Bittersweet Happiness

Tonight I just finished my last official shift at my restaurant job. I will still be filling in from time to time but for the most part I am no longer employed there. It makes me happy and sad as I have worked there for two years now and with such a small turn over and crew you really get to know your co-workers very well. On to bigger and better things though as I start at the school this Tuesday. Also this weekend Peter and I will be visiting with my Aunts and Uncles that are in town for the holiday weekend to watch my cousin Caitlyn play volleyball. Expect to see some great photos next week.

Fantastic News

Yesterday I had a job interview for a staff position at Tallgrass Sudbury School. This is where my husband teaches. Over the past two and a half years I have been involved with the Tallgrass community. I have attended most of the after school events, from the prom to talent shows, and have spent a few days at the school as a volunteer. It is a wonderful place filled with support and opportunity. I am happy and proud to announce that I received the staff position. The best part was that Melissa, another staff member, called me after the staffing committee had made their decision to hire me. I was still in the building of the school and

Melissa said "Katherine we would like to offer you the position."

I said "Yes of course"

and she said, "Great we are having a staff meeting in 5 minutes. Can you be there?"

It was awesome and hilarious. I'm sure I will be sharing much more of my experience here on this blog.

The Hammock Days

Today and yesterday the weather was so absolutely perfect. Mid 70s sunny and just a touch of breeze. Peter and I spent at least 4 hours out of the last 48 in a hammock in the park. In the shade it was just chilly enough to need a sweater or long pants and so we just curled our bodies up and read or played Ipad games. All are welcome to try it out when you come visit. The park is a mere 5 blocks and we have two perfect trees we set up in. Also it is a two person hammock, says so right on the box, so bring a partner or you might have to snuggle with Peter ;-)

My Kingdom for a Bike

Today Peter and I were on our way to Target to purchase nylon webbing with which to hang our hammock in the park. We received a very nice two person hammock as a wedding gift and have not yet taken her on her maiden voyage. Along our walk to the store I spotted a yard sale. I'm good at spotting yard sales.

Here in Chicago they call them yard sales although they generally don't take place in a yard. Usually items of clothing and accessories will be hanging from the wrought iron fence with trinkets and appliances strewn in the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street.

At this particular yard sale there happened to be a very nice powder blue men's bike. I asked the young man tending the loot "How much for the bike?" He looks to his father behind the fence and the father says "50 bucks". This is a good deal for any bike but for a nice vintage Apollo it's a steal.

Through internet research I have ascertained the bike is from Sweden and was made somewhere between the 1960's and 1970's. It has some unique text on the seat post stating "svensk kvalitets cykel" which translated means "Swedish Quality Cycle". It's hard to tell if this is factory type or was added by the retail organization. I imagine some old Swedish man who owns a bike shop and trains professional cyclists in his spare time selling this bike to some 20 something kid back in the 60's. Said kid then decided to make his way to the states for the decade of free love and what not and brought his bike along for the "ride".

Needless to say we purchased it and it now stands in the living room awaiting a much needed overhaul tomorrow by our local bike shop gurus.

As many of you may well know I am a giant stickler for fairness and the minute we got the cycle home I jumped on the internet searching for an excellent deal on a vintage bike for myself. Surprisingly, through less than 5 minutes of searching on craigslist I found a beautiful MOHAWK women's bike (that's right people MOHAWK Peter's bike might have the name of a space shuttle but mine has the name of an everlasting trend in follicle experimentation).

I immediately called the number for the ad and the phone went straight to voice mail. I left a message and we set out again for Target to purchase webbing for the aforementioned hammock. It was, for me, a very anxious journey. Craigslist is usually a very anxiety inducing experience for me anyway. Especially if I've found something I REALLY want. So over the course of the next hour I called three times and sent one email from my phone. Not too bad for my standards. I'm not a patient person when it comes to monetary expenditures. Eventually I reached the gentleman with the bike and I jetted over to Lincoln Park, via bus, with poor Peter in tow. For $65 I purchased this beauty.

She may be from an earlier or later time I haven't done as much sleuthing on the interwebs yet. Both bikes may need a little work, as of right now they are in working condition but could be in better condition with just a few tweaks here and there. All in all I'd say both are very worthy purchases and I have none of the buyer's remorse I experienced with some of my previous bike purchases. And this is where ALL of our bikes live.

A Day in the Life

This afternoon I participated in an oyster eating contest. I did not win unfortunately I only got through 18 oysters in 30 seconds. However the winner was the only other girl in the competition. Yay women power. She clocked in with 33 oysters in 30 seconds. Pretty impressive! Now I'm still up because I am unable to sleep. Oysters don't settle well when you slurp them down like candy. Above is the video of when I started the competition thankfully you don't see that the sixth oyster I get in mouth is the one that causes me to feel queasy. By the end I was very close to vomiting but I held it in. It was a fun experience but I don't think I'll be doing it again any time soon. The video below is the end of the competition...my face says it all.

Guess my age

Recently my best friend has been going through old photos and storage that she hasn't come across in years. Chalk it up to flashback time. We are both 29 now, getting ready to embark on our dirty thirties it is a very self reflective time.

She sent me a number of photos from our high school years through our early twenties. What's interesting is a few of these photos induce very vivid memories of the events surrounding it and others I couldn't even tell you where we are in the photo or remember that I had even been to that place. I suppose the most important memories are the ones you do remember.

For instance she sent me some pictures of our high school graduation. I don't recall anything about it. I don't even remember walking across the stage.  That brings us to today's challenge. While Peter was looking over my shoulder at these photos he made comment that I looked so young in one photo he wouldn't have even kissed me (in that particular photo I am 23). How old do you readers think I am in this photo?

Or this one?

Hopefully I'm documenting my life well enough these days via this blog that ten years from now when I'm about embark on my filthy forties I'll have a lot of reference to draw from.

Return from the Great White North

Peter and I took a trip up to Canada for his cousin Aaron's wedding. It was fantastic! Unfortunately, as I so often do, I forgot to take any photos. I do have a nice photo of some Tullochs roasting weenies around a pit fire at Peter's parents' cabin.

From Left: Will (summer son of the Tullochs), Ian, Bernice, Rob, ME, and Peter.

We left town last Tuesday evening after Peter got out of work and drove through the night to Winnipeg Manitoba. Will was gracious enough to host us for Weds evening and another of Peter's friends Eric Malzer held a BBQ for us at his new home. Thursday morning we arose feeling less than stellar and packed up to drive to Whiteshell Provincial Park. The landscape of that area of the world is phenomenal. I am still amazed by how much of Canada is just wilderness. It's beautiful to say the least.

Thursday evening at the camp Peter and I BBQ'd hamburgers, chicken burgers, veggie burgers, and HOMEMADE (by Aaron and some of his friends) sausages. It was a smaller group on Thursday evening as most people were arriving Friday so it was nice to spend some time getting to know Aaron's friends and his fiance Joanna's family.

Friday was spent mostly swimming, kayaking, drinking and eating. Everyone in attendance had a "job" for the weekend. Either you had to prepare a meal or clean up after a meal. Our BBQing on Thursday did not count as our weekend job we did that just for fun. So Friday after breakfast we were on clean up crew which in my opinion was the best assignment. That meant the rest of our weekend was free of responsibilities.

Saturday was the big day and we spent most of it in the lake or on the beach. The wedding was at 4pm and it was just perfect for Aaron and Joanna. My favorite part was they had a guy in a  bear suit carry up the rings, get it  ring BEARER! HA HA!

Sunday everyone just got up and had brunch. Peter and I went for a swim and then headed out to his parent's cabin which is about an hour and a half away from where we were. Their place is on Lake of the Woods in Ontario. We roasted weenies as you see above and got to witness a huge storm. It was amazing.

This is a photo of what the clouds looked like before the storm started rolling in.

And THIS is what it looked like about 10 minutes before the rain actually started.

The power was knocked out so we all just sat in the big front room in the window and watched the lightening. A lovely evening indeed!

Monday morning we awoke before dawn at 5:30 and headed on our great quest back to Chicago. We left the cabin at around 6am and arrived at our apartment at 2:30am that evening. It was a LONG day of travel which is why it has taken me 4 days to document it because I desperately needed to catch up on some sleep.

Next wedding adventure will be Peter's brother Ian and his fiance Lana at the end of Sept. YAY Canada weddings!

All photos courtesy of John Tulloch...thanks John!