So...I'm taking a break from blogging.

So I've decided to take a break from blogging...as if I hadn't already - ha.

The summer was SUPER taxing - working my internship, normal work and two insanely involved classes. I had no time blog. And while I thought the school year would give me a breather...I was completely wrong. Sigh.

Good news...I got a job out of my internship - I am the new Box Office Manager for The Chicago Chamber Musicians. Bad news, all 3 of my classes this semester are super involved with bazillions of projects, literally. I think I have a total of (seriously here...I counted) 6 projects (3 major with 20+ page papers each), 15 papers (NO JOKE HERE...really), and financial management out the wazoo.

So...

Here begins my blogging break.

Feel free to shoot me emails or check me out on facebook.

I'd love to hear from y'all!

PS - GO BLUE! (as in U. of Michigan football)
GO NORTH CENTER DOUBLE HAWKS! (as in my fantasy football team)

Summer Adventure!

SOOO....we've decided that we're not going to take a summer vacation - gotta get those internship hours (BTW, internship = very cool!). Instead, we've decided that we're going to take a couple of long weekends and explore Chicago! We finally branched out a little bit when it comes to restaurants (instead of staying in our "comfort zone") and had such a good experience that we're planning to do more!

We're hoping to go to new neighborhoods and try at least 3 new restaurants a month! Fun times! We had our first experience tonight!

We ventured out to a far northwest neighborhood called Albany Park and ate at Chicago Kalbi, a Korean BBQ. The neighborhood is very ethnic - Latino, Middle Eastern, Korean. There are so many restaurants and we'd love to try some more!

Moving on the restaurant - Korean BBQ is amazing! They bring out beef and chicken of different kinds and a charcoal grill. Talk about fun! We grill it ourselves and put it into a BBQ/Soy sauce to cool it off. Then eat - yummy! Along with all of the meat, they bring out a plethora of sides, including spicy Kimchi (hot sauce-ish cabbage) and cucumbers (which I liked a lot, despite burning my mouth :o) They also brought us some of the BEST potato salad we've ever had! As an appetizer, we had some pot stickers that were very tasty and, for desert, some scrumptious green tea ice cream!

I'm going to post all the different restaurants that we go to and hopefully write a little review every time.

All moved in and LOVING it!

We moved in to our lovely apartment last weekend and LOVE it! And imagine this - it only took 2 hours to get out of the old place and into the new! We will never move ourselves again...

We're still far from unpacked - tons of boxes left, still need to get our new desk all set up, so on... Our 2nd bedroom is packed to the door with boxes. Unfortunately all of my clothes are in there somewhere, so that's a project that needs to happen pronto ;o) We bought desk parts at Ikea this past weekend and are going to paint the unfinished legs today. We settled on a dark brown to match all of the other furniture we bought at Ikea!

And, as I suspected I might, I've come down with some form of laryngitis. It seems that every other year, I end up with some nasty illness. Luckily this one isn't too bad. Thursday I had a fever and my throat was swollen. Yesterday I was achy, feverish, and just generally all-around icky. Today, I have no voice, but I'm not achy - just a little run down. I was talking to my former college adviser on facebook (yay for Mr. Reece!) and he suggested drinking some warm liquids. I didn't think coffee or hot chocolate would be good (because as I remember Michelle telling me, drinking milk isn't so great for the chords). So, after our weekend breakfast at Golden Apple, we stopped at a nearby Tea Cafe. I still don't like the taste of tea (even green tea makes me gag a little ;o), but by golly IT WORKED! I'm still a little funny sounding, but I can talk again. And that's a huge improvement from this morning when, ask kurt so eloquently put it, I squeaked at him! Ha!

Well...I'm off. Gotta sand off some legs and get ready to paint! Have a good weekend!

Lake, Dog, and other random pictures.

Here are some random pictures from the past month or so (and my birthday ;o)... Thought I would share them!


Looptopia: 'Tulips in the night... '(To the tune of "Strangers in the night")






Binary Birthday cake. Kurt couldn't fit 27 candles on my piece of cake (I didn't want a whole cake, so he made me pumpkin bread and bought a piece of cake instead!).

In binary code = 11011 = 16+8+2+1 = 27!


Pictures from the lake this past weekend - we've been going there every saturday when our landlords have an open house for our apartment. Despite being very populated, it's been nice to be by the water!

As close to the water as we can get Shosta (an they're easily 100-200 feet away) - she HATES the lake! When we take her close to the water, she PULLS like crazy to get away!

Happy dog after a walk at the lake.

Sister -in-law Kelly on a short visit to Chicago. We're eating at an all night diner near Depaul Univ. called Clarke's.
Kurt being goofy ;o)

Shosta sleeping...what a cute doggie...

Shosta in the car.

Goodbye old apt! Hello New!

We don't really have that many pictures of the new place yet, maybe some tomorrow night. But here are pictures (mind you, we're in the process of packing, so it's TOTALLY messy) of our old place.


Our teenie - tiny bathroom - ICK!


Kurt taking a rest after packing in our tiny living room.

Cheers!


Our HUGE master bedroom - I will miss this slightly, but we didn't really use all of the space.


The stairs up to our bedroom - they weren't insulated, so in the winter we could freeze water out there! No wonder our gas/electric bill was nearly $400 in the winter!


2nd BR/crap chute.


OLLLLLDDDD kitchen. I was packing and on one of the doors of the cabinets it said that it was certified to meet 1985 standards. HA!


The new fridge that we had to ask for because the other one was dead and leaking brown stuff. Well...it was actually leaking brown stuff ever since we moved in...but apparently they didn't care.


OUR NEW PLACE!!!! This is the living area where we're going to have our living room and office.

It's all over...at least for 11 days.

Sigh...
All of my exams and presentations are finally over - thank goodness!
Now I can relax - HA!

We will begin the moving process Thursday night of this coming week. Surprisingly, we've gotten a TON of packing done already, which is a huge relief for me. This weekend and the beginning of next week will be full of packing the kitchen, CD's, bathroom, and all the little stuff that's lying around. We're going to start taking stuff over to our new place Thursday night and Friday and hopefully get all of the cable and internet (and maybe phone?) hooked up Friday as well. Then, Saturday the movers are coming to take all of the boxes and furniture. We are NOT doing this all alone like last time, and while it may be expensive (we're guessing around $500 or $600), we're willing to pay just so we don't have to deal with the living nightmare that was last June!

We're very excited about our new place! A huge living space, 2 Bathrooms, 2 Bedrooms, Air Conditioning, Central Heat, Dishwasher, FREE laundry, and a nice backyard - what more could we want?

So, what's in 11 days? SUMMER SCHOOL! I decided to take 2 online courses over the summer just to get them out of the way - Fundraising and Grant Writing. They are both very writing intensive, so I'm a bit worried. Not only will I be taking classes, I'll also be working in the AM at CSO and PM at my internship with Chicago Chamber Musicians. Luckily I won't have to go to class, but I KNOW this summer will not be relaxing because of them! Thankfully, Fundraising only lasts 8 weeks, but Grant Writing is a full 12 weeks. I'll get a week or two off before fall classes start. Oh well...

Well...I'm done for the night - spent the last 3 hours packing away, so I'm pooped!
Take care!

It's my last week!!!

It's FINALLY the last week of the semester - I didn't think it would ever come! I certainly learned my lesson this semester - don't take more than 12 hours at a time or you will want to kick yourself in the butt every single morning you wake up...and you will seriously consider shooting yourself in the head when you have 5 projects/papers/exams due in one week (yes, that really happened :o(

So...this week is all about fun times...(said dripping with sarcasm)

Monday: Marketing Presentation and turning in a 20 page Marketing Plan
Tuesday: Accounting Final Exam and Data Case Analysis Final Exam
Thursday: Law Final Exam

All the while working away at the CSO...

I'll get a few short weeks of a break before my summer classes start - Fundraising and Grant writing. I'll be taking both online, so I won't have to go to night classes - thank goodness! Once June 1st starts, I'll be SUPER busy - working @ CSO from 9-1, Chicago Chamber Musicians from 1:30-5:30, then coming home to do school work!

In the meantime...

In just 2 short weeks, we'll be moving out of our "hell hole"!!! So EXCITED!
We did a LOT of packing this weekend - our 2nd bedroom/office/room full of stuff is all packed (thanks to kurt) and our bedroom is mostly packed except for a few things. All that's left is the living and kitchen. So, next weekend after searching for some used furniture for our new place, we'll be packing like maniacs. I even passed up going to the end-of-the-year AEMM graduate student party (hosted by the amazing singer/DJ from Jai Alai Savant) so that I could pack :o( Oh well...there's always another time for fun...

I'll have pictures of our new place in a week or so - we're supposed to pick up the keys next weekend!

Take care and have a super-duper week!

We Got The Place! And some fun times this weekend!

We got the apartment! SO very happy! I'll hopefully have pictures over the weekend sometime!

Fun things we're doin' this weekend:

Friday night is Looptopia.
We are SUPER excited - this is an all night festival based off of the "White Nights" in St. Petersburg Russia, where they have festivals from 5pm to 7am. When there is light for nearly 24 hours, they party! This event sounds amazing! They close off the entire Loop (which is HUGE) and present art and dance and music and just about anything out on the streets! In face, Cirque du Soleil will be performing as well. Galleries, stores, and restaurants stay open for the entire 14 hours. Museums are open, EVERYTHING is open for the entire time. It sounds like a most amazing time! What's even cooler is that the Program/Artistic Coordinator for the event is an assistant prof. for our Marketing Class. Very cool.

KELLY IS COMING! KELLY IS COMING! My sister-in-law, quite possibly one of the coolest people ever, is coming to visit one of her former flute students at Depaul and is going to come out to dinner and hang with Kurt and I. Very excited - we haven't seen her since Christmas!

OK...should get going...I need to get some sleep tonight. I stayed up late last night working on a Data and Statistical Analysis exam. Fun times.

Take care...and go visit the Looptopia website! VERY COOL!

Could it be?

That there is only 2.5 weeks of school left? Hallelujah! But the last 2.5 weeks will be a living Hell. Isn't that the way it always is?

At least we have a big task out of the way (we hope)...
We have known since the first month of being in our current apartment that we were going to move (we hate it THAT much). So, the last few months we've been looking at a lot of apartments (both online and in person). One of the first apts. we saw a few weeks ago is about a half of a mile directly north of our current place. It's smaller than what we have now, but it has 2 br, 2ba, AC, a DW, a decent back yard, and free laundry. We passed on it because we were afraid to put an app in on the first place we saw...we wanted to compare. Since then, we've seen a variety of places, none of which compare. We've been kinda bummed that we passed, but we knew that we needed to see more. Miraculously, I looked on craigslist last night and saw it posted again! We quickly filled out our apps and kurt faxed them in today. Apparently the owner was busy for a few weeks and forgot to put it back up on Craigslist after we saw it. THANK GOODNESS! We're hoping to hear from him tomorrow, but he said after just glancing at our paperwork that we've probably got it!
I'll still keep looking at Craigslist just in case, but I really don't think we'll find anything nicer for our price range. In order to get more space with the same quality, we'd easily have to jump up to 1500-2000 a month and we're just not ready to take that leap. It's hard enough to write that check for 1300 ;o)

Pictures will come as soon as I can get them up!

It's been a while...

As you may have (or may have not) noticed, it's been a considerably long time since I last wrote on my blog. This semester has been one of the busiest semesters I've had in a long long time. Here's some things that happened since I last posted:

-Took a job as an accounting tutor and Grad Assistant (for summer/fall)
-Completed a MASSIVE marketing analysis, which made me realize that I really hate marketing :O)
-Tons of exams/papers that have completely consumed my life
-Went to physical therapy for my knee problem, which is MUCH better now!

What I have due between now and the end of school (5 weeks, I think?), which means I probably won't be posting much:

-Two exams this week (both tomorrow) in accounting and Data Analysis
-Two papers due next week (accounting and law)
-A Marketing Plan
-A large group paper in Law
-A "technology in marketing" paper
-Another accounting paper
-A large-scale data case analysis
-A 10 minute presentation in Marketing
-A 20 minute presentation in Law
-And finals in Law, Data, and Accounting

YIKES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And some other news:

My marketing partner and I completed a marketing analysis for the Chicago Chamber Musicians, which is a chamber ensemble made up musicians from the Chicago Symphony (and some local college profs). We all have to complete an internship in order to fulfill the requirements for graduation, so I asked if CCM would be willing to take me on this summer as an intern and they said YES!

AND...I have just recently (yesterday) taken a position as a clerk/assistant to the manager in the telefunding/fundraising department at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra! Despite having to give up my tutoring position (and possibly my grad assistantship), this is a HUGE opportunity to get my foot in the door at an internationally renowned symphony. Building these connections will not ensure that I will get a job at the CSO, but it certainly helps!

OK...off I must go. I need to write my law paper (about the movie "The People vs. Larry Flynt"). We're going back to Columbus for the weekend, so I want to make sure that I have all of my work done before we leave. Oh, and I guess I have to study for two exams tomorrow. Ha.

Take care and have a good month, if this is the last time that I post for awhile :O)

I'm alive!

SOOOO...this semester is a lot busier than I had expected! So much work to do in so little time! Only 9 days until spring break - thank goodness! I'm stressed beyond stressed and poor Kurt has to deal with my nastiness ;o)

I promise to post lovely pictures and stories AFTER my living nightmare of 2 weeks is over!

Help a girl out!

HOWDY!

If you have a moment, can you please take this survey?

I'm currently in marketing and we had to design a survey to be taken...and then we collect the information and use it for a huge project.

SO...take it...it only takes 2 minutes to complete...really quick!

Click Here to take survey

New Tutor!

I have decided that apparently taking 14 credit hours with hundreds of pages of reading and tons of papers and marketing plans just isn't enough (Surprised? Probably not). My accounting teacher has asked me if I would become an official accounting tutor. So, that's what I'm doing for 20 hours a week! It should be a decent job. It doesn't pay exceptionally well (does any job in the arts?), but it will do just fine. And, what's nice is that when there are no students to tutor, I can do homework! Thank goodness...because I have 120 pages to read for marketing, 60 for law, 20 for data, a bunch of problems in accounting, and a survey to write! Yikes! So...I should probably get to work...
Take care!

Therapy

Ah, the joys of being 26 going on 80.
Back in March, I started experiencing a lot of pain in my left knee. Eventually, I began to feel it in my right knee as well. At times, it was/is pretty unbearable (including this past weekend...darn yoga and all the hands and knees positions). SO, I finally went to the doctor last week. Turns out I have Patellafemoral Syndrome. Long story short - the knee cap moves and has been grinding into my bones. Yipee.
For some people, it goes away after a month or two, for others it takes a couple of years. Considering it's been 10 or so months, I guess I'm on track for a year or more. Yipee, again.

To help build muscles (hoping that that will keep the knee cap in place) and heal the ligaments/tendons around the knee, my doctor prescribed that I go to physical therapy. I'm all scheduled for next week...surprisingly I have a bit more time free when school starts than I do this week (I'm sure I won't be saying that for too long).
My only problem is that I really wanted to start a regular schedule of yoga classes at the Y, but I may not be able to handle all of the stress on my knees of 2-3 therapy sessions and 2-3 yoga classes per week. We'll see. I may just have to do 1 yoga class until I'm "rehabilitated." Sound like a drunk or druggie, huh?

Well...rehab is the fashionable thing to do these days. Goodness knows I'm always fashionable.



I tried to keep it going, but I can't stop laughing....me, fashionable. That's just so funny.

Snowy night...

A late night romp in the snow...

Spring is here...sorta

Ah, spring is here. Well...not really (especially seeing as how we got a good two or so inches of snow last night ;o).
Spring semester has almost started! I have my "J-term" workshop starting today, which I am super excited about. I am going to be learning the "ins-and-outs" of Tessitura, the Customer Management application used by over 100 performing arts organizations across the nation. This is a short class (from today to Saturday), but it should prove to be valuable if I decide to get an internship with Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Monday, Jan. 28th, is technically my first day of spring semester. I'm taking a few more hours than I did last semester, so we'll see how that goes. Here's my class schedule...
Monday - Marketing
Tuesday - Advanced Accounting & Data and Statistical Analysis
Thursday - Arts, Media & the Law
Saturday - Project Management Workshop (it only lasts 5 weeks, thank goodness).

Along with all of that, I'm hoping to get a job somewhere - maybe even on campus. It was nice to have time to do my homework and all...but I go nuts if I'm home too much. Although, I'm sure shosta will be sad if I'm not home as much...

Ok...gotta scoot. I've got a few chapters and articles to read for Marketing!
Take care!

My new wedding band!

How excited am I? VERY excited!

Kurt and I have been discussing a new wedding band for my ring for quite some time now. The engagement ring that we decided upon is beautiful, but the band that came with the set is very thin, and if you weren't looking close enough, you would think that I'm just engaged. I've been looking for a long time...you know, the typical websites, mall jewelry stores, etc.

One day I was looking around on the internet and found a fabulous jewelry designer here in Chicago with amazing designs. So, I emailed to inquire about pricing and she sent me a complimentary entrance into a HUGE art show called "The One of a Kind Show" (where we bought the painting seen below). We visited and I absolutely fell in love with her designs. Since they were more expensive than the ordinary stuff I had been looking at online (and being the cheap-o that I am), I conceded that I didn't need anything like that.

Then came Christmas Eve's Eve (the 23rd)...the day that Kurt and I open gifts...
First had come the Wicked Soundtrack, then the Wicked shirt...and one more gift. I opened the bag and box and there was a design from Ellie Thompson! Albeit a bit frightening at first (it almost look black, but I later found out that CAD designs don't show silver shades well), I was so excited!
Come to find out...

Kurt went to Ellie's studio a few weeks earlier and picked out a design based on the one that I really liked at the art show! What a guy! He knew that if HE didn't initiate the ring design, that I certainly wouldn't do it myself.

SO...fast forward to this past Saturday. We went in to review the design and select stones for the ring (it's going to have purple and light green sapphires as well diamonds). How much fun! She showed us other designs she was working on as well as pieces that she's working on for her Spring and Fall release events. She has "soirées" twice a year where she invites her clients to...they are in her design studio which overlooks Millennium park. How exciting!

Now...I'm just waiting for the ring...2-3 weeks. She also has my engagement ring - she's repairing it and giving it a new, more secure head for the diamond to sit in.

I can not wait!!!!!

Here's the link to her designs...

http://www.ellieco.com/time.htm

CAMERA!

OK...so here's the deal...we finally got a digital camera (go figure...being computer geeks and all) and I decided to post some of my first pictures! That's us up there with my new hair cut (which you can't see very well).

This is the painting that we bought at the "one of a kind show" back in December. SO pretty!

Daddy and Shosta

Up close and personal with Shostakovich!

Kisses for daddy!!

More pictures to come!!!! Yipee!
.

MICHIGAN WON!!!!

CONGRATULATIONS MICHIGAN!
We will miss you Lloyd Carr!

Michigan 41
Florida 35

HNY!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!

GO MICHIGAN!
Beat Florida!!!