My 800th post and winter update

Just when I was starting to get jealous of the snow in Pacific Northwest and my sister's snow fort. We get another winter storm watch warning! 

Winter Storm Watch

from Fri, 6am until Sat, 12am CST 

3-5 in of snow over the next 36 hours 

• Winter Storm Watch

  from Fri, 6am until Sat, 12am CST

	Today	Tonight	Tomorrow
Cloudy	Partly Cloudy	Mostly Cloudy	Snow
16°F	17°	9°	23°
Feels Like: 1°	High	Low	High
Past 24-hr Snow: 0.2 in (est.) Past 24-hr Precip: 0.01 in (est.)	Snowfall: 0 in Chance of Snow: 20%	Snowfall: 0 in Chance of Snow: 20%	Snowfall: 3-5 in  3 to 5 inches of snow expected Chance of Snow: 90%
Wind: From NW at 16mph gusting to 21mph	Wind: NW at 15 mph	Wind: N at 9 mph	Wind: ESE at 9 mph

Why is there more snow in Seattle than Chicago?

On Saturday night, we enjoyed Indian food and dancing in Lakeview. My cousin, Katy, and I unintentionally wore the same print from J. Crew!We danced at a place called Berlin's that had an abominable snowman behind the bar!This weekend, there was still 3-4 inches of snow in Chicago, but last night, it poured and all the snow was gone this morning. We saw flurries all day but nothing accumulated. Today, I got a text from my sister in Washington, a few hours North of Seattle, and she has 16 inches of snow! Soot, her cat, loves it. This is so bizarre! [Weather.com reports, "While rare, snow is not unheard of in Seattle.' 'The Emerald City sees much less snowfall (5.9 inches) each season than many other major cities in the northern tier of country, including Chicago and New York City."]

 Mr. F and I had a date night at mk tonight! We celebrated his bonus with a bottle of Cayuse Impulsivo. We nibbled on gravlox as we ordered appetizers of octopus and butternut squash ravioli. Mr. F ordered the venison with black mushrooms and corn grits. I had the veal porterhouse with oyster mushrooms and sugar snap peas!For dessert we had the mucho chocolate! It was the perfect finish to a lovely dinner date. We were pleasantly surprised when they gave us guava jelly and guava brownies before we left! Mr. F and I can't wait to go back and try the tasting menu!

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Quick and easy: Christmas photo card creation at Shutterfly.

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My awesome Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th was full of fun.The snow was enchanting on my morning walk to meet my car pool buddy!Fortunately the roads were clear and dry too! The plows were supremely efficient, which is so surprising to me, coming from Seattle. 

It was a co-worker's birthday yesterday, so I jumped some snow drifts to get to the bakery across the street from my work! (It must have been entertaining to see me bundled up and holding a huge cake box dodging huge snow piles crossing the street!)We got a passionfruit mousse cake, topped with whipped cream and blueberries. It was delicious and totally worth my morning snow hurdles. 

In the late afternoon, my best Chicago girlfriend, called me at work to ask me to be a bridesmaid! I'm really looking forward to her wedding. Mr. F and I hang out with the newly engaged couple almost every weekend and are so happy for them.

My company holiday party was also last night and the theme was "Hollywood Baby" at Cooper's Hawk Winery in Arlington Heights! My car pool buddy won second place and I won third place in the movie quotes trivia game. I also won one of the raffle prizes! (My prizes ended up being two wine club memberships to Cooper's Hawk winery, so I got to take home two bottles of wine!)There was fun dancing!I had a great time swing dancing with one of the docs.It was also a fantastic way to celebrate being done with the FDA audit at work!

This weekend, we're going to celebrate a friend's 29th birthday with Indian food and more dancing! Mr. F and I went to Lincoln Park for lunch. We went to Burger Bar and had these delectable gourmet burgers. I had the the High Hog, a BBQ pork burger with ham and bacon on top with white cheddar cheese and apple slaw.Mr. F got the Smokehouse burger that has a topping of brisket, white cheddar and country slaw. We both got truffle fries!

After a quick trip to Costco, we came home to this beautiful view!By the way, it's only one month until my birthday!!

Happy Weekend!

I'm going to be a bridesmaid this Fall!!

I just got asked to be a bridesmaid on Friday!!!!!!! I love wedding planning so this news, totally, made my day.


The bride got engaged on Sunday, so themes, colors and the venue have not been formalized yet. Here are some of the dresses I could imagine would work with the current ideas being thrown around:


J.Crew's Adrienne dress in silk taffeta (not in this color, perhaps the Pacific blue or a purple)

Source: jcrew.com via Emily on Pinterest

Anthropologie's Bursting Sweetshade

Source: anthropologie.com via Emily on Pinterest

I love BHLDN's Couplet dress and actually just bought because there was a 40% off all sale items! I also had a $50 gift gift card, so the dress ended up being only $26 with shipping!!

Source: bhldn.com via Emily on Pinterest

The bride to be loves J.Crew and Anthropologie, so I can't wait to see what the bridesmaids get to wear. I'm also very excited to go wedding dress shopping with her!!


Congrats to our best friends in Chicago!!

It's snowing in Chicago, heavily!

It started snowing at 10 am this morning and nearly an inch of snow per hour has fallen since then. My carpool buddy and I were lucky enough to leave work at 1pm to avoid terrible commute traffic. This is the first big snow of the season so traffic apparently gets pretty crazy.

This is my beautiful, snow covered walk home.

 It's normally only 5 blocks from where I'm dropped off, but I took a little detour to pick up some things for a friend who just got engaged!!!!First, I went to Paper Source, where I found Christmas cards and ornaments for 50% off. I also purchased some lovely vintage Valentine cards and some bride-to-be sticky notes. I may have also purchased a few bridal magazines.Four blocks from my house, I sent a text of this Jenny Yoo window display to my newly engaged friend and asked her if she'd like to visit this store soon! And then the real beauty hit me:My street is majestic in white. I couldn't stop taking pictures, even with the wind blowing snow in my face.The kitties were so happy that I got home early. They're both curled up on either side of me, as I blog.

This is the view from my window.

In an hour, I'm going to meet the bride-to-be at J.Crew to look at dresses and then have dinner. Mr. F gets back from his business trip later this evening too! I hope O'Hare doesn't delay him with all this snow. Fortunately, his flight is on time soooooo far! 

Happy January everyone!