babies, babies, babies

my friend emily was supposed to have her second baby today, but she got rescheduled!! em has an adorable little girl madelyn who was told she would be meeting her little brother today, but emily's scheduled inducement (?) was pushed back, pushed back, and eventually rescheduled for wednesday. hang in there em, only one more night with little feet kicking your ribs!!

speaking of babies, i know a handful of other preggo ladies out there who are also getting ready to add little ones to their families --

• jo is due in april with a "braveheart peanut" and we don't know if it's a girl or boy. but do the parents know?
• a girl kristin i went to high school with, who now lives in chicago, is due in july. she's having a girl!
• lauren is pregs with #2. but i don't know when you're due, lo! is it time to tell whether it's a girl or boy?
  
• and another friend from high school is expecting her first, and i think she is just into her second trimester

i thought the wave of babies from lauren/courtney/jen/danielle/jessica over the previous 12 +/- months seemed like a lot, but this year is off to a strong start!! i guess i'm at the age now where it's going to be years and years of non-stop babies from friends all over the place, huh?

and before you ask, as for me, nothin' cooking here.

oh yes, got 'em

they added another show at wrigley field!!!

this is a lot of talk about buying tickets online, not too exciting.

they added another show at wrigley and tickets to the new show were available on friday, but available FIRST to those who already had seats for the original show (ticketholders had first dibs to swap show dates if they wanted to).

so on friday, if original ticket holders swapped, their vacated seats for the original show went on sale to the general public again -- painstakingly slowly -- and i had NO luck. neither did katherine.

then today tickets for the new show, that weren't taken by swappers on friday, went on sale. could they make it any more confusing? both katherine and i FORGOT. i remembered in the afternoon, but could not get tickets at that point and gave up on the whole thing.

then katherine emailed me this evening (while i was watching a seamlessly bootlegged slumdog millionaire, i might add) that she got tickets. what!?! i tried and still got the message that there were no two seats together, the same as i had encountered in the afternoon (that is, unless i wanted to pay $200/ticket, which i did not want to do) . katherine said it was still working for her, then when she actually tried again for me, and she couldn't do it either! i kept resending and somehow it went through and i got two seats. then as an afterthough i figured if i tried again, i could get better seats and sell the originals. but i could not friggin' get any more tickets. (therefore i am really glad katherine emailed me when she did - thanks!)

but i think the fun thing is that the second concert that was added, the one we got tickets to, is actually BEFORE the original concert date. AND it's on a thursday instead of a tuesday -- so much better. yay for july concerts at wrigley! i wish the summer would hurry up already.

friday fun posts

i tried to go to this last night at crunch ... but it was full!!!! it filled up 40 minutes before class began, when most people are still at work! and unlike equinox, we don't have email sign-ups for class. anyway, has anyone done antigravity yoga??

girls' night out

photos from girls' night out are in:

quick note

1) i wish i did have a picture of the one-ton. it wasn't like the wontons were just a little sticky-stuck together in the way that a little oil could take care of the problem. no, when i poured them from the pan to the colander, i guess the weight of themselves pouring over one another fused them togther in a very unforgiving amalgamation. i mean, the wontons ALL melted together. i had a colander shaped ball of wontons. gives new meaning to asian fusion?

2) we tried to get billy joel/elton john tickets at 10am last saturday, but failed. boo on ticketmaster.

one-tons (and requesting help from holly or amanda)

patrick and i made dinner on friday night. i never made fish that was so good, nor wontons that were so bad. actually, i've never made wontons, but that's besides the point. maybe you saw it on my facebook status, but the wontons turned into a very singular one-ton.

our menu was to consist of an asian inspired baked tilapia wrapped in parchment paper and wontons.

everything was going smoothly. patrick made the filling for the wontons, which included chopping up ginger root for the first time. any tips on this process is welcomed, but the filling was delicious despite the curiously difficult to work with raw ingredient.

after i threw the fish into the oven, i turned to filling the wonton wrappers. i made several dozen. the next step said to, "in a large saucepan of boiling water, simmer the wontons over moderate heat, stirring occasionally. when they float, cook for 3 minutes longer. drain the wontons well."

but when i drained them, they all stuck together.
they turned into a giant ONE-TON!? what did i do wrong?!
i ruined the wontons!! imagine this as one big stuck-together mess:

{won tons from foodandwine.com}

as for the tilapia, it was so good, and so easy, and i highly, highly recommend it. if i can make it without turning it into a oneton, it must be easy!! i am making it again this week. seriously, try making it!

{photo from the apartment therapy kitchen}
find the recipe here on epicurious

sometimes i get a little obsessed with ...

... flowers given to me by patrick!

dedicated to the sweetie

this story is dedicated to the hubs, who outsmarts me every day, but has moments of his own. the post is inspired by courtney's marriage in a nutshell vignette. though my story is a little different.

wife goes out for girls' night on the town and comes home about 2:00am to her husband, asleep on the couch.

wife has enjoyed her martinis for the evening, and can't figure out how to turn the volume on the tv down. in fact, she may have turned the volume up.

she realizes that it's the perfect time for cereal. so she plops down with a bowl between her sleeping beauty and the coffee table and watches the blaring tv while enjoying some kashi.

exhausted and full, she goes to bed and leaves husband on the couch.

she sleeps in and upon waking, sees that her husband has joined her in bed. she rolls over and grabs her phone to see that it is 9am and notices she has a text message, which she assumes must be from one of the girls during the separate cab rides home the evening prior.

it is actually a text message from her husband, time stamped 7am, that reads "babes, where are you?"

wife wonders how long it took him to think of looking in the bed.

***

oh dear, yes, leave it to patrick to think i haven't come home by 7am when i'm sleeping in our bed. wait, he thinks i haven't come home by the morning and all i get is a text message? how about a phone call, sir??! a call to 9-1-1 maybe?? he says he was confused when he woke up (you think?) -- and i am going to give him a hard time about this one for some time yet to come!

friday fun posts

{photo from chicago sun times}

i hardly ever, ever feel the urge to attend concerts.
but i totally want tickets to this!
elton & billy @ wrigley field

snuggie pub crawl

i thought the snuggie phenomenon was over, but guess not:
the snuggie pub crawl

Logan Square Eats - Lula Cafe

after walking around, the afternoon was begging to end, and i met up with nicole, leslie mallman (from pomona college) and katherine for a senior citizen style dinner at 4:00pm. it was the only time we could all meet.

we went to lula cafe - super cute.

{nicole ponders over all the delicious menu items}

{leslie and katherine enjoy their food}

i ended up with the tineka sandwich:
spicy peanut butter on multigrain bread, tomato, cucumber, red onion, sprouts, sambal, and indonesian sweet soy sauce.

thumbs up.

A Venture into Logan Square

Sunday was another gorgeously 'warm' day.
I ventured northwest to Logan Square.

the Den Norske Lutherske Minnekirke and the Logan Theatre

Den Norske Lutherske Minnekirke is the Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church, better known as Minnekirken - which means Memorial Church in Norweigan. It's one of two American churches still using Norwegian as a primary liturgical language, the other being Minnekirken in Minneapolis.

Logan Square is a neighborhood with a ... diverse population (Wikipedia mentions Mexican, Puerto Rican, with some Cuban, African American and Eastern European).

{What are Ricosss?}

Not long ago, the neighborhood gained a resurgence from students, artists, and working-class.
inexpensive housing and rent available:

"The area had a big stock of beautiful old flats with low rents. There were few amenities of the kind they liked, but Bucktown and Wicker Park, next door, were full of artsy bars, coffee shops, restaurants and record stores." -YoChicago

And on the other end of the spectrum, there are elaborate, stylish, and expensive houses and mansions that line historic Logan and Kedzie Boulevards. So, there is quite a mix that comes together in this neighborhood.

"Today, bargain rents are the exception, not the rule, in Logan Square. People ... increasingly are moving to Humboldt Park for cheap rent and making the trip to Logan Square for coffee, eats and music. A handful of cheap and artsy places, not unlike the ones that popped up in Wicker Park during the '80s, and a Starbucks have opened in Logan Square – the latest front in the westward wedge of gentrification." - Yo Chicago

I plan to visit Logan Square more often ... figure there is more to explore ... and can't wait for the Spring. I've driven through these Boulevards when they're green, and they're really beautiful. Run down in many areas, but a diamond in the rough!

tapas & improv

it turns out that tapas + improv are quite an irresistable combination. it was a good saturday night.

{cafe iberico food image from chicago.decider.com}

very excited about the february 'heat wave' (it was almost 60 degrees!!), patrick, nikolai, christine, amy and i went out for a tapas & improv night. we started the night out at cafe iberico and our food completely blanketed our table. and i think we ate it all.

{logo image from brcac.com}

{second city image from watching30rock.com}

after dinner, we headed to the theatre. the improv was hilarious! i highly suggest dropping in for a quick show, either on the main stage OR the e.t.c. stage, if you're in town ... second city launched the careers of a list of famous actors, including jim belushi, mike meyers and stephen colbert!

after the show, we went to corcoran's across the street and met up with a couple more folks. then for some reason, we ventured north to finley dunne's. patrick and i couldn't hack it and retired for the night, but rumor has it christine and nikolai were out until 4am!! i swear, it must be the serbian in them.

thanks for a great night, christine, nikolai, and amy!

easy come, easy go!!

the snow is gone but i hear the cold is coming back.
winter doesn't end in FEB in chicago!

welcome february

i heard it was 82 in l.a. today