Chicago, Milwaukee, and BIG FUN

Well, I can't lie...I had a super duper amazing weekend in Chicago and Milwaukee! And now I will rehash all of it.

On Friday...Lisa, Randy and I went out to dinner at the 44th Ward Dinner Party. We all had high hopes, as it is a grilled cheese restaurant (!!!), but to be honest, it fell a little flat. We had amazing apps, but it took over an hour for our grilled cheese to come. Considering the size of the place (it was tiny!), we started wondering if they were cooking everything on a tiny George Foreman grill or something. It was weird. We had a really sweet waitress, however, who felt badly that we had to wait so long. She generously brought us a free dessert ... which had a giant hair in it. Blech.

On Saturday, I ran out to my car to grab sunglasses and saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up, and - surprise! A coyote trotted right by me on the sidewalk. I was totally confused and surprised. For a second I thought it was a dog, and then realized that he was a coyote. How weird is that??! Right in the middle of Chicago! I am still giggling about my coyote run-in. Definitely one of the weirder things that have happened to me!

Anyway...on Saturday, Lisa and I drove up to Milwaukee and met Jenn!!!!! We had SUCH a great time. From the second we met Jenn, it was like we were old friends. We spent around 5 hours hanging out in Milwaukee, eating and shopping and just generally having fun! I can't wait until we can meet up again. Jenn is every bit as funny, beautiful, and awesome as you think she is.

We stopped at a resale shop and I managed to find this KILLER dress for the holiday party she was going to that evening.

Maroon velvet? CHECK. Green taffeta? CHECK. Asymmetrical hemline? CHECK. Sleeves that come to a point? CHECK. Sadly, Jenn later shared with us that it was too itchy to wear sans bodysuit...so I look forward to photos from the 2010 holiday party. :)

We also found these KIND OF AMAZING "fur" coats. I have a much better photo of us in them, but for some reason blogger will only load it sideways (?). Sad face. This photo caught us mid-laugh, with Jenn mid-hair tuck.

We were sad to leave Milwaukee and just had such a fun time. But...we did eventually leave and headed to the outlets in Wisconsin on the way back to Chicago. Got a few good little things...mostly socks for work (wow, fun!) and some festive holiday soaps from the Bath and Body Works outlet. Score. Oh, and a few little treats for Matt. Shhh, don't tell. They're secret. :)

SO. That was Saturday. We got home and watched the season finale of Glee (okay, I had already seen it...but was desperate to watch it again. HOW FREAKING GOOD WAS THAT EPISODE??!). And then promptly fell asleep.

Sunday morning, we woke up and went to brunch at the Serbian-owned restaurant on the first floor of Lisa's apartment building. It was delish! Then, Lisa and I headed downtown for a chocolate tour. To be honest...the tour was pretty annoying. The tour guide announced right away that she was an actress (gah) and it kind of went downhill (read: overly cheesy) from there. We did, however, go to an amazing chocolate place - Teuscher, located at the 900 shops on Michigan Ave. Teuscher is a Swiss chocolate company, and they import their chocolate every week from Swizterland! Their specialty is the champagne truffle...amazing chocolate with a Dom Perignon center. They gave us one truffle to sample and it was AMAZING. I bought a couple more to take home for Matt. Lucky boy!

The other good place we went to is called More, and is a cupcake shop. Delicious. It is located...um, somewhere in the Viagra Triangle. On Delaware I think. They gave us each a teeny tiny mini chocolate cupcake, and it was great. The frosting was PERFECT. :) Highly recommended!

After that, Lisa and I shopped around a bit more in the Water Tower Mall and I scored some super duper cheap hair accessories at Forever 21. I finally thought I should leave at 5:00 (6:00 my usual time!) when I realized I wouldn't get home until 10. Double sad face...I was tired!

I made it safely home, though, and now am counting down the seconds until around 2:35 on Friday - which is when my vacation starts!!!! It's about this time (and, okay, pretty much every day) that I really love working in a school!

I hope you all had weekends as wonderful as mine!

My New BFF: Jen Lancaster

I realize that all of you have been blogging about Jen Lancaster's books for FOREVER, but I have only recently jumped on the bandwagon. Let me just tell you...I LOVE HER! Her sense of humor is just spot on, and I find myself laughing out loud every 5 seconds when I'm reading. To the point that it's likely annoying my husband.

I am in the middle of reading Bright Lights, Big Ass and it is just so damn funny. What I love most about Jen (yes, I feel that we're on a first name basis) is that the stuff she writes is so freaking REAL. Stuff that you've thought to yourself a million times. Or maybe it's just that my sense of humor is almost exactly like hers? Not sure. Either way, I've got to share an excerpt that keeps making me giggle.

"The second prong in my revised Trinity is IKEA, the Swedish home store monolith. If you're unfamiliar, they carry every single thing you could possibly ever need to fill your home and garden at low, low prices, but in obscure Swedish sizes so those items won't coordinate with anything else you own, like, way, if you want to put a regular Target lamp shade on your IKEA lamp. Fletch thinks it's Sweden's master plan to make Americans so busy trying to construct furniture with Allen wrenches that we don't notice they've invaded us. (Personally, I think it's payback; the Swedes are pissed that we aren't buying ABBA albums anymore.) ... Except possibly Las Vegas, there's no better place to people-watch than our IKEA. Were the FBI to pay attention to my helpful suggestions (or return my calls), they'd know to set up a camera at the front door, because at some point every single person on the face of the earth eventually passes through it. I don't care how rich or poor you are, the draw of purchasing twelve hundred tea lights for thirty-seven cents is too great for anyone to resist."

Seriously...go to the library/bookstore. Check out/buy Jen Lancaster's books. I desperately want to be her real-life BFF.

In other news...I'm heading out of town on Friday (yep, again!) to Chicago/Milwaukee! I am TRES excited. I'm driving up to Chicago on Friday afternoon for a fun weekend with Lisa. On Saturday morning, a good friend of mine from Boston will also be in Chicago, so I'm going to have breakfast with her while Lisa has to work for a few hours...and then, L and I are heading to Milwaukee for the rest of the day to FINALLY meet and hang out with Jenn!!!!!!!!! I don't remember when/how Jenn and I discovered each other's blogs...or who discovered what first. All I know is that the we became fast bloggy friends, and our relationship has evolved from blog commenting to constant emailing/Facebooking/Tweeting/IMing. Yep, it's out of control. We prefer to use 2+ modes of communication at once.

ANYWAY, the point is, I'm excited. You should be too. Expect photos.

Too Funny

My mom emailed me this forward last night. She usually doesn't send them, and I don't usually read them, but ... I just had to share this one with all of you, especially considering how much time we all spend on the computer.

I understand this information is true whether your have a Mac or Pc.

INSTALLING HUSBAND‏

A woman writes to the IT Technical support Guy

Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and I noticed a distinct slowdown in the overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jeweler applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NEWS 5.0, MONEY 3.0 and CRICKET 4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and House cleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5..3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I do?

Signed,

______ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________ _________

Reply

DEAR Madam,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme. html and try to download Tears 6.2 and do not forget to install the Guilt 3.0update.
If that application works as designed, Husband1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewellery 2.0 and Flowers 3.5..

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Silence 2.5 or Beer 6.1.
Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad program that will download the Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever you do, DO NOT under any circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0 program. These are unsupported applications and will crashHusband 1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly.
You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance.
We recommend: Cooking 3.0 and Hot Looks 7.7.

Good Luck Madam!

IT SUPPORT DESK

What a great Sunday!

Well friends, yesterday was truly fantastic. I spent most of the day with my friend Alyssa, her brother and her dad at the Colts game! This was my first time to Lucas Oil Stadium AND my first NFL game. Woot! We had a blast, along with some amazing tickets - on the 25 yard line, 14th row. Double woot! I clearly took a ton of photos.

Stretching!

Oh, well hello there, Peyton Manning. :)

The Colts whipping the Titans

Number 32 = Mike Hart! Anyone remember him from Michigan? Love him!

Well hello AGAIN, Peyton.

The Colts game was a full day activity in itself...I left at 9am and got home at 6pm. When I walked in the door, I was thrilled to see our friends Ryan, Amber, and their baby Jaida! Remember them from this post? Look how much Jaida has grown!

Me, 3 seconds after coming home from the Colts game. Tired, and not my best look.

My FAVORITE photo. Oscar had never seen a baby before, and we weren't sure how he would react. Likewise...I was hoping Jaida wouldn't be frightened of him. He got right in her face and sniffed her all over with tail wagging. He just loved her! Couldn't get enough. It was SO cute.

Jaida's first dinner out at Motherbear's!

Jaida loved the Christmas tree...so Matt took her over for a closer look.

Ahhhh that chubby little face!

Ryan and Matt, BFFs for several years (Ryan was Matt's best man, and vice versa). Cute!

If you look closely, you'll see all of our piles of crap. We were (are) in the middle of changing from fall decorations to Christmas. I'm ALMOST done. Promise. :)

Ryan turned our dining room table into a makeshift changing table, and then he and Matt grabbed some beer and hung out under the mistletoe. :)

Reaching for a beer...haha!

Peekaboo!

Seriously...have you ever seen such a cutie??!

Oscar says goodbye to his new BFF

Seriously...most fun day in a long time! But I am still exhausted. Sometimes, you just need a weekend to recover from the weekend, you know? :) How was YOUR weekend??

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

*photo found here*

...around town. The lights are up around the square downtown, several people have lights up outside their houses/apartments, SUVs have bows on them...all the signs are there.

But not at our apartment...we still have Indian corn hanging from the front door, pumpkin candles, and gourds on display. For some reason, I just can't seem to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Not sure why exactly, but I seriously think that part of it may be the unseasonably warm weather we've been experiencing all fall. It is December in the midwest, and I just now brought out my winter coat. We turned the heat on for the first time on Tuesday. I just now got some hot chocolate.

Last night I spent around two hours trying to make a Christmas list for my MIL. The whole time, I just couldn't figure out why it was so damn hard! Is it because my entire family is basically skipping Christmas this year? Maybe, although thankfully we will still be celebrating with my in-laws, so hopefully the Christmas spirit will hit me eventually...?

Yesterday, I decided it was time for Christmas to start around here, officially. This weekend I'll be cleaning up/packing away all of the fall decorations, and we're going to get a Christmas tree! We didn't get one last year, so it will be our first tree in two years. I am starting to get excited about unpacking all of our decorations and ornaments...plus, a Christmas tree makes everything look so warm, happy, and fun...don't you think? Once we get the Christmas tree set up and decorated, I'm going to wrap my Christmas presents EARLY and actually put them under the tree...what a novel concept!

Is anyone else having trouble getting into the Christmas spirit this year?

New Friends

I don't know how you ladies feel, but I for one think that the older I get, the harder it is to make friends. I have lived in Bloomington for just over a year now, yet I can count my (new) close friends on one hand. Okay, I have about 3. I'll add 2 more as friends-I-don't-hang-out-with-outside-of-work-but-I-still-like-quite-a-bit. So...5 friends. At the same time, the older I get...the less friends I feel like I need. It's far more important to me to have just a couple of really good, close friends than several "surface" friends. Thoughts?

Of course, at the same time, not a day goes by that I don't miss my girlfriends back in DC. It doesn't seem like that long since we moved away, but all of a sudden I realize that it's been over a year. So many things have changed ... one got married, several others are pregnant, and I just feel like I'm missing so much. I loved working with such a great group of girls...work itself was challenging, frustrating, and often crappy, but having that awesome support system really helped us make it through the day.

When we moved to Indiana...I felt so lonely. And really, I still do. But you know what? So many of you have helped me make it through my days here. I have email friendships with so many of you...it seems weird sometimes that we don't know each other in person! On that note...I am excited beyond WORDS to meet Jenn next weekend...I mean, BEYOND WORDS. I know, you are jealous. Although it seems weird to "meet" someone you already email/tweet/blog/google chat with on a daily basis. What constitutes actually meeting somebody, you know?! :)

Anyway, my new Bloomington friends are awesome and I'm SO happy to have met them (Alyssa, Becky, and Patty, I'm talking to you!). It feels great to have a few girlfriends here, and to start creating some girl night rituals (Thursday nights with Alyssa have quickly become tradition!). I'm also SO excited to have a girls adventure on Sunday (with Alyssa again!) to the Colts game!!! Yessssss! Excitement!

Have your views of friendship changed over the years? Do you think it's harder to make friends the older you get? I certainly think that if you can't make friends at work, it is SO difficult. This is definitely the first time I have had difficulty making friends. Moving is SO much harder than I ever knew.

Anna's Baby Shower!

Here are some photos from the baby shower I threw for my BFF Anna two weekends ago!

Anna and me. Isn't she gorgeous? She is the most beautiful pregnant girl I have ever seen!

Baby shower cupcakes! Delish!

Half of our guests at the fun bistro

Restaurant shot. How cute is this place???!!!

Favors! We had pretty soaps and these ADORABLE cookies from Etsy seller Sugar & Flour.

Blurry close-up of another cookie. They were so cute!!!

The restaurant made these personalized menus - so cute!

We wanted to help start Baby Mae's library, so everyone brought children's books as part of their gift.

How cute is this? One of Anna's friends made this diaper cake. It's so cute! Plus she had never done it before...just looked up directions on the internet.

All the goodies afterwards!

This is the awesome diaper bag I gave Anna. She will be such a hip mom!

And back at their house...Baby Mae's bedroom, complete with shower gifts!

Anna and her husband Tim looking all cute on their front porch

New house!

It was a fabulous weekend...I cannot wait for Mae Felicity to arrive on or around February 2nd!!!!