Chicago love...

We're back from our Christmas in Chicago trip (which was MUCH too short, by the way. I would've gladly stayed through New Year's... and then until President's Day... and then Easter... and the 4th of July... and Labor Day... and Halloween... and Thanksgiving.............. and then Christmas again :)). Happily, it snowed all weekend -- when you live in Austin, a weekend of snow is quite the novelty and cause for much excitement. I'm sure the people in Chicago would beg to differ... :)

We had such a great time hanging out with Eric and his girlfriend, Rachel. I seriously LOVED walking blocks through the falling snow to find a good place for lunch, or to warm up in an Argo Tea shop with a chocolate biscotti latte. The world seems so much more peaceful when snow is falling... even city sounds are muffled.

Mom and Eric and I hit the grocery store one afternoon and stocked up on everything we needed to make Christmas cookies -- they promptly disappeared about 24 hours later. I'm pretty sure Eric had about three times as many cookies as the rest of us... (I should've made a double batch... :))

Our Chicago trip just served to reinforce our wish to move there -- Rick and I have dealt with a lot of disappointment over the ridiculous layoff that halted our plans. Seriously -- it was RIDICULOUS that he was laid off in place of other, much-more-deserving-of-layoffs employees. But what can you do, right? All we can do is be thankful that we both have jobs now, and try to keep working toward our goals. Maybe someday we'll end up in Chicago... but if we don't, maybe there's something even better down the road... who knows...

Anyway, here are a few pictures for your perusal:  

Restaurant where we ate Christmas dinner and breakfast one morning -- this was at breakfast, when the hostess seated us at the bar in the "pizza oven" area because she didn't have any available tables for five in the main dining room. It was kinda nice, because we had the whole room to ourselves (probably because it was surrounded by glass windows, and, therefore, rather chilly... I don't think they generally use this area in the winter).

 

View of the Hancock building through the frosty glass windows...

Me, smiling because it's snowing (no, really, I WAS smiling in this picture... my face has a tendency to get really cold, okay??).

The first thing we noticed when we walked into Eric's condo was that it was not only CLEAN, but decorated for Christmas! This was obviously the work of Rachel, because it was all too pretty and nicely-coordinated to be Eric's handiwork. Although he DID light the candles all by himself... I think...

One of Rachel's little sisters made the colored paper ornaments (at least that's what Eric told me... it's possible that he made them himself... you never know...) -- aren't they cute? I remember making ornaments like that when I was a kid...

I loved all the candles in his condo... so pretty... (see? Eric SO did not have anything to do with this... ;))

Eric's street, with falling snow... it looked much more impressive in person...

Eric's tree... (in case you can't tell, the first thing we all did when we first got to Eric's place was start snapping pictures... it was like, "whoa, this place looks great! Hurry, preserve the evidence for posterity!")

Another snowy scene, outside our hotel window...

Argo tea! One of our favorite places in Chicago... In fact, I should've brought some tea home with me. Oh well, guess I have to go back soon... :)

Ghirardelli, here I come...

Wow... surprisingly, I have managed to get up at 4:45 in the morning two days in a row to work out. And I'm planning another early day tomorrow, but we'll see what happens. I suspect it's been easier these last two days because I know this is a three-day week... so today is like Thursday, and tomorrow is Early Friday. (I just looooove Early Friday... :))

I was really happy with my workout this morning, too -- I managed to squeeze in 3.6 miles before I decided I should stop and get ready for work. Yesterday morning, I was so tired that I mostly just walked the entire time, and only accrued two and a half miles before calling it quits. I know that "something" is better than "nothing," but I tend to feel like anything under three miles is hardly worth the effort. And I'm really trying to get to a point where three miles feels as easy as two miles feels right now... (two miles is nothing... two miles is practically a warm-up... :)) I read all these blogs written by people who actually RUN a lot, and they're racking up 5, 6, 7 miles per workout. I feel like such an exercise wimp. (Oh, pathetic three miles... I must surpass you and move on to better things...) But hey, when it's 4:45 in the morning, I guess I should be happy to be moving at ALL... :)

Yesterday, Rick mentioned something about struggling to eat properly over the holiday season, and I realized that I've actually done REALLY well so far this year. I believe I've achieved my goal of NOT gaining any weight between Thanksgiving and Christmas (I almost always gain at least a few...), and have successfully avoided most of the random treats that have been popping up at work. I haven't broken down into a baking frenzy (save for the banana bread I made for the office Christmas party), and I'm planning on treating myself to ONE (and only one for the entire season) delicious peppermint chocolate chip milkshake from Chick-fil-a. (I LOVE Chick-fil-a's peppermint milkshakes, and they only have them this time of year -- so I decided I would have ONE at some point before the holidays were over. Otherwise I'd miss the chance to have one for an entire year. I believe I'll have my milkshake tomorrow night, in celebration of six whole days off from work... :))

So really, I think this has been quite a successful holiday season, as far as reining in the indulgent binges that often come along with this time of year. Of course, that being said, I AM totally planning to make a big batch of Christmas cookies at Eric's place in Chicago. I pretty much HAVE to, because he went out and got a cookie sheet and a rolling pin and everything... I mean, if I DIDN'T make cookies at this point, it would just be rude. Eric would be left with all that cookie-making paraphernalia just cluttering up his kitchen. I certainly can't have THAT, now, can I?? Of course not...

Speaking of Chicago -- we leave on Christmas Day. I don't think I've ever traveled ON Christmas Day before... but it may actually turn out to be a good thing, because right now they're forecasting snow for Christmas Eve. And while I DO hope we see snow while we're up there, I would prefer if it holds off until after our plane lands. And then it can just go crazy for a couple days. In fact, it seems that the ONLY time the crowds at Ghirardelli die down is when it's snowing -- even when it's windy and 15 degrees outside, people still line up for ice cream at Ghirardelli. What is WRONG with all those people?? (And never mind the fact that I've BEEN one of those people many, many times... that is beside the point... :))

Anyway, it's good that I've been doing well with the eating and exercise lately, because obviously I'm about to throw all caution to the wind and eat whatever I want in Chicago.

But hey, that's what vacation is about, right? :)

Slow down and enjoy the weekend...

(Disclaimer: the first two paragraphs of this post were written back on Wednesday, which is why the dates and times seem screwy... I haven't lost my mind just yet... but I'm getting there... :))

I FINALLY have a few Christmas presents ordered (online shopping -- the only way to go this time of year :)). It feels good to have finally accomplished SOMEthing, at least. I actually don't need to get TOO much more, because we usually simplify our gift-giving to Rick's side of the family with gift cards (and checks for the nieces and nephews -- everybody loves money, right?? :)). And his parents' gift has been in the works for a few weeks. It's actually a combination Christmas/birthdays/50th anniversary gift -- we definitely wanted to get them something nice for their 50th anniversary this year (which just happens to be right before Christmas), so we're upgrading their entertainment center and television set. They've had the same entertainment cabinet and TV for almost as long as I can remember, and they SO deserve some brand new things! The cabinet is being delivered to their house tomorrow, and I can't wait to see how it all looks when everything is set up... and you know once Rick gets through with it all, their house will be THE place to watch TV and movies in their neighborhood... :)

I can't believe Christmas is only nine (NINE?!?) days away. I feel like this Christmas season has FLOWN by, and I haven't had enough time to really enjoy it. I mean, I do my best -- every day when I get home from work, I immediately turn the tree lights on and start lighting holiday-scented candles. But evenings go by so quickly after work -- I feel like I'm barely home at all before I have to get ready for bed. And then I come to work again and do it all over again the next day. Weekends are really the only time I can slow down and attempt to soak in all the little fun holiday minutia -- driving around the neighborhood to see the colored lights on the houses, drinking a peppermint mocha from Starbucks, watching Elf on TV, relaxing on the couch in PJs thinking about peace on earth instead of how I have to get up at 5 in the morning... Ahh...

And to illustrate the fact that I've been too busy to blog, it has obviously taken me several days just to get to the point where I've written three measly paragraphs. The entertainment center was delivered to Rick's parents' house YESTERDAY, and Christmas is now SEVEN days away. One week. And I still have at least one more thing to buy before I can be considered temporarily finished (because even once I've bought that one item, I will still need a few odds and ends). This has been the most rushed holiday season EVER. At least it feels that way...

Today was our office "white elephant" Christmas party, where everyone brings a gift to exchange -- but not necessarily anything anyone would actually WANT. I guess the goal of a white elephant party is to bring the lamest gift possible to illicit the most laughs possible. Lame = laughs. I think most people bring gifts that were originally given to THEM in rather bad taste, and then they pass them on to their poor coworkers. I won't say what I brought to the party, since someone DID give it to me for Christmas one year... but I will say this: it was no one who reads my blog on a regular basis, so you guys are all off the hook... :) But the cool thing is, the gift I chose to open turned out to be cookie cutters and a Christmasey dish towel -- which I'll totally end up using, as opposed to just tossing away or saving for another white elephant party...

Of course, parties, in general, cause me so much undue stress, being the ridiculously shy person I am. But it must've helped for me to get up at 4:45 this morning and work out, because Rick said I seemed much more calm before I left for work, even in the face of "impending doom." And I HATE impending doom. He also said that for regular, normal, non-shy people, life is all pink unicorns and butterflies. (I KNEW it... I've always suspected that it would be magical and amazing to be a regular, normal, non-shy person...) Needless to say, I am SO happy this week is over. Next week should be three pretty quiet days and then it'll be time to pack and head up to Chicago for Christmas! I CAN. NOT. WAIT.

But for now, I shall put on some PJs, turn on my tree lights, maybe drink some hot chocolate, and find a good holiday movie to watch. Because I need to soak in as much Christmas as possible while I still can...

Is anyone else tired of hearing about Tiger Woods??

I am... just sayin'... :)

But anyway... 'tis the season of shopping and wrapping gifts, and I have purchased exactly ZERO presents so far. (At what point do I start to panic? There's still time... there's still time...) I really need to just jump into my internet gift ordering head-first... even if I just hit ebay and start clicking on random items (what? You didn't WANT a vintage Snoopy lunchbox and a dining room chair with three legs? Because you're not in school anymore and you don't even HAVE a dining room?? Well, isn't it supposed to be the thought that counts???).

And I'm still struggling to find a balance between home and work, although I have to say my morning workouts have been helping a lot. It gives me the time to take care of chores and get dinner started without feeling rushed -- if I work out AFTER I get home, I run around like a crazy person trying to get everything done. Plus, working out in the morning is a great way to wake up... at least for a couple hours (after which, I usually want a nap... but I usually want a nap at some point, anyway, so... :))

Years ago, before Rick and I moved back to New Jersey, I was working two jobs -- I had my morning proofreading job from 7 to 11, and then I immediately drove downtown to my afternoon job at a law firm, which was from noon until 5. I would usually eat lunch in my car after I'd found a parking spot downtown. (The oh-so-generous law firm wouldn't pay for parking, even though there was plenty in the building's parking garage... sometimes I would park there anyway, because it was easier to pay six bucks than to wander around for my entire lunch hour looking for a parking spot.) And then I would crawl home through rush-hour traffic, which usually took at least an hour, if not longer. I never even TRIED to work out, my house was a total wreck, we lived off of microwavable dinners, I HAD to be in bed by 8:30 every night if I wanted to avoid having a nervous breakdown, and I was completely, absolutely miserable. I try to think of that time in my life every time I start feeling overwhelmed now... (hey, I get free parking AND I can go home at 3:45! I can actually make dinner instead of just throwing something in the microwave! My house is clean! I don't have to work with lawyers!! :)) Not that there's anything wrong with lawyers, of course... ;)

Rick keeps telling me to be positive... and that even if you "fake" positivity long enough, eventually you'll just BE positive. It's the idea of smiling when you're unhappy, because smiling has some sort of physiological effect on the brain... it boosts serotonin levels or something... So when I'm dragging myself out of bed at 4:45 in the morning to squeeze in my work out, I just smile and wait for the endorphins to kick in... sometimes it takes a while...

But here's a definite positive: tomorrow is Friday!! Another week over, and another week closer to Christmas in Chicago.

Uh oh... that means I'm another week closer to needing those Christmas gifts. I WILL start shopping... soon... :)

Chilly random thoughts...

December is starting off with promise: it was only about 45 here today (which is "Chicago" mild, but "Texas" cold...), and there are rumors of a SNOW possibility tomorrow! But I'll believe THAT if and/or when I see it. (Of course, snow flurries in Austin are really hard to see... you have to squint, and tilt your head just so, and hope your porch light is casting enough of a reflective glow that the tiny little flakes are visible to human eyes. But hey, I'll take anything that even remotely reminds me of Christmas.)

Speaking of Christmas, I have finally begun my foray into cyberworld to search for Christmas gifts. I have ideas for about five people, which is a decent start, I guess. One of the problems with shopping online is that occasionally I'll stumble across the "perfect" gift, only to see a little note about how it's "backordered until the Mayan-predicted end of the world in 2012," and I realize I can never get it in time for Christmas. But generally, I find online shopping to be much less stressful than fighting the crowds at the mall. AND you can shop in your pajamas. They frown upon that at the mall...

So I have managed to drag myself out of bed before 5 a.m. twice this week, to get in a morning workout. And you know, except for the "waking up at a ridiculous hour" thing, I actually rather enjoy working out first thing in the morning. And it's definitely easier (at least the "exercising" part... I'm not sure about the "getting out of bed" part) to get in a decent workout in the morning, BEFORE I've spent all day at work and fought traffic to get home. Usually by the end of the day I'm so anxious to just GET HOME and throw on some comfy clothes and relax for a while, that the thought of changing into exercise-appropriate attire and hitting the treadmill is not at all appealing. But in the morning (or the "middle of the night" as I prefer to call it), the one thing that wakes me right up is a nice 45-minute walk/jog. And the best part is, I CAN throw on comfy clothes the minute I get home, and I don't have to feel guilty about it. :) I'm gonna try for another early morning tomorrow... we'll see what happens...

I watched the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree on television last night. It rather made me miss the northeast... I especially love New York at Christmastime. (Although we ARE heading up to Chicago for Christmas this year, so at least I'll get my "holiday in the city" fix... :))

Okay, how crazy is this -- I was just informed that it is 65 degrees in New York today! It's 65 in New York, and Austin is expecting snow... (maybe we really WILL get snow??) When I was in high school, a forecast for snow was cause for major excitment. And lucky for me, our area of New Jersey was hilly and full of small towns and crisscrossed with narrow, twisty, treacherous roads that could be dangerous in the middle of SUMMER -- much less the middle of winter when ice and snow made them slippery. So it didn't take a whole lot of snow to close the school down -- a few inches could suffice. (This was unlike my childhood in Buffalo -- which is a perfectly flat city with straight, right-angled roads -- where it would have to be near blizzard conditions before they'd free us from the confines of the classroom.) So as soon as I heard the words "possibility of snow" on the evening news, I'd start looking out the window every fifteen minutes to see if it had started yet... and then I'd wake up in the middle of the night and look outside to see if there was anything white on the ground. In the morning, as I was lying in bed, I could always tell if there was a chance of school closing by listening to the cars going by on our street -- our house was right on a very sharp curve, and when it was slippery, cars had to slow to a crawl to prevent sliding right off into the woods (something that happened many, many times :)). So if I heard slow-moving cars crunching over the snow, I knew I could switch on my radio (conveniently tuned to a station that announced school closings), and listen with bated breath as the morning host read the list of cancellations and two-hour delays...

But I can't get my hopes up about snow in Austin -- chances are whatever we get (IF we get anything) will stick around for about ten minutes before melting away into cold pools of icy water. And then the temperatures will climb back up into the 60s and 70s and we'll put this whole little wintery episode behind us...

Sigh... it was nice while it lasted... :)