I had blood tests this morning because we're applying to a new company for life insurance. Then I got the front yard mowed. Sometime while I was gone someone mowed the back yard. I'm guessing it was Julie, but I'm not sure. --Update, yes it was Julie. Wasn't that nice? :-)

After that I went to another SAHD's house today for DadStock 2007. It started as a SAHD's event for the Dad's to get together and have some beer and just be away from the "job" for a while. It ballooned into a national event that brought people from as far away as Massachusetts, New Jersey, Indiana, Quad-Cities area, Wisconsin and maybe a few others plus around here too. There were 13 of us all together I think.

I actually picked up one of the Dads from the group at the train station here in Grayslake as he had stayed in the city/downtown last night with a friend from back home in South Africa where he's originally from. He lives in Boston now with his American wife that he met in London and then moved here to the States with her. This is interesting because South Africa borders...Zimbabwe! His Mum is from Zimbabwe and he still has a lot of family there. So we talked about the situation there and whether my friends would be safe there. He said that considering the ex-pat network they were going to be associated with that they should be just fine. But that the country itself is headed for some type of conclusion because it's getting more and more heated and has to end at some point. By the way, he's 6'7" and I felt so short next to him! Really nice guy, I'm glad I got to meet him.

But really all the guys I met were really nice. The guy from Wisconsin "woodchuck" was really cool too. He brought his chain saw with and did a demonstration for everyone for how he mills trees into board stock which he can use to build things or to sell as finished lumber. He also gave us instructions for how to sharpen your chain saw blades and he even sharpened a neighbor's blades for him.

A guy that came from the Indianapolis area brought some home-brewed beer. It was really good! Maybe an idea for something to try in the future... The beer I brought is from Goose Island Beer Co and is called 312. It's really good! It just might be my new favorite.

I won't go into detail about each person, but all the guys were really nice and it was fun spending the day with them.

After I left there I headed over to my BIL's house to help him with his satellite dish. He was trying to add a grounding block to the lines coming in from the dish. Turns out the cable trimmer he had wasn't adjusted right so the wires weren't contacting the connector. So it was an easy fix.

Then it was late so I just came home and watched a little TV before heading to bed.

Saying Goodbye

...is never easy.

We went to a going away party for our friends that are moving out of the country at the end of the summer. They're moving up to Minnesota for the summer on Monday, and we'll still see them tomorrow and Sunday but the time is drawing closer and closer. They are just THE nicest people and we truly will miss them. Grace is going to miss her friend I know that. Fortunately they will be "connected" when they're over on the other side of the world and so hopefully we can stay in touch through the years they'll be gone.

Alright, sorry to have started this out on a sad note. Grace AND I got to sleep in today and that was certainly welcome! We had a pretty good morning and then were going to the chiropractor and of course we were late--which we never are for him, usually we're really early and are waiting because he's not ready for regular patients yet. He has certain hours where he does initial consultations that require x-rays and the whole analysis. But it didn't matter as he was behind schedule and was actually busy. He's never busy in the middle of the day, but he was today. So we actually had to wait which we also never have to do, unless you're really early. After that, we drove up to my new favorite store, the Menards in Antioch. We stopped and had lunch on the way. I needed those new post toppers for the garden fence and some type of stakes to use to cover up the strawberries which I didn't get to today. Hopefully I can get to that tomorrow. This weekend is such a busy one. We'll be spending most of our time up in Kenosha for the Recital. Tomorrow we're leaving at 11:15am to go up there and probably won't be home before 4:30pm and then Sunday we'll probably leave by 10:30am and not be home before 6:30 and that's assuming we don't go to dinner afterwards which we normally do.

After Menards, we stopped at the grocery store to get a side dish to bring to dinner tonight. I got 14 ears of corn on the cob. We brought it home and I threw it in the cooler and added water. That's how you cook corn on the cob on the grill if you didn't know that. That's the secret, don't remove any of the skin or the silk and soak them for at least an hour in water. Start the grill, let it heat up and then spread the coals around and I usually add some more fresh coals so the fire doesn't get low near the end of cooking. Then add them and I generally turn them about every 20 minutes and it takes about an hour. All that water inside the husks steams the corn from the inside out while the charcoal imparts it's own flavor throughout the whole ear of corn. Mmmm mmmm good!

Then we get home from dinner tonight and my poor Aunt, she needs help with her computer and I wasn't home long enough to call her today. I'll have to call her first thing in the morning tomorrow before we head out to Kenosha. So look for that call Luvy - I didn't forget about you!

I was checking online today about renting a professional video camera to use when I record the recital as I always do. I just have a consumer level Canon mini-dv video recorder. I wanted to rent one that was better so that the end result is higher quality, but the price was a little too steep since I'm not going to be paid for any type of video I produce. And even if I produced a video that I tried to sell, I'm not that good, so it's really not worth their spending much money on it. So with Julie's level head, we nixed that idea. It would have been about $200 for one day to rent it. And you generally have to put a down-payment for the full sales price down before you take it and then you get that money back when you return the item you've rented. (You know my track record with a down-payment being returned.)