Is Chicago "My kind of town"?

As Frank Sinatra crooned the words "My kind of town, Chicago is", he certainly wasn't exaggerating. Neither is the sign advertising the the stretch of State Street called the "Magnificent Mile". Chicago is pure delight.

Last year, after my mom passed away, my sister and I decided to plan a trip down memory lane in honor of my mom and dad. Sort of retracing our roots, so to speak.We were both born in or around the city of Chicago. My parents met and fell in love in this city and our grandparents lived and worked here as well. I had not been back to the city in 40 years and am so glad I finally found my way back "home".

The tiny house we lived in when I was born.
(Schiller Park - right outside of the city)

My sis and I had a wonderful time visiting all the places we lived and places we loved, while reminiscing and retelling family stories. But in addition to this, something unexpected happened to me on this trip - I fell in love with the Windy City.

I have traveled a great deal all over the world and have been to some of the world's greatest cities: London. Paris, Rome, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and many more.  Up until now, I have always thought of Paris as my most favorite city. However, I think Paris now has some stiff competition.  Chicago definitely has taken a top spot on my list. 

Outdoor Amphitheater

Why??? Well, I'll start with the obvious - it's gorgeous. The city is rich in art and architecture. You may say - "Yeah, well so are all the other cities". That may be true, but Chicago just has a "niceness" to it that the other cities just don't have. You feel warm and welcome here as if the city envelopes you in it's hospitality and history. It's a special place where...

...like London, Paris, and Rome, a river runs right through the city. While on a boat traveling through the core of this metropolis, you are surrounded by phenomenal structures such as the Wrigley Building and Marina City.

The Chicago River

Marina City

A view of The Wrigley Building

...art and sculptures by Picasso and other renowned artists are scattered about the city so that "Everyman" can enjoy the work of  these creative geniuses.

Cloud Gate (aka The Bean) at Millennium Park

...you can rent bicycles and ride along the lake on an 18 mile trail and enjoy a view of the beach and lake and the parks. 

Trail along Lake Michigan
The John Hancock building is in the background.

... the people are so nice and helpful that at stores, restaurants, hotels, while walking on the streets, and even at the airport you never meet a snarky person. 

... it's CLEAN. I mean really CLEAN.

... the neighborhoods consist of stunning, tree-lined streets with buildings built at the turn of the century. The beautiful cut limestone or brick houses with ironwork are to die for.  

I imagine this city as humble. It doesn't have the bustle or trademark style of New York. It doesn't have the quirkiness of LA, the snobbishness of Paris, nor the hipness of South Beach. It's simply nice - like its people. 

To me, Chicago is the forgotten city in the USA. It doesn't brag, wave its greatness in your face, or try too hard. It's just surprisingly wonderful. Chicago was my first home and this trip helped me develop a great appreciation and love for it. I think my mom and dad would be very pleased that my sister and I had a fantastic time in the city where we began our journey through life.

Frank Sinatra said it best through the lyrics of a song about this great city:

My Kind of Town

This is my kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of people, too
People who smile at you

And each time I roam, Chicago is
Calling me home, Chicago is
Why I grin like a clown
It's my kind of town

You CAN go home again and I definitely will!

The quest for HGTV stardom continues...

The house that stole my heart.

I have made my first step towards becoming the newest HGTV star and no - I didn't have a face-lift or boob-lift. Although that certainly would be helpful - no doubt.

I found an awesome project. Now all I have to do is convince Phil. Oh... and find the money, write a proposal, find a producer etc etc. But one small step at a time...

Phil and I took a field trip to Thomasville last weekend just to check things out. I was certainly right about one thing. The town is adorable. The downtown area has a very young, hip feel. Old brick storefronts' second stories have been converted to lofts and condos that are attracting a younger clientele. There are restaurants, bars, coffee houses and boutiques. Broad Street is indeed broad and brick-paved giving it that historic charm.

We spent the afternoon looking at old houses that need restoration. They all come with similar issues - termite damage, mold and mildew, funky layouts and additions made throughout the years that are definitely not to code. But they also come with incredible craftsmanship (mantles, woodwork) and history. As I age, I find myself becoming drawn to less shiny, new objects and more to weathered items made from quality materials that sport a patina or a maybe a bit of rust (sort of like my skin and joints!). Things that were made 100 years ago were not mass produced, but required a knowledgeable laborer who learned the process from a master, like these old houses. 

OK...so it needs a bit work - don't we all?
All hardwood floors are intact as well as bead-board ceilings.

One house, built in the 1890's, particularly stole my heart. It is a mess. Every part of the house needs work. It looks like it could be set for demolition in the near future. 







To ignore this pestering itch in regards to this house and find something a bit less overwhelming would be the safe thing to do - the practical thing to do. That just makes sense. Phil and I are older with a limited bank account and should guard what we have. I also understand that as we age, a lot of decisions (or lack of) are based on fear and practicality, as opposed to unbridled confidence, spontaneity and passion like when we were young. Does it have to be like this? If so - that's pretty sad. I just don't think Phil and I are ready to give up those aspects of youth yet. Yes, the work would be very challenging and investing in something like this is always a risk. But, this house could be magnificent again, as I imagine it was when it was first inhabited by William Beverly, the lumber dealer and alderman who was the original owner 110 years ago. 

They don't make 'em like that anymore!

Gorgeous pocket door. Not sure what the deal is about all the pink though.

Original butler's pantry is still intact.

Maybe you or someone you know is looking for an investment in a piece of history and a possible slam dunk real estate-wise. 

Wait - I just had another brilliant idea. Hey... Nicole Curtis - listen up. We could be partners! Yeah - I'll even work on toning the arms and get some hair extensions! It's a helluva alot warmer in Thomasville than Detroit! Whaddyasay? You in? We could save this house, make it shine again, and make some money in the process. 

 Or.... maybe I'll win a contest or the lottery this year. If I do, my first call will be to Thomasville with an offer for this house. Then, the second call will be to the plastic surgeon. After all, you have to look good on HGTV, right?

Could Phil and I be the next stars of HGTV?

I don't really use a cane, but I thought it was a nice touch.
Granny glasses and elbow brace?  Necessity.

I have no clue where I get my crazy ideas. They just come to me like POP! - a moment of brilliance that lights up all the neurons in my brain and away I go. Wait till you hear this one...

I have been talking to Phil about flipping a house in Thomasville, Georgia. What??? you say??? I got the idea after watching a show on HGTV where a young couple helped another young couple renovate their historic home in this small town. 

The houses in Thomasville are fairly cheap and there is probably a reason for that - who wants to live in Thomasville, right? But it is a cute little town with lots of old houses that are in desperate need of repair. You may say, "Patti, restoring or flipping a home is not an original idea." But wait - this idea has another dimension...

Downtown Thomasville

As with most shows on HGTV or DIY, the renovators, clients, workers are all YOUNG. Ever watch House, Yard, Bath or Kitchen Crashers? You know the show I mean - the one where they go into a Lowes or Home Depot and choose a couple to "crash" their house or yard? They tease the audience by speaking to customers of all ages, but they NEVER choose anyone over the age of 35. What the hell? Do TV producers not realize that the baby boomers are the largest demographic? Where are the old people on these networks? I stopped watching the "crash" shows specifically because of that. The purposeful neglecting of senior citizens (gosh I hate that term - let's just say "the older and wiser population") on reality home improvement shows stimulated the birth of my idea.

Who wants to watch young, sexy renovators?
On second thought,  don't answer that question.

I think that I should pitch a TV show where Phil and I are the "Flippin' Seniors". Our renovations are laughable as it is, but I think we could really bring home the difficulty of completing work with aching joints, bad backs, poor eyesight, the frequent need to pee, and going to bed by nine. We could focus on one room at a time and, as another layer of the show, invite a different senior family or friend to assist in each episode, which would undoubtedly lead to more chuckles and chaos. As each show comes to an end, we would hopefully have a new room and gather around the grill with our wine and beer nursing our aches and pains, reminiscing about the past and toasting the future. I think it's brilliant. I would watch that.

Yep. Perfect ad for our new show!

And think how easy it would be to sell advertising. Viagra, Depends, Milk of Magnesia, Lipitor - the list is endless! 

Now, I have to tell you, when I explained all this to Phil he looked at me like I lost my marbles. But, that's OK. First of all - after 30 years he's used to my hare-brained schemes. Secondly, his doubting my sanity doesn't frighten me. I've been in the trenches in middle school. I can handle anything. Or maybe that's where I lost my mind. Hmmm...

Anyone out there know a TV producer? I'm ready for my close-up.

Is a "hair" transplant the answer?

Ladies and gents- as you age you will find that your hair is not what it once was. Just another fabulous aspect of getting older. It's not enough for nature to throw wrinkles, sagging skin, and sore joints at you - the "mutha" nature has to include thinning hair as well. However, this post is not actually about me considering a human hair transplant (OUCH!). It's about using the same concept only using grass instead of hair. Not on my head of course, on our yard. Or what once was a yard, which is now sickly and balding and resembles a battlefield where dirt was the victor and grass the defeated.

At one time our yard was the envy of the neighborhood, thick and luscious - Phil's pride and joy.

THEN -  I could not find a picture (out of the thousands I have) of our yard way back when. You have to look between Anthony and Annamarie to see how nice the yard was. Or just take my word for it. It was gorgeous. A great place for Easter Egg Hunts!

Enter financial woes that would not allow a $250 monthly water bill to nourish the grass (we have almost an acre), a scalping of the land and then erosion that followed from removing all the pines, and years of incredible heat and drought in the summer. And there you have it - a yard in deep despair. It's pitiful and screaming for what once was. 

We have tried reseeding and hiring company after company to try and bring this disaster called our yard back to life and pretty much wasted thousands of dollars. Nothing has worked. I told Phil - I'm done with seed, straw and those machines that supposedly punch holes in the soil for seed that will never amount to much. It's time for the big guns - it's time for sod.

NOW - Seriously ugly.  This yard is pleading I NEED SOD!!!

We will never be able to afford to sod the whole yard. All I'm asking for is the front yard and possibly the side to prevent any further erosion. I want Zoysia in the front and Fescue on the side.

This desire for sod led me to create a special bank account that I call our "Saving for Sod" account. All the money from the yard sale, consignment shops, Craig's list and eBay sales has been carefully tucked away in hopes of rescuing our poor, poor landscape. I have enough saved for a backhoe to remove some 30 year old ugly bushes and shrubs and maybe enough for a pallet or two of Zoysia. But we will need much more.

As we wait for the "Saving for Sod" account to grow, we are trying grass (hair) plugs in some of the bare spots. My dad did this over 28 years ago while he and my mom were visiting and the area he plugged is fantastic. The Zoysia is thick and pretty much impossible to kill. 

This was started with sod plugs. Thanks Dad!

We still had the original tool in the shed (remember Phil throws nothing out!) and to speed things up he went out and bought another one (remember - can't have just one!) and I'm glad he did. Working together we were able to pull over 100 plugs and transplant them around our newly renovated patio. 

Tools of the trade - the green one is the original. We used
these to pull from...

here - to transplant....

over here. (Sorry about the thumb) See - it looks like a hair transplant!

I'll let you know if this crazy experiment works.

In the meantime I'm searching the house for anything that is not nailed down as a potential article to be sold on Craig's List or eBay for our "sod" account. Hmmm. Maybe I should wander out to the garage... (shhh don't tell Phil!)

So what's the next project?

The month of August might be a bit slow on the renovating front. I'm taking another trip out to LA (I'll certainly send "postcards") to visit my daughter and it's just too flippin' hot outside to think about doing any heavy lifting even if it's indoors.

Phil and I have decided to hit the master bath (literally and figuratively) in September. This will be a total gut job (down to the studs) and undoubtedly will lead to learning through mistakes and possibly a trip to Urgent Care. My initial budget will be $3500 and it will be tight as I think a plumber or two might get involved. This budget will include everything new including a walk-in shower as opposed to shower and tub.

Words cannot describe how much I abhor this bathroom, so I will let the "before" shots do the talking:

It's like walking into the 1980's. UGH!

Double UGH!

Bathroom designs for small baths that I will use as inspiration:

Love the glass door and small hex tile in the shower.
I plan on using subway tile on the walls as well.

In this design, I really like that window in the shower. Hmm possibilities...

I will definitely need a corner bench in the shower or something like that, unless of course
Phil doesn't care if I ever shave my legs! 

Nice paint color and I may even opt for a dark vanity. The marble top is classic.

The final product will be a mixture of different design ideas that will ultimately fit our space, taste and budget. The fun part is coming up with a plan. The hard part is making it happen. 

Greetings from The Garden State! Where's Guido?

 For those of you not familiar with state nicknames, "The Garden State" refers to New Jersey. I have to tell you that when I first met my husband Phil and he told me he was from New Jersey, I had a picture in my head of dreary skies, smoke stacks, and a whole lot of Guidos standing around on street corners. I could not have been more wrong.

Oh sure - is Newark like my original thoughts? Yep. It's dingy and industrial - I'm not sure about the Guidos though. However, the other parts of New Jersey are surprisingly beautiful. I mean, really beautiful.

We are staying with Phil's nephew in a small, shore town called Avon-by-the-Sea (pronounced with a short "a" - not a long "a" like the cosmetic company). For those of you that think life at the shore is like the TV show Jersey Shore, you are sorely mistaken and really should rethink wasting your time on that trash (personal opinion - besides , who has a first name "The" (Situation)??? Ridiculous.)

Avon boardwalk

Avon-by-the-Sea is like a wonderful slice of Americana apple pie complete with a scoop of ice cream. It's a small, idyllic town where the worse crimes inflicted are a pilfered bike or a possible jay walking. It's a town where every other, lovingly restored, early 1900's house proudly flies the American flag, and lawns are manicured with pride allowing the flowers to burst into an artist's palette of color. Children walk to school and visitors and residents stroll down the sidewalks making their pilgrimage to the ocean seeking their little piece of sand and sea. It's a very special place that I'm sure Norman Rockwell would have

Beautifully restored home in Avon

painted.

We also traveled to Phil's niece's house, which is in a more western part of Jersey and just as beautiful only in a different way. Where Avon is a seaside town with the houses taking the space of every parcel of land close to the sea, 

Bucolic backyards in Millstone

Millstone Township has vast, wide open spaces where each house has at least two and one half acres and where wildlife is a part of daily life. This is a community where children play in the open spaces, where you have to search hard to see your neighbor's house from your yard, and where it's likely you have acres of farmland across the street. His niece and her husband have

Not quite what I first imagined

taken up the hobby of bee-keeping and harvest honey and who also look out their back yard to see wild turkeys, foxes, and deer. Not quite the picture television portrays of this topographically diverse state.


Yesterday we traveled to Princeton, home to one of America's premier ivy league universities. It didn't disappoint. I think my IQ grew 20 points just walking around the picturesque campus.

History is palpable as you amble through the open areas and admire the architecturally diverse buildings that are centuries old. It is a university with a 400 year past and some pretty impressive alumni, where higher learning is kicked up a notch (x 10!). This incredible university and the enchanting town of Princeton are further examples of the surprising, under-appreciated beauty in New Jersey.  

Princeton Tigers standing watch over this incredible campus

All the wonderful scenery has been terrific, but truly the best part is the array of aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews, and friends with whom food and drink was shared. The setting is just icing on the cake. And...

we have been here for a week and I have not met one Guido and not a Snooki was in sight. The Garden State rocks!

Who does drama best? Streep or the middle school girl?

Sorry Meryl. Middle school girls have you beat - hands down.

Since I made a bit of fun of middle school boys in my last post, I felt it only fair to pick on the girls a bit. Gender equity and all...

This particular excerpt is from the chapter entitled "Drama Queen":

ACT I

Curtain up

In this particular scenario, we’ll call this female student Jessica Itsallaboutme. She arrives at the dance in an outfit that would make her grandmother swoon. She is strutting her stuff because she believes she looks HOT – make up, hair gel and all. Jessica, the unofficial leader of the group of girls, has a crush on Andrew Hornyguy whose alien works overtime during events such as dances. Andrew sees Jessica out of the corner of his eye and starts jokingly hitting and slapping all the boys around him for no apparent reason. Jessica hangs out with a large clump of other moody, PMS-inflicted, females who are giggling and applying their tenth layer of lip gloss. The girls move as a pack whereas, the boys just run from friend to friend making sure they continue to punch and kick each other because, well, they just can’t help it.

Jessica finds out from Sarah Busybody that Andrew has texted Brittany Femfatale that he really wants to go out* with her which, by the way, may or may not be the truth. Telling the truth is a concept sometimes lost on a middle schooler, especially when telling a lie has the potential to start an avalanche of drama.

*For a moment, I need to review what “going out” means in middle school. Trust me – they don’t actually go anywhere. Going out with someone means you “like” them. Many times, while I was chatting with students and they would use that term, I’d purposely ask them, “So, where do you go?” They would just look at me with a perplexed expression, like I had three heads or something. Complete waste of good sarcasm.

Act II

Now the plot thickens. The pack that is friends with Jessica all move to the girls’ restroom while Jessica is crying her eyes out thus making her first attempt at wearing mascara become a total disaster, which makes her cry even harder. It’s a fact that at any given time during a dance 50% of the female population will be in the bathroom either crying, primping, gossiping or, of course, texting. All of Jessica’s friends have decided to hate all of Brittany’s friends and pretty much Andrew has now been pushed out of the whole affair. This has now turned into the War of the GirlWords. When everyone gets home, they all end up texting each other throughout the night which probably involves some profanity and maybe even a threat or two, such as “I’m going to kick her ass at school tomorrow”. Cell phone towers are lit up after middle school dances. This is a known fact.

Act III

Guess who has to sort through this whole mess the next day at school? Yep – the assistant principal. Parents will be calling about the texts and Jessica will continue to wallow in the drama and still remain in the bathroom 50% of the day. Brittany, who will also be crying all day, will be ostracized and, Andrew, god bless his little alien heart, won’t have a clue. After it has taken hours and hours to sort through this mess and all the dust settles, the following day Jessica and Brittany will be best friends and someone else is crying in the bathroom because they have now been pushed out of the pack. Just shoot me now.

Curtain down.

A day in the life of middle school... who needs the theater when you've got a front row seat to drama like this?