white picket fence

girls weekend

alternate titles: Treat Yo Self 2011!, and Self Portraits in Reflective Surfaces. 

First of all:

Mimosas: Treat Yo Self! (and okay, that's all, I promise I will not beat that joke to death.)

My friends Mindy and Renae and I have been planning this girls weekend in the city for a few months now. I was looking forward to it immensely. You know the last few weeks have been weird and stressful and yeah, I was super glad to get away and have some fun (and be kid-free!) for a little while. 

We stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel. At first I kind of thought it would be cheesy, but it was classy for the most part. Our floor was the Bob Dylan floor. Fun. 

I love when out of towners come to visit because it's a great excuse to go to Millennium Park. It's not just for tourists. It was the perfect fall day, too: clear and cool but not too chilly.

And Mindy is into geocaching, so we spent part of our time in the park looking for a geocache. I've never done it before but it definitely seems like a fun adult scavenger hunt. 

We spent the rest of Saturday shopping downtown and in Wicker Park. I can't remember the last time I had such a girly shopping excursion: Anthropologie, of course, Zara, the Renegade Handmade store, Quimby's bookstore, and pretty much every shoe boutique in the neighborhood. (Though my cheapskate tendencies came out even on a supposed "treat yourself" day, I didn't buy much other than the few wardrobe staples I've had on my list for a while.)

Mindy and Renae have been two of my closest friends for a long time. Spending time with old friends is the greatest.

Plus! The official purpose of this weekend was for us to plan a Craft Social. We've been talking about doing a gathering of friends for a long time, but I think we finally got our plans nailed down. Next spring (mostly like Saturday April 28th), we'll be meeting somewhere in the Ames / Des Moines area for a day of fun and crafting, maybe an outing to the Des Moines farmers market. If this is something you'd be interested in attending, let me know! We're still nailing down plans and will send out invites early in 2012. We'd love to have you. 

Renegade Craft Fair Chicago, 2011

Ah! Yesterday was a really beautiful day for the Renegade Fair. Every year I go, I am so, so happy to live close by and be just a short drive away. 

I finally jumped on the Instagram train, too. I resisted for so long because I definitely don't need another distracting technology thing in my life, but I buckled and downloaded the app yesterday morning; I wanted to take photos but didn't want to lug the new (huge) camera around. I'm pretty glad I did and now I can totally see the appeal of it. 

Top left: We parked right next to my old apartment on Augusta Boulevard in the Ukrainian Village. Another reason I love Renegade is it gives me an excuse to visit my old neighborhood. I wouldn't say I miss living in the city, but I have such fond memories and wish I made the trip back more often. 

Top right: my cappuccino from Intelligentsia! I think I was the first customer of the day (we were earlybirds) and the barista took such special care and time making my foam art. It was really cute. 

Bottom left: the entrance to the fair. 

Bottom right: Just some of the many business cards I picked up along the way. Lots of new favorites added to my etsy wishlists and internet bookmarks. 

I was primarily shopping for prints, and I bought a few I'd had my eye on for quite a while now. I'm thinking I'll share them here once I get everything framed and hung up. Knowing myself that might take a while... so maybe I'll do a links post sometime in the next few days. 

And my pals for the day! My great friend Renae and her daughter Cyan. Any time I spend with Renae is quality time, and even more so at an event like this. I think we've been discussing the possiblity of having our own booth at a craft fair for about 4 years now. Some day, seriously! And 5 year old Cyan did amazingly well on a hot day in a crowd full of big people, though I think by the time I took this picture she was ready to go home. ;)

The day was filled with friendship. So nice to see my internet-slash-real life pals Robyn and Kimberly. I had the chance to chat with Rachel from Red Velvet Art (and her blog Smile and Wave) and she was super sweet, just like you'd imagine. I enjoyed meeting Kate from The Little Things Studio. Sarah from The Small Object was so friendly and cute (just like her artwork!). Really, every encounter we had was so pleasant and the whole thing just gave me a giant crafty warm fuzzy. So: yay. Such a happy day. 

a year ago in Iowa

The past few weeks all my Iowa friends have been killing me with their State Fair talk on facebook. I went last year for just a few hours, but it stands out as one of the highlights of my summer. I was in Iowa for my friend Mindy's baby shower and we drove to Des Moines to find a place to eat dinner. After a quick discussion it was pretty clear that, for us, fair food was a better option than any restaurant. 

It was fantastic. I love Iowa so much. To an extent, I've made my peace with the idea of living in Illinois for the majority of the rest of my life. . . but that doesn't mean it's ever going to take over the place in my heart that Iowa holds. 

The sky over the midway. 

My obligatory "food on a stick" purchase. This was tiramisu on a stick and it was actually kind of disappointing. Oh well. I also ate a corn dog and corn dogs never disappoint. 

And this is Mindy and I at her shower. Two pregnant ladies! I was about 2 months along with Norah at this time last year.

If you had a chance this year to see the butter cow or the giant bull, to eat cheese curds or fried butter on a stick (I heard it was the talk of the fair this year!), and to people-watch the fascinating Iowa crowds, consider yourself lucky. I wish I could have been there too. 

old friend / new friends

I've known my friend Kimberly for 6 or 7 years now. We've known each other through engagement, marriage, kids. But until this week, our friendship was only through email, facebook, blogs, twitter. That's why it was SO great to finally talk face to face on Tuesday. And even though we've known each other for so long, meeting in person makes it feel like I have a new friend. I wish you lived closer Kimberly! 

I wish my photos of the day were better. (I swear my poor old point and shoot is getting blurrier by the day.) Kimberly's are great, but she's a real photographer, so, of course. 

This one makes me smile so much. That's David's "cheese!" face. And Jasper was apparently done with picture taking. 

We had such a big day on Tuesday that the rest of the week has gotten away from me a bit. Up until now, I've taken my new at-home lifestyle pretty seriously and kept us busy with outings, projects, and keeping up with the house. Today I woke up feeling a little under the weather and now, well, the house has unravelled and a trip to the post office was the single high point of the day. But like some friends on twitter reminded me, a lazy day is sometimes necessary and productive. So we're owning it. It's naptime for the two little ones and I'm catching up on DVRed episodes of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. Aaah.