My "celebrity" sighting

I've been going to Chicago a lot the last couple of years for work-related purposes. What's great about going there though is (1) my college roommate and her family live there so I get to visit them more often, (2) the amazing food scene (which I somehow didn't know about before), and (3) so many things to do there like museums, comedy, and Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.

I've been gorging myself on the great restaurant scene on my last few trips. Most recently this weekend my friends and I revisited a favorite, Rick Bayless's Xoco. I don't even like Mexican food but this...everything I've had here is simply fantastic. I had a pork belly and vermicelli caldo (soup) this time--crunchy, spicy, tasty deliciousness. I didn't take a pic, unfortunately, as I was starving and kind of forgot :)

Even better, Rick was at the restaurant this time. My friend tried to be sly about sneaking a pic of him for her husband, who is Mexican and a particularly big fan of Rick's. But then the host asked us if we wanted a pic with him and pulled us aside for the photo opp. He was a bit harried and only said, "Hi" and, "Thanks for coming," but was very gracious.

And how cute is my friend's kid, by the way? :) Not that this is a great picture, but he's adorable.

Gah, it's snowing already!!!

It is way, way, way too early for this crap! Dude, it's not even November yet. What happened to Fall??? Nothing stuck to the ground in our immediate area, but there was definitely snow mixed in with the rain on my commute home and watching the news right now there are neighborhoods with real accumulation. I'm not ready for winter yet!

Brimfield Fair

A few weeks ago I went to the Brimfield Antiques Show in Brimfield, MA. My mom, sister, and I did the hour and a half drive together on a somewhat wet, muddy, and early Tuesday morning (dude, I voluntarily got up at like 5am on a vacation day!). Think of it like a gigantic yard sale with a pretty cool variety of products.

One thing I really loved was this huge dresser-like chest of square drawers. It makes me think of an apothecary store and was just so cool. I have no idea what it cost as it's not something I could either transport or have room for in our house, so I didn't even ask.

A week or two later, I was flipping through the pottery barn catalogue and what should I see but this piece:

Very similar concept, no? This pic is actually two cabinets side by side, so one unit is only 5 drawers by 4. The cost is $699 for just one unit. Even though I didn't ask the price of the Brimfield piece, I can pretty much guarantee that it was a fraction of Pottery Barn's price.

One piece that I actually would have bought was this great tricycle with a big basket in the back. Perfect for farmers market trips, little errands around town, and other romantic ideas that I would probably never actually execute on :) But, alas, it too wouldn't fit in our car. It was $100 and just so, so cute.


Look at the old school horn. It's all just so cute! Willy, however, was not at all impressed. Boo on him!

And I'll leave you with this piece de resistance. This would have fit in the car but I decided maybe it wasn't right for our home. I kind of love it though, hahaha!

So long, fair Jetta *sniff* *sniff*

After 15 years and over 100,000 miles, Willy and his first love parted ways. She was good to him and he pampered her for all those years, but she lost her cool one day and he just had to let her go.

So, yeah, her A/C died and those of you who know Willy know that he can't live without A/C. You can't really blame him--doing a 1/2 hour commute in 80-90 degree sauna isn't a lot of fun. She did also need four new tires and some other minor work, all of which would have cost us a few thousand dollars to fix. Instead, we opted to make a couple of thousand off the Craig's List buyer who gave her a new home.

Thanks for the years of loyal service! You'll be remembered fondly :)

Red Sox Nation's Newest Inductee

Upon moving to Boston, Willy quickly learned that loyally chanting, "Go Sox! Yankees suck!" was essentially a requirement 'round these parts. Not that either of us really follows pro sports, heehee. But, seeing as he is now a bona fide Bostonian, he did want to see the inside of Fenway so we bought a couple of tickets from our season ticket-holding friend.

How appropriate that it turned out to be an A's game. It was a fun game, especially since we won :)

I love Freecycle

Back in December I saw a very exciting post on Freecycle--free yarn! I managed to get to it before anyone else and the lady gave me a good sized box of random odds and ends. The pic doesn't really do it justice; it was a lot to comb through! There were some cheap acrylics mixed in with some good stuff (e.g. a skein of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, for those of you who care). There were also a bunch of random works in progress that I just ended up tossing, like this big stack of granny squares. I mean, what was I going to do with a bunch of camo-colored granny squares?!

And while we're on the subject of yarn, here are a couple of small Christmas projects I did to fill in some time on my daily commute. Cute, no? :)

Catching up

Wow, it's been a long time since I last blogged. I keep meaning to, but then life happens. Better late than never right!

I'm not even going to try to catch up chronologically or anything. I'll just post some pics that I finally downloaded from my camera :)

Back in May, W and I celebrated our sixth anniversary. For a variety of reasons (mostly related to needing to be around for our families), we weren't able to take a trip to celebrate. First time we've missed an anniversary trip since we got married, but I think that's a pretty good track record. W got me some pretty flowers and a really sweet card (who knew an engineer could write such lovely prose--I think he's even surprised himself!). Of course, we didn't skip celebrating with food :) We headed back to one of our favorite local restaurants, Ming Tsai's Blue Ginger. I finally tried one of his signature dishes, a black pepper garlic lobster. Unfortunately, it wasn't as good as I expected--one of his other signature dishes, a butterfish, is much better--but overall we had a great meal. We chatted with a few couples at tables by ours and four of us in a row were all celebrating anniversaries. It is a special occasion kind of restaurant but it was still pretty funny. We were the youngest couple by probably at least a decade (both in age and married years) but that will be us in time!

He cooks!

I've been in such a cooking funk lately. I've had no desire to make anything, look at recipes--none of it. So my dear hubby recently picked up the slack and made several amazing meals for us. These are all out of a Costco cookbook that I think they gave out for free a long time ago.

Now, you have to understand that Willy's usual cooking style is to throw some kind of protein (probably chicken) into a pan, add some spicy peppers, and voila! It's a meal! :) The only seasoning he really knows how to cook with is spicy, so the fact that he actually used recipes was kind of a big deal.

His first effort: Mexican Chicken Soup. And, wow, was it good! Ironically, it had chicken and was spicy, but was clearly more sophisticated than what he'd made previously. Just look at that masterpiece! The flavors were distinctly Mexican and nothing is better than hot soup on cold fall/winter nights. Yum!




Next up: Chicken Pho with Fresh Herb Salad. I love noodle soup of pretty much any kind, and Willy went all out with the traditional garnishes too: basil leaves, beansprouts, limes, and jalapeno peppers. It was yummy, though not quite as flavorful as the Mexican soup. But, still, noodle soup...me likey.


And finally, we have Baked Cod with onions, olives, and diced tomatoes. I loved it. Seriously, it was so, so good. And I love broccolli, too, so the whole dish was just very satisfying. Who knew my hubby could cook like this?!


Now how do I get him to do this all the time??? ;)

Sock Monkeys!

Some people love 'em, some people think they're creepy...hopefully you have the former reaction to one of my recent crochet projects!


I made this sock monkey blanket and hat for my college roommate, who's pregnant with her first baby. I've had the pattern saved for a while and was excited to finally make it. It's my first granny square-style blanket, which means each of the squares are made separately and then seamed together at the end. Definitely more work than a regular blanket made in one piece, but the final product was totally worth it. Definitely my favorite baby blanket so far...but then again, it seems like every time I make something it turns into my new favorite, haha!























On a totally separate note, I apologize to the three people who actually read this blog for my long hiatus between updates. The sock monkey set would have been my next post but I wanted to wait until after the shower in October to post it, just in case my friend decided to become my fourth reader ;) Then life just got busy. But I'll try to be better...in the New Year (heehee)!

A New Neighbor

I was doing some work in the yard this evening and found half of a tiny egg shell sitting in the mulch under a tree in our front yard. I discovered a bird's nest in this tree last year, but when we did our spring clean up a few months ago I had Willy remove the old nest. So I was a little surprised to look up and see the tail of a bird, which was sitting atop, you guessed it, a nest!

I don't know if the egg shell was from a hatched or eaten bird, but it was empty. I wish I'd taken a pic of that too. Anyway, here's our new neighbor guarding her baby/ies. You know I'm going to be out there every day now checking for progress!