Me in Place

I also checked off two other things downtown:

One from the 30 Things to Do in Chicagoland created by Roger: Get your picture taken by the Monument to Standing Beast.

It’s a rather strange looking monument, but here’s to Standing Beast! I even made sure to walk around inside the monument to get the full effect. The full effect included obvious signs of someone relieving himself in the monument, which just goes to show you, there’s more than one standing beast.

We also stopped in for coffee at Intelligentsia – a shop I’ve passed many times and always wanted to stop, but for one reason or another, we never did. This time? This time we walked about 400 miles out of our way to get there. But it was worth it when I ordered my medium mocha and the angst-ridden barista looked at me out of his horn-rimmed glasses and said, “Sarah?” (Not my real name. But I don’t give my real name at places where they yell out your name. It, for some reason, creeps me out that random people would know my name.) “Sarah? Here’s your mocha.” And, with a final flourish, he handed me one of the best mochas I’ve had. (Besides mine. Which I’m sipping right now. Which is perfect. But doesn’t have that extra dollop of angst-y intellect, so I’ve got to give it to Intelligentsia on that one!) If you want to visit – there’s one east of the train station on Jackson. And there’s one about a block west of the exit from the South Shore Line on Randolph.

My uncle is a Lister Supreme. I’m just a little plain cheese lister…but he practically majored in listing in college. His latest list is 1,000 Things to Eat Before You Die(t). He’s just rating and trying new foods for fun. He said I could join him if I wanted. That’s fine. I will. Our difference is that I want to make/cook/bake new foods, whereas he just wants to eat them. So, to each his own, and I’ll be glad to add my food ideas and trials to his.

So…my Number One on my list actually was a surprise addition! We dropped my daughter off at Camp Grandma yesterday and as we were getting ready for lunch, my mother-in-law pointed out a huge plant she was growing on her deck. She said my mom had given her the seeds for Christmas and voila! Master Gardener Mother-in-Law had grown a beautiful HUGE plant full of beautiful nasturtiums.

They were so bright they’re almost neon.

Then she had me put them in our salad. I cut them up a little so that my family would eat them without knowing (it worked!). And we enjoyed a Nasturtium Salad for lunch.

They taste kinda peppery – sort of like how arugula tastes as compared to iceberg lettuce. Interesting and unique. And beautiful. But I’m not gonna say I’ll ever start picking nasturtiums and just chewing on them because I’m craving them! I’d rate them a 3.

On our exciting trip on Friday, Roger also mentioned the little town of Amboy, where there is a soda fountain at a pharmacy that’s been there since 1642. Just kidding. More like 1860’s or so. We followed them out there and enjoyed a soda fountain treat – kids got ice cream, I had a cherry coke (is there anything better than cherry coke from a soda fountain?). Roger and Sally had the specialty of the house: Green River Phosphate. Tasted kinda limey.

Another of Roger’s panoramics:

Oh,wait, but that’s not all! There is also a park where a man carved a bunch of people and animals out of dead trees! We’re talking Crazy Fun! Why, here’s Denny Hastert giving his stump speech! hahahaha…oh the fun is contagious, is it not?

When I saw that yesterday was forecasted to be Hot, I knew we had to break free from the constraints of Winter-y Indoor Life and make a foray into the Wild, Wild Outdoors.

So I checked the 30 Things to Do In Chicagoland List that my Uncle and I came up with a few years ago and decided to accomplish #29 – Walk on the Effigy Tumuli at Buffalo Rock State Park. Uncle and Aunt and Cute Cousin and the kids and I all made a day of it and headed out into the Warm Air.

First of all, back in the day, effigy tumuli would be built by Native Americans as burial mounds. There are real ones around. The ones we were going to visit were not real – they were created only about 20 years ago to reclaim land which had been strip mined. What they are are large mounds of dirt shaped to form five different animals: a turtle, a water strider, catfish, snake and something else which obviously did not make a huge impact on my memory.

So, yeah, the problem is, you have huge mounds of land – you can’t really tell what it is just by walking around. You would have to be able to fly over the site to really see them. So basically this event turned into a Hot Hike. But, alas, the company was fine and the weather was good and we had a grand time of it. Although, I do recall my question of: “All of Chicagoland is available for us and we choose this to put on the list??”

SuperBoy hikes through every puddle he can find:

The park is right by the Illinois River:

With just enough of a drop to make me worry about SuperBoy and how well he can (or can’t) swim (this is Cute Cousin):

As an example: Here is the sign for the catfish tumuli:

Here’s what you see. Roger is standing on the catfish’s eye:

Spot the SuperBoy! He is climbing on the catfish’s back down to the tail:

Just for the record: For all of you who have made fun of me for how far ahead of everyone I walk. This is a real photo, not doctored in any way, that shows how far behind I walk when I’m with my family. I’m just sayin’. This is where it comes from.

Roger’s a pro at panoramic shots. You can check out his blog at Listing Through Life.

Oh, and the Park Fun went over the top when we saw the two bison who live there. Maybe we could liven up the Chicagoland list a little by installing these guys by The Bean in Millenium Park. Now that would be fun.

Finally, a life goal has been accomplished! We went down to the Art Institute yesterday and had a great time! I took my kids, my mom and met up with my mother-in-law downtown. MIL (Mother-in-Law) is an artist herself and was a great guide for us.

She has great patience with the kids and knew interesting information about the paintings and displays we saw. Here they are looking at one of my favorite parts of the institute: a collection of miniature rooms that are decorated in different styles and eras. Like a very detailed dollhouse (Gramma W, this would have been your FAVORITE!).

We ate at the Garden Restaurant there. Food was good, service…um… I don’t know. Not so good. But the food was fine!

How did SuperBoy do, you ask? He did fine! He had his moments…but we just kept trying to distract him with questions about the paintings. He kept repeating his latest phrase, “This is getting tiring.” And I took a picture of how he looked at some of the rooms:

But I considered this a valid option for a five-year-old viewing Renoir. He was quiet!

Focus Pocus; Me In Place; photography; 2009

1 Goal Down; 56 (give or take) to go!

Grandma Luv; 2009

Finishing the Carp 500

Books I’ve Read in 2007

Books I’ve Read in 2008

Books I’ve Read in 2009

Books I’ve Read in 2010!

Ah – finally! We’ve moved on! DeRosa sadness is still there, but I’ll work on that.

It’s back to get into listing! I kinda drifted from my listing ways last year…sort of by circumstance, sort of by choice. I wanted to see how I did/functioned without lists. It was weird and strange and I felt fluttery and had to eat my emotions and forgot things like toothpaste when I stopped by Target.

I don’t know how you feel about goals. But here’s my general Goal Planning Approach.

1. Get yourself a new notebook.

2. Get a nice, new, pretty pen.

3. Sit by yourself for a while. Review last year. Jot down any big plans for this year. (I.E. “Trip to Hawaii – November.”) (Wow, can I be your friend??)

4. On the next page write down four headings: Spiritual, Intellectual, Emotional and Physical.

5. Under each heading write down two to five general, long-term (you set time limit) goals.

6. Now, for each of those goals, write down specifics having to do with those goals. How are you going to accomplish that goal? What steps do you need to take to get those done?

7. Ahhh… close your notebook. If you want, have a friend or relative read the goals so you know that someone else knows what you’re working toward! Or so they know to start packing for Hawaii.

I’m not telling you what to do. I just listed those out so you know how I come about with my goals. Next post, I’ll share some of my goals with you. Not all (I don’t write about spiritual goals because well, it seems odd.), but most of them I’ll share.

Do you write out goals for the New Year? Do you ever write goals? Are you going to Hawaii? Can I come?

Long-time readers (otherwise known as “Grandma”) will maybe, possibly remember that I keep track of how many right and wrong answers I get on the annual Jeopardy calendar. Here is last year’s post about how smart I wasn’t. Last year I hit 73% right on the answers.

I kinda thought each year I would get a little smarter. A little wiser.

Nope. Just finished up this year’s, and I only came in at 69% smart for the year. Only being 69% smart is very very scarily close to being…not smart!

I am trying hard not to blame it on the fact that one of the final topics was Greenland. The closest country to Greenland is this one, a mere sixteen miles away. Greenland is an autonomous dependency of this nation. A peninsula in northern Greenland is named for this arctic explorer who had his sights set even further north.

At least I knew Justin Timberlake was one of the members of ‘N Sync. Kept me from being dumb.

SuperBoy’s List o’ Goals

Artist’s List o’ Goals

Dreamer’s List o’ Goals

My List o’ Goals

09 Goals