Change In Plans

This past weekend I had this great idea that I'd go home (standby pass travel, of course) to San Antonio for a couple of wedding details and to see my grandmother, who started chemotherapy yesterday. I just forgot one important detail. It's spring break! I'm pretty sure the kids are out of school here in Chicago but I know it's break down in Texas. All the flights were mega-full and there were tons of other people trying to stand by as well. Getting on a flight is based on several things, the first being if there are any empty seats that have not been paid for and your seniority with the airline. Being that most people at United have been with the company since well before I was born, I always assume that I will be the absolute last person on the stand by list to get on the flight (very rarely am I wrong). So, seeing all that, I'm not going to spend my day in misery at O'Hare when there are 64 people booked for 60 seats with 6 other people trying to stand by. That is a recipe for a CRANKY Jen.

There was just one teeny little problem with me not going. Adam had scheduled the cleaning lady to come on Saturday morning since he had a review class for his big exam and wouldn't be home either. *now before you go all banana sandwich and think we are little princesses around here for having a cleaning lady, there are several reasons for this and the main one is that we literally have NO closet space for any sort of significant cleaning supplies. seriously. and she only comes about 4 times a year since I moved in, I can handle the light stuff. oh and she is worth every darn penny and more. she stays about 5-6 hours and gets totally jiggy with cleaning this dump up*

Anyhoo. I needed somewhere to be starting at 8:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. LUCKILY, it was Chi-rish Day and they were dying the river green. Adam goes to class with his buddy, Joe, and it so happened that Joe's wife was making a full Irish breakfast and going down to see the river and parade so I got to tag along with her and two buddies. It was rainy, which was so perfect considering that I have these phenomenal lime green wellie rain boots! I could kick myself for not getting a full-length picture with them!

We ate great and I started my day with some coffee and Bailey's (heavenly) but we missed the river dying by a few minutes, which was not a big tragedy to me after the coffee drinks. We went to a really crowded bar and drank some overpriced green beer and got some SWEET Chi-rish beads before moving on to Morton's (which, sidenote, is called Morton's: The Steakhouse, when you are actually in Chicago instead of Morton's of Chicago). Ironically, it was the cheapest place downtown to drink. They were also doing an all-you-can-eat corn beef buffet which looked like boiled dinner, one of my worst food nightmares. But they had some killer bagpipers and we watched a few NCAA games.

After Adam finished his class and a little time at the office (yes, he worked on what was essentially a holiday, not to mention Saturday), he came and met me at Morton's for awhile before we met some friends at a bar further north. That bar was ridiculously crowded and we didn't stay for long. Our friend Heather's birthday was the next day so we went to her bf's house for pizza and cake. Saturday night was a really big night for me because I finally saw the Hangover for the first (and maybe last?) time. I have only two things to say: I kinda wish now that Adam was not going to Vegas for his bachelor party and if my brother roofies everyone, he's dead meat. Ok, three things to say: the Andy Bernard character was my favorite. That guy is so funny!

Sometimes the best-laid plans don't always work out but I'm glad I got to be here for Saturday at least!

Our Christmas.... and I'm going off the reservation

Yesterday we left for San Antonio for almost 8 days of what will hopefully be glorious weather. Considering that it really doesn't ever snow there, it will feel glorious to us no matter what. Plus, we don't really have to walk anywhere even if it rains every single day. I'm going to soak it up because we'll have a long winter awaiting us when we return home.

Enough about all that! The past two years, I've been flying over the Christmas holidays. My first year, I was SO BLESSED to actually get my Christmas wish list trip (we were allowed to preference our top three layover locations during xmas week) and I got to go to Beijing. I was packing the night before we left and realized that I'd be arriving home late in the evening on Christmas Eve and be guaranteed a few days rest when I got in. I would have about 1 hour to wait for everyone to deplane, clear customs and race to the gate of the last flight home to San Antonio from DC. It was a pretty tall order but I figured I'd give it a try. The first thing I did when we landed was run into the lavatory and called the hotline to see the flight status. Luckily, it was delayed about an hour so I knew I'd have enough time. After a brief snafu with a cranky customs man (hey bro, it's not my fault you're working Christmas Eve), I made it to the gate and on the flight, in first class no less and seated next to one of my co-workers. Even though I was jet-lagged to the max and had hardly slept a wink over the entire 4 day trip to China, I enjoyed chatting and drinking wine almost the whole way home. I got in to SA around midnight and enjoyed a surprise Christmas Eve with my mom and brother and got to be at the big Christmas dinner at my grandmother's house. I think that will always go down as one of my favorite Christmases, partially because I got to be home as a last minute surprise but also because I think Christmas Eve is my favorite day of the year and considering that my Christmas Eve began around noon the day before when I was still in China and ended up being about 36 hours long was so cool. I was buying last minute gifts at the markets (the Chinese don't really celebrate the holiday but they kept saying to all of us, "Oh, today is your special day!") when everyone back home was still sleeping. The whole thing was so exciting that I didn't have any time to think about how exhausted I was.

So... last year, I knew it was going to be pretty darn hard to top that and sure enough, all hell broke loose weather-wise so pretty much no one got their wish list trips. I spent my favorite day of the year (Christmas Eve) sitting for hours in the Denver airport waiting for a flight to Newark with a ton of extremely cranky New Yorkers. Our trip fell apart and instead of making a ton of money for flying Christmas day, I only got a little bit of holiday pay (because it's based on flight time) and ended up home in Chicago on Christmas night. I remember calling Adam and just being so upset. I told myself that I'd do whatever possible to have Christmas off in the future because it was such a bummer the way things turned out. On the lucky side, similar things ended up happening to one of my roommates and another one of our training classmates so we went and had dinner at a Chinese restaurant that was open. It was fun, don't get me wrong, but it just didn't have that Christmas feel to it. Plus, I had to work the next day and it began a string of the worst four days I had ever experienced while flying. But that's neither here nor there. :)

I'm determined to make up for last year by really taking the time to appreciate being home this year. It's been a long time since I was able to go to Christmas Eve church and do the candle-lit rendition of Silent Night. We have family friends that always have a party after church and it is definitely one of the highlights of Christmas Eve for me. I'm so excited to be able to share all of our traditions with Adam this year too. I hope that last year is the last time we ever have to be apart at Christmas because it SUCKED! We're having Italian food on Christmas day (my pick- YES!) and I'm sure there will be desserts and cookies all week.

So, I'll probably be MIA unless anything absolutely hilarious happens while on our trip. I hope everyone out there in the blogosphere has a fantastic holiday week and I can't wait to see my SA friends who happen to read!

Spotted on the Train...

Yesterday I made it my personal mission to ride the CTA Holiday Train. Basically, it's this train that is totally tricked out and only used for a few rides during the holidays. It was making a round trip run during the afternoon rush yesterday. I looked up the schedule and made sure I was in the right place.

I mention that the train was tricked out but I must explain further. Imagine if the TV show Pimp My Ride got ahold of a train with one mission and one mission only: to make it crazy with Christmas. This thing is floor to ceiling INSANE! The poles are wrapped like candy canes! The seats are not upholstered in regular CTA blah, rather in Christmas fabrics! The ceiling is lit in red and green! There is an entire car replaced by a flatbed that Santa rides on (and mind you, it was 34 degrees at the time yesterday meaning that the precipitation we were getting was a fantastic mix of rain, sleet and snow) out in the elements (on the line we were on, there are about 10 subway stops going through downtown so I guess dear Santa gets a small reprieve)! They have people coming through handing out candy canes! The thing was full of kids having a total blast!

It was pretty darn cool. Although, I must tell you that I more enjoy accidentally seeing it go by or at a stop that when I'm not prepared for it. The sight of all the lights, music and general hoopla is enough to warm my soul when I come across it unexpectedly. When I looked up the schedule and chased it down, I think I lost a little bit of that feeling. And no matter how awesome the inside of the cars looks, it's nothing compared to the sight of that beast from the outside...

Holy lights, CTA! And that is just part of one out of seven cars (and don't forget the flatbed trailer with Santa). It's like a mini-parade in the middle of the commute.

Heading away from us in the tunnel... off to make some other people smile!

Tis Da Season, Indeed!

I walk by this decorated door quite frequently and I always think to myself, "Tis da season, indeed!" I adore whoever a) decided to decorate the door in the first place and b) decided to get all ghetto with the holidays. The odd thing is that it's actually a decently nice apartment building so I smile a little on the inside every time I see it and I've been meaning to take a picture of it to share with you, dear internet.

I took this outside the 7 story Macy's downtown (aka the original Marshall Field's... RIP to the best store ever). They always do it up nice for Christmas and it makes me feel really festive to walk down State Street. Plus, all the trees are lit with blue lights all up and down State and it's strikingly beautiful. I'll have to remember blue lights when I have a yard to decorate.

This was at the Hokie Holiday Party last weekend and I have to say, it's making me question my desire for pot lights for the ceiling in our future house. They're really cool and modern (especially the ones that have fading switches) but the lighting is gawdawful for pictures! I really thought I looked better when I walked out the door. Maybe the freak rain/sleet storm we got caught in on the way to the party (that resulted in a 5 block cab ride and me almost throwing down with a Lakeshore high rise jerkface that thought he was too cool to wait outside for a cab) had something to do with it?

Thanksgiving Weekend

OK... Whenever I post pictures to Blogger, I manage to royally mess it up. I had a whole thing written for this post but as soon as I put in the pictures, I can't find the words and all the pictures are in opposite order. And in my previous post, Blogger likes to ignore the places where I have pressed enter and would like spacing. GRRRRRRRR! Any tips would be appreciated because I am apparently not a genius at this.

Without further adu, here is my Thanksgiving weekend in Rewind mode!

Black Friday, we decided to be on crack and go to Michigan Avenue. The weather was nice so it was PACKED! But Dad took us on a North Face shopping spree so it was totally worth it because I got an awesome new jacket. After braving the crowds we waited in a huge line to have a drink at the Signature Lounge on the 95th floor of the Hancock Tower. Lovely!

On Thanksgiving night, we walked over to the Aggie bar to watch A&M vs. t.u. Now... I'll probably take some flack for this but just hear me out people. I enjoyed the game SO MUCH because our Aggies actually gave them a good game but I had already resigned myself to the fact that we were probably going to lose and I was ok with that. Mostly because I do cheer for UT. I have reasons! My mom graduated from there and I grew up kind of assuming that I'd go there (until Mom took me and I saw maybe 3 people with blue hair running around campus, not my kind of place, sorry). But secondly, I live in Big 10 country up here and there is really no other conference in the country that gets hyped up more and for NO REASON! The Big 10 sucks! I am a huge Big 10 hater so anything that makes the Big 12 better is great in my book. I think I developed this when I was in St. Louis and they were showing a crappy game during the NCAA tournament (Big 10 Chumps vs. Some other Chumps) and I had to watch the A&M vs. Syracuse awesome game on my computer. From then on, I hold a serious grudge and LOVE all things Big 12, especially when someone from our conference plays in the National Championship. Thirdly, I have a friendly thing going with Adam where I constantly talk about how inferior the ACC is to the Big 12. Sorry... that was long but long story short is that I was glad that we gave Texas a good game but also glad to see UT marching on to the National Championship (where they will inevitably be crushed by Bama, but whatever. Big 10 sucks!).

Spotted on Belmont Avenue on the way to the Aggie game. HOW DISTURBING IS THAT!?!?!

Our Turkey day meal set up. We had to borrow a table from one of Adam's work buddies and set it up in our living room. City shoebox living at it's finest!

Me, rocking out while cooking on Thanksgiving. And yes, I ate the meal in my pajamas. Which is probably why I went back for the second plate. DANG IT! Next year, I'm wearing my tightest jeans so I have a reason to stop! :)

Beerfest, the night before Thanksgiving. Mikey and Adam. My brother makes hilarious faces in pictures but I will spare you the montage we took of all of us making crazy faces.

My dad showed up for Thanksgiving and gave me my early birthday present about 10 minutes after walking through the door. It was a new Canon Elph! And in a beautiful turquoise color. It takes way better pictures than my old and falling apart Kodak. Anyone need an old digital camera that has the faceplate taped onto the rest of it? I will ship it free of charge to anyone who needs an old digital camera!

I didn't get any pictures of us at Chicago's Kristkindl Mart which makes me sad. But I guess it was raining and I wasn't really in the mood after I saw the city Christmas Tree. It was so pathetic that I can't believe Bonnie Hunt came out for the tree lighting. I guess the City of Chicago decided they didn't have enough money for a proper tree this year (probably because of the failed Olympic bid... BLAST! and the fact that there is no one to impress anymore). A family from the Southside was kind enough to donate one but it's literally a tree from someone's yard and the city totally halfassed the decor. It looked terrible and not fitting of a world-class city. So, no pictures. Sorry! But we did enjoy the heck out of some stuffed bavarian pretzels. I LOVE Kristkindl.

But either way, I like the tradition that we've started of my family coming to see me at Thanksgiving. It's fun to plan and cook the meal and we had a blast running all over town!

Things I'm Thankful For

*My dad and brother are here to celebrate the holiday with me
*That this year has turned out better than I ever could have imagined
*Getting to marry my favorite person in the world in 2010
*That God blessed me with a body that can run 26.2 miles
*How many supporters (both family and friends) I have in life even if they are all over the country and not as close as I would like
*I'm thankful that even though I am more than 1,000 miles from them, I feel closer to my mom, dad and brother all the time
*All the opportunities that I had in 2009 to see different parts of the country and world
*That Adam and I have the means to live the kind of life we want to


I could probably go on forever but I want to enjoy this day and especially the food. I think if I had to pick, Thanksgiving would be my favorite holiday. Not only is it the "kickoff to Christmas", the message of taking time with family and friends to celebrate the good things we have in life is very meaningful to me. Enjoy your day and be thankful!

Thanksgiving in the city

I may be completely wrong here in my theory but I love Thanksgiving week in Chicago! I would deign to say that most of the people that live in our general neighborhood and the surrounding areas are similar to us (i.e. mid-twenties, young professionals, no kids, parents are either in the suburbs or somewhere else). What does that have to do with anything? Well, most of them leave! In our closer group of friends, the vast majority are going to be out of town for the week/weekend. And it sure seems like everyone else does the same thing! The city clears out! Traffic is next to nothing. Obviously, this theory does not apply to downtown, like Michigan Ave, which will be mad packed all weekend. But here, a couple of miles north, our neighborhood is at it's calmest all year. I LOVE IT!

Just to illustrate my point, there are only a couple of Targets in our near vicinity. And there is only one Wal-Mart in the city limits and it's in the mad ghetto so Target is usually insanely packed. On weekends, it's a nightmare to find parking (and I'm not even going to talk about Costco, that's a whole 'nother ball game of insanity) and the place is a sea of red carts and crazy shoppers. And that is YEAR ROUND every weekend. Frankly, I can't remember a random Monday afternoon or Thursday evening that the place isn't obscenely packed. So last year, my dad was in town and after our Thanksgiving meal, he decided that I needed a few kitchen items (mainly knifes so we don't kill ourselves carving meat this year) so we headed over to Target. On Black Friday. How was it? Quite manageable if you ask me. I didn't even realize it was Black Friday that's how emptied out the city gets! When you have the kind of lifestyle that we live and being in a huge crowd of people is the norm, it's so nice to have some respite from that. I have a feeling that we'll probably be celebrating Thanksgiving here in Chicago for as long as we live here. Plus, at least last year, it was really the last nice weekend we had before Old Man Winter came to attempt to kill us.

So, I'm going to enjoy the next couple of days as every time I walk down the street, I'll see other young city dwellers, lugging their suitcases and hailing cabs to the airport. Happy travels everyone and do I have any takers to hit up the Target sale at 5 a.m. on Friday? No? Ok.






(and I'm sorry for the utter lack of pictures lately. Dang this place is boring! I'm just totally over my crappy camera and hoping for a new one for the b-day (SO SOON!) or Christmas)

just FYI

Thanksgiving grocery update- the total was only $156.31, which is totally skewed because Adam tagged along with me and threw in his expensive Old Spice deoderant, body wash and a brand new Sonicare toothbrush to the tune of about $40. So, I did pretty well I think. BUT SERIOUSLY, Jewel-Osco, $3.99 for your own brand of whipping cream? That's crap.

My Thanksgiving Grocery List

...is about a mile long. I am just going to make a quick prediction that the final bill at Dominick's will end up being $167.32. Groceries are EXPENSIVE in the city AND we pay 10.25% sales tax. Oh and that is just the non-perishables. I'll still have to make a run to the produce market that week. So, I'll let you know how much it ends up being after I go (which may end up being tomorrow night. I'm starting to get stressed about being able to find a turkey). Thankfully this year I will have access to a ZipCar to get everything home. Last year, I hand carried probably 4-5 of those reusable grocery bags that were full of enough canned goods to stock a food bank. And that was walking a couple of blocks from the grocery to the bus stop and another block and a half home. My arms were sore for a couple of days. Seriously. This year I may end up being sore just from carrying them up the stairs to the condo!