Not the hit Disney movie… But footprints and compost! These footprints appeared after sweeping away loose snow, creating a snow ‘positive’ print on the steps.   This speaks volumes but this time of year we like to gaze into the composter and wonder aloud about what will happen first: will the composter fill up with frozen banana peels and coffee grinds, or will spring arrive and defrost the big compost Popsicle just as it reaches the top.   I can imagine what readers are thinking… We should also get a worm composter to keep inside the house. I’ve been considering…

Last weekend we went with Sarah and Thomas to see nacho libre the movie and live Lucha libre wrestling. It was really fun, extremely lively, and the crowd’s enthusiasm was way infectious! It reminded me of a pantomime, lots of audience participating and cheering. Not a great photo but here’s el Tigre   He and partner el diablo won the first set of three rounds. And here I am with miles and Thomas after the event  

A 120+ year old house in Chicago with a full west exposure has some tough demands in terms of window treatments. Many of our windows are drafty in winter and let in too much heat in summer. Yet there are plenty of days where we want the windows open for a breeze. Also, we need light and privacy. These conflicting demands had us stumped for years but we have started making some progress, starting with wooden blinds in all of the west facing windows. Here they are in the kitchen  We can tilt them for privacy and cold /…

We have been playing a new board game called Twilight Struggle. It’s set in the Cold War and the two players take on roles of the us and ussr. Miles just finished a unit on the Cold War and john and I are both hooked on The Americans, a spy show (but arguably about a marriage) set in the early 80s, so making plays that reference the grain embargo or Cuban middle crisis is fun for us all. Here’s miles deliberating his next move. 

As readers may remember from our Christmas morning post, I gave john a Chicago indie coffee shop passport. The passport went missing during the wild party we attended on New Year’s Eve but host Geoff very conscientiously emailed all guests in January with a list of items found the next day. In fact, we were both distracted by the description of a quilted, handmade jacket left there, with no identifying marks but fit Geoff perfectly, that we didn’t see his paragraph about the coffee passport. Lucky for us, Geoff sent out the email again and we claimed the passport, and…

In answer to Colette’s question, I’ll post a few more dibs photos. I realized that perhaps one reason we haven’t posted about dibs before is because the whole thing is very annoying! But anyway, here are some more examples. This car is in presumably it’s own claimed spot, so the chair, Christmas wreath, flattened cardboard box, plastic crate and empty milk jug are thrown onto the snow. Or maybe some of that stuff is trash. Sometimes it’s hard to tell! We had our dibs spot marked with two small white stools from Ikea the day that our spot was “taken.”…

I searched through past blog posts and don’t see that we ever brought up the subject of “dibs”. Dibs are a highly controversial topic in Chicago in winter. This is the deal: when it snows a lot, cars parked on the street get all blocked in both from the snow that falls and from the snow pushed to the sides by snowplows. There is extra demand because before snowfalls people move their cars out of their garages because they know the alleys won’t be plowed and their cars will be stuck inside. Also, big piles of snow are everywhere, limiting…

We had a lovely visit from Anne, who was on her annual Chicago-in-February tour of duty. We had a fantastic dinner Friday night at Blackbird, including some amuse bouche from the chef to start, then celery root soup, pierogi, and scallops for appetizers, and sturgeon, venison and pork shoulder for main courses. Then macchiatos and tea with more treats from the chef for dessert. Wonderful company and food! Saturday we met Anne downtown and first went to John’s office. Miles had some fun with the Strategic Analytics balloon. Gotta stay connected in the advertising space (Anne was actually looking for…

We went to the Art Institute last weekend and had a look around the Modern Wing. There’s one piece that you can walk right through — all of these nylon cords hang from the ceiling in a grid and it’s a very cool feeling to walk through it. It feels a bit like being in water. Later that weekend, John made a really delicious banana cream pie for dessert. I can’t begin to list all of the steps, but two memorable ones were the pressure cooking of bananas for 35 minutes (that’s a long time in a pressure cooker!) and…

We’ve officially tried out the skating ribbon at Maggie Daley Park! It’s a lot of fun, and a new challenge to skate up a small hill. Because our previous visit to Maggie Daley Park was at night, we didn’t get good overall photos. Here’s a panorama of the skating ribbon area. You can see that unlike a rink, skaters can loop around more like on a curvy walkway or path (which it will be in the summer). John and I both skated, while Miles stayed home to become reacquainted with the Playstation 4, which broke down right before Christmas and…