Extended Stay

My Christmas vacation in MN has been extended through the New Year because of the death of my grandmother. She was 78 years old and passed away in peace the day after Christmas. I was able to make it over to see her right away when I got into MN last Tuesday while she was still able to be alert and coherent. After I left her Tuesday evening she slept her way through the Christmas holiday and into the arms of the Lord on Thursday. I have moved my flight to next Saturday and J is going to fly up from Chicago on Tuesday to spend my birthday and New Years in the Twin Cities with me. I am so grateful that I was able to make it to MN in time to say goodbye to her and be with my family this week for New Years.

I am so sorry AGAIN for be a bad blogger the past few weeks I promise as soon as things settle down I will be back at it each day!

Part Two

As you all know from yesterday's post J gave me a pearl necklace as an 'early birthday' gift and said that it was part one of my presents. So I figured that part two would come on my birthday and would be the matching set of pearl earrings. BUT tonight as I was finishing up packing for home J surprised me with part two of what he calls the "birthday extravaganza!!" (By the way I love that he is turning my birthday into an extravaganza!!! In long run a very smart move on his part!) I walked into the bathroom after a long conversation of J hinting that I should go in and get ready for bed - only to find the matching set of pearl earrings to go with the necklace!! They are so pretty and I can't wait to wear them tomorrow when I go home! J is well on his way to getting the best boyfriend award in 2008!! (I'm a dork I know)

Headed to the Motherland Tomorrow

I am off to MN tomorrow afternoon flying out of the worst airport in the United States : O'Hare International. I swear even when the weather is sunny and 70 and there is no one else flying in the tri-state area the flights are still delayed by at least 30 minutes. I took the whole day off work tomorrow to sleep in a little longer and take my time getting out there. My flight doesn't take off until 3, but I think to be safe I'll get out there by noon and see if I can fly stand by for an earlier flight in case the snow gets out of control!

J isn't taking off until 9 tomorrow night flying out of Midway. Chicago is expected to get around 5 inches of snow tomorrow afternoon into the evening so we are all praying that his flight gets out on time and safely into St. Louis.

Not sure how often I will be able to get to a computer while I'm home because my mother, who still owns a rotary phone, has the world's second slowest internet connection known to man. So needless to say I may have to take a week off from blogging if my patience runs out mid week!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Come Early!

J is going to St. Louis for Christmas this year and I am flying out to St. Paul to be with my family on Tuesday. We decided not to give each other Christmas gift this year and instead go out for a fancy dinner date to a restaurant in the city. But of course J surprises me with a small box tonight after I woke up from a much needed nap. Inside was this Ralph Lauren Pearl necklace that I have been swooning over for months!! I can't wait to wear it tomorrow to work!! I told him that now I have to get him something to be fair, but he is saying that it is just part one of my birthday present for next week!! My birthday is January 1 and now I can't wait to see what surprise is coming then!!

J's First Time in the Kitchen

J is normally an excellent cook. He makes wonderful pasta dishes, tasty seafood and on occasion unbelievable Chinese; however when it comes to cookies we discovered he is a newbie! He started to make oatmeal cookies this afternoon and was following the below recipe that had plenty of great reviews on AllRecipes.com.

INGREDIENTS (Nutrition)
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 cup white sugar
* 1 cup packed brown sugar
* 2 eggs
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 3 cups quick cooking oats


DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, cream together butter, white sugar, and brown sugar. Beat in eggs one at a time, then stir in vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; stir into the creamed mixture. Mix in oats. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour.
2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets. Roll the dough into walnut sized balls, and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheets. Flatten each cookie with a large fork dipped in sugar.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.


Well after he mixed all the ingredients together it just looked like a large bowl of granola because nothing was mixing together. J attributed it to the room temperature of our apartment and tossed the dough in the fridge while we watched my new favorite movie The Devil Wears Prada!!

When the movie was over the batter looked worse and had separated into a million tiny flakes of granola and sugar. So I got on the phone to call my mother and compared recipes. Turns out J understood 1 cup of butter to equate to only 1 stick of butter as opposed to the 2 that he should have added! Making it all look something like this.....



And J's face looking something like this.....

Bad Blogger

I am so sorry for not posting at all this week. I have been so busy with holiday events at work and planning the last minute details for a "Breakfast with Santa" event this weekend, that I haven't had any time to even read blogs, better yet post! In the past five days I have not gotten home from work earlier than 9pm and with that type of schedule the first thing I do when I get home is fall into bed.

I'm counting down the days until Tuesday when I get to take a 4 day vacation from work and head back to MN. I am in desperate need of a few day hiatus from the 7am wake up call to the office. My flight leaves around 3 so it will be nice to sleep in and take my time getting out to the airport. (I no longer take mega bus because it is the worst mode of transportation known to man!) Please email me first if any of you are even debating purchasing a ticket with this company.

I am almost done with all of my Christmas shopping! Finally!! I have one thing left to get for my mom and one gift for my brother that hopefully I can wrap up tomorrow after my event at work. I am hosting Breakfast with Santa from 9am to noon this weekend as a special promotion for our guests. It's the first year that my work has done this and I am hoping and praying that everything goes just perfectly. This two day event has been my life at work for the past three weeks and it needs to be a success.

I forgot to post some of the photos my stay-cation downtown last weekend with J. We had such a wonderful overnight at the W Hotel and had a delicious dinner at The Italian Village. The room was very nice and it was such a treat to actually be able to lay in bed and watch TV again! I'm sure I've told you all many of times that J and I haven't had a TV in more than a year!!! I know you all think I'm nuts, but it is true! I think our graduation present to ourselves will be a flat screen TV for our new place.








I am off to bed because my alarm clock is set for 5 AM wake up call!!

Winter Wedding Wardrobe Fiasco

J's sister is getting married in St. Louis on January 10, 2009 and I need to find a dress to wear. I have several black cocktail dresses at home, but I'm wondering if I should go with a floor length dress because it's in the winter and a little more formal? Here are a few that I have been looking at. What do you think? (SORRY they are so freaking huge I don't know how to fix that)

White House Black Market Halter


Calvin Klein Halter



Max & Cleo Lace


These are just a few that I have been looking at, any suggestions on what style or color???

Almost done!!

I am finishing up my last final this evening at 7pm. I decided I needed to take a half day from work to study and be a little bit more prepared. I had planned on getting in some studying last night to prep, but unfortunately my event ran long and I didn't leave the office until around 11. So needless to say I went directly to bed when I got home.

I'm not sure I've ever posted about my job before so here goes, I am an event planner at one of the major tourist attractions downtown Chicago. I sell the event space and then plan the party from start to finish. Last night I hosted an event for Time Out Chicago Magazine and Bombay Sapphire. It was a perfect evening for it; we had wonderful weather, a great view and really good cocktails! Of course there were plenty of hiccups along the way from the rental company forgetting to drop of my order of tables, to the catering company lighting the curtains on fire, but in the end turn out beautifully.

(OK fine- the curtains didn't actually start on fire, but they might as well have. The chef thought it wouldn't be a big deal to bring in a real live stove into the building with flames everywhere - I almost lost it right then and there!)

All in all it was a wonderful evening, but the best part was the gift that I received from the client at the end of the evening. She gave me a gift certificate for a free nights stay at the W Chicago Hotel in the loop. So J and I decided that we would do some Christmas shopping during the day on Saturday, check in the hotel in the late afternoon and then go out for dinner at Trattoria No.10 . I have heard amazing reviews from our concierge at work about this place and have been dying to try it. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Gifts From Trim a Tree Swap

I participated in a Christmas gift exchange over at Grove Girls and I was paired up with Eloise! I received my wonderful gifts last week, just after Thanksgiving and since then I have been meaning to get them up for everyone to see. Eloise sent me a beautifully wrapped package with each present individually wrapped in Christmas color paper. I received a recipe for Millionaires, which I have yet to try (I'll be sure to post when I give it shot to tell you all about it!) she also sent a gold reindeer ornament, a holiday present decoration, a stack of holiday note cards and small bulb shaped plate!


Because J and I can't even find room for our own stuff throughout the year, a tree for the holidays just wasn't in store. So I have put the gold reindeer ornament front and center on my office "holiday" tree. (Not Christmas - Holiday.)


Here is a closer look at the reindeer. I love the gold color!


Here is a picture of the cute little plate that is decorated so perfectly for Christmas and I have already used several times on my desk at work for a little breakfast in the morning! THANKS ELOISE!!!


And Finally she sent me a stack of Christmas themed note cards, good for holiday cards, thank you's and even a frame for a picture!


I had so much fun with the exchange this year with all of my blogger friends and I can't wait to do it again next winter!!

Chicago Public Transit Drama # 87

I got on the bus to leave work around 5:30 this afternoon and was in a particularly crummy mood. I watched three 147 Outer Drive Express buses (my go to bus) drive by my stop without even putting on the breaks because they were overloaded and people were smashed up against every window. It's actually quite a sight if you have never seen downtown Chicago at rush hour. The amount of people they allow to get on any one bus is unbelievable. Anyway, I finally managed to catch a bus after waiting about 15 minutes in the freezing rain. I was the last person the driver let on the bus and I was sandwiched in between the old man who stunk of old feet and the woman who would NOT shut up. To top it off, my face was plastered right up against the front wind shield with no where to hang on to in case of a quick stop.

As I said it has been freezing rain all day in Chicago today, so the roads were quite slick. As we were exiting the expressway, coming off LakeShore Drive, our bus driver proceeds into the intersection to make the turn and smashes right into this tiny black Toyota Corolla. This car was just minding her own business waiting for the traffic to move forward when all the sudden...WHAM - a giant double bus swipes the backside of the little nutter butter of a vehicle, sending it sliding into the opposite direction.

The bus driver immediately starts pounding her hands up and down on top of the large steering wheel yelling, "Dammit this is the fourth time! The fourth time this has happened to me! This was my last warning! Dammit! My Fourth time!"

I did everything in my power not to start laughing hysterically. This woman has actually hit THREE other cars and is still allowed to drive a busload of at least 100 people to and from work everyday???!!! This really made my day! The way this woman didn't seem to care about the safety of her passengers or the condition of the driver that she just hit; it was priceless to say the least!!! Because to her it was not about the accident or the people involved; NOPE not today, today it was about the fact that this is the FOURTH car she has hit while driving a bus.

This gives you an idea of the exact bus that I was on today and how big this thing really is! Can you imagine getting rear-ended by this jalopy!

Happy Monday everyone!!

Serious Shopaholic Has Tagged Me!!!

I have been tagged by Jeanie over at Serious Shopaholic. Jeanie's blog is great and is so fun to read! She is happily married and expecting her first child in a couple months. Her blog talks about fashion, married life, pregnancy and her journey to finish her long awaited degree.

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up.

Here are the six random, non-important things/habits/quirks about yours truly!

1. I never wake up when the alarm goes off and in turn I am constantly missing my bus to work.

2. I share a 500 sq. foot apartment with my boyfriend of three years. We have not had a working television in more than a year. (Hence my new blogging addiction - J says he doesn't mind 'anything to keep you out of the stores')

3. I can't remember anything. I write things down on post-its, I use my outlook calendar religiously and even type notes into my BlackJack, but somehow in the end I am always searching for the post-its with the notes on them, can't find my phone or forget to set the alarm on my calendar to remind me that I put a note in there in the first place. I won't be surprised to have complete memory loss by the age of 30.

4. I truly believe that if Richard Gere and I met in real life that we would fall madly in love and be married. (The Edward Lewis - Richard Gere, in Pretty Woman or even the RG from Runaway Bride would be fine too.)

5. I went to Guatemala a few years ago and managed to end up in a one room hospital next to a dying man, across from a woman in labor and then me lying on a bed trying not to lose the battle against a large Amoeba infested tape worm in my stomach. I also watched a non-English speaking nurse pull a needle out of a zip-lock baggie and proceed to inject it into me while I am screaming to get it away from me. (Still to this day I am waiting for the HIV diagnosis.)

6. I could drink pop all day everyday for the rest of my life.

I now tag:

Nola @ With Love From New Orleans

Brittany @ Preppy Nonsense

Mrs. JetPlane @ Leaving and Loving on a Jet Plane


Gwen @ Confessions of a Control Freak

Julie @ Wearing Mascara


Erin @ Blue-Eyed Bride

Just a Little Spray - You Will Never Notice

I just got off the phone with my mom back in MN and she is out Christmas shopping at the mall. She managed to tell me most of my Christmas gifts throughout the ten minute conversation - which is fine because I'm not a huge fan of surprises anyway. One of the gifts she bought me was the Versace perfume that I blogged about a few days ago (VERY EXCITING!) The small detail that she managed to slip in was that she had opened up the package this morning and is wearing it today to see if she likes it!

I can just see her this week sneaking into the Christmas packages and spraying a little dab on and wrapping it back up each day before she leaves for work. By the time I get home for Christmas I will have a half of bottle of Versace wrapped up in Scotch tape!

Nothing Like a Little Retail Therepy To Finish Off the Week

I stopped at JCREW after work today to take a peek since I hadn't been in, in a few weeks and came out with way too much!! But I couldn't resist! Everything was on sale from the cashmere sweaters at 20% off to everything else in the store that was 30% off and my additional student discount at 15% off! It would have been sinful to pass up those deals! Plus I am going to buy stock in JCREW while it is sitting at the low price of $10 a share so I figure I might as well start supporting now. (According to Mandy Rose and J over at House of Rose we should all BUY BUY BUY in the stock market - so I am taking her free financial advice and running with it.)

Any whoo below are the amazing items I bought today at JCREW. The only thing that wasn't on sale was my favorite of them all - the white ruffled blouse. (But I really think I would die without it!)






I couldn't wait for J to buy if for me for X-mas (IT WAS ON SALE NOW!!)


Simple black tweed with specks of gold - LOVE IT!



Thats all for now J needs to do actual work.

Weird Password

If any of you are getting prompted to put in a password to read my blog just hit cancel a couple times and it will go away. Not really sure what that's about waiting to hear back from google on how to get it removed. SORRY!

Oh One More Thing to Add to the List.....

7 Nights at Sandals Resort in St. Lucia.... just as a stocking stuffer to accompany my mani/pedi.








On second thought I think I would just like the entire island of St. Lucia



Thank you.

Christmas Wish List/Birthday Wish List: (crossing my fingers J takes a looksie!!)

Pearl Earrings


Neutrogena Advanced Solutions Facial Peel (As Seen on Nina)


Large Volumizer Hairbrush from Sephora


Mani/Pedi From Finger & Toes


JCREW Black Crewneck Cashmere Tee (ON SALE NOW!!)

Is The Holiday Season Over Yet?

Sorry I have been out of the loop lately, but I am so busy at work with holiday events, catering fiascoes and traveling back and forth from MN that I can't find the time to catch up on all your posts, better yet post my own! I promise I will put up some wonderful pictures and stories from my trip to MN this past weekend and of course another traumatic incident on Megabus sometime before Friday.

Please stay tuned.

Hope everyone had a wonderful and safe holiday weekend!