Chicago

How Winter Kills

Like the snow in Metro Detroit, I’ve been in and out of every­day life. And like the snow, my mind should be ever present dur­ing this par­tic­u­lar month, since it’s sup­posed to be the month of new begin­nings; of mak­ing res­o­lu­tions to change things.

But like the snow, I’ve only sur­faced in bits in pieces when­ever life seems to be most inconvenient.

This depres­sion sucks.

No. I mean lit­er­ally. It sucks the life and energy out of me. And throw in a (un)healthy dose of anx­i­ety with it … well it just makes life all the more interesting.

I’m try­ing my best to move past this depres­sion; doing all that I can phys­i­cally and clin­i­cally do, but the weight of this sad­ness seems to be omnipresent.

Thank God for an under­stand­ing Hus­band; one who has stood by me through thick and thin. He’s been there through the low-​​hanging, non-​​anxiety moments and all the way through the high-​​octane drama-​​fueled moments. Some­times I won­der – scratch that – I always won­der how I’ve man­aged to find my soul­mate and my best friend who still loves me despite all the bag­gage I carry.

If any­thing, Hubby (and the furkids – although the fur-​​dog has been on my last nerve lately … ) is the rea­son why I keep get­ting out of bed every morning.

Even though I’ve writ­ten the occa­sional post about the grief I’ve been expe­ri­enc­ing, I know I’m not usu­ally so out­right with my depres­sion. But it has been sug­gested to me that I start writ­ing more about it, because this seems to be the only out­let where I can openly talk about my struggles.

And although this blog is (and always will be) about liv­ing child-​​free after infer­til­ity, I thought that this was my lit­tle cor­ner of the uni­verse where I can tell you about my life, both good and bad. So here’s where I lay it out on the line:

  • I’m still griev­ing over the death of my father. Between my two par­ents, it’s become appar­ent to me over the past year and a half that I truly was a “Daddy’s Girl.” I thrived in the moments when my Dad would play around with me and tease me. And there were the silly jokes the two of us would play on each other that only the two of us would get. And I miss those things horribly.

 

  • In the same aspect, I real­ize how much dif­fer­ent my rela­tion­ship with my Mom has always been; par­tic­u­larly now that my Dad had passed. I’ve always known that we never had that “Mother-​​Daughter” bond that is con­stantly seen in movies and TV shows; we’re just two very dif­fer­ent peo­ple. And with­out Dad being there as a buffer, this rela­tion­ship has only inten­si­fied … and not always in a pos­i­tive way.

 

  • Even though it’s been over a year since decid­ing to move back to Detroit, not a day goes by that I don’t miss liv­ing in Chicago. I miss the city and the atmos­phere. I miss the late night trips to Dim Sum or Korean BBQ with my cousins. I miss walking.

 

  • But what I miss the most is that Chicago rep­re­sented a new life for me. A life where Hubby & I carved out a place for our­selves; where the two of us really started focus­ing on us as a “Fam­ily of Two.” And while I love my home­town and take pride in telling peo­ple that I’m from Detroit, I miss that part of our lives where we were just far enough from “home” where Hubby & I could be our own family.

 

  • And finally … even though Hubby & I have decided that child-​​free liv­ing after infer­til­ity is our life, there are still those days where I worry about our future and what other things in our lives we can con­tribute to the greater good of our world. Will all I have to show at the end of my life is that I’ve worked hard for a liv­ing? That I loved my fam­ily and friends to the best capac­ity that I could? What about my legacy? What will I leave behind? And will I have made a dif­fer­ence in someone’s life? I know now that hav­ing kids won’t nec­es­sar­ily “sat­isfy” or pro­vide answers to all of those ques­tions, but hav­ing lost my Dad … and know­ing the per­son he was … this is some­thing that weighs heav­ily on mind.

 

I could prob­a­bly go on with more “issues” that seem to run end­lessly through my anxiety-​​ridden head, but these are the ones that are con­stantly in my stream of con­scious­ness. These are the things that keep me from doing the things I would nor­mally enjoy doing.

Like read­ing.

Or knit­ting.

Or tak­ing pictures.

Or writ­ing.

Or sim­ply watch­ing TV.

But I’m try­ing … at least I’ll try to work on the writ­ing bit.

And maybe Mother Nature will be kind enough to work on a mild win­ter for the rest of us.

Holding It Together

The last thing I needed to do was to drop all the keys into the kitchen drawer to the right of the stove. That was the direc­tions given to us by the build­ing man­ager. Hubby was head­ing out the front door to the apart­ment that we had been only partly liv­ing in over the past year.

Now the apart­ment was empty; all the fur­ni­ture taken apart and stored in the rented Penske truck that caused such a major has­sle ear­lier that morn­ing. All of our belong­ings since mov­ing to Chicago more that 2.5 years ago were now in boxes, also in the rental truck.

I couldn’t help but feel sad; feel like, once again, I was a fail­ure. After all, I had moved to the city of Chicago in hopes of forg­ing a new life for me out­side of my sub­ur­ban life in Michi­gan; out­side of our fam­i­lies, who had now been inun­dated with babies and kids in gen­eral. The move came at a time when I needed it most; when the lat­est birth in the fam­ily had proven too much for me to deal with both phys­i­cally and emo­tion­ally. I’m not proud of how I had acted  after the birth of Hubby’s niece, but (as much as I love her to pieces) I felt as if I was spi­ral­ing down­ward into the deep abyss of Infer­til­ity depres­sion. Again.

So yes, mov­ing to Chicago was a way to stop me from free-​​falling. It was a way for me to step back from Infer­til­ity and focus on some­thing new. It was a way for me to look at my life from a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive with­out the emo­tional ties or mem­o­ries of what had hap­pened in Detroit since the day Hubby & I decided to start our own fam­ily. And now, I was mov­ing back to the same place I had “escaped” from back in Decem­ber of 2008.

Hubby noticed the sad­ness in my eyes as I headed to the front door after plac­ing the keys in the kitchen drawer. “It’ll be alright,” he told me, plac­ing his arm around my waist.

“Aren’t you even a lit­tle sad?,” I asked him know­ing how much he loved Chicago. I would have thought that he would have been a bit melan­choly over the whole move.

“We’re together,” Hubby told me. “And really, that’s all that matters.”

I knew he was right; after all, wher­ever Hubby is will always be home. Yet I still couldn’t shake the feel­ing that I would be mov­ing back to those same emo­tional ties and mem­o­ries that I had left behind. To be hon­est, it felt more like I’d be mov­ing back to even more emo­tional mem­o­ries, espe­cially since I had lost my father less than 9 months prior. How would it feel to go home again? To see all the places I had been to while in the throws of Infer­til­ity treat­ments? To see fam­ily and friends again, many who still to this day ask us why we don’t have kids? To know that I had failed to give my par­ents … my Dad espe­cially … any grand­chil­dren? To know that the only grand­child my Mom has lives a thou­sand miles away?

I reflected on all these thoughts on the long drive east on I-​​94. As Hubby fol­lowed behind me in the Penske truck, I could feel myself slowly sink­ing into the deep abyss. After all, 2011 was sup­posed to be less emo­tion­ally stress­ful than last year … Espe­cially since 2010 was far from stel­lar. Noth­ing could pos­si­bly top the year I got fired, dealt with another preg­nancy in the fam­ily (this time much bet­ter than in 2008), took my career in a dif­fer­ent direc­tion, and unex­pect­edly lost my Dad (and not to men­tion a beloved fur baby within the same week).

But as easy as it would be to let the abyss swal­low me whole, I knew I had to find the pos­i­tives amongst all the neg­a­tive. So while lis­ten­ing to the entire INXS back cat­a­logue I tried to reflect on what Hubby & I accom­plished in the short time we lived in the Windy City.

“We made it to Chicago,” I thought, know­ing that we had always talked about mov­ing there since our days in col­lege. As much as we loved the Detroit area, we wanted to expe­ri­ence true urban living.

“We mas­tered pub­lic trans­porta­tion.” I added that to list, know­ing full well that grow­ing up in the Motor City pretty much meant that every­one drove them­selves around in their cars rather than uti­lize pub­lic transportation.

“Learned more about Chicago than just the Mag­nif­i­cent.” I chuck­led at that one, since we loved head­ing into the var­i­ous neigh­bor­hoods and explor­ing the intri­ca­cies of the city.

“Spent more time with my Chicago cousins,” I thought; grate­ful for this fact, espe­cially since these were my Dad’s nieces … and none of us ever expected that Dad would be taken from all of us so quickly.

Then as my thoughts turned to fam­ily, I remem­bered the biggest pos­i­tive that came out of Hubby’s and my short stint in Chicago. Of all the things that hap­pened while we were liv­ing in this “Sec­ond City,” I had actu­ally accom­plished the one thing that I had set out to do when we first decided to move out of our home­town. We had finally sep­a­rated our­selves from all the emo­tional bag­gage that came with Infer­til­ity and found our res­o­lu­tion to our jour­ney. And while it wasn’t the out­come that either of us had hoped for when we set out to start our fam­ily 14 years ago, it was one that the two of us could live with.

“So what if there are days — like today, for exam­ple — that I’d still feel like a fail­ure?,” I thought, as the sun finally began to set on that hot August evening. “At least we have each other.”

And all I could think of at that moment was Hubby’s words: “We’re together,” Hubby told me. “And really, that’s all that matters.”

Forgive

Side­walk Grafitti on the streets of Chicago. Took this shot from inside the car on a rainy day.

Thought this would be PERFECT for what’s sup­posed to be “The Rapture” …

Sabbatical

Almost a week and nary a post. <sigh> When did life sud­denly get so busy?

But before I go bab­bling on about shtuff, I want to send a great big THANK YOU for all the won­der­ful birth­day wishes I got last week. It truly means the world that I have friends, both IRL and online, that care so much for me.

I must admit, Hubby & I started cel­e­brat­ing my birth­day the Fri­day before the hol­i­day; kick­ing it off with SIL’s birth­day in Detroit. Since the two of us (SIL & me) share birth­days exactly two days before and after America’s Birth­day, we have tended to cel­e­brate our birth­days in some com­bined man­ner; typ­i­cally either on the Fourth of July or on her actual birth­day. So yeah, we ended up at lunch with Hubby’s side of the fam­ily and exchanged gifts at that time.

And because I had been dying to get into the water again (one day at the beach two weeks ago was obvi­ously not enough), I twisted Hubby’s arm by drag­ging him to the local water­park in sub­ur­ban Detroit. We lost track of time, spend­ing close to four hours of swim­ming in the wave pool and float­ing down the lazy river … and it was won­der­ful!

My only com­plaint? When did my 38 year old body begin to need an hour nap after spend­ing that much time in the water? Geesh … I can remem­ber spend­ing hours and hours in a pool and STILL have enough energy to stay up all night dur­ing the summers.

But after a won­der­ful nap that Sat­ur­day, I got to spend some qual­ity time with my youngest cousins (Dad’s side); tak­ing them to Mex­i­can Vil­lage down­town Detroit and dri­ving them around to show them more than the rel­a­tively non–diverse sub­urbs of South­east Michi­gan. (Think old Detroit Train Sta­tion … ) Yeah, I think we opened their eyes to the tragic beauty of Detroit.

Orig­i­nal Exte­rior and Inte­rior of the Detroit Train Sta­tion
(Michi­gan Cen­tral Station)

Cur­rent Exte­rior and Inte­rior of our Trag­i­cally Beau­ti­ful Train Station

On my actual birth­day, Hubby & I were back in Chicago. My Mom tagged along with us to meet up with some of her uni­ver­sity friends (from back in the Philip­pines! In the early-​​to-​​mid 1960’s!) It was a very hot and humid day, but we man­aged to have lots of fun at the Art Insti­tute of Chicago (my Mom’s a BIG Van Gogh fan) and at Mil­le­nium Park. We had lots of fun tak­ing pic­tures next to and under­neath “The Bean.” After­wards, we hit a Chi­nese Restau­rant closer to our apart­ment and ate dim sum along with the tra­di­tional Noo­dles that each per­son should eat on their birth­day (it rep­re­sents Long Life).

So yes … that’s what I’ve been up to this past week. That … and doing some web­site stuff for one of Hubby’s friend (and get­ting paid for it … woo-​​hoo!).

Oh, and did I for­get to tell you that I got a job?! Not just any job … the trav­el­ing job that I had been want­ing! Woo-frickin’-hoo!! The only down­fall is that I’m not going to be able to start until the end of August. Which means … yeah, still no major cash flow into our bank account.

The upside to it all? (Other than actu­ally being able to say that I’m tech­ni­cally no longer unem­ployed … ) Now I can tell peo­ple that I’ve decided to take the sum­mer off for a sab­bat­i­cal! Tee-​​hee!

Again, thanks for your birth­day wishes AND thanks for all the good vibes and prayers y’all sent my way in regards to my job search. You guys are AWESOME!

Careless Memories

My Favorite D2 album

In the past two months, Hubby & I have spent more week­ends in Detroit than we had here in Chicago. That’s the most we’d been home since the begin­ning of the year.

Need­less to say, we’ve been lis­ten­ing to a lot of good tunes in our dig­i­tal library dur­ing five-​​plus hour drive home.

Lately I’ve been on a Duran Duran kick; thanks to Hubby down­load­ing their entire dig­i­tal library. And it’s been fun singing Rio and Hun­gry Like The Wolf at the top of my lungs some­where between Bat­tle Creek and Jack­son. But I must admit, I’ve been play­ing their first stu­dio album more than the others.

It’s that album, sim­ply titled Duran Duran, that reminds me of being 12 years old again and camp­ing in Kitch­ener Ontario with my cousins. Where we’d play that cas­sette tape over and over again, most likely dri­ving our par­ents insane.

It’s fun lis­ten­ing to the songs that never made it to the radio; those B-​​sides or other non-​​single-​​worthy ones. (Night Boat, any­one?) It’s like going back to visit an old friend and rem­i­nisc­ing about old times. Remem­ber­ing how things were back in those days.

Duran Duran’s first stu­dio album was very … New Wave. Lots of synth and dis­torted gui­tar; awe­some awe­some bass lines and — as I lis­ten to it more and more — some incred­i­bly com­pli­cated drumming.

Not that I don’t like the rest of their albums … I just won­der what it would’ve been like if they stayed in that New Wave sound, rather than head­ing to a more Pop-​​oriented direc­tion. Per­haps they wouldn’t be as main­stream. Per­haps they would have never hit it big. Who knows?

I had that thought in my head since our drive back to Chicago last week. And that thought lead to another one which had me con­tem­plat­ing a cou­ple “What If’s” in my own life.

Now, I must clar­ify before I head down this path … I typ­i­cally don’t do this; travel down the road of “Shoulda, Coulda , Woulda.” Espe­cially since I’m usu­ally pretty delib­er­ate about the choices I make in life.  (Well, at least I am now … ) So what I’m about to write below, is more of a … dream sequence, if you will.

*****

A “New Roman­tic” Duran Duran

When Hubby & I got back from our hon­ey­moon, we started house-​​hunting. After see­ing quite a num­ber of houses, we finally nar­rowed it down to two. One was closed to both our places of employ­ment and per­fect as a “starter home.” It was only built two years prior; and it had more of a mod­ern feel to it with open ceil­ings and sky­lights. It was one we thought would be easy to resell if we needed to move to a big­ger place once we had our kids. But for the time-​​being, it would have been a per­fect two-​​story home for the two of us.

The sec­ond home was older and a bit fur­ther from our work places. It a ranch-​​style home with big­ger bed­rooms and a fin­ished base­ment. It had a large kitchen and din­ing room where we could see hav­ing fam­ily gath­er­ings. Oh, and the best part (at least for me)? In-​​ground pool in the back yard (it’s the Can­cer in me that looooves water!!). This was a house that was was ready for a fam­ily; ready for a cou­ple to start their family.

So, out of the two … which one do you think that Hubby & I chose? I’ll even give you a cou­ple sec­onds to think about it.

.

.

.

.

We chose the first house. Well, rather *I* chose the first house; Hubby defaulted on me to make the decision.

To me, it made more log­i­cal sense. Close to work. Easy to sell (so we thought at the time). And per­fect as a “starter” home. Oh, and not to men­tion quite a bit less in price than the sec­ond house.

And I truly did love our house. It was funky; it was cute. And it was close to two “down­town” locales where we could hang out on a nice sunny day.

Except now it’s been close to 14 years — not to men­tion a move to a dif­fer­ent city — and the house remains ours. There had been no need to “upgrade” to a big­ger house since the kids never came. Nor was there the finances to do so, after all the infer­til­ity treat­ments we had paid for. And when the oppor­tu­nity to move to a dif­fer­ent city amidst the eco­nomic down­fall of 2009, our house remained (remains) in our name.

So this is where I start to won­der “What if.”

As in “What if I chose the sec­ond house? Would we still be liv­ing in Sub­ur­ban Detroit? Would we have had no rea­son to move to another house … let alone another city? Would we have those chil­dren we always wanted? Would Hubby & I have stayed in the same jobs … or bet­ter yet, move up in our respec­tive careers? Or, bet­ter yet … would I have finally been able to be that stay-​​at-​​home Mom that I always wanted to be?

*****

My Cousin got to meet JT back in the late ’80’s. Totally jealous!

At the end of August, our lease will be up on our 2nd floor walk-​​up in Chicago. With Hubby free­lanc­ing and dili­gently work­ing at try­ing get finan­cially vested in a “vir­tual” ad agency that he & two oth­ers have started … well, the income hasn’t been too steady and reliable.

And me … well, let’s just say I’m still unem­ployed. For now. Which means that I have no income com­ing in at the moment. (Cross your fin­gers that I’ll not be unem­ployed for much longer!)

In any case, this means that our stay here in Chicago may be time-​​limited. Although not com­pletely set in stone (things change from day to day), it looks like we’ll be mov­ing back to the house in Sub­ur­ban Detroit. The same house that con­tains many of those mem­o­ries that I hoped to put away once we moved to Chicago.

Real­is­ti­cally we know that it makes sense to move back and regroup, so to speak, until our house sells. But emo­tion­ally … I feel as  if I’ve failed in my goal to start anew.

I know it’s futile to think of what could have been; espe­cially if things didn’t turn out the way they did here in Chicago (in regards to my employ­ment). And I know that my life expe­ri­ences and the deci­sions I’ve made in my life have made me the per­son I am today.

But some­times … just some­times … I wish that I could peer into my future so that I can make the right deci­sions now.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

(Just for you, Kara … )

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

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Split

Like the cur­rent Stan­ley Cup Finals series, the Apron­Strings House­hold is split.

For those that aren’t sports nuts like the two of us, that means that the Chicago Black­hawks and the Philadel­phia Fly­ers are both tied with two wins apiece after Game Four in the seven-​​game series.

Not that I mean to say that Hubby & I are at odds with one another … well, at least when it comes to our rela­tion­ship. Rather, we’re at odds when it comes to cheer­ing on which hockey team we think should win the cov­eted Cup.

I should start off by say­ing that, first and fore­most, I will always cheer for my home­town Detroit Red Wings wher­ever we live. But since they failed to make it to the finals this year … I had no choice but to choose an “adopted” team.

I should also add here that if I had my druthers … and if the Red Wings weren’t going to make the Finals … I would have absolutely loved to see two dif­fer­ent teams vying for the Cup this sea­son. And those two teams would have been the Van­cou­ver Can­nucks and the Mon­tréal Cana­di­ens. To me, it only seems fit­ting that the year Canada won Gold in a Cana­dian Olympics, then they should also deserve to have Stan­ley return home … at least for the year.

And yes, Mrs. Spit. I know this would have made you very very happy, also. :-)

Instead now, Hubby & I find our­selves — for the first time in our mar­ried lives — root­ing against each other. Him cheer­ing for a team, sim­ply because they’re con­sid­ered the under­dogs of the series. And me cheer­ing for a team, for the mere fact that this team’s town has become my adopted town.

Hubby cheers for his team, sim­ply because his oppos­ing team has long-​​been rivals of the Detroit Red Wings. While I cheer for my team because it’s been 47 years since this team has won the Stan­ley Cup.

Either way, it’s been fun watch­ing the series with Hubby. And it’s def­i­nitely made watch­ing the NHL’s “sec­ond sea­son” much more interesting.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

Meet Al the Octo­pus; the Detroit Red Wings mas­cot. For Wing Nuts, like our­selves, throw­ing octopi onto the ice dur­ing Play­off Sea­son is a long-​​standing tra­di­tion for the Red Wings Franchise.

As for how Al got his name … he was named after Al Sobotka, the gen­eral build­ing man­ager for Joe Louis Arena; and the won­der­ful soul that picks up every thrown octopi and twirls it over his head.

Motor City Kitty

Live in Chi-town, but love my Motown ...

Live in Chi-​​Town, but love my Motown

I didn’t real­ize how much I missed “home” until being back in metro-​​Detroit this past few days. Maybe I’m just con­tribut­ing the feel­ing of “home-​​sickness” to how jaded I am with my for­mer employer. Which is bad, since I really truly do love the city of Chicago.

Any­way, we’re back in Chicago for the next week or so. We have some busi­ness to take care of along with mak­ing sure that Yami & Rain haven’t taken over the entire apart­ment with their crazy antics. (We never know what kind of trou­ble a smart black cat and a senior-​​citizen deaf cat can get into!)

Oh and next week we get to go see this. I am such a Gleek!

But any­body that knows me, knows I have a pen­chant for music. Love to sing. Love to try out har­monies. Love to lis­ten to any type of music with a great beat and an amaz­ing hook.

So it’s prob­a­bly no sur­prise to most of my HS and col­lege friends that I’m head­ing back to Detroit to embrace my Goth/​Industrial roots on Memo­r­ial Day Week­end. Yep … after miss­ing last year, Hubby & I are going to head down to Hart Plaza to attend the Move­ment Fes­ti­val; oth­er­wise known as the Detroit Elec­tronic Music Fes­ti­val (DEMF).

Huh? Goth/​Industrial music related to Elec­tronic Music? Specif­i­cally Detroit Techno?

Yes, I say. My love for New Order nat­u­rally lead me to the darker Joy Divi­sion; then Bauhaus and all their rein­car­na­tions, which even­tu­ally led me to all other Goth/​Industrial music out of the now-​​defunct Wax Trax label out of Chicago and the likes of Front 242, KMFDM, and even Kate’s Meat Beat Man­i­festo. :-)

Yes; the same Chicago that brought on the birth of hard-​​thumpin’ bass-​​pumpin’ House Music. Which, along­side Detroit Techno began the ®evo­lu­tion of Elec­tronic Dance Music.

Any­way it’s no sur­prise that in my col­lege and post-​​college years, I spent lots of time at a bar/​nightclub called Indus­try, which played a lot of indus­trial music mixed in with Chicago House and Detroit Techno.

Okay … so that was a quick les­son on the his­tory of how I got into Elec­tronic Music.

What I really meant to talk about was that this year is the 10th Anniver­sary of the inau­gural Music Fes­ti­val. Those who attended that first year will agree that there was some­thing quite … for lack of bet­ter words, spir­i­tual about that week­end. It was as if all the stars aligned and remain aligned for the entire hol­i­day week­end. Not that there weren’t any hic­cups dur­ing the first year, but the fact that Detroit man­aged to put together some­thing that gar­nered inter­na­tional atten­tion … and not have it be about the Auto Indus­try or the crime rate of the city … was noth­ing short of incredible.

That inau­gural year was actu­ally cap­tured on film by a few of Hubby’s friends who were putting together a doc­u­men­tary about how the DEMF finally brought Detroit Techno back to its home. But because of a mul­ti­tude of issues, the film … was never released. Until now, that is.

Ten years later, The Drive Home will finally be shown on the Big Screen; it’s pre­mière being included in the pre-​​festival par­ties next Fri­day. I am sooo excited to be going!

For me, the best part will actu­ally be see­ing snip­pets of Hubby in some of the film footage. You see, Hubby & I were asked to “cover” the event for a HS friend of his, whose web­site was pretty well-​​versed in the NYC club scene. So as “Media” guests, both Hubby & I were able to get access to areas that the typ­i­cal festival-​​goer did not have.

Now how do I know that Hubby might be on film? Well, it’s because we’ve already seen him on the trailer! Check it out …

Yep, that’s Hubby on the rail to the right, snap­ping pictures!

Any­way, I find myself con­nect­ing with the over­all theme of this doc­u­men­tary. The fact of the mat­ter is that Detroit Techno, while its roots come from musi­cians who have lived in Detroit, was more influ­en­tial inter­na­tion­ally than it was on its own back­yard. How­ever, as the years and decades past … the impor­tance of this style of music was even­tu­ally rec­og­nized in the city from which it was born. While these artists and musi­cians (because it’s not all about DJ’s and sam­pling … ) are con­sid­ered leg­ends in other coun­tries (such as the Nether­lands and Ger­many), they go mostly “unno­ticed” and they feel most com­fort­able when they’re back in their home town.

And espe­cially since this last visit back home, where we spent more than just a typ­i­cal two-​​and-​​a-​​half day week­end in town, I’ve noticed I’m also more at ease when I’m on more famil­iar ground.

Again, this may all be as a result of my most recent stres­sors here in Chicago. But I can tell you this … I’m look­ing for­ward to our drive home next week.

Any­way, here’s the trailer for The Drive Home … hope you enjoy.

And while you’re at it … check out the part of the arti­cle we wrote for his HS friend’s web­site. I’m actu­ally amazed it’s still out there on the web. Well, at least Part II is … not sure where Part I or III is! LOL!

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& Scratchy">Itchy & Scratchy

Day Three (and sup­posed last day) of beau­ti­ful Chicago weather. Not sure how high we hit today, but at the end of the work day I saw a sign that read 78 degrees.

AND, since tourists are out in full swing in Chi-​​town … rid­ing home on Lakeshore Drive, I saw tons of peo­ple on the sandy beach of Lake Michi­gan. I even saw a cou­ple biki­nis out there! Which … I really hope they didn’t try to brave the lake water, because I’m sure it’s waaaay to cold!

But with great weather in the Spring comes one of the worse things of the year … and that’s those sea­sonal aller­gies. I knew they’d hit me one of these days when I noticed on Wednes­day the trees begin­ning to bud. And today … yup, they hit me at full force.

Itchy eyes. Scratchy throat. Non­stop runny nose. Yep … gotta love allergies!

Despite it all, I wouldn’t trade the beau­ti­ful weather for any­thing. In fact, I’d rather OD on Benedryl before I’d spoil a great weather day!

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Busy day tomor­row; lots of clean­ing abound. Must. Expose. Myself. To more. Aller­gens. (Oh joy!) But it’s all for a good cause … as this means that my niece and nephew will be head­ing into town Sun­day evening!

So with­out any more ram­blings … here’s my Lenten Dailies.

Daily Good Deed: On the bus ride from work to meet Hubby at the café on the oppo­site end of Michi­gan Avenue, I noticed a guy strug­gling to pull out money for the bus fare. So instead of mak­ing him dig for change, I took out my handy CTA Card and paid for his fare. Yeah, he was pretty grateful …

Daily Though of Grat­i­tude: Visine for itchy eyes and Benedryl for all the other nasty allergy symp­toms. At least I know I’ll be sleep­ing soundly tonite!!

Spring Has Sprung

What another beau­ti­ful day in Chicago … and appar­ently we hit a record high 83 degrees in the city today.

Let me tell you, it was ver­rry dif­fi­cult to want to stay focused at work today. Not only because I had been work­ing on these reports; which were strictly data dri­ven (and bor­ing as h*ll) … but because I would have rather been out­side enjoy­ing that incred­i­ble weather.

Rest assured, I got outta Dodge as soon as pos­si­ble and met Hubby down on Michi­gan Avenue. And appar­ently, the rest of those lucky stu­dents and fam­i­lies that get an Easter Break were on the Mag­nif­i­cent Mile as well. After an entire win­ter of stra­gler tourists, I for­got how nuts it could be once the weather turned nice.

Any­way, Hubby & I took advan­tage of the nice day and did a lit­tle explor­ing. We ended up in the Old Town neigh­bor­hood of Chicago and had a nice din­ner at a small French Bistro. Then we walked next door to the pet store and oogled over cute pup­pies. Which of course had us miss­ing our own menagerie of furbabies.

So we headed back home and decided to go for an extra long walk with our Kozzy-​​girl. All of us, dog included, need to lose that Mid­west­ern Win­ter weight that we all put on these past few months.**

Our poor Kozzy … She was so excited to go for a walk. And even moreso when she real­ized we were walk­ing much fur­ther than we nor­mally do. Except … well, except then she real­ized that she had to walk that same amount back home. That’s when her pace slowed down con­sid­er­ably, her tail slunk down a lit­tle lower, and her tongue started hang­ing out of her mouth. And when we finally got back home, she lapped up all the water in a bowl in a man­ner of seconds.

Now … well, now she’s crashed on the rug right next to our couch, snor­ing. Loudly.

So. Adorable!!

The thing is, that I know today is just an April Fool’s joke. Because even though tomor­row is also sup­posed to be nice (three days in a row … woo-​​hoo!!) … the rest of the week­end is going to drop back down to the 50’s and be a bit rainy.

Well … must enjoy it while we can!

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

I’m com­ing up on the last days of Lent. Can’t believe it’s almost the end …

Good Deed of the Day: I spent some time today with a co-​​worker who was dis­ap­pointed in the out­come of a pos­si­ble oppor­tu­nity. Pre­vi­ously, we had talked about how things hap­pen for a rea­son. And this dis­cus­sion today; well, it was just a recap of that prior con­ver­sa­tion. I hope it gave her some comfort.

Grate­ful Thought of the Day: I love warm weather … it puts a lit­tle spring to my step. I’m so thank­ful for days like today. It always makes me look for­ward to more days like today.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

** Seri­ously! I put on a skirt that I hadn’t worn since late Octo­ber and … well, let’s just say it was a lit­tle snug. Grr …

Wanted: An Old Skool Spring Break

Wow. It’s bee-​​yooo-​​teee-​​ful out­side here in Chicago. It’s a nice 68 degrees out­side and sunny. But the best part is that tomor­row it’s sup­posed to reach the low 70’s!

Unfor­tu­nately, I’ll be stuck behind my desk at work for most of the day. Boo.

At least I was able to enjoy today; as I worked from home. How enjoy­able is it to be able to take a mid-​​morning break to walk our dog­gie? And I just love not hav­ing to wake up any ear­lier to get ready for work on these days, when all  I have to do is roll out of bed, stum­ble to my trusty lap­top and sign into the office. Oh how I wish I could do this more than once a month!

Today being the Wednes­day before the Easter, I’ve noticed a lot more stu­dents out and about enjoy­ing the nice weather. Which makes me believe that these kids are all on some sort of Spring break or semes­ter break of sorts.

Jeal­ous!!

Makes me wish I could be back at school just so I can have those extra days off. And it’s not just because you auto­mat­i­cally get those days off … it’s more that when you’re off at that time, your entire “busi­ness as usual” rou­tine stops. There’s no other per­son that you’re respon­si­ble for when you’re off. There’s no other per­son rely­ing on you to make sure things are in order for him/​her when you’re gone for the week. And most of all, there’s no pile of work wait­ing for you when you return from that time off.

Now, sched­ul­ing a vaca­tion … even just between Hubby & I is a pain in the neck. After all, last time we went away (to Vegas, baby) … and even though peo­ple knew we would be gone, chaos still ensued which ulti­mately ended up with Hubby hav­ing to deal with work-​​related things. While on vaca­tion.

Blech. When did we become so responsible?

But speak­ing of vaca­tion … I know that I’m ripe for another one some­time soon. Maybe it’s the fatigue I’ve been deal­ing with. Or maybe it’s the feel­ing of being over­worked that has me feel­ing like this. Either way, I think it’s time some qual­ity Mr. & Mrs. Apron­Strings time.

Unfor­tu­nately … and this goes back to the whole sched­ul­ing a vaca­tion thing … that prob­a­bly won’t be until August; when we’re sched­uled to go on an Alaskan cruise out of Seat­tle with my parents.**

Oh, I take that back. It’ll be in July to Toronto for Hubby’s cousin’s wed­ding. But even then, it’ll only be for a long weekend.

Any­hoo … I wish that my num­bers would come up in the MegaMil­lions lot­tery. That way I can go on vaca­tion and travel more often!

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

Whew. I did it. I blogged for two straight months … IN A ROW!

And thanks to NaBloPoMo … I get this lucky badge to add to my awards and such. Woo-​​hoo!

But hold on to you’re seats, kiddo. I still have 5 mores left of post­ing daily to ful­fill that Lenten promise. So with­out fur­ther ado:

Ran­dom Act of Kind­ness Today: Sun­day it was my kitty, Rain that needed all the atten­tion. Today (and in most days that I work from home), it was my other kitty, Yami. So … before tak­ing our Kozzy-​​girl out for that mid-​​morning walk, I let Yami snug­gle on my lap and paw away at my com­puter for a bit until she got fed up with me try­ing to take a pic­ture of her on the Pho­to­Booth appli­ca­tion on my lap­top. She’s just too adorable to resist … but when ya gotta work … :-)

Grate­ful Thought Today: Work-​​From-​​Home Days … for all the rea­sons I listed above. Plus … the fact that I tend to con­cen­trate bet­ter on reports and projects with­out the con­stant inter­rup­tions and meet­ings. Some­days it can be a chal­lenge (read: still get inter­rupted by emails and phone calls and IM’s), but it’s worth it just to be able to sleep a tad longer.

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

** Thank G*D for my par­ents love of trav­el­ing … if it wasn’t for them, I don’t think Hubby & I would have the gump­tion to plan some­thing on our own. But really … it would be nice to have a quick get­away with just Hubby & me; to recharge our batteries.

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