Daydreaming

All of this royal wedding talk has me feeling a little nostalgic. Back in 2004, I spent two weeks visiting a friend in Italy who was living abroad for a year. On my way home I had a 16 hour layover in London. Most of that layover was overnight so I got a hotel room near the airport and got some sleep, however, I was adventurous enough to take the tube into the city for a couple hours. The one place I thought I couldn't miss was Buckingham Palace so that's exactly where I went. I stood at the fountain, snapped pictures of the palace and just stood in awe for awhile. I even visited the official gift shop. Afterwards, I decided to make my way to Westminster Abbey. I walked around aimlessly for awhile and even stopped to ask for directions but somewhere I must have made a wrong turn. Finally it was getting dark and I didn't think a young, American girl should be wandering around alone in the dark so I gave up and made my way back to the tube and to the hotel. That was my one and only big adventure in London. Hopefully another more promising London adventure awaits me in the future.

My new ride

Mazda CX7

Goodbye old friend

Today I cleaned out my car and gave my title to the insurance company in return for a check. Even though we were going to trade it in before too long anyway, it was really sad for me. I never expected to have to leave it in this kind of condition and it was a very dependable car; I definitely felt sentimental today. I bought that car all by myself with only 4 miles on it and it had seen me through many changes over the past nine years. I had that car before I even knew my husband. But I guess all good things must come to an end. The search for something new? Exhausting. Looking under pressure? Really exhausting.

Weekend adventures

Just around the first of the year, I was reading the newspaper when I came across a story about a Chicago street photographer, Vivian Maier, whose work looked amazing. (It's quite a story but the gist is that she had some negatives and prints in a delinquent storage locker that got auctioned off, someone bought them and sorted through them, finally did a search on her name and she had died just days earlier.) Her work has been on exhibit in Chicago and immediately upon reading the article, I told Joe that I had to see it. Fast forward a couple weeks later and I received an email from my friend, Laura in Missouri telling me that she'd just read about this exhibit in Chicago and I should check it out. Do you see why we're friends?

It didn't take much convincing but Laura and I decided we'd see the exhibit together. It seems like this weekend has been planned out forever because it sort of has been. Throw in buying a house, moving and Laura's own schedule and we finally settled on seeing the exhibit the very last weekend it was running. She got into town Friday just hours after my car accident so it was the perfect distraction. Yesterday we went to see, "Finding Vivian Maier" at the Chicago Cultural Center. (Definitely check out her work online.)

Laura and I also had lunch at the famous Billy Goat before heading to Sanrio in search of some Hello Kitty love.

We also ran into people handing out free Peeps. Gotta love free Easter candy! (If you haven't tried the Peepsters you should because they are amazing and I have never been a Peeps fan.) 

I first spotted this car from across the street and I couldn't figure our what was on top of it. Laura soon yelled, "PEEPS!!"

Yesterday was also International Pillow Fight Day so we witnessed a random pillow fight on Michigan Ave. See how much fun Chicago can be?

Sigh.

First of all, I AM OKAY. The people who were in the car that I hit are OKAY - that's the most important thing out of this mess. Coming home from the hospital today it was both raining and snowing, I saw the car in front of me stopped so I put my brakes on and kept sliding and sliding and sliding. I knew it was going to happen before it happened. Ugh. I fully expect my car to be totalled but I am praying that it is not. It's paid off ...and I'm sure if it is totalled I will get absolutely next to nothing for it since it's around 9 years old.