Nurse on the Run

Greetings from the friendly skies!  It’s been another quick trip to Chicago, as it always seems like.  I hadn’t been home since Christmas, so I had to cram in a lot over the course of five days…I think even if I had five weeks it would feel like it went by too fast, and now I”m on my way back to NYC.

Not that I need a reason to go back home to Chicago (…at what point do I stop saying, “Home to Chicago"??  Anyone?  And does the question mark go inside the quotation?), but the main purpose of this visit was to attend my brother’s fiance’s wedding shower.  The wedding is in September, and my side of the family threw a wedding shower for the bride-to-be.  As far as wedding showers go, it was pretty low-key…lunch at Egg Harbor, one of my favorite Chicagoland restaurants (full disclosure:  I used to work there!), with some presents and cupcakes.

Cupcakes, you say?  Of course my mom volunteered me to make cupcakes, and per my future sister-in-law’s interests, my mom thought it’d be a great idea to make cupcakes decorated to look like pigs.  Basically, she likes pigs like I like elephants, so this would normally make sense.  However, I wasn’t totally sure how some people would take the idea of making pigs for a bride’s wedding shower.  I consulted my brother on the appropriate flavor (red velvet it is!) and decorations, so I got the okay for pig cupcakes.  I arrived home on Friday and set to work on the cupcakes, with my favorite assistant baker, Katie, by my side.  After a short trip to the grocery store where we stood in the candy aisle to get inspiration for how to make the ears and eyes, we set to work.  Finished product:

Lots of pink piggies!

Love it.  I surgically applied toe snout sprinkles with tweezers.

Since I’m not a huge fan of red velvet cupcakes (did you know they use a full container of red food coloring to make them red??  I call it “cancer in a cupcakes.”, I made my signature lemon cupcakes with blueberry frosting (it was a layer in Sara’s wedding cake!) for those who maybe weren’t interested in red velvet.  They’re pretty:

In flower cupcake holders, compliments of my aunts!

We headed to Egg Harbor Cafe for the shower, where my former manager wonderfully set us up with the back room and let us stay after the restaurant was closed.  I pondered asking for my job back, but I suppose I should stick with nursing.  (They also remember the cupcake creations I used to bring into work!  haha.)  Some highlights from the shower:

Egg Harbor!  Cupcakes!  P is for Pass!

My lunch!  Chicken, bacon, apples, onions, and brie.  So good.

Keurig that my brother registered for. 

How people ate the cupcakes, haha.

Me, future sister-in-law, twin sister!

Overall, a successful shower with some wonderful food and time spent with family and friends.  Next up, the wedding in September!

hey chicago, what do you say??

In case you were wondering, no summertime trip to Chicago is complete without a Cubs game.  My friend Katie (same mentioned above!) is a high school teacher, so she’s on summer break, which is perfect for me kidnapping her to do whatever I please…luckily, she willingly goes to Cubs game!  When I mentioned I wanted to go to a Cubs game, she bought tickets before I had a chance to change my mind.  Ironically, the Cubs played the Mets, so it was a little taste of New York in Chicago.  A beautiful (yet windy and a little chilly, actually) night in Chicago, we go to watch some baseball!

Happiest place on Earth.

The Miller Lite sign in right field always changes based on who the Cubs are playing, and this was the New York-inspired sign.  I like it:

The Mets were not hitting on Monday night, that’s for sure.

In Wrigley Field tradition, we ate brats and drank beer, sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with the entire crowd (“…for it’s root, root, root, for the CUBBIES”), listened to the real organ, made “well, we won’t be playing in October…” joke with the people sitting around us, and stood up to await the final out.  You have some good traditions, Wrigley.  Other excitement included getting a David DeJesus bobble head for being one of the first 10,000 fans.  Ironically, he didn’t even play.

 Gatsby asked him to sign his jersey.  He declined.

And the most exciting?

CUBS WIN!  CUBS WIN!

The final score was 6-1, and although we definitely earned at least two of those runs…the three errors  in the bottom of the seventh resulting in three triples certainly helped the cause.  We certainly enjoyed singing “Go Cubs Go” at the end of the game!

Thanks, Wrigley (and Katie!), for completing my Chicago experience.

other highlights

Because my Chicago life doesn’t solely consist of make cupcakes and going to Cubs games, I had a wonderful time otherwise.  Other highlights include:

• Quick dinner with my (other) friend Katie (and her husband!)…it was a quick dinner, but good to see her.  Hopefully for a longer period of time in September!
• Dinner outside on the back patio.  I love NYC, but the backyard sure is nice.
• PUPPY.  Miles is cute as can be.
• A walk with mom.  My favorite.  And shopping with mom!
• Making Katie and my family watch both 10ks on Friday night.  Go Dathan!
• RUNNING.

running

Oh yeah, this is a running blog, I suppose I should talk about something other than my travels lately.  But I ran at home!  Three times!  With no pain!  Hooray!

To say that the running is going easy would be a little bit of a lie…I consider a “successful” run to be one without pain, not one where I felt awesome and felt like I could run forever.  Because honestly I feel much more like a slug than anything else, and although I know it’s just the fact that I’ve been out of commission for almost four months, it still makes me question whether my “I love running 16 miles!” legs will come back.  And when I won’t feel like a tank on legs.  (I know I”m not, okay?  Just let me be dramatic.)

But I successfully made it through three runs, and while the last two made me think my endurance will never come back (five miles each, hooray!), I managed to run eight (eight!!) miles on Sunday.  It took me back on one of my favorite high school routes (Freeman Rd, if anyone knows) and it gave me some of my confidence back.  I took a couple breaks here and there just because I’m being overly careful, but I made it!  And my pace wasn’t crazy slow!

Okay, I know I shouldn’t worry about pace, but it is in the back of my mind.  So there’s that.  Soon enough I’ll talk about what was going on with my back (still not totally sure, actually…), but for now I’m happy to be out there running again, putting one foot in front of another.  Pain free.  Let me know if you want to run. 

For now, time to finish flying over Pennsylvania and get back to NYC!  Fingers crossed this turbulence doesn’t last…

Have you been to Chicago?  Do you like Wrigley?  Can you please convince Jocelyn it’s a city worth visiting???