Tag Archives: illinois

Shopping Sherpa

The Shopping Sherpa: Hitting Home

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handmade "homes" from Etsy

All our travels (past & pending), along with all the holiday hullabaloo, have stirred up a bit of home pride in this southern transplant. The longer I’m away from Arkansas, the stronger my southern roots seem to grow. But with my ties to other states, from Louisiana to Illinois and from Virginia to California, I feel at home wherever we seem to wander.

Clockwise from top left: { Homestead Print from Beauchamping }  { i heart Missouri Necklace from Truche }  { Home Canvas Papercut from The Time is Now }  { Illinois State Pillow from love,california }

Out & About

Out & About: The Spice House

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The Spice House, Geneva, Illinois

I’ve been relying on The Spice House even before moving to Chicago. So when I needed to get a whole lot of allspice, I knew exactly where to go.
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A Westervin Wedding

Westervin Wedding: Inboden’s

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This weekend, we drove out west to my parent’s and also stopped at Inboden’s Meat Market. Inboden’s is a small butcher shop and grocery store in Dekalb, Il with a really great selection of products. Plus, they cater events. See where I’m going with this?

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A Westervin Wedding, Needle Drop

A Westervin Wedding: Truman’s Ridge

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A Westervin Wedding: Truman's Ridge Bluegrass Band

So most weddings have music, but guess what? Our wedding is going to have music, too! Shocking, right? Anyway, we were having some trouble thinking of what to do that could fit our Ozark-Mountain-romance-meets-punchy-geometry theme, when lo and behold we heard the plaintive melodies of a banjo in the distance. Well, by distance I mean across the street from my parents house. Turns out their neighbors are part of  a local Sycamore, IL bluegrass band called Truman’s Ridge. What fortuity! The picture above is from Homer Harvest Days, where we saw them earlier this fall. They seemed to have a lot of fun playing and had a great range of classic bluegrass numbers and some original songs.

Just to get all of you in the bluegrass mood, here’s a classic from the Stanley Brothers:

Out & About

Out & About: Plank Road Orchard

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Plank Road Orchard apples in Sycamor, IL
Despite the fact that our car was hit on Saturday morning (we were just fine), we managed to make it out to Sycamore, IL (home of my parents, among other things) and visit Plank Road Orchard. I had been wanting to pick some apples and grab some apple cider (donuts) for a little while now. Unfortunately, U-Pick apple season was over, but they still had lots of bagged apples, fresh cider, and all the other apple-y things that you might expect to find at an orchard.
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Out & About

Out & About: Homer Harvest Days

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As we mentioned yesterday, Brian and I made a trip out to Homer Glen, IL (with the rest of the West clan) for the annual Homer Harvest Days. Why, you ask? Because we’re not couch potatoes, dammit! (I have to keep reminding myself.) But the real reason was to check out the band we might have at our wedding. More on that later! And somewhere between dragging myself out of bed on a rainy Saturday morning for a 1 1/2 hour drive out of the city and plopping my tired rear on the couch for an Angry Birds marathon, we had quite a bit of fun. Old school fun. Like, outside. With other people.

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