And this, dear friends, is why you always read asterisked text in offers…

Upon initial examination and consultation with the SkyView app, I swore that bright light in the sky was the flaming gas giant better known as Uranus.

Nathan had some fun with one side of cousins yesterday. Fun that ended in a trip to Build-a-Bear at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg, IL.

IYKYK*

Have you ever experienced a complete taste overhaul on something you've eaten just by properly identifying what it was? Like, when you had it misidentified, the taste was so bad, you couldn't stomach it. But once you realized what it truly was, it was perfectly fine?

There’s nothing like walking back to your house after getting the mail and finding a completely random Pokémon card sitting there on your driveway.

Apparently today was the Day of Tree Felling in our neighborhood. No warning. No alerts. No notes on our door or the HOA Facebook page.

The purge continues at Kasa Kapgar. Today, while we didn't collect quite so much in the way of donations, we did get rid of a few things, but we focused on cleaning our master bedroom. A purge of filth, as it were. And while it was hard work -- lots of dusting, vacuuming, steam cleaning, rearranging, laundry, etc. -- it felt good. 

For a few years now, we had planned to get a new TV for our living room to upgrade from our 42” plasma to a 65” QLED for a better and larger picture. At that time, we’d move the 42” upstairs to replace our 32” LED in our bedroom.

This is appropriate, don't you think?

Today, Katie and I took Nathan to Water Tower Place in Chicago for the Harry Potter: Magic at Play event.

To our dearest Katie,

You are the most amazing wife, friend, partner, confidant, and mother these two otherwise hopeless boys could ask for. We love you with all our collective hearts (and then some). We’re not perfect, but we hope you can love us all the same.

I love my local parks department. The activities. The facilities. All of it. But my love can be tempered when those activities and facilities jack up their prices with no obvious benefit.

I am officially of the firm belief that human beings cannot handle organized religion.

Katie and I were cleaning up in the garage early this afternoon and put the door down after loading up some donations into her car. That’s when we heard the SNAP!

Wanna make the teller at your local bank smile, maybe even giggle a little bit?

Bad dates…

Tickets have been acquired for the Saturday of C2E2! We cannot wait! And Katie will be attending with us this year!

That’s one week down in 2023 and 51 to go.

Dammit, UPS!! When is my package arriving???? I know this says by 9 p.m. tonight, but as each minute wears on, I feel less and less confident this is actually going to happen today.

On NYD, we did some work on Nathan’s bedroom. Yesterday, we started work on our bedroom beginning with a purge.

I almost called a six-year-old kid an "insolent little fuck." And I would not have felt a single iota of remorse for it.

Hey all! Just a quick note wishing you and yours a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah (ending tomorrow), Happy Kwanzaa (starting tomorrow), and a Happy New Year!

This Mold-a-Rama I got at Brookfield Zoo last weekend is perfect for all kinds of situations. 

What I said yesterday about liars? That was a lie. There is one thing worse… liars that are proven wrong who then go on to live their life like nothing happened and never acknowledge their misdeed at all.

There’s no one I love more than a liar.

</sarcasm>

Tonight, we break into the annual list of Katie's and my favorite holiday films. I specify "Katie's and my" because there are plenty of films we share with Nathan and expand upon that list each year as he ages. For example, we introduced National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation to him last weekend. There will be others as well.

Every once in a while, we’ll catch our next door neighbor sitting outside smoking via our Nest doorbell cam. We’ll watch through the app as she sits there puffing and scanning her phone.

It's my Torii Hunter Day!

While I’ve always been bothered by those sticker families on cars, nothing bothers me more than when those “families” are ill considered before being applied to a cars rear window. 

Instructions are boring. Necessary, but boring. And, more often than not, they’re incredibly poorly written.

I planned to get involved in Movember this year. Just grow out the ‘stache for fun and then clear cut it all at the end of the month.

I just realized I never shared a picture of us in our family Halloween costumes! We decided to play off Nathan’s C2E2 costume and went as DC Comics villains.

Well crap. There goes my world again.

Oh Aldi, you win.