Am Loving

these shoes. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.



Now I just have to learn how to walk in heels without falling down...

Adventures with cupcakes

My new thing when exploring a city is to check out it's bakeries...mostly those bakeries that specialize in cupcakes.

I was lucky enough to visit THREE cupcake/cake places in Chicago.

Molly's Cupcakes



It was here that there were swings at the bar, Kathleen got a vanilla cupcake, Pete got a red velvet cupcake, and I got a S'Mores cupcake - chocolate cupcake, marshmallow topping, graham cracker crumbs, and two little mini-bars of Hershey's Chocolate. Then we played a game of Jenga.



If you can't tell, it was a pretty intense game.

Milk & Honey Bakeshop
This lovely place had an old location in Wicker Park, which his where I first purchased a cupcake in a bakery/restaurant/wherever. Prior to then, cupcakes were made at home or bought at Schnucks, or something.

They have since relocated, but the cupcakes are still DIVINE.




Lastly, we hit up Sweet Occasions and More, which is located in Andersonville. Andersonville is a really fantastic area in uptown (?) Chicago with tons of craft stores, restaurants, coffee houses, and all kinds of other fun places to explore.

So we wander in after getting dinner somewhere else, and they gave us the BIGGEST FREAKING SLICES OF CAKE EVER. They were delicious. I didn't really get too many great pictures, but what would normally be approximately 1/4 of a cake was an entire slice. I couldn't finish mine all at once.


Red Velvet. Dee-lish.

Also, on another note, after this yummy cake, Kathleen took me and Pete to go see the Neo-Futurists. This small "improv" group performs 30 plays in quick succession over the course of an hour (60 minutes). It was really, really amazing. I've never seen anything like it.

A definite thing

These will be my wedding bouquets, when I get married. I la-la-LOVE these flowers.



Photographed at the Chicago Botanic Gardens.

Summer is awesome.

This summer sort of started off rocky, and even still is - a sick grandpa, Pete being gone for awhile, mix-ups with jobs/starting new ones, and of course, the hotness of St. Louis in general.

But the last few days have REALLY felt like summer - spending time outside when it's muggy and hot, but just a little bit more bearable; going to movies and kicking my feet up on the seat in front of me; hanging out with friends and watching Freaks and Geeks; painting, drawing, coloring; smelling the sprinklers in my yard; talking Louie for long walks; and of course, one of my favorite summer pastimes: painting nails with little girls.

Some of my favorite summer pictures, so far:








I LA LA LOVE summer. Me and Pete are going to Chicago on Monday, and staying there until the following Sunday, when my grandma has her 80th birthday party with the whole family. I get to meet my new baby cousin, Eliana, from Guatemala. I'm really excited. If any of you lovely people have any good suggestions for the greater Chicago area, let me know!

OMG...

My darling friend Laura is ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so freaking happy for her. And also just a teensy bit jealous. aura, PLEASE let me know if you want/need any help planning, because I la-la-love weddings!!!


What a screamin' cutie pie! Congratulations again, Laura and Jason!

How Relaxing

I love outdoor showers, or things that closely resemble it. I'm not an exhibitionist, by any means, but I still recall my favorite shower of all time.

We were in Santa Monica a couple of summers ago, and I woke up around 8:30 AM. I was still jet-lagged and generally confused- finally in CA! I had always wanted to come and see what all those songs and poems and books were talking about!

I wandered around our hotel room. Mom and Dad had gone to get donuts and Emme was still fast asleep. I decided to take a shower...

The ocean had fog rising off of it, and I pushed the window open that was in the bathtub. The cool air rushed in, and the hot water pounded my back...heavenly.

It got awkward when I realized the window also looked out onto our shared balcony. There were two Pakistani men chatting and drinking coffee. The shower quickly ended after that.

But this...this looks nice.

Thank you Shannon Fricke!

Literary Tattoos

I found this website, Contrariwise today, via kirtsy, that exhibits pictures of people with tattoos quoting books or music. I thought it was really cool. Before I got my semicolon tattoo, I had a really hard time figuring out what I wanted to get. I thought about getting the courier version of text a-z winding around my ankle, but I'm glad I decided against that. All in all, me and Kathleeny made a pretty good decision, I think ;)

These are some of my favorites...

From To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee


From On the Road, Jack Kerouac


From The Giving Tree, Shel Silverstein


From The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath


From The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint Exupéry

There are, however, some of the song tattoos that I decided not to post but instead just got upset. Do you really want to be 80 years old, with your entire thigh covered in quotes from a Cartel song? Yuck, I wouldn't.

I think I'll just stick with my semicolon, thank you very much.