A night out on the town!

Last week was a sisters night - we went downtown and saw the best musical/story every created - Les Miserables. 
I know I'm getting older and more sentimental (i.e. too much like my mom) because I cried through the whole thing. 
It was such a lovely night, the Cadillac Palace theater is extremely gorgeous and ornate. One of my favorite things about Chicago is all the beautiful old theaters. Cameras were not allowed inside, but I snuck a few anyways (couldn't resist!)

Today

I am absolutely convinced that if you start your day like this...as in, a cup of good tea with a pretty saucer and some meditation and scripture reading...it's going to be a better day.

Tea of choice: Rooibos Rose Garden from Teavana

Scripture of choice: Isaiah 30:15,18

"In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength...the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore, He will rise up to show you compassion, for the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are those who wait for Him!"

Crafting and gifting...

My sister-in-law will be delivering our brand new little niece to us in approximately TWO WEEKS!!
Last week she had a baby shower, and I wanted to give her something special and home-made. So I got my trusty Singer out, yet again (I have always had this strange habit of naming inanimate objects...I am feeling compelled to do the same for my Singer. Please, leave a comment with a name suggestion and I will consider it!)

I gathered my supplies (got some cute trim, a hot glue gun, diaper cloths, and cute, soft flannel fabric)

And labored in love (no pun intended :) for every evening that week, cutting, measuring, pinning, trimming, ironing, hemming, folding, and sewing...

For a finished product that looked like this:

Then I packaged it nicely with some of the cutest little shoes (not that she doesn't already have enough shoes in this size to last an eternity), some of my favorite childrens' books, some little pink socks and mini hangers and wrapped it all up:

I'll admit, I was quite proud of it - definitely the most time and creative energy I've put into a baby gift - so this little miss what's-her-name better appreciate it!...it might be hard though, since it turns out, FOUR other people made her home-made burp cloths!! Ha! Oh well...if this child has reflux, she is well-prepared!

Snow!

 Well, we survived Snowmageddon here in the Midwest.
I'll admit, this morning when we woke up to look out the window and see this:

I was originally a little overwhelmed.
But we grimly suited up in our armor to face the battle:

And we opened the garage door to see this...oh, it was so beautiful, no worries, we can handle this!

Here we are, still happy and optimistic, as we gas up the snowblower and prepare to fight

And then, I'm sorry...I don't have any pictures of fifteen minutes later, when we are sweating and shaking with exhaustion and ready to kill each other because of our frustration. Turns out our little snowblower can't quite handle 4-5 foot snow drifts and suddenly our 40 foot driveway might as well be the Nile, and eating a huge egg/toast/sausage breakfast minutes before shoveling is not seeming like such a great idea.
But alas, thank God for wonderful, kind, generous neighbors with industrial-strength snowblowers!

With everyone working together, eventually it seemed most driveways on the block were cleared. Nothing to bring the neighborhood together like the end of the world!
We passed around the coffee and homemade cookies, taking breaks to gawk at passersby, such as the lady cross-country skiing down the street, or the child sledding down Olive St. or the neighbors on the ATVs

It certainly isn't every day that the street is so buried you can hardly see the hydrants, or you can just lie face-up to the sky right in the path of traffic.

Well, in between all the picture-snapping and snow-angel-making, we did manage to get ourselves unburied (thanks to our neighbor Brian for the gas, Lee for snowblowing, and Bob for offering coffee!)

And once we recovered from all the back-breaking work

(which the cats desperately wanted to be a part of but could merely watch through the window)

We had time to walk through the lovely snowscape and enjoy the beauty.

And at the end of the day, who can complain about the cold and inconvenience as they witness the setting sun filtering behind the dangling icicles as they dissolve over the snowdrifts.