I love the John Hancock building. I love its location at the north end of Chicago’s Magnificent Mile (that’s the famous shopping area on Michigan Avenue). I love its structural expressionist style and the architects’ use of X-bracing on the exterior so that the building could be taller with wide open floor plans. I love the restaurants and shopping at the base. The Signature Room on the 95th floor is where my family has celebrated some of our most special occasions. And of course, I love the Observatory. Located on the 94th floor, the John Hancock Observatory (JHO) provides Chicago’s best lake view and on a clear day you can…
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Mission Accomplished.
When it comes to the stereotypical teenager-parent relationship, it would seem that there is non-stop eye-rolling, sarcasm, and lying on the teens’ part. On the other side of the coin, parents are “supposed to” enjoy embarrassing their teens on a daily basis, intentionally. Jim and I never fed into that. From the time the boys were very little, we have insisted upon mutual respect. MUTUAL respect. When the boys became tweens (11-12 years old) and were influenced a little more by their friends, they both became a little suspicious of us. It seems as though tweens start to talk with their friends about parents’ motives when it comes to everything,…
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We’re In!
Remember the concert I wrote about the other day? I’m relieved to report that everything worked out: we’re going! Look out Lenny, we’re coming atcha!
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Painting It Red
After talking about it for a year and a half, the time has finally come. We are FINALLY making preparations to paint J’s (D’s former) room. As in, we bought the paint. If his room were just any old traditional color, I wouldn’t be blogging about it. Some of you may recall, however, that the color has been an issue for some of us in the house (Jim) ever since we first applied it to the walls because of the anticipated amount of work it would eventually take to cover it. Let me refresh your memory: You can read the background story here. When D started college and J eventually…
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In Concert
Considering that Jim is into heavy metal and rock, D is into alternative and rock, J is into electronica, and I’m into pop and electronica (mostly), the fact that there are a few select recording artists that all four of us really, really like is pretty amazing. Related: I will tell you that Jim and I have dreams for our boys. Concert dreams. For years, we have told the boys that their first concert would be that of one of these select few artists, so we could all go together. You see, I have always wanted my sons’ first concert experience to be wonderful, because I am a little embarrassed…