Friday the 11th: More progress

 *The goal is to get all the trees surrounded with stones. They are all different kinds of stones, depending on when and where I bought them. I made a pretty good haul yesterday and the Son helped me place them.

 

 

Thursday the 10th: Music

 *We just finished final selection with a bride of my second wedding of the summer. While part of me likes doing weddings, another bigger part of me doesn't like the back and forth and the waffling when a couple isn't as on top of things as I'd like them to be.

*I'm also working on Widor's Toccata, and I think I almost have the fingering down, now it just getting it more comfortable and starting to add the pedal.

*I pick up the music for the musical next week, so that will be added to daily rotation soon! 

Wednesday the 9th: Food of the Week

*The biggest success this week was these chocolate chip cookies from Smitten Kitchen. I ended up getting about 42 cookies out of the dough, in three different batches. Ageing the batter is not required but definitely added a deeper, richer flavor.  

*We also tried two different cocktails from Smitten Kitchen this week, a watermelon mojito and a coconut limeade. The second one was more successful, but both required more sweetness for our tastes and quite a bit of tinkering.

*What else are we eating this week? Yesterday we had tomato-orange beef patties similar to the linked recipe.  We're trying a squash pasta bake tonight. We had a corn salsa and margarita brined chicken over the weekend. Monday we had a big salad with cheddar and toasted pistachios and leftover chicken. Probably tomorrow I'll make waffles.

 

Tuesday the 8th: Plants

 *I know new plants should come in April or May, but 1. I try to wait until after Mother's Day to avoid frost and 2. I didn't have the energy until now. Our front beds always need more shade plants, hopefully some of these will last. I've filled in the bed with mulch, and now I'll add more rocks in the back to protect other new or transplanted plants.

 

 

Monday the 7th: Saint of the Week

 *The saint this Friday is a feast day for me as an Oblate. An oblate is a lay person who follows the Rule of St. Benedict as they are able in their lay life. St. Benedict is such a great saint in part because of his emphasis on moderation. As college students, we would joke, "all things in moderation...including moderation" but there is a lot of truth there. Finding God in our everyday work and prayer, wherever we have been placed, is key for St. Benedict.

 (Picture found on Pinterest)

 

Friday the 4th: Celebrating with Food

 I'm at the point of the summer where I have lots of energy. So our Fourth of July celebration for just the three of us, is pretty fun.

We cut up watermelon and froze some to make watermelon mojitos.

The ice cream custard was made last night and we put it in the ice cream maker this morning, and it's hardening in the freezer. 

We bought beer and brats and onions to grill sausages.

I might make a corn salsa.

I might make chocolate chip cookies.

Happy Independence Day! 

 

 

Thursday the 3rd: Music for the Summer

 *I had a wedding to play for at work, so I used time before the rehearsal and wedding to build this shelf for our office to hold our tea supplies.

*Over the summer, I'm working on one song for work that we might do in the fall that looks a little tricky. I don't have any other music for the fall yet (including the musical), so my other music is Final Fantasy IX, Widor's Toccata, music for Masses, and any other fun project I want to do while I have time. 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday the 2nd: Puzzles and recovery

 *The Husband caught Covid on the way home. The Son and I tested negative twice; we did have varying symptoms but apparently not enough of a viral load to cause problems. We did wear masks for two weeks and stayed home as much as possible.

*That gave us time to finish our puzzle of the astronomical clock in Prague; we are now taking a puzzle break to play Ticket to Ride before we get another puzzle ready to go.

*While sick I pulled on all the menus I know to make almost automatically, using up lots of supplies at home so we could go to the store as minimally as possible. One meal that I forget that I know how to make is fettuccine Alfredo; we make this recipe every Christmas Eve, and I am the official sauce maker. It's very simple: one cup half and half, one stick butter, and almost 8 ounces of Parmesan. The trick is getting everything to emulsify together; sometimes it's great and sometimes it breaks, but it still tastes wonderful. I like some fresh black pepper on mine. 

 

 

Tuesday the 1st: Beaches and Baldy

 *We spent our last full day at Indiana Dunes on as many beaches as we could. Although there are plenty of other trails farther inland, we decided to stay in sight of the Lake. Mt. Baldy was our morning hike, and while it was definitely steep it was not exhausting. We decided to do brunch in Michigan City at Dune Billies, and the weather was perfect for that. We did spend some time walking around the Outlet Mall and found some London Fog Milano cookies that were very tasty. We also went to the two beaches closest to the Century of Progress homes (https://www.nps.gov/indu/learn/historyculture/centuryofprogress.htm) that were funky and fun. The Son and Husband met a friend in New Buffalo after supper, and the rest of us (minus Dad) went back to Central Avenue Beach for our last beach sunset. The clouds and rain stopped just in time to give us a beautiful show. 

 

 

Monday the 30th: A smattering of activities

 *The Son was struggling with being on the beach (long story) so we dug a hole down to wet sand. He really enjoyed seeing the entropy of the sand work its way back into the hole.

*Saturday night we went to St. Stanislaus in Michigan City for Mass and then collected supplies to grill. I've never seen a church quite this green before, but they really carried it off well. They had a nice real organ, no cantor, and a Mass setting I haven't heard before.

 *This was the cute sign at our hotel. Again we never met the innkeepers or received any kind of online receipt, but the stay went very smoothly regardless. 

 

 

Friday the 27th: Dunes and...Chicago?

 The next morning we did the Dunes Succession Trail. This includes a hike of many, many steps up to a point where you are supposed to be able to see Chicago. I'm sure you can when there are not fires burning in Canada, sending lots of hydrocarbons in the air your way. We were able to see Gary, Indiana. We walked the trail from the beach to the back, which meant we had a little trouble finding the start and had to walk through beach sand first. This made my dad pretty nervous as it was difficult, so he avoided the sand the rest of the trip.

 

 

Thursday the 26th: Central Avenue Beach

 The evening of our South Bend day, we wanted to go to our first Indiana Dunes/Lake Michigan beach. The closest one to us was Central Avenue Beach, a 5 minute drive away. We weren't there quite at sunset, but we did watch the sun go down and enjoy the sand and water. We never submerged in the Lake during our time there as it was still quite chilly.

 

 

Wednesday the 25th: South Bend, IN

 *My brother got two degrees at Notre Dame, so we took the opportunity of being less than an hour away to stop by. He toured us around campus, we drove past his church and apartment, ate lunch at Fiddler's Hearth, and then headed to a couple wineries/orchards to pick up provisions. While in South Bend we stopped by two different Italian delis/restaurants for more provisions. We do like our grocery stores. For supper we drove to New Carlisle to eat at Moser's, probably our second favorite schnitzel place.

In Notre Dame we toured the admin building (inside the golden dome) and the library. I still have not seen inside the church, but yet again there was a wedding going on so we couldn't stop by. 

 

 

Tuesday the 24th: Al and Sally's

 We rented the innkeeper's cottage at Al and Sally's Motel in The Pines for the next portion of our trip. We wanted a place with three bedrooms, and we wanted a kitchen so that we could do some cooking after eating out most of the time in Chicago. We had a king, queen, and two bunkbeds in three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and plenty of room to spread out here. The only downside was the very bright security lights outside, accompanied by thin curtains, that made it pretty hard for our dark loving souls to sleep. We ended up hanging our comforters over the windows, and that helped a lot. All in all we were happy with our stay here. We never met the owners, but they were very responsive to our questions.

 

 

Monday the 23rd: Skydeck

 Because we did the City Pass, we did a few things that otherwise we would probably never spend money on. Chief among those is the Skydeck, the 103rd floor of the Sears/Willis Tower. I have a fear of heights, so mostly I stood in the middle and looked out and not down. Everyone else really enjoyed the trip; the Son had no fear, but both mom and Husband, once standing on the glass ledge, felt some trepidation. I didn't even try the glass ledge. At the bottom of the tower is a really nice History of Chicago museum; I can't say I learned anything, but it confirmed that I had done good research for the trip.

 We also used the City Pass to see: Architectural Tour, Aquarium, Art Museum, and Planetarium. The Aquarium and Skydeck are the two required, and then you can choose three other places to use the pass. For us it was a good deal, but on a future trip I would see less museums and leave more time for walking the streets and seeing architecture and parks and beaches. 

Friday the 20th: Corncobs and the Bean

 *One of my favorite parts of Chicago is architecture. There are so many famous, unique buildings and sculptures, so many fun things to see. The "corncob" towers were built in 1967, and their architect (Bertrand Goldberg) felt that circles, not squares or blocks, were more natural in nature and thus buildings should reflect that. The lower levels are all parking garage.

*My mom saw Cloudgate, aka the Bean, for the first time, so we took the obligatory reflecting picture for her. It was dusk, thus the cloudiness of the picture; also, I'm just not a great photographer. 

 

 

Thursday the 19th: Happy Juneteenth!

 Happy Juneteenth! We spent it tearing down tree limbs and helping a sibling at the lawyer's. Today's pictures are from our hotel room in Chicago, above the James M. Nederlander Theater on Randolph. We were only four blocks from Millennium Park and had plenty of room and a parking garage next door. Our only quibble was that there were no laundry facilities anywhere nearby, so we had to pack enough to make it to our next stop in Indiana.

 

 

Wednesday the 18th: Funk's Grove, Normal, Stickney

*This little piece of the trip was the only time I slyly convinced my fellow travelers to join me on a Route 66 adventure. We chose to leave Springfield after lunch so we could make it to Funke's Grove for Maple Sirup when they opened at 1, they have been selling sirup here for almost 100 years. They also make wonderful maple sugar candy. Then we followed the Route into Bloomington and Normal, stopping at the only English style gas station on the route, still open with a nice gift shop (http://www.ryburnplace.com/). Terri told us about the Normal picture op just as you leave town. From here we joined the interstate and drove to a friend's recommendation for supper, Villa Nova Stickney pizza. We were disappointed the dining room and restaurant weren't open, but we found a nice park to eat in and enjoyed our pizza before heading to the hotel.

 

 

Tuesday the 17th: Lincoln's Tomb

 Unexpectedly, Lincoln's tomb is not at his Library and Musuem, as it is with Eisenhower and Truman. Lincoln is buried in the nearby cemetery along with all of his family except for one son (that son is at Arlington). The tomb is appropriately grand and fabulous, with a little hallway you walk through that contains small bronze statues of different points in his life and different clips of speeches. There are many unusual tombs nearby, so we spent a little time looking at them as well before finishing a loop through town and then going to Head West subs before heading East towards Chicago.

Monday the 16th: Springfield

The middle picture is actually from Hannibal: besides postcards, one souvenir from this trip was this lovely rainbow necklace with a loop so it can be used as a lanyard. It will be quite stylish for my id next school year.

Before leaving Springfield we did a good walk at Southwind park; the arches are from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, and the sunflower is part of a solar sundial. Lots of really fun things to explore.