Photos – Page 16 – Not Content to Crawl

Milwaukee Visit

Posted onMarch 6, 2016

Friday February 26th we drove up to Milwaukee to see PostSecret: The Show.

We stopped at Oscar’s Pub & Grill for dinner where we both had burgers which we really enjoyed.

Once we arrived in the city proper we still had a decent amount of time to kill so we went to Bar Louie for drinks before the show. I had what they called the Festivus Sangria which was really yummy. We also scored a free appetizer when the kitchen accidentally made two for the same table and didn’t want it to go to waste.

The show itself was very interesting. I liked our view, not that it was truly necessary given the large screen where the secrets would appear.

I have mixed feelings about the show itself. It was definitely interesting but there were too many sad/disturbing secrets. I guess that should have been expected but I hated how it made me teary-eyed. It was longer than I expected, but in a good way as that made the $38 per ticket (plus fees; although they were cheaper by calling the box office directly as opposed to buying through TicketMaster) easier to swallow.

Overall the evening was a nice little getaway for us. Since Milwaukee isn’t too far we opted to drive back home after the show instead of staying overnight in a hotel. That might have been more appealing had the weather been warmer, however.

Chicago Auto Show 2016

Posted onFebruary 22, 2016February 22, 2016

Soooo… our second Auto Show experience wasn’t nearly as good as our first one in 2014.

First off, we got confused at the exit and ended up on Lake Shore Dr. and had to get off and turn around. Coming from the North we couldn’t figure out how to find parking Lot A; Lot B was unappealing due to being outside and a decent walk from the venue. Somehow we ended up at some weird loading dock for McCormick Place because the person manning the booth into what I assume was a restricted area didn’t give a crap. Needless to say, we ended up parking in Lot B but were able to catch a free shuttle to the entrance so that part wasn’t bad at all.

We arrived shortly after the 9 am opening but it was already super crowded. On top of that, the two huge showrooms were set up differently than before so they were equally crowded and full of so many kids! It was super annoying how many times I couldn’t explore the inside a car I was interested in (because I’m in the market for a new vehicle) due to an eight year old sitting behind the wheel. Ugh! We agreed that next time we’ll go during the week since kids should be in school.

I did take a decent amount of photos with my new wide angle lens but I wasn’t really feeling it due to the crowds. We didn’t end up going on any of the “test rides” and only snagged two Ford reusable bags.

We left right before noon and had lunch at Golden Thai in University Village. Their food was so good that I’m sure we’ll be back there again one day.

Note: This cracked me up.

BINGO, Bar, Meetup & Chocolate Expo

Posted onFebruary 8, 2016February 19, 2016

What a busy weekend! It was fun busy, though!

Friday night we met up with friends at Portillo’s followed by BINGO at the nearby church. One of the girls won $15 and the other won $500! She wanted to celebrate so we went to a bar where she bought us all a round. I tried a new drink my other friend ordered for me which tasted like a slurpee. I think it had blue vodka in it but I really don’t remember what it was called. We didn’t end up going home until 1 am. It was a great time. I love this group of people and wish we could get together more often.

Instead of checking out a craft show Saturday morning as planned we decided to sleep in and make breakfast burritos. Then we did a little grocery shopping, including Costco where I bought this delicious dark chocolate.

The bag was $10 but ounce for ounce it’s cheaper than Ghiradelli and light years more delicious.

Saturday evening we attended our second ever Meetup for a game night at a pizza place in Villa Park. We already had pizza the night before (Joe got the munchies at the bar and ordered a large pizza at the place next door since they deliver to the bar) so we ate a little lighter. Joe got a salad and I had a grilled chicken sandwich, both of which were good. The evening started out a little awkward (the host wasn’t that great about introducing people) but once everyone was finished eating and started playing games the conversation flowed more easily.

There was this one girl sitting to my right who I tried making conversation with but she’d answer me without making eye contact and not do anything to keep the conversation flowing. I thought maybe it was her first meetup and she was nervous, but she said no, so I’m not sure if she has a hard time socially or she just didn’t like me. I gave up after multiple attempts to be friendly with her. I’m the kind of person who will only make so much effort before my attitude is f you.

There were two women who sat at the end of the table to my left who were much friendlier so we ended up forming a group with them and another guy and girl to play Rummikub and Sequence before personally deciding to call it a night at 9 pm. The meetup space was reserved until 11 pm but I was just too tired from the night before and couldn’t stop yawning! I was in bed by 10:30.

Sunday morning we ate a quick breakfast at McDonald’s before checking out the Chocolate Expo at the arboretum.

We ended up buying a chocolate covered Twinkie which was delicious, as well as a chocolate covered jalapeÃ±o, a peanut butter cup, and a mini bundt cake.

I ate the twinkie last night and it was delicious. The rest of the snacks will probably be eaten after dinner tonight.

Recently I purchased a few new shirts on clearance at Target, including a rather clingy cowl neck thin sweater.

I sent a photo of me wearing it to my cousin.

I paired it with a pair of fleece lined black leggings I got at Walmart for $9 and my knee high black boots and wore the outfit to the Expo. Needless to say, Joe couldn’t keep his eyes, or hands, off me. We ended up going out for some boneless wings for lunch just so he could stare at me longer since he knew once we were home for the rest of the day I’d end up changing into my pajamas (e.g. my fleece Star Wars pants I can’t stop wearing). I love how after 15 years he still makes me feel sexy.

Sunday evening, as everyone knows, was the Super Bowl. I couldn’t care less about football but I joined Joe on the couch to catch the commercials and half time show. My fave commercial was Ryanville, although I did miss some so I’ll have to check YouTube. I made jalapeÃ±o poppers, toasted ravioli, and guacamole to snack on. I didn’t eat much since I was still full from the wings I had for lunch.

I also tried to watch the Puppy Bowl (muted) via the Xfinity app on my iPad but that was an exercise in futility. First I realized that despite scheduling it to record on the DVR several days prior, there wasn’t any evidence of it on the DVR. I only missed the first half hour so I started the recording, waited another half hour, and attempted to watch it but it froze up and crashed multiple times so I gave up. I swear the Xfinity app is such garbage! I often pull up an episode of Dateline or 20/20 when I’m cleaning on Mondays so I can listen and not once has the experience been seamless. The show will randomly pause and I have to stop what I’m doing to press play which is annoying since the iPad will be in a different room than the Bluetooth speaker I keep with me while I clean.

Incoming and Outgoing

Posted onJanuary 18, 2016

Outgoing

We took to Craigslist recently to get rid of a few things. Even though we are less than pleased with our new mattress, we’re stuck with it, so the old one needed to go as it was taking up too much space. We quickly found an interested party because people love free and within a day it was gone. We didn’t get so lucky with our old 19″ tube TV or the broken 32″ LCD. There were two interested parties in the LCD but both of them flaked, so I told Joe to just put both TVs out on the curb the day before trash pickup to see what would happen and the next morning they were gone. So sometimes Craigslist works and sometimes it’s more trouble than it’s worth.

Incoming

I ordered lots of Bath & Body Works stuff when they had their 75% off sale earlier this month. I had a $20 off $50 coupon so I went a little nuts. My cousin is to blame for getting me hooked on them to begin with, damn her!

I also ordered a wide angle lens for my camera.

The funny part is I ordered it the weekend before my birthday in hopes it would arrive in time for us to visit the conservatory to try it out. The day before my birthday I received a notice from Amazon saying it was cancelled due to lack of availability even though when I checked Amazon it was there and in stock but mysteriously $20 more than before (and yes, both listings were shipped and sold by Amazon). The next day I went to a local camera shop to see if I could buy one but the only wide angle they had was a 3rd party one for $500. No thanks! Saturday evening I got on a chat with Amazon, explained the situation, and asked them to honor the original price, which they did. The kicker? The damn thing shipped almost immediately and I had it Sunday afternoon! Son of a…

So anyway, I haven’t really been able to test it yet but I think it will be great for landscapes. It’s 10-18 mm which is perfect since my next lens is 18-55 mm. We’re planning on going to the Chicago Auto Show this year so it will really come in handy then.

Saturday we made a trip to IKEA with E to look for a few things, including a TV stand for his room at home to hold the new TV we got him for Christmas. First we had breakfast in their restaurant which isn’t fancy, but super cheap. It was $8.78 for three people. You really can’t beat that. Plus when all was said and done it ended up being free because they had a promotion when you spend $100 or more they will refund you any restaurant purchases for that day. We laughed when they gave us that coupon because we never spend that much but we did because E’s stand was $68 alone plus we got some other small things including a rubber wisk, two cutting boards, 5 candles (2 for E and three for me), two silk flowers in pots, a candle holder, and a nightlight for the bathroom.

The candles are particularly interesting because they’re only $1.97 for 25 hours of burn time and they are very fragrant but not as much when you burn them. I don’t even know what that grey one is supposed to be (they don’t describe the scents on the packaging) but it smells awesome.

The nightlight was dubbed a ghost but it looks like a panda for me. It will eliminate the need to keep swapping the nightlight in the bathroom for my hair dryer which is a real PITA because that particular outlet is really snug and I have to jiggle the nightlight back and forth just to remove it. This new nighlight changes colors and is rechargeable to it will sit on the bathroom sink.

Yesterday we hit up a few places including Savers’ 50% off sale. Joe got two t-shirts and I got a sweater, a knitted beanie, an awesome pair of Star Wars pajama pants for only $1.50, and four new blankets to use in the rats’ cages.

We also stopped at the calendar store in the mall where everything was deeply discounted. I got a frog calendar to hang up in the my cubicle at work. I was using a generic one from our village but it’s ugly so $4 is a small price to pay to have something nicer to stare at three days a week.

We also picked up a hilarious board game I plan to give Brother #1 on his birthday and for us I picked up two card games because I love adding to our game collection. Our total for all four items was only $22 (which includes tax).

As you can tell, we definitely had more come into the house than leave, although size-wise it takes up less space.

Extended Birthday Weekend

Posted onJanuary 11, 2016

I worked Mon-Fri this past week so I could have my birthday off on Thursday and Joe took Thursday and Friday off to spend it with me.

Thursday I woke up to this:

Then we went to Egg Harbor Cafe for brunch and to the Container Store. Believe it or not, I walked out empty-handed. I love browsing that place so much but can’t bring myself to buy anything most visits. There was one thing that caught my eye but the line was ridiculously long for a weekday afternoon so we just left.

For dinner we went to Happy Elephant and then stopped at Carson’s to browse. Joe ended up buying a faux leather jacket that was 60% off. He looks quite sexy in it. I got a small wallet, but I teased him about his purchase and wished him a happy birthday. LOL

We only went into Carson’s to kill time before an improv show at the Laugh Out Loud theater.

For my own reference, here’s the actors we saw that night:

DJ Cashmere
Jay Gish
Jin Kim
Sean Sullivan
Rudy Voit

There were some other people in the first group we saw (the above are considered the main players) but they aren’t listed on the website which is unfortunate because the one guy really reminded me of someone and I wanted to know more about him. Oh well.

It wasn’t very crowded so we were in the first row which was cool because you could see everything well, but a little nerve-wracking since the actors depend on the audience for suggestions and would put you on the spot sometimes. That stuff makes me anxious but I did ok and by the end was shouting out my own suggestions. It was a good time. The last time we were there was nearly six years ago with a group of friends but two of them didn’t enjoy the experience as much as we did and one is sadly no longer with us as she passed away last year.

After the show we stopped at this interesting burger bar called Kuma’s Corner where they play heavy metal music. Usually that sort of stuff gives me a raging headache but I really liked the atmosphere. Too bad the food wasn’t all that. We shared an order of fried pickles and a burger, neither of which impressed us. That being said, we’d go back to try something else since we liked the place overall and the staff was very nice. Oh, and being a bar there was some interesting graffiti in the bathroom. I memorized a few to relate to my brother since we share the same dirty sense of humor but I won’t post it here other than to say that one gem had to do with farts and the other with penises. Oh, and someone drew a shark wearing a tutu on the wall which cracked me up.

Earlier in the week I asked a couple of friends whether they wanted to meet up for Friday might BINGO but only one of the four was available, so I ended up asking my mom if we could stop by for a game night instead. I would have loved to have a party at our place but my mom can’t visit due to her sensitivities, so I basically invited myself over instead. It was just me, Joe, my parents, and Brother #1. We had Panda Express (for me) and pizza (for my dad, whose birthday was on the 5th) as well as homemade chocolate cupcakes my mom made. She also bought me a yellow cake. “What, no lemon?!?” I exclaimed (she used to bake me lemon cakes when I was a kid).

Brother #1, who already gave me my main birthday present back at Christmas since he wasn’t sure when he’d see me next, gave me some dark chocolate, Sour Patch Kids, three boxes of Nerds (“what are you implying?” I asked him with a smirk), and this card because he’s a punk. It did make me laugh, though.

We played Smartass and Taboo which was a blast. My brother was my partner for Taboo and we beat Joe and my mom by one point. It was a fun evening! Even though we left just before 11 pm we didn’t get to bed until 2 am because we were a little wired when we got home.

Saturday we ran some errands including stopping at Noodles & Company for my free bowl of birthday noodles and Jamba Juice for a free five fruit frenzy. Glad I’m done with all that eating now! Once we got home early afternoon we hunkered down to ride out the snow that was expected to fall (although it wasn’t as much as they predicted). We watched Sleeping With Other People which was better than I was expecting, if not predictable.

Sunday I slept in a bit and we lazed around the house until about 4 pm when we decided to go out and grab some boneless wings.

Today I did my regular Monday cleaning and made some banana breakfast muffins. Not exactly looking forward to going back to work. I really enjoyed my five day weekend!