Road trippin up (or down) I-65

A great majority of the day was spent in the car with my mom, traversing north on Interstate 65 towards Chicago. I have made this drive countless times over the past nine and a half years that I could almost do it with my eyes closed (although this is a dare I will not attempt).

I wish I could say this drive was exciting, but its a far cry from it. The terrain is flat, there are too many billboards for adult toy superstores, and the cops are fond of handing out tickets (I know from experience). However, I am a firm believer in finding adventure whenever you travel and there are a few sights one can take in should you ever find yourself cruising along I-65.

A favorite stop of mine is Fair Oaks Farms. A dairy farm about eighty miles from 90/94 it's a perfect place to stop off and fill up both your gas tank and your stomach.  An ideal break from the typical highway fast food fare they serve up fresh eats, made with ingredients from the farm. They make a mean grilled cheese, and they have a great selection of farm made ice cream. You can sample all of their cheeses and tour the many barns and learn about the workings of a dairy farm.  I still have yet to venture past the cheese tasting area, but I vow soon to get the full Fair Oaks experience.

Did you know that in the heartland of America a little wine country is being built? Hard to believe but its true, and if you want to get a sampling of some varietals just hop along the Indy Wine Trail. I have stopped at a few of these over the years, but today my mom and I took a little detour to the Mallow Run Winery in Bargersville, Indiana. I had remembered this winery because its located in a hundred year old barn and has a great tasting room set up.  You can sample up to six wines for no charge and they have a lot of wine themed gifts and other locally made items.

Now let's be honest, Indiana isn't known for great wines by any means, and a bunch of the wines they offered at Mallow run are on the sweet side, which is not my cup of tea at all, but we did pick up a very drinkable Syrah as a thank you gift for my downstairs neighbors who have been great kitty-sitters, and I snagged two delicious smelling hand crafted candles. It's not a winery for an aficionado (I am not there yet, but I am working on it) but its a lovely setting and inexpensive experience if you want to change things up. I plan on hitting a few more of the wineries on my next I-65 go round.

Probably one of the coolest parts of I-65 is the new sprawling wind farm that has sprung up in recent years. You are driving down the road with nothing but flat farmland on the horizon and then out of nowhere a sheet of wind turbines take over and makes for a very cool few minutes of travel. They are so grand as they tower above you and spin in the wind all the while creating clean energy for the masses. Every time I go through it I think "Ah....Progress."

The moral of this entry is simple: so often we are so focused on getting from point A to point B that we fail to notice the unique opportunities around us. If we all allowed ourselves to take our time and perhaps (gasp) turn off the main road and onto a side street who knows what we might find? In the end will the extra thirty minutes really make that big a difference? We can all embody the spirt of great explorers no matter where we are travelling.

Now I leave you with some more photos, taken from the passenger seat of the beautiful windmills. I am not photographer but a certain app on my phone can take any picture and turn it into a work of art.

Simple Pleasures: Wine Nights

Several years ago I was in a play. A really bad play. A play that was so bad it had to close early and made several "worst of theatre" lists in Chicago. However out of extreem badness total awesomeness can arise and it was from this diabolical production that I made two of my dearest friends today. Coincidentally they both share the same name and I dub them "My Sara(h)'s". Becoming friends with them made the utter embarrassment of that show totally worth it.

The summer of 2006 (which was the summer of the bad play) we began getting together for what we termed "wine nights". It was chance to go to someones home, drink wine (of course) eat some snacks and generally gab and be girlie. We made a point to have a wine night every couple of months and after a time they have become a pretty regular monthly tradition. It's amazing to think that its been over four years since the tradition began! In this time a baby has been born, a marriage has taken place, someone has moved to New York (and back again) while another cohabited with their significant other, jobs have been lost and gained and soon one of us will be off to grad school. Times may change, but the beauty of a wine night never does.

Sometimes are wine nights are centered around a theme, we have made vision boards, we have had veggie (from our CSA!) nights, we have gone to a BYOB restaurants, the possibilities are endless. It's not a novel concept, it's pretty simple really, but it's a tradition I cherish so deeply. And while I know that life's evolutions will make it challenging to keep these nights regular,  even if they have to stop I will always have the memory of them, and for that I am so grateful.

I deeply encourage people to create such nights with their friends. Life gets so busy sometimes and its so easy to let the days fly by without really connecting with anyone. Text messaging, facebook wall posting and tweeting have replaced real human interaction and have tricked us into thinking we are connected. We are not. We are informed, but we are not connected. There is a difference. I just came home from a wine night and during the entire evening not one of us checked our phones, or our email, or our facebook once. We didn't need too. We were totally contant and enjoying one another's company. It's the simple stuff, the free stuff, the no iphone app is as good as a true friend who listens stuff. I am blessed to have friends who are so willing and open to be so present.

So my Sara(h)'s: I raise a glass to you. For our friendship, now and always.

War Torn Umbrellas

Mother Nature has declared war on New york, and her chosen weapon of mass destruction: rain.  Massive amounts of rain.  She can be so cruel sometimes, and after a few days with winks of spring weather, she pulled out all the stops in the forms of fat, cold, dense raindrops coupled with gusts of wind that rival the winds of Chicago. Those winds I was more than happy to leave behind yet they seem to have journeyed East. You see the terror on everyones face as they walk through the doors from the outside: the pink cheeks, hair plastered to the sides of their faces, droplets falling from their earlobes.  Everyone wearing the same expression of disbelief mixed with frustration. Being wet and cold is no fun. No fun at all.

Then there are the carnage lined streets.  I wasn't prepared for such a sight but everywhere you turn you see the remnants of a life cut short. A life that was meant to travel miles, to serve and protect.

It was on my walk home when I chose to capture the final moments of this young ones life. I have no idea where it had been or to whom it belonged but I swear it whispered to me "please tell the plastic polka dotted angel, with her faux-wooden handle, who I met in the coat check of The Oak Room...I never forgot about her..." 


How the mighty have fallen.

My poor umbrella also saw it's demise all too soon. It was on the way to work this morning and she just didn't have the strength against the wind, not even even her darling multi-colored poly-fiber fabric could save her.

It was a rough day.  I had plans to meet up with two dear Chicago friends, their names are Jess and Cassie, but was secretly hoping we would all decide to flake out on one another in an attempt to stay off the violent streets. However none of us wanted to be "the one who flaked", so despite the danger we convened in midtown for some inexpensive thai food.  I had to seek shelter at one point while on 45th street for fear of becoming MIA.

(I wish I had a fancy camera that could capture rain falling....)

Thankfully we all made it, despite Cassie's train being shut down halfway through her commute, and we managed to ignore the events outside and focus our attention on being three ladies living it up in New York City.  It's hard to believe that I met them almost five years ago, when were all performing in a production of The Wild Party.  We had all recently graduated and danced and sang our tails off in a tiny Chicago storefront, with no air conditioning, in the middle of August.  Oh the days of being young, sweaty and performing in your underwear (I didn't let my parents see that one).  I am so glad we are still friends.  We gabbed about Chicago, New York, theatre, the brilliance of Sex and the City, being in our late twenties, high school reunions*, and many other topics.  It was incredibly lovely and worth fighting for.  Plus we were able to pay only $15 for a prix-fix dinner menu of chicken coconut soup, thai salad, veggie spring roles, chicken pad-thai and coconut ice cream! I didn't even touch my pad-thai, I boxed it up and plan on savoring it tomorrow during my lunch break.  Victory is mine!

Go to Yum-Yum Bangkok on 9th avenue. Go now. But be kind and leave your umbrella at home.

Also, while waiting for the train I caught site of this colorful fellow:

His sign read: Let us not forget that in this great big beautiful world that there are only two things that are really worth living for and they are love and happiness. Spread Joy. 

You hear that Mother Nature? Make Love. Not War.

*I had a mild panic attack while at work the other day when I thought my 10 year high school reunion was approaching this fall.  However I was comforted to know I was a year off, which means I have until the fall of 2011 to become wildly famous and successful.  I will get right on that.

Simple Pleasures: Pieces of a Puzzle

They say New York City never sleeps, and you can have anything delivered, something new is always opening, and when you turn the corner you will find a block full of flavors, colors and a hundred and one things to do.

I believe this to be true, and you could while away the days hopping from museum, to restaurant, to shop, to theatre, to bar, to a late night diner and do it all over again the next day, and it would probably take you years, if not a lifetime, to do it all in the Big Apple. However despite all of the happenings briming outside of my door (well to be honest my neighborhood isn't that exciting, but take the train a few stops and you get my drift) nothing beats spending time at home, on a quiet night, with someone you love, enjoying a classic jigsaw puzzle.

Yes I went from 27 to 87 in two minutes flat. No shame!

I have recently fallen back in love with the joy of puzzles, and I am bringing Jürgen down with me! Apparently he didn't spend many days growing up putting them together, which was a travesty in my opinion. My family spent many days, particulary during vacations, bent over a table finding pieces to connect to one another. We were particular fans of the murder mystery puzzles where you didn't have a picture to guide you and once the picture was complete you would use clues from the image to solve a crime. It makes for some very good times I assue you.

Brittany was also a frequent puzzle companion of mine, with our proudest achievement being a whopping 5,000 piece puzzle which took the shape of a large fish. We put in together at my family's cabin during the summer of 2000 (I think!) and it took many visits to the lake to complete, but once we did we covered that baby in some kind of shalack and hung it on the wall with pride. There are few finer joys than putting in the final puzzle piece.

So you can imagine my excitement when one of my anniversary gifts (we are one year old!) from Jürg was a good old fashioned jigsaw puzzle. Traditionally year one is "Paper" so it was a perfect fit.

I would recommend puzzles to anyone, but particularly for people who may be on a tighter budget than others, they are a perfect way to add a little entertainment to your life without spending a lot of money. I'm telling you pour yourself a glass of wine (apparently I always need to be drinking), put some music on the iPod and go to town. Depending of the size and difficulty level of the puzzel it can provide days, even weeks worth of entertainment. For us, we had a puzzle with 1,000 pieces and I would venture to say it took about a week to finish. This may be the first puzzle we completed together, but it will certainly not be the last.

I recently received a new iPhone, so in an effort to better document my life through photos, here are a few images from our puzzle adventure.

Our puzzle was titled "Greetings From America!" which was a series of stamps representing America's 50 states. Apparently Barnes and Noble's selection of jigsaws was rather grim, but I think it made for a great first time puzzle challenge, and it allowed me to figure out just how many US States I have visited (total 26 for me, 31 for Jürgen).

I love the process of starting with a pile of disconnected pieces on a table top and slowly finding their place in the big picture.

*Tip* Start by separating out all of the straight edged pieces and build the border first, then organize the pieces by color. Or in this case by the number 37

Since we had a photo to guide us we were able to get a rough layout of the picture once the border was put together.  It's helpful to create structure amid chaos.

                            The anticipation mounts when you only have a few remaining pieces

And finally, you place the final piece to complete the picture, breathe a sigh of relief and give yourself a pat on the back.

Unless, you are in our situation where magically the final piece of the puzzle has gone missing! The injustice!

Looks like California is incomplete! I hear Los Angeles has lost a bit of it's soul, perhaps our puzzle piece went out west to find it?

I just did a little browsing on this site and the great majority of the puzzles fell in the $10-$25 category.  I do declare that is a bargain if there ever was one! I am so grateful to Jürgen for giving me this gift and in turn many fun filled evenings, and I am also thankful to have been reminded that even when you live in one of the most exciting cities around that is often the simple, quiet times in life that are the most memorable.

What ways do you entertain yourself when you are on a budget?