Okay, this is getting freaky!

So I posted a while back that I saw a silver Rav4 with the same license plate letters as ours.  Well, I can’t say for certain it was the same one, but I saw another with the same letters and two of the same numbers!  It also had a registration sticker for the same month as ours and it was bought from the same dealership.  The only real difference was the hitch on the back, we do not have one.  Also, ours was cleaner since Jamie washes it every 2 weeks.  It’s a little obsessive and he refuses to wash my car :~(

What year is it?

Jamie and I finally moved up in the electronic world.  We upgraded our 32” and 27” tube televisions with 60” and 52” flat screen TVs!  The 60” is an inherited TV that is about 6 years old, but it is still a great TV and much newer than Jamie’s 32”.  The 52” went in the living room to replace the 27” which Jamie bought me for Christmas about 7 years ago.  We were waiting for the TVs to die, but they just wouldn’t and we decided it was time.  I still need to call and upgrade the cable to HD and Jamie hasn’t gotten all the cables needed but the picture sure is nice!

"Loving Frank" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"

This last Tuesday we finally had book club. We had to skip our September book club for various reasons, so we discussed two books in November.


"Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan:
This book was liked by most everyone. Most of us disliked the main character, Mamah Borthwick Cheney and Frank Lloyd Wright. I have known of Frank's archeticture just from living here and reading things here and there, but I never knew about this story. It is a historical fiction meaning that the author found what she could from old letters between the two, but the rest was mostly her imagination. It talks a lot of his home Taliesin in Spring Green, WI. I would love to go and see it sometime. I don't want to go into too much about the story because the ending is so dramatic I don't want to ruin it if you want to read it. I also will warn you not to do too much research on Mamah or Frank if you don't want to spoil the ending.

My most favorite Frank Lloyd Wright house is Falling Water:

I also found out that he built the SC Johnson building in Racine. I worked there for a summer and I never heard that before.

The one that I've actually been able to visit is the Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa:



"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Steig Larrson:
This book was liked by everyone at the club. It is based in Sweden and is a murder mystery. It was a little slow to start, but the disappearance of Harriet Vanger and who was responsible keeps you interested. I was a bit disappointed in the final ending, but overall I thought it was very good. This book is one of three written and submitted by Steig Larrson just before he died of a heart attack. I will definately be reading the next book, "The Girl Who Played With Fire".

Santa's here already!

On Saturday Jake and I went to the Hartford Christmas parade. We saw quite an array of characters including, Garfield, Smokey the Bear, the George Web mascot, the green pig?!?!, Scooby, clowns and a hobo. But of course the best was seeing Santa Claus! He sure looked jolly this year. I am pretty sure that Jake is on Santa's nice list this year.

Landscaping update... There isn't anything to update. No arborvitae yet, I will have to call again on Monday. We still have three beds of dirt, I think the neighbors are wondering what we are doing!

Landscaping 11-7-09

This weekend Jamie and I started our landscaping plans.  I contacted Lammscapes from Jackson, WI and had a plan drawn up.  Here is a look at what we are planning:

We prepped the three beds in the lawn on Saturday.  Debbie and David came by and helped out.  Even I was using the rototiller!  The weather couldn’t have been better.  Here are some pictures from the day:

Here it looks like a putting green.

Jamie rototilling.

Hi David!

We are getting 6 7-8’ Emerald Arborvitae hopefully this week!  Then next Spring we will add 4 Miss Kim Lilacs, ornamental grasses and some Russian Sage.  It will definitely look different next Spring.

New Computer Part II

Today I got my Dell Studio XPS laptop.  This sucker is huge!  It has a 17” screen and the keyboard has under key lighting.  It is very cool and I am looking forward to transferring all of my pictures and videos on here.  I am not yet sure of all the capabilities but I know that this system will be 100% better than the old desktop.

Tell me how to get to Sesame Street

Today on CNN.com they mentioned that the old episodes of Sesame street are out on DVD. There was a very interesting article about the old and new sesame street. You can read the article here, but these are my favorite parts:

On the DVDs, Cookie Monster can be seen as his character of Alistair Cookie in his "Monsterpiece Theatre" segment (a spoof of Alistair Cooke's "Masterpiece Theatre") smoking a pipe.

Yep, Cookie Monster smoked.

He later eats the pipe because, as he was often prone to doing, he thinks the pipe is a cookie. Cookie Monster used to become so overwhelmed by his desire for cookies that he'd start seeing (hallucinating about?) cookies that weren't actually there. He'd eat (rotary) telephones, typewriters (what are those?), pencils, almost anything. It was funny.

Today, Cookie Monster's diet is much more balanced, as he has adopted the philosophy that cookies are a "sometimes food."

Children are seen riding their bikes without helmets, and there's even a sketch where the human character of Gordon can be seen approaching a little girl on the street. He takes her by the hand and brings her into his house for milk and cookies (again with the cookies!). Clearly, that could be misinterpreted by today's standards.

I think I may just need to get a copy of these DVDs. I haven't seen Sesame Street in many many years, but I think as Jake gets older I will see my fair share of the "new" Sesame Street. I don't think they let Bert and Ernie sleep in the same bed anymore either.