• Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  The House,  We Are An Awesome Couple

    The Dining Room and Other Ways We’re In Sync.

    I figured a month was long enough to have my toilet paper obsession have center stage. Actually, to be honest, I’ve been too busy even to think about blogging. It’s all good, though. I’m in the thick of LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO season (13 days until the show! Need tickets? Go here.), work is gearing up to Level: Crazytown (#BlogHer17 is only two months away! Need a ticket? Go here.), and Jim and I are busily working on our new house in Knoxville. The house thing? It’s been awesome. As unhappy as I was when Jim and I were hanging in that special kind of limbo that occurs when…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Favorite Things,  Fun in Chicago,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Superstitions Be Gone: Cubs Win the 2016 World Series!

    Chicago is a very happy city today. I am a very happy person today. I am nearly too exhausted to write about this but I’m going to give it a shot: bear with me. I was up until 2am and slept in a most terrible manner for the duration before my eyes sprung open again at 6:45am. I suspect it was because internally I sensed that “Good Morning America” was coming on and I didn’t want to miss the World Series recap, which I enjoyed immensely. Let me back up. Chicago Cubs. Cleveland Indians. What a World Series: a real nail biter. Game 7, though? I literally thought I was…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Childhood Memories,  Fun in Chicago

    World Series 2016: Go Cubs Go!

    My very favorite baseball team is the Chicago Cubs. Actually, my very favorite team in any sport is the Chicago Cubs. When you’re from Chicago, it’s kind of a rule that you have to pick a baseball team, because we have two. You HAVE to choose. The Cubs or The White Sox North Side or South Side Red, White, and Blue or Black, White, and Silver Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park (It’s not technically Comiskey anymore but go with it.) The thing is, I don’t actually remember picking the Cubs; I only know that I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember. One example of how fiercely I…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Childhood Memories,  Music

    The Concert of My Lifetime: Billy Joel at Wrigley Field

    When I was a kid in the seventies, we had a pretty nice-sized vinyl collection thanks to a friend of my dad’s who owned a record store and shared lots of the albums that he no longer needed. The square covers always had a 1/2-inch notch cut out of the top and a sticker that said “For Promotional Use Only: Not for Resale”. These days I’d have to sit and think about which albums were in our collection in order to talk about them except for two standouts, “The Jacksons” and this one, Billy Joel’s “Piano Man”: When I was six and seven, that album cover both intrigued and terrified…

  • Best Thing Ever

    Hello Summer and New Netflix Releases! #StreamTeam

    I am a member of the Netflix #StreamTeam and will be happily sharing monthly tips and stories about how my family uses Netflix on a regular basis. (Okay, that’s an understatement. I should say CONSTANTLY. We use Netflix CONSTANTLY.) This post is sponsored by Netflix, of course! Lots of stuff is going on right now: it’s the end of the school year, which may or may not include a kid or two (or three) graduating or being promoted to the next level of education. Monday is Memorial Day, which means you may have plans to honor those who have made the greatest sacrifice while defending our country and plans to…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Blessings,  Fun in Chicago,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Proud Moments,  Something That Could Change Your Life

    Five.

    Sunday was a great day. On Sunday Tracey and I, along with our incredible cast of ten other women and one Pete, brought the fifth annual LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER CHICAGO show to the stage. I don’t write as much about LTYM here on Suburban Scrawl as I used to. I’m not sure why that is, because it really has become a part of my practically-daily life all year round. Being involved with LTYM on a few different levels is still a life highlight, and it just keeps on getting better. Like Sunday. Our fifth show? Wow. Time flies when you’re having fun. Five years in and it’s still a…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Food,  Friends,  Travels

    That Voodoo That You Do (or, Big Bucket of Donuts)

    I’m currently in Austin, Texas for work (we’re here to do a site visit for #BlogHerFood16, which happens in October and have you registered yet because Earlybird pricing ends 3/31!). It’s a whirlwind trip and sadly, I had to tell several friends and two relatives that I just couldn’t make any plans to meet up this time (argghhhhh). Liz and Brandi (my social media team partner, or PARDNER as they say in Texas…don’t they?) and I arrived at the Austin airport within minutes of each other, which was a pretty cool thing considering we were coming from New Jersey, California, and Illinois. We took a cab to the hotel, checked…

  • Amazing People,  Best Thing Ever,  Music

    Missy.

    In case you didn’t hear me shrieking yesterday during Super Bowl 50, Missy Elliott followed me on Twitter. Yes, THE Missy Elliott. One minute I was tweeting a reply (“I’d like to see Missy Elliott back up there!”) to Sirius XM’s question about who else I’d like to see on stage with Coldplay, Bruno Mars, and Beyonce, and the next minute, Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott herself was following me. And that’s when the evening took on an ALL CAPS flavor. (Apologies to my friends. I know how annoying that is, but MISSY ELLIOTT, YOU GUYS.) I was so excited about it that I was doing a little bit of tearing up…

  • Best Thing Ever,  Confessions,  Music

    This Week’s Obsession Is Brought To You By Missy Elliott.

    I happened to be on Facebook Thursday morning when… Okay wait, I’m almost always on Facebook so that’s nothing new. WORK, you know. Heh. Anyway, I happened to scroll my newsfeed just minutes after Missy Elliott posted that her new single, “WTF (Where They From)” featuring Pharrell Williams, was live. I actually screamed. And then I screamed again when I clicked on the video and found that I was in the first 12,000 people to see it. I mean, that’s exciting. Missy Elliott has been a favorite of mine for years. I listen to her album “Under Construction” ALL. THE. TIME. “Get Ur Freak On” and “Lose Control” and “Lady…