Ten years

Birthday concert

Our friend, L, celebrated her birthday with a house concert by Michelle Malone on Sunday night. She said it was her fifth time hosting the artist and her 40th house concert. Wow.

For dinner L made lasagnas and had people being drinks or sides. We brought a lot of baguette slices (I said two loaves would be plenty; Andy insisted on buying four. I sliced three and there were plenty of leftovers).

Two birthday cakes are better than one, especially when the one is coconut.

That’s a fire

Rather than stuff this dried, decorative grass in yard-waste bags, we had a fire and burned it.

Turned out to be quite the fire.

New ‘do for Lou

L asked me a few days ago if I would have an aneurysm is she got her hair done like this. With Cousin C's wedding coming up I just replied, "Don't." Well, she already checked with C who said it looked cute so with her and W liking it, I was clearly outnumbered. It's even Disney-approved.

So, of course, she got it dyed. This is the "flat" version ...

and the "curled" version. She said she got lots of compliments from guests, coworkers and her leaders. Her exciting news Friday was that she was one of six people with her job chosen to train the next group of incoming coworkers!

I'm glad this is the back, significantly toned down from what she had shown me earlier.

Cat library puzzle

Piper usually doesn't bother my puzzles, but this one must have been particularly interesting.

Ruby prefers puzzles with bigger boxes. This one doesn't quite fit her.

All done with one piece missing.

Parkway tulip

Our second parkway tulip on April 16, getting ready to bloom.

In full bloom Tuesday.

A 250th passport

I forgot that I had ordered a 250th Illinois passport (it hasn't yet arrived ... if it will at all) when I was at a work meeting about possible 250th events and a woman running the meeting had a whole stack of them. It's a way to encourage people to travel the state this year and visit various sites. The book includes an interesting mix of sites but I've been to quite a few of the more well-visited ones - Route 66, Great River Road, Cahokia Mounds, Lincoln's home, Hull House, New Salem, Old State Capitol, Vandalia capitol and the Lincoln Museum.

An improvement

This basket corrals everything on my coffee table. When we host parties I move it to the shelf and it's quite floppy and fragile.

I've been on the hunt for a replacement and came across this. It even has handles which will make it much easier to move around. I realized, though, when moving everything to the new basket (tray) that I have a lot of stuff in there that could be stored in their proper locations - Post-it Notes, lotions, nail clippers, pens, hair clips, a razor lol. Putting those things where they belong will go on my to-do list.

Make me move

Piper loves to sit on this countertop despite our many efforts to make her get down. We think the dishwasher makes it warm and toasty for her.

It’s yard sale season

Yard sale season isn't in full swing yet but Allison and I did score a few finds yesterday. I bought Andy a Braun immersion blender for $3 that he's been wanting for chocolate-covered donut day. The set of holly candles are cute ($3) though I might have to paint the tray silver to match my china and the cardinal Christmas towels were $1 each. The spreaders have little golf balls on them and one is a peppermint design that I can use this year so for 50 cents for four I had to grab them. The two bags on the right were free. I think they're travel bags but they'll get used for something.

Hopefully this Talbots dress will fit and for $3 it's worth the gamble. I like the colors. It sells for around $50 used online.

This is in the top picture though it's hard to see. It's a handpainted farm scene on a wooden iron shape with a clothespin on the back where I stick a photo. Allison made me spend 10 cents to buy it lol.