medicine 

Medicine bottles are being delivered this morning by the US postal service, along with a flyer that says "This is only a test!"  You should have a sealed empty medicine bottle in your mailbox today.  Ours came a short time ago.  The test is being conducted in a few Minnesota zip codes: 55101, 55102, 55411. 55422 

The Medicine drop is a test by the Minnesota department of health to test how quickly emergency medicine could be dropped off. 

It even has a child proof cap and apparently no one is going to test how long it would take to remove the cap in an emergency or even in a non-emergency.  

schmidt

You can find faded signs on buildings most anywhere in the twin cities.  This little building in over on State street . . I think . .  on the West side of St. Paul.  We used to make Schmidt beer in the brewery on West 7th street. 

 I love the curbside recycling program in St. Paul.   I get rid of a lot of stuff that way.  They come by every Friday and pick it up. 

Recycle Bin

Cans (aluminum and steel)
Glass Bottles & Jars (all colors)
Mixed Paper (including mail, office paper, envelopes, magazines, and boxboard like cereal and toothpaste boxes)
Newspaper
Corrugated Cardboard (including takeout/delivery pizza boxes. Read important instructions)
Plastic Bottles (#1 and #2 bottles only - no other plastics!)

Clean, dry, reusable Clothes & Linens

To get one of the nifty blue tubs you need to contact your district council.

if you don't have curb side recycling where you live move to St. Paul.

Two events one weekend. Take a tour of real homes, real people, real ideas Saturday, April 28 & Sunday, April 29, 2012 to find examples and get ideas by touring 60 homes on the 2012 Minneapolis St. Paul Home tour.  These are not Realtor type open houses that are for sale but a chance to look at what our neighbors have done with their homes. The tour is from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday and 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM on Sunday. 

 It is St. Paul Art crawl weekend.   Noon to 8:00 PM today and Noon to 5:00 PM on Sunday.   Much of the event is in downtown St. Paul and you can go to the lowertown area near the Farmers market and kind of follow the balloons and banners.  There are events outside of downtown too.  The details and maps are on the Art Crawl site.  It is a unique and fun event. 

art crawl 2012

I will be at both events and working part of the weekend.  I 'll have to rest up on Monday. 

Dale Near Grand

 Have you seen those green bikes around the Twin Cities?  They even made it to St. Paul and there are stations along Grand Avenue, Marshal and University Avenue. 

The bikes are big and heavy and are designed to be used for running errands or for short trips and they are conveniently located near public transportation.  The name of the program is Nice Ride the bikes are available from April to November.   

The kiosks take credit cards and it is just $6 dollars to get started.  If the bike is returned to a kiosk every 30 min there are no additional charges otherwise the prices start at $1.50 per half hour and they go up to $65 for an entire day.   They are not meant to be rented for the day but to be borrowed for short trips.  

Sadly there are no stations in downtown St. Paul and even though the station in the pictures is on Grand and Dale and there is a sign advertising that downtown is just down the hill personally I would not take it down because it would be very difficult to get the bike back up the steep river bluff  and there are no stations downtown. 

There are maps at the stations and there is even a mobile app that works on a phone and will show where the closest stations are.   The Twin Cities are a great place to bike because we have an excellent trail system which makes it possible to get around without having to always share the road with cars. 

Nice Ride Bike

Yellow Roses

The roses are and have been blooming in the park by the High bridge.  Roses don't bloom in Minnesota in mid-April in fact we get blizzards in April.  I was so surprised to see them.  Everything is about a month early even the weeds.

The Covington inn

There are house boats along Harriet Island and people do live there.  You don't need a Realtor to buy a house boat.  They are not considered real estate.  The Mississippi River would not be a bad place to live.  You can find a boat slip through through the St. Paul Yacht club.