My Dad retired last year after nearly forty years in the hospitality industry as a hotel manager. I spent lots of time in hotels as a kid. We lived in some of them temporarily, and when we weren’t living in them we were using the pools or eating in the restaurants. Dad managed Holiday Inns the most through my growing-up years, and I have tons of awesome memories from his time working for that chain. In fact, when it was time to make a cake for his retirement party I used the vintage Holiday Inn sign as inspiration. (It was pretty cool: you can see that cake HERE.) His first…
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Experiencing The Luxury of ESPA Skin Care Products At The Peninsula Spa
Remember when I visited The Peninsula Spa in Chicago for their new, heavenly Bamboo Harmonizer Massage? I walked out that day thinking, “Wow, this place is dreamy. I hope I get to come back sometime soon!” As it turned out, “sometime soon” came sooner than I imagined it could when I was invited to an intimate breakfast at the Peninsula Hotel with Sue Harmsworth, Founder and CEO of ESPA (a luxury line of beauty products), followed by a facial. I mean, is this real life??? I made my way to the city and, upon meeting Sue was immediately both charmed and impressed. This woman, who is in her late 60s…
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New 1893 World’s Fair Exhibit At Chicago’s Field Museum!
When I was working on my book a couple of years ago, I researched the 1893 World’s Fair pretty extensively for the chapter I wrote about Chicago history. The World’s Columbian Exposition, as it was also called, is extremely fascinating to me. Here’s some of what I wrote about it: “The World’s Columbian Exposition was conceptualized as an 1892 celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ voyage to the New World. The cities of St. Louis, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago competed fiercely for the privilege of hosting the World’s Fair and representing the United States to the rest of the world. (Chicago ended up having the deepest…
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Healthy Choice Baked Entrées: No Guilt!
This is the third (and last) in a series of sponsored posts I’m writing for the folks at Healthy Choice. I often look back on our pre-technology days and wistfully mutter about the simplicity of life back then. Usually only a minute or so goes by before I give myself a mental slap because truly, technology has indeed made almost everything easier. Take a second to remember how your life was before–ahem, depending on your age–computers, cell phones, MP3 players, DVRs, microwaves, television, automobiles, indoor plumbing… Wait, too far back? Okay, never mind. When I found out that my final Healthy Choice post would be about their Baked Entrées–and this…
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Bamboo Harmonizer Massage At Chicago’s The Peninsula Spa: Ahh-mazing!
I have been writing articles about the nuts and bolts of running a salon (marketing, customer service, employee issues, etc.) for NAILPRO, a salon industry trade magazine, on a regular basis–eight to ten features a year!–since 2006. (See?) I have interviewed lots of people in the beauty industry over the years as a part of my research, from nail technicians who work out of their home or in rented strip mall booths to managers of mid-sized salons to high profile people like Katie Cazorla and Tabatha Coffey. The similarities and differences of successful salons and spas fascinate me. Recently I was asked by the folks at The Peninsula Spa (located…
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Healthy Choice 100% Naturals Café Steamers: Feedback = More Options!
This is the second in a series of sponsored posts I’m writing for the folks at Healthy Choice. A couple of weeks ago I told you about Healthy Choice Greek Frozen Yogurt. (Yum.) Today I want to tell you about their 100% Naturals Café Steamers, which just hit stores in July. I was already a fan of the other Café Steamers varieties (I love the way you cook these things and THEN stir the meat and veggies into the sauce after everything is warm, so the stuff that is supposed to be crisp stays crisp and the pasta is al dente, not mushy from sitting in liquid!), so the new…
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Road Tripping with the Chevrolet Malibu: It’s the Little Things
Over the summer* I drove a Chevrolet Malibu for a week, through several states. (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, in case you were curious.) It was super-fun. Driving new, clean cars is ALWAYS super-fun, you know? Adding to the fun was the fact that this was my first road trip with a borrowed GM vehicle that was a car and not an SUV or a truck. Don’t get me wrong: I have LOVED driving those big vehicles, but this was a great change. It was just Jim and me, so we didn’t need a huge amount of space like we do when we’re traveling with the whole crew. The…
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LTYM & The Partnership at Drugfree.org Blog Tour
I was tremendously honored to participate in a live-streaming event on Tuesday evening for LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER and The Partnership at Drugfree.org (LTYM’s National Video Sponsor) to try and bring about some awareness and help #EndMedicineAbuse. During the live-stream, I joined ten other writers in reading our essays on personal connections to addiction, substance use, and what we want our children to know about the medicine abuse epidemic. It was a very, very powerful hour. If you missed it, don’t worry. We’re doing a blog tour, making our essays available to everybody. We also recorded the live-stream (there are three parts), so ready? Here we go. I recommend watching…
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Healthy Choice Greek Frozen Yogurt: Okay, YUM.
Ever since I was in the hospital for pancreatitis this summer I have been doing my best to follow a low-fat diet, with little treats thrown in now and then because one must enjoy life, am I right? Admittedly the whole eating thing can be a challenge at our house, because while I try to follow a low-fat, low-sodium diet, Jim has to follow a low-sugar diet. Unfortunately some of the very best foods for me are the very things he has to avoid, and vice versa, so it’s a balancing act. When the folks at Healthy Choice asked me to do a series of reviews for them, I quickly…
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Visiting Skydeck Chicago…Again (and a Giveaway)!
Back in the summer of 2011, I was selected to be an “Ambassador” of Skydeck Chicago, which is the attraction/observation deck found (mostly) on the 103rd floor of the building technically known now as the Willis Tower (but still called the Sears Tower by me and the majority of Chicago natives). I thoroughly enjoyed my summer two years ago, making multiple trips up there for various fun reasons. Here’s the famous building in question: Wait, let’s get a little closer: See those four boxes all the way up there on the left? They make up “The Ledge”, which has kept visitors shaking in their boots (sometimes even from the ground…