Ramble Ramble

This past weekend, N.C. and I boarded a jet plane and flew off to Chicago for a belated anniversary trip (thanks to some airline ticket vouchers and Priceline) that was a sorely needed break from the “real world.” For four whole days, we were without email, blogs, twitter, facebook, anything. It was really nice to just…be. We took our time exploring, took it easy, and just enjoyed the city and each other.

We got to stay in an amazing hotel (The Palmer House Hilton), which is apparently this big, fancy, extremely well known historical hotel. Once again, Priceline Roulette doesn’t let us down! Seriously though, we booked the hotel through the name your own price feature on Priceline and got an amazing steal on this great hotel. The rooms were a little small, but the hotel is something like 90 years old, so we’ll cut them some slack. I only wish we had gotten some pictures of the absolutely amazing ceiling in the lobby!

Because of the whole preganacy thing, we took this trip pretty easy, doing one “big” thing per day every day we were there. We had to limit our walking more than we normally would have (thanks to super swollen feet and the slow pregnant woman waddle), but I still think we hit a lot of the big points of downtown Chicago. Of course we hit up “The Bean” the first day we were there.

A friend of ours had tried to explain this odd sculpture to us before, but honestly, until we were there looking at it, we didn’t get the uniqueness. The reflection of the city in this oddly shaped sculpture is pretty striking.

People take pictures of themselves in the reflection of The Bean, since it is basically a giant mirror. We did too, but apparently we stood in front of the portion that had just had a milkshake thrown at it (in other words, the shot didn’t really come out), so this will have to do. But of course, as anyone who has seen The Bean knows, it’s really the experience that’s trippy. You can walk through the middle of the sculpture, and get right up close to it, and it’s all very bizarre, and cool, but no photos really do that experience justice.

Just in case you need proof that we were there–here’s a photo of me with The Bean in the background (and a reflection of the city in my sunglasses–that’s kind of a cool shot!). After this, we did a whole lot of touristy & cool stuff like:

• go see a man about the blues (and some cajun food!) at Buddy Guy’s Legends
• do the double-decker city tour (always a great way to see a city, even if it’s the most touristy thing imaginable)
• have Chicago dogs at Portillo’s
• go see some jazz at Andy’s Jazz Club
• enjoy a day at the Art Institute of Chicago
• have dessert (me) and cocktails (N.C.) in the fancy lobby of our historic hotel
• snarf down some deep dish pizza at Pizzeria Uno (the original)
• check out the art and a mid-day concert at the Chicago Cultural Center
• Plus we did lots of sleeping, napping and relaxing!
• And, as a special bonus, I got the joy of a personalized tour of Chicago bathrooms, thanks to the little man hanging out on my bladder most of the trip.

While we were there, we also got to enjoy glimpses of crazy hordes of soccer fans (Honduras vs. the US, and I swear there were probably 100 Honduras fans for every US fan we saw. It was insane) and bits of the Gospel Music Festival. All in all, it was a really fantastic weekend. I’m glad we made the time to do this trip, both as our anniversary celebration and as a pre-baby vacation. It was nice to spend time together, enjoying a new city with each other. I’m always reminded of how lucky I am that N.C. and I enjoy each others company so much–we make good travel partners! And it was nice to have one last special trip that’s “just us” before our lives completely change in a few months. Even though I’m sure we’ll travel without kids in the future, we’ll be different, in a different kind of world, so it was nice to have one last fling in this non-baby universe.

Yesterday, I went to an honest to goodness tea party! It’s an annual(ish) tradition that my best friend co-hosts, but this was the first year I’ve been able to attend. I must admit going to party where I know exactly one person has never been something I’m THAT keen on, but the tea party turned out to be fantastically enjoyable.

When I say honest to goodness tea party, I mean it. We were required to wear our party frocks and fancy hats. There were finger sandwiches. There were teapots, and an endless variety of teas to put into dainty china teacups. There was croquet!! All in all, I had a wonderful time, with some much needed girly interaction–we determined I spend entirely too much time with boys since I don’t have a ton of girlfriends in San Diego.

One other fantastic outcome of the day? I actually took some photos! I know, I know, I was shocked too. I was even more shocked when I came home and edited them right away, so that I could write a blog post with them. (I had the house to myself last night, that might have had something to do with it). Anyway, here are some teaparty photos for you to enjoy!

The hostess had a backyard full of gorgeous roses like this one that were in full bloom.

Croquet and tattoos, a modern day tea party!

This dessert was incredibly decadent (in case you couldn’t tell from the gooeyness), but incredibly good.

In addition to tea, there were sparkling drinks to put in fancy glassware.

And I leave you with one of my favorite images of the day. Something about this shot looks very much like a watercolor instead of a photo, and I love how ethereal it looks. I obviously have an infatuation with both the macro setting on my camera and framing my images a certain way, but I do think this photo turned out quite nicely. A perfect representation of the tea party in my mind!

Since I’m still suffering a bit from writer’s block (or maybe I’m just lazy, who knows?), I’m stealing an idea from inspired by two of my favorite blogs, SoMi and Clever Girl Goes Blog. I love reading their letters, and today felt like I had a few inside my brain that should come out.

Dear Left Contact,

Why for the love of all that is holy must you always be problematic? Your right companion doesn’t act up like this. I really wish you’d stop with the itching and watering and blurring and all. The eye doctor says there’s nothing wrong with you, so knock it off.

Wishing I could see,
Ginger

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Dear Brain,

Would it be possible for you to not be so scattered? I’ve kind of got lots of work to do, and your short attention span and flightiness isn’t helping my cause. I know you’d like to still be on vacation, I would too, but we had to come back to work over a week ago. It’s time to buckle down.

Seriously needing to be productive,
Ginger

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Dear Sirius,

Please stop being broken. I can’t handle local radio anymore and I’ve listened to every cd in the car at least a thousand times (at LEAST). I love you too much to go without you for much longer.

Desperately wanting to get away from morning radio dj’s,
Ginger

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Dear New TV,

I love you. You are shiny and lovely and I can actually read the text when we play video games. Please always love me back.

Hopelessly devoted to you
Ginger

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Dear Wii Fit,

You rock. Even if I yell at my trainer (what? she can be a bitch when she makes me do some of those moves!), I am entranced by you. Even when you tell me I haven’t lost weight, I am enamored.  Now if only I could do better on the balance games.

Enjoying some light fitness,
Ginger

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Dear Anxiety,

Knock it off. Everything will be fine. You’re getting worked up for no reason (as usual).

I’m fine, I swear,
Ginger

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Dear Readers,

Have I mentioned how much I love you guys? Seriously, nothing brightens my day more than comments and knowing that there are people out there reading my little corner of the interwebs. I’m trying to get better about replying to comments, I promise (the holidays set me back a little in my diligence there), but I swear, everyone one of your comments is like a little present to me. A present that I will name George, and I will hug him, and pet him, and squeeze him.*

So since it’s De-lurking Week (apparently I was misinformed the other day, it’s a whole week, not just a day!) please come out and say hi if you haven’t already!

Yours forever and ever (or as long as you’ll read me),
Ginger

P.S. *who knows what this is from? It’s one of my favorites!

So after the debate tonight, I thought for sure I’d write a political post. I mean, there’s just so much tragic funny stuff there.

But for whatever reason, I’m still trying to keep the peace around here in case my family ever reads this, so instead I’m going to go the happy picture route. I thought I’d share a few of my favorite things with you guys.

I can’t even adequately express my love for this purse. Made by a designer based out of North Caroline, I found this purse at an art event focusing on kick-ass accessory designs. All the bags by Holly Aiken spoke to me, but this was the one I ended up getting. Made from vinyl (this thing is practically indestructible), it’s big enough to hold everything a girl could need without getting overwhelming. And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been stopped on the street and asked about this thing. I love it.

Oh, how’d he get in here? I do love the little munchkin…even if he likes to attack our napkins while we eat. Now where were we?

Yes, those are pickles. Yes, I love them enough to proclaim that affection on my blog to teh interweb. When I was growing up, I could literally sit down and eat a whole jar of pickles. I would have a bowl full of pickle slices for an afternoon snack. Or an after dinner snack. or, well, an anytime snack. As I’ve gotten older I’ve learned to restrain myself to one or two (maybe 3 if they’re small). I know, I’m weird. You still like me though right?

Ok, something a little less weird. I adore music. Seriously, music has played a major role in my life (I’ll be posting about some of those roles in the next few weeks), and I can’t imagine not having it around. So, the delights of satellite radio are pretty much a given. This is the cheapy player we have for the car, to go with the cheapy one we have in the house and, yes I listen to it online. I’ve had Sirius for almost 5 years now, and it’s one of my absolute favorite things.

Ooh, is this the first picture of me I’ve posted on the blog? I think so (please ignore the messy hair…you’d think I could have seen I needed a comb!). Anyway, the favorite thing here isn’t me (though I’m pretty great). No, it’s that thing in front of my face. I’ve only had that camera for a little over a month, but I already love some of the pictures I’ve gotten with it. More than that, I really love the way it has enabled me to look at the world differently. I can definitely see that photography could easily grow into something more than an occasional hobby at some point in the future…and I might be ok with that.

So there you have it, a small sampling of the things I love. How bout you? What’s some of your favorite stuff??

My birthday ended up being both really awesome, and totally sucky. Bad news first: I ended up with a pretty wicked toothache, so I ended my day with a hydrocodone and bed. Wait, I guess that finished the day off pretty well actually. The toothache bit sucked though, pretty much rendering me grouchy and pissy by the time the day wore down.

Now the good news: After a happy dinner at Chic-fil-A, and some mild grouchiness by me, I came home to something completely undeserved and awesome. My hubby totally rocked in the gift department, going way above and beyond what he should have. Meet my new friend:

Not what, 2 days ago I posted about learning photography and my crappy point and shoot and my dreaming of an unaffordable new camera? And then, bam, as a consolation prize for being older than him, N.C. gives me this little guy. See what whining on the internet will get you?

Seriously though–N.C. knows that I’ve been slowly getting more and more into photography, and more and more frustrated with our little camera. He worked with a photographer friend of ours to pick out a “next step” camera that would let me learn, give me more options, and give me a good basic grounding, but wasn’t quite as crazy expensive, expansive, or overwhelming as the DSLR’s I’ve been coveting. And honestly, I don’t know enough about the medium to justify a DSLR. Hell, I think this camera is going to be challenging enough to learn and more expensive than I think my birthday (or our finances) warrants.

But I’m sure as hell not giving it back.