Just wanted to post to say that I made it home from Chicago. The trip ended on a very difficult note and reality hit me like a sledge hammer when I got off the train Sunday evening. I’ll be back to post some pictures from my trip. It was a much needed break from reality and I’m so grateful for a boss who spoils me with trips like these and who was also a friend with a hug and a listening ear the entire ride back. I did finish a February desktop on the way there (I know, February is almost over) but I never got to work on March because we just talked the whole way home. On the drive back to my apartment at 12 am I listened to the song that I’ve put as the first song on the blog-pod right now. Life is Hard by Pam Thum. It’s exactly how I was feeling at the end of a long emotional day. Cuz life is hard, isn’t it? I can’t be the only one who feels that way. I know there are people going through things so much harder than me. I think so often of Stephanie and her strength in circumstances I don’t think any of us could ever imagine. I know I’ve been vague about what I’ve been going through. I’m just not ready to share some very personal things here on the web. I hope someday I’ll be able to but just not right now. For now I would appreciate any prayers that I can just try to stay positive and appreciate the things that I do have to be thankful for over the next months ahead. This week is a particularly tough dose of ‘life is hard’ for me and I think prayers are the only way I’ll be able to make it through without giving up. And while you’re praying say an extra prayer for Stephanie who deserves them so much more than I. Her strength and faith continually amaze me. I guess I should tell her that personally too because I doubt she realizes how much she inspires even people going through entirely different circumstances.

Anyway, here’s what I came up with for the February desktop. I’m thinking maybe minus the hearts I can probably just modify it to use for March. I’ll have to work on that tonight. Hopefully I’ll be back later with that and a few photos from my weekend away.

So, last night we stayed at the House of Blues Hotel which I’ve always wanted to stay at since their rooms have SO much character compared to any other hotel I’ve seen. Well, the room was pretty cool, including a little round ottoman (or more like a tuffet) that I wish I could’ve fit in my suitcase cuz I need one of those and it was funky cool but for some reason it just didn’t have that spark for us as the greatest hotel room to spend our weekend in Chicago in. SOOOO, we cancelled our 2nd night there and made reservations for tonight at the Hotel Monaco and I’m pretty sure THIS is the hotel I want to stay in every time I visit my favorite city now.

Everything about it is just ‘me’. It oozes with character in an old 1920′s built hotel style that’s been updated but still has it’s charm. They even describe the walls in the rooms as having pistachio and butter cream stripes. Sounds like a cupcake doens’t it? :) And they’ve thought of EVERYTHING. Seriously, everything. They have leopard print robes in the closet, 2 pair of brand new fuzzy super soft socks (you know the ones), an umbrella in the closet in case there’s rain. There are these windows at the end of the room with striped cushion seats to sit and look at the view. And the view is amazing! We have a perfect view of the river, a beautiful old building across the street and in the other direction we can see the Sears Tower. AND they have this thing they call ‘Guppy Love’ where they bring to your room a complimentary goldfish to keep you company during your stay. In fact for us they brought TWO goldfish. We named them Monaco and Minico since one is quite a bit bigger than the other. How fun is that?! The only thing we’ll be leaving this room for is food. Apart from that I think they’re gonna have to kick us out. We almost went to another play this afternoon but we got too wrapped up into taking pictures of our new room. Unfortunately I discovered quickly once the card was full that I didn’t bring my cord to transfer any of them. So, photos of Monaco and Minico will have to wait till I get home. *edited to add the photos of Monaco & Minico*

Kay, gotta get ready in my FUN new red dress with sparkles on it and I’m gonna wear it with my favorite jeans and my shiny red shoes (thank you Kim). Totally funky, totally whimsical, totally me and probably something I can only pull off here. Gonna need lots more courage to be ‘totally me’ in Michigan but that’s somethin’ I plan to work on. That and not being ashamed to take my camera out when I really wanna capture something. I’m a work in progress. :)

I have a new favorite broadway play. Wicked was absolutely magical. A sortof tragic fairytale full of whimsy. Beautiful costumes, beautiful stage and theatre, beautiful music. I will never watch the Wizard of Oz in the same light. I would go again in a heartbeat and would highly recommend it if your ever in Chicago (or any of the other cities it’s playing in). All three of us loved it and couldn’t stop talking about it after. The Ford Oriental Theatre was gorgeous. I only wished I’d taken my camera but I just figured they wouldn’t allow me to take it in and then I’d be nervous about it the whole time. As it turned out they just don’t allow photography during the play itself but the photos of the theatre itself and the stage would’ve been worth lugging it along. Not to mention that we still haven’t gotten one photo of the three of us together downtown yet. Maybe today.

Other than that we seem to spend most of our time chatting in the hotel room. We did go out for lunch/dinner at the Weber Grill which was excellent. And Jayne, I got pics of Pop’s Champagne but none of us are champagne drinkers so we didn’t go in. Today I think we’re doing a little shopping, probably find someplace fun for lunch, a lot more chatting and a nice steakhouse dinner tonight. Hopefully I’ll get some photos to add to the next post. :)

Highlights from the Josh Groban concert Tuesday night (click on the blog-pod to the right for some musical bliss):

Don’t Give Up – opening song, totally uplifting and a message I was needing to hear. In Her Eyes – (one of my favorites at the moment) This one he sang as he walked through the crowd from the back of the arena. My absolute favorite part in the song is right around 3 minutes 50 seconds into it. stop what you’re doing and just listen. You’ll hear it. Amazing! Same thing with the song Mai at around 2 minutes 45 seconds, even in Italian he’s incredible. And we’re all familiar with that point in You Raise me Up about 3 minutes into the song when the choir joins in. He performed this as the encore and Jill and I were so excited to see the choir standing along the sides of the stage, ready to perform. She’d been waiting all night for this one song and I think we had goose bumps from the first note but when that choir starts and all those voices blend together with so much power – WOW! He also performed ‘Now or Never’ which I think has some of the most creative lyrics like this part which seems somehow both tragic and whimsical all at the same time: 

The tattered thought balloons above our heads
Sinking in the weight of all we need to say
Why’s and what if’s have since long played out
Left us short on happy endings

Oh, and in case you haven’t heard his latest release, here’s the video for February. I believe he said it was co-written with the guy from Five for Fighting. Can’t go wrong there.

Another highlight from the night was the solo by violinist Lucia Micarelli performing this song by Led Zeppelin. So powerful! Who knew a violinist could rock like that? And I had to include this photo mostly because I LOVE that couch. :)

I would go again in a heart beat. In fact I’m quite bummed that his tour actually lands him in Chicago this weekend but unfortunately the concert is Sunday night and I’ll be headin’ on the train back home by then. I’ll be keeping an eye out Sunday though in hopes that I can catch a photo of him wandering the streets of Chicago. :)

Speaking of which I should finish packing and get to bed. Headin’ out EARLY in the morning for an all-expense paid weekend in my favorite city with my boss and her sister who’s flying in to join us from California. Friday night we’re going to see a musical at the Oriental Theatre and Saturday night we’ve got reservations for dinner here. And of course I’ll be taking the laptop and hoping to try and find my creativity back somewhere along the train ride from Grand Rapids to Chicago. I believe I may have lost it on the way there the last time around back in October.

Oh, and I have been meaning to post a couple of new purse designs over at the boutique blog but for now I’ll post a sneak peak here since I’m running out of time for tonight. One of these is actually off to Jayne as soon as I get a sparkly button sewn on for just the right amount of bling. I actually made 2 in this style, one of which is for myself but I may be persuaded to sell it for a little extra spending money in Chicago. I can always make another. ;) LOVE these new fabrics by Amy Butler so you’ll be seeing lots more in these patterns. Can’t get enough. :) Anyway, if anyone is interested just send me an email to claim one of these before they’re posted in the boutique. The flowery one is $42 and the pink w/ black & white polka-dot circle is $36.

Hoping to pop in throughout the weekend with pics from Chicago. It’s so disappointing to me when I look at how rare my posts have been on this blog over the past few months. I wish it was because I was enjoying life too much to take time out to write about it but in reality I haven’t been living a life worth writing about. I’m gonna work on changing that. Now instead I have so many things that I wanna write about that I can’t even fit it all in one post. SO, I’ll be back, with pics from Chicago, a blog carnival that I’ve been working on, a ‘wierdness’ tag that I’ve been neglecting and with more photos of my new space as promised. :) 

I was talking to Leeandra on Valentine’s day and told her that I was finally going to start posting on my blog again. She asked if I was gonna post a ‘real’ post or just ‘fluff’ and I think for now I’m gonna post mostly ‘fluff’. Partly out of a desire to protect and not further hurt certain people. Partly out of a desire to not forever remember the hurt certain people have caused me. And partly out of a desire to keep certain parts of my life private and the fact that there are certain things that really aren’t even safe to share on the world wide web. So I’m going to ease back into the blogging world that I’ve missed so much with some posts that may be considered ‘fluff’ but they will be MY fluff. The good stuff ‘cuz amongst all the crap there’s been some really good stuff and I want to remember that.

I meant to post this on Valentine’s day but my cable didn’t get hooked up ’till yesterday and apparently it was just in time since Wednesday night the neighbor’s connection that I’d been using for the entire week without interruption was up and down and then completely down by the end of the night and since. Made me feel better about spending the extra money to have my own internet hooked up though. Love it when things like that happen. Like having a hair appointment this afternoon and having the worst hair day ever yesterday ‘cuz I hate it when you have the perfect hair day the day of a hair cut which often seems to be the case with me. It’s the one time I’m actually thankful for a bad hair day. :)

Anyway, I want to start taking more pictures again. I’ve barely had my camera out of the case the past few months so I’ve started taking some pictures of my new space and some of the little things of life. I’m gonna start taking my camera with me more often too. So often I wish I had it along when I drive by a beautiful wintery scene or see the practice airliner flying over so low (which is a scary thought really but something I strangely love seeing & have never captured a photo of). So here’s a few random photos that capture my valentine’s day this year:

Fabulous vintage frames are by Nancy Comelab and the whimsical hearts are by Jackie Eckles. And I love how John Cusack’s shirt happens to match my freshly painted bedroom walls. :) They look far lighter in the bright sunlight but they’re really a smokey plum color called soulmate. I also painted the kitchen in parakeet which is considerably more vivid than it appears in the internet swatch but it’s growing on me. It’s a very happy green and happy is a good thing, especially in a kitchen. I’ll have to snap a photo of it with the striped bowl that I happen to adore and was so happy when I realized the green stripes in it just happened to match the walls perfectly. Somewhat serendipitous actually. :)

So, anyway, that was my Valentine’s day. That and a lunch with my boss at Don Pablos which I love. And, because I’ve neglected it for so long (as pointed out by the very sweet Amy Martin), I decided to update my blog-pod with the soundtrack from my chick flick of choice for Valentine’s day. My favorite soundtrack of all time (maybe next week I can change it up again with my 2nd favorite soundtrack). Songs not to miss would be Moonlight Kiss by Bap Kennedy and the one’s by Annie Lennox and Shawn Colvin. Perfect to listen to while scrapping those Valentine’s day photos. :) Now if someone could just remind me how to scrap.

Kay, off to get ready for a busy Saturday.

I made the fun to do list here after seeing them on Teresa and Jennifer’s blogs. Little tip, if you hit refresh the fonts actually change so if you’re not perfectly happy with the first version try another. :)

I promise not to be such a hermit from now on. :)

Happy Saturday and happy belated Valentine’s!

Shawn