The Adventures of Kinky Reggae: A Vagabond for Beauty

Other than a visit to the Bongo Room for Raspberry Oreo Flapjacks with Whitney... ... I have spent the better part of the past 24 hours completely immersed in the 50 Shades of Grey Trilogy. Here are my complaints: 1. The writing is truly awful.  And this is coming from a girl who loved the Twilight books.  It has all the romantic moments from the Twilight books, except they are so poorly written.  Oh, and the author needs to be taught how to use commas! 2. I feel like Christian gasps every other page about something Ana says.  Can you imagine a guy gasping all the time in real life?  Not sexy. 3. The things that are slightly creepy about Edward in Twilight are even creepier in this book.  For example, Christian flips out just because she drunk dials him. He actually shows up at the bar like she needs saving, like drunk dialing is some huge cause for alarm.  He even flies across the country and tracks her down at a bar where she is having drinks with her mother.  He confes

Happy moments in the past week:  Baking with the small group ladies last night... had to get a shot of them licking the spoons.  Love these girls!   Sadly, I did not take this picture in person.  It popped up in a text from Rachel along with the message, "Carmen loves you!"  Her little face brings me instant joy.  Nina and I got her that wagon in the background.   I got to go to the Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes concert last week with Nina and Whitney.  We were in the second row!  This is Jade looking adorable in a vintage dress with a Peter Pan collar.  She wore that with a pair of tie-dye socks.  When I told my mom about it, she said, "Well, that's about what I'd expect from a Magnetic Zero..."

One thing I can say about my life is that I am rarely bored.  There are always a million things I want to be doing and places I want to go.  This is what summer is for.  And since I only have a few weeks before leaving on my epic road trip, I don't want to waste a single day. Up first on the agenda: rhubarb pie at Bang Bang Pie Shop. My limited vocabulary does not contain the words to express how delicious the pie was.  Their entire menu consists of three types of pie, biscuits with butter and jam, and some fancy kind of coffee.  I can't wait to go back and try their key lime pie.      Next up: a walk through Humboldt Park accompanied by the audio tour. The park is even more beautiful to me now that I know the story behind it.  Fun fact: the bison sculptures were actually made by the same guy who did the lions outside of the Art Institute.  So much history just across the street from my apartment. I have a list of places to check out that will keep me very b

My friend Joe and I came up with this idea to create adventure days for each other, days on which we'd show each other our ideas of a good time.  One of the few drawbacks of my beloved city is that the nearest national forest is five hours away, meaning that my adventure day actually required two days.  Luckily, Joe is a good sport and was willing to go along with any craziness I came up with.  In this case, that craziness involved packrafting down a rapid-filled river in a pool toy and bushwhacking through the woods to get back to the car.   The drive up to the North Woods was pretty uneventful, with the exception of Joe's panic when he realized there is no cell phone signal in national forests.  It was reminiscent of Nancy's reaction to the remoteness of our Utah hikes.  In fact, as I told her the story, she stopped me there to say, "Oh, that poor boy, I know exactly how he was feeling!"  I delight in taking city folk into the wild.  Joe said he only had on

My friend Jenna recently shared her baby’s birth story on her blog, and it was awesome. I realized that I’ve never written down Jacob’s birth story. I have no plans on this lazy, hot Memorial Day (other than working on my tan), so I thought, why not take a few minutes and reminisce? (Actually, this ended up taking way more than a few minutes to write. I apologize in advance for the length.) Jacob was born on Thursday, December 21st, 2000. Winter solstice. The darkest day of the year. And yet, one of the brightest days of my life. I went into labor during the night, but kept rolling over and going back to sleep, dismissing it as Braxton Hicks. But maybe around 9 a.m., I realized the contractions were hurting more and coming regularly. This was it. T.J. came to pick me up from my parents’ to hang out at his parents’ until the contractions were two minutes apart and it was time to go to the hospital. (They lived closer.) TJ worked on wrapping Christmas gifts while his little sister

I have labels for a lot of my friends. Kristin's my battle buddy, Amanda's my Phoenix BFF, Rachel's my female soulmate, and Nina is my sister.  Sometimes we love each other, sometimes we can't stand to be in the same room, but we are ALWAYS there for each other. We've been through some crazy stuff together, and after 15 years of friendship, I think we'll be friends for life. Her 30th birthday was a few weeks ago, but we had to put off the celebration because she was in Hawaii. I was super excited for the birthday surprise I had planned for her last night! We started off at Tatu Tattoo with a consultation with Marci, my amazing tattoo artist. Nina's been wanting a lotus blossom tattoo forever and just never gets around to doing anything about it. She's a little nervous about actually going through with it, but at least now she has an appointment to get a temporary stencil of it to see if she likes it. Marci is so in demand, she couldn't get in ti

Had a second interview with a fancy North Shore district yesterday.  Kestelle laughed and laughed and said, "Do they know you're planning on living out of your car this summer???"  It became clear during the interview that there were some distinct philosophical differences.  I did not get the job.  Still waiting to hear back from a few other districts.  I met Whitney for dinner at Kopi Cafe, one of my favorite spots.  We were both in bad moods.  (It should not take 55 minutes to drive 6 miles.)  Amazing how some hooping can take care of that quickly. 

Sometimes, I am so trendy I can't even believe it.  There are numerous examples of this, such as accidentally moving into hipster neighborhoods (the rent is cheap!), having Blue on my list of baby names (fine, Beyonce, you can have it, I probably wouldn't have used it anyway), and naming my kid Jacob. (I just liked the name! I didn't know it was #1 the year he was born!). But I never thought Celine Dion would appear on this list. I just about died when I turned on Glee in time to see Rachel singing Celine Dion at Nationals. And not just any Celine Dion. The most dramatic, over-the-top, ridiculous song ever- "It's All Coming Back to Me Now." That is me and Nancy's song. It has been for years. It started on a trip back from Florida, when I was getting a little grouchy.  "You need to sing," Nancy said knowingly, and turned on that song. When I recovered from the shock of her having that on her iPod, we had the best sing along ever. It was hard to

I've been so behind in blogging lately.... Last Saturday was pretty much the perfect day.  My hipster friend, Jenna , makes her own hula hoops.  When I hooped with her in Phoenix, I realized what a genius she is; it is SO much fun.  She and Rachel get together on Friday mornings and hoop at a nearby park.  I told her I was going to start a Chicago chapter of her hooping club, and last Saturday, Whitney and I did just that.  We had errands to run first.  I think Michael at the South Loop Home Depot deserves a big thank you for all his help.  He saw us wandering cluelessly around the plumbing aisle and offered his assistance.  When I told him what we needed, he assumed I was working on a plumbing project and started using all sorts of plumbing jargon.  While I appreciate how non-discriminating he was (in that he actually assumed that someone like me would know plumbing), I thought it was pretty funny and enjoyed the blank look on his face when we explained that we were making h

Two weekends ago, we celebrated Liz’s bachelorette weekend.   I had such a great time with these girls.   I went to preschool with Jenn, had play dates with Sonal and Rupal in kindergarten, and met the rest in middle school.   There is something wonderful about hanging out with people who have known you that long.   The weekend began at Bottle and Bottega, this really cool place in Lakeview where they teach you how to paint a picture, and you drink wine while you’re doing it.   It was so fun to see how everyone’s school personalities came out- I was a huge goody-goody, shushing people because I was trying to listen and follow directions; Liz pretended to play it cool until towards the end, when she started freaking out because her painting wouldn’t be perfected in the amount of time she was given; Cortnee worked ahead and got creative; and a few of the other girls kept whispering and giggling during instruction (hence, the shushing).   But we really enjoyed ourselves.   I highly r

It it a dark and stormy night. And anyone who has lived with me knows the implications- sleep will be nearly impossible.  Instead, I will spend the night laying on the couch with The Weather Channel on.  But during the day (or anytime I'm awake, for that matter), I love a good storm.  In fact, I've been known to do a little storm chasing. I feel stupid for being afraid, and after thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized I'm scared of a lot of things.  A LOT.  It's a little ridiculous for a girl who's trying to be Fearless.  I am afraid of: 1.  Storms.  If thunder wakes me up, I will lay there shivering in the fetal position, holding my ears and praying it will end soon.  When I was little, I'd get so scared I'd actually throw up. 2.  Butterflies.  I even have nightmares about them chasing me.  Like, a whole flock of monarchs descending on me, and all the doors are locked so I can't get in the house.   3.  Driving on Elston (super s