I can't believe my writing career never took off...

Happy week

This was a good week. Life in general has been a little off lately, so it's so lovely when I have a really good week :)

It all started last Saturday when my cousin Laurel came into the city for the day. She is thinking about moving here, so we spent the day checking out different neighborhoods, doing a little shopping, catching up, and eating and drinking some good wine. We went off of a friend's recommendation for lunch, and checked out Nohea Cafe in Roscoe Village. The sandwiches were good, but there were too many undisciplined kids running around the joint for my taste (which is pretty typical of the neighborhood). For dinner we decided to take advantage of a Groupon Now deal at a sushi place (Umi) that is walkable from our apartment. I wasn't sure what to expect but it ended up being amazing! The restaurant was really cute, the waitress we had was even cuter (I wanted to keep her in my pocket!), and the sushi was amazing!

In other good news my new schedule got approved, so I'll be spreading 6 extra hours over two weeks and having every other Friday off. I'm on a "trial period" of the schedule for 3 months beginning mid-May, and as long as my productiivity stays high (which I will guarantee it will) then I'll be able to keep my schedule. Although I kind of have a feeling that once I get a taste of having a few Fridays off a month, I'm going to want to cram in the extra hours and have every Friday off. We shall see. Thankfully my work is pretty flexible and I'm so glad I have the freedom to play around with my schedule.

In other exciting news I finally get to hang out with Tom this weekend! AACR (a major cancer conference) was this past week in Chicago so Tom was gone 12+ hours every day of the conference. It was so wonderful that he didn't have to travel out of town but I really didn't get to see him much! So I imagine our weekend should look something like this........

Spring is in the Air!

I have been LOVING my lunchtime walks! Here are a few more pics from my latest walk. When I don't have enough time to walk to the lake, I take a couple of laps around the pond and the nature conservatory. Enjoy!

Things I am Loving right now

• Walks by the lake during cancellations/free meeting times (Enjoy pics below!)


• Having Fridays off! Well, only today really. But I'm playing around with my schedule and may try to work something where I have every other Friday off. I already am required to work 2 late nights and it really does put a damper on my week, so I might as well cram a few extra hours into my weeks and enjoy a couple of 3 day weekends every month! Especially since my dreams have been crushed (ok, so I'm being a little dramatic) and it is now looking like I will still have to commute out to the suburbs 2 days/week for the next year or so.


• This unseasonably warm weather! Everything is in bloom, I'm wearing flip flops, and enjoying being outside this time of year


• Coffee and after work drinks on the balcony


• Mad Men premieres this Sunday!!!!


• Grilling out and hanging with the neighbors in the back yard. I'm really bummed that our 2 downstairs neighbors are moving next month! It's so wonderful to get along so well with everyone who lives in our building!


• Fresh flowers


• Long short-sleeve sweaters (on super clearance!) from Macy's that allow me to wear yoga pants and leggings to work! With the amount of time I spend sitting and/or crawling around on the floor OR wrapping my body around some kid to get the alignment that I want, I should be wearing these types of pants every day!!

Happy St Patrick's Day!

Tom and I decided to be Chirish yesterday to avoid the drunken crazies that will be out today, especially since the weather here has been so warm!

We went to The Galway Arms, an irish bar with outdoor seating that is right down the street from work. It was warm enough to sit outside but cold enough that I needed to order a hot drink to keep me warm! Don't forget to wear your green today!!

A peek into our week

5 days of sickness
4 days of missed work
3 boxes of tissues
2 sick adults
1 exhausted puppy

Bailey took care of us during our sick week. Her dog bed is on Tom's side of the bed but she slept on my side the past 3 nights and sat up and put her nose on the bed to check on me whenever I would cough. She also kept Tom company in the middle of the night when he couldn't sleep. I got sick first but I think I'm just about over it and hoping to go back to work tomorrow (wooo, 1 day work week). Unfortunately Tom just started getting sick yesterday so if his course is anything like mine was he won't be feeling better until Sunday.

Currently

Excited about New episodes of Mad Men
Worried about My mom
Reading Magazines
Creating Meal plans for the next few weeks almost exclusively from our stockpile
Loving Awesome deals (you can read about them here)
Hating Being sick :( My first sick day in almost 2 years. Hmmph.
Wondering If I should book a rental I found for our late summer vacay
Craving A house in a smaller city with a BIG fenced in back yard, beautiful kitchen with a walk-in pantry, and the ability to not have to work full time
Hoping I'll feel better tomorrow
Watching on TV Frasier reruns, Mad Men (On Demand), Parks and Rec, HIMYM
Listening to Coldplay, LMFAO
Cooking Asparagus casserole, Asparagus Chicken & Pecan Pasta (Except with almonds instead of pecans)
Looking forward to The possibility of working at our main location 1 more day (so only ONE day of commuting out to the burbs instead of two!)
Thankful for having plenty of PTO saved up, Tom (I'm not exactly the most pleasant when I'm sick/tired/irritable)

Pine Chalet Vacay

Several months ago we decided that we wanted to take a Winter Mini Vacay sometime this year. Our weekends were filling up quick, so we just picked one and booked a cabin that I had found when researching summer vacation rentals last year. The winner? The Pine Chalet in southwestern Wisconsin.

I was hoping for a blanket of fresh snow to cover the ground while we were there, and got really excited Thursday when it started snowing in Chicago. We drove up Thursday night in the snow storm and it was honestly kind of scary. But by the time we got close it stopped snowing altogether. We arrived safely and woke up to just a dusting of snow Friday morning.

We spent the days relaxing, listening to music, going for walks around the property, cooking, reading, knitting (me), guitar-playing (Tom), playing with Bailey and just re-energizing. Bailey LOVED the sliding glass doors that looked out onto the open land. She was there every morning waiting for us to open the curtains.

It was soooo quiet up there. We managed to entertain ourselves by playing games like "Here comes a car" and watching out the window as the deer ran by in the fields across the street.

(For the record, "Here comes a car" wasn't so much a game as it was a statement....we're going to be pretty fun when we retire, I have a feeling). We went on a few walks and observed some interesting paw prints in the snow, thankfully we didn't see anything scary while we were walking, as I'm quite sure some of the prints belonged to some kind of big cat like creature with claws (Tom thinks it was a fox, I say mountain lion or coyote).

The sunsets were beautiful, but it was too cold outside to sit on the deck and enjoy them. Bailey enjoyed our brief time on the deck for picture taking.

I brought all of our meals with us (that I had previously made and frozen, or at the least froze the ingredients for easy transport...does any of this surprise you?) One of our dinners was going to be BBQ ribs and my homemade mac and cheese, so imagine my excitement when I found a crock pot stowed away in the kitchen! Granted it was from 1976 and I'm pretty sure my mom had the same one when I was growing up, but hey, it did it's job!

It was so nice to get away and be in the middle of nowhere for a few days. Well, actually I guess it wasn't "nowhere" but when you're at the intersection of County Road P and County Road A, it's a big change from what we're used to in the city.

Wordless Wednesday

ARHLCHOC

Um, yeah, that's the acronym for our new hospital. The Ann and Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Gazuntite. We got to go on a tour (actually we had to go on a tour, but it was pretty cool) of the 1st, 2nd, 11th, and 12th floors of our new hospital. It's scheduled to open June 10th. Enjoy the virtual tour! (I should also mention that the hospital is still quite under construction. The Sky Garden actually doesn't even have any plants in it yet!)

These whales were donated by the Shedd Aquarium and hang in the lobby

The ER entrance on the 2nd floor

The Sky Garden on the 11th floor right across from the cafeteria

These murals are spread out throughout the hospital

Each floor is associated with a different animal

The main conference room on the 11th floor complete with part of the hand and view of the lake

Play fire engine for the kids, and these cute doggies! I love that they wrote a note and signed it "The D's"

The Chapel

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tom and I celebrated Valentine's day Saturday night...really, just an excuse to eat pizza and bake cookies :) We were going to do our usual Pizza Hut dinner date, but decided to make a homemade heartshaped pizza instead. I had some of Pioneer Woman's pizza dough frozen in the freezer (well, my pizza dough, her recipe) and so we made artichoke, chicken, pesto & mozzarella pizza. Yum.

10 Years ago, Tom and I had only been dating a few months and he was living in Pottstown doing a co-op and I was still at Penn State. I drove down to visit him for the weekend and made him heart shaped cookies with little phrases on them like the Candy Hearts. I had some leftover sugar cookie dough from my Christmas Baking extravaganza, so we decided to make heart cookies again. They are so good! We were kind of in a hurry when we were decorating them because we just wanted to eat them, so you'll have to excuse the fact that it looks like they were iced by a four year old :)

CSM in Chicago = Busy Week!

This week was crazy busy, but very fun. Over 10,000 PT's flooded Chicago this week for our national PT conference (Combined Sections Meeting). This week was probably one of the busiest work week's I've had in over a year too, so I'm so thankful for having this weekend to recover and rejuvinate!

Monday night I went downtown to have dinner with my director from Children's in Bham. We ate at the Atwood Cafe. It was fancy schmancy and quite delicious. I got the scoop on what's been going on since I left and updates on how all of my coworkers in Bham are doing. (I miss you guys if you're reading this!!)

Thursday night I went downtown (for the 2nd time that day - first time was to tour our new Children's Hospital...more on that later), to meet Curry and Julie (friends from PT school) and attend our Drexel alumni reception. It was so great to catch up with Curry and Julie (I wish we had more time to talk!) and to chat with some professors as well. Here's a pic of us from Thursday night, (with one of our Ortho professors) and then below that is a pic from the last time we were all at CSM together. 2005 in New Orleans...SEVEN years ago! I can't even believe that was 7 years ago.

Friday night Tom and I both went back downtown (yes, the 4th time in one week...normally I go downtown like once/month if that!) to meet one of my favorite (Hi Dorothy!) former PT students. We enjoyed a (couple) beverages at Rock Bottom Brewery (Thanks Dorothy!) and then went to Xoco for dinner. It was packed and delicious and the perfect place to catch up with Dorothy and escape from the snow for a little while!

Target Ad and the Puppy Bowl

Tom's mom sent us this picture of a Target ad the other day, with a comment that says "Anne and Tom, haha!" I can't help but think she is somehow a fly on the wall in our apartment, as this couldn't be more accurate! I'm always lounging on the couch on Dell mini and Tom always vacuums. Although for the record (and so you don't think I'm a complete bum) I am usually somewhere else in the apartment cleaning when Tom is vacuuming.
Today Bailey and I watched the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. At first she was more interested in the squirrels in the tree outside the window than the adorable puppies on the tv.

But then she finally decided to watch. I think she was trying to figure out where the squeaker toys were hiding. She could hear them but the only thing she could find on the floor was what's left of her raccoon carcass from Christmas.

Project Goal Update and a few more goals

I'm happy to report that I have crossed several things off of my To-Do list! Here is an updated list, plus a few more goals for the month of February.

Take down the Christmas tree
Put away Christmas decorations
Go through stuff and make another trip to Good Will
Organize coat closet (This should probably be done before the Good Will trip)
Reorganize 2 of our kitchen cabinets and find homes for everything (just about everything) that has been living on the countertop for the past month
Go through my file drawer
Move my desk contents over to Tom's our desk (we consolidated to 1 computer)
Decorate for Valentine's Day
Plan and cook meals for February vacation
Inventory the freezer contents
Plan meals for upcoming busy week nights
Do our taxes
Apply for promotion at work
Apply for Early Intervention credentialing in the state of Illinois

And here's a pic of my "splurge" at Home Goods last month. I LOVE it. I think maybe because we don't really ever have any red in our decor, it just looks so pretty in the hallway. The pic is a little blurry because it's from my phone.