As you no doubt recall from the last two posts, my endless tweeting, and possibly my Facebook statuses, Momofali and her lovely, funny, and super-cute daughter visited me this weekend. I issued a challenge to you, to take a stab at guessing how many attractions I could show the two of them in the course of 2 1/2 days. I even made a little contest out of it, and decided to do a random drawing from all of the comments for a mini Chicago souvenir prize pack. But more about that at the end of this post. (See how I did that? Now you have to look at my vacation…
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- Amazing People, Family Fun, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, Something That Could Change Your Life
All In A Day’s Work.
I’m home from the city and my meeting on the 103rd floor of the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower), which happens to be Skydeck Chicago, otherwise known as the observation deck and home of The Ledge! I have so much to share with you and yet today I will only scrape the surface. I am thrilled to announce that I have been chosen to be (along with three others) an Ambassador of Skydeck Chicago for the summer. It will be my job to showcase and share the various features that make up the whole Skydeck Chicago experience, and hopefully get a bunch of you to go and visit so…
- Amazing People, Best Thing Ever, Blessings, Chicken in the Car, Favorite Things, Food, Friends, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, Proud Moments, Shameless Promotion, Something That Could Change Your Life, Spreading the Bloggie Love
My Official Book Launch: An Epic Celebration of All Things Chicago
I don’t even know where to start when it comes to summarizing my book launch event that occurred in the city on Tuesday night. I would love to tell you about everything, but I don’t want this post to be a novel and so I have to skip the fine points on: ~ all of the ideas I tossed around in my head starting about two months ago as this event was conceptualized ~ the great conversations (and epiphanies) I had with the ladies of my “Event Advisory Board” (I made up that name but it’s perfect), made up of friends who have experience with the ins and outs of…
- Chicken in the Car, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, Proud Moments, Something That Could Change Your Life
Move Along, Nothing To See Here…
I know. It’s been a few days. Well, only four, but in the blogosphere, four days can seem like an eternity. In fact, I have lots to share but no time to share it at the moment. I met my publisher in person over the weekend when we drove down south (in a loaner Chevy Tahoe Hybrid from General Motors, thank you very much!) for my niece’s graduation: my publisher’s office is only about twenty minutes from my sister-in-law’s house. I got a great package from the United Kingdom, full of goodies that made me totally giddy. I got a great package from Cape Cod, containing something that made me…
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The Icing On The Cake
Late last week, J–who, until recently, was considering a Culinary Arts major in college (he decided that he’d rather go towards music/business, and be an excellent hobby cook instead!)–came to me and said, “Hey mom, would you be interested in helping me make a cake for H (his girlfriend) this weekend?” The question shocked me a little bit, because it’s been ages since we’ve had the time around here to even consider spending time in the kitchen, let alone together. I was thrilled that he asked me, and I vowed to make the time. I asked him what kind of cake he wanted to make, and he said he had…
- Best Thing Ever, Chicken in the Car, Family Fun, Fun in Chicago, I've Got Mad Skillz, Something That Could Change Your Life, Travels
It’s A Book!
So, just another weekend…sigh. NOT! Ahem, in case you missed it, go to http://chickeninthecar.com to preorder. All books ordered from that site will be signed; if you want your copy signed TO you and/or the members of your family, leave that information in the special instructions! Whee! IT’S A BOOK!
- Best Thing Ever, I've Got Mad Skillz, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, My Kid Has Mad Skillz, Proud Moments
Welcome To My New Home!
EXCITING, right? I am in so in love with my new digs! I hope you feel comfortable too. Pull up a chair…can I get you a drink or anything? I want to thank my son D for taking my design and recreating it in Photoshop with sharper colors than I could get while just using the program I was using, and for making my funky little social media icon stars. I also owe a HUGE thanks to my friend Ri–who rocks–and is a total genius. She helped me immensely with all of the back-end web craziness and I couldn’t have done this without her. I have a few minor kinks…
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Sometimes You Can’t Find Something Until You Stop Looking For It.
Heads up: more big changes are just around the bend around here! A little more than a year ago, I bought my own dot com. I had big plans to get this blog moved as soon as possible. Well, you know how that goes. Once I got busy with my book, I let the “moving the blog” thing go out of my head for a while, figuring that as long as the dot com is in my possession, I didn’t need to rush things. I started thinking about it again in January, and when I spoke to my very talented webmistress about helping me make the move, she told me…
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I Stand Corrected.
The last few weeks have been a blur, mostly. I have been in the throes of editing (and editing*) the manuscript for my book. Here’s an approximation of how this process went (I can only write this to the best of my limited memory: I just mentioned how much of a blur my recent past has been, remember?): 1. Back in January, I edited the entire manuscript (240 pages, nearly 50,000 words) for what may have already been the fifth or sixth time before sending it to my publisher so she could have her editor mark it up. 2. On March 2 (was it only THIRTEEN DAYS AGO? Oy vey.),…
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Two Cars For One Sixteen-Year-Old
Yesterday was a pretty exciting day around here: J turned sixteen. As you know, sixteen is a huge milestone for a teenager, with the ability to get a driver’s license and all. J will be taking his driver’s test at the end of the month, because he still has about 7 permit hours to go, and the nine-month permit period isn’t over yet. At ANY rate, I thought–especially since we are not the type of parents who would buy our kids a car at sixteen, even if we could afford it–that I would make his traditional rainbow cake in the shape of a car. Taking the idea even further, I…