Category: Friends

BINGO, Bar, Meetup & Chocolate Expo

Posted on

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.

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.

Chocolate Expo

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

Chocolate Overload

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.

Shirts

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

20160207_174802000_iOS

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 jalapeño 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.

Meetup

Posted on

Last year was a rather lonely one. We got together with friends here and there but not nearly as often as I would have liked. Everyone was always too busy (or they just said that because they don’t like us, who knows). This year I decided I had enough. You can’t force people to hang out with you, and as much as I love the small group of friends we have, I was growing frustrated with their lack of availability.

So I decided to join Meetup. I actually signed up on the site years ago but never went to any events. I forgot all about it too because when I signed up (again) I used a different email address so now I have two accounts. I joined a bunch of social groups and some game related ones and encouraged Joe to do the same.

I’m happy to report we attended our first meetup this past Tuesday evening and it was awesome! I didn’t even take a Xanax beforehand even though I was very nervous about meeting a bunch of new people.

When we arrived at the restaurant, the host greeted us and promptly split us up by assigning us to separate tables. At first I was freaked out, but she pointed out we were there to meet new people, not socialize with each other.

My table consisted of another host, and two women. A little later in the evening two latecomers, both male, joined us as well. I was pleasantly surprised by how easily the conversation flowed and how no one really interrupted or had their eyes glaze over when I was speaking. Hell, my own friends aren’t that courteous! Then again, it might just be over-politeness when meeting new people. Either way, though, it was fantastic. I’m really looking forward to having more things to do socially this year.

There were a total of 31 people at this event but due to the small tables it didn’t feel overwhelming. We arrived around 5:45 pm and left at 8:45 pm since our “bedtime” is 10 pm! Of course, once we got home we were both too wired to sleep. Coupled with not getting a good night’s rest the night before, it kinda sucked, but was well worth it. We almost never go out on a weeknight so it was a welcome change to our schedule.

Here’s the interesting part – I posted on Facebook about our Meetup experience, mentioning that last year I suffered from several bouts of loneliness. Not ten minutes later I get a Facebook message from my ex asking if Joe and I would like to join him and his wife next weekend to see a comedy show. That’s odd for a few reasons:

1) We’ve gotten together once before in 2014 when I hosted a game night, and since then I’ve tried to plan something with them but they can never make it. I was even telling Joe on the car ride home from our Meetup that we were never going to hang out with this couple again (not for the lack of wanting to, but due to their unavailability).

2) I usually chat with his wife about these things. I very rarely chat with my ex because I don’t want her to think I have some weird hidden agenda. We dated for three months twenty years ago and it wasn’t serious.

3) The last chat I had with her included me telling her if she ever wants to come over, with or without her husband, she’s free to hit me up and she didn’t even acknowledge it. I figured that meant she wasn’t interested in hanging out with me (although if the tables were turned I would have at least said thank you or something just to be polite instead of flat-out not responding).

I’m guessing due to her lack of response before she felt awkward messaging me herself, or maybe she really doesn’t want to hang out but he does. I’m not sure, but it feels awfully like a pity invite considering the timing. We probably won’t be going regardless because E is supposed to be coming over that weekend, although I need to make sure that’s still the case when he comes over tonight (we swapped weekends so he’s over two in a row).

Gift Wrapping, Luong-Loi, Game Night

Posted on

I only had one thing on my to do list on Friday, and that was to wrap Joe’s gifts. I’m happy to report that I got through it. I even wrapped E’s gifts even though I don’t love gift wrapping because I stink at it. I put my newest favorite show – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia – on Netflix and got to work. It was a nice relaxing day with a little productivity thrown in.

Saturday we had lunch at Luong-Loi – our favorite Vietnamese restaurant. It was a long time coming. See, sometime over the summer we happened to drive past the restaurant’s location when I noticed the storefront was completely empty. No sign or anything. The place was just gone. I was in shock, and extremely sad. I’m not sure what possessed me to check out their website about a month or so later, but I was excited to learn that they were actually moving the restaurant across the street and would be reopening in October. Except they didn’t. We happened to drive past the old location again and there was a sign in the window that said “we went back to Vietnam”. I was so confused, but I thought that meant they changed their mind and wouldn’t be returning after all. Finally they started communicating via their Facebook page that they were back from vacation and working on the new restaurant. There were some delays thrown in so their reopening date kept getting pushed back until they finally opened this past Friday.

We were so excited we ended up order four dishes – mongolian beef, garlic chicken, sweet & sour chicken, and kung pao chicken. With the exception of the beef, which tasted fishy, everything was as delicious as I remember. I particularly like the kung pao (which I’m eating right now as I type out this entry, in fact). I’m also happy that each dish comes with it’s own side of rice unlike before where they’d bring one plate of rice that wasn’t enough (and not bring out any more so I’d have to make more rice at home to go with the leftovers). I’m bummed that the mongolian beef isn’t good anymore, but happy the kung pao is since they introduced lunch specials for only $8. Much cheaper than just ordering a ton of food like we did.

Saturday night we were invited to a game night at my friend, C’s, house. We go to lunch every so often and trade magazines (I get her People magazines which is awesome since that subscription is expensive) and she’s been to our house a couple of times, including once for a game night with her husband years ago. We brought Uno Attack with us which we played first. Then we played one of their games, Pay Day, which we’ve never played before. It’s fun! I won too. Hehe. Their cat finally came downstairs after we had been there a couple of hours and even let me pet her which they said is unusual so I felt special. She’s such a beautiful cat – grey with green eyes. And she doesn’t shed just from being touched, unlike the two orange kitties I was pet-sitting earlier this month. The time just flew by – we arrived at 6 pm and ended up leaving just after 10:30 pm. It was a fun night!

Scarecrow Fest

Posted on

Another fantastic weekend is behind us.

Saturday morning we got together with friends to check out St. Charles’ Scarecrow Festival. It was the perfect day weather-wise. It was cool in the morning but the sun was out so it wasn’t too hot or cold.

First we had breakfast at this fabulous restaurant near the festival. I got the same thing as last time – Hawaiian eggs benedict. Joe and our friends each had a skillet. Both men ordered bloody marys too.

After breakfast we browsed the scarecrows before the festival officially opened. I didn’t bring a camera because I wasn’t sure whether I would take any photos, but I couldn’t resist, so I used my iPhone. The photos with the sun behind me came out fine but the other ones leave a lot to be desired. Ugh, I hate the iPhone camera because it’s so inconsistent in quality!

Revenge of the Great Pumpkin

We left the festival temporarily to check out a Ferret show at the Kane County Fairgrounds (our friends are huge ferret fans and own one). They had some really cute hammocks for sale so we got two for the rats. One is a big Halloween-themed cube hammock which I put in Milo and Gizmo’s cage. They love it.

After seeing everything at the show, we headed back to the festival so we could check out the craft booths. By this time it was close to noon so the parking garage we had used earlier that morning was completely full. We drove around the area for awhile and stumbled upon Delnor park which turns out is only a few blocks walk to the area where the crafts were. Score!

We spent some time checking out all the booths together. I bought a chocolate covered pretzel to snack on since I find them irresistible. We also spent some time checking out their petting zoo from a distance. They had a very interesting collection of exotic animals including a kookaburra and wallaby, but we had difficulty identifying one of the animals hopping around. The first thing that came to mind was jackalope which is funny because they don’t really exist. But this thing looked like a cross between a rabbit and a deer which is why my mind went there.

At this point, a stranger who had apparently been listening to our conversation, stuck his phone in my face to “prove” to me it was a capybara. I told him I’ve seen those at a zoo before and they were way larger than this, but he insisted, claiming it was a baby. Whatever. Mind your own business, dude! Finally, I got the attention of one of the animal handlers to ask her what the creature was and it turns out it was a pantagonian cavy.

We were pretty hungry after all that walking around, but the one thing that is not impressive at this fest is the food, so we went to Beef Shack for lunch. It was such a beautiful day we sat outside to enjoy our food. And we officially ruined Portillo’s beef for our friends by introducing them to Beef Shack, haha! Their beef sandwiches are the best!

On our way back home (we picked up our friends at their house that morning so we could take one car), I pointed out to our friends that Fermilab was nearby if they ever wanted to see the bison, so they asked if we could stop then. Unfortunately, the bison were way out in the field so it was hard to see them. We did see a hawk, though, and some killdeer (which is the only place I’ve yet to see these birds).

When we got back to our friends’ place we went inside for a bit to talk and play with their cute ferret. Overall it was a very long, but fun, day. There are very few people I could spend that much time with but even so, I did have a headache and we used the rest of the evening to decompress by watching tv. It has become very clear to us that while we do enjoy time socializing, we are very much introverts who could not do it two days in a row.

Which is why on Sunday we renewed our Costco membership and did some grocery shopping before the Bears game and spent the rest of the day inside. Since it was what I’m guessing the last warm day of the season, we opened the windows to get some fresh air. It was nice to walk around barefoot in the house; I predict I won’t be able to do that again until spring. For dinner I made beef stroganoff in the crock pot and apple muffins for dessert, both of which were delicious. It was a nice relaxing end to our weekend together.

» Scarecrow Festival photos on Flickr

Week of September 7th

Posted on

Agility Course

Notable things that happened this week:

Made delicious homemade sloppy joes for dinner on Tuesday. Manwich has got nothing on me!

I received my annual review at work. As with last year, my lowest rating had to do with not having time to take on new responsibilities due to my part-time schedule. I think that’s a bit unfair since they’re the ones who were ok with it, but it didn’t affect my raise which was the maximum percentage they allow so I didn’t make a stink about it.

We had two friends over Saturday evening who will be stopping by the house next week to keep an eye on the rats for us. They came over at 4 pm and didn’t leave until well after midnight. We always have fun with them and already have a fall outing planned with them as well.

Sunday we attended the CS Barks Festival which is a dog-centered festival. It’s fun to see all the different breeds. We left earlier than we would have liked in order to get home in time for the Bears game. It’s a good thing we did, too, because even though our mattress delivery was scheduled for 2-6 they showed up at 12:30! We had to scramble to get the new mattress out of the way (since we’re keeping it for now) and vacuum all the dust bunnies under the bed, but we did it. Unfortunately, the bed was not comfortable our first night. The guy warned us the bed would feel firmer at first, but damn, it seems rock hard. It doesn’t feel anything like the bed we fell in love with at the store. We had to check the tag to make sure they sent us the plush model, and unless it has the wrong tag on it, they did. I hope we can adjust to it quickly as last night was a toss and turn night for the both of us.