bad dreams

first-congratulations to ry, the one and only person to guess yesterday's movie quote, and he was right!!

second-i swear this is not going to turn into a wedding blog. like up and down cross my heart hope to die swear that it won't. however, over the next year there will be some wedding related content since we are in the midst of planning our own. this is likely to continue after since it is part of my current job, and hopefully eventually my job in its entirety so i hope i don't bore anyone!

that being said, last night was a wedding planning night and it could not have gone better. we have had a great streak of luck with our wedding vendors (it helps knowing a lot of them i suppose) and our meeting with our amazing dj last night was no different. her name is leslie. leslie, brian and i have a great deal in common with our musical tastes, which is nice because brian and i listen to pretty obscure musical acts. he prefers british rock, and i enjoy what he refers to as "sorority girl music" and i refer to as "john mayer before he sold out" or "a guy and his guitar." it was important for us to make sure that while our musical tastes are reflected in some portions of the evening-during dinner, our first dance, our introduction, the cake cutting-but that our musical tastes are not necesarily the same as our friends and family. leslie was able to see our vision for a personal musical selection for the special moments, but really keeping the party going after the cake has been cut. hooray for another successful meeting!

 do they not have the cutest logo?

then, we went to a delicious wicker park restaurant, hot chocolate.

it may sound like a chocolate bar, but it was so much more than that. comfort food? check. amazing server? check (hey saul!) 50% off bottles of wine on tuesday? check. the.best.hot.chocolate.ever? double check. if you're ever in wicker park, or looking for a fun new place, definitely check out hot chocolate. that being said, they were just on check, please! and it was p-a-c-k-e-d.

to round out a beautiful evening i had an awful wedding related dream that included an ugly dress that was too big, no beautiful lincoln town car to drive us to our hotel, a no-show photographer, a dead bouquet, and some very very unwelcome guests...the only good part of the dream was that i was still marrying my handsome fiance who, even in my worst dream last night, helped deal with the drama and we still had a happy day. here's hoping for a much smoother reality!!

the skills of a misspent youth

first of all, blog shout out to anyone who can name the movie that they say "the skills of a misspent youth" in...

anyways.

one of the skills i picked up living in this beautiful windy city is the ability to parallel park. i know, i know...for those of you who can do this easily and naturally do not find the amusement in this, however for those of you who turn parallel parking into a game of bumper cars, you get me. however, i haven't had much practice since i sold my car, preston, last year, so i do get worried when the time comes to use this skill.

the scene:

i live on one of the busiest streets in the city, and one of the most dangerous intersections in the country. saturday evening when we got home from our little road trip (more on that in the next few days-stay tuned!) we circled the block 8 times before I said "OK one more time and then we're paying for a garage." Wouldn't you know a perfect spot opened right up. After some illegal 3-point turns in the midst of cars swooshing by and my fiance getting more and more nervous with each gear change, I aligned myself just perfectly.

and then i executed the most perfect parallel parking job known to man. ever. in the history of the auto world. even in the history of horse driving if they parallel parked those carriages... anyways i took this picture the following morning with my blackberry so please excuse the low picture quality, and enjoy my skills. no bumping. no grinding. simply gorgeous.