For those of you who can’t get enough zombies

/ Shane / 2 Comments

As with anything, the more I write about something the more links, etc. come pouring in about it.  The topic du jour of course is zombies.

In a related note, Nathan and I seem to be trading videos and links back and forth like some sort of really really slow zombie conversation.  It is weird because normally if I see something on a blog or whatever that I think y’all would enjoy I put it here and reference the place where I got it and that seems to work okay.  But for some reason when it is my brother, even though I reference him, it seems weird somehow like I’m copying.  I guess it is a brother thing, like “Mooooom!  He’s copying!”

Anyway, here is a very easy to understand zombie survival guide which I stole from Baconpalooza quid pro quo since he stole my last one.

And that video led me to this really fantastic Zombie Survival and Defense page.  There really is a lot of information there and I haven’t had time to go through it all, but what I’ve seen seems pretty good!

Maybe now you’ll take me seriously

/ Shane / 5 Comments

President Bush does…

Maid in the shade

/ Shane / Leave a comment

So I’m kind of embarrassed to admit this, but we now have a maid.  Aren’t we hmm hmm hmm?  When we were renting we used to have a maid and it was actually pretty awesome.  I could justify it though because it was just included as part of our rent.  It’s almost like they were twisting our arms. 🙂

Now however…its all us.  I do feel a little guilty about paying money for something that we could (should) do for ourselves.  I feel like if we just worked a little harder we could fit it all in.  The fact is, we just don’t have enough time to clean like we would like to.  And with Evie crawling all over now, and with the lead levels in Chicago, we should probably mop, dust, etc. regularly.  A quick sweep now and again isn’t going to cut it and when you’re short on time you cut corners.

The thing is, people used to make fun of us for saying, “The maid is coming tomorrow, we’ve got to clean!”  Anybody who would say that though never had a maid!  First off, who wants anybody seeing their house as a disaster?  Second off, we didn’t hire them to tidy up our clutter.  In fact, I’d prefer that they didn’t actually.  They don’t know where to put anything and it ends up in weird places.  We want them taking care of our dusting and stuff like that which is only more difficult with our junk lying all over the place.

We did some investigating and interviewed a couple of people and ended up finding the same people who used to clean for us when we were renting.  They always did a good job before and it is a little scary to let strangers into your house when you aren’t there, so it is nice to find someone who you’ve already taken into your confidence (and they haven’t burned you) and not have to go through that again.

So today was the first day of the cleaning and I have to tell you, it is sooo nice to come home to the cleanest house we’ve had since we’ve moved in!  Call us bougie if you want but I didn’t know our place could look so good.  And I didn’t have to lift a finger! 

So if anybody is looking for a recommendation for a cleaning service in the Chicago area, I’ll go ahead and vouch for Edith’s Cleaning Service.

It’s only fair

/ Shane / 1 Comment

I have already previously embarased my brother-in-law so it is only fair to to the same to my brother:

Ma Ma

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Well, the day has finally arrived, just over 10 months in the making and Evie finally said “Ma ma”.  (Well, more like “mamamamama”)  It’s funny because on T.V. and cartoons and stuff, that is always the baby’s first word.  Anyway, Evie has been pretty sick all weekend and she has been extra-extra-clingy to Sara.  I was trying to entertain her while Sara was busy but she really wanted her mommy.  And finally she said it!  It is also weird because it is the first time she’s ever made the sound and yet she meant it.  Contrast that with “Da da” which she was saying for months without really meaning anything.

In garden update news, holy cow weeds.  They just grow like crazy!!  It seems like a never ending job but I swear all the other gardens around us never have any!  Ours is like weed heaven.  Last week we weeded 4 times and never spent less than an hour and a half at it.  But the good news is, our “crops” are growing as fast as the weeds.  Well, the carrots are a little iffy, but everything else is good.

Speaking of garden-based updates, the farmers’ market is really taking off.  I previously reported that it was sort of lackluster but we’ve been back every week since and it gets better every time.  There are more booths now offering more things and they’re not sold out by the time we get there.  We’ve tasted fresh salsa, admired the fresh cut peonies, investigated the spinach, asparagus and mushrooms, bought organic Amish bread, considered the lamb and we’ve never been able to avoid buying something from the organic baker.  There is even a drummer now for entertainment.  All in all, much improved and much recommended!

Finally, a condo based update.  We bought like a big hutch thing to contain, among other things, our china.  So we can finally get all of those boxes out of the closet and unpack them for the first time (although it was convenient for moving that they were still all packed up).  Also, we finally put up some tie backs for the curtains in there so we can let some light in.

And now also I suppose I have a blog update ::publish::