Chicago Bears Game...and a small announcement

Happy Friday!

Today is going to be a bit of a struggle for me.  Vinnie and I went to the Bears game last night, my first Bears game!  And my first NFL game!  It was awesome.  He picked me up from work and we went straight to tailgate.  A couple of hotdogs and Coors lites later and we headed into Soldier Field.  The Bears beat the Giants.  It wasn't pretty, but they won.  So this morning I'm looking less than par (trying to give myself a little credit because I put mascara on at least), chowing down on donuts, and drinking water, vitamin water, and coffee.  Since the game was on a Thursday night I didn't really know what to expect.  I figured people still have to work on Friday so there might not be that many hammered fools.  I was wrong.  I forgot about how I live in Chicago and there are always going to be hammered fools, all day every day.   

Tailgating before the game

Double fisting a hotdog and a cigar.  That's my man.

Friends!

Heading in to the game.

We had great seats, right on the 50 yard line.

<3

Totally worth it.

And in other news, my announcement of sorts, today is my last day at my current job!  And it's my last weekend at my part time restaurant/bar job!  That's right folks, after all of this time of me complaining about having 2 jobs that take up all of my time, I received a job offer that is allowing me to quit both of my current jobs!  Hallelujah!

As much as I've complained though, I have made a lot of friends at both of my jobs and I will really miss everyone.  I've worked in restaurants either full or part time since I was 16 years old though, so I'm really looking forward to stepping away from that and actually having weekends free.  

Since I do a lot of blogging while working at my current job (shhh!), I'm not sure what's in store for this blog.  Obviously I don't want to quit cold turkey but there's going to be a little bit of a shift and a lot of getting used to a new schedule.  We'll see how it goes though, taking it all one step at a time.  

Onward and upward my friends!  Have a lovely weekend!

XO. Tarah

Long Weekend in Iowa

It's Thursday and I'm still catching up on sleep/life.

I always struggle coming back from a long weekend spent with the family.  Always.  It's hard for me to get back into a routine, especially when I just wanna spend all of my time with my family and none of my time working.  Sigh.

Vinnie and I headed to Iowa Thursday night and spent the weekend with my family.  My sister, brother-in-law, aunt and uncle, and cousins got to Iowa Saturday afternoon.  We spent time catching up, eating, drinking, and celebrating birthdays.

Friday afternoon my parents, brother (who just moved back in with my parents since graduating in May), V and I headed to Mississippi River Distilling Company because the first Friday of every month they debut a new liquor and have a little tasting.  This time they were debuting a coffee liquor.  We tried that out and then bought a couple of things to bring home.  We visit this place a lot when I visit because they seriously have some amazing liquors.  We decided to go with their famous River Rose Gin and a seasonal banana whiskey.  

After that we headed over to a place called Go Fish, a marina bar and grill located right next to the Mississippi River.  It was a beautiful October night so we ate out on the deck.  The food was great and we all enjoyed our time there.  After that, mom and I headed out to the store to pick up some food for the rest of the family coming over the next day and the boys headed back to the house to start a fire in the firepit.  We enjoyed another drink out by the fire and then headed inside to watch 'World War Z'.  I definitely recommend that movie!  It was awesome!

Saturday morning we woke up, had breakfast and coffee, then got to work making appetizers and sangria for when the rest of the family got there.  Everyone showed up around 1:30 and we drank sangria and ate appetizers and caught up.  I hadn't seen my aunt, uncle, and cousins in a really long time and Vinnie had never even met them (and we've been dating for 2 years) so it was great to see them.  Around 4, we piled into cars and headed to Le Claire, IA.  We visited the distillery again so that everyone could check that out and then headed to Sneaky Pete's to have a drink or two before our reservation for dinner.

My family outside the distillery

my sister, me, and brother at sneaky pete's

We had dinner at Crane and Pelican.  We had a room all to ourselves since our party was so large and the food, OMG the food!  Everyone loved their food.  I ordered salmon and it was honestly the best salmon I had ever had.  Delicious!  After dinner we headed to one other bar to play pool before heading back home to continue drinking, eating, and playing games.

The whole family

I was surprised at how early everyone left Sunday morning.  V and I slept in and the rest of the day was a lazy day spent recovering and watching football.  Monday we watched the Cardinals game and ate some food before saying good bye and heading back to Chicago.  

I miss everyone already but we had such a great time and definitely needed it.  I am always amazed at how fast time goes by when I'm visiting my family, that's one part about living in Chicago that really sucks.  I don't live close enough to any of my family members.  We always have to plan a trip in order to see them.  Oh well, at least it's only a few hours away.

Hope you all had a great weekend!  Happy Thursday!

XO. Tarah

P.S.  I'll be back tomorrow with a bit of an announcement so stay tuned!



 

Poppin Bottles!

Today is my Friday, so happy Friday to me!  V and I (and Marley of course) are leaving tonight after work to head to Iowa for the FAMILY OCTOBER BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION WEEKEND!  Oh gosh I'm so excited, I haven't had a weekend off in 2 months.

Other things that are making me happy today...

I got out of work early last night and came home and popped open a bottle of champagne to celebrate!

What were we celebrating?  Oh wouldn't you like to know...don't worry I'll tell you soon.

Not pictured, Vinnie sitting on the couch playing video games so I had to pop the bottle open myself and then I brought him a glass and he said 'thanks' and just started sipping it and I got huffy and said 'uh, you can't even cheers me?' and he said 'oh....yeah' and I said 'whatever, I'll celebrate by myself' and I did (I even took a picture of myself celebrating by myself but I won't share that patheticness on here) but then he felt bad so he shut off the video game and came to console me.  Men.

I've been dropping subtle hints to Vinnie all day about how much I want taco bell and he finally decided that taco bell sounds good to him too so right now he is on his way to t bell and I finally got the best text ever just now 'do you want me to get you something?' so I will have a cheesy gordita crunch waiting for me when I get home. score.

Poor Vinnie is sick so he and Marley have been laying on the couch for 2 days straight just like this.  But they're so cute.

Today is rainy and windy and my hair looks like shiste but I don't care because I will be leaving work in 2 hours and then, long weekend for me!

Nothing can really bring me down today, not even bad hair.

XO. Tarah

 

My Problem with Grocery Shopping

Yesterday I went grocery shopping after work.  I despise shopping for groceries immensely (this is a kind of nice way to say I freaking hate it).  Seriously, I have been known to put off grocery shopping and just eat kraft singles cheese slices with mustard for dinner.  When I lived with roommates in college I used to steal their food but just a little bit at a time so that they didn't catch on and most of the time I just stole their stale crackers and things that they probably wouldn't even notice missing.  It wasn't because I couldn't afford food (I actually worked full time for most of college at a restaurant so I made a good amount of money but of course I didn't save any of it I just spent it all on clothes and alcohol and occasionally food) it was just because I hate it.  

Whenever I go grocery shopping I have to make myself go right after work before I even go home and feed Marley because if I go home then I will sit down on the couch and then I will start watching TV and then I'll take a nap and then I'll just say 'fuck it, I'll get groceries tomorrow', only tomorrow the same thing will happen.  The problem with going at this time is that, apparently, it's prime shopping time because there are always a million people at the grocery store and the moms always bring their 9 kids with them who pick everything up with their gross, sticky hands and run into my shopping cart and just get in the way.  

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If I need to go down a certain aisle and I notice that there are 4 or more people with carts already in that aisle, I skip it.  This results in me having to remember to go back to that aisle in the end and since I always just want to get out of there as soon as humanly possible, I always forget things.  

Seriously, I always forget something.

The type of grocery shopper I hate most, even more than the little wild children, is the one who is so unaware of everything around her.  She has her cart parked horizontally in the middle of the aisle while she is making the huge life decision of which type of mayonnaise she should buy and she is unaware of me, the power shopper who is just trying to grab the first bottle of ranch she sees and get the hell out of dodge but I am stopped abruptly by her cart and since I am not rude and don't want to move it myself I politely udder, 'excuse me' but she doesn't hear me so I say it again louder and that catches her attention and she giggles and slowly moves her cart so that I can get by and I smile back at her and then mutter 'stupid b-word' under my breath as I race by her. 

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Why does she ^^ look so happy...oh because she actually made a list.

I'm also always hungry at this time so I always end up buying crap that I don't even need or want because it looked good at the moment because I haven't eaten since lunch and my stomach is grumbling and I end up with fig newtons and I have never liked fig newtons so why did they look good to me today?

I always try to make small talk with the cashiers while they are checking me out because it's kind of an awkward time.  Most grocery store cashier hate their lives (from my experience) and they do not want to talk to the 20 something year old girl-woman who is spending almost as much on alcohol as she is spending on actual food.  Every once in a while I get a really nice cashier though and I am so thankful for those times.  A couple of weeks ago a woman asked me for my idea while ringing up my boat load of alcohol, she looked at my picture, and said 'beautiful', and I blushed and thanked her but realized she didn't speak much English so maybe she didn't really mean it but she smiled at me a lot and it wasn't in a creepy, I want to skin you and make a suit out of it and wear it around my house while I watch Lifetime movies and drink your blood kind of way.  It was genuine.

Then there's the excitement of finding a parking spot that is close to my apartment, which never happens on the days when I go grocery shopping.

I also always magically turn into the hulk when I load all of my shopping bags on my arms and trudge down my sidewalk looking like a penguin walking for the first time, all unbalanced and waddle-like.  Then I have to unlock two sets of doors, which takes all of the strength in my body to lift my arm and put the key in the door while trying not to drop the 40 bags loaded on that one arm.  Then I have to go up to the 3rd floor and then I have to not kick my dog in the face when he jumps up on me because he is always waiting right at the door for me and when he sees the groceries he doesn't care that I'm in pain, he just knows that there is probably something in there for him.  And then I collapse on the floor, sweating and panting.  I always amaze myself with how much strength I muster up when I have to carry my groceries inside.  

Then as I'm putting groceries away I'm slowly realizing how I need to start making a list because I bought so much crap that I don't need and forgot things that I actually need, like toilet paper and cheese.  Last night I forgot paper towels.

Then after all of this I decide I need a drink to reward myself for surviving yet another grocery shopping adventure.  Last night I bought apple cider and gingerale because I knew we had bourbon at home and I wanted to mix those 3 things and make a delicious fall drink.  So I search for the bourbon, I search for about 20 minutes (maybe not 20 but at least 5) and realize that we must have drank it all because it is nowhere to be found.  Whatever, I'll use rum.  I pour a little rum in my glass and get out my apple cider.  When I open that baby up, it doesn't smell like apples, it smells like lemons.  It's lemonade/ice tea.  Eff.  So since I had already poured the rum and that wouldn't be good mixed with lemonade/iced tea, I topped it off with gingerale.  And it left me very unsatisfied.

Going to the grocery store.  First world problems.

XO. Tarah

    

October, I Welcome You with Open Arms

Guys, it's finally officially the greatest month out of the whole year (and I'm not just saying that because it's my birthday month)!  Hello October!  I welcome you with open arms!

I woke up today feeling so happy, so blessed, and so grateful for soooo many reasons.  Big things happenin over here ya'll but I'll get to that at a later date.

Since it's the very beginning of the month I figured I would do a little 'I'm currently' post to keep you in the loop with some of the small, not so important details in my life.  P.S. I stole this from Lisa. 

In October, I'm currently... 

Reading: I just finished 'Where She Went' by Gayle Forman a couple of weeks ago.  It is a sequel to the book 'If I Stay' which I actually read a couple of years ago and didn't realize that there was a sequel to it until very recently.  I loved the first book and the author so I figured I should probably give it a shot.  I'm so glad I did.  The second book was just as good if not better than the first.  I'm currently looking for more books written by Gayle because she is the bomb-dot-com.  I just started reading 'A House in the Sky' by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett.  I have only gotten about 5 chapters in so I can't really review it yet but it is a true story about Amanda Lindhout, who lived to travel, being abducted in Somalia and held for a ransom of 1.5 million dollars all the while suffering extreme torture, starvation, and repeated rape for 460 days.  I can't wait to get deeper into it.

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Watching: The new season of 'New Girl' just started and I love me some Zooey Deschanel.  She cracks my shit up.  Last week I also watched the premiere of 'The Mindy Project' and I'm not really one to religiously watch any tv series but I must say, these might be my Tuesday night go-to's.  Of course V and I are still trying to finish 'Breaking Bad' on Netflix so we can start watching the current season that just ended a couple of nights ago.  I heard it was a doozy.  We are in season 5 of 6 so I have confidence we will finish soon.  We just started getting into it again after taking about a 6 month hiatus.

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Listening to: Ok, I'll be the first person to tell you that Miley Cyrus needs to be punched in the face, real hard, but I have to admit that I am really digging the song 'Wrecking Ball'.  Now the video that has every pre-pubescent boy playing it in slow motion and pausing it at the moments where you can almost see her goodies, not so much digging that.  I'm also loving the new song by Lady Gaga, 'Applause'.  She's super weird and I love it and I don't love all of her songs but I do love this one.  Ellie Goulding ft. Calvin Harris, 'I need your love', is also still at the top of my list.  And last but not least, I'm not proud at all to admit that I have been listening to '23' which is a song by some dude that calls himself Mike Will Made and it features non other than little miss Cyrus herself.  She raps guys.  And it's not good.  But I still like the song.  Maybe I deserve a punch to the face as well.

Obsessing over: the beautiful weather we've been having in Chicago, the leaves that I noticed are starting to change on my drive to work today, Marley being the cutest freaking dog in the whole world (duh), and everything that God has been blessing me with lately.  

He didn't want me to go to work!

Shopping for: fall shit of course.  Sweaters, leggings, boot socks, etc.  Oh and I've been adding a few more sophisticated items to my wardrobe as well, mostly dress shirts, but I'll be shopping for dress pants as well soon.  This shouldn't excite me but it does.

Wearing: shorts, tanks, and dresses, and enjoying it while I still can.  Today's high is in the low 80's and I'm not mad.  Sure I enjoy pulling out my boots, sweaters, and scarves during fall but I've said it before and I'll say it again, before we know it the weather is going to be all blizzard like and freezing in Chicago so I will enjoy my last limited days of 80 degree weather and sunshine while I still can. 

Learning: that even though things aren't always quite how you want them to be, you can't control everything.  Patience really is a virtue and if you keep reminding yourself of that, good things will happen.  The power of prayer is overwhelming.  Life isn't always easy but if you prayer and have patience, it will get easier.

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Thinking: about how blessed I am.  I am the most dramatic, emotional, and sometimes crazy person you will probably ever meet but so much has happened lately that has shown me how blessed I am.  And for that, I am grateful.

Bothered by: there's truly not a lot that can bother me or bring me down right now.  I am on cloud 9, and that probably bothers some people since I am being annoyingly positive right now.  

Oh ok, but I am bothered by the red-light cameras and the speed trap cameras that are all over Chicago.  Sometimes you're just running late for work and you see that light has been yellow for a little too long but you look around and don't see any cops so you turn right without stopping just as it's turning red.  And then a few days later you realize you have a $100 ticket for running a red-light and oh, there's video footage so you can't even contest it.  Touche Chicago, touche. 

Eating: pumpkin spice crap.  Yep, I'm one of those people who obsessively buy the pumpkin spice crap as soon as it starts hitting the shelves.  FYI pumpkin spice m&ms are NOT GOOD.  They're just not.  Stick with the peanut butter m&ms.  I also just made butternut squash ravioli a couple of nights ago and it truly was a nice little fall treat.  Yum.

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Drinking:  pumpkin beer (no surprise there).  Pumpkin beer is always the number one thing I'm excited for during fall.  I like darker beers so I am looking forward to all the summer beers starting to fade away and all of the darker, seasonal stuff replacing it.

Wasting time on:  honestly, nothing.  I don't have a lot of time to waste.  Ok that's a slight lie.  I have one day off every week - Sunday.  That day is spend wasting time for the most part.  That is the day that I waste time sitting on the couch, in my pj's, with Marley, watching real housewives and every other show that Vinnie hates.  But other than that, I have not been wasting time although I would like to waste more time outside in the beautiful weather.

Loving: that it's October (clearly, I've said it 60 times), that I get to see my family so soon, and that there soon will be lots of reasons to celebrate!  Bring on the champagne and the hangovers!

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Praying for: continued patience, the health of myself, my friends, and my family, and for Marley to live forever (that last one might be a little far fetched, pun intended).

Working on: calming my nerves.  I've been getting super anxious lately and it's hard for me to calm myself down.  I am also working on my temper, as always, not that I have an anger management problem but I get a little too upset a little too quickly when I should just take a deep breathe and try thinking clearly.

Looking forward too: the future, near and far.  This month really is going to be a great one.  I get to spend a lot more time with my family and with Vinnie while we celebrate birthdays and go to a wedding at the end of the month.  My future is looking bright.

I hope you are all feeling as positive as I am right now!

Happy Best Month of the Year!

XO. Tarah

 

Fall Bucket List

Happy Friday!  

Even though it's in the 80's here in Chicago and doesn't really feel like fall, I'm not complaining because in the blink of an eye it's going to be the middle of January and I'll be bundled up with layer upon layer struggling to walk on the icy streets with blizzard-like snowflakes falling from the sky straight into my eyeballs.  Winters in Chicago suck year after year.  It's inevitable.  And I am not looking forward to that.  

Where was I going with this...oh yea, so now that it's fall I decided to create a 'Fall Bucket List' because there are always a ton of things that I want to do during this wonderful season that I never end up doing.  I spent all day making a list and I've decided that I might be taking a little too much on, but I figured I would aim high and if I don't have time to do all of these activities, at least I tried.

Fall Bucket List

1.  Visit a pumpkin patch

My nephew at a pumpkin patch 2 years ago

I haven't had a chance to visit a pumpkin patch or an apple orchard in a couple of years mostly because I moved to the Chicago area a couple of years ago and don't know where any decent ones are located.  So I'm going to have to do some research.  My family used to go to Tanner's Apple Orchard (where the adorable picture of my nephew was taken) every year and they had the most amazing apple cider and donuts I've ever had...I'm drooling over here.


2.  Carve pumpkins

While we're on the topic of pumpkins, I definitely want to carve pumpkins again this year.  Last year Vinnie and I carved pumpkins last minute and we had to go to several grocery stores in the area to find some because every where else was sold out.  Then we bought a junky, cheap carving tool kit and it just, it sucked.  So this year, we have learned out lesson.  We're either going to have the most amazing pumpkins ever, or none at all.


3.  Make Chilli 

I made homemade chilli for the first time ever last year and it was good, but not great.  This year I am bound and determined to find an amazing chilli recipe and conquer it.  So if you have an amazing chilli now would be a good time to pass it along to me :) thanks in advance!


4.  Drink fall cocktails/beer

I've already had a couple of good fall seasonal beers this year but obviously I plan on consuming more.  I'm not a big cocktail drinker though so another thing I'm determined to master this year is a delicious fall cocktail.  Last year I discovered a simple fall drink that contained bourbon, apple cider, and ginger ale.  I enjoyed that but now I need something new.


5.  More walks with Marley

I love being outside and enjoying this amazing weather.  The smell of burning leaves, seeing all of the leaves on the trees change colors, it's all amazing.  There's nothing Marley loves more than being with us and being outside.  Now that the weather is cooling down and we don't have to worry about us or him having a heat stroke, there's not excuse not to get out and get him out of the house and go for more walks.


6.  Visit a local brewery or winery

This one is pretty simple.  I love beer.  I love wine.  Why not go to the source and see how it's made?


7.  Bake Pumpkin Bread

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I've already pinned ^^ this recipe along with several others to my 'Fall' board on Pinterest and I've already bought a couple of cans of pumpkin, so really now it's just about finding the time to actually bake some.  I made several fall treats last year but nothing pumpkiny so this must be done this year.


8.  Have a Scary Movie Night

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I love scary movies and so does Vinnie, tis the season!


9.  Go to a fall festival and/or haunted house

  
Last year V and I went to Fright Fest and Six Flags and, even though it was cold and rainy, we had so much fun.  We went in a bunch of different haunted houses and got the bejeezus scared out of us.  This year we have already started looking into haunted houses to go to, or we're considering going back to Six Flags Fright Fest since, because of the crappy weather, there was a lot of attractions closed down that night and a lot of the scary actors weren't even out.  Either way I would love to make it out to either a fall festival or a haunted house, but both would be even better.


10.  Celebrate Fall Birthdays

2011

2012

I've obviously talked about this before but my dad, my brother, and myself all have birthdays within 3 days of each other at the end of October, so fall and October have always meant birthdays and celebrating to us.  The past 2 years, ever since my parents moved, we have visited Iowa and gone all out celebrating together (even though my sis couldn't make it last year).  This year we're getting even more of our family together and celebrating with cousins, my aunt and uncle, and close family friends.  Actually, we're doing this next weekend and I can barely contain myself I'm so excited.  Also, this is kind of a given but I didn't want to end my list on number 9 so I added this one in there to make it an even 10.

Welp, there you have it...my fun and amazing fall bucket list.  It's a doozy when you already have a busy schedule that doesn't leave much time for trying to fit activities in but I'm gonna try my darndest to make it happen.  

Happy fall ya'll (sorry I just had to)!

XO. Tarah


 

Denim Dress Trend

Denim Dresses by tjmath3 featuring a button front dress

It's no secret that a big fashion trend this past summer (it's weird to say this past summer now that summer is officially over) was denim.  The denim jacket is making a comeback that started this past spring/summer.  Now that fall is among us I feel like we are going to start seeing more denim jackets since people are going to actually start needing a jacket.  Other denim staples that started trending this summer were boyfriend jeans, denim shirts (chambray), and the denim dress.  

Now that fall season is in the air, I think we are going to see a lot of these denim items transitioning into everybody's fall wardrobe.  One thing I didn't really think I would ever wear is a denim dress.  I ended up buying a denim dress from Gap last summer because it was on sale for a really good price and just happened to be my size.  I am actually really glad I ended up making that purchase because this denim dress has been easy to dress up or dress down and has proven to be really versatile, which is always a win in my opinion.

I wore this dress to work a few weeks ago when it was still super hot.  As you can see I couldn't decide if I wanted to wear it with my Tom's or with my Sperry's but I ended up deciding on going with my Sperry's.  I'm planning on transitioning this dress into my fall wardrobe my pairing it with tights or leggings, boots, and a sweater.  I'll make sure to show you how I end up styling once that happens!

Also, I know I talked about how I am the only female who hasn't had a pumpkin spiced latte yet this season and I actually went to 711 today to purchase my first one and they were out!  Boo 711.  So I ended up getting a skinny salted caramel latte and threw some pumpkin spiced creamer in there and in sufficed.  It's actually pretty warm here today though and I sweated while drinking it on my way back to the office.  Fall weather still hasn't quite made it's permanent presence in Chicago yet but it's coming!  

What do you guys think about the denim dress?  Is it going to become a fall fashion trend this season or was that so just a summer thing?!

XO. Tarah