We had a really warm day on Friday but it came with some very intense wind storms. John’s flight returning from Boston was delayed several hours, and our block was cordoned off for about a day due to a downed electrical wire dangling over the street. The wire itself was hard to capture in the photo (see where the arrow is pointing in the photo below) but what is immediately obvious is all of the available parking spaces but no way to take advantage of them! It’s seed starting time of year again! I started eggplant, two types of tomatoes, basil, marjoram and…

Here’s a news roundup of what cndkmen have been up to so far in February. First, we enjoyed our annual visit with Anne. New this year: no snow, not so cold at all, dinner at SoHo House, and a walk on the Bloomingdale Trail (aka the 606). Anne’s flight was delayed so we also were able to fit in a trip to the Lincoln Park Whole Foods, which really should be added to the tourist itinerary as a matter of course. Looking forward to seeing Anne and Brian this summer, when they get to see the city in bloom rather than in partial…

While on a business trip to San Francisco last week, I had some downtime, so I decided to meet up with an old friend from our San Francisco office, Matthew Wilcox. While advertising is full of English planners for some reason, there aren’t a lot of Irish planners, so myself and Matthew (from Wexford) try to fly the flag as much as possible. While I thought we’d meet up for Dinner with Matthew and his wife Patricia, Matthew suggested a “short” bike ride beforehand. Little did I know that a short ride in San Francisco, means a 18 mile cycle…

After hearing testimonials from Colette and Colman about how rice cookers have a transformational effect on one’s life, we decided to take the plunge and buy one. Liam has this same model at college, he commented that it’s like having a helpful little friend around. I think of it as my R2D2 in the kitchen 🙂 With our rice situation vastly improved, we turned our eyes to upgrading our bean offerings. I read an article about an heirloom bean grower / seller in California and became somewhat obsessed with getting my hands on some of these beans. By lucky coincidence,…

The weekend after we returned to Chicago, Miles and I went to Wicker Park for his eye appointment. He now has vision insurance and got a new pair of glasses and a year’s supply of contacts. We also, Sydney-style, had to stop for a coffee. Here’s Miles and his coffee at La Colombe Optimistic statement on a cold gray day!

You know how it is, on a vacation with so much great food, only some dishes get photographed. This is my salad from a very cool place in Surrey Hill, where we went for lunch one day. And this potato lookalike is, somehow, ice cream inside a crispy potato skin. Magic! Delicious! Miles’s sandwich at the place in Surrey Hill. He ordered a sandwich from the menu then saw other people getting these purple creations and wanted to change his order. Luckily he didn’t ask to do that because it turns out he had ordered the purple sandwich! It didn’t…

Missing the annual New Year’s Eve party at the Groves house was sad, but Sydney did its best to show us a good time. Thanks to Colette’s suggestion, we bought tickets back in September for one of the viewing spots near the harbour for best viewing of the outstanding fireworks display. We went to the Lawn with the View event, which is held on the grounds of the Royal Botanic Garden. Tickets let you in to this high spot up above the Opera House, and also they provide a lovely box dinner. We arrived at about 6 and got in…

We all agreed that playing with Rory is the most fun thing to do. Here’s Rory doing one of his trademark “hands on head – oh no!” games. It truly never gets old! Rory was always willing to drop everything and get us to put our hands on our heads and say “Oh no!” to his delightful smile. Rory also likes coffee shops, particularly Chalk in Maroubra. Here he got some Cindy time while Colette gathered his belongs to head home for a nap. Chalk deserves to be cross-tagged in the great food in the antipodes category! Great coffee shop…

When this blogger loses the moment and needs to catch up with posts long after they happened, describing days chronologically doesn’t work so well. After Boxing Day in Sydney, the great times continued as I’ll show in the next few posts organized by themes: playing in water, playing on land, New Year, and great food in the antipodes. All four Cindy and the Kennymen were gifted surf lessons by Colette and Colman. Thank you! It was so much fun. We had a great time trying all the different components of surfing and each managed to stand up and catch a wave in a…

More Sydney stories to come but this news item couldn’t wait… Today we adopted Roux, another Guinea pig!  We are currently bonding them. This involves letting them discover each other in a controlled setting. We introduced lots of snacks to ease the process. Roux really likes carrots, maybe because he was sharing space with rabbits at the animal shelter!       Once they noticed each other all sorts of weird to us but normal according to the literature behavior ensued.     We have divided the Guinea pig enclosure so they can live in separate spaces for a while and get…