civic good.

Good morning, chickens!

I’m welcoming myself back from a lovely five days of no work in which I hung out at Ravinia, learned how to paddleboard (and I love it, except for the parts when I went flying off the board into the lake- and even that, not so bad), and spent a lot of time hanging with my family.

It was enough to make me forget about the reality for awhile.

Which meant that last night, when I got home, I of course found a jury summons buried underneath a bunch of mail on my counter.

When was I to report for duty?

Why, today of course.

Momentary panic ensued.

It’s exhausting to be me sometimes, you guys.

I crossed my fingers and called the standby number, hoping that I would be spared actually going into the Daley Center, but alas, it was not to be so this time.

And thus, I am gearing up this morning to go serve out my civic duty.

Which I am happy to do.

But wish was in two weeks, after I got back to work and made my trip to Connecticut next week.

This meant that I spent last night frantically trying to catch up on e-mail far past my bedtime, with only men’s gymnastics to keep me company.

When the UK men lost the silver medal to the Japanese after a dramatic inquiry, I nearly broke down into tears.

Which meant that it was time to pack it in for the evening.

Here’s hoping I can get some work done while hanging at the court house today.

Enjoy the sunshine, chickadees!

five good things: let’s not waste time edition.

Five good things, chickens, in pictures, and in about five minutes.

It’s a busy, beautiful weekend.

1.  Hanging out with both of my delightful siblings.

2. Getting a shot at eating this up tonight. I fried four of these chickens up yesterday afternoon.

3. An excellent jaunt to the Farmers’ Market this morning with Ky.

4. I love the Olympics. Catching the end of this game was a welcome surprise this afternoon.

5. Drying my hair, gathering up my snacks and friends, and headed back for James, take 2.

Enjoy it while you got it, chickens!

I tried to go back, as if I could

Good morning, chickens.

Despite it being another day off over here, I was up at 7:15, listening to the rain hit my apartment and willing it to stop in time to dry up before our Ravinia concert tonight.

Ahh, yes, I’m headed back to Ravinia tonight.

In my defense, I did take a couple of weeks off.

This weekend of performances, however, is my mostly highly anticipated, since both tonight and tomorrow, I am slated to lay eyes on James Taylor, who most of you know is basically my biggest celebrity crush of all time.

I don’t care who knows it.

My grandma, mom, aunts, cousins and I all love him.

He’s got a cross-generational appeal.

If you don’t think so, I implore you to keep your opinions to yourself.

You won’t change our minds anyway.

Tonight’s crowd is slightly smaller than tomorrow’s, so we’re going to spend the morning frying up chicken to bring to Saturday’s larger party.

When I explained the difference in attendance for both nights, my brother looked at me and said, “So Friday’s just the dress rehearsal, then?”

I guess that’s one way of looking at it.

In any case, last night, at 10:00 pm, after several hours of cocktails and conversation, we set to applying a spice rub to four giant, cut-up chickens.

My grandma cut them up like a champ. I’ve never seen such beautifully butchered chickens.

Anyway, my sister, brother and I whipped up a spice rub of salt, pepper, cayenne, paprika, onion & garlic powder, and then put MJ in charge of coating chicken pieces in it.

 

I’m probably going to smell like peanut oil for several days.

And I couldn’t be happier about it.

Now I’m off to make some breakfast, hit the gym, and get out to the suburbs, but I leave you with one of my favorite James songs for your listening pleasure.

Enjoy this day, chickadees.

enjoying it all.

Chickens, it’s post 9am.

And I am not in my cubicle.

This feels like victory to me.

Yesterday was one of those days where I just kept moving, ending the day sitting on the floor in an office.

Yes, that’s sometimes a thing that happens.

By the time I left, I was quite sure that I’d have no problem detaching for a few days.

Ky and I spent the evening catching up, making a frittata that took us until 9:00 pm to finally bring to fruition (potatoes in a cast iron take more than 20 minutes, I don’t care what any recipe tells you- they’re all delusional), and accidentally becoming intoxicated after only one bottle of wine and not enough dinner until it was too late.

The frittata, by the way, was delicious.

But it was a case of too little, too late.

I was safely tucked into my bed by 10:00 pm.

It was certainly for the best.

Up this morning, I’m headed to the gym to get in a run (since I’ve skipped it the past two days), and then to see when I can meet up with my sorella.

Flights across the country always wear her out.

But I’ll only let that excuse take her to 10:00 am.

After that, it’s time to get things started around here.

Enjoy the day, chickadees!

send me on my way.

Today is my last day of work this week.

Allow me to pause as I contemplate how exciting that is.

Also, it will make my day chock full of meetings seem far more worth it.

The best part? My little sister’s on her way to Chicago from the sunny West Coast tonight to see us all for a nice extended weekend.

This is us hiking last February in California.

Scampering up mountains in t-shirts.

In February.

California’s a mystical land in which no one spends three months a year in puffy, down-filled parkas.

Crazy, right?

Good thing I’m so damn in love with you, Chicago.

No one looks good in a parka.

In any case, in but one day, we will be reunited for a weekend of James Taylor at Ravinia (yes, we are going both nights and would.not.have.it.any.other.way, drinking vodka sodas and eating turkey sandwiches, and most importantly, hanging out together.

As opposed to hanging out from a few thousand miles away.

I see big things for the days ahead.

But until then, I’m ready to head out into the big bad world, take a deep breath, and tackle the next nine hours or so.

Enjoy this one, chickadees. I can see the other side of the week from here.

 

 

giving it some intention

Chickens, last night I did hot yoga for the first time.

But before that, I headed out to the lake with VB and CJ for my second swim of the season.

I’m riding the fitness wave.

After a steady, refreshing half mile (in which my swimming partners let me swim nearly to shore- somehow I missed the point at which stopping would have made sense), I packed up my wetsuit, headed home, threw on my best guess at what an appropriate steamy yoga class outfit was, and headed to the studio.

Let me first say that I have never sweated so much in my life.

Because it’s true.

I continuously tried to mop up my mat and my face with my towel, but eventually I gave up, because it simply was not helping.

I just focused on not sliding across the room into a wall.

The yoga style was Vinyasa, which means that you flow through a series of poses (think lots of upward and downward facing dog).

This is my preferred kind of yoga, since you don’t stop moving.

Even though it meant a fair amount of slipping.

After 75 minutes of sweating, posing, and breathing deeply, we did Savasana pose (where you lay on your back with your eyes closed) with lavender towels over our faces, and our instructor came around and rubbed some kind of essential oil on our necks.

source

While I generally hate this kind of staying still with my eyes closed, at this point, I was exhausted, and will say that for the first time, I enjoyed this part of class.

Maybe because I knew cool air was only a few moments away.

But maybe not.

Hot yoga might be my new religion, chickadees.

You learn something new every day.

 

using it up and trying something out.

And somehow, Monday rolled around again.

Which is okay, since I’ve only got three days of work to face down this week.

Things are looking up.

Yesterday, after realizing that perhaps I had over purchased produce from the Farmers’ Market, I set to figuring out exactly what I could do with it all.

 

So I chopped things up until I had what looked like a more manageable bounty.

Then I sauteed the whole mess in olive oil with salt, hot pepper, and balsamic vinegar.

 

Trader Joe’s grain blend and some parmesan cheese later, and we have lunch for the week.

And I don’t have vegetable-waste-guilt.

Everyone’s happy, in the end.

Also yesterday, we headed out to Roscoe Village’s Burger Fest, where we sampled what felt like a million different delicious burgers, drank in the street, and listened to bands play.

After standing in the early evening heat for awhile, we took it to JD & CC’s, where we enjoyed Sunday night cocktails and conversations.

One of these conversations led to tonight’s main event, a hot yoga class with JD.

Sunday nights make us brave, apparently.

I have some fears around this, chickens.

Such as, what if I sweat so much that I tumble to the ground?

What if I am so hot I just lay there for an hour, incapacitated?

“Do you think it’s BYO-mat?” JD asked, as we sucked it up and signed up for class.

“I’m not sure- I hadn’t thought of that.”

“I’m BYO-ing. The mats are probably all sweaty,” she noted, practically.

We’ll see how this one pans out, my friends.

Get back out there!

 

full up to to the very brim.

Chickadees, this has been a getting.things.done kind of weekend.

Yesterday, LM and I managed to put together a bed, a TV stand, and very successfully start to un-jumble her move into a lovely new apartment.

Also, there was wine.

And, lunch- a new sandwich spot that has already made its way onto my list of favorites. It’s called Pane’s Bread Cafe, and I have already researched enough to know that it delivers up all the way west to my address.

I imagine this will turn into a regular visiting place for me.

After a calm night of hanging on a patio drinking vodka-y concoctions with my family JW and I headed home to sleep at an entirely reasonable hour of the evening.

Which was great, since it meant a morning of paper reading, breakfast having, bike riding, and soccer playing.

And then- bar bites and sips at Fat Cat, our sponsor bar.

It’s been a fantastic weekend so far.

And luckily for me- it’s not over. I’m still staring down some serious cooking and festival going this evening.

You can’t go wrong with something that’s officially called Burger Fest.

At least that’s the way I’m looking at it.

Enjoy the rest of this Sunday, chickens, it’s a beautiful world out there.

 

five.good.things: don’t lose your weapon edition

Good morning, chickens!

Although we’re not even halfway into this sunny, not too hot (yet!) day, I’ve got plenty of sunshine to share with all of you.

It’s a lovely day in the Second City.

So I’m going to get to why that is:

1. Last night, JW and I had dinner at Quartino, which is one of my favorite places to eat downtown.

Italian small plates.

How could it get any better?

2. Here’s how:

Post dinner, we headed over to see our favorite teens, our godson, and their parents.

Pretty much my favorite line-up of all time.

There were stories about baseball, crawling demonstrations, and delightful, summery drinks.

I love those kiddos so much I could squeeze them.

Do squeeze them, actually.

3. This morning, I went back to kettlebells for the first time in several weeks.

You could tell by the ridiculous amount of huffing and puffing I was doing that it had been awhile.

“Don’t ever lose your weapon!” Gene yelled, looking suspiciously at my precarious grip on the bell, as it slipped out of my sweaty paws.

I’m never missing another week again.

Luckily, post workout I unexpectedly ran into my bffs, JD & CC, and shared bagels, coffee, and a strategy for this weekend’s festivals before moving off in our separate directions.

4. Post leaving my friends and husband, I headed to the Farmers’ Market, where I was treated to the it’s-almost-August bounty of fruit and vegetables.

I have a full fridge of produce and eggs and had a chance to talk to every last one of my favorite farmers. Pretty much an all around success, if you ask me.

5. For the next two weeks, my grandma, baby cousin Jon (who is actually 19), and sister are coming in and out of the Chicago area. Tonight, I finally lay eyes on my grandma and cousin, and also, my parents feed me yet again.

This move to my city is really working out, I think.

Enjoy your day, chickens- it’s a beautiful one!

 

 

falling into the place it goes.

All right, chickadees.

It’s Friday morning.

I hit up the gym by 6:15 AM.

I replaced my Y card.

Again.

The membership associate didn’t charge me the $5 fee (I wonder how many times I’ve donated $5 for a new Y card. I imagine when I move out of my apartment I’ll find them all cowering in a corner somewhere).

And the man who swiped my card was pleasant (and in three days this week, my Y nemesis hasn’t been spotted. Maybe he decided customer service wasn’t his gig?)

I’ve got an excellent feeling about this weekend.

Or at least the day I’m staring down.

My plans involve getting back into my routine after several weeks away from it, which means hitting up bells class (and probably regretting it for the rest of the day), getting to the market (just even guessing at what kind of bounty they have at this point in the season is improving my mood), and whipping my home into shape.

The dust, chickens.

It’s a frightening proposition to battle it all, but it must be done.

Thank you for listening to my pep talk to self.

Only 9 hours stands between me and an evening of dinner and hanging with JW, and that, as I see it, is a very good thing.

Get out into that day!