This week: In Pictures and Recipes

• What better way to start this beautiful week in April than to wake up to SNOW Monday morning?! (note sarcasm!) Thankfully it was just a little bit, and it all melted within a couple of hours. The rest of the week proved to be rainy and cold, but it warmed up nicely (low 60's) for the weekend. This time last year we would already have our air conditioning up and running!
  

• I tried a few new recipes this week, and they were both so yummy I have to share them with you. The first one was Zucchini Alfredo. It was easy and different than what we usually eat pasta with.

• The second was ham that I decided to cook for Easter. I wanted to make it in the slow cooker so I went searching for a recipe on my favorite recipe site. I found one and boy is it good! It made A TON of ham, so we're going to freeze it in smaller bags and use it in soups and casseroles over the next few weeks. It needed to cook for 10 hours so I let it cook overnight. It was done just in time for me to make ham and cheese omelettes for breakfast. Bailey didn't leave my feet while I was dividing it up!


• This past Friday was Earth Day, and Starbucks was offering 20% off all of their coffee tumblers. I desparately needed a new one, since mine was cracked up the side and leaked every time I tried to take a sip of coffee. They didn't have any that I particularly liked, but they did have a plain black one and you could "Design your own insert." I have a few 8x10 pics that I've had blown up over the years so I cut this one (from our honeymoon) to fit the insert and Voila! Instant awesome coffee tumbler! I can't help but smile every time I see it :)

Tiger Seasoning!

Our awesome friend Paige sent us a surprise package the other day.......complete with Tiger Seasoning!!! I am *so* excited! This is the secret ingredient in her Best Ever Chicken Noodle Soup recipe, and it also happens to be the most difficult thing to find in grocery stores EVER! I haven't even tried to look for it here, because I couldn't even find it when we lived in Birmingham. I'm so excited to own a whole big bottle of it and can't wait to try it in other recipes!!

Mini Freezer Cooking Day

Yesterday I had a mini freezer cooking day. I've been meaning to have one for quite some time, but to be honest the thought of all the work that goes into it has been keeping me from following through. I planned all of my recipes, and even divided up the weekend so I would have all of the prep work done before I actually cooked everything....but without my Freezer Cooking partner in crime, Payton, the task seemed daunting :( So instead I decided I'm just going to do 2 mini freezer cooking days instead! Yesterday I made this recipe, homemade spaghetti sauce with turkey meatballs. Except I made it in the crockpot instead. Yummo! I only made 1 other recipe (but 2 batches of it), Paula Deen's Broccoli Casserole, with some chicken mixed in there as well. Tom's sister Jackie sent this recipe to me a few years ago and it's been a regular in our house ever since. I did some prep work for the week for a few other meals and chopped up all of our fruits and veggies so they're ready to eat. I didn't take any pictures since spaghetti and meatballs aren't that exciting!

DMK, Happiness, & Warmer Weather

Yay! We finally did something fun! Friday night we went out to eat with my friend Jess from PSU and a couple of her friends that we have gotten to know through her. We went to DMK Burger Bar, and had some of the best burgers and fries I've ever had! (Warning: This claim may change after we finally get around to eating at Kuma's Corner....apparently the BEST burger joint in all of Chicago, that happens to double has a heavy metal bar).

It is finally beginning to warm up here in Chicago (although again, I'm not holding my breath). It's amazing how much of a difference the warmer weather has on my mood. The other day I was just thinking about how content I was and I think I finally realized why. Not only is it starting to warm up, but we are finally settled! I am out of my "orientation phase" at work (that lasted 3 months, but was well worth it). My Probationary Eval went exceptionally well and I finally feel like a "real therapist" again. My schedule has picked up significantly and I'm thoroughly enjoying my job, both the outpatient setting and the supportive environment. Tom's job is going well too. He recently returned from AACR and he's been keeping busy in the lab.

I'm really looking forward to summer in Chicago. We don't have any vacations or mini-vacations planned yet, but we're starting to look at some options. Hopefully everything will fall into place!

Spring Teaser!

It is a balmy 62 degrees right now in Chicago and I'm sitting on our back deck enjoying the weather. Bailey is basking in the sun (she really missed her calling as a cat) and somewhat keeping me company (except for when she escaped down the stairs and did the Basenji 500 in the yard before I could get the gate up to keep her up here with me).

My brother is currently hanging out with us for the weekend. He stopped on his way back from Dallas where he had to go for work training. We're having a much more low-key visit instead of seeing all the sights of Chicago like last time. Matt thinks he is the dog-whisperer since he somehow tricked Bailey into cuddling with him on the couch (twice).

It's supposed to be 81 degrees tomorrow! We'll see how long this nice weather lasts....I'm not holding my breath!

Is she *really* from the South?

I'm beginning to question whether or not Bailey is a southern dog. Yes, we adopted her from a shelter in Alabama, but given her love of snow and today's events I'm thinking she was born elsewhere and somehow ended up in the South at a young age.

It reached 60 today in Chicago so I decided to take her for a long walk. We've taken this walk many times before, but the warmest it's ever been here on our walks is probably about 40. We got home and she was panting so much I thought her tongue was going to fall out of her mouth! For like 20 minutes, she kept trying to lie down on the floor, then she would get up and walk around and then try to lie down somewhere else. It was like she couldn't get comfortable. She scared me for a minute, but I think she was just hot. But seriously? We would go for walks in 100 degree weather in Alabama so I don't know what her problem is. In other news Tom's parents sent me a plant this week as a "Happy Spring" gift. It was a nice suprise, and I had actually been thinking about how we needed to get some plants in our apartment. When I called Tom's mom to thank her, she was telling me how she likes to have plants in the house to purify the air and how she hasn't gotten sick all winter. It was perfect timing, since I've been fighting off a sore throat, stuffy nose, and "bleh" feeling since Friday morning!

Not very bloggy

Sorry I haven't updated much lately. I just haven't been feeling very bloggy. That and we haven't really had anything exciting going on lately. The most exciting things that have happened to me in the past week are Bailey jumping out of the bath tub when I was in the middle of giving her a bath and Bailey cuddling with me on the couch for A WHOLE HOUR last night!

My work schedule has changed a bit too, making it pretty hard to update during the week. I work until 7 on Tuesdays and 6 on Wednesdays out in the suburbs so by the time I get home, I pretty much just eat dinner and then I need to go to bed. The commute is hit or miss, there is no logic to Chicago traffic. At times that you would expect it to be super busy I can fly up the interstate without a problem and at the times you would think it would be free flowing it's bumper to bumper!

We are thoroughly enjoying our new couches. Bailey has fully adjusted to them, and much to my dismay they are dog hair magnets :( But it's super easy to clean them with the one vacuum attachment so that's good at least.

I'm hoping to do another Freezer Cooking Day in the next few weeks. I just have to pick up a few small ingredients and then get motivated enough to cook everything!

Hopefully things will start to get more exciting as the weather warms up here in Chicago! We have some friends coming to visit (and possibly my parents) in the next few months and there are a ton of festivals this summer we are hoping to check out. Thanks for reading during the boring times too! :)

Earth Hour Tomorrow!

Every year (well, the last 2 years at least) I have wanted to participate in Earth Hour, but only realize it has happened right after it happened!

What is Earth Hour, you ask? Well, it happens to have it's own website! Saturday night, from 8:30 to 9:30, everyone is encouraged to "switch off" for the hour. That means no tv, no internet, no lights, for one hour. One hour without electricity should be nothing compared to how certain areas of the world live all the time.


So we're going to participate tomorrow. I encourage you to participate as well! And if you are busy during Earth Hour, I'm sure you can make it up another hour of the day!

Happy Weekend

This weekend has been wonderful. It's been filled with the following things that just, well, make me happy :)

New couches Bailey moping around because her old beat up couches are gone (Okay, this doesn't make me "happy," but it does make me laugh to see how dramatic a dog can be) Tom playing the guitar Highlighting the teams I picked to win in my bracket Catching up with good friends on the phone Sweet mini peppers Tom imitating me on the couch "Lying there, typing on Dell mini, asking him to get me an Izze/tea/chapstick" (I happen to be lying on the couch right now, typing on Dell mini, drinking an Izze) Homemade pizza dough and calzones Coffee Going through 2 boxes worth of notes/papers/etc and recycling the majority of them, filing the rest ID Network Taking Bailey on a long walk to the park Thunderstorms Great deals Freshly washed linens Best Ever Chicken Noodle Soup

The moping didn't last long. She quickly found her new favorite spot ;)

The Chi-rish Experience

This weekend Tom and I decided we would experience St. Patty's Day Chicago-style. We planned our day to start early and end early, partake in a few Chicago traditions, and meet up with some friends along the way. We woke up early Saturday morning, donned our green, and walked literally around the corner to Christina's Place, our neighborhood bar which happened to be offering a FREE irish breakfast (and $2 Guiness pints). (Leave it to me to find what yelp.com calls "....the best deal in Chicago.")

We walked in at 8:30 in the morning to find the place PACKED, wall to wall, with fellow Chi-rish. The line for breakfast took FOREVER because there were only 2 people cooking as fast as they could in this tiny room with 3-4 slightly-larger-than-George-Forman grills. It was worth it though, because breakfast was yummy and did I mention FREE?

With full tummies we walked to the train station and headed downtown to see the famous Chicago River get dyed green! We walked the 2 blocks to the river and were slightly disappointed at first because the green hadn't made it down to where we were standing...but we could see it coming!

We walked a few blocks up along the river with several hundred others but luckily there were enough viewing points that it didn't seem crowded at all. We stopped for several photo ops and waved at everyone going by on boats through the green river!

Did I mention it was a bit windy? Next on our plan was to stop in and have a drink at a bar downtown before we headed back up to our neck of the woods. We were bracing ourselves for crazy mobs of people since that is what everyone told us to expect. The first bar we walked past was practically empty but fully ready for St. Patty's Day. We enjoyed a few drinks there and took advantage of their all-you-can-eat $9 St. Patty's buffet while people in green filtered in and out.

Our final destination was a bar called The Abbey Pub which happened to be about a half mile from our apartment. Earlier in the week they had a Groupon for their "St. Patty's Festival" so we decided to check it out.

Again, we were bracing ourselves for a bar packed full of drunken college kids but were pleasantly suprised to find quite the opposite. There was plenty of room and we even got a table. Instead of college kids, there were regular kids (like less than 10 years old) running around everywhere and dancing to the irish music that was being played on stage. I had no idea it would be such a "family themed" event but apparently the Chi-rish like to start young. We each had a green beer (free with our Groupon!) while we waited patiently for our friends to join us.

Stef and Sam finally arrived and we hung out for a while listening to the next Irish band that came on. Sam didn't get the memo that you are supposed to wear green on St. Patty's Day!

We decided that we were officially old because we thought the music was too loud and we couldn't even carry on a conversation. It went something like this

Sam: Do you think the music is too loud?

Me: What?!

Sam: I think the music is too loud, are we old?

Me: What?!

So we decided to leave and walked back to our place where we enjoyed a nice quiet dinner and some good conversation. We also thought we should have at least one of our meals not in a bar. Tom and I are glad we were able to experience being Chi-rish but maybe next year we'll settle for something a little more low key :)

We're Chi-rish this weekend!

We're going to experience St. Patty's Day Chicago-style this weekend! We're hoping it won't be as crazy as the St. Patty's Days of 2007 and 2008, but looking forward to having a little fun :) I'm excited to see the green river! Stay tuned for pics!

Bailey's Busy Day

Saturday we woke up early to take Bailey to the vet. We haven't been since we've moved here and we were overdue when we moved. So needless to say it was a busy visit for Bailey. Lots of shots (3) and checkups. She did great, but she was a little confused when a woman brought in a cat in a box and she couldn't figure out why the box was meowing.

Later Saturday morning the plumber stopped by to fix our kitchen sink which was leaking into the cabinets below (another bonus for renting = free plumber :) Bailey got super excited when he came in, thinking that he was there solely to play with her and not realizing he was there only to fix the sink. She spent 30 minutes in the "office" with me, staring at the closed door.

Saturday evening when she went outside after dinner she was ecstatic because it had snowed Saturday afternoon. It was enough to cover the ground and enough to make her super excited.

Needless to say she was exhausted by Saturday night. Tom was lying on the couch and got up to check something in the other room. When he came back a few minutes later, this is where he found her...and I don't think she moved until we went to bed.

Currently

Excited about Spring, Chicago in the summer, the Chicago river being dyed green for St. Patty's Day
Worried about If we're going to go on vacation this summer (I know, what an awesome thing to be worried about ;)
Reading The giant stack of magazines that have been building up under our coffee table, Hyperbole and a Half
Creating A schedule at work that satisfies their needs and makes me happy
Loving The awesome deals I got at Target last week (including a FREE pair of jeans!), Sleepytime tea
Hating The fact that warm weather is still months away!
Wondering what the next year has in store for us
Craving Clementines. I've eaten two 5lb boxes in the past week!
Hoping I continue to enjoy my job as much as I have the past 3 months
Watching on TV HIMYM (How I Met Your Mother), Mad Men (On Demand), Gossip Girl, My Life as Liz
Listening to My own created radio stations on pandora.com
Cooking Lots of veggies, things in the crock pot, Best Ever Chicken Noodle Soup (Hoping to have another Freezer Cooking Day this month!)
Looking forward to Sitting on the back deck drinking coffee in the mornings, friends coming to visit this spring/summer, taking Bailey to the Dog Beach

Some things are just not meant to be

Disclaimer: This title may lead you to believe that this post is going to be about serious life events. It's not. Sorry for tricking you.

My friend Margaret was supposed to come visit this weekend. Earlier in the week we started planning what we would do for our fun weekend in Chicago. I asked Mags what was on her list, and was thinking I would plan everything around that. The only thing that was a must for the weekend was a stop at Hot Doug's. Which sounded perfect because my friend Jess had been wanting to go there as well and it's actually pretty close to our apartment. So I went to check out their website to see what their hours were and this is what I found:

Epic Fail #1.


So I continued to look for fun things for us to do and came across this comedy/improv/interactive show that looked like a blast. I sent an email out to our other friends to see who wanted to join us. Later that night I heard back from everyone and went online to book the tickets. I clicked "buy tickets" but it wouldn't let me complete the order. I went back to the main page to try again....and the Saturday night show was "Sold Out."
Epic Fail #2


This weekend marks the end of Restaurant Week here in Chicago so we began looking at different restaurants to see if any of them appealed to us. I found this "Pop up Restaurant" that was going on near our neighborhood and thought that would be a fun and different experience. Cost wise it was similar to restaurant week. I heard back from all parties involved and went to their website only to find out that they had stopped taking reservations the day before.
Epic Fail #3


I told Margaret all of this and she said she didn't care, it would just be fun to hang out and spend time together! We still planned on going ice skating at Millenium Park, having a drink on the 96th floor of the Hancock Building in the Signature Lounge, and checking out a couple of popular brunch places.


Friday evening I got a call from Margaret (who was flying standby) that ALL flights out of DC were delayed because of 70 mph winds! She hung around the aiport to see if she could get on any of the later flights, but because of all of the delays all of the flights were overbooked by at least 20 people, so there was no way she would get a seat.
Epic Fail #4!


We're hoping to reschedule for sometime in April! Hopefully the weather will be a little nicer and we'll be able to book everything at least a week out!

Beer-filled Weekend in Milwaukee

Saturday morning we drove up to Milwaukee to visit our friends Anne and Brian. Our friends Matt and Kendal (who recently moved from Birmingham to St. Louis) drove up as well, and our friend Kedar (who was a post doc in Tom's lab in Bham and now lives north of Chicago) joined in on the fun too! We decided to meet up at the Dranka residence because Brian finished brewing his first batch of homemade beer! Mitochondriale Brown Ale! (He's a scientist).

Before we could sample Brian's fine beer, we had to "warm up" by doing what our group does best....go on a brewery tour. (It's kinda our thing...like here or here). So we went to Sprecher Brewing Company in Glendale, WI.

We went on a little tour and then got to sample some of their fine brews. In addition to the 15 beers that were on tap, they had 8 varieties of soda...which was great considering 2 people in our group were pregnant (not me).

Although when two more tours come through after your tour (they run hourly), it's probably time to go home. (Or when random people start getting in your pictures....)

So we headed back for some grilled burgers, Mitochondriale (quite good!), and a skype session with Kelly, Emily, and Stacy (the remnants of our crew still in Birmingham). (Kelly had to get really close to the computer so we could hear her...so we got a nice close-up of her whenever she talked to us :)

After dinner, the guys helped Brian start another batch of brew. I forget what it was called but it was extremely hoppy (needless to say, Tom loved the aroma).

And of course, the puppies had a blast! Bailey even played "nice" with Bentley and didn't try to rip her face off with her teeth like how her and Jack used to play! (Although she did rip the head off of one of Bentley's bobos and partially gutted 3 others...Sorry Benny)! Bailey was so tired she didn't move from the couch all day Sunday when we got home!

We had a great weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Saturday night Tom and I celebrated Valentine's day the same way we have for the past 3 years....Pizza Hut takeout and drinks :) (With plenty of everything leftover!!) It warmed up a bit too this weekend...to a balmy 37 degrees, but it doesn't even compare to the Valentine's Weekends in Alabama when I could go for a run in shorts and a t-shirt and be comfortable!

We didn't really get gifts for each other this year (actually, I think we never give gifts for Valentine's Day....except for flowers...which is perfectly fine with me!). We have been talking a lot about a few minor things we want to get for the apartment. For example, I hate our bedroom. It just doesn't feel cozy and it doesn't feel like a bedroom. We rearranged a few things in the bedroom and took a few things out. Today we went to Ikea and Home Goods to pick up a few things to make the bedroom more "cozy." We bought full length brown curtains (instead of using the ones from our old apartment that barely covered the windows. We bought a cozy fluffy brown rug to go under (and around) the bed. (There were seriously some nights where I wouldn't get up to pee because I didn't want to touch the cold floor with my bear feet)! Finally we moved the mirror from the living room and put it above our bedroom dresser and bought a new (and much bigger) mirror for the living room. I love it!

We did a few other (free) things to the room including changing the duvet cover, adding a few throw pillows that were sitting in the linen closet, removing the tv (I've only watched it twice since we moved), and added a lamp to one of the bedside tables (I didn't think we needed it because the room has overhead lighting, but it really does make a difference!). I forgot to take any "before" pictures but here are the "after" pics!

(Sidebar: We're not allowed to paint in this apartment, otherwise that would have helped a ton!)

Weekends January through March

College football is over. Pro football quickly dwindles away. It's cold, dreary, and snowy. There's nothing to do on these weekends.

And I absolutely LOVE it!!! I used to dread these weekends in the first three months of the year. So much that this was part of the reason why I got a second job soon after we moved to Birmingham. But this year (for the first time ever I think ), I am LOVING them! I am enjoying the relaxing, the getting caught up on laundry and housework, running a few errands with Tom. I actually like there not being something that we HAVE to do every weekend.


Don't get me wrong, I am very much looking forward to warmer weather, exploring Chicago in the summer, going to the lake, taking Bailey to the dog beach, and the list goes on and on. But for now, I'm very much enjoying these weekends with nothing (or little) to do :)

We've been getting in some good friend time during these weekends as well. A few weekends ago we went over to my friend Jess's house for Game Night and last weekend we had my friend Stef and her fiance over for dinner. Next weekend we're trekking up to Milwaukee again to visit with some good friends, and the weekend following that my friend Margaret is coming to visit! Then we just have to get through March and hopefully April will bring us a glimpse of spring weather :)

Top 10 Things I miss about Birmingham

I had originally meant to write this post before we moved, and just realized the other night that I never wrote it. Looking back, I guess the weeks leading up to our move were a tad bit busier than I thought they were while we were going through it!

10. Sweet tea
9. Warm weather beginning in February
8. Sunshine! (and the lack of frequent winter gray skies)
7. No aiport traffic....ever
6. Publix
5. Our balcony (especially drinking coffee on the balcony on cool spring and fall mornings)
4. Being so close to the Gulf Coast
3. Cheap gas
2. Bailey's friends (her besties (Jack and Casper) and her neighborhood pals!)
1. Our friends!

Because SOMEONE said the pics of Bailey aren't big enough....

This one is a little blurry...at some point I dropped my glove. Bailey stole it and it instantly became her favorite new snow toy.

I'm a stylish blogger!

Guess what? Chi-town Southerner gave me a Stylish Blogger Award! As with any really awesome award, there are some responsibilities that go along with it. They are:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award
Thanks Chi-town Southerner! I'm glad I stumbled across your blog while googling random words to try to spark creativity for my new blog name when I moved to Chicago!


2. Share 7 things about yourself
Well, I shared with you 25 random things about myself back in March of 2009, so I'm going to try to come up with 7 new things without looking back at this blog.
1. Lately I've been loving rocking out to Chicago's "Rewind 100.3" Best of the 80's and Today radio while I'm in the kitchen cooking
2. Tom and I are starting to look for a house....well, maybe...
3. Knitting stresses me out
4. I drink Sleepytime tea every night
5. I've only been doing yoga about 1x/week (oops)
6. When I was little I cut my dad's hair while he was zoned out watching tv
7. I aspirate a lot...I should probably get that checked out


3. Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers
Okay, most of the blogs I follow are not "recently discovered" but I will award my favorite blogs to read:
Kelly at Iowa Girl in Bama
Anne and Brian at The Drankas
Libby at Don't Waste Your Cancer (Okay, I'm sure she could care less about a Stylish Blogger Award, as she has many other things on her plate, but I can't stop reading her blog! And I think she's pretty stylish ;)


Hmmm, every other blogger that I read either A) already has 18 million followers or B) only blogs once every 3 months (Stacy!). One of my favorite, favorite, favorite blogs (that I recently discovered at least) is Hyperbole and a Half. My particular favorites are Dogs Don't Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving, The Party, The God of Cake, and This is Why I'll Never be an Adult.