It’s all JK Rowling’s fault. (Well, kinda.)

You guys, sometimes blogging is just too hard.  There, I said it.  Sometimes it seems like the only way I could ever possibly get done everything I want and need and have to do is if I had a Time Turner.  AND severe insomnia.  But I don’t have either one.


(Okay, fine.  I do have a Time Turner. Happy?  But that little f*cker has NEVER worked, thankyouverymuch.  *grumble*)


(But I digress….)


The last several months have just simply been batsh*t crazy.  What with the Ohio trip; the Washington trip; all the photo editing and organizing from the zillions of pictures I took on both trips; the court crap; the post-court crap (including a two-inch thick stack of receipts and coordinating papers I am presently getting ready to mail to comply with a post-court order—oy, please don’t ask); my eBay selling and all its required running back and forth to and from the post office; juggling all our various appointments and schedules; my quest to lose the weight I’ve put on since moving to Chicago; trying to help poor Wednesday through a very, VERY difficult emotional time (*sniffle*); and having JK Rowling publish a brand spankin’ new book in the middle of it all—*whew*—well, I guess the blog just kinda got lost in the chaos for awhile.


(There there, poor, neglected blog.  Mama still loves you, I swear.)


To those of you who contacted me and Scope to ask if I am okay, thank you. I really do appreciate it.  Yes, I’m fine.  Frazzled and tired, but fine.  However, the more time that has slipped through my blog-ignoring fingers, the more I started to worry how the hell I would ever catch up on what’s been going on the last few months….


Ummm….


Hmmm….


Nope, no clue….


And then suddenly—*BAM!*—it hit me like a phone in Naomi Campbell’s house: Project 365!  I can tell you the whole whoppin’ tale in bits and pieces as I update my take-a-picture-a-day project!  Yep.  I’m still taking a picture every day, and I am only…. ohhhhhhhhhh…. four freaking months behind on posting it all here.  So, before I get even MORE behind, here is another long, lonnnnnnnngggggggggg overdue update on this year’s Project 365 with little stories of what we have been up to along the way….


Day 161 (2012-06-09) ~  “Hey! That sculpture looks like sh*t!”  Scope and I went for a quick walk along the North Shore Channel Trail on June 9th.  While on the trail we spied this monstrosity, which I'm sure inspires many a poop joke.





Day 162 (2012-06-10) ~  Scope, Wednesday, and I celebrated an early Father's Day before hitting the road for Ohio.  We went to the park for a picnic which was fun and relaxing.... until the evil pigeons showed up.  *shudder*





Day 163 (2012-06-11) ~  I just shot a quickie of a patch of mini daisies I passed while on my way to the train station to meet up with Scope after work.





Day 164 (2012-06-12) ~  Another quickie of flowers.  Oy.  I know. Sorry!  But, look, I posterized it to shake up the flow a little bit.  That was nice of me, huh?





Day 165 (2012-06-13) ~  When Wednesday was little, I used to draw faces on her oranges.  For no reason, really, but she LOVED it.  As she got older, the habit died off, but this particular day I surprised her with one again, which made her giggle.  Hey, even at 15 years old, an orange face is still awesome!





Day 166 (2012-06-14) ~  The 7th (I think….?) shot of my retro Strawberry Shortcake doll series.  This is Lemon Meringue and she still smells incredible!  Mmmmmmm.





Day 167 (2012-06-15) ~  This is a complete throwaway shot.  (Duh.)  We were hurriedly packing up our things for our vacation to Ohio and it dawned on me that I hadn't taken a picture yet that day, so I shot a super-quick snapshot of the messy scene in front of me and went right back to packing.  Just pitiful.  I know, I know.  *hanging my head in shame*






Day 168 (2012-06-16) ~  Heigh ho, heigh ho, it’s off to Ohio we go.  This was the view somewhere in Indiana.





Day 169 (2012-06-17) ~  Our first full day in Ohio, we went to Ghostly Manor Thrill Center's haunted house (which was SPECTACULAR, by the way!!!!)  This dragon was lurking outside the building when we arrived.  CreeEEeeEEeepy.





Day 170 (2012-06-18) ~  Our 3rd day in Ohio, we went to Nickel Plate Beach where we saw this lanky bird slowly creeping through the water.  He crept several yards out into the lake as if he was stealthily stalking something and then inexplicably just turned around and walked right back to the shore.  Bizarre.





Day 171 (2012-06-19) ~  This was from our 4th day in Ohio where we took a boat cruise right past Cedar Point Amusement Park.





Day 172 (2012-06-20) ~  This was from our 5th day in Ohio when we toured the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and saw this massive moving puppet of the "teacher" in Pink Floyd's "Another Brick In The Wall" music video looking down on us.





Day 173 (2012-06-21) ~  This was from our 6th day in Ohio when we took a look in an antique store.





Day 174 (2012-06-22) ~  This was from our 7th day in Ohio when we got up close and personal with dinosaurs inside Cedar Point Amusement Park.





Day 175 (2012-06-23) ~  This was from our last day in Ohio as we said goodbye to the beach early in the morning before hitting the road back home.





Day 176 (2012-06-24) ~  Our first morning back home in Chicago, Scope and I took a walk around the park and saw this VERY bored film crew across the street.  *snicker*





Day 177 (2012-06-25) ~  I saw this cutie playing ball at the park and couldn't resist snapping his picture.  :-)  (Okay, okay, I cheated a bit on this picture, which was taken on the 24th, not the 25th.  I was soooooo busy organizing and editing all the pics from our Ohio trip that I forgot to take a picture on the 25th.  Whoopsie!)





Day 178 (2012-06-26) ~  Yeah.  It’s a Lego genie.  And?





Day 179 (2012-06-27) ~  I thought I'd go old school with the picture this day with an old Depeche Mode record.  (And, yep, I cheated a bit on this picture too, which was taken on the 28th, not the 27th.)





Day 180 (2012-06-28) ~  This is a dragon that guards a local shop.  I love (LOVE!!) his flame-like eyebrows.  (Another cheater pic.  What with all the Ohio trip picture editing I was doing, I somehow got my days all jumbled up for a bit.  This was taken on the 29th, not the 28th.  Grrrr!)





Day 181 (2012-06-29) ~  A tornado?!  Nah.  It was just a funky cloud that passed by our deck.  It startled me for a second though, I admit it.  Yeesh.





Day 182 (2012-06-30) ~  My lovely, handsome hubby and I went out to dinner at Isla Pilipina to celebrate our 2nd anniversary a couple of days early.  (I had the teriyaki chicken and it was incredible, by the way!)  Can you believe it’s been TWO YEARS already?!





Day 183 (2012-07-01) ~  Our anniversary cake.  Mm-mm-mmmmm.





Day 184 (2012-07-02) ~  I stumbled upon this sunflower growing on the corner of a city street.  Someone's garden is conveniently in the background, making it look like this pic was taken in a field, not the streets of Chicago.





Day 185 (2012-07-03) ~  Okay, so I *CLEARLY* had the camera on the wrong settings for this shot of the moon, but I dunno, I kind of like it.  It makes the moon look like it's made of cheese.





Okay, that’s it for today.  I’ll be posting more pics soon, including shots of our summer trip to Seattle.






© Coracabana

On the road again….

Two weekends ago, Scope, Wednesday, and I loaded up our car with as much as it could hold and we hit the road for Ohio.  You recall how much we enjoy summer road trips, right?….  Like last August when we drove from Seattle to Chicago in four and a half days with our pet frogs belted in the back seat. Remember that?…. Total splendiferousness with THIS FREAKIN’ ROCKS!!!! sauce is what it was. (Need a refresher? Click HERE.)


Scope’s family had been planning a big eight day family vacation in a rental house on Lake Erie for nearly a year now. Ten of us were able to make it and we had an amazing time.


Here’s what it all looked like….


DAY #1:

We crammed ourselves and all our crap into our PT Cruiser like clowns in a circus car and headed out of the city. The typical sloth-like and headachy Chicago traffic was surprisingly light and delightfully non-existent—*insert the sound of angels singing “laaaaaaaaaaaaa”*—so, we made great time.




Aerosmith serenaded us on the stereo as we started out. I tried to convince Wednesday that the roly poly dude on the back of the CD was Steven Tyler in his earlier years.




And she SO wished that were true!


*snicker*


But anyway….


Soon we were zooming through Indiana.




We made a quick stop at the University of Notre Dame.




Wednesday and I had never been there before, so the three of us walked around for awhile checking the campus out.




(Awwwww, I know. Aren’t Scope and Wednesday CUTE?!?!)  :-)


We saw Touchdown Jesus….




….and a gorgeous war memorial fountain….




….and a pair of cutsie hugging statues….




….and this funny and fearless little fella.




After leaving Notre Dame, we made a two second hop over the border into Michigan so Wednesday and I could pick up another state. We opened our car doors, poked our toes out, touched the ground, and then—*whoosh!*—we were back on our way.         




Not too long after that, we crossed into Ohio.




In Ohio, we saw Batman running his Bat-errands with his Bat-kids in his Bat-SUV.




(Who knew, right?!)


And then about six hours after we began our journey, we arrived in Erie County.




We stayed with my in-laws in the “Buster Brown Shoe House” in Huron.




The Buster Brown Shoe House is this cute three story house just a hop, skip and a cartwheel away from the lake. All the way there I had been wondering why it’s called the Buster Brown house—????—but once we walked in, it clicked. Inside the house, the walls are covered with framed old retro Buster Brown ads, which was kind of cool.




There was plenty of room for all ten of us…. well, most of the time anyway. Unless we were all in the kitchen at once, in which case it was pretty much a claustrophobic fright fest. (Yeesh.) But otherwise, it was perfect. There was even enough room for Wednesday to have a big bedroom all to herself, and she was thrilled.


But even more thrilling?….


All the shy wee itty bitty baby ducks that kept walking through our garden!




*Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!*


After looking around the house, we went out to the lake in the backyard.




The lake was absolutely stunning. I couldn’t believe it—we even had a gorgeous view of Cedar Point Amusement Park! (You might want to click this pic to enlarge it to get the better view.)





DAY #2:


Our second day in Ohio started with Wednesday and Scope getting their ping pong on in one of the sunrooms.




After all the ping pong-ing, the three of us broke off from the rest of the group for a couple of hours. It was important to everyone to make sure that everybody got to do the things they most wanted to do during our stay, and the thing that Wednesday most wanted to do was visit Ghostly Manor Thrill Center, a year-round haunted house which was voted one of the scariest in the country. No-one else was in a get-your-pants-frightened-off kind of mood, so off we ventured as a trio looking f-f-f-for t-t-t-terror.


This is what Ghostly Manor looked like on the outside when we arrived.




The dragon outside the building was spectacular! We spent a lot of time squealing, jumping around, and taking a zillion pictures of the dragon before actually setting foot inside the manor.








We missed getting a picture of the dragon spewing steam out of his nose though, unfortunately—*sniff*—so I borrowed one from Google for you.




(You’re welcome.)


A talking skeleton inside Ghostly Manor told me I wasn’t allowed to take pictures in there, so all I have to show you is this shot of a massive, creepy, black-lit eye from the lobby. CreeEEeeEEeepy.




Our run through the haunted house was sheer bad*ss awesomeness! Like A LOT!! There was blood, gore, demons, monsters, horrors leaping out of the shadows, vibrating floors, flashing lights, a maze of grody body bags, and—most surprising of all—inflating walls which rapidly pressed in on us from all sides at once and tried to crush us as we ran screaming through the hallways.


Wow.


Just WOW.


I loved it. LOVED!!!! IT!!!! It was phenomenal and, hands down, the best haunted house I have ever been in. I just couldn’t stop laughing our entire way through. Laughing, screaming, and running through the dark—what bliss! I felt utterly exhilarated at the end of it. It was so much fun!


Or at least I thought so.


As for my darling Wednesday? Well…. the haunted house turned out to be a bit too intense for the poor girl, who had been hoping to see something more along the lines of the cutsie Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, not something straight out of a horror film. She’s still glad she saw it, but she has no plans to set foot in Ghostly Manor again.


Ever.


She still loved the dragon though and was perfectly happy to pose with Scope for a mock screaming picture as we left the manor.




(Hee hee hee.)


Once we got back to the rental house, Wednesday and I went looking around the place at all the knickknacks on display. We found a super-snazzy pair of old binoculars.




(God, I love that picture!  *giggle*)


And—hey, looky!—we also found a Harry Potter-ish cupboard under the stairs! AWESOME!!!!




That is sooooooooooo going to be my new Facebook profile, by the way. :-)


And then we relaxed on the swing in the backyard for awhile, whilst plotting our plans for Day 3.





[….to be continued….]





© Coracabana