It's ours! We got the apartment... AND we don't have to paint it! yippeeee!! We are going over tomorrow to see it again and sign the lease. Get ready for a housewarming party.... probably not for 6 weeks though. :)

Apartment City

We are deep in the waters of apartment hunting. We've seen a couple of places that we really like. Now we just have to figure out what kind of compromises we're willing to make. A nice busy neighborhood in exchange for the lake. A bus ride for the train. Closet space for a PARKING SPACE! Keep your fingers crossed.... hopefully we will get everything finalized this weekend! However there is a paint color situation we hope can be resolved without our blood, sweat, and tears being brought into the mix because we don't have a lot of time to paint a whole apartment. If it comes down to that, though, we will desperately be looking for help!

Weekend Ramblings

I FINALLY went out for Indian food, guys! I've lived so close to Devon for the past two years and I'd never been to an Indian restaurant before. (This has been attributed to a couple of friends bad homemade Indian-inspired dishes)

Guess what? I loved it. We went to Hema's Kitchen on Oakley with Craig and Latha. I had a Mango Lassi to drink. Then we all shared Poori (delicious deep fried puffy bread) Vegetable Samosas and Chicken Tandoori, Chicken Vindaloo, Dal, Sag Paneer, Chana Gosht, Haryali Chicken and of course Basmati Rice. Then we walked around Devon for a while and ended up at Sukhadia's for sweets! There were all kinds of little colorful sweet things, so we got a box that was sampling. I can't describe all of it but I was definitely in a sugar coma by the time they dropped us off at home. I feel asleep on the couch.

I know this might be a little mean, but we kept making jokes about this salon that we passed on Devon called "Mahboob". You can imagine....
They also do piercings there NOT KIDDING!

All in all, everything was great and we had a lot of fun. It's amazing that little India is less than a mile from where we live, such a bustling, busy little area of town. Next time I'm hitting up the fabric stores!

Even though I wasn't exactly following my diet last night, I have been doing really well. I bought frozen yogurt to eat instead of ice cream. And I went a whole week without dessert. Also been riding my bike to work at least 4 times a week! Woo hoo! And have been doing a bike ride or walking on the weekends.

Yesterday we did some apartment hunting. We found a place we really like, but it was very dirty and we hope the landlord will bring it up to our standards before we would move in. It's on a side street off Howard in a small 1920's 8 unit building. So cute. The layout was perfect and it had all these little vintage details, like some of the light fixtures, and a little stained glass window in the hallway. The dining room had a cove ceiling. The back porch was clean (wow, no pigeons!) I wasn't in love with the cupboards. There was one old metal cupboard that was painted white, but it just looked gross. The other cupboards in the kitchen were that oaky-colored stuff... I would rather have it be painted white. Same with the cupboard under the bathroom vanity. But at least it had a lot of storage and closet space. I'm not sure how we feel about moving all the way up to Howard though.

Our other option is a building that is about 8 blocks from here and it was VERY clean, but the building manager was hard to communicate with, and a little on the pushy side. It was large enough but the layout wasn't as great. However, it would be closer to our part of Rogers Park. I think I'm falling in love with the Morse area. I know that might sound crazy to some of you people...

Well I think I'm going to go walking.

Sweet Thunder's Successor - The Rise of the Antelope

Speaking of ice cream and what-not.... Sarah has been indulging a little too much these days. So, to counter act that, and also to save $$$ I started riding my bike to work this week! It's about 5 miles one way so I'm getting about 10 miles of riding in each day. AND I save $4 every day that I ride. It's amazing.

So this is me with THE bike. It's actually Steve's bike, and was his dad's bike before that. This is the Antelope - descendant of Sweet Thunder. I feel like one of those cool bike people, as you can see from the photo.

I have noticed a few extra spider veins on my legs, but oh well.

I just went for a bike ride with Melissa. We stopped at the Fireside Lounge for a snack ;) Maybe I'll review them on Yelp.

Steve was gone for the weekend visiting his brother in Columbus. I had plenty of Sarah time involving watching Romancing the Stone and sewing in front of the televsion. But it did NOT involve ice cream and I'm very proud of that fact.

Farmers Market Finds and the 4th of July

This blog entry is LONG over due. Of course it will contain many photographs.

I've been visiting the Evanston Farmer's Market again! These are from two weeks ago....

I bought a bunch of pink gladiolas for 5 bucks. I love having glads for the 4th. I know, I know! They are funeral flowers. But I don't care. I think they have a lovely shape and are a great focal point in any room. I wouldn't leave them on the table during a meal, though, or you wouldn't be able to see your guests!

Also picked up some fresh blueberries, basil, shiso, AND blue goat cheese...

I saw a booth with cheese in it, and being the turophile that I am I mosied on over. They had all sorts of goat cheese, including BLUE goat cheese. Since I love goat cheese AND blue cheese I thought, how can I go wrong? When I was in the vegetable booth and found shiso leaves (which I have eaten many times in sushi rolls) I was told that shiso was very good in scrambled eggs. Not quite remembering the exact flavor of shiso, I put it in my eggs with I got home along with the cheese - BAD IDEA. It wasn't very good. The flavors clashed so much I could hardly finish my meal. Shiso must be part of the mint family (I didn't check for square stems) because it has a very fresh, minty taste. However, it was a great addition to the cucumber salad I made on the 4th.

Here's the cheese! The next day I tried the cheese again with scrambled eggs this time with apple chicken sausage, and it was much better, but I think the cheese itself is a little too strong for eggs. Later on, we went to a birthday party for Rusty, Julie's boyf, in Pilsen and I took some cheese for my burger. Deeeee-licious! Of course, I'm a sucker for a burger with blue cheese. By the way, Julie made this AWESOME dessert - Chocolate Guinness cake with Guinness ice cream. Apparently you reduce the Guinness before adding it to the custard. It had a very dark, bitter flavor. I loved it. For those of you who enjoy dark chocolate or coffee ice cream - this is right up your alley.
We had a nice 4th. On the 3rd we had Latha and Craig over for dinner. I broiled some kebabs and we had potato green bean salad (vinegar based) and cucumber tomato salad (also vinegar based) and of course there was dessert - the annual 4th of July berry cobbler with the blueberries from the farmer's market. We walked to the pier to see if we could see fireworks, and we could, but they were less than spectacular because they were so far away. Also it's strange that everyone has their fireworks display on the 3rd instead of the 4th. But anyway...
on the 4th Steve had to work. I went walking with Kaitlyn then to the thrift store, Village Discount on Clark at Lawrence. It was packed with people. You could hardly move. Everything was half off! I got a couple of things and only spent $8, including this cute little dress that fits me PERFECTLY. I love it! It's the perfect summer cotton dress.

We hung out at Craig's show and then went to see Transformer's, which was actually pretty good. I was surprised.

Crochet Coral Reef

I haven't been knitting the usual amount lately.

I've been crocheting a coral reef!!!

There is an ongoing project I'm participating in that's taking place in Chicago. The end result will be exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center in October.

Please go to www.sarahbellis.com/knitting/ for more information. I'm working on hosting a workshop in Rogers Park for the reef. ANYONE can participate.