I don’t do this too often because I don’t want my subscribers (ahem, do you subscribe to Suburban Scrawl? No? Click here to either add me to your feed reader or get me delivered to your inbox) to be annoyed with an extra, feeder post, but now and then I really want EVERYBODY who reads Suburban Scrawl to see a post that is considered a review because it includes brand information (and is, because of that, posted on an ad-free page that you “home page clickers” don’t see just by visiting. See why you should SUBSCRIBE???), but really rocks out as a post in general. Today is one of those…
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Melisa And The Girl And The Goat
Warning: LONG POST AHEAD. (Sorry. It’s worth it: I promise!) One of my favorite things about being a blogger is that I have been afforded experiences that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to enjoy. My non-blogger friends are often flabbergasted at my stories of, say, driving a car for a week just for the purpose of reviewing it or getting a preview copy of a television show before the general public gets to watch it. Some of these unique experiences involve meeting people who I wouldn’t normally run across on the streets of Chicago (or the western burbs for that matter). Monday night was one of those nights, and…
- Food, Friends, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, My Sister Has Mad Skillz
Chicago Food Swap: Almost Like Hanukkah!
Yesterday my sister and I drove to Forest Park so we could participate in the Chicago Food Swap. It was the second swap that co-organizers Vanessa and Emily have put on so far, but my first time going. Sadly, I missed the first one due to having other plans. I’ve been looking forward to this one for two months. Great news: it was fabulous! We had a great time. The way a food swap works (apparently this is huge in Los Angeles, by the way) is that everyone brings home-grown or homemade items, packaged so that people can pick them up and look at them. When you sign in, you…
- Blessings, Childhood Memories, Family Fun, Favorite Things, Food, I've Got Mad Skillz, My Kid Has Mad Skillz, My Mom Has Mad Skillz, Review
Birthday Traditions: Make A Cake And Eat It, Too.
A couple of weeks ago we celebrated J’s 17th birthday. SEVENTEEN. As in, “My younger–and last born–son is seventeen.” It would be really hard for me to believe if there weren’t a trail of rainbow-colored crumbs all over our family photo albums*. You see, around here birthdays mean one thing: beautifully decorated rainbow cakes (the insides are tinted in various colors). It’s a tradition my mom started, and what I love about it is the thought that goes into it, resulting in the birthday honoree feeling extra special. I remember how creative my mom was with birthday cakes when we were kids. Over the years, she made me a Holly…
- Childhood Memories, Confessions, Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?, Food, My Mom Has Mad Skillz
Old Habits Die Hard.
When he was little, J–like so many other young kids–had a strong aversion to bread crust. Unfortunately for him, I had a strong aversion to making a sandwich and then cutting off the crusts for my kid. Call me mean if you want, but I just figured that if he didn’t like the bread crust that much, he could just eat around it. I did help him out a little bit, though, by cutting his sandwiches into quarters on the diagonal. This way, he could nibble what he considered “the good stuff” all the way down to the crust. That picture above, though? That was my sandwich, from yesterday’s lunch.…