Vida

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving!  Thanksgiving weekend was pretty amazing in my neck of the woods.  So without further ado, 15 notes from Thanksgiving weekend: 1. I love driving 55 to St. Louis and watching the number of Missouri license plates steadily increase.  Dear IDOT, Thank you for finishing construction on that bridge for my trip back to Chicago.   2. What up STL suburb bike lane! 3.  Yes, St. Louis is known for Anheuser-Busch, but there are a ton of micro breweries to check out!  Karen & I checked out a couple:  Urban Chestnut Brewing Company & Schlafly's. Urban Chestnut Brewing Company 's beers were like stepping into Germany!  I had a Zwickel and it was delicious.  Not to mention I loved the vibe and their decorations. Schlafly 's is somewhat of a local gem, which you can get bottled at most grocery stores so I had no idea upon arrival that they had SO MANY beers.  So many beers that you...

A couple weeks ago I was really excited to have Rubina over for my first craft night!   READY! It's just something that seems very "me."  I love spending time with people doing things and I love doing crafts.  Not only that, but it gives me a reason to take out my DSLR camera!  So having friends over for craft nights is something I think I want to continue doing and Rubina was nice enough to try the idea out with me.  When Rubina got here, we had dinner and then we sat down and got to work!   We made a photo transfer onto canvas, based on the instructions from A Beautiful Mess . Note:  I put the photos on the canvas with the gel medium the night before so they would be ready to go. rub-a-dub-dub Mine definitely did not turn out how I anticipated, but I actually ended up kind-of loving it for a completely different reason.  (I'll get into that in a bit.)  First of all, some things we learned while completing this DIY: whe...

Wow!  Last night's Said the Whale concert was exactly what I needed! I was feeling pretty run down and just plain tired, achy, wiped, insert your own tired adjective here.  However, I was excited for this concert and it did not disappoint, in fact it exceeded expectations! Rubina & I met in Logan Square, a neighborhood I love, but don't visit often enough. We had some delicious Mexican food @ Taqueria Mona.  It was seriously so good! Then we walked over to Township for Said the Whale.  The opener was Many Places & they were good, but damn Said the Whale.  Rubina & I walked out agreeing it was even better than expected! One of the main things I loved about the concert was their personalities showed through and they were having fun up there! Township is a small, intimate venue and there were about 75 people there.  Which I thought was pretty lovely. Great show in Chicago, thanks to all who came! We're drinking some d...

This week had tons of Cardinals happenings.   From Carp retiring   Carpenter's 15-year Major League career included a Cy Young Award, NL ERA title, Comeback Player of the Year, 3 All-Star nods & 144 wins. — St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) November 20, 2013 to Salas and Freese being traded .   #STLCards acquire OFs Peter Bourjos and Randal Grichuk from the @Angels in exchange for 3B David Freese and P Fernando Salas. — St. Louis Cardinals (@Cardinals) November 22, 2013 I have many feelings about all this happening.  I feel very sad about it, but I know it's the nature of the game.  And yes, it was a bit expected, but that doesn't make it better. Alright Grichuk, you made it a bit better.... Just got a chance to check my twitter.. Love all the tweets from the cardinals fans! I see why they say y'all are the best fans in the MLB!! — Randal Grichuk (@RGrich15) November 23, 2013 AND they extended Matheny's (manager) contract !  A...

A project that I recently fell in love with (well... within the past year) is Humans of New York .  (Thanks, Janie Rubes.) The book is on my christmas list and it's one of the gifts that if I don't get, I'm buying! I love to hear people's stories.  Maybe it is something that appeals to people who live in cities, since you walk by so many people everyday that you likely will never talk to, unlike small towns.  Brandon breaks down the walk by and smile or walk by and ignore type rule of living in a city and he tells a story about the person.  His talent for finding a beautiful/funny/interesting story from everyone is amazing. I think it's truly inspirational and is a great way to show, "don't judge a book by it's cover." "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "Taller!" You can follow on  Facebook for almost daily postings.  (Note:  I generally will read the caption he provides and ignore the comments because peop...

Happy Birthday, Dado! In honor of my dad's birthday, I'm going to share 3 stories... Happy Birthday to the 'port .  The guy who will even reluctantly wore a temp tatt at Charlie's 2nd birthday. Why do I say 'port?  This is how the story goes.  Before I arrived on earth Dad & Mom were going out to celebrate their anniversary and they were all dressed up to go out.  Mom got a new exercise band thing (I don't know, it had springs or something) and wanted Dad to try it out.  Jeff wanted Dad to use it.  So he said: Come on, Dad, be a 'port.  Dad was wearing his dress shoes, but he's not one to say no to his kids (don't get me wrong, we didn't get away with stuff and he told us no, but not concerning easy things like playing with an exercise band or spending some time with us). So he sets up the band under his dress shoe, pulls up, the band slips from under his shoe and he gets a very bloody nose.   Boom.  The phrase cont...

Have you watched When Harry Met Sally ? It's one of those movies that is just so good.  I thought it was good 10 years ago and I think it's even better now! Very small pet peeve:  at the very beginning of the movie they're leaving University of Chicago to drive to NYC and they are on the wrong spot of Lake Shore Drive, unless they took a strange detour.  I know I know, I get it. They wanted the skyline shot.   Anyway, I love that movie. And look at this hilarious reenactment! See more here ... Happy Friday!!! Anyone else ready for Thanksgiving break?