Pictures of Chicago buildings. I’ve got ’em. Every single time I go downtown for something—an event, a meet-up, business, a simple errand, whatever—I take photos. Sometimes I bring my camera but usually I’m snapping with my phone. I love the architecture. I love the building materials. I love the juxtaposition of certain buildings against others. I love the bright blue sky against the neutral stone and brick. I love when I can get seasonal pictures. I love when I can get the sun hitting the buildings in a certain way. I love it all. I have my favorite subjects, including (but not limited to) Marina City, the Wrigley Building, and…
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Go Big Or Go Home Didn’t Start With Me
I would be hard-pressed to find just one favorite picture of my mom, because there are so many. There’s the one that used to hang in my Grandma’s house: mom wearing her ballet shoes and posing on pointe so beautifully. There are the black and white ones: her wearing knee-high white boots with a skirt/blouse vest outfit that is so 1960’s it hurts, and just hanging out with my dad next to one of their many VW Beetles. There’s the one that was staged by her wedding photographer: mom, the young bride, pulling twenty-dollar bills out of my dad’s jacket pocket. There’s the one of mom, my sister and I…
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Netflix #StreamTeam: Reinvent Yourself!
I am a member of the Netflix Stream Team and will be happily sharing monthly tips and stories about how my family uses Netflix on a regular basis. (Okay, that’s an understatement. I should say CONSTANTLY. We use Netflix CONSTANTLY.) This post is sponsored by Netflix, of course! The Netflix Stream Team Theme (ha! Stream Team Theme! So rhyme-y!) for March is “Reinvent Yourself”. I know a little bit about this, both as an adult and as a kid. Since you’re already fairly familiar with me as an adult, I’m going back further. My name, as you may have noticed, only has one “s” in it. I always laugh when…
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Create Your Taste At McDonald’s!
If you’ve been reading Suburban Scrawl for a while, you may recall that I have a special place in my heart for the McDonald’s brand. My first job was at McDonald’s and for two years I worked at the brand new location just steps away from my high school, with many of my friends. We had a BLAST. One of the benefits of working there was the food, obviously. Break time was easy because the food was RIGHT THERE. I have always loved the traditional menu but back then we would create our own custom creations, too, to mix things up. We would make sloppy joes with chopped up burger…
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To Grandma’s House I Go
I’ve been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately, especially as I toss around ideas for the essay I will write for this year’s Listen To Your Mother show in Chicago. Memories of her come and go, and sometimes she hangs around in my brain for an extended period of time. I don’t mind at all; in fact, I rather enjoy it. My Grandma was a huge presence in my young life. We visited her house all the time, and she spoiled her grandkids like crazy. She was one of the kindest, most generous people I’ve ever met in my life. I’m often in awe of the fact that she…
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It’s Just A Table…Or Is It?
Something happened last week that made me realize that I’ve spent a whole lot of time reflecting on the changes Jim and I (and this house) have gone through since J left for college (when we officially became empty nesters), but next to no time (okay, no time at all) reflecting on any changes the boys have gone through in regards to the two of us and this house. Let me try and make some sense. In my parental mind, I naively assumed that once the boys were settled in at college—or in an apartment, or whatever—that was it; their adjustment was made. That’s not necessarily true, as I just…
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Dynamic Duos
I was deep in thought over what I was going to write for this month’s Netflix Stream Team post about dynamic duos (read that by clicking here), and I remembered one of my favorite dynamic duos from the seventies, ElectraWoman and DynaGirl. Did you watch them every Saturday like I did? (If they were before your time, just keep it to yourself.)
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Record Regret
After lunch on Sunday we walked to the next street corner where we found a record store. As in vinyl. As in albumins. As in “Big CDs”, which was the term I used when trying to explain to my two boys what record albums were, way back in the late 90’s and before they became interested in vinyl themselves. These days, all three of us are suckers for a cool record store. (Jim’s lukewarm about it but will absolutely spend some time happily browsing if you ask him to.) We’ve all spent time with my sister on Record Store Day, tracking down colored vinyl or special releases or other treasures.…
- Best Thing Ever, Childhood Memories, My Friends Have Mad Skillz, Something That Could Change Your Life
It’s A Very Brady Birthday
It’s my birthday today, and over the past couple of days I’ve put some thought into what I might want to write about this year…and came up completely empty. This is my eighth birthday blog post, and I feel like I’ve covered all of the angles already. I mean, how much can a person really write about her own birthday? Then a friend, Erica, who I will now call “the Amazingly Wonderful and Hugely Tremendous Erica” whenever her name crosses my lips to infinity and beyond, did something really nice last night and unknowingly gave me the perfect gift. Make that two gifts; she gave me a gift AND the…
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Five Random Things About Me: The Childhood Edition
About a week ago, Deb Rox tagged me to do the “Five Random Things About Me” meme that’s making its way around the blogosphere. Sort of. Okay, I think she tagged everybody. ANYWAY… I’m putting my own spin on it by sticking to stuff from my childhood. I imagine these five things probably wouldn’t make very interesting posts separately and in fact now that I think about it, clustering them might not be very interesting either. Oh well, it’s NaBloPoMo Day 2 and I’m going for it. 1. One of my biggest, proudest accomplishments in third grade was the time I became a Lemon Twist Champion by doing one thousand…