For all the yardsale fanatics out there

Like me

I stumbled across this website a few weeks ago and it's pretty amazing. You enter your location, the day, and the mile range you want to search in and it brings up every "garage sale" craigslist ad that meets the criteria. When you live in the suburbs of Chicago that's A LOT of garage/rummage/yard/estate sales! This is the map for this Saturday, for example.


Crazy.

Once you have this map you can click on each arrow to view the ad. You can delete stops and when you're down to your chosen few... the site automatically calculates the route for you using Google Maps. It's pretty nifty. We've used it the past couple of weekends, but there are some lessons learned: 1) The printed directions don't include the street number of each stop, so make sure you write down the exact address of each sale. 2) If you decide you want to skip a sale or two while you're out you better bring another map source along - figuring out a different route using what you've been given is virtually impossible.

Doll fever

It started with the dolls for craft hope. Then the fever grew when I happened upon some doll making books at a rummage sale a few weeks ago...


The hardest thing about this project so far has been translating the teeny tiny diagram into a usable pattern.


I know she looks like an alien here... but she's much cuter with hair.


Well, with half her hair. The dress is next. Stay tuned.

She's official

Yesterday afternoon we made the arduous journey downtown with baby in tow to file all of the paperwork for Kate's Norwegian passport and ID number. All went well (including the train ride to and from... surprisingly, no freakouts or insane screaming during the ride). Everything seems to be in order.


Here she is at the Syttende Mai parade in Park Ridge this past Sunday proudly wearing the colors of her second country.

After our appointment we walked down to Millennium Park and took a few family photos in the reflection of The Bean. Reminiscent of the one we took a little over 2 years ago.


Right before we left for home, as we rested in the Lurie Gardens, we stumbled upon the perfect storm of full belly/tiredness/good mood and we got a very cute series of "Kate Giggling" photos. More here.

Trying bananas

I guess it's an acquired taste.

It's tulip time

I love tulips. I'd say they're my favorite flower except that when I do I feel bad for Irises and Lilacs and Hollyhocks - which are also all my favorites (and not coincidentally, all remind me of the house in which I grew up). Anyway, every year I think 'I should really go up to the Tulip Time Festival' and every year I think this around the end of May... after the festival is over... But this year, I had this thought near the beginning of April when there was still time to plan an actual trip. So off we went.

As promised, there were thousands of tulips in full bloom.


Most everything else was in bloom also.


There were wooden shoes a plenty.


And adorable little kids in Dutch costume.


Miss Kate wasn't really that thrilled with any of it. She was off schedule and decidedly cranky for most of the trip, but we managed to get a few smiles from time to time... (by the way, I made that yellow sundress for her - more on that in a future post).


We had stopped in to see the Town Crier Competition and on cue just as the competition began Kate started to yowl. Not quite that same thing, but I think she outdid them all. She's got lungs, this one.

(It was also our 2nd anniversary last week. Time flies!)

More photos here

In the hopper

Another Saturday, another rummage sale. I love being into things that are usually the domain of elderly women. That means the "sewing room" of the this particular sale was practically deserted. I scored many patterns for 25 cents a piece. I love the 60s era little girl's outfits... the one on the bottom left has "Christmas 1968" written on it.


I think the Holly Hobbie doll and outfits (how cute!) might be a Christmas present project for the little one. We'll see how motivated I am.


So many projects added to my long long list...

Thanks, Julie Andrews

I'm not going to say that The Sound of Music inspired Kate to roll over for the first time on her own, but the soundtrack was playing when she finally did it. Specifically, Climb Every Mountain - which I think is oddly fitting. I had my back turned when the big event occurred (and I didn't even catch it the second time... bad mom), but when I did turn and see her on her stomach she looked a little bit surprised but mostly satisfied with herself. As she should be. She's been thisclose to rolling over on her own for a week now.


Here she is immediately after roll number 2 when I finally found the camera.

And here's the reason I was playing The Sound of Music record today:



I saw this on The Happiness Project blog yesterday, and it made me smile. I especially love the woman's expression at the 1:58 mark. She's happy/surprised/excited all at the same time - just as I would be if people suddenly started dancing in unison to Do-Re-Mi in the middle of a train station.

How about those internets?

On one of my many many many trips on the Indiana Turnpike driving back and forth from Chicago to Toledo two years ago I noticed a little birdie peeking out from his/her perch in the "a" of the McDonald's sign at a rest stop. I took the little birdie's picture and posted it on flickr... It was noticed by someone who then decided to create a webpage devoted to birds living in the letters of signs. And today my original photo can be seen on peoplepets.com.