June 2010

CSA and a Raised Vegetable Garden

June 29, 2010
Thumbnail image for CSA and a Raised Vegetable Garden

I’ve never been very interested in growing vegetables beyond tomatoes, and with our community-supported agriculture (CSA) share, I get a much greater variety of vegetables than I would by growing my own. It has also introduced me to a few vegetables I probably wouldn’t have tried on my own, like fennel (not a big licorice [...]

Read the full article →

Happy House-iversary!

June 25, 2010
Thumbnail image for Happy House-iversary!

Three years ago today we became the proud owners of this fine bungalow and haven’t regretted it for one minute. The blog began about a month earlier, and it has been great to “chronicle” all that we’ve done and see how much the house has changed. Since I recently compiled the renovation highlights in the [...]

Read the full article →

Post-Storm Cloud Formations

June 24, 2010
Thumbnail image for Post-Storm Cloud Formations

Luckily we avoided the worst part of last night’s storm. I hope those of you reading this in Chicagoland weathered the storm as well. There were some really cool cloud formations as the storm passed through, and there was a golden glow everywhere: Although all the rain we’ve been having has been great for our [...]

Read the full article →

Mid-Century Modern Madness

June 23, 2010

There’s a house across the street, built in the early 1960s, that has been unoccupied for at least five years now. An elderly couple owned the house, they didn’t have any children, and they were the first and only owners of the house. I never met them. The husband passed away probably 15 years ago. [...]

Read the full article →

Cook County Homeowner Exemption: Do You Have It?

June 16, 2010

We were out for dinner last night with some friends who recently put their Evanston condo on the market. Their realtor wanted to know what their property taxes were for last year and also wanted to make sure they had their Homeowners Exemption, which is a reduction in the assessed valuation of your home and [...]

Read the full article →

Yard Crashers

June 14, 2010
Thumbnail image for Yard Crashers

Yesterday, Pete and I went to the local Menards to purchase supplies for our raised garden bed. After two years we were finally going to remove the blue tarp that covered the dirt near the compost (which hopefully killed off all the weeds). More on that later. While we were in the garden section, we [...]

Read the full article →