2012 Week 7: a duck a day keeps the quacking away.

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Leigh

Since I started working out with Wii Fit Plus, I’ve been craving protein like crazy. I usually would eat poultry a few times a week, but this week I had duck three times. That may sound like I’m the 1%, but in only one instance was it “fancy” duck. For V-day, Z and I went out the night before to (k)new restaurant and I had the roasted duck with porcini risotto. We attended Amanda’s birthday outing on Thursday, where I had to order the new duck and lentil dish they plopped on the menu. Saturday because Z and I were already downtown for movies at River East, we decided to try the wait at Xoco. The line was nowhere as long as it was last time, so we waited and it was completely worth the approximately half an hour wait for a table. I got the “winter market” caldos and the server/host type person who brought it to the counter we were sat at said it was his favorite thing. By golly, it was the best duck soup imaginable. The Marx Brothers would approve. Rick Bayless, you rule.

My duck eating has been balancing out some bad and sad things going on. Maude, beloved store pug of Stacy at Paper Doll, passed away this week. Tilda lost her only friend. I found this news out immediately after experiencing the worst pain I have ever experienced in my entire life, after having the beginning of a root canal done on an infected tooth. Really, Wednesday was one of the worst days imaginable. Losing a longtime friend like Maude and having such an exquisite pain in my mouth. Z said he has never heard anyone outside of a movie scream like I was over the phone. My wonderful boo met me at CVS to drive me home after I picked up the pain med I was prescribed and an antibiotic for the infection. I just could not fathom driving that last few blocks in that pain. The second part of the root canal will be done on Wednesday. Reminder: STOP EATING CANDY! Additionally, this morning Tilda somehow slipped out of her Easy Walk harness and jumped on a shih tzu. I was able to wrestle her away after about 10 seconds of biting and yelping. Thankfully, the dog was alright, but it left me terrified of this ever happening again. I carried my squirming pup home where Z put the harness back on her and we tried to figure out how she escaped and were left dumbfounded. Tilda’s middle name is Houdini. Stacy of Paper Doll recommended another brand, which we are going to buy ASAP as soon as she reminds me of the brand again.

Rhymes with Twee - print gocco inks

Isn’t organizing pretty? This also allows me to see what colors I am running low on, so I can scour the internetz for them. Today I got brackets for my shelves at Home Depot so the craft room organization will continue this week. I sent in my paperwork to reactivate my IBT number, so fingers crossed they get all that done. Now comes the fun part of doing my IL sales taxes for 2009-2011. I’ve got most of it sorted out. Now I just need to sit down and do the dirty work. Yuck.

Films watched 7th week of the year:

The Bodyguard
Soldier’s Girl
Pina (3-D)*
The Artist
Drive
Gainsbourg: A Heroic Life

*documentary

I implore anyone reading this to go see Pina in a theatre. It is a work of art that you will never see anything remotely close to in your lifetime. The rest of the films I saw this week were good, but none lived up to the hype that preceded them, except, let’s be real here: The Bodyguard.

2012 Week 6: Life is dandies.

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Leigh

I made vegan rice crispy treats tonight. I used the recipe here, but I only used 3 1/2 cups of crisp rice cereal because I wanted mine extra gooey! I had bought some Dandies back at Vegan Mania in late 2011, but I hadn’t used them yet, so this was the perfect way to do so. These are definitely best when warm. Due the vegan-ness nature, they harden up pretty quickly. I am a weirdo who doesn’t eat gelatin, but does eat poultry. I miss marshmallows sometimes and Chicago Soydairy’s Dandies are absolutely spot on.

Apparently I had not been getting some important mail from the Illinois Department of Revenue forwarded to my “new” (April 2011) address and this led them to put a levy against me and they nearly garnished my wages at my day job (for $67). Just bonkers. To fight this thing, I am further organizing my craft room, especially all of my sales tax documents. One day, when it’s all done, I will post photos of the finished product. Actually, this makes me want to google and see how other crafters maintain their files. As a result of all this clean-up, I fell slightly behind on my working out. I still ate pretty healthy to balance that out. Luckily, cleaning burns calories and I’ve been doing a heck of a lot of that. Phew!

On Friday night Z and I had Eliza and Mike over and played a game that Z had gotten me for Christmas called Creatures. The game was super fun and I hope they make an expansion pack that has a hedgehog in it! All of the awesomeness that Kickstarter.com has brought into the world is astounding. Friends of my friend nickd funded their game Cards Against Humanity. This game has become a staple of nick and erin’s parties. It is a thrilling thing to see just how many sick minds are in one room, in one group of friends.

Films watched 6th week of the year:

Family Plot
Eden Lake
Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop*
One Day

*documentary

Eden Lake surpassed any expectation that I had of it. I enjoy an occasional horror film, but I wasn’t planning to watch this with Z. In the first 5 minutes, I was hooked. This put the THRILL in Thriller. Michael Fassbender and Kelly Reilly’s performances were some of the best I have ever seen. It felt so believable. It made me scour both of their IMDB profiles and I found this quote from Michael Fassbender which made me love him even more:

[on being nude in films and full frontal nudity in Shame] To be honest with you again, I think it’s the idea of male frontal nudity. It just baffles me: Women can parade around naked all the time, but the guy conveniently has his pants on. I remember my mom always complaining about that to me, saying, “This is such bullshit, it’s always the women who are naked” … so I did this one for you, Mom!

2012 Week 5: Slowly, but surely.

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Leigh

Leigh preparing to Wii!

This was a good week filled with fun and friends. I still haven’t made a whole lot of progress on the craft room, but I did manage to put up shelves by myself. This was a milestone! Also, I finally found some new storage for my A2 cards at IKEA: SAMLA box with lid. Z took the above photo of me pre-Wii Fit one day. In order to better track my calories, I switched from the Lose It! app to My Fitness Pal. It has far more foods listed, so I don’t have to make up my own makeshift recipes as often. They actually have multiple variations of avocado rolls to choose from. Hooray! I wish the Wii had an option I could pick so it did not show me my BMI/weight every day. I’d rather see my weight once a week so it’s not such a constant up and down. Since we started Wii Fit-ing in early January, Z and I have lost 5 lbs., but then every few days it fluctuates back or forth.

Films watched 5th week of the year:

Alice in Wonderland (1933)
Sweetgrass*
A Woman, a Gun, and a Noodle Shop
The Men Who Stare at Goats

*documentary

Sweetgrass was really fascinating. It is a documentary about sheep herding through the mountains of Montana. It uses natural sound. No music, no narration and very little speaking at all. Definitely something we are not used to seeing these days. One of the couple times there was speaking, I learned some brand new swears. Definitely worth a viewing if you think sheep are cute. Holy sheep!

Weekly Roundup: Music-a-Leigh

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Leigh

It’s been a good music week, but these are some of my standouts this week.

Adorable – Against Perfection (1993)
Such an overlooked band. I actually prefer ‘Fake’ to ‘Against Perfection’, but only by a thread. I thank a brief college boyfriend, Patrick, for sharing this band with me. Shoegazey, lots of crunchy guitars, poetic lyrics. I rock out unabashedly to ‘Homeboy’ every single time I hear it. Love. “I’m tripping into the back of my mind. And your words like angels crash inside. And a word and a movement and a touch. And a word and a movement and it’s all too much. It’s all too much.” They did get a re-

Radiohead – Tkol Rmx 1234567 (2011)
I’m still soaking this in, but I am enjoying it. My question most often with remixes, especially of Radiohead songs, is why mess with perfection? 🙂

Nana Grizol – Love it Love It (2008)
Often an album I reach to when driving, I found that tonight it helped me get pumped for tackling the clean-up of my craft room. Theo is such a songsmith. I love this record and the follow-up, Ruth. If you don’t have these albums, you are cheating yourself out of some awesome rocking out. At the Elephant 6 Holiday show a few years back, he completely stole the show. He even blew Jeff Mangum out of the water. Really!

The Montgolfier Brothers – The World Is Flat (2002)
I don’t know what tipped off my brain to do so, but this week, I suddenly had the title track of this album stuck in there and I just had to put on the album. My friend Michael put this song on a mix cd years back and I remember listening to it on my drive from Alexandria, VA to Chicago. Roger Quigley’s voice is absolutely one of a kind and this album really holds up even 10 years later. Dreamy.

2012 Week 4: Chaos reigns my craft room!

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Leigh

This week I saw some of the best people Chicago has to offer and celebrated the births of three awesome friends. In addition, the Wii Fit told Z and I that we each have lost 5 lbs. since we started the first week in January. A grand week it was.

Rhymes with Twee - Tilda and Maude

My go-to card and gift buying place in Chicago is Paper Doll. Owner Stacy’s house pug Maude is my favorite store animal of all time. She has gone blind and is mostly deaf, but she still knows it’s me when I go in. She’s the only dog that Tilda is sometimes okay with. Tilda was kind of a jerk to Maude on this day, so this shot was the result of many treats and much coaxing. Speaking of shops I love: I am sad to say goodbye to my other go-to shop, Renegade Handmade, which is closing this week. They were the first Chicago store to stock Rhymes with Twee goods and always gave me that proverbial pat on the back when I went in. Such lovely shop ladies (and the occasional dude) that I will miss seeing so often. Now I’ll have to settle for seeing them briefly at RCFs or randomly around the ‘hood.

Since I’ve been doing well with most of my resolutions, I finally felt ready to tackle my craft room, which has remained incomplete since we moved in last April. Most of today was spent pulling it apart and moving things around, organizing papers and thinking up a game plan for completing it. Once it’s actually in order, I feel like I’ll be able to get back to a creative state.

This was a slow week for media consumption for me, but I finally finished my second book of the year, You Had Me At Woof, which LCB recommended to me and I loved. I started reading Hack and so far, so good.

Films watched 4th week of the year:

Funky Forest: The First Contact
Eames: The Architect & The Painter*
Hereafter
Norwegian Wood

*documentary

Three of these are worth watching, but Hereafter mostly felt like a waste of time. If you enjoy absurdity, then you should see Funky Forest, which I’d rank pretty high up there. I was let down a bit by Norwegian Wood. I enjoyed watching it, but it had been years since I had read the novel. Murakami is one of my all-time favorite authors, but that novel was not one of my favorites. I believe I’ll have to re-read it to see how different it was from the film. I felt it was pretty different, but my pal Kirstie said it remained true. The score was great though (cough, cough, jonnygreenwood).

Weekly Roundup: 5 Chicagbloggers

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Leigh

This MAN CAVE sign made me think of my friend Mark (pictured on the left, after a screening of The Room at the Music Box) and that inspired me to write about five Chicago friends I know and love who blog right here from Chicago. Their blogs are smart, funny, and fun to read!

Ali & Dolan: Daily Dolan Geiman
Desiree: Manoy y Metal
Donovan: The Intangible Blog
Mark: Man Up Chicago
Paige: Paige Worthy

Square Credit Card Reader 3D Printed Hinged Case Keychain by C Westbrook Designs

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Leigh

Selling at craft fairs with a Square is awesome, but I was always misplacing the darned thing. Christina Westbrook (C Westbrook Designs) of San Francisco made my life a lot easier. I bought one of these as a necklace last year in pink and it’s much easier to find now when I need it. The keychain design is new and equally handy. I meant to sing the praises of this product earlier, but I had dropped the blog ball. Hats off to you!

Hip to hold Square:
C Westbrook Designs