Sunday, October 26, 2008

painting and an aching back

Since we'll be living in Chicago for a few more years I decided last spring that I wanted to make it as home-y as possible.. and I love to decorate. A few months ago I painted my dining room a Tuscan-orange that I blogged about before. Yesterday I finally (I've had the paint for 5 months) painted my family room a lovely cappuccino. I thought it'd take me a few short hours since I was only doing two walls... oh no... I'm a bit of a perfectionist with certain things and painting is one of them. Every line had to be straight and perfect. So six hours later... and now I LOVE it!

before
in the middle of painting
huge wall that took me hours to complete (and Ben watching The Jetsons on his computer)
and AFTER (I need a huge mirror to replace that multiple-picture frame on the right-not a fan)!
AFTER!
love the woodwork - the white bullseye woodwork is throughout the entire house (sorry picture is sideways)
COMPLETE!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

non-existent apples, cheese, a pal named Craig, hungry goats, and nipping raccoons - what a weekend!

This past Friday Ben and I along with some friends from med school went on a camping trip near Wisconsin. The trees are starting to change colors so it was a perfect time to go. Our first day we set out to an apple orchard to pick our own fruit and found out that the weekend before it had been picked clean.. niiiice... luckily this orchard had a few other incentives to come like their homemade apple cider that they taught and showed us how to make, frightening farm animals, and a Wisconsin cheese store - perfect. Afterwards we headed to a corn maze and realized once we were inside of this corn maze that 8 20-something year olds had to liven things up in a corn maze to make it fun. So we split up the map and had a race. Of course Ben and I won (we sprinted the entire time - thank heavens I work out at the gym). I love living in a big city like Chicago but I also love that we can drive an hour away and be out in the middle of nowhere.
This is my pal Craig. He was our cheese cutter. He gave us an abundance of information on the different types of cheeses and let us sample and sample and sample... what a pal. He even let me climb back behind the cheese counter for a photo op.
This pretty much sums up our feelings about Wisconsin cheese.
With my friend Craig again. 
These may look like harmless goats but they were vicious. They would stick their heads through the fencing and nip at everything. Here I was trying to take just a lovely picture with my pastoral friends and they kept nibbling at my hair.. ew..

This was right after we kicked tushy in the corn maze - we are way too competitive.
One of our friends never made it to station 14. We waited and waited and finally left this note telling him we were headed back home to the campsite. We later found out he had given up...loser...
After our full day of apple orchard, corn maze competitions, and nipping goats we settled back into our campground for a bevy of cheeses. All eight of us sat around this dairy buffet and gorged ourselves.. most of us took naps after that.
The nights were chilly. We probably burned an entire tree in the two days we were there. Here we were warming our fannies by the coals before we headed to bed. That same night one of Ben's friends woke up screaming (he was sleeping outside) because a raccoon started attacking his feet trying to see if he had anything in his sleeping bag to eat. AAAAHHHH! 

Hotel Hunting

In about 2 months, Ben and I will be celebrating our third anniversary. For each anniversary we've made a tradition to stay in a ridiculously nice hotel - gives us one night where we don't feel poor =).  A few Saturdays ago we went searching through Chicago for the nicest one. My favorites are the Palmer House Hilton  and the Drake. We had a fun time enjoying the cities architecture and a pizza place we've never experienced called Lou Malnatis. Totally beats Giordanos and Ginos East in my opinion.

Right at this intersection Ben found a store that sold bow ties straight from England... he was in heaven!


Chicago Board of Trade building.

Along the Chicago River.

Saturday, October 4, 2008

A Bit of an Obsession...

About a week and a half ago I was searching through BBC movies that I have never seen before and came across this one. OH MY GOSH! If you're a fan of Pride and Prejudice or period dramas in general you will love this movie. It's about a girl from the south of England whose father (a former pastor) moves the family up north to an industrial town for work. Here she meets the owner of a cotton mill whose all hardened and anguished.... ahhh... love it! I bought it and have watched it too many times this past week. You can go on YouTube and see clips and actually the entire thing if you're interested! (don't mistake it for the Civil War movie called North and South though)