Last fall I went to Duck Duck Goat for dim sum with my sister and her friends. Duck Duck Goat, if you don't know, is Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard's Asian-inspired restaurant in Chicago. It was also the one restaurant on my list of 12 restaurants to go to in 2019 that I actually went to...
At the beginning of 2019 I made a list of 12 restaurants that I really wanted to go to, one for each month of the year. I have this tendency to go to the same handful of places over and over again. To never leave my neighborhood. To sacrifice quality for convenience. To say, "I really want to go there," to a new opening or a recommendation or a best-of list selection and then never actually go. So, I thought, I'm going to make this list and try one new place every month. And then, in the entirety of 2019, I made...
Earlier this year my friend recommended a book called Pivot to me. I went to the library to find this book and, even though the Chicago Public Library's website said that it was on the shelf, it wasn't where it should have been. So I picked up this other book called Pivot instead, because I did find that where it was supposed to be. Same same, right? I mean, I'm sure both books covered basically the same ideas, just probably with different audiences in mind. Both were focused on reinventing your life and your career. Both were focused on switching gears. Anyways, I...
Do you have lists of things you want to do and that would be easy to do but you just never do? I do. I'm not talking about the big, monumental things. I'm not talking about walking the Camino in Spain or riding a motorbike across Vietnam or learning to ride a motorbike so you could drive it across Vietnam. I'm talking about the little things. The things that would take an hour or two. An afternoon. The things in your own city or even your own house. The things that could be accomplished with minimal effort. There are always restaurants I want...
A few weeks ago I took a random Monday off from work. I'm actually pretty terrible at taking my vacation days off. I always feel like I need to save them up for big trips that I never end up taking or to get paid out for if I ever find a new job. So I never end up taking those one-off me days, three day weekends, or time off just for the hell of it. It just feels like I'm wasting those vacation days to take them for no reason. You know? But then, in April, I literally worked the...
February was short, 28 days, but it felt, in many ways, much longer. February is always a weird month, a transition from gung-ho January into the reality of a new year. Over the last month, I feel like I got a little more lax with my "diet," it got a little harder to get up before sunrise to get myself to the gym. I mean, when you wake up, daily, to this, it's hard to want to get out of bed and leave your apartment. And, with the freezing Chicago weather, it's also been really hard to not want to spend the...
I'm always good at Januaries. I'll make all my resolutions on the first of the month and then hit the ground running towards my goals. Of course, that momentum usually fizzles come February...
I turned 38 over the weekend and it's officially safe to say that I am in my "late thirties." At 37 I could still say mid-thirties and be, technically, OK, but there is no denying that 38 is no longer mid. 38 lands in a solidly late position. Last year, turning 37, I wasn't really into my birthday. I just wasn't in a good place in my life and didn't have any energy or desire to celebrate turning one more year closer to 40. I ended up choosing a bar close to home, thanking friends when they kept cancelling because I didn't...
I always get kind of nervous to look back, in December, at the resolutions I had made for the year back in January. Usually, by now, I've completely forgotten what, exactly, I pledged to do with my twelve fresh months. Oh, who am I kidding, I usually forget by February. I was pleasantly surprised, though, this year, when I reread my 2018 New Year's resolutions. Sure, there were things I knew I didn't accomplish. I didn't lose any weight or really cut down on sugar like I wanted to do. I mean, I guess I did lose some weight and did cut...
Recently I've been going through all of my old blog posts. Ones from 2006, 2007, 2008. The last time I switched hosting and themes I lost all of my featured images (🔝🔝🔝) so I've been replacing those. I've been updating broken links. I've been adding more photos since I used to only post one or two and then link to now-defunct gallery pages for more. I've been cleaning up typos, adding alt tags, cross linking, writing meta descriptions. And, wherever possible, I've been reworking them to align with my SEO strategy. Of course, most of the posts are hopeless. They are...