Excuses, Excuses

Alright, so I was a bad blogger last week..I think Wednesday was my last post, and it's already Monday!  Eeesh...sorry loyal blog followers (which I'm pretty sure is just my mom...what up mom!).

However, I do have a somewhat valid excuse.  I went to Chicago for work Friday/Saturday and I'm not a big enough blogger to have saved up posts ready to post.  I also tried to see about posting from my phone/ipad using some apps and that was just way too involved and I'm still not sure how that works.  I will be traveling a lot more this fall so I better get on that.

So the trip was for work (and was super short, literally 24 hours in Chicago) but I still had time to take a few pics to share on the blog and hopefully make up for my lack of blogging...

So here goes!

Work put me up at the Palmer House and damn that place was fancy!  I touristed out and of course started taking pictures of the lobby as soon as I walked in.  All I needed was a fanny pack and Hawaiian shirt to make the look complete.  I didn't bring my big fancy camera because I was packing super light for this really short trip - but hipstamatic took some pretty decent pics on my phone.  Oh, and by the way...I dont' work someplace fancy or anything.  It was actually a conference type thing and the people that run the conference pay for hotel rooms.  I think they get pretty good group discounts or something...so that's nice.

I have this habit of immediately taking a picture of my room and sending it to Mr. J.G. as soon as I get someplace.  I'm really not a huge fan of traveling for work (even though I love me some Chicago...this wasn't a vacation and I was still working on a Saturday...all day almost).  But, at least the room was nice.  It was pretty small, because it's Chicago, but the decor was super cute.  I'm really like the lime chair and pillows.

I have a pretty great group of travel friends that I've met on the road.  It's nice because while we all work all over (LA, Georgia, Texas, New Jersey), we all bump into each other quite a bit at these events.  As a result...we have a pretty solid group that plan to eat together after the events.  My girl Mimi found a great German pub type restaurant.  I got pierogies for an appetizer...they were so good that I had already eaten all of them before I realized I should have gotten a picture.  Ooops.  I'm a pierogi connoisseur - we make them every year for Christmas.  And this place, had some good pierogies.  I may arrange to try to get the Chicago trip again since this restaurant was right around the corner from the hotel and pretty reasonable.  Oh, and if you're interested and happen to be in Chicago, it's called The Berghoff.  Tell 'em Rae sent you...or don't...because they have no idea who I am.

Oh and this picture was my main course.  It was sole stuff with spinach and crab on top of pea risotto and asparagus on the very top.  It was pretty tasty...but I really should have just gotten more pierogies for my main dish!

Yes, this is a super dorky picture of me posing in from of my hotel mirror and taking my picture.  I sent it to Mr. J.G. before work on Saturday and said "do I look like I'm ready to go do some work?" He replied "...or go speed dating."  I put a suit coat on before the conference though...no speed dating required.  I was only there for 24 hours and didn't take a ton of pictures...hence including the filler photos of me in front of a mirror talking about speed dating and looking like a wax figure.

I did have a little bit of time Saturday morning before the conference to do a bit of shopping/site seeing.  The hotel was located on State Street, which happens to also have an H&M...sign me up.  While we were waiting for the H&M to open, I saw this sign and felt like it was picture worthy.  This is where it also becomes super obvious that I'm taking a picture with my phone, and not a super fancy camera.

H&M was fun...I got an $8 necklace so I was happy!

Oh, and by the way it hasn't been all trips and laziness around here.  I've also been filling a bunch of Etsy orders and added this to my shop...

Want to buy it?  Yay!  Buy 3, no 4, no a million.  Seriously though, it does make a good teacher gift!  Here's the link for you to start purchasing a million boards https://www.etsy.com/listing/103895579/classroom-birthdays-board.

I've also been starting to focus more on wedding projects.  I had my first dress fitting...look, I even snuck a picture of how my dress is looking so far...



Don't you just love it?  Uh...yeah, so I found this picture online after searching "gypsy wedding dress."  My dress kind of looks like this..minus 74,628,234 lbs of tulle and crap.  Oh, and the crown...

Anyway, my plan this week is to showcase some wedding projects including wine glass favors and flip flop buckets.  If you are coming to the wedding and want to be surprised...then probably best to avoid the blog this week.  Or still come and read it...I'm sure I'll have some surprises there.

Have a good one!