Life Update/ Blog Delinquent -Amy

Why hello Blog world! I have been SUCH a blog delinquent recently! My goodness! I know I'm usually bad, but this is REALLY bad! Well, since I've last chatted with you, here is a list of some lovely things that have happened!

-My 23rd Birthday! Thanks to my lovely sisters for my Happy Birthday post! I spent a very relaxing weekend with friends. On Friday, Roger and I went to Olive Garden then to see the Lovely Bones. I realize this isn't the most happy birthday-type movie, but I read the book awhile ago, loved it, and REALLY wanted to get a chance to see it. So this was perfect timing! Then, on Saturday night, I went to dinner at Bartlett's (a little known delicious restaurant in Beverly Shores that my family and I refer to as "The Druken Deer" thanks to their logo) with Roger, my grandma and grandpa Jones, and my parents. Then I headed to Blue Chip for a fun night out with friends! It was a WONDERFUL birthday! 23 is feeling pretty good!

-Wedding Plans Galore! Roger and I have been planning away. We have the location secured (Ceremony: My Grandparents' house in La Porte, Reception: Silver Palace), a tentative guest list started, and a photographer booked (Forever Images). We also know who is performing the ceremony, and who is making the cake (Bethany Deaton, owner of Belavi Bakery). We have picked out colors, which are Chocolate Brown and Aqua Blue, and my bridemaids (all 11...) have started ordering their dresses! I have my dress too! It's SO exciting! If you would like to know more information about the wedding situation, definitely check out our wedding website.

-Engagement Pictures! Along with wedding news, Roger and I went to get our engagement pictures taken! They turned out so great! Here are some of my favorites:

Promise to blog more often!

Like Clockwork - Brady

This time every year, like clockwork, I start dreaming about moving somewhere warm. These are my current favorite life 180s, in no particular order:

- Moving to a Florida key and doing some low stress job that is enough for my rent, occasional flights home to Indiana, and nothing else.

- Moving to Charleston/Folly Beach to teach, spending the summers in Indiana.

- Convincing Kevin to quit his job as a lawyer and become a teacher. Become a teacher again myself. Spend every summer living and working in a new foreign country.


I do love Chicago and being close to my family, of course. Talk to me in the summer, and I'll say there's nowhere I'd rather be. But when it's 10 degrees and gray, sometimes I think life's too short for this!

Maybe a new career as a surfer?

Happy Birthday to Amy! - Brady and Kelly

Amy celebrated her 23rd birthday yesterday. Yay! Here's a picture of the birthday girl herself:




And who's that cutie with her???

Happy birthday Amy!

Uh oh - Brady

Kelly wants to move us to Evanston. Ay ay ay.

Update in Pictures - Kelly

I finally was able to connect my camera to my computer, so here are some long overdue pictures!

The dogs:

Food from my birthday party (pinwheels and bean salad):

The apartment:

Things To Do - Kelly

Brady and I had talked about keeping the winter fun by doing all sorts of interesting things in the next few months. Well, after two weekends in a row of sitting around and not doing much I decided to make a list of all the fun things I've been meaning to do in our awesome city. Here goes!

1. Avatar at the Navy Pier Imax
2. Window shop on the Magnificent Mile
3. Ice skating @ Wrigley
4. Afternoon tea- Palm Court @ the Drake
5. Explore the cuteness of Lincoln Park
6. Vintage shopping on Belmont
7. Neighborhood pub crawl (Wellington's, Will's Northwoods Inn, Cooper's, Matilda, and Schuba's)
8. Take Lucy to the dog park at Diversey
9. See a movie at the Brew & View
10. Go to a concert (it's been too long!)

What should I add to my list??

Monster - Kelly

Lucy has a lot of nicknames... princess, Lucinda Basset, Goose, Creeper.... but the one that takes the prize recently is monster. Let's just say she hasn't really been behaving herself. She's been doing all kinds of fun things like running away from me constantly, having accidents in the house, and being a spaz in general.

I have to say though...I need to remember the tiny little monster above every time I think she's being bad- let's face it... she's come a long way from the phone-eating, bed-peeing, arm-scratching little bugger she used to be!

And here are two more... just because she was so cute. :)

I suppose I'll keep her! Haha-

Tired and Sad - Brady

Not a happy update tonight, unfortunately. I'm just exhausted. This second quarter is wearing me down. I'm tired of waking up nervous every day about class or about fitting everything I have to do into my schedule. Also, as much as I love certain parts of my living situation, I'm sick of saying goodbye to Kevin at 5 a.m. or of wondering how we're going to coordinate schedules to be together a reasonable amount.

I also have concerns about whether I'd be making a bigger difference as a teacher than I am in grad school. I'm taking an education policy class, and it's just frustrating how little research is used in real-life settings and how long it takes to do studies.

Blah. I promise the next time I post I'll be in a better mood.

The Music Scene - Brady

Kevin and I had two great nights of entertainment at Schuba's this past weekend. That's a bar/restaurant/concert hall right down the street from our apartment.

Saturday we got there early enough to get one of the few seats, grabbed some local beers, and listened to the three bands below. Click on the names to go to their MySpace pages.

Southeast Engine
Chaperone
Jared Bartman

Then, last night we took a chance and went to something called the Show 'N Tell Show, which ended up being this bizarre comedy production about graphic design, of all things. It was kind of cool, though. They interviewed some really interesting designers, including Audrey Niffeneger, the author of The Time Traveler's Wife, a professor who spent five years writing a book in the shape of a human genome, and a photographer who spent a week in Monterrey teaching kids how to make album covers. We left before it was over so Kev could get some sleep (not everyone has a grad student's schedule), but we really enjoyed it.

Anyway, we're realizing that we live withing walking distance of some really cool music venues. Schuba's is a favorite, but there are a couple of others right by us that are very popular with the Chicago hipsters. (Note: I am not counting us as Chicago hipsters. I just hear about the places they like to go.) You could go see a great show every single night if you wanted to.

This is in contrast to a very different but equally fun music scene in Fort Wayne. That involved Kevin and me becoming groupies of a cover band called Good Night Gracie (They started recognizing us. It got weird.) and following our friend Casey around to the gigs he played with his three bands (rock band, jazz combo, Greek band).

Yay for the Weekend - Brady

What a great start to the weekend!

Last night, Kevin arrived with dinner ready to put in the oven! He made fake ground beef, vegetable, and cheese burritos with mole sauce. He is THE BEST. I don't know many people who would drive 3.5 hours in bad weather with dinner and groceries in the back seat. We then had a movie night and got to bed relatively early.

Our hero.

This morning we've just been sitting around drinking tea and coffee, reading, and watching TV. It's SO nice to have quiet weekends like this sometimes. Soon we're all going to work out (Kelly at the gym and Kevin and I on a run to Lake Michigan), eat lunch, and get some work done. Kev and I are going to Intelligensia, a great coffee shop.

Our coffee.

Tonight, I think Kevin and I (and Kelly, if she wants!) are going to hear some music at a bar Kevin calls "the monkey place." I forget what venue he's actually talking about.

Love This Quote - Brady

“… I have to work hard not to show my active discomfort when graduate students come to me and say, ‘I have worked in schools for a few years, and now I am ready to start to shape policy.’ Every fiber of my being wants to say, ‘Use your time in graduate school to become a better practitioner and get back into schools as quickly as possible. You will have a much more profound effect on the education sector working in schools than you will ever have as a policy actor.’”

- Richard Elmore

I love this quote and am moving further and further in this direction all the time.

Tough Day - Brady

I'm feeling sorry for myself because I've had kind of a tough day. I stayed at my parents' last night and caught the South Shore back to Chicago this morning, giving myself plenty of time to get to my 9:30 class in Evanston. Well, the South Shore was 50 minutes late getting in, I think mainly due to the snow storm. So, I missed class. It's not a huge deal because the professor doesn't take attendance, but it's STATISTICS, and I always get a little panicky at a subject that is very much NOT my area of expertise.

The snow also caused a lady I was supposed to interview for a research project to reschedule, and I'm anticipating a super busy next week, as her new appointment comes at a time where I already have a bunch going on.

Now I'm back in the apartment and just kind of bummed out that I have a difficult quarter ahead of me. I'm also missing Kevin a lot and am stressed out that we don't know when we'll get to spend more time together.

BUT, on the bright side, there's pretty snow outside and hot tea and plenty of time to get work done and no where to go for the rest of the day.

Just curious...

... who reads this blog? We'd love to see in the comments! :)

NYE Photos (compliments of Kevin) - Kelly

Here are a few pictures of us and the apartment New Year's Eve. Isn't it bizarre how much Brady and I look alike these days??

New Year's Resolution Progress - Brady

So, my New Year's resolution ended up being a vague one that I could use to incorporate a lot of the different ideas I had. I resolved to do the things I know I should do that will make me happier in the long term. Some examples are:

- exercising daily or almost daily

- eating healthy as often as possible

- drinking less alcohol and coffee

- drinking more water and tea

- relaxing more often

- maybe going to church occasionally (This is weird for me because I'm not very religious, but I do think going to church is peaceful. Plus, it's supposed to be good for you.)

- doing good things (carrying change in my pocket for homeless people, eating more vegan meals, etc.)

- not doing bad things (less gossiping, less grudge-holding)

Anyway, I got a good chance to practice some of these this morning. I was stressed out (opposite of happy) because the kitchen sink in our apartment is majorly leaking and our pipes froze again because our neighbors didn't close the basement door. I remembered my resolution to be HAPPY instead of stressed. So, I made a plan to contact our landlord at a more reasonable hour (this all went down about 5 a.m.) and to chill out until then. To help, I thought about all the people and places I like (Siesta Key, my parents' and grandparents' houses in La Porte, etc.). I also thought about how the situation could be worse. For example, it would be worse if I felt sick today or if I didn't have great friends in Chicago who would let me use their sink and shower in a heartbeat. I succeeded pretty well in calming down and going back to sleep for awhile! Yay.

Okay, enough talking about myself. Hope everyone else's New Year's resolutions are going well!

In 2009- Amy

What a fun idea! Here's my list:

In 2009 I managed to:

Turn 22
Try lobster
Go to Australia
Come back from Australia 9 weeks early (...)
Finish student teaching
Graduate from college
Go on the best vacation ever with my siblings
Realize I REALLY like South Carolina
Get my first teaching job
Set up a classroom in 24 hours
Make it through 6 months of teaching
Take up Zumba
Become addicted to Zumba
Go to Las Vegas with my best friends
Start a Tuesday night date night with a good friend from college
Buy a new car (first big girl purchase)
Get my IPOD stolen
Drive home from Chicago with a broken out window (covered by a trash bag)
Come to the conclusion that I am DEFINITELY a beer and wine girl... no hard stuff for me!
GET ENGAGED TO THE BEST PERSON I KNOW! =)


2009 was a great one for me, and 2010 holds nothing but promise!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Lucy - Brady

I'm hanging out here alone in the apartment (Kelly's at brunch and Kevin's at Trader Joe's), and I just thought I should post about Lucy. She is turning into a super dog. She was never BAD, but as she's moved out of puppyhood, she's just gotten so sweet and smart. We played a wild game of toss a few minutes ago, and I can't help but crack up as she skids around the kitchen trying to catch the ball while holding one of her "babies" in her mouth.

Kelly deserves major props for training her to be such an awesome dog.

Oh, and New Year's was great! We'll try to post pictures soon!