Lucky Bean Tree
I went out to IKEA with Bridget today since she was looking for an outdoor table and some curtains and I got this Lucky Bean Tree…it is so cute! I just googled it though and found out it can get to be really big. Crazy…I guess I might have to get a larger pot than the one I bought today.
This weekend was Lance and Casie’s wedding in New Orleans! So sad we couldn’t make it, but Bobby had to work all night on Saturday night (midnight to 9AM)….boooo! I’m excited to see pictures, I hope everything went really well and they are happily married. I’m sure it was a fun party, knowing Lance!
So, Friday night, unexpectedly I went to the Long Room with Rene, Lee, Barrett, Bridget and John and ended up going to Swig in Wicker Park after that to meet up with another co-worker and friend of mine, Jessica Schoolman and her boyfriend Chris. That bar ended up being way more expensive than I thought, but I did have a fun time and they have awesome tater tots. Then Saturday morning after Bobby worked all night he came home in a strangely good mood and cooked my breakfast! yay! Eggs, toast, grits, and coffee! His big work weekend “deployment” went better than expected and he told me all about it. :)
Then we went to help Mandy move the rest of her furniture over to Winget’s place. It was so cute, Justin got Mandy roses with a little note that said welcome home! I’m so happy they are happy, I really like Mandy too. :) Then they took us to lunch at Blackie’s Bar & Grill for some delicious burgers and came home for a much needed nap. I just love sleep when I need it so bad….that nap was awesome! Bobby slept until 7:45PM and then I woke him up so he could experience “Earth Hour” with me and turn off all the lights for an hour and do our part for the environment. We actually went for a drive to see if we could see any difference in the city skyline….and it did look dimmer but I think there were a lot of people that didn’t know about it and didn’t participate. Still Chicago decreased it’s electricity usage by 5% over that one hour (8-9PM) which is equal to 840,000 pounds of carbon dioxide not being emitted into the atmosphere. So good job Chicago…but from the looks of it, we could’ve done a tad bit better….
Then today I went to IKEA in Schaumburg with Bridget and braved the masses (I swear that place is like the suburban vacation spot on the weekends…it was a traffic jam at every corner) but we had a great time and found some good stuff! I’m ofcourse in saving mode because we’re buying the condo so all I bought was my Lucky Bean…but I was really holding back. IKEA has so much cool stuff that I want!
It was a really nice weekend! yay! I’m really looking forward to this Friday…going out to Colorado to see Amy + John and do a little skiing (although I’m still just as terrible as the first time I skied.) I may need to take a lesson this time, instead of just taking pointers from Bobby. I can’t seem to find the “free as a bird” feeling everyone else seems to have on the slopes. I”m more like a scared little chicken hopping around and falling and getting upset. haha. We’ll see how my skiing goes…if all else fails I’m sure it’ll still be a really nice weekend to hang out and talk and catch up with old friends. :)
I’m gonna go watch some serious TV and then hit the sack. Goodnight ya’ll.
Happy St. Patty’s Day + Happy Easter!
We didn’t do anything Easter-specific today …ya know, like color some hard-boiled eggs and hide them. We didn’t buy any chocolate bunnies or Cadburry eggs. We just woke up today and hung around the house….which I seem to be very interested in doing on the weekends lately. I really like having “us” time and “me” time. Maybe that’s lame, but I guess I’m ok with that. ;) Anybody do anything special for Easter? I assume my family back home is having a big lunch/dinner to celebrate and going to church together. I can see my mom rushing around with all the food and drinks and smiling really big. Wish I could be there with them!
As for last week, it was just a big work week with lots of design meetings that went surprisingly well. :) I get a little stressed when I know design presentations are coming up but my project managers usually take most of the stress off of me…they’re positive and well-spoken….one thing I hope to get better at with more practice.
We went out on Monday for St Patrick’s day (Isn’t that Kelley + Ryan’s 1 year anniversary!? – wow, time flies!) for some green beers with my friends from work – Rene, Jessica, Libby (and her finance Casey), and Bobby miraculously showed up at the end of the night to join us. Ended up at Howl at the Moon and got to see Jess for a bit. Lance was there too which was a nice surprise! I got a big foam hat and a bunch of beads and danced around a bit…ate some awesome chicken + cheese quesadillas. As you can see in the pic to the right – Bobby is also looking stylish in his foam hat, paired with his complimenting green soccer jersey. hahaha. I think it was a good night had by all…I’ll post some pics on myspace here in a minute. :)
Sweet Caroline…lol
So Good So Good So Good from missshellie on Vimeo.
Bobby and I went out with Bridget + John last night to a little Mexican place called “El Taco Veloz” and happened to sit down right as the Karaoke guy started to sing. I think everyone thought I was a little insane cause I was dancing and singing along in my seat…but it was pretty hilarious and hard to ignore….we were sitting directly in front of the speakers and it was so loud we couldn’t hear each other talk. Damn the food was good though, yum! I think that might be our new spot…used to be Aurturo’s on Western but this new place is just 3 blocks away from B+J’s house…and I think the food is better. DING.
:) happy
Hiii…London is awesome. It’s been about 24 hours now that I’ve been here and I think we’ve almost seen everything. haha. JK. We just happened to get a little lost last night after Bobby misplaced his blackberry and ended up trekking all over the place. It’s so cool here, so much to look at. Last night we had dinner at this little greek place and had some fish-n-chips, hummus and flat bread and some kind of yummy beef skewers…oh and then chocolate cake that was sooo delicious!
…then we took the Tube to London Bridge and then the bus over to Piccadilly Circus…took a bike trolley around and somehow lost Bobby’s blackberry in the process (even though the bike trolley was so fun it kind of had a bad ending with us losing the phone and walking about 2 miles back to where we started to wait for that trolley driver to come back to home base….although we never saw him again.) This led to a very long walk home since it was late and the Underground trains had closed. It was a LONG walk but we saw so much cool stuff in the process and since alot of people weren’t out it felt like London was all ours (especially near the Bank Station Tube Stop (check out the myspace pictures)…nice peaceful and quiet walk all the way home – just really enjoyed it.
Back home + happy
So, I’m home! Can’t believe I made it back in one piece with my crazy cats climbing all over the car – but here I am , in Chicago, in my office chillin…haha.
Had a great fun and relaxing weekend! Got into Findlay Friday real late and woke up early Saturday to go to lunch with Mom, Jen, and Alex (my adorable + awesome nephew) even though Mom had the flu and that was all I got to see her the rest of the weekend. :( I’ll have to get some extra “Momma Time” next time I visit. So after lunch we dropped mom off at home so she could sleep and we went to the famous Findlay Mall.
We picked out some new clothes for Jen’s birthday since her birthday’s next weekend and I’ll be in London….we about shopped til we dropped! The Findlay Mall doesn’t exactly have the best track record for cool stores but we found a lot of great stuff. Found two great outfits for Jen and I found this great clearance rack sweater for 14 bucks! Ding!
I had originally planned to go to my friend’s engagement party in Toledo but decided to stay in Findlay and hang out with my sis, since we never get to see each other and plus she’s super cool! So after the mall we went to dinner and Melinda drove up from Dayton to see me!!! Yay!! We originally were going to go to Tony’s Pizza/Ribs but that place was packed and we didn’t wanna wait 45 minutes…so we got back in the car and headed to Max and Ermas. I don’t remember anything except the 20 or so soft, warm, yummy, just-out-of-the-oven cookies that we got for desert at the end of dinner. God. Yum! They were soooooo good!
After that we said goodnight to Jen, Dave, and Alex and Melinda and I went back to my parents house with the intention of renting a movie from On Demand. We never quite made it to the tv…but instead decided to be huge dorks and just play on the internet the rest of the night and then go to sleep at 11. haha! …the WWW is so much fun. :)
Got up today and kinda lazied around with the fam and had a big pasta dinner (for lunch) and then sadly it was time to go home… And the cats were not happy about being in the car this time, they were pissed the whole time…I thought I was going to have to pull over and give them a talking to because they were meowing like insane balls of fury. I love them so much but they can be weird little animals…
Anywayzzzzz a BIG shout out to my sis who has lost 17 pounds and is looking fabulous as you can see in the above pic! Beautiful darling! Muah!
Hope everybody had a great weekend! Love Love Love – shells n cheese
Reheated Royale: La Brochette
I must say: This is quite possibly the most beautiful + delicious re-heated food I’ve ever had…my leftovers from Casey’s birthday dinner at La Brochette! Thank you to Bobby for his arrangement on the two small salad plates. ;)
My Valentine
What did you guys do for Valentine’s Day?
Bobby and I set up a cooking class at the Chopping Block at the Merchandise Mart downtown – we had champagne, lobster and watercress salad, pistachio encrusted scallops (those were sooooo good!), beef wellington, and for dessert we had chocolate expresso mousse parfait. It was only a demonstration class (not hands on) but it was really fun…it was nice to relax after work and not worry about cooking. We shared a table with a couple that actually lives down the street from us and they turned out to be really cool. I’m so glad because I would’ve been uncomfortable if we sat with strangers that didn’t talk to us! haha!
Anyway the class was awesome and we ate some awesome food! Oh and Bobby got me roses and a teddy bear – it was so cute! I walked off the train and he was standing there hiding it from me… I think I’ve been in denial about recieving flowers for a long time (maybe because I don’t usually get any!)
So anyway, moral of the story – I like getting flowers – even if they die soon after – its totally worth it. haha!
After our class we took a cab to meet Jessica, Sang-woo, and Allison at the movie theater on Western Ave. to see “Jumper” (wouldn’t recommend it) but we did have a really fun time anyway…I was a little tipsy from the wine at class…Jess was worried I might fall asleep in the movie. haha. (Oh another movie I do not recommend if you are not in the mood for crying your eyes out – is P.S I love you – wow, that was a tear jerker! My chest and throat hurt when I left that movie from all the heartbreaking stuff I had to watch!)
I’ll write more later, I have tons to fill you all in on.
:) shell