December 30, 2007 by kim.

Well…I don’t know if this is a “happy” little tree, as Bob Ross would say, but I found it to be rather interesting:

More of an isolated little tree in an icy land, whose only companions are the ever-changing seagulls and pigeons.

How poetic!

Posted in Nature | No Comments »

December 28, 2007 by kim.

I don’t know if you’ve experienced this with your bank, but we just found out about a lovely little game our bank likes to play, called “Hold The Customer’s Money For No Reasonable Reason”.

We drove up to WI for Christmas, and on two occasions, purchased gas. Shocking, right? We did this on the 24th and the 26th. Both amounts cleared, yet it still seemed like we were missing money. My current balance and available balance didn’t match up for three days. Nothing was pending, and yet there was a $200 difference. I got on the phone to see what was up.

After talking to someone, getting disconnected, calling back, and getting transferred, I spoke to a third woman who told me two things. One - an out of state check that we put in the bank on the 17th still hadn’t fully cleared (even though it had been 9 business days and was only supposed to take 5-7 business days which is ridiculous in itself), and two - there were two $50 holds on our account because we had purchased gas twice.

WHAT?

We spent a total of $36 in gas and the bank was holding $100 of our own money hostage? Initially, I thought the gas stations were doing the holding, but NO. Our OWN bank was holding OUR OWN money from us for our “safety”. They said all banks do this when people purchase gas. Apparently, if someone stole our credit card and went all over town on a gas buying spree, at least the money on hold would be protected. They also said it had something to do with using a credit card and not signing a receipt, like you would do if you paid at the pump. Funny thing is, Chris was unable to pay at the pump because of some zip code glitch, so he paid inside - where he signed a receipt making the argument for holding our money null and void.

I think the bank is just messing with us.

Posted in Annoyance | No Comments »

December 24, 2007 by kim.

Happy Holidays to one and all from Chris & Kim!

Posted in Happy | No Comments »

December 23, 2007 by kim.

We all know I’m a sucker for candy (ha ha - bad puns, too), so when my Dad directed me to the following websites a while back, my eyes lit up. I was like a kid in a candy store. Ha!

Hometown Favorites
Necco
Old Time Candy
Candy Favorites
Candy Occasions

I’d like to go to the Old Time Candy site and “Pack-a-Bag of Candy You Ate as a Kid”. You can pick single bars so that you can sample many different kinds without being stuck with a whole case of candy you don’t like.

Until I get around to doing that, I got a quick vintage candy fix when my parents picked up some SkyBars on the way to visit me for my birthday last month:

My Dad said it was the closest thing he could find to the candy bar he liked as a kid, the Seven-Up Bar:

Photo courtesy of www.irememberjfk.com

The Seven-Up Bar had the following flavors: cherry, coconut, caramel, fudge, jelly, maple, and Brazil nut. The Sky Bar has fudge, caramel, peanut and vanilla nougat. From what I’ve been told, the Seven-Up bar far surpasses the Sky Bar.

If only they hadn’t discontinued the Seven-Up bar, I’d be able to make an informed decision. However, I will tell you - the Sky Bar, while interesting and somewhat tasty, just didn’t do it for me. It was the chocolate. The chocolate tasted like that Palmer chocolate you get around Easter or Christmas. You know - sort of plastic-like. The filling was pretty tasty, and…who am I kidding? I’d probably eat it again.

Curse of the sugar addict.

Posted in Food | 1 Comment »

December 21, 2007 by kim.

Have yourself a nice fish dinner, then go around the corner to pick out your Christmas tree:

One stop shopping!

Posted in Food, Observation | 1 Comment »

December 20, 2007 by kim.

Okay. How many people do you know who go to the beach when it is 20 degrees outside, and probably colder with the wind chill?

Now you know 2.

Yes, last weekend we decided to go for a drive up to Evanston, IL and take a little stroll along the sandy and snowy beach of Lake Michigan. It was pretty interesting, really.

We lasted about 7 minutes before we higtailed it back to the car and cranked up the heat. Brrrr!

Posted in Nature | No Comments »

December 20, 2007 by kim.

I was given the special privilege of making the famous LoDuca sauce and meatballs today all by myself while Chris was working! It turned out pretty good, although I can never replicate the special touch Chris can give it.

Mmmm!

Posted in Food | 1 Comment »

December 16, 2007 by kim.

What should one do at 8:30pm when boredom hits in addition to upstairs neighbors playing music since 1:30pm loud enough to hear, but not quite loud enough to complain about…yet? Go outside for a walk! Never mind that its been snowing all day and night…

Some may find it odd to go walking with the wind and snow smacking you in the face so that your vision is reduced to squinting through snowflake-laden eyelids, but hey - I’m a bit weird. I have a tendency to want to go strolling about in inclement weather. It’s what I do.

Since I had my camera in my purse, I made Chris take a picture. Pretty, isn’t it?

Oh - in case someone out there should wonder…I was bundled up with long underwear and boots, so I was quite warm. Not to worry!

Posted in Happy | No Comments »

December 9, 2007 by kim.

This little gem is located one block from our apartment.

Save the environment? A bit of a stretch to make a sale, don’t you think?

Posted in Animals, Annoyance | 1 Comment »

December 4, 2007 by kim.

Chris and I have been watching “The Civil War” (pronounced “wo-wah” in a most charming manner by the wonderful Shelby Foote) documentary by Ken Burns, rented from Netflix. I find the content to be quite interesting, and it is put together very well. It moves a little slower than the recent Ken Burns WWII documentary, but hey - the Civil War documentary was done in 1990. He’s had a lot of practice since then!

So far we’ve watched five episodes. Typical me, I’m lucky if I can remember any of it. Let’s just keep in mind that I am the girl who can read a news article online and take five steps away from the computer to tell Chris all about it only to relate to him that I read a story online about something happening somewhere involving someone. Not a detail to be had anywhere. My brain just does not retain!

Unfortunately, I haven’t picked up that much of this documentary, either:
*25% of the time, my mind drifts off
*25% of the time, the music and the narrative lull puts me to sleep
*50% of the time, I hear what they’re talking about, only to have 45% of the information fly right out of my head

That leaves 5% of Civil War history remaining in the vacant lot between my ears. What I have picked up can be summed up in this way: There was a war in the 1860s, it was between the North and South, slaves were involved, Abraham Lincoln had something to do with it, and people died.

I think I’d better read some more about it once we’ve finished educating ourselves through the magic picture box.

Posted in Observation | No Comments »