May 30, 2011

memorial day weekend

We went to Portland and bbq'd on Saturday night. It was great seeing our families; this barbecue was the first time our families had met. It was a whirlwind trip. I'm now sitting in our dining room, watching Lev switch Mac keyboards over and over again (he can't get the number pad to work on one of them; it worked fine for me--who knows).

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

May 23, 2011

May 22, 2011

how I spent my weekend.

Today I watched like 5 episodes of thirtysomething. How 1980s-adult of me, right? ok, but the weird thing here (and this IS weird) is that these "thirtysomethings" are the same age as Lev and I...and they were the same age as our parents when the show was filmed. So if my math is right, that means that in 25 years I'll be done with my thirties, in a major way. We better get with the program!

I did go to the park with friends today (it was so beautiful), and yesterday I had lunch with an old friend. But the thirtysomething revelation...that may take all of next weekend to process. Or it would, but Lev and I are in Portland.

xo

May 20, 2011

the Y and the how

Levy and I are joining the YMCA today when I get off of work. He's a basketball fanatic and I'm a person in dire need of a workout that is not the Bar Method (sorry Burr Reynolds, but the same workout vid all the time does not a happy girl make).

I need to envision myself working out at a particular gym before I join. This was why I was the world's happiest bike commuter--I was exercising without having to think about it, go into a locker room, or set aside this or that block of time. Unfortunately, biking to work isn't an option any more, but I'm really trying to just see myself as a gym person and base my exercise regimen off of that.

So this is me, seeing myself working out at the Y...taking yoga...participating in a dance class...waiting to shower until I get home because I hate showering at the gym... All while Lev ecstatically plays basketball. Is it just me, or is life harder for girls?

May 19, 2011

drip dry

Ok so I think that my prime creativity-blogging-writing impulse happens at around 11 in the morning. Of course, now that I'm very busy I can't cave to that impulse and blog (and this is where my mother says, "well GOOD! because you shouldn't be blogging at work. In fact, you shouldn't even be TALKING about blogging at work"). Which is why I'm making it extremely clear: I don't blog at work. Even though sometimes I'd love to.

Today I didn't have to pick Lev up from work (he drove). I got to relax once I got home. I got to read! I got to talk on the phone to my very best friend in the whole world (and my maid of honor) for an hour! Yes, we talked while I was driving but she was on speaker phone! I wasn't breaking the law! I think I'm going to advocate for Levy driving to work.

We got a new kitchen faucet today. It's awesome--it doesn't drip AND now the water drains with gravitational pull (instead of looking like the swollen Mississippi river for about 10 minutes). So, let's see--I don't blog at work, this afternoon I got some time to myself to do whatever I wanted, and my kitchen sink is fully functional. Today was great!

May 18, 2011

nail wednesday

I promise I did something other than my nails today. I line-edited 34 pages! But I also got my nails done. Grey like the sky...

May 15, 2011

sunday shopping hysteria

I signed on to go dress hunting with my friend Laura because she is graduating next Sunday and wants to look nice. Nothing wrong with that--I wish I'd put a little more thought into my graduation ceremony. My look was "hangover and Vans." And I remember that my hair was so so so dirty and it was all just a big no. So yay for Laura, getting it together with the dress, and double yay for Laura getting a fellowship as well.

Which brings me to what we did today--shopped until we almost threw up. And still no dress. We started at Urban Outfitters, where everything is completely overpriced and total junk; we went to H&M where I found what I'm going to wear at my brother's wedding, but still nothing for Laura; and then we went to Macy's, where we got "Macy's Madness," which basically means that the ugliest stuff starts looking doable. Finally we ended up at Anthropologie where everything is from Urban Outfitters but the baseline price is $198. I spent my $50 gift card on an on-sale sweater ($29.99, marked down from $168.00 oh my god that store is ridiculous) and two mugs, one with the letter J and one with the letter L...and he says I never get him anything! Those mugs were $8 each. With tax, I ended up spending $0.47 at Anthropologie--which is $0.47 more than they deserve for being so outrageously overpriced.

Still no dress for Laura though. Apparently, we don't know how to shop! Even the thought of going back downtown is enough to make me kick a squirrel right now. I wish her the best in her quest for a dress, but I don't ever want to shop again.

On the bright side, Lev is cooking dinner tonight--Italian meatballs! Whoop! And I'm making a vegetable fricassee. Kale me up!

May 14, 2011

saturday stuff

Today I got creative and made a very large, fully lined grocery/whatever I feel like using it for bag. I got the fabric a while ago.
homemade grocery bag
It is freezing cold in Chicago. What is going on, sky? We had the hottest heat wave, and I insisted that Lev take the air conditioner up from our basement storage unit and install it, and then it got cold. Now our apartment is the only-only-only one with an a/c unit in the window and Lev's embarrassed. Which is a polite way of saying that I'm embarrassed. I'm seriously hoping that I didn't jinx summer by installing the a/c too early. It is 50 degrees outside. 

Last night for date night we watched the Harry Potter movie. I'm not exactly "in" to Harry Potter--about seven years ago I read the first three books when I was sick for a couple days but I haven't seen any of the movies. Lev was really pumped about seeing the newest movie installment, we watched it and...I totally feel asleep. Like, fall-asleep-start-snoring-the-whole-world-knows-you're-sleeping asleep. Then Lev woke me up and seemed kind of hurt that I wasn't watching his movie. Then I saw something on the floor and started to examine it and then Lev was like, "You can't be watching the movie if your butt is facing the screen." And I tried to watch it but it was so boring. Not a lot happened, and then even more not-a-lot happened, and then finally the credits rolled and it was over. Lev looked at me and was like, "That was BORING!" So at least we are in agreement.

xo

May 13, 2011

Today

Look at what I found today at lunch!
*this was originally published 
on May 10, not sure
why it popped up again
under May 13...some internet
magic.


Lunch today

I had to do some court stuff today so I'm off of work. While I was downtown, Lev detailed the toaster. There aren't words, right? To celebrate our newly-awesomely-omg-so-clean toaster, I made him a tuna melt for lunch. Mine's the salad (wedding diet, kill me). We are both taking flax oil once a day, hence the bottle of flax seed oil and the spoon.

Lev: "What are you doing? Blogging?"
Me: "Yeah."
Lev: "I'm going to blog, too. BATTLE BLOG!!"

May 10, 2011

summer

Oh how I love you, Chicago. You skip most of spring and shred straight into summer.

And on that note, it was 90 degrees in Chicago today. Of course, I was at work all day editing science stuff and taking pictures of myself. Today was the first day that I wore short sleeves at work. It was hot!

In the last 3 weeks that we've lived in this apartment I've watched the trees outside our windows go from bare to budding to full green. The circle of life.

I got new glasses! Busy at work as usual...

Warby Parker rules!


May 7, 2011

Pert Cleaners, 4213 W. Irving Park Road

Mama and I also discovered the world's greatest dry cleaning shop, complete with a museum devoted to all things tailor-related.
The father and son Pert cleaning team

spring walks

My mother and I went on a walk around our lovely neighborhood this morning. It is officially spring in Chicago.

Mama

May 6, 2011

lucky me!!

My mama is in town this weekend. And my stepdad arrives tomorrow. Joel and I are hosting! This weekend is awesome!

May 4, 2011

wednesday interpretive text

My phone has an app that translates voices to text. Sometimes it is kind of useful; other times, it is wildly, awesomely wrong. I started holding it up to the radio when I'm listening to National Public Radio--the text that comes out is always odd, off, and not at all what the program is about. The messages are usually quite anti-capitalist, which has made me start to think that perhaps NPR runs an alternative frequency that this phone app "hears" and that's what the REAL message is. A classic: "BMW eaters and king of queen's couch sitters." And that is basically what made me realize yesterday that my phone couldn't be lost, even after I'd sent out a million emails to my friends asking for phone numbers--I remembered that I'd been doing that phone trick on the way home, but the app seemed to have broken and it wasn't working, and therefore my phone had to be either between the car and the house or in the house.

And I found it this morning when my alarm went off. It was in my shoe.

And this brings me to how lucky I am to be engaged to Levy. Not only was he sympathetic last night when I was flipping out about my phone, but he also made me retrace my steps (of course, I forgot about the phone trick until the middle of the night, when I also thought: "I bet my phone got into my shoe and is in my closet, I'm going to go back to sleep now," but that is beside the point), which I did, albeit poorly. He also went out to the car in evening hours to do a thorough search. I'm glad to have my phone again but I'm much happier to have him.

May 3, 2011

reading into infinity

I'm having a hard week at work. I mean, it isn't hard like my old job was--I love this job, which means that I'm never unhappy--I'm just working on a particularly difficult and time-consuming project. Basically it is a 282-page scientific manuscript that is making me question the use of a comma, a hyphen, and an en-dash because I'm over-examining it. I get to this point where I feel kind of stupid; I've looked at the sentence so many ways and interpreted and reinterpreted it enough times where I don't even remember what I'm looking for.

Today I thought to myself, "I need to read more. If I read more, instead of watching television when I got home, I would know the answers to these questions." And then when I got home I opened our mailbox and my New Yorker had arrived in the mail. I slid it onto the coffee table and came in here to my room and picked up my computer. At least the hair-splitting part of my day is over. I can't wait until this project is completed.

Mostly, I don't want to look stupid in front of my awesome editor. She's so great, and positive, and I don't want her to think that I don't know what I'm doing, even if sometimes I feel that way.

May 1, 2011

sweetness and light

As of today I'm back on the workout wagon. While Bar Method founder Burr Reynolds is entirely too thrilled to do excruciating, thigh-burningly painful exercises in repetition, her workout is pretty rad and I can definitely tell you that my butt is kicked. Now all I need to do is stick with it! It's like I get this pre-workout anxiety where I can think of a hundred (or just two) things that I would rather be doing other than pull my tank top on, put on my leggings and do it. I know this about myself! I am actively trying to change it.

Lev is playing basketball today after work. I'm stoked that he's playing--he LOVES basketball and it makes him very happy. If he's happy, I'm happy. 

This morning was beautiful. We opened all the windows, the sun was shining into the apartment, and I took some photos. I actually like the photos that I took at the other apartment more than any of the ones I've taken of this apartment, and I'm trying to figure out why. I think photographing small spaces is easier for me. I'm better at focusing on a small detail versus photographically commenting on the openness of space. I guess this means that I'm not a big-picture person, ha ha. I love this apartment so much, and I want to convey how great and light and open it is, but I don't feel like my photos thus far have done the job. Oh well.

Hope everybody is having a peaceful, centered and beautiful Sunday.
sweetness
light