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Feeling Kinda Zen…. (Pictures, Long)

14 May 2010 / authors, body and soul, books, dork, living in chicago, pictures, yoga

O hai! I’m on my way to Schaumburg! Look how excited I am!!!

With the exception of a headache, I feel pretty good today. I went to a new yoga class today, Mindful Vinyasa, and it was really amazing. It’s getting to the point where my body craves yoga practice, and if I skip one for any reason, I feel all knotted. AND, apparently, I have bad dreams! Last night/this morning, I dreamed that I went to class and went to unroll my mat and it was all ripped apart! Eeek?!

Fortunately, the are 57 classes that I can always make up if I have to miss. 🙂

I’ve been practicing yoga in this classroom/studio setting for more than a month now, and already, I’m stronger in some ways. Weak in others, but that’s the beauty of yoga. We’re all different. Everyone has their own practice, and it’s OK not to be perfect all the time. Such a refreshing view to have (and a hard one to learn in this competitive society). So, I plan to continue practicing and learning and growing. Plus, I meet the most incredible people there. Even if we only touch lives for a brief moment, it’s a gorgeous moment.

I went to the library today. Got out a bunch of awesome ones, but before I read those, I’m going to finish Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti. I had the pleasure of meeting her Wednesday evening at Anderson’s Bookshop in Downer’s Grove. (I just have to say, that if I ever move from the Chicago area, I will miss Anderson’s a great deal.)

Anyway, getting to Downer’s Grove SUCKED. I swear, it’s rush hour ALL the time in Chicago. Still, once we got there, I got to spend hours in a bookstore and eat yummy pizza in a cool-looking pizza place, so that was cool. And meeting Susane was such a treat! She’s hilarious and so much fun! I love how candid she is. Here are some pix from that night:

Me and Susane. Isn’t she so pretty?? Pictures don’t do this woman justice, just sayin’.

Susane loves her some cupcakes, so when someone brought her some, she was totally thrilled:

AND then Susane shared them with us!!!

They were red velvet and totally yummy!

This week was busy. Not that I can remember WHY, but it was. Yesterday, we headed out to Schaumburg so Adam could do an Author Event. It was interesting. The Schaumburg Township District Library, though? OMG. Amazing and awesome. Five star. I didn’t know libraries had a rating system but apparently they do (and Columbus Metropolitan is a five-star library too, but I’m not surprised by that at ALL). This library. People. It’s crazy. Bright and welcoming. Board games and computers and books and books and books. NEW books! And the best part is that they let Chicago library card holders borrow books as visitors. 🙂 It’s like Heaven on Earth for me. I wish it was next door to me. I took out books last week when we were there for a different Author Event type deal that Adam was filling in for, and returned them yesterday. Today, we went to one of the Chicago branch libraries, which is five million times more pleasant than going downtown to Harold Washington, where I rarely feel welcome at all.

So… how awesome was Betty White on SNL last weekend? I hadn’t watched SNL in years, but I made an exception for this. She was hilarious! I was also very excited to see the return of some of my favorite SNL Ladies, Molly Shannon and Maya Rudolph especially.

Flowers are blooming like crazy all over the neighborhood:

And this is on the ground on the way to the yoga studio. I don’t know.

Hmm, what else?

· Adam and I have been trying to eat better, thanks to watching Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. This result of this is that there are snow peas in the house almost all the time. And BEAN SPROUTS! And clementines! I try to eat something raw every day, even if it’s just a little bit. Less processed, more real please!

· In 25 days, Aidan will be here for the summer! Woohoo!

· Still enjoying the new Doctor, even though some of the episodes are a great big cup of wtf.

· I am sooo behind on emails, game requests, etc. I’ll get to them. Eventually.

· I’ve been going through and editing the categories/tags on my old entries. Unfortunately, I thought (wrongly) that the updated entries would simply update on LJ. Oh no, the cross-poster cross posted the entries AGAIN. So I have doubles of a lot of my LJ entries from before 2010. It’s a PITA to go and individually delete thousands of LJ entries, so they are just going to be some doubles in the archives.

· Adam and I can’t take Aidan to Disney World this year, so of course I’m getting all kinds of emails from Disney Destinations with all these fantastic deals! They’re driving me crazy. If only I could get a huge, crazy windfall….

· Excited about … well never mind. Adam interrupted me to tell me something and I forgot. :O

That’s all for now. About to watch some Molly Shannon and chill out. ‘Til next time! 🙂

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My Hair So Far (Picture)

21 April 2010 / body and soul, hair, pictures, ronni

I still haven’t gotten the big chop yet, but this is how it looks if I don’t braid it or put it in ponytails or something:

The more I get used to it, the more I like it.

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Come On Spring! (Picture)

28 March 2010 / aidan, pictures

Aidan’s here!! He got in Thursday afternoon and he’s here until April 5th! YAY!!! 🙂 It’s still not enough time. Never enough time, but it’s awesome having him here regardless.

Here he is, watching an episode of Doctor Who.

Once upon a time, I had convinced myself that five years old was the best age, but honestly, I’m thinking it’s actually seven. Aidan is super cool. He’s interested in all sorts of things like Star Wars and Doctor Who. He’s hilarious and fun to talk to. He’s more adventurous with his eating. Last night, he tried sundried tomato encrusted tilapia and loved it. I don’t know if he’d have even tried it six months ago. Yum!

But the best part is that he’s still very cuddly and still loves to put his hands on my cheeks.

When I was younger, I had crushes on all sorts of celebs. Well, mostly Joe McIntyre and Jon Knight. And of course, Ricky Luna. I wish I had the Internet community to participate in those things like people do now! Man, and MMC forum. That would have been amazing. I mean, we had pen pal circles (and some of those people are still friends of mine) but some of the things I see these days crack me up. Entire forum categories dedicated to pictures of [insert fangirl’s crush here] sitting, or looking up, or wearing t-shirts, or sticking his tongue out. And then the reactions! It’s hilarious! I’d never really gotten into fandoms in that sense before, and I still don’t know if I’m really into any fandom or if I’ve even cracked the surface of what a fandom encompasses. I just know that what I’ve come across on my night owl haunts has been quite entertaining!

I saw Alice in Wonderland last week and I liked it. I LOVE the soundtrack! Just about anything Danny Elfman or Hans Zimmer (I buy soundtracks of his even if I haven’t seen the movie) does will make my ears happy, I’ve discovered, and Danny Elfman did the Alice soundtrack.

Oh YAY! Temperatures are supposed to be in the 70s at the end of the week! Just in time for Easter. Maybe there will even be some flowers up by then. Nah, not counting on that. But YAY 70s!!! AND sunshine! That’ll feel amazing. Must take loads of pictures!

I sure would like to see some buds and some flowers, but they’ll come in good time.

That’s all for now. ‘Til next time! 🙂

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Insert Cool Subject Title Here (Picture)

22 March 2010 / aidan, life, pictures, to do

I really enjoyed the weather we had the end of last week. 🙂 Warm, sunny, and so springlike. I went downtown again, met a friend for lunch, and even had a massage. I went to Cortiva and got a student massage. $35 for an hour of bodywork. Awesome.

Of course, it snowed Saturday, the first day of Spring. There’s Chicago for you. 60 on Tuesday, though. And sunny! 60 seems much less cold when it’s sunny out. 🙂

The no-pop thing has been going well! I almost slipped up a few times (falling for the “harmless” stuff like orange or fruit punch pop) but it really is pretty easy to drink juice instead. And I am making a point to drink 100%, no sugar added juices. Not juice drink or anything like that. I still need to drink more water, but this is a good starting point, I think.

I need to make a to-do list. Otherwise, I just won’t do the stuff I need to do to prepare for Aidan’s Spring Break.

1. Clean Aidan’s room I hate this chore. I don’t do a thing in there, but Adam does and I have no idea what, but it’s always a mess by the time Aidan’s next visit rolls around. So I have to go make it presentable again.

2. Get groceries. The word out on the street is that Aidan’s going through a growth spurt. This means that he will be doing a lot of eating and sleeping if he’s still dealing with that the next few weeks. Not only do we have to pick up some food he likes (chicken nuggets, fruit snacks, mac & cheese, pot pies, etc.), but we have to get a LOT of it! I’m also going to be encouraging him to try new things. Like BEEF. I understand that kids can be kind of meh about beef–Lord knows I was–but it’s so good, and he likes the beef flavored Ramen noodles.

3. Plan Easter. I want to have a cute little Easter celebration for Aidan. I plan to make a basket for him, and I have some of that YUMMY ham frozen from Christmas which I will thaw for dinner. I’ve had some interesting Easters over the years. The main thing was that the weather was always nice and warm and sunny by then. I remember the big old Easter egg hunt we had when I was about 11 or so. When I was in college, I was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic church at an Easter vigil. I remember being at an overnight retreat not so long ago, and participating in a sunrise service–the first time I ever prayed out loud in a group.

Here’s a picture of Aidan from Easter 2004!

I won two book contests recently, which means more books for me! 🙂 I just finished reading TWENTY BOY SUMMER and SKINNED. Getting ready to start on GIRL STAYS IN THE PICTURE. I really should check when those books are due back. I’m tearing through them, but you know how time sometimes gets away from you.

I must sleep. Adam and I are going to watch Alice In Wonderland with Claudia Gray tomorrow/today and I should at least TRY to be awake during it. *grumbles about being a night owl again*

Night!

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Coming Out of the Dark/General Update (Pictures)

17 March 2010 / pictures, ronni

I’ve had a rough few weeks of it. I don’t know if it was the weather, my medicine or what, but I’ve just really been feeling OFF. Definitely not very motivated. Tired and weak, constant headaches (three-day migraines are the suck… big time), depression, and general unhappiness. Not to mention the more than $500 in traffic/parking tickets that I had to pay last week. Not good.

(Did you know that in Chicago, not only can you be ticketed repeatedly for the same offense in the same place on the same day, but you can be ticketed every HOUR for the same offense in the same place on the same day? And they can impound your car even if you never received said tickets because the wind blew them off or something like that? Also, I know someone whose car got broken into. Window smashed. And he got a ticket for it. This city….I don’t even.)

Today, I had a doctor’s appointment. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the weather was sunny and in the upper 50s! Nice weather always helps me feel better, so after my appointment, I went and spent some time downtown, looking around in my favorite stores and letting myself be seriously tempted by things that I want but talk myself out of. I mean, I really don’t need a new Juicy warm up suit now, no matter how comfy and how deeply discounted they are at Nordstrom Rack.

This past weekend was an author-filled one for me. I got to meet Barry Lyga (we even gave him a ride to his hotel!) and Carrie Ryan, and Adam got to be treated like a rock star by middle schoolers. I do enjoy being around authors, and books, and things of that sort. It’s inspirational. I also managed to score an ARC of Linger so YAY. I have a lot of books to read, which is never a bad thing. I’m in the middle of my 50th new book of the year.

The bedroom is a hot, falling down mess. I still haven’t unpacked from our trip to Atlanta (which we came back from weeks ago), and plus, I am not good with hanging up/putting away clothing. I just drop it wherever I am standing, or drape it wherever it’ll fit. Part of the reason is that I can’t get to my closet because all of Adam’s clothes are in the way. And my closet light no longer works–something else the landlord won’t bother to fix. There are BOOKS everywhere on my side of the room. And the sad thing is there is a bookcase in the room–I need to utilize that thing. I can barely move for all the books (and shoes) everywhere.

I met up with an Internet friend a few weekends ago. We’d known each other since 2000, from the Roxydoll boards. It was fun to hang out. And pictures do not do her justice.

Sarah and Me

As you can probably tell, I got new glasses. Transitions. Pretty cool.

Aidan got his first “stylist” haircut (after getting homemade ones for years):

He’s also obsessed with Star Wars these days. He’s going to be so thrilled when he sees the huge AT-AT and Rancor that Adam shipped from Atlanta for him to play with. I’m thrilled that I now own Adam’s old stuffed clown named Boji. Boji is sooooo cute. He just has this smile; it’s impossible to stay sad when looking at that sweet face. Boji and Pandernoodle are best friends now. 🙂

I’ve been worried that I am starting to look my age. My body is changing, and my face is changing, and I even spied a grey hair several weeks ago. I don’t want to look anywhere near my age. I like looking young, because then I can get away with wearing jeans and hoodies or mini-skirts and tights. I don’t want to have to dress all conservatively and MATURE when I really want to wear plaid skirts and goth blouses or Mickey Mouse hoodies or tee-shirts from Old Navy or whatever. Anyway, this weekend, someone told me I looked 16. SIXTEEN folks. That made my weekend. I’m also still getting 24ish, which I suppose is acceptable. I don’t want to look my actual age for at least 20 years.

Girl scout cookies are here! I have two boxes of Thin Mints, a box of Tag-a-longs and some of those Lemon Cremes or whatever. That’s a happy thing. I gotta get those Thin Mints in the freezer. Frozen is the best way to eat them.

I’m cutting back, WAY back, on my pop consumption. There can be nothing good in the amount of pop I was drinking. I’m going back to juice, and then water. I really should cut back on my sugar as well… BUT IT TASTES SO GOOD. Still, I wasn’t happy with the numbers on the scale today. Something needs to be done.

I took out 20 books from the library (3 of them are for Adam). Reading is fun.

Aidan will be here in 8 days. Only 4 more days until Spring. And 160 days until Mockingjay is out! New Elizabeth Scott book is out NOW, and so is The Princess & The Frog on DVD/Blu-ray. And New Moon on Friday! Lots to keep me entertained.

I need to go home. I need to see my friends and family, and I need to be in a city I’m not scared to drive in, and in a state that doesn’t put sales tax on its groceries. I don’t know when that’ll be, though. Seems like something comes up to keep me from booking those tickets, but I have to soon, or I think I shall lose my mind.

Life really is good, even when I’m feeling down in the dumps. But I’m climbing out. Slowly, but surely.

P.S. I just realized it’s my 2 year anniversary of moving to Chicago.

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