Summer lovin'

Today marked Joe's first Friday off of the summer. (He will have every Friday off for the next couple months in exchange for working ten-hour days, Monday - Friday.) Today's Friday off meant a morning walk to Starbucks and then to the hardware store, yard work, a movie (X-Men: First Class) and going out for pizza. Can't wait to see what else our Fridays will entail.

African Violet Yumminess

I'm obsessed with this cake from Williams-Sonoma. I can't imagine spending $100 on a tiny (albeit, beautiful) cake but if anyone buys it, let me know if it's this lovely in person.

Facelift

My blog needed a mini-facelift after several years of looking exactly the same. Thanks, Nichole for the new header for the blog!

Memorial Day weekend

Things to love about this weekend:

• Joe taking off on Friday (Technically he took off the entire day but still worked half of it at the office...I'm counting that half day as a win! Nevermind that he was at the office working on Sunday...little victories.)
• Bridesmaids (seriously, hilarious)
• Curling up to watch a movie in the middle of a rain storm
• Napping
• Cooking cedar plank salmon on the grill
• Having dinner with friends
• A trip to Portillos
• Catching up on house work and yard work

Family dinner

It's been a very busy couple of weeks. My parents were here over the weekend and we were able to have my mom's cousin and her family over for dinner. We had a great time and delicious food. (I also got to serve 8 people on our beautiful, new table that just arrived the day before our guests!)

Clockwise: Joe, dad, mom, me, Adam, Declan and Terrie. (Kirk was our photographer.)



Monica's wedding

Monica and I met eons ago in Missouri and this weekend I was honored to be a part of her wedding in St. Louis. She was a gorgeous bride! Joe and I had a great weekend celebrating with Monica and Trinity, their family and friends. We arrived home on Sunday to company as Joe's dad and stepmom were here for a couple days visiting. Now back to reality for awhile until my parents arrive this weekend!


The photo booth was a big hit at the reception - along with the Ted Drewes frozen custard! Left to Right: Me and the bride; all of the bridesmaids; with Joe; Dorian and I. (Click to enlarge)



Back to reality

Joe and I did a local housewalk tonight that was an annual event for a local charity. Let me just tell you that I still haven't picked my jaw up off the ground. I wish I could show pictures to you of these amazing homes but of course pictures were forbidden and I'm sure would not do them justice anyway. One penthouse had a rooftop deck with a skyline view of Chicago. It was the kind of rooftop deck you see in movies, only it was someone's real life. We also saw statues from the Ming Dynasty and other artifacts that you typically find in museums and not in someone's living room. We saw a house featured in Better Homes & Gardens, an indoor lap pool, 1500 bottle wine cellar, theatre room and a kitchen as big as our entire house and closets almost as big. It was truly amazing. So interesting and so much fun to take a peek. Afterwards we continued the fun by getting Mexican food at a great new restaurant and catching a late showing of Thor. A little cheesy at times but overall it was a fun movie.

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.

Banana Smile

Joe's attempt at getting me to smile so early in the morning. (And for the record, anything before 9 am is too early.) 

Weekend project

New classes started this week so I am just now writing about our Joe's weekend project. Joe assembled these book cases and then sorted our books by genre. It was a LOT of work. In the process we got rid of about two boxes of books (for donation) and still have books elsewhere in the house. Yes, this is why I bought him a Kindle! At any rate, Joe is ecstatic to have his own basement library.

Kirill's Story

My friend, Sandi shared the most heart-breaking blog post today of a friend of hers from college and asked that people spread their story with the hope that someone, somewhere might be able to help. I am reposting it here for you to read: Kirill's Story.

Gadgets, gadgets and more gadgets

The hardest part of unpacking has been trying to find a place for all of my kitchen "stuff." I am a little obsessed with kitchen gadgets and live by the motto, "I need everything." So I crammed everything into the kitchen and even bought a Rubbermaid-type cabinet with doors for the garage to store punch bowls, various sizes of crock pots and servings pieces that I might need but rarely use. And just when I thought everything had a place, I found more stuff that needed to be put away. Oops.

So then today I wake up and Joe had left this newspaper article open on the table for me to read. Hmm. Talk about timing.

So maybe I don't really need a blender and a food processor or two different types of mixers, a mandoline, a bread machine (okay, that's actually Joe's), a griddle or half of the other stuff waiting to fall out when I open my cabinet doors. But I love cooking and I love cooking gadgets so I don't foresee any of them leaving my house any time soon.

By far, my favorite kitchen gadget is my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. I can't believe I actually used to mix things by hand. *Gasp* What's your favorite kitchen gadget?

Me on a mug

This mug came as a surprise in the mail on Friday from a friend. Have you ever seen a more perfect mug? Love it!! 

Moved

This is my first post from the new house! The movers did an excellent job (way better than the last time) and we got moved in less time than we originally thought. Now we are unpacking...one box at a time and we're making progress. We went to the townhouse tonight to clean for a couple hours and have some more stuff to pick up there tomorrow. I will be so glad when we are officially settled. I can't remember the last time I was this tired...definitely too much to do to take it easy.

Michael Jordan and all that Jazz

So far this has been an extremely productive and fun weekend. Friday night we took the dogs over to the new house and let them run around in the backyard. I think we definitely got their seal of approval. They loved the yard and were so happy to just run around. It made my heart swell to see them in their very own fenced in yard. Just wait until they realize they can do that every single day. Neighbors on both sides of us have dogs but Crumley and Iris handled it extremely well. Let's see how they do when they realize that yard is their turf.

Saturday we went back to the house to do more unpacking (the big move is on Thursday but I thought it would help to get the kitchen unpacked first) and Joe did some odd jobs. The biggest accomplishment was the carpet installers came - no more blue bedroom carpet!!

In hindsight we probably should have had the entire weekend free to finish up packing and do things that need to get done but a couple months ago I obviously wasn't thinking clearly and bought tickets to events both yesterday and today. Last night we went to see the Bulls play the Jazz. It was our first NBA game and we both had a great time. The 1991 team was honored at halftime to commemorate 20 years since that team won the 1991 championship. Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen were both there with the rest of the team. It was pretty amazing to be there and listen to the United Center cheer and go wild. I wish I had pictures to share.

Today we did more unpacking and work at the house but are now headed to see Fooling Buddha. This was part of Joe's Valentine's Day gift. Happy weekend!

And still nothing is packed

I had grand plans for today. It was going to be a Saturday with nothing to do so I knew Joe and I could spend the entire day packing and really get a lot of stuff done...the stuff we haven't managed to get done during the week because we've had no time. Then my plans were significantly altered. I got word yesterday from our landlord that four sets of people were coming to look at the townhouse today: 9:30 am, 11:30 am, 12:30 pm and 3:30 pm. So Joe and I left the house at 8:30 this morning, took the dogs to daycare (the vet) and made a day of it. First was Barnes & Noble so I could actually get some homework done, then we had lunch and then we went to a movie. After the movie we ran some more errands before picking up the dogs. Finally we made it back home and the house was still occupied at 4:15 so we parked down the street and waited...finally we are now home. Joe says that if anyone else wants to see the townhouse while we're still living here, he's claiming he has the flu.