Vida

Zucchini is back and strong and I'm so excited! I went to Stanley's for my weekly vegetable run and saw they were $.69/lb.  $.69/lb!  Half my basket was zucchini. Every time zucchini season rolls around I make this delicious, easy, and quite healthy zucchini soup.  I'm sure I've mentioned it here before, but we all have a lot going on and a reminder never hurts. ;) So here it is courtesy of Food & Wine: Silky Zucchini Soup . I plan on making it at least once more before zucchini season ends. Fun tip:  if you have an immersion blender, the recipe is even easier!  I got mine from groupon years ago and it's still trucking along.

Over the weekend I ran my third half marathon.  Friends, it did not go well. These pictures were taken after the race when I decided I was not dead. My stomach was upset pretty much the whole run, but especially the first half and I have a cold.  (Summer colds, eh?) I still did it though.  I ran the whole thing and crossed the finish line. Feel free to read on if you're interested. It took me forever to settle in, pretty much half the run.  It usually only takes me 3 miles to settle in during a marathon.  So that was annoying.  The stomach issues were likely the cause.  I really thought cheese and I were becoming better friends, but that does not seem to be the case.   yep, even better after we sat on the ground for a half hour and with a drink in hand Around mile six, when I started to settle in, my body was like, 'oh hey, you've been neglecting me for six miles.  now you're going to be in pain.' So I was in pain the rest...

LouFest 2016.  Once again did not disappoint.   Karen & I found and started attending LouFest 4 years ago.  Really, only because Walk the Moon was playing and I was looking at their tour schedule.  Then the next year as we debated going, Grouplove AND Matt & Kim were playing, needless to say we went.  At that point the festival had completely sold itself and the lineup was a bonus.   So much good music and great vibes around there.  One of my favorite things about LouFest is finding new bands.  It's just such a great opportunity to see bands I already know close to the stage, like NAWAS, I would never be that close at one of their concerts. And just stopping by and discovering a fun, new band.  P.S. I would say half the upcoming bands live in Nashville.  Whew! I knew the most songs from St. Lucia and Wild Belle . Diarrhea Planet had a great set!  They were a bit harder than what I'd usually listen t...

Guys, things have been insane.  I'm at the typical point in my summer where I just feel exhausted.  And then I think, 'Good job, Lisa, you've done good with summer.'  Here in Chicago, where we have 4 months of lovely weather (in my opinion) a year, you have to make the most of it.  And every summer around this time, I start to feel the exhaustion set in. Also, I noticed during my wake-up call Wednesday, the days are getting shorter, friends.  Boo. So let's see, what have I been up to? Lots of time outside.  This whole central A/C thing in our new place is really throwing me off.  It's the first time I've had central A/C since I lived with my parents 11 years ago and I am not used to waking up and not immediately knowing what the weather is like.  So patios are all the sweeter. We moved!  We successfully moved.  Moving weekend was not fun at all.  Not at all.  But we saved so much money and I was s...

Some days just turn out to be more eventful than you planned. Saturday was one of those days. Mike & I walked to Filter Cafe, a coffee place near his place, for some breakfast.  I grabbed a Reader and we started flipping through it. We finished and I flipped the newspaper shut.  Then we looked at the full page ad on the back.  312's having a block party?  On goose island?  Matt + Kim are playing?  Jukebox the Ghost is playing?  Local H is playing?  It's not on goose island, it's in the west loop?  Hmmmm?  (This is a combination of what we said.) We were already planning to spend some time at Renegade Art Fair and go to his roommate's girlfriend's birthday party that night.  (Yes, I recognize that's confusing.)  So why not squeeze in a concert...?  Squeeze in we did. After finishing our breakfast at Filter.  (Have I mentioned before how my mood is so affected by the weather?  Let'...

LouFest by the numbers: 34 bands there for the weekend 20 bands we were able to check-out $50 tickets for the weekend approximately $2.50 per band perfect sunshine skies I think I would say Sunday's weather was the best LouFest weather I've ever experienced! So many bands, so many good people, such a good time. I walked into LouFest with a different mindset this year than years past.  There wasn't one band I am absolutely crazy about that I was so excited to see.  Was Billy Idol on my to see list?  No.  Did I absolutely sing and dance to "Dancing with Myself"?  Yep.  So even though I wasn't crazy about a band, I really enjoyed LouFest anyway.  Who can complain when your surrounded by so much music all weekend. Monday morning I got to work and after being quickly thrown into work by 11 I texted Mike.  "I wanna be back at LouFest" Sunday we got to the fest and decided to take our daily jump picture.  The lovely vol...

Oh man, this zucchini soup. I found a huge zucchini at my farmer's market Saturday for $2 or $3.  And this  Silky Zucchini Soup  was recommended.  It's such a simple recipe with a reasonable number of ingredients and it's delicious!  Pretty sure the zucchini I bought was more than a pound and a half...a little extra zucchini can't hurt. :) I used my immersion blender, instead of the standard blender, which I thought was a bit easier.  Dumping boiling food in a blender is a little scary (I have done it successfully before...somewhat).  Immersion blenders solve that problem.  It may take a few extra minutes, but in the end, it's much easier.  Win!

The summer is coming to a close and I am very sad to say good bye to my favorite season of the year.  Yes, my friends, we still have some left, but we're starting to round the corner.  (And the last couple weeks in Chicago have been chilly!)  All I can think about right now is LouFest, which I consider my end of summer (2 more weeks!) even though there's a lot happening within that time,  I rounded up a few of my favorite things from this summer (in no particular order) Italy  This one's a guarantee, right?  But aside from it being Italy I loved what one of my bosses said when I got back, "How special that you had that time with your parents and sister."  It's true.  It may never happen again.  I'm very grateful I had that time, bickering and all. Not to mention I don't feel like Chicago got very warm this summer.  This is where I got my heat for the year and it felt so good! ROME! (yes, I know I still need to recap our Italy trip...