sadness!

So I was getting on the El coming home today from my second MISERABLE day of required CLE and something SO sad happened... The strap on my work bag BROKE. I had to carry my bag home holding it in my arms from the bottom. The only good thing is that I had bought the bag at Target so it's not like it was expensive but still -- major problem!! Guess I need to buy a new bag now...

fantastic

What a fantastic weekend. Hooray for Halloween festivities!! Here are a few highlights (some with pictures!):

1. Rocky Horror Picture Show on Friday night. We looked amazing and it was so fun. I'd never been to it in the theater before (so yes, I was a "virgin" and I "lost my virginity" on Friday night). So fun. My camera died though, so I don't have the best pics -- Lisa and Quinton do though... Here's one of just me:

2. Adventures in baking. I decided to make chocolate peanut butter balls (also known as buckeyes). They are sinfully delicious and are really easy to make but, as with the first time I bake anything, I had some issues and made a gigantic mess out of the kitchen. Luckily they turned out well :) More luckily, I have no leftovers...

3. People in costumes. Being out on Saturday night, we saw some GREAT costumes. The winner, the highlight of it all, was a little person (trying to be PC here...) dressed as a dwarf. SO FUNNY! Quinton and I were dying trying not to laugh in front of him. Tyler somehow missed all of this and thought we were losing our minds but it was SO FUNNY. Runners up: a guy dressed as a box of tampons and a group of guys dressed as the Duke Lacrosse Team (some shirts had "innocent" on the backs, others had "guilty").

4. Party Saturday night. Went to a Halloween party with Quinton and Tyler. Loads of fun. I was a devil, Quinton was a bumble bee, and Tyler was a greaser. This picture sums up a lot... Ok, maybe not but it's a funny picture :)

5. Pumpkin carving party today. A girls only party and it was so fun. Such good food and pretty pumpkins. Also, really fun to meet new people (ok, so I had met a few of them on Saturday night, but Sunday was a bit more conducive to actual conversation...) Here's a picture of all the pumpkins lined up in a row. Mine is the third from the right. It's now living at my parents' house.

As you can tell, I've had quite the weekend. Wish I had another one to recover, but unfortunately tomorrow is back to the grind. The rest of my pics will be up on flickr in the next day or two...

quick update

Because I know you were so concerned...  I read in the paper this morning that Tom was absent from the news last night because he had jury duty yesterday.  He did not get placed on a jury though because he's too well known in association with his brother.  I would think he's too well known because he's the best weatherman ever...

 

Also -- I will post pictures of me in my new fabulous shoes soon.  But I have to take a picture first.  You know, part of the problem with having to go out by myself last weekend was that there was no one there to take my picture (too bad too because I looked HOT).  However, I expect to take a few pictures of this Friday' night's debauchery at which I will almost certainly be wearing those same shoes (assuming of course that I can find anything else to wear...) :-)

 

Back to work...

the weather

OK, if you're not from Chicago/have never been to Chicago, you're going to have to excuse this rant...

WHERE IS MY WEATHERMAN?? Yes, I have a favorite weatherman. Weird, sure, but I do. And it's Tom Skilling on WGN. But he hasn't been around lately. Probably out supporting his brother (Jeff Skilling, who was just sentenced in the Enron thing). Well boo hoo how sad COME BACK TOM!! The other guy sucks.

OK, now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

PS -- has anyone else been having issues with Blogger, like not being able to access it??

thoughts for the day

I've had a number of random thoughts today and I'm going to share them with you because, well, why not...

1) What on earth is up with the Aerie girl crap on the CW during the Gilmore Girls?? They sit and pose these annoying questions and do annoying things. Why?? I think they do it during Veronica Mars also.

2) The CTA kinda scares me now. Or at least the El does. I've had two weird experiences in a matter of weeks. First, there was the afternoon a few weeks ago that Tyler and I were on an El train that was smoking. That wasn't weird... (we got off and waited for a new train). Then today there was a fire on Wabash south of the loop and the subway stations were all so smoky. I mean, it was making my eyes burn and I was coughing. How is that safe??? Does not inspire confidence...

3) It is cold. And I'm worried about this because if I'm wearing my winter coat now, what do I do in February when it's WAY colder and I have no more layers to put on??

4) I had other thoughts. Maybe I'll remember them later and update again...

interesting evening

I wrote a long post earlier this evening, before I went out. But Blogger wasn't working properly and it didn't take. That's probably ok -- you didn't really want to read about my anger... This post is much better.

So I went out tonight. To a fundraiser for an associate board that I'm on. Which should have been extremely fun. Except I got ditched about 2 hours beforehand by the person who was supposed to go with me meaning that I didn't have enough time to even possibly find someone else to bring with me so it wasn't so fun. Am I pissed -- oh yes. Did I have fun anyway? Only sort of. It was the kind of event that everyone came to in groups so being without a friend was pretty sucky. However, it was marginally better than similar events in Cambridge that I went to alone for years because I did find another girl I knew who I sort of hung out with tonight which meant that it was ok. Just not great.

What WAS great was the dessert bar. Holy shit was it great. I need to go for a LONG workout tomorrow... there was a chocolate and caramel fountain (with everything you could ever want to be dipped in), chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate covered bananas, chocolate covered GRAPES (so good BTW) and some amazing white chocolate popcorn. OH, and open bar. :)

Best part of the night though was my shoes. I bought awesome shoes today that I wore tonight. Red, pointy toe, stiletto heels. SO hot. Yeah. That my shoes were the highlight of my evening is probably sad, but oh well :-) Just wish I'd had someone to show them to...

go see this movie

So if you haven't already seen it, I HIGHLY recommend Little Miss Sunshine. Saw it tonight. SUCH an excellent movie!! Really good story, very well cast and well executed. I was looking forward to seeing it but didn't anticipate just how much I would like it.

Weekend's been good so far. Aside from the movie with Lisa tonight, I did some shopping today with Tyler. We started on Michigan Ave where he got a new winter coat and I got a fabulous new purse. Then we headed up to Clark and Belmont for some Halloween/Rocky Horror Picture Show costumes. Without elaborating further, all I can tell you is that we will both be looking fabulous. Tomorrow, I go shopping for a new winter coat for myself. And it is WAY past my bedtime, so goodnight!

a clarification

Having receivd a few concerned emails today, I feel like I should probably clarify my post from last night.  First, I wasn't directing that post at anyone.  The person I was actually mad at doesn't read this blog (at least not regularly).  The point of the entry was not to vent my anger but rather to extol the virtues of writing in a journal when you have so many emotions swirling around that they stop makign sense and start keeping you up at night.  That's all.  And I'm fine today.  I mean, I'm still annoyed with this person, but life goes on and I'm not feeling as impassioned by it as I was yesterday.

 

Very much happy that it's Friday afternoon.  Work has gotten busy this afternoon but I have a brief respite right now while I wait to receive a bunch of scanned documents in my email.  This weekend shoudl be good.  No craziness planned like last week but that is just fine!  I'm rather excited about the sleep...

sometimes you remember...

I had forgotten how good it can be to just write in a journal. Not the blog, but a journal -- private where no one else will see it. I was so angry tonight. Angry, and hurt, with a few other emotions thrown in for good measure. But writing it down made me really think through it. And I thought it through to a point where I didn't reach any conclusions, but I generally feel better. I'm still a bit angry, but now I'm not consumed by it. Now I can actually go to bed with any hope of falling asleep.

Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday... Nothing too big planned for this weekend, but I need it.

hello... october anyone?

Holy shit it is snowing.  Well, at least it's snowing up here.  Don't know what it's doing at ground level but HELLO IT'S THE FIRST HALF OF OCTOBER!!!  Snow should not come before Halloween -- totally inappropriate!  And it was certainly cold on my way to work this morning... I had to wear a winter coat (especially super since I haven't yet bought a new one that actually fits me.).

 

I need to go get my coffee...

spinning

As the title of this post suggests, I have recently begun taking Spinning classes.  So far I've gone to two (one Monday, one today).  And it is HARD!!!  But it's good.  The classes are pretty small, which is both good and bad.  Good because the instructor then gives you individual motivation and help, bad because of the same thing (sometimes you just want to die and fade into the background!).  Anyway, I wanted to start doing this because I really needed something new to push me.  And hopefully this will really improve my cycling in general, so that next summer I can bike with my parents and they won't kick my butt!  The plan is to Spin 3 times a week, lift 2 times a week, and do other cardio one day a week, with one day of rest.  We'll see how well I actually stick to that...  Though the hardest part is probably the dragging myself out of bed at 5:30 to make it to the 6:30 Monday/Weds spinning classes on time (the third one will be over the weekend).  Good thing I go to bed so early...

 

In other news...

I had a wonderful weekend.  So much fun with new friends and old.  I could tell you more, but there's not much more that would be of interest to anyone other than that it was a lot of fun and really what I needed.  While I may have left the weekend completely sleep deprived, I also left it rejuvenated.  And the Bears game Sunday was awesome. 

Last night I went to an alumnae event for my sorority -- a martinis and manicures event.  I mostly went because I badly needed a manicure but that ended up being really fun too.  I met some nice people.  And I am always up for meeting new people!  I do wish though that there was someone from my chapter who lived around here (or any of my friends from college)!  But especially another DG -- it would be more fun to go to these events if I had someone to go with.

 

Well, that's probably enough for now.  It's time to actually be productive at work!

weird couple of days

As the title of this post suggests, it's been a weird few days. 

 

Lots going on inside my head that I don't really think I want to post here but in general I've been very introspective lately.  Not sure yet whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.  Only time will tell.

 

Also, I've been really tired lately.  Not sure why, as I get enough sleep (7-8 hours/night, which I achieve by going to bed by 10... yes I'm probably a big loser).. Yet I have been SO tired.  And yesterday, compounding this general fatigue, I had a migraine and took my Imitrex which proceeded to knock me out.  I mean I had to close my door and put my head down because the physical affect of the medication literally knocked me out.  Which is strange because I've been taking it for years and have never had that reaction, even when I've taken a higher dosage than what I took yesterday.  Luckily I didn't have much more work to do in the day at that point...  To try to wake myself up, I walked the 2 miles home (also, it was nice out). Well, that helped me stay awake until about 9, though I'm pretty sure I would have gone to bed even earlier had I not had some good IM conversations going. 

 

Speaking of IM, I've switched from using the AIM program to iChat (if you're not familiar with the MacOS/programs, just know that it's essentially a different access program for AIM) .  It's part of my overall conversion to Mac.  I now have issues when I'm on my Windows-based computer at work with trying to use the Apple shortcuts and longing for some of my Apple programs.  I really didn't think I would convert so completely!

 

Big weekend coming up here -- certainly a change from the last 2 when I've been at home and not really doing much of anything.  No, this weekend I'm doing lots, and it's going to be FUN.  Celebrating bar passage up in Lakeview tonight, then tomorrow night going out (maybe to a club) with Tyler, and then on Sunday going to the BEARS GAME!  In all, it's going to be a VERY fun weekend but it is NOT going to help me with my fatigue issues.  Oh well -- gotta live while the livin's good!

Thoughts from the Tower

One thing about working in the Sears Tower -- every office has a window.  And on weird weather days like this, it's pretty neat.  It keeps going from cloudy to sunny and back again.  My office is on the 74th floor, and sometimes we're above the clouds, sometimes below and sometimes in them so that you see nothing but gray out the window.  It's weird being above the clouds -- you look out the window and get a little queasy because you feel like you're floating.  A similar feeling when you're in the clouds, but that's more because you have no sense of space (as you also can't see the sky above you).  It's also thundering and lightning right now and they are actually different from this height.  Things you never would think of until you experience it...

 

I said goodbye to the puppies this morning and dropped Zeke off at school for my last time.  My parents get home tonight.  While I'm really glad that they're coming home -- I've missed them -- I'll miss the dogs!  It was actually sort of a sad goodbye.  And that's even knowing that I will see them again probably on Sunday...  Right...

 

Hope this email to blog thing works...

the ultimate relief!

I PASSED THE BAR EXAM!!!

And, quite happily, so did the other 3 people I hung out with at BarBri :)