marching

I just read some of my posts from last year and they filled me with hope and happiness. At this time last year I was looking forward to starting the job that I now have (and love); we were three weeks and three days away from finding our lovely apartment of which I probably post too many photos; and we weren't even married yet! Strange. I feel like my life has been like this forever, but a lot can happen in just one year.

Levy is turning 34 on Saturday. I think I may have outdone myself. Not to reveal too much, but let's just say that his two main interests should be satiated come tomorrow. I also just got back from picking up his ceremonial lemon-with-strawberry-filling cake at the bakery. I have to say, the script on the cake is much better this year than it was last year. Cake pictures to come.

In the mean time (and speaking of posting too many photos of our apartment), check out the incredibly radical rug that we just got! Those are lions!

catch-up

So I know that Thanksgiving was over a week ago, and now it's like, "who cares," right? BUT we had a wonderful time. And we went to the aquarium on Sunday. And this is my life from the last couple of weeks, in pictures...xoxo.

this is the door to the Shedd Aquarium. For real!

She was feeding the BEST whale.

kissies.

Thank you.

Yesterday my mom and I made Thanksgiving dinner while Levy and my stepdad built a computer. It was a nice contrast--I could stroll into Lev's office and see what he made and he could come into the kitchen and see what we were working on. Both projects were labor-intensive and paid off. 

Because it's Thanksgiving...a list of everything for which I am grateful.

I'm thankful for my husband, and that we are having an enjoyable, loving, lifelong conversation.

I'm thankful that I have a family who gets along--really gets along

--and that they made the trip to Chicago for Thanksgiving. 

I'm thankful for my wonderful and giving friends. 

I'm thankful for the sun that streams into our living room almost every morning. 

I'm thankful for my street, and the squirrels that like to look at me while I walk down it.

I'm thankful for life. I'm thankful for love. I'm thankful for the happiness that has finally found me.

Pumpkin pie, a yellow mixer, and a cake stand--Thanksgiving!

I'm getting married today. No big deal.

the humanity!

Today I dragged Lev to a farmers' market in our neighborhood. He power-walked through it, waiting at a safe distance when I stopped to buy something. There's this stereotype that men hate farmers' markets, and only go because their significant others make them go and...look no further than Lev walking back to the house with me, saying that was enjoyable but he was done for the day doing "girly stuff." 

I got some beautiful flowers at the farmers' market. They are in a pitcher that I found at the thriftstore before we left for Korea.

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?

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!!"

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.

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

I am thankful

...for my health. I was in a serious bike accident 3 years ago--a woman opened her door into me and I was thrown through her driver's side window.  And next friday I'm finally going to an arbitration hearing regarding the case. Today I was thinking about a friend of ours who sustained a major head injury at this time last year. He basically has to relearn a lot of things, will probably live at home with his mother for a long time (if not the rest of his life), and he also had to undergo multiple skull/brain surgeries at the time of the accident to prevent his brain from swelling too much and killing him. As much as I am dreading this arbitration, I am forever grateful that I am here, now.

...that I have a fiancé as caring and wonderful as Lev. I know that I kvell about him on this blog, but he is the best thing that ever happened to me. Yesterday I was "very tired" (read: in a Bad Mood) the whole day and not only did he put up with me, but he made jokes, took me to Kmart (TV antenna=a Lizzy necessity), and cooked an amazing dinner. I'm unbelievably thankful that he is in my life.

...that I have a supportive, loving family. Not only do I have a stable and affectionate relationship with my mother and father, but I am doubly blessed with a wonderful stepfather, as well. Earlier I was having a genuine wedding/financially-motivated freak out and I spoke with my mother. She completely calmed me down, and pointed out that the wedding industry is built to make everybody feel poor! Yep, she said it and so did I!

...and, lastly, that it is SPRING in the Chi! (Well, sort of. We are getting there.) I snapped this proof-of-spring picture on my way home. You can barely see it, but there are leaf-buds on that there tree!

ten

Ten things that make me happy:

1. Lev's curly hair
2. The green leaf-buds on the tree outside my window at work--spring is here!
3. Spending 8.5 hours a day doing something I really enjoy. Job satisfaction, oh yeah!
4. Our new, so-incredibly-beautiful apartment that is around the corner from one of my close friends in Chicago
5. 116 days until Lev and I get married
6. The love and fierce devotion of my family--I know it's cliché, but seriously
7. My brother and I are getting married in the same summer
8. Muscle soreness--I'm getting into shape, good, tra-la
9. Lev's love of me lightly scratching his back when he's lying in bed
10. LEVY! duh! He makes me deliriously happy and I'd be lost without him!

dream that woke me up at 4am

I had an anxiety dream last night that made me bolt upright with a gasp. It was that Lev was taking me on a canoe ride down the L. A. river and at the end of it he took out a skateboard that I was supposed to get on and ride.

Anybody who knows me knows that I can't skateboard to save my life. And the Los Angeles river is disgusting.

My gasping woke Lev and I told him about the dream. He was half-asleep and sympathetic, but apparently he couldn't get back to sleep. When I woke up at 8 he was in his office, crafting (his word for it). Lev: "I've been up since 4am doing this! This is awesome!"

the textual massage

Yesterday after I got home from work Lev was perusing my blog (shock upon shock, I know) and he discovered that I'd included a photo of him in one of my posts. He is not down with having his face up around the Internet and he asked me to take it down. For whatever reason, that sparked an argument where I was making the craziest face that I could possibly think of (I remember thinking to myself, "See red! See red!") and finally Lev gave up and left the house. It is usually around this time of the month (I'm a madwoman for four days a month) that he "leaves the house" because of an argument but he doesn't actually take off, he just goes downstairs and sits in the truck while I send him text messages. These text messages are usually stuff like "I see how it is!" and "Thanks a lot!" which, now that I write them without being angry, seem stupid and immature.

So after about five minutes of this nonsense on my end and no replies from Lev I got tired of it and simultaneously received a message from him: "I love and admire you, please stop acting like this." Ok, argument's over. He wins. Dang.

I'm used to being able to kind of do whatever I want--put anything up on the Internet, say whatever to whoever, and never really have to answer for it. Even though Lev and I have been together for many moons it sometimes takes me a minute to really consider his feelings or opinion when I do something. That may be the secret about marriage--you are spending those years together getting used to each other. In many ways I feel as though I've been with Lev my whole life; I felt as though I'd known him forever the moment I met him. However, there are things about him that are surprising and joyous as well, that I couldn't have known when we met. 

I'm sure that ten or twenty years from now I'll look back and think of this as the time when we were so new. But right now I just feel lucky--lucky to know Lev and even luckier to be spending my life with him.

11:11

I try to make a wish at 11:11 every day. All this wish stuff is relatively new--I didn't know anything about wishing at 11:11 every day until high school, when an older girl I admired looked at the clock in her car and informed me that it was 11:11! Make a wish!

Yesterday was a whole day of Lev Birthday. He had his first professional massage and enjoyed it more than my amateur massages I give him, as he should. Per his wishes, I got him a lemon cake with strawberry filling. For our wedding Lev's only request was that the wedding cake have strawberry filling. He doesn't like chocolate (but does like Snickers bars--figure that one out) but I love chocolate! That was one of the first "big" words I learned how to spell! I think we are going to compromise on a multi-tiered cake with strawberry, chocolate, vanilla, whatever. Yesterday he was like, "Our wedding cake should be an ICE-CREAM CAKE!" which is a hilariously terrible idea. August+Ice Cream+waiting for the ceremony to end=Ice Cream Soup! I also thought about how there is a piece of Queen Victoria's wedding cake preserved at the royal palace, and what if it had been an ice cream cake? Freezer burn city!

Lev's Birthday!

Today is Lev's birthday! We are celebrating by each spending the day on our respective computers. Just kidding! I made a big birthday breakfast consisting of aebleskiver pancakes (sweet pancake balls with sour cream in the middle), coffee and a Perfect Omelette that I didn't even screw up.

This is our 2nd round of birthdays together. I love keeping track of stuff like that. Life is sweeter and less stressed now; I think we are both happier than we were at this time last year.

On the menu for today: 2:30 massage at Lincoln Square Massage and dinner with friends later on. Happy birthday Levy!

ten more things

Ten things about me.

1) When I'm scared I get sleepy
2) I get homesick easily
3) I talk to my mother at least once a day
4) I'm secretly competitive
5) I bleach a small piece of hair behind my ear when the spirit moves me. Nobody can see it unless they know it's there
6) I have regrets
7) When I'm in a particular mood, pictures of cats and dogs from the Anti-Cruelty Society website make me cry
8) Sometimes I wish I could put Lev in my pocket and carry him around with me
9) I fear boredom
10) I'm incredibly excited about the rest of this year (and beyond!)

ten things

Ten things that make me happy.
1) Doing something stupid and having Lev tell me he's done the same thing (putting 8 scoops of coffee in the coffee maker without a coffee filter, anyone?)
2) Waking up before the alarm
3) Going to the movies alone and texting Lev my comments
4) The first warm days of spring
5) The first cold days of fall
6) A new job that I love (these fingers are firmly crossed)
7) Getting into clean sheets after a shower
8) When Lev calls me beautiful, unprompted (ha ha)
9) Toffee.
10) Good decisions, whatever they may be

here are some photos from today.

Pilsen, looking downtown

Pilsen, looking at the Pink Line

Pilsen, the road out

Pilsen Warehouse

the long and winding road...

This morning was long-winded. The sun seemed to talk about rising and think about rising, but it stayed dark in our bedroom until after seven. In the winter the covers are warm and way too inviting--I get up and brush my teeth and then I think of something that I need to do that involves going back to sleep. And then I am back in bed, pretending to use under-the-covers time to think about what I'm going to wear.

Lev gets up later than me and leaves the house earlier than me. It's magic or something. While I'm still selecting a pair of business casual pants to wear to work, he is outside warming up the car and scraping ice off the windshield. When I finally managed to get myself together enough to leave the house this morning Lev was already in the driver's seat, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. He held my hand on the drive to work. Today is going to be a great day, I can feel it.

Our Chicago street in full February winter

stain removers and other friends

About a minute ago I thought that I had lost my stain stick and I was pretty upset. I just bought an off-white "hand-wash only" (like whaaaat?) crocheted sweater from Zara's and of course spilled coffee on it its first time out of the gate.

Which prompted Lev to say, "That's why I would never buy white," while slowly shaking his head. He went on to describe his immense t-shirt collection--"You will notice that they are a wide array of colors and patterns, and no white."

I wasn't going to go into the vast difference between white and off-white, or the troubling aspects of sharing a closet/dresser with someone with a rather large (some would say "excessive") collection of t-shirts, so instead I made a mental note to stock up on Tide-to-Go pens and be very careful. And that's when I knocked the whole cup of coffee onto the table.

Oh, did I mention that I'm a klutz?

On the flip side, here is a photo of my new favorite sweater, pre-coffee spill (does the fact that I like to take photos of myself wearing new clothes make me weird, vain, or other?). Oh and apparently there is mascara on the mirror. Have a great Saturday!

Zara's crocheted sweater, pre-coffee debacle

best day!

Today has turned upside down with amazingness. A dream job has requested my presence for an interview and I am heeding the call! And then I ran into a former coworker and he is applying to medical school and wants my help editing his personal statement! That whole change-your-destiny stuff that people scoff at? Believe it! And this is how I feel right now (play it!):

And my day was already great because I'm carrying this awesome drawing Lev did of what he'd ideally want for his birthday if the sky were the limit.

Oh, and that's a pair of Air Jordan IV's, a sword, a suit of armor with rippling muscles carved into it, and a viking war helmet with the buzzard symbol on the front. Oh yeah, and a WWF belt (and he does not mean World Wildlife Fund...). So, you know, gift ideas.