Tag: Rachel Wilder

Illinois.  Home of the Pizza Wars, the Chicago Bears, the Lincoln Trail, and some pretty darn fine neighbors.  I\’ve made it my home since 1998 after moving here from the west coast.  Here\’s some things I\’ve learned about my adopted state:

1. Winters are cold here.  No, really – it gets down below zero!  And I had to learn what wind chill meant!
2. Pizza is Religion.  If you don\’t believe me, ask two Chicagoans which is the best Chicago style pizza, then tell them what the other one said.  Stand back.  There may be thrown fists.
3. Do not ever, and I mean EVER, order ketchup or grated cheddar cheese on a hot dog here.  ~shudder~
4. It\’s really, really, really, really, really flat in the Midwest.  For a mountain climber, this is disorienting.
5. Squirrels are mean when you have a dog.  This may not be unique to Illinois.
6. Our state capitol building has a silver cupola.  It\’s silver on the outside!  Totally cool.
7. We have a mostly Republican state with a densely populated urban area that votes Democrat.  The only other state like that is New York.
8. The Great Lakes, if considered together, are the largest fresh water source on the planet.  (Since they\’re considered five lakes, Lake Baikal in Russia is the largest.)
9. You can get very rural, very fast here – there are farms around Chicago within an easy drive of less than two hours.
10. College ball (as in, football) is religion here too.  I got yelled at by a manager at a former job because I said I was an Ohio State fan (my mom went to Ohio State and what the hell do I know about football??).  Turns out he\’s a Michigan alum – those Ohioans and Michiganers are nuts about their football.

I\’M SO READY FOR SPRING!

One thing about the weather here, though.  Me, I grew up in California.  If you want a garden or a lawn, you need a sprinkler system.  It\’s a subject of humor to see sprinklers running in the daytime when the heat of the sun is blazing down.  You can also see sprinklers watering the asphalt sometimes.

When I moved here to Chicago over fifteen years ago, I visited a friend at his home.  His lawn was a lovely, even green – and I couldn\’t see a single sprinkler!

\”Wow,\” I said.  \”Did you install a hidden sprinkler system or drip?\”

He looked puzzled.  \”Sprinklers?\”

\”For the lawn!\”

\”There are no sprinklers.\”  Superior tone.  \”We don\’t need them here.\”

Huh.  Imagine that.

This bundle of joy, immovable as the mountains and implacable as the tides, is Nadya.

Funny story about Nadya.  One day, my husband related to me a story of his day at work.  He\’d mentioned to a coworker that our eldest cat is named Boria, which is the diminutive for Boris.  My husband wished that we could have named our next cat Natasha, so that we\’d have Boris and Natasha, like in the old Bullwinkle cartoons.

\”Honey, Nadya is the diminutive for Natasha.\”

Silence.

\”Oh.\”

🙂

Eggs!  I love eggs.  They\’re one of my favorite foods; I could eat breakfast for breakfast, lunch, and dinner – do eat it for dinner on a fairly regular basis when I go out to eat, because it\’s better for me than french fries.  🙂

Eggs in our house mean Pysanky, the Ukrainian art of decorating eggs.  Thousands of years old, this art developed using very simple tools, wax, and dye – and the results are gorgeous!  My foray into this art form is in the picture, above.

To see the masters at work, check out the Ukrainian Gift Shop up in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Their artwork, and not just with eggs but embroidery and pottery too, is well worth a look-see.  If you want to try it for yourself, they have books and instructional materials as well as supplies.

What about you?

We got Coyote from the pound in 2007 and brought her home, our very own bouncing, baby dog.  She has fear aggression, which means she barks at folks she\’s scared of to try and convince them she\’s bigger than she is and back off, please, thankyouverymuch.  (It doesn\’t help matters that I can totally relate to this feeling.)

She\’s much better now, calmer and less prone to erupting in scary, Rottweiler eat-your-face snarling and barking, (her nickname when she was young was \”Snappy the Snarlmuffin\”).

This photo was snapped after our move, late last summer, and she\’s in her favorite position:  my side of the bed.

Hmph.

Of course, I have to feature my cat!  I have three, but this is the baby.  His name is Kolya and he\’s a ham.

Nadya is the middle and the only girl cat; she\’s sitting on my lap as I type this (but will be featured in a future post).

Boria is our bruiser, and he is our oldest boycat.  He\’s huge – not fat, but really, really muscular.  He can jump from the floor six feet into the air from a sitting start.  o.O…

Kolya\’s favorite thing to do, when I\’m working at my desk, is to stretch up on his hind paws and bat things off the surface of my desk.

We\’ll see if he survives to the end of the Challenge… 🙂

Of COURSE B is for Blogging!  After all, it\’s the A-Z Challenge, right?

I think blogging is one of the most awesome things to come out of the social media explosion.  Yes, Facebook is popular.  Instagram is everywhere.  Tweet is now a word for something you do on the internet.  But blogging is a game-changer.

Why?

Writers have always wanted to write and many of them want to share what they write.  Blogs allow us to do that in a self-driven way that sets us free from having to conform to, well, anybody\’s rules.  I\’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time as a blogger for the last six years and plan to continue for many more.

Blogging may go in and out of fashion, (last year, it was \”blogging is dead, move to Facebook,\” this year it\’s \”blogs are coming back because readers want actual content,\”), but regardless of that, I will keep going in my little corner of the Blogosphere.  That\’s not to say I\’ll ignore the others, just that I think blogging is fun, easy, and here to stay.

What about you?

Enjoy the April blogging challenge, and let me know if you\’re participating so I can visit you too!