Inflatable Penguins Finally Found

Of course, I find the only things I couldn't find after we moved to Alabama after I no longer have a place to use them. The same box also had some more insulators, which I never would've noticed were missing, but I do now have an idea for displaying them all.

Mom tries to explain why her electric bill is higher

This morning I told Mom their one bedroom electric bill was twice as much as the one for Mik and I's two bedroom.  She immediately came backs with, there's two of us living here. Um, yeah, there's two of us living in our place, too, and we're actually both home way more. The real difference is they keep the thermostat at 73 and we haven't even turned ours on since she moved to their place beginning of August.

Dumbo flying in the kitchen

Today I was putting away and organizing some of the stuff that had been piled in the dining room as part of the move and I came across my Dumbo popcorn bucket. I am currently pretty much out of space to display stuff in our Disney themed kitchen, so I decided to hang it on the light. I had used that as a hat rack when we first moved in and Mik did not like that. Now to see how long until he actually comes to the kitchen long enough to notice Dumbo and uses his veto power again.

Redoing Corona Cooler

For years we have been meaning to repaint the Corona cooler, since after years of being outside in Arizona it looked pretty worn. Before we moved it from Alabama to our condo in Virginia, we decided now was the time to finally repaint it while we still had outdoor space for such projects. Dad did a great job of sanding it and spray painting it red.

Originally, Dad wanted to make it Coca Cola themed with stickers, but I told him we are no longer doing that since Mik and I have our porch Disney themed. (There are penguins in Mary Poppins, so having my penguin army out there fits the theme, right? At least that's my argument should Mik ever notice I put them all out there instead of storage like we had originally discussed.)

Listening to Alabama, Driving through Tennessee

About time Dad finally gets why I wait until we get to Tennessee to play my Old Alabama playlist. I started the playlist with "Old Alabama" and it took him until the fifth song Tennessee River for him to think we were listening to Alabama because we were driving along the Tennessee River.  Start playlist over and he gets it is actually inspired by a line in a Brad Paisley song ("listenin' to old Alabama, driving through Tennessee").

Mom showing off her new Metro knowledge

After telling Mom how the CTA continues to thwart me and that partly had to do with having issues with the app I tried to get to help, Mom decided to show me how she discovered how to use an app (Google Maps?) to plan a Metro trip and more specifically know when the next train was coming to the station. Really like that is something new?

For one, I used to do that all the time when I was at American University and then later when I lived in Virginia as well as the multiple times we have visited over the years. I even have an app for the DC Metro, but I rarely use it because I have that Metro mostly memorized and when I do find the need to plan a trip to be somewhere by a specific time I tend to use the website.

Secondly, Mom thought the feature of knowing when the next train was most helpful when she was leaving the condo. My first comment was why not just look at the TV in the lobby when you get off the elevators on your way out? She agreed that was actually most convenient, but she only discovered that the TV had that info a few days ago.

Oh, and my CTA misadventure no longer seems that bad when it took Mom twice as long to get to the Condo and she got off at the right stop and knew where she didn't take the scenic route. Well, actually along the river was more scenic, so...

CTA continues to thwart me

I can't decide whether I dislike Chicago because I always get lost using the public transit or I am unable to learn the efficient way to get to the condo because I dislike Chicago.  Probably the later as it took only one day trying to get to Versailles to learn the Paris Metro at 13 when I knew little French or experience using public transit, so after 7 years and lots of experience one would think I could at least get from the airport to the condo.  Well, I can, but it takes almost as long as the flight.