We’re famous

The Field Museum sent out a thank you email for attending the recent Members' Night. Andy and I were pictured in the email, sitting in the Founders' Council lounge.

Employee of the Month

Way to go, L!

That’s weird

I play this Bejeweled game a lot and don't recall ever getting a score of exactly 1 million.

Seven years

... and counting.

One-day wonder

I wanted a puzzle that we'd finish before I leave to visit E, but this 500-piece one was too easy. I put most of it together in about four hours, and took a meeting call in that time. B helped with the last few remaining pieces. Guess I'll have to pull out a 1,000-piece puzzle.

Our viburnum and spring flowers

Andy and I agreed this bush is flowering better than it has since we had the yard landscaped in 2015 and the bush was planted. Now to figure out how to prune it so it looks even better next spring.

These pretty purple flowers are everywhere. It's lunaria, the money plant.

We were surprised to see that two tulips bloomed. We used to have more but the squirrels are vicious.

Soda lid puzzle

I thought this puzzle would be easy because the pictures are divided into smaller squares. I was wrong.

August kept preventing us from working on it (as usual, but more so this time) and it took us around two weeks to get it finished.

Look at that concentration!

I thought we were missing one piece and we started looking on the floor for it but then I realized B had set it on the puzzle. Who does that? Anyway, he got to put the put the last piece in. Maybe that was his plan?

All done. This was a really hard one. Too many shadows.

Warming up

Allison and I started our yard sale season slow, going to one rummage sale and one estate sale yesterday. I got the candlesticks for $5 and the cute bunny dish for $2 at the estate sale. I saw a similar bunny dish online that said it was Williams Sonoma but I'm not convinced. At the rummage sale I found a bag of wavy bobeches for $4. I was surprised there were 20 in the bag. They're kind of hard to find in stores so I figured I should grab them when I see them.

This was ... um ... interesting - a bell ornament made out of golf tees. Marked 25 cents but I didn't bring that home.

Pretty bookmarks

At the Field Museum's recent Members' Night library staff were handing out nice bookmarks. I sorted through the pile and picked three (the three on the left) to bring home. It wasn't until I was taking them out of my purse that I found another bookmark in the group - one with a bat on it. Ick. Might end up in a neighborhood little library.

Members’ Night

Last night was a Members' Night at the Field Museum. We had quite an interesting time finding the staircase to the third floor so we could get to the Founders Council lounge. They had food and drink set up in a vice president's office. It was nice to have a place to sit down and watch the storm roll by. They had beer, wine, soft drinks, cheese, crackers, caprese skewers covered in pesto, some fruit, a few desserts and bacon-wrapped dates. We also got to talk to some of the fund-raising staff members which was nice.

This was the view looking north. You can see the Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier. The windows aren't very big, though, so to get a view you'd have to stand up, walk to the window and look out.

This will do for dinner.

We visited a few places on the museum's third and fourth floors - places not usually open to the public. This is the woodshop where they make the stands for all the exhibits.

Lots of stuffed bird specimens ...

and an employee stuffing a bird.

It was pretty busy.

Our sticker that got us into the Founders Lounge and buttons I collected from various exhibits.

Looking east from the Founders Lounge/employee's office, we saw a rainbow behind the Shedd Aquarium.

Finally warm enough

It was finally warm enough to out the ISU stickers on our cars. We bought them back in November. Mine is the Redbird logo ...

Andy's is the university seal. He still needs a new U of I sticker (hint, hint L).

I wanted my stickers directly across from each other but it's harder to line them up than it should be.

Warmer weather and a pretty pink sunset!

Staring me down

August looks like he's mad at me but he's the one sitting where he's not supposed to be.

My china?

Always fun to stop at Goodwill after my grocery shopping because you just never know what you might find. Imagine my surprise when I turned the corner and saw my china! There are lots of very similar patterns but I checked the backside and it was marked - Noritake Tahoe. I thought I was going to be one dinner plate short last Christmas of giving every "kid" a china plate but Cousin C's boyfriend was sick so all the kids got china. That was a first. Hoping he gets to celebrate with us this year, I had been on the lookout for another dinner plate. For $2.99 each I got two.

Ended up with two salad plates (also $2.99 each) and two dessert plates ($1.99 each) and a round serving bowl ($3.99). I have several oval serving bowls but for some reason the round ones cost more and are rarely on ebay.

I love a deal. They had lots of soup bowls but I ended up with a bunch of those when I found my china in an antique store at Tower Hill. Haven't used them yet so I certainly don't need more. Also found a box of 100 icing/pastey bags that L said she could use. Those were $1.99 and are $22 from Michael's.

Snowy Monday

Last week temperatures were up to 80. Today the high will be 38.

Snow showers are expected all day.

At least the snow won't be sticking around long ... I hope.

She’s trying to kill me

L continually tries to give me a heart attack and almost succeeded when she texted this picture asking, "Don't I look cute all atted up?" She immediately followed up with "It's a filter." Thank God. Phew.

Spontaneous Saturday

Allison has been following a British guy, Tim Hayden, on TikTok. He has started his own watch company and has been traveling around the world asking his fans to find him on his "Find Tim Challenge." First one to find him gets one of his watches. Everyone else who comes in the hour he's there gets a keychain. Yesterday he was in Chicago by Soldier Field. Let's go!

Fortunately someone showed up in his last five minutes of the hour he was there so he extended his time by 30 minutes. (That's how the "game" goes.) We got there just after the time expired but he still gave us keychains, took pictures and counted us as his No. 80 and 81 fans to visit him.

Selfie time. We weren't going to drive to Chicago in Saturday traffic and not get some pictures. He was on TikTok live the entire time so he was filming us as we drove up.

The coveted keychain.

Backside of the keychain. He asks fans to say, "Love your journey" when they find him.

Here he is waving us farewell and telling us to have a nice drive home. That's his son who was handing out the keychains. That was fun! Glad we got there in time so Allison could meet him.

Then, without even planning, Andy and I went to Forest Park to hear a duo we've heard before at our friend Leslie's house.

How cute is this?

I had to pull over into a parking lot to get this picture, but how cute is that? I texted the picture to E and she replied, "Cute but they will murder you."

He’s back!

Andy left for work then came back in and said Schubert was at the neighbor's house. The neighbor was doing some gardening and Schubert just showed up. We haven't seen him since fall and we were all just talking about him the other night, wondering when he'd be coming around again. The neighbor's wife handed him over the fence to me and he stuck around for awhile.

I had to find the blanket I set on the porch for him.

E is 26!

Look who's 26 today!! I had her "blow" out her candles when she Facetimed last night. She said we didn't have to sing to her - not sure how to take that.

I found a bag of these happy birthday cupcake picks the other day. Perfect timing for E's birthday.

‘New’ hours?

Might be time to take down this sign, Tony's.