New neighbors soon

Our next-door neighbors came over yesterday while I was at work and picked up their house key from B ... for the last time. They're moving to Michigan to be closer to family and closing on the deal today. They left us a nice card, included their new address and told us to come visit. They had been next door for 19 years! "We look back fondly on seeing the three children become three adults, and we will miss you all." We're all sad they're leaving and hope the new neighbors will be just as nice and helpful.

Hatch chiles

My friend, LL, recently went to Texas to visit family and brought back some Hatch chiles for me. She also emailed several recipes, though not ones she tried. (She did say they were good in a queso dip she made).

I found a recipe for Hatch Chile Chicken and thought I'd give it a try.

I thought it was tasty. Andy wouldn't even try the sauce. Guess I won't be making that again.

Meanwhile at U of I, L made herself chicken kiev. Andy would probably like that lol.

It’s almost gone!

Andy and I have had this bureau/workbench in our basement workroom forever. It was from his grandmother's basement but we decided years ago it just takes up too much room. I had been using it to store linens and cleaned it out years ago, when he first suggested it was time to let it go.

Andy removed all of the drawers and had to take the door off the workroom to move the bureau (with B's help) into the main part of the basement. Moving it to the alley is the next step. He says that will happen by Thanksgiving. I won't hold my breath.

And look what we found! It's Andy's first pair of folding Ray-Ban sunglasses. We thought he left them at a restaurant years ago. He's since bought a replacement pair but now he has two. All we can think is that he had them on his head, went to put something in our upright freezer and they fell off of his head. Amazing the things you find when you do some cleaning. And they're in great shape!

I'm happy the freezer has been moved so when we open the door we'll be able to see things easier.

These ugly yellow curtains came with the house and haven't been washed in 26 years. It was time for new ones.

I searched through L's fabric stash and Andy picked out two fabrics he liked. One was golf themed - shocking. More shocking is that the kids liked the golf one too. I whipped up these new curtains Monday morning.

Chilly outdoor concert

It was over 100 degrees last week, cooled off and was chilly enough at our friend Leslie's outdoor concert last night that we had to put light jackets on. I even wore jeans. She thinks it was the 40th house concert she has hosted.

She cooked burgers and brats and everyone brought sides. I made the corn salad.

Andy wanted to open a beer but he didn't have an opener. Then I noticed our opener on the ground. We think it fell out of his chair. The last time he used the chair was probably at her concert earlier this summer.

The band all cover songs and some I like but overall I didn't think they were very good. Didn't help that they started performing late and the keyboardist arrived even later.

It was coolo see this hummingbird fluttering around in one of the back yard trees.

And we got home to find Schubert sleeping on the back porch.

Homer puzzle

Grrrr.

It only took me and B a few days to finish this 1,000-piece Homer puzzle. This time I saved the last piece for him to put in.

All done!

Oh, my souvenir

Searching through my purse the other day for a toothpick and found the magnet I bought in Lancaster while visiting L with the aunts.

Work things

The museum is in an old fire station. My office is upstairs and it's quite a distance between the first and second floors. I might get into shape going up and down this staircase a few times a day. Those Boy Scouts at the top startle me every time lol.

They preserved two of the holes where the old firepoles were. I can look through them to the first floor.

Interesting black bathroom fixtures. Not sure I've seen that anywhere else.

I'll have to ask how the museum ended up with these windows from the high school. They're on the side of my office. Pretty.

This control key is making me a little crazy. I don't use it much but every so often I'll notice it's off the keyboard again.

This was interesting. The high school student newspaper was printed in green ink for the issue before Christmas in 1946.

And to prove that kids have always been kids, look closely at this picture. Whoever this paper originally belonged to drew a beard and moustache on one of the commencement speakers' pictures, 1935.

Busy Wednesday

Yeaterday was fhe first day of school for the local elementary school. Schubert's mom (along others) snuck out after their kids were asleep to do some inspirational sidewalk art.

For work, I spent a few hours in the morning at the high school for a volunteer fair. This cafeteria has been completely remodeled since L was a student. We gave students our spiel and asked them to give us their email address for more information. It was my job to put the names and email addresses in an Excel sheet. So many of the names and addresses were illegible.

This is a neat addition outside the auditorium. This concrete relief hung over the school's entrance when the building faced Ontario Street. I believe it was found in the school's basement. The entrance was changed to Scoville Avenue decades ago and Ontario Street was closed off to expand the building.

Since I was walking past the church I had to get some pictures of the roofers. We had storm damage last spring so the insurance is paying for the new roof and painting. It's about (sometimes over) 100 degrees today so I should have known my Facebook post about it would bring out all of the concern for the workers. (I think roofers know when to take breaks since it's always hot when you're roofing).

My afternoon project was researching this lantern projector for the high school's 150th anniversary exhibit. So interesting.

Surprise in the mail

This Staunton T-shirt arrived in the mail from Cindy the other day. Colorful design.

Round puzzle

It's a challenge to find time to work on a puzzle when August isn't around. I think this is the first 1,000-piece circular one we've done. (We did this round one but it was only 500 pieces.) Once we got the frame done and B did most of the middle, we noticed that there were letters on the backside of the pieces to give you an idea where the pieces go. We still had to find where the pieces fit but the letters made it much easier.

A fish? You never know what will be inside a second-hand puzzle box.

B was working on the puzzle when I went to bed. I figured it would be done when I woke up but, look, he saved the last piece for me!

Pretty. And all the pieces were there.

Sold!

L and I were at Goodwill last week looking for things to take to college for her apartment when I spied this Longaberger basket. Of course, it didn't have a tag. L and I decided I'd buy if it they wanted $5 or less for it since I certainly don't need any more baskets (although they are quite handy). I asked the cashier what he'd want for and he said $1.99. Sold! I think it's the large picnic basket. It's 12 inches square and a little over six inches tall.

Connect party

Our Connect leader at church, my friend M, hosted a party at her house yesterday for all the kids and teachers involved in the program. Because we had plans to ove L back to college I initially told her I didn't think I could go. She reminded me Friday and said if I had time to stop by. Andy was volunteering at the golf tournament so I went to the party. This one a balloon toss game she set up. After successfully catching the balloon, the team on the grass would take a step back for the next round. Pretty fun to watch.

And she’s back

L drove with Allison yesterday morning to go back to U of I. She's in an apartment by herself so that's nice.

I hope she can keep it clean ... at least cleanish.

She refused to let me help her pack so I'm sure she left a lot of things at home. I have a feeling we'll be going down in a few weeks to bring more stuff to her.

Andy drove down after volunteering at the golf tournament and brought Allison home.

Vader is making himself at home.

Golf volunteer

Andy is volunteering for the BMW Championship golf tournament at Olympia Fields this wekeend. His first official day, aside from training, was Thursday.

The hat is the part of the uniform Andy likes the most. He wears golf hats all the time and has quite the collection.

He's working the fifth hole. After a rain delay Thursday morning, the first group teed off about two hours late.

There's my favorite, Rickie Fowler, teeing off.

‘MJ’ the musical

I finally won the $25 ticket lottery for "MJ" tickets. Andy decided he'd like to see it so he was my date Wednesday night.

Here we are.

We were seated in the dress circle, right side, in Row FF. We couldn't see the right side of the stage but we saw enough. And of all things, the people behind us were loud - talking and crunching their popcorn bag. Ever been to the theater before? Shhh.

The show was OK, I liked the first half better than the second. I thought there were several songs they could have cut out. There was a lot of "woe me" dialog from Michael and that was annoying.

The story was about him preparing for his "Dangerous" tour in the early '90s when everyone already knew about his weirdness. I also didn't care for the storyline that MTV was filming the practices for a documentary and trying to get him to open up about his drugs and his father's abuse. Such a pretty theater though.