Winter and Pilates

It is finally winter... I say this mournfully, sadly, regretfully and yet reconciled. In far too soon of a time it will be christmas and then the new year. What will 2010 bring? What has 2009 had? These questions are not ones I am prepared to answer.

BUT! it is winter... and I now this because:

• The chill of winter is in the air. That creeping cold that sneaks up your nostrils, makes your eyes water, and makes any bit of skin that is unlucky enough to touch the air want to hide!
• Probably about 50% of my block already has X-mas decorations up. And when I say up I mean inside and outside, lights and trees, wreaths and garlands. It is slightly too early for me to want those types of things but I won't deny that I am very excited for when our apartment becomes festive. The roomies and I have decided to have a holiday party so a tree will be present along with who knows what!
• I have been sleeping with my electric blanket on for the past few nights. Means it is fairly cold. Brrr

Completely switching gears. I can't believe thanksgiving wkend is already over. I feel like it just started. Mine was relaxing and soothing, which is good because this December is shaping up to be fairly busy and will fly by i'm sure. I have signed up for reformer pilates class, I met a trainer at my gym who I instantly got along with and I think it will be fun to get myself back in pilates shape. I was feeling really good about it and had noticed significant improvement at the beginning of last summer, not too mention I really liked my body with that exercise, but now everything has fallen apart. lol. I am planning on focusing on the pilates classes and making as many as possible to jumpstart the getting back in shape. Bummer is the regular weekly classes start at 6 and it's rare that I make it home before six...Here's crossing my fingers!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I don't really like turkey so i thought I would go with the festive fall/thanksgiving picture instead of a silly bird. I just slept far too late and now am up and off to spend a lovely meal with some family and friends. I'll miss the real immediate family back in the NH but hope they have a lovely dinner as well.

Luv

Sunday Thanks

I found this while in New Orleans... I never fail to appreciate how lucky i am to live in a city where a body of water is so accessible. I also try to never forget how amazing this city is in making it possible for all to enjoy that water. In case you can't really read it.

A man with a Past

Arms reach Empty-handed

God to a City In Love

with Water

A Trait

I'm a rather forgetful person... and not in a I can't function or remember anything ever. When it comes to dates or meetings or facts I have never needed a planner, and I am pretty much always early. In fact I have tried to have planners, etc and I just never find myself looking at it. My daily schedule was just always in my head and that was that. But when it comes to anything else I just don't have a great memory. And add in booze and pretty much all bets are off.

This means that when I meet anyone who remembers insane details I get rather intimidated. I mean my two best friends: one if you ask her what she ate for breakfast at 10am that SAME day will not be able to tell you, and the other if you don't remind her 8 million times about something will not show up. So I've always just been surrounded I guess by people who have adequate memories. and I don't mean in like you can quote any music/movie/tv show lyrics or music artists etc. cause my friends can do that. I mean the like pertinent specific details about a person. LIke if you get asked what the first concert you went to was and then a month later they pulled that out on you. It's trippy!

one of the first memorable times this happened to me was during a business trip a while back. I had been doing night shifts with this one guy and we were hanging out alot and while you work (or wait) you talk. So then he would just throw out these random facts about me that 1) I had no memory telling him and 2) did not remember the same about him. So we were cool enough that I was just able to make fun of him for it and put it down to alright whatever.

well i just recently met another person who was the same way! and I have decided that it just freaks me out and makes me very uncomfortable. And in a completely selfish way it makes me feel inadequate. I will never be able to remember all those specific details, and I've tried. I remember as a child I would run home all excited to tell my mother a story adn then she would have ten million extra questions and I would be all like I dunno... why don't you just enjoy my story?!?!?! and she would be like aren't you curious about all that??!?!? and I would be but it had/has never occurred to me to ask all those probing, in-depth questions. I think this is along the same lines.

Now I dont' know if this makes me selfish or maybe I am just always thinking of too many things at once that I can never focus on one specific detail... and thus remember it. Whatever it is.... it is what it is... and I have decided that people who remember everything intimidate me. I would like to get better at the whole deal.. I mean I hate waking up on nights that I have one drink and think I know I had this conversation with so and so but for the life of me I can't remember the details. Any ideas on how I could fix this??? cause you want my schedule for the next month? down to the hours of my day until past christmas. but your dogs name if you've only told me once? or the name of the town you're from unless i've been there (or known you for awhile). it's not me.

Am I weird??

Sunflowers

I bought these flowers today on a whim. I was on my way to an event after work and they just popped out at me from the sidewalk. I absolutely love the gorgeous color of them. Sunflowers are easily one of my favorite flowers and being this shade is uh-mazing. I'm just sitting here staring at them... gotta love the simple things.

and a close up so ya'll can see the gorgeous, to-die-for, fabulous color!

Happy Monday!

My grown up room!

I typically have a very cozy, colorful, and sporatic room. I like to use things I have, I hold on to everything ever made for me which means I end up with a lot of cards hanging on the wall or my name in construction paper hanging up, etc. This room for some reason has gone in a completely different direction and though I like it, it is very different and thus has taken me a long time to get set up. The theme of this room is black and dark. which sounds dark in and of itself but for some reason that's just what a bunch of the furniture I had was and I decided to embrace it.

This is obviously my bed. I painted the end table black last wkend but I like the lizard above it! my grandparents gave me the lizard years ago and he's followed along to every apartment I go to and has always lived in a different room. In college he was just outside the bathroom and man was he a conversation starter during parties! I love my new bedspread. The blue is so vibrant. Not a huge fan of the gray pillows in the back but haven't found the right color pillowcases yet. I also totally need a picture or something for that incredibly plain wall, but I'm waiting for inspiration.

This is the other side of the room. I love how an old sarong I had matched the bedspread color. The table under it is this ugly little round table so it totally needed to be spruced up. One of the things I absolutely love about this room is I have incorporated tons of candles and whenever I am in there they are always lit. LUV candles! I also repainted the bookcase, totally needed a sprucing and the picture I LOVE! it's an early christmas present. the only thing is these incredibly tall walls make me want to fill them! it almost looks too small and it's over 3ft long!

This is a close-up on the top of my dresser. I absolutely love the wire basket that is all leaves and stuff and my jewelry looks so good resting all over it. I also love the peace I glued onto the dresser! I was a little afraid it wouldn't look good and then I'd be dealing with how to remove super glue but I like it! I'm not sure the pic will stay there but for now...

Trying to do a close up of the picture Mom. haha, let me know if you want a better one. Oh and if you can see the hill-billy pic of you, me and Dad. Yep I have that out. :)

So now for a few parts of my room that really make me happy... it was hard to choose cause it's all so fun but...

I came up with the idea to screw in those little hooks on the bottom side of the dresser. Who knew I had so many necklaces, but I love having them all hung up and displayed like that. In my old place I put thumb-tacks in the wall and hung them on that. For me my necklaces are art as well as fun to wear!

These were two postcards I picked up at an art show this past week. I loved the real paintings of them, but totally couldn't afford them so I had to settle for these. The flowers on the bike one is just so cute to me. Romantic without having people! And then of course who couldn't like the idea of dancing around in an alley!

That's all I got for now. I think it still needs some work but it's def pulling itself together and for the first time since I've moved in I have put away/organized all the random bits and pieces that come out when you move. It's def weird to not have the 100% cozy feeling when I walk into my bedroom but I do believe it's growing on me :)

The CTA is out to get me

So this past weekend I lost my wallet while out and about and it really isn't such a horrible thing as it only had a credit card, my license, and CTA car, more just inconvenient and annoying. So now of I have been using the non chicago card CTA ticket but it's a pain because most of the machines only take cash and I typically take the bus so I have to think ahead. Then yesterday I finally ended up at an EL station that had the credit card machine adn I threw like 20bucks on that card. Figured my new chicago plus card would be around by next week. THEN myroomie and I checked out this art showing last night and stopped off at Bar Louies first... let me tell you those cocktails are insane! 1 went straight to my head, 2 made it so we were pretty close to drunk as we headed towards the art show. Needless to say when we got on the train back I have absolutely no idea where I put the CTA pass. I'm hoping that maybe I slipped it into the bag holding the things I bought but I didn't even think of that this morning and had to rummage around for quarters to pay for my commute this morning.

so that's about all i've got this fine friday...haven't even had the motivation to write emails today! (that's towards you mom, your novel like email intimidated me!!) Now i'm just waiting till it's time to walk out this door. Cousin time tonight and then a friends going away party tomorrow. Should be a pretty busy wkend!

Happy Friday Everyone!

circles of the season and my wkend :)

I have a new obsession. Mad Men. The greatest tv show ever! and one hot Donald Draper! I have been watching it non-stop while I design my room (hopefully there will be a post forthcoming about that). It has also caused me to stay up way too late watching it... been exhausted!

I have finally started mindfully reading again. It seems like I can't get through a book if I don't make a purposeful decision to open up that book! read a fabulous one though, couldn't put it down, and am raring to go again!

I had this great long post all planned out in my head last night. the problem was I was sitting out by the lake and not at all by a laptop, which was the goal, but of course by the time I made it back to the apt all those lovely words had flittered out of my head and into the wind. See that's the problem with me and writing.. I can come up with great paragraphing and sentences when i'm inspired and talking it out to myself, but every time I sit down and actually go to type I hate what comes out. blah blah, I'll just keep on with the posts anyway cause I like the memories they form.

so this weekend was gorgeous! ABSOLUTELY amazing and fabulous. Now I'm pretty darn sure that it's going to be the last perfect weather we'll have for awhile so I was all prepared to relish in it the entire time! On saturday I had to paint some furniture (also required hours of sanding.. my arms were SO exhausted!) but anywho I dragged my pieces out and set them up in our back porch and in sweats and a T-shirt! went about my job. All afternoon enjoying the day and then went out with some fabulous girlies and hung outside for some of the night too!

Then on sunday I met up with a friend and after waiting for 20 minutes just soaking up the sun we found a place to brunch that still had their patio set up. I mean, it took us close to an hour walking around to find one. I feel like it's been patio patio patio and then none! but it was good and we just sat outside talking for like 3 hours. We also had the worst waitress, and the hostess wasn't too good either. Seriously for good food their serving sucked! Finally after getting home I decided to check out the lake, which is so close to me! like a 10 minute walk. Auh - some!

And that brings us around pretty much full circle to when I was sitting on the steps checking out a dark lake and then turning around to see the lights of the city! I forgot what a fantastic sight that is. It felt comfortable sitting out there, in only a fleece, knowing it was 6pm. lol It was a chance to say good-bye to the one amazing chapter of my life! 5 months of freedom, doing whatever the hell I wanted. Though it did instill in me a forevermore yearning to take another road trip, it was overall the most successfull. I did everything I had set my mind on and came around the bend with a degree, a horrid exam done, and a job. Though work deserves it's whole post, I'm excited.

Come on winter, I am ready! though the xmas music can always stay away!

RENT!

One of my favorite musicals of all time. Playing at what looks like a smaller theatre here in chicago. Theatre Building of Chicago... anyone been there?? It's not till February but I'm totally putting it on my calendar. Anyone want to join??!?