Getting closer to Friday... : )

This week has gone by pretty fast - always a plus!

Some random stuff from this week...

Last night, I was feeling extra energetic, so I decided to hit the gym before volleyball. Erin and I did the Muscle Conditioning class and I am SO sore today. The volleyball games went well, we won two of the three. My brother was MVP of the night. I think he was on the ground more than standing up... he was diving all over the place! He had some great saves! : )

I'm loving the Olympics right now! Last night, we watched the aerialists... holy crap, that looks scary! Can you imagine doing one of those jumps for the very first time?!? All the skiing events where they are going lightening speed down the mountains are awesome! And on Tuesday night, we watched that Canadian skater Joannie Rochette do her routine just two days after her mother died and when she broke down after she finished... well, there definitely wasn't a dry eye at our house. We even watched curling the other day. The Olympics just suck you in!

Matt and I are going out for dinner again tonight - last date-night debt payoff... for now, at least. Gotta love Restaurant Week and being able to try some of these places out for less. We're going to Piccolo Sogno (thanks to April for reminding me about this place). We go by this restaurant a lot and every time we do, there always seem to be super expensive cars in the parking lot. I'm not sure why, but we decided gangsters must go there for dinner or something. : ) We've been wanting to try it out for a while, so I'm looking forward to tonight!

In a completely unrelated note, I was working on a project with someone in another office and I sent them everything to review back on Sept 17, 2009. They had asked for the work to be done by the end of September. After a few follow-up emails from me, I gave up and figured they'd let me know if it wasn't ok. I just got an email from them yesterday with their review notes. It starts out "I finally had a chance to review this". Ummm, ok... 5 months. Really? Wow.

Oh, speaking of work, we got new business cards... they are BRIGHT!

More great food

Last night, Matt and I checked out one sixtyblue for dinner (Michael Jordan's restaurant)... another Restaurant Week outing for us. We had never been there before, which is silly considering it's less than a mile from our place.

In case you are wondering where it got it's name (because we were), the address of the location used to be 160 Loomis, but now it is 1400 W Randolph. It was a "big blue building", so hence the 160 blue. Another interesting fact... the building used to be a pickle factory.

Overall, the food was pretty good - I started off with the vegan caesar salad, Matt had the quail risotto. For our entrees, I had salmon with mashed potatoes and spinach, Matt had grilled beef tenderloin with purple potato puree (interesting!). For dessert, I had (a very tart!) key lime panna cotta and Matt had a (super rich) peanut butter chocolate turine (sp?). And after the bill came, they brought us chocolate peanut butter cookies to take home with us. Those were great! Matt ate his on the walk home from the restaurant. : )

As for the restaurant itself, it was ok. Nothing spectacular about the decor. The service was kind of slow. We sat at the table for a good 10 minutes before even being acknowledged or given water. Our waiter finally came around a few minutes after that. He was ok, not overly friendly.

One bowling bet debt owed to Matt down, one to go!

Terrible blogger

I'm terrible at keeping up on this blog! So, this post will serve as a quick catch-up.

Last week, Lent started. I decided this year I'd actually be a good Catholic and give something up and also remember to not eat meat on Fridays. I always forget. But, so far so good. I decided to give up caffeine (mainly coffee and sodas w/it). I didn't realize how much caffeine I drank, but judging by the headaches I've been having, I must have drank a lot! On Friday, I thought my brain was going to explode out of my ears... it was pretty bad. And taking Advil didn't help. Luckily, it's getting better each day.

On Thursday of last week, I went to get my hair trimmed and highlighted. Duschan decided to add some lowlights this time, so my hair looks a little darker (or "warmer" as he described it). I don't think anyone else probably will notice (I know Matt didn't!), but whatever. I like it! I'm still not sure about the bangs. I'm giving it a little more time, but I will probably grow them back out before Erin's wedding... just so I won't forever look back at her wedding pictures and wonder why I did that to my hair!

Matt's grandfather passed away a few weeks ago and they had an open house at his aunt and uncle's house in Essexville, MI last weekend. So, we drove to MI on Friday and drove back early Sunday morning. Almost everyone was able to make it for the open house, so that was nice. There was a ton of food and I think I ate nonstop on Saturday.

We got back into town in time on Sunday to meet up with my parents who were in town visting. My Dad and bro had gone to the Auto Show and my mom and sis went shopping. We grabbed lunch with them at the Beer Bistro. They wanted to get home before the big snow storm.

After that, I totally crashed on the couch for a good couple of hours before heading off to bowling. So far this league, Matt has won date night twice and I have won once.

And speaking of paying off the date night debt, last night we went out for dinner at David Burke's Primehouse in the James Hotel. I had heard good things about the place and since it's Restaurant Week, what better time to check it out... plus, it was on Matt's dime! : ) Matt started off with lobster bisque, then had the Delmonico steak. I started off with a salad and then had the filet. The steaks were served with 4 small sides (spinach, asparagus, mashed potatoes and mushrooms). We both got the same dessert - peanut butter ice cream with a banana cake. The food was really good, but I think I'm still partial to Joe's. Maybe if we had tried the 75 day dry-aged steak (which was like a $30 upgrade to the RW menu)... that is supposed to be excellent and their signature steak.

Two more debts to be paid... by me.

I'm drawing a blank on anything else interesting that happened in the past week, so that's it for now!

Restaurant Week is coming up!

February 19th - 28th

Check out the website... I love Restaurant Week!!! : )

Hmmm... where will we go???

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Last night, we met up with Erin, Ross and Brett to see Valentine's Day at the ICON theater in the South Loop. We went in with pretty low expectations of the movie, considering we'd heard the reviews were really bad. But, it wasn't awful... it actually was a cute movie and kept me entertained for the couple of hours I was there. Maybe the beer helped. ; )

At one point in the movie, there is a scene with two guys. Ross said that the guy behind him in the theater was saying under his breath "don't kiss, don't kiss" over and over. Luckily, no guy-on-guy action... which I'm sure that dude was happy about!

At the end of the movie, some guy in the row behind us proposed to his girlfriend in the theater and she said "yes" because he yelled out "she said yes" and then showed us the ring. We all gave him high fives... he was super excited. She was a little embarrassed, I think.

After the movie, we grabbed some dinner and drinks at the Beer Bistro. Good stuff!

Today, we've been veggin' out on the couch. We are all caught up on Grey's Anatomy and now are getting sucked into the Olympics. I love lazy Sundays!

Trump-tastic Valentine's Day

Matt and I decided to celebrate Valentine's Day on Friday night since we have other plans for Saturday and Sunday. All he would tell me about what we were going to do was that I had to be ready by about 6:15 and I had to pack an overnight bag.

So, we got in a cab and he says "401 North Wabash"... I figured we'd be going to some fancy hotel, but for some reason, I thought that address was too far north to be the Trump Tower... but I was wrong. We stopped right out front.

At check in, they gave us warm towels to wash our hands off with. Our room was pretty sweet! We were on the 18th floor and the room was quite big - had a mini kitchen w/dishwasher, fridge, sink, etc. and lots of pots/pans and utensils. The fridge was stocked with overpriced stuff, of course. There was a selection of really high priced waters... one was in a Swarovski encrusted bottle called Bling H2O and cost $25!



There was a little seating area with a couch and chair with floor to ceiling windows. We had a north city view. The bathroom was great! Huge tub and shower... and there was a tv in the middle of the mirror! Why don't we have one of these at home?!?! ; )

There was a master light switch near the bed that you could push a button for Morning, Afternoon, Evening and Nightlight... so cool. It adjusted all the lights in the room for the time of day.

We had a drink at the bar in the hotel, Rebar. I had a Hibiscus Bliss, which was sparkling wine with black raspberry vodka and a Hibiscus flower in it. So pretty! Matt had his typical Belvedere martini. There was a lot of interesting people watching at Rebar.

After that, we headed to Capital Grille for some meat! Seriously, you just walk in that place and you are surrounded by the smells of meat. We started off with oysters for Matt and Caprese salad for me. We each had filet and Matt also had crab legs. We got augratin potatoes for our side. So good! So full! Since we were celebrating Valentine's Day, they gave us each a chocolate covered strawberry... yum! It was all the dessert we could eat after all the food!

We had a great Valentine's Day! I told Matt he set the bar kind of high for future Valentine's Days. He said not to get my hopes up... it goes downhill after this year. : (

Sidenote: I (STUPIDLY) didn't bring my camera with me, so I have no pictures. DOH!

Um, should I drink this?

My company supplies gallons of milk for us to use for our coffee. One of the admin staff makes sure there is milk in the fridge and replaces it frequently. Well, today, I noticed that the gallon in the fridge has the sell by date crossed off with thick black marker and a new date written on it. The old sell by date was like 2-1-10 and the one written on it is 2-9-10. This kinda freaks me out. Did someone pour new milk in an old jug? Why would you do that? Wouldn't it mix with the old milk and still spoil? Seems like a bad idea to me.

Of course, I still poured a little of it in my coffee. I can't drink the work coffee without milk and Splenda. Trust me on this one... it's kinda bad.

In case I keel over later today, you will all know why! : )

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!!!

My Dad turned the BIG 6-0 yesterday! : )

Of course, just in time to make him feel old for his birthday, he had another accident at work. This time he did not fall off any high places (he's been banned from being more than two feet off the ground without a safety harness!) or slice some part of his body. Somehow a large pipe fell on his leg and knocked him over??? Luckily, his leg wasn't broken, but he is in a walking cast. Nowhere is safe for this man! LOL! (Just for those that don't know, my Dad is prone to accidents... usually involving him falling from somewhere high up... like the treehouse in our backyard, a hole in scaffolding at work... that kind of stuff.)

Anyway, I talked to him yesterday and now that he's in his 60's, he said he's "bringing back the '60s"... not sure what this means, but I'm hoping it doesn't involve tie-dye apparel, crazy plaids or long hair!!!

Dad - just in case you forgot how you looked in the '60's, here is a pic I found from back in the day to refresh your memory. (Ok, so this is actually from 1972... I don't have any from before then. But you get the idea!)



UPDATE... So, I found this picture when I was going through old CDs today (Sunday). This is great! We were in Memphis for a family trip. He's definitely a keeper!