Buying new things is Awesome!

I JUST BOUGHT THIS!!!!

It's been something I have been pondering over and thinking about for awhile now and I do believe the time has come. I would love to spend this coming spring and summer taking some courses and learning more about photography in general. I have always loved taking pictures and trying to be creative by seeing different angles. I also can tell that I am fairly good at it, not at all good in the professional, sell my stuff kind of way, but I do think I can take some nice shots. So yes, this will be showing up in 7-10 business days and I can not even express how excited I am! I'm gonna be a picture taking fiend!!! just hope it's not too heavy.... :)

It's Friday ya'll!

Yes it really is Friday and I am sitting here at my desk after coming to work in absolutely gorgeous weather! you hear that? Absolutely freaking beautiful weather before 8am! amazing. Of course it makes me not want to work or really do anything today... thus the blogging. ahhh what a good distraction. Now lets just hope that no one comes and asks me to do anything :)

Seriously though things are good. The weather has picked up and maybe... just maybe...we might be approaching spring?! I really really hope so but if not I have spent all week loving the weather and walking around with my winter coat WIDE open. I even grabbed an ice coffee this morning and it's sitting here by me making my friday just grand!

It is also St. Patty's weekend here in Chicago which means that all sorts of craziness is going to go down. I'm very excited to experience the green river and all the celebrating that is supposed to happen. This will be my first time celebrating St. Patty's day here in Chicago so hopefully it's a good one! and that I don't get absolutely hammered. lol

Work has taken a turn for the better. I know have things to do on a fairly consistent basis and I just got assigned my first "solo" project. I put that into quotes because we rarely do things solo here but the managing etc is all usually one persons responsibility. And now I have one to manage! soooo freaky but also really really cool becuase hell I'm never going to succeed if I don't show 'em what I can do! I also changed desks and now I am basically smack in the middle of things which means I can't fool around on the computer so much anymore but the days def go by much faster with so many people stopping by to chat! It also has much more desk space and gets some natural sunlight!!!!!!!

Oh and while shopping the other day I picked up some sunflowers and we have this great tall yellow vase and they make our livign room so wonderful and cute. Come summer I am going to have flowers all over the place! plus this guy just makes me so happy. haha

well I think that's all. this has taken approximately all morning to complete and I now need to do some sneaking around to research tv's. We need a new one for our living room!

I like to take pics.

I was out this past weekend because it was so amazingly gorgeous out and of course I brought my camera. Thus, here are a few of my favorite shots that I got during the day.

some awesome pigeons who almost look like they can't tell if they are frozen there or is they really want to be there! haha. the weirdest thing is that I saw bird couples all over the place while I was walking around. Pigeons and geese!

the webbed feet on the snow just seemed so quaint to me. It's a perfectly natural occurrence and yet so beautiful.

The snow seemed to me as if it were clawing and trying to hold on to the last passages of winter. I want to believe that this somewhat warm weather is really spring trying to come into effect here. I want warmth and spring so much i'll do whatever I can to believe it! :)

Finally the lone harbor. And yet this harbor will be bursting with activity very soon. It makes me feel awesome that even though it looks desolate now, very soon everything will be what Chicago summer is about! And if trivia tonight is anything to call for it... we are in for one interesting warm season!

Hilton Head

This past weekend I went to check out a new part of this little old USA and was excitedly delighted to see how charming it was. Hilton Head, South Carolina was the destination. My grandparents have started a new tradition of traveling someplace warmer during these blah months of February and March and of course my mother goes along. Well this year I was able to join as well! Thanks Mom for the ticket! The first couple of days were still rather chilly because the sun wasn't able to get completely out but it was still warmer than Chicago and we were able to find plenty of things to occupy ourselves with. Sunday was then absolutely gorgeous too which made my entire weekend :)

the area we were in has these fabulous beaches that are so hard packed that you can bike on them and when the tide is out there is this huge expanse of beach to choose from! So of course I needed to check this out. Here is a pic of my mom as we head out. yes we were both experimenting with taking pictures as we rode. we like to live on the edge :)

After biking down the beach we decided to break off and go inland to explore some of that area. After getting lost and biking MILES out of the way we found the animal and forest preservation where we were able to catch some awesome alligators in their natural habitat.

It blows me away that they are just chilling on peoples lawns. I mean what if you wanted to go hang out there that day! perhaps there is some type of schooing mechinism that only the locals know about. The funniest thing is that even though these alligators are ALL over the place down there the only sign they have around is "Don't Feed the Alligators!" Like really? who needs that reminder? I mean I was excited to see them but no way would I think to offer them some of my sandwhich or something.

On sunday morning I woke up incredibly early for some reason and was able to catch the sunrise over the ocean. It was absolutely gorgeous and I ended up waking up my mom and we both ran outside to get some pictures! I dont' think I'll ever get tired of sunrise/sunset pictures over a body of water. It just perfect!

After realizing that no matter how pretty teh sunrise was, the sand was still freezing cold and my feet were getting very close to frostbite, jk I headed back inside to try to catch some more sleep. Instead I found this guy...

Yep a little lizard had found his way into my room somehow. So then I had to usher him slowly out while my mother sat on my bed like a scaredy cat! haha, I don't find them scary but the thought of getting close to them, so close that they might jump on me, makes me nervous as hell! luckily using two books as path markers I was able to slowly guide him out. he didn't even run very fast! poor thing, I think he was so confused by his predicament he didn't know hwat to do with himself!

All in all it was a great weekend. it was nice to just hang out with my grandparents and mom. It's very rare to get only mom and me time so whenever it happens it's very fun. We both enjoy days spent lazing in the morning, exercising, booking, and then having a few cocktails to end the day and it's always special when you can share that with someone else! specially your mom!!! I even managed to get a little sunburnt on sunday which was fantastic! yes, I am a sun junkie.

Valentines Wkend

So this past weekend ended up being very fun. Not that I didn't expect it to but there are lots of things going on at work and I wanted to just forget about everything. Well I successfully did!

Fri night my roommate and I had some people over to watch the Opening Ceremonies and then we went out and had a dance party! Then on sat after recuperating and finally getting myself out of bed right around noon :) the roomy and I decided that it was finally time to reorganize our living room. It turned into quite the process with cleaning and stuff everywhere! but it was awesome. We then met up with some ladies and went ice skating at the Wrigley field rink! Didn't really like having to pay to skate but it did mean that the rink itself wasn't nearly as packed as the one at Millenium field. The skating itself was very fun! I love going at least once a year, would love to go more but first I need to get my own pair of skates. After skating we went and grabbed some food. We had 6 ladies out and having fun! great way to counteract valentines day I say! Sunday was seeing Dear John, def not as good as I wanted it to be. In fact I just left feeling like eh. i guess it was good they finally ended up together. And then this guy that I've been talking to for the past week or so was getting back into the city and asked if I wanted to grab some food. So.. ended up having myself a little valentine date anyway which was very nice. We had a nice dinner and then ended with some drinks. He is cute and fun to talk to. I think it'll be fun to see where it goes. :)

so that was my weekend. def the type of pick-up I needed... here's to the rest of February!

We redecorated my apt!

So my apartment living room has always been very big ad yet uninviting and just blah! There is also a sunroom that is at the end of it a sunroom which is awesome. But until now it's been very unwelcoming and just not fun to be in. And the reason I have let this go on for so long is I haven't seen another way to make it better. Well this past weekend ladies and gentlemen, my roomy and me DID IT! Yes she bugged me and bugged me and then the set up hit me! diagonals and hidden spots! and tables to eat at all in the same line of view! my entire decoration norm went out the window. And after many hours sweeping and moving, removing and windexing, lifting and laughing... we ended up with a fantastic living room. A room that I am excited to hang out in and start off this summer laying in a little coach reading in the sun! lets go sun!!

The living room is here... the fireplace is now the focal point and with the mirror and diagonal placed couches it is much more intimate. I also love that you can see into the sunroom and have lots of light coming through. that used to be blocked with a screen.

There you can see into the whole sunroom. And the tv.

The breakfast (or any other meal) table that looks out onto the sidewalk now in the sunroom. Lots of sun and comfiness (love those chairs!), plus very good people watching and I'm happy!

The couch that I sleep on once the sun becomes warm! Typicaly on the weekends I'l wake up in the morning and move out to this couch so that the sun is on me. I'm such a vitamin D junkie! the coffee table is different as well.

So that's our new apt and though it caused lots of drama in between the third roommate it was totally worth it!

A week's (or months) worth of thoughts

Well hello February! where did you come from? I feel like so much and yet so little has happened since I've last posted I don't even know where to begin. I've thought about posting so many times, and frequently will have a post all written out in my head. Then I sit down and bleah..... nothing actually comes out. But tonight I will! or at least i'll make a bullet list of whats gone down. cause really I want this blog to be a place where I can look back and see what's gone on, cause the truth is my memory is not always great. So!

Last weekend I flew out to Ct and met up with two of my very good girlfriends. One is getting married this summer and it was wedding dress shopping time! We spent all day saturday checking out some places and lots upon lots of dresses. AND we found one! I had such a blast with the girls, even after staying up till 5am the night before just because we can! Thank you to her poor fiance who was trying to sleep in the next room, not even 20ft away from us. The next morning he told us we giggle nonstop and it sounds like "pure joy." Which is exactly what it is. When I get with these girls it's like all the troubles fall away and we laugh and laugh and laugh.

Earlier this week I was walking back home from work and I noticed that there was very little snow left in the city. The sidewalks all around me were bare! I woke up the next morning and there were a couple inches on the ground! It was awesome. The walk to work was through a quiet slow-moving city.

now after that love paragraph of snow, I have been in a hell of a no sun depression and it's taken a lot out of me to just keep that at bay. I still believe I am going to have to go somewhere but there are a few options that have been rolling around in my head.

ok.... so I've been working on this post for like a week now and I think I just need to post it cause obviously me and posting is not going together right now. I have just spent the last two hours cleaning my apt (it drastically needed it) and I feel like such a lameo staying in on a friday but tomorrow I'm having brunch with a coworker and then we're going food shopping (trader joe's!) and I desperately need to go jean shopping. And then if I haven't grown exhausted by then I want to check out a bookstore! mmmm fresh sweet books, i've been reading second hand books for awhile and though those are nice to my wallet there is nothing like cracking open a brand new book. After all that awesomeness I will prob be drinking my life away given the superbowl and sat night.... but hey. that's fun!

oh some sadness, my cubby partner got let go today. I left for lunch and when I got back he was gone. No idea whatsoever that this was going to happen, I don't even think he had a clue. The small silver lining out of this (for me, not him unfortunately) is that he was considered an employee of a completely different office than mine so my job is safe right now. It still absolutely sucks though, he kept my sanity while I was working. I work for the international division and there were only 5 of us and now that he's gone I'm left with a lovely chinese woman, but she works like woah! and a korean guy who kind of annoys me. Not the best work situation. BUT I have been pushing myself to keep stepping out and talking to others in my office and there are two other girls my age and we've started to get pretty friendly which is awesome. We are all different departments and semi-quiet people so it's taken some time but I think we've all realized that eating lunch together and getting out of the office sometimes is going to make everything much more bearable so I'm excited! so ups and downs are occuring at work... the actual work this is still pissing me off. I feel like I'm incredibly useless there but I'm also starting to get a good idea of what I need to do. It's just actually pushing myself to become that person, because essentially I am not. BUT I CAN DO IT! and I want to. I want to be good, I want to be proud of myself. I want this new potential opportunity which I haven't talked about at all and won't until it's for real to HAPPEN. I intend for it to happen.

yep, so this turned out much longer than I thought, guess after cleaning the thoughts come out. :)