Building a Garden

One of the big projects we tackled recently was building a raised garden bed for vegetables.

We drafted and redrafted plans for it, figuring out how tall and how wide and how deep, and we wound up with a very tall planter - out of the reach of the little bunnies and just high enough to make gardening very easy on my back.

It was the work of a very long day, but we built, installed, filled with dirt, and planted our seedlings last Sunday.

That poor red-stemed dogwood never stood a chance.  The plan next year is to build an identical planter that will nestle directly to the right of this one, and sooner or later bean trellises along the back to give a bit more (green) privacy to the fence.

On the Town in Milwaukee

The other weekend we had the chance to spend time with our friends Michael, Mari, and their daughter Alex.  We went to Discovery World downtown, which has an aquarium in their new location on the waterfront.

We had quite the time at the touch pool.  And a fun quick ride through the big tank on the glass sided elevator!

New House!

We went back to look over the house again this past weekend and brought with us nearly every family member near by. Two sets of Richard's grandparents, his parents, his brother and my parents all joined us. It was a packed house to say the least.

I'm really glad that they are all so excited. It feels so good that everyone else is just as thrilled about the house as we are. But it was a little overwhelming having them all there putting in their two cents. Both of our families are ridiculously opinionated (something both Richard and I have inherited) and they each had their opinions on absolutely everything. It was actually kind of hard to sort through all the advice they were giving us.

Also, can you please just look at the color in the kitchen. I'm not sure how I feel about it.


On the update front, we're going with no news is good news. We haven't heard anything from the bank/owner and neither has our mortgage banker or realtor. The only downside is that we can't get anyone who still owns the place to go by the house to turn on the heat, which is probably an issue seeing as the water in the toilet has already frozen and since this is Wisconsin the odds that it is going to get warmer are slim to nil. We're worried about the pipes bursting, but the good news is that since we've already had an inspector come in anything that happens in the house will have to be taken care of by the bank/owner.

Milwaukee City Guide: American Science and Surplus

At the risk of exposing one of my quirky supply secrets I just want to tell everyone how much I love American Science and Surplus. It has been a while since my last trip out there, to be honest its been at least two months and I kind of ache to get back there. Whether you're looking for Canadian forces brass buttons, test tubes, microscope slides or an overrun of promotional boxes from Victoria's Secret - this is certainly the place to go. Every time we have friends or family visiting from out of town this is one of the places I love to take them.

My husband Richard introduced me to this wonderful store, and even has a method of perusing the rows to be sure he doesn't miss anything. I certainly can't fault him for that, as I have a set path when it comes to each particular thrift store. This is the place I get quirky packaging supplies for Suitcase Art as well as little lovelies, like those tiny little compasses, as special little freebies in my packages.

One of the best parts are the signs created by the employees for each item. All of them are certainly descriptive but most are also a little tongue-in-cheek. Like the following for a rubber komodo dragon

REAL ONES TASTE LIKE CHICKEN!

This one tastes like rubber, so no snacking. This very realistic Komodo dragon model, made by Safari, is 10" long, and has its accurately forked tongue sticking out. Our favorite carrion-eater comes with a tiny fact sheet from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History.

93624 KOMODO DRAGON

If you can't make it to the Milwaukee area location, they also have locations in Geneva and Chicago, Illinois as well as a rocking website where you can order many of the items they have in the stores, I recommend visiting the "Must Go" section first for great deals on ridiculously strange clearance items