excited/nervous!

i might be a match! i got an email today that im a potential match for a patient and then i called and reconfirmed my commitment to donating bone marrow. i have a crazy mix of excitement and nerves all at once. now i wait.

http://marrow.org/

saying goodbye to boystown & solo living.

on saturday i will be leaving east lakeview which i have been a resident of for the past 4 years. i will also be leaving my studio apartment and moving to a big girl apartment with the fiancée. still weird to say fiancée. we're moving to roscoe village which is west of where we live now. i absolutely love the area. it's very residential and quiet but there are lots of great restaurants and bars on our street. it's easier to find parking and it's easier to get to wicker park where most of my friends live now but also easy to still get back to east lakeview where some of my other friends live. our new place is very old but very spacious. i can't believe i'll actually have a bedroom door! it's been 3 years since i last had one! and a huge kitchen and office. but best yet - washer & dryer in unit! yay! i'm really excited to officially move in with rob too. it'll be fun to build our new home together and start a new chapter. i'm not really going to miss my apartment at all but the neighborhood will definitely be missed - especially the proximity of multiple grocery stores and bus options but mostly the proximity of our favorite mexican restaurant!! i wanted to savor these last few weeks of east lakeviewness so we've been hitting up all the neighborhood gems. we went to the bagel for brunch, shopped on broadway, went to a cubs rooftop, rob ate at the best thai place in the hood and i went to crisp - an amazing chicken joint, and tomorrow we're going to that favorite mexican restaurant one more time. it's been a good ride boystown - but i'm ready for cohabitation in roscoe village! here's hoping the move goes well :)

We're Getting Married!

Rob popped the question on Sunday in the biggest and best way! Here's the wonderful story:

We decided to plan a trip to the Brookfield Zoo in April - one of my favorite places - and I invited my parents and my good friends and their daughter because they all have a membership and love it there as much as I do. Rob switched the date randomly because "they weren't having any dolphin shows that day anymore" so I became suspicious. I had always joked that the ultimate proposal would be at the Brookfield Zoo Dolphin Show - even more ultimate having a dolphin fin the ring on my finger. Clearly a joke. Somehow - he basically made that happen!!! We head off to the zoo on Sunday and my friend Meg says she's under the weather and not able to make it anymore and my Mom isn't answering her phone but I didn't think much of it because it was Palm Sunday so I thought they might still be in church. We get to the zoo and head straight to the dolphin show and Rob is calm as can be. We get inside and get a seat near the aisle and it starts - they ask for some youth volunteers and then they ask for some adult volunteers and I raised my hand because I always raise my hand. They actually picked me and Rob! We walked down by the side of the pool and they say that we're going to help with a new trick. At this point I knew it was happening but I never imagined it would happen the way it did. They put a ball in the dolphin's mouth (Shanook) and it swims over to the trainer and she pulls the ball out of it's mouth and it says "Marry Me" on it!!! She hands it to me and I turn to Rob and immediately sob when he gets down on one knee and asks me to marry him in front of the whole audience!!! We kiss and then a photographer takes our picture and we go back to our seat and I'm FREAKING OUTTTTTTTTTTTT! I could not believe he made that happen. We get to our seat and he introduces me to the lady next to him - she was in on it! He met with her last week while I was in Florida and got to see the dolphins practice - one actually messed up the trick and gave Rob a heart attack! Our parents came in right before the end of the show. They had been hiding so I wouldn't catch on. After the show ended we went by the pool and all the people from the crowd came and congratulated us and shook our hands and checked out my BEAUTIFUL ring. He had the ring custom made at the same place his brother in law had his sister's ring made. It's perfect and exactly what I wanted. It is modeled after my favorite "cocktail ring" that my uncle found ages ago and gave to me and I've loved it ever since. I couldn't believe he actually had it made for me. I can't stop staring at it! Anyway, we got more pictures after the show cleared out and got to take some with our new dolphin friend Shanook. It was wonderful! Then we got to enjoy a sunny day at the zoo with our parents. We had a mini photo shoot all over the zoo and got to see some of our favorite animals. We parted ways and Rob and I headed back to the city and relished in the excitement. I called a few of my friends in the car and then we just chatted about everything at home and got really excited. Later on he took me to the Signature Room for dinner. On the way to dinner a car honked at us and 2 girls stuck their heads out to shout that they were at the zoo with us - they were the trainers! What are the odds! The Signature Room was stunning! The most amazing views! We enjoyed some champagne, delicious entrées and an awesome dessert - they even wrote congratulations on your engagement in chocolate sauce on the plate! What a perfect end to a perfect day.

I still can't believe how he made it happen and that we're finally engaged after nearly 9 years together! We're SO excited and SO happy! I can't wait to start working on all the fun details to plan our special day. The engagement was perfect and it is a day that I'll never ever forget!

florida trip

over the weekend my friends stef & jacki & i went to visit stef's mom in mirmar, florida for a few days. cindy was so sweet to let 3 crazy girls come invade her home and she was a great hostess! she lives in a beautiful home with a great pool and pretty view of a lake. it was lovely! we spent the first day pool side and then we went to the las olas area for dinner. we ended up at SoLita which is a place my friend recommended. it was very cool decor but utterly ridiculous. it was basically a lounge so there was lots of people groping each other in dimly lit corners, we saw LOTS of implants and it took FOREVER to get our food. i really liked my pasta and so did stef but cindy was not impressed. we got out of there as quickly as we could and picked up jacki from the airport since she had a later flight. we did some chatting pool side with a few bottles of wine until late that night. the next day cindy made us a great breakfast and then we got pedis at this great little salon and shopped around this fun outdoor mall. we hit target for some essentials and then went poolside allllll day until we hit the road for south beach for dinner and drinks. south beach is the craziest place i've ever seen! i felt like i was in a foreign country. there were so many tourists, craaaaazy outfits and restaurant hostesses harassing us to eat at their restaurants. very interesting. it was hoppin though and we parked it at a random restaurant and stared at all the very interesting people walking by. then we went to a really, really lame hotel bar rooftop with very expensive drinks. we left for an outdoor bar with a dj and a landing built over a pool and a ton of RIDICULOUS people. i sort of felt like we were on the jersey shore. it was pretty amusing. the next day stef made us homemade crepes - so delic! and then we went to fort lauderdale beach. it was about 90 degrees but under the shade of a palm tree we were enjoying the ocean breeze. we got our feet wet and then hit up hooters because we ALWAYS eat at hooters. it was very tasty and then we went home for more pool time. on our last day we laid out alllll day and we all got a little burnt but it was worth it!

literally spent most of the time laughing, eating, or telling stories. it was so fun and i'm so glad i got to have a fun getaway with my girls!

voiceless

i started to lose my voice last week and by sunday all i could get out were squeaks and whispers. i've never lost my voice like that. it didn't hurt and i didn't feel too sick but i couldn't really get any words out. it has been quite the experience. i always knew that i'm a chatty girl but i really had no idea quite how chatty i am until i couldn't use my voice anymore. i also knew people in chicago were friendly, but i didn't realize quite how many said hello, good morning, how are you, etc - until i couldn't respond to them. i spent way more time thinking about what i wanted to say before speaking and whether it was even worth mentioning. i had to prioritize my thoughts since it was so difficult to get words out. i also couldn't properly express emotions without full use of my voice - i received happy news, heard a sad story and participated in a workshop - and i couldn't express myself the way i wanted. i couldnt help but think how hard it would be to not have the ability to speak permanently. i really take the ability to speak for granted and considering my lenten goal was to be a better listener...i think god might have been trying to tell me something!

what ability would be hardest for you to lose?