What's a Birthday Without Decorations?

My man and his twin brother are having a big birthday soon, and we're lucky enough to get the brother in town to celebrate. So, I figured, beyond the usual oodles of party food, I probably needed to make some decorations for the big day. . .

So far, with 4 slim packs of paper and one extra sheet of scrapbooking paper, I have made three very long garlands and a whole host of 3-d decorations. If I had more time, I could make twice that for the party. . . Paper is awesome.

Oh. Why Are You So Tasty?

Like many Americans, I could stand to lose a little weight. But guess who is not helping with this endeavor. . .?

I shake my fist at you, glorious Vietnamese bakeries on Argyle Street. (and then rub my belly with satisfaction of a snack happily eaten after playing at the dog beach on Lawrence.)

she read my mind

Wow. It's as if Judy Kaufman has made artwork especially for me. You can get this as a print on Etsy, if you, too, love your city. But don't buy all of the prints, please. I want one to still be there once I get past my husband's-b-day spendy rush.

It's February. In Chicago, that's traditionally the month when everyone starts to go a little out of their minds with cabin fever. The cold has gone on for too long. Spring is just around the corner. . . but it still feels like it will never arrive.

So, you do what you can to get over the hump. Dan and I tried the direct approach yesterday--going out into the face of winter, hanging out by the lake and walking about. Today, I'm taking the indirect approach--by searching out bright colorful things online that make me happy. . . and maybe by making a few colorful things as well!

Speaking of bright, colorful and cheerful, I found this adorable pillow cover at sukanart's shop



And it would be hard to stay crabby sleeping under this quilt by Ozark Quilters every night:



Or maybe just take a second to remember how excited you were to wear fall clothes and your new coat back in October with Michele Maule's "Little Red Coat" (available as a print in her shop on Etsy!:

Why Doesn't He Care?

Trying to take pictures of L.P. outside in the snow is a little like trying solve a problem like Maria. He's not having it. He's too busy playing and digging it to be cute for the camera.

Dan joked today at the Lawrence dog beach that L.P. just doesn't care about his web presence.

So true. He's too cool for friendface and so refuses to try to understand why I might want cute pictures of him either for posterity or for my blog.



He's too cool for school.



He's also obviously pretty mouthy. What can we say? We forgot to pack a tennis ball for the beach, and L.P. was sorely vexed in between meeting other dogs, running about and eating snow.

Louder Than a Bomb

This past week, a bunch of my co-worker buddies and I went to the Siskel Center to see the new Louder Than A Bomb documentary. . . and it was sooooo great. Seriously, if it ends up in theatrical release near you or is eventually available through Netflix, you have to see it.

There are so many docs out right now about educational sadnesses in the States, but this is not one of them. It's nothing but good news--a movie about young people becoming more themselves and more humane and more centered and powerful through poetry. They find families in one another through Chicago's biggest poetry slam youth competition "Louder Than A Bomb"--an event near and dear to my heart because so much of it has taken place on Columbia's campus and because a bunch of those kids end up in HSSI (the arts program I ran) year after year.

Bonus! Here are two haikus I photographed the same night, written by Columbia students and then put up in the Harrison Red Line stop. It's poetry and so thematically linked.

Celebrating Snow

Columbia called off two days in a row. Today was probably overkill, but I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth. And I used the day to make things. . .

A whole handful of snowflake ornaments to celebrate our awesome blizzard, and then finished off a bear doll's body and fully completed an elephant friend--pictures of the critters to come.

Mid-Afternoon Yesterday

Chicago will be digging out for a while, but yesterday around noon, the storm was completely gone.

Snowmaggedon

Our little house. . . Can't wait to get rid of those two crazy trees. . .

and L.P. looooooooooovees this weather. I let him out of the yard and he super geeked out on getting to run in places he doesn't usually get to go off leash. Pretty fun.

Snowtorious B.I.G.

Yesterday, all Chicagoans--maybe during their early commutes home--seemed to be competing to come up with the best name of the impending blizzard. The title of this post was my favorite, but others included: snowgasm, snowpocalypse, snO.M.G, Blizzaster, "Snow you di'int!", snowverkill, snowmaggedon, Snobel Prize. . . you get the picture.

Chicagoans usually laugh in the face of snow. We don't take it very seriously. . . we scoff at southern towns that screech to a halt and make mad stampedes on the Piggly Wiggly for a dusting of a few inches. We're hardy folks up here and are offended by the notion of taking snow days.

But this time is different. This is a bona fide blizzard. Impossible to measure the snowfall because it blew around in 60 mph winds last night, so that in some spots, the snow is 2" deep, but the drift right next to that is 4 feet tall. Everything is closed today as far as I can tell--schools, colleges, businesses. It's a mess out there.

2 PM on Tuesday--no blizzard in sight yet, but I was still sent home early from work. That was maybe the oddest thing about yesterday. . . a town that usually mocks snow and weather, took the blizzard really seriously and cleared out of the city before the heaviest snow had even started. The folks who got stuck on Lake Shore Drive later in the evening were either idiots or had terrible bosses who made them stay later than they should have.

Took a while for the blizzard to ramp up. Tiny snow filled the air, but the most impressive thing was the wind and the lightning/thundersnow. Accumulation was slow. Before going to bed, after 8 hours of blizzard, L.P. was only up to his knees in the snow.

by morning, though, it was clear that the blizzard had continued its work overnight.

for folks unfamiliar with my house. . . this snow covered bush is about 4.5 feet tall. The snow is adding another 12" to its height, which means the snow drift around it is about 4 feet high. Dan has to shovel that some time today.

and it's still snowing as of 9:30 AM.

This final picture just to give you a sense of the kind of wind involved in this blizzard. This is a picture of snow lodged in the southwest corner of our front porch. Snow rarely even gets on the floor of the porch, much less lodged into the most protected ceiling corner. But how do you measure snowfall if some decent portion of it is stuck to walls and windows and doors?