Shots of the Weekend

I had a really great weekend.

Friday was take-out and on-demanding Country Strong.
Has anyone seen it? Holy depressing story. I'm not a huge Gwyneth fan but she did nail it!

Saturday was my blind blogger date with Allison. It was SO fun. We hugged like old friends when we met at Hot Chocolate in Wicker Park and instantly I felt like I'd known Allison for 10 years. We waited in the lounge for a while and chatted before our deeelish brunch.

Of course, we started with an appetizer. Doesn't everyone start brunch with an app? ha.

Mini doughnut sticks with raspberry preserves. So good.


But better when washed down with a blood orange Bellini
(a new twist that was thoroughly enjoyed)



I then ordered the Brioche French Bread



and Allison got the Quiche. Both were a hit!




After a couple hours of story-telling and many a laughs, we braved the bi-polar Chicago weather for some shopping.

We scoped out Vintage Underground which has so much jewelry you could go blind and decided we're definitely hitting up more thrift stores and possible estate sales when the weather changes.

It was a fabulous day and I'm so happy we met up. Now we're on to planning date number 2 :)



Oh and I saw Superwoman on the way to Wicker Park. No big deal...

Weekend Shots

I considered Thursday the start of my weekend last week since it was St. Patrick's Day. I'm Irish so of course I had corned beef! We did a traditional Irish meal with corned beef, cabbage, boiled potatoes and carrots. Some people don't like it at all but I do and actually it's a bit comforting because I've had this for almost 26 St. Patrick's Day dinners.


I decided to jazz up the table since I had my baubles around from the previous Saturday (aka green beer day)

Zapatista takes their fajitas very seriously!

The rest of my weekend was quiet with cooking, baking and lounging. I was lucky enough to find some great pieces with Gap's Give & Get Coupon. Did you end up going?

Hope your weekend was great and here's to hoping this week FLIES by.

And I recently remembered I actually set up a facebook page for LLT so go on over and see. I actually am tech savy 2% of the time....

Fashion Inspiration

My friend J is an incredibly talented fashion designer. I blogged about her before and the dress she made for our friend L's wedding.

She recently moved back to Chicago and is planning on opening her own studio and starting up shop! I'm so excited for her and I know she is going to end up being incredibly successful! Just look at some of her designs...

I can imagine wearing this so many ways.

LOVE this blouse!

The detailing on the belt is so intricate.

The dress is her raw collection and it's so beautiful in person.

If only I had a tenth of this talent!


Don't forget to enter my Lush Cosmetics giveaway. Ends tonight!

Happiness Is...

From the Chocolate Counter in Macy's on State Street. Yum.

via

J (i know too many Js!) and I caught up and ate at a staple BYOB sushi place for me: Butterfly

Meeting the girls tonight at Public House for drinks, food, and gossip!
picture via PH website

Apparently anything involving chocolate, food, and alcohol is making me happy. Intervention time?

Snapshots

Quick snapshots of my weekend....
forgot my camera so it's all through the eyes of my blackberry. whoops.

Dinner at Girl and the Goat on Sunday. I wanted SO badly to love this restaurant....but I didn't. It was 3.5 star experience. Some food was great. Others was meh.

The worst part? Our table was ON TOP of another. Some gentleman's (well that's up for debate) back was pressed up against mine. And he was rude. He put his arm/elbow on the back of my seat. Ugh, get out of here!

My main 3 thoughts for the night:
1. Don't overcrowd your restaurant. You're not a cheap diner. $$$ should equal space.
2. $4 for bread and spread? Come on.
3. Pig face. Eww.

Saturday night I went out to dinner at Angelina's and caught up with friends. It's worth a stop even if it's out of your area...so delicious!

After dinner I met up with my cousin and his wife for a night out and see our friends in from London. It was J's first night out post-baby and her friend A bought her a mini bottle of Veuve. It was baby sized!

And finally, the joys of a FREE latte because of my gold card membership.

What did your weekend entail?

Leaving On a Jet Plane

My friends & I are off for a weekend to celebrate L's final days as a single woman.

Via

The weather is acting a little bipolar right now in Austin and it might be rainy and chilly for us.

That's ok. Rain + 60 degree weather > Chicago weather.
You gotta take the good whenever you can, right?!

Via

After our weekend of debauchery, L will be well on her way to becoming Mrs. A.

It's going to be a fabulous wedding and I can't wait.

Via

What does your weekend entail?!

Gift Guide for your BFF under $30

If your friend is a bookworm...

Grab a Fingerprint Bookmark! The small book mark points to where you left off.

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For the friend who loves to cook...

A sweet and stylish apron from Anthropologie.

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For the friend who loves make-up and fun lip glosses.

MAC's 'A Tartan Tale' Lipglass Set

Via

For the friend who loves some glitz and glam

J.Crew's Ribbon-wrapped Crystal Bangle

Via



I always think shopping for my friends is relatively easy, I just wish I had an endless supply of money to spend on them!! What do you plan on buying your friends this Holiday season?

Wedding Weekend

Thanks for all of your comments about what to wear for the wedding!! I went with the strappy heels, necklace & the dress strapless. The wedding was beautiful and we had such a blast!


I ended up putting my hair in a bun and wrapped one of my Anthropologie sparkly hair ties around the bun to add some sass to it. I pinned those crazy pieces down as you can see I snapped the pic while putting pins in.

My camera died in the middle of the reception (grreaaaat) so I have to wait for my friends to send me their pics so I'll have more.

Big Congratulations to the happy couple!!!

Hope everyone had a great weekend. I was busy with the wedding, an architectural tour of the best city, movie date Life As We Know It (very cute!) Bears game and lunch with the cutest 5 month old around. I loved having the holiday off and relaxing.

Weekend Round-Up

So like I blogged about last Friday, I had one busy weekend! It was full of non-stop action.


Saturday started off with a baby shower for an old family friend. She is the cutest pregnant girl ever and all of her college friends are having babies too. They're all 31, graduates from Ohio State and all having girls. Isn't that too funny? It's the year of the girls!

Then I rushed over to truly one of my oldest friend's bachelorette party. It was Cowgirl themed and let me tell you, it was a riot. I'm not a country girl myself, but I had fun! We got line dancing lessons and then went to a couple of bars on a bus...a school bus! I can say it was my first time drinking on a school bus, that's for sure :)

To show you how far back we go...look at some of these pics. WOW! And these aren't even the earliest ones!






Sunday I went to the Sox game with my Mom, Aunt & Uncle. It was such a long game but they did bring home a W! The game started off with KC scoring 6 runs in the first inning. The first homerun of the game truly landed one row in front of our seats. Out of the 5 years we've had our partial season tickets, this has never happened! I covered my face (I kid not) because I knew it was going to bounce and I feared I'd lose my teeth! HAHA!! The best part is that I saw the replay on tv when we got home...there I was, covering my face and holding a beer. If I can find it again I'll take a picture of the screen! It was quite exciting (yet terrifying)

Oh and how could I forget...this 'Bad Boy' was a couple rows in front of us at the game. He's obviously a fan of DIY!



And finally on Monday I saw The Switch with Jennifer Aniston & Jason Bateman. I LOVED it. I was one of 4 people in the theater but that didn't stop me from laughing out loud. Bateman was amazing, as always, and it was a really cute movie. I recommend it for a quick break from reality!

I hope everyone had a great weekend! Did you do anything exciting? I have to admit I'm super excited that TV has started again...it's the little things in life, right?