The only travel mug you will ever need

There it is people. The best travel mug in the world. Next to it is one of the best water bottles in the world. A friend of mine works in sales for the company that make these (Contigo) and he and his wife gave me this set for Christmas. Both of them have something called 'auto seal' meaning that THEY DON'T SPILL. You push a button when you want to drink and when you take your finger off the button it seals right back up. The water bottle has a cool compartment that will hold a house key and an ID or a credit card in it. So, when I decide to finally show my face at my gym again, I can just carry everything in my water bottle.
I have found one problem with the coffee mug though. It keeps my coffee too hot. No kidding, I have put coffee in it and four hours later taken a sip of what was left and it was still warm. I can fill the cup in the morning and throw it in my bag knowing that it will be safe all through my bus ride and still hot and fresh when I get to work.
You can get them at Target and other random stores on on the Contigo web site. Go get one!

Oh, Valentine's Day...

I'll admit it. I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day. I mean, I love chocolate and the color pink but I can have that any day. But, I don't really get into the whole thing. At the same time, I don't want to be a bum about it either. I really just try to treat it as any normal day. But, no matter how hard I try to let it not get to me, it's sometimes a kind of painful day. I don't have a valentine. I never have had one. Which means, I don't have stories of Valentine's Days gone wrong to even laugh about. I'm fine that other people enjoy the day and get to do their thing but I don't want my face rubbed in it. Tonight I walked by several guys buying or carrying flowers and I got a little sad that they weren't for me.
But, when I got home tonight, I had a moment where I realized how blessed I am. I spent the evening, like I do most Tuesdays, with a great group of people laughing, eating (fondue, amazing!) and drinking wine. They all could have decided not to do dinner tonight and to spend the evening with their significant others. But, everyone wanted to be together. It's a time that makes you feel good after a terrible day. It's a place to share good news with people who are excited to hear it. It's a group of people who will try the new recipes you want to experiment with and they will always tell you they are great (even if you know they are lying).
So, while today is not my favorite day and there were moments when I just wanted to curl up on my couch alone, tonight I am thankful for the people that God has put in my path and how they make sure I know that I am not alone.

Why yes, I AM a wine club member

This is an image of my wine shelf right now. It makes me happy.

In September I was fortunate enough to travel to San Francisco for a friend's wedding. Since I was out there already, I decided that I should probably make a trip to Napa. Since I was going to Napa, I figured I should probably talk my best friend into going with me. So, I went to Napa with my best friend. My friend, K, had taken a trip to Napa with her parents a few months previous and she talked about all the awesome places that they went. So, I pretty much did the same trip. It did not disappoint. K could not stop talking about a place called Trefethen. She even shared some of their wine with me before I took my trip. I was so impressed with their wines that I told my best friend that we could go to any winery that she wanted while we were in Napa but that we absolutely had to go to Trefethen. It ended up being one of our last stops and was the only place where we both liked everything that we tasted. I even liked the wines that I didn't really like there.
I was so impressed that about two weeks after I got home, I joined their wine club. It's a bit of an investment, but I am so happy for it. I get to taste wines that I wouldn't normally buy. I get to support a family run vineyard that believes in doing things as local as possible and treating everyone like family. I get to drink really yummy wines.
I did my taxes a few days ago and found out I was getting a nice little refund. I decided to put some of that money to good work supporting our economy by placing an order for more wine. That order showed up in my office today. Side note: I'm going to have to start keeping a corkscrew in my desk for situations like this.
All that to say, I now have a wine shelf filled with tasty wines that I can't wait to dig into. Some might say that I have an addiction to wine. I say that I'm having a love affair with wine.

**Please note, this post was written after a trip to P. Diddy's with K that involved drinking two very strong Manhattan's. We'll talk about P. Diddy's in a different post.

What happens when you want a mini series to keep going?

This weekend I started watching the mini series 'The Kennedy's'. I have no idea what channel it was on originally, I'm watching it on DVD. I sat down and thought 'oh, I have some time, I'll just watch one episode'. 2 1/2 hours later I pried myself away from the TV to do something else. I did the same thing last night with disc 2.
I am seriously enjoying this show. It's a little bit like 'The West Wing' but, you know, based in actual events. I'm sure that some of it is made up or embellished or based on speculation but that's ok. I don't even mind that it's Katie Holmes playing Jackie. She's not that bad. The only bad part about it is that it's a mini series and not a go-on-for-ten-seasons-series.
The show has also made me wish I could go back to school and actually pay attention in history classes. I used to find them incredibly boring and pointless. Now, I find all of the things I was supposed to be learning about incredibly fascinating.
To sum up: go watch The Kennedy's.

Thoughts on being old

I am not cut out for the Chicago bar scene. At least not the bar scene in my neighborhood. Really, I never was cut out for the bar scene but I could still manage to have a good time. Now, I feel like I should be there as a chaperon (ok, not really, but you get the idea). I no longer find it fun to stand in the middle of a crowded bar holding my coat and drinking a very poorly made drink. Drunk guys flirting and trying to make conversation, while a rare occurrence, is more annoying than it is flattering.

I came to this realization tonight. My friend M and I decided that we wanted bar food for dinner tonight. So, we met up at a place along Clark St. We went early enough that it was not crowded at all. We enjoyed our tasty and very bad for us meals and some lovely conversation. Since 7:30 was a little too early to call it a night we went across the street for one more drink. We chatted with the bartender, talked about what places to check out during restaurant week, yada, yada, yada. We were interrupted by two single guys for a brief period of time. One was very drunk, the other was trying to tolerate and not laugh at his drunk friend. They were devastated when M made a comment about her husband. They decided that even though I was single and 'a very pretty lady' that it was best for them to move on. We had a good chuckle about it when they left.
Leaving the bar I walked past so many girls in very short dresses and no coats who just looked miserable to be outside. (Note to those girls: the guys who are in the bars you are going to didn't bother to get dressed up more than their nicest jeans and fleeces. It's ok for you to wear long pants.) My 'Ah Ha' moment came when I walked back into my building and was really excited to find a new issue of Real Simple magazine in my mail box. It was right around 9:30pm.

You see, I'm proud to be 'old'. I'm ok with the fact that I'd rather be home on a Saturday night than at a stinky bar. I like that my friends and I go to the ballet, prefer wine to beer and like to stay in trying new recipes from Food and Wine. While life is not what I expected it to be at this point, life is really good. I know who I am and I like who I am. My list of friends on Facebook isn't the longest ever but I actually know and really like the people on the list that I do have. I have learned to be confident in who I am, what I like and how I am living my life.

I'll still make myself go out sometimes because I'm not meeting any new people sitting in my studio apartment. But, for tonight, I'm looking forward to my magazine.

Thoughts on not having to learn Southern

Earlier this week I almost decided to move to Tennessee.

Once upon a time my job was horrible. I could say so much more about that, but I won't. Since my job was horrible, I started looking to see what else was out there. Someone connected me with a certain university in Tennessee where they do a lot of 'volunteering' while wearing orange. I had a great conversation with one of their AVP's and applied for a job. Then I waited for a long time (everything in the south moves slower). While I was waiting, my job became not horrible. In fact, it actually became good. That's when the south thought it would be a good time to finally call me back. So, I decided to see where it would all lead to. There were several times that I almost withdrew my name but in the end, I had some phone calls, I let them fly me out for an interview and they offered me a job.

I very seriously considered their offer. I looked at places to live. I looked at cars to buy. I talked to people who lived there to see what they thought. I started to think about learning to speak and understand southern. I tried to think about all the people I could talk into helping me pack all my boxes. I had a lot of people praying for me (including one who told me that I could move but that her two year old would cry for a week).

In the end, I declined the offer. I may still end up in Tennessee some day, but not today. For now, I'm sticking around Chicago for a little longer. There are still a lot of restaurants to try, neighborhoods to explore, museums to visit, summer festivals to enjoy and fantastic friends that I'm not ready to leave.

2012

Ok, I think that I'm well rested from my year+ absence from blogging. It's time to get back to telling you all random things about my life that you may or may not care about. Mostly though, I'm doing this because my dear friend Robin has put a challenge in front of me and I love a good challenge (at least until I get tired of it and move on to something different and less challenging).

Robin and I made a deal recently that we would blog at least 52 times in 2012 – equal to the frequency of posting once a week without the entrapment of having to actually post once a week. We both really like a good non-challenging challenge. The deal was sweetened by the suggestion to see who reaches her goal the fastest, and then the loser will buy the winner dinner at Yoshi’s, a favorite Chicago eatery.

But, since this turned into a contest, and I am really good at laying ground rules, we came up with a few guidelines:
1) Posts must be somewhat informative.
2) Posts must have at least 52 words. (Byline: Shorter posts can combine to equal one, i.e. two posts of 26 words will equal one legitimate post.)
3) No more than one post a day shall count toward the total.
4) Photo-only posts shall count only if there is a minimum of five photos that share a commonality and tell a story (sometimes there just are no words).

After we agreed on the ground rules, we decided to proceed with the 52 in 2012 (or some other lame name) challenge.
(via Gchat):
Liz: I think that we should both post them on our blogs today. The world will keep us accountable (or the 10 people who read our blogs).
Robin: yes!!
Liz: Plus, it will put us each one post closer to 52 (although it will be a wash since we are both doing it…)
Robin: but I am one ahead!!
Liz: Oh, I’m not worried about that…
Robin: haha ok I am getting excited about this challenge. I can almost taste that delicious red snapper with the head still on
Liz: I’m looking forward to a nice steak prepared by Mr. Yoshi himself.
Robin: ooh he does real good steaks. real real good
Liz: indeed. This is going to be good.

Bring it!