• Best Thing Ever,  Favorite Things,  Friends,  Fun in Chicago,  I've Got Mad Skillz,  Music,  Pretty Pictures

    Pitbull In Pictures

    August 29, 2014

    On Wednesday I had the extreme pleasure of, along with my friend Samantha, being an audience member at the taping of the season premiere episode of Steve Harvey’s daytime talk show. Steve is great and all (and in fact I found lots of his small talk between takes to be very inspiring), but the “extreme pleasure” part can be credited to the presence of his guest, Pitbull. Pitbull is currently one of my very favorite entertainers. His music makes me very, very happy. His music also makes me dance, even if I’m sitting down. Sofa dancing? Totally. Car dancing? Yes, please. When I’m standing up? Look out. For real. You…

    Read More
  • Amazing People,  Blessings,  Friends

    #BlogHer14: It Was About The People

    July 30, 2014

    On Sunday night I returned home from San Jose, California and the tenth annual BlogHer conference. This was the sixth BlogHer conference for me—the second as a team member—and while it was exhausting, it was also just SO GOOD. I’m still recovering, in fact. Reentry, the adjustment back into my everyday life, is the very worst part about attending this conference for lots of us; for me it begins when I say goodbye to my friends and continues as the exhaustion—which has been building for months and approached breaking point last week—sets into every pore and then doesn’t leave for days. FOR DAYS. I expect to regain the ability to…

    Read More
  • Fun in Chicago

    Shoreline Sightseeing Giveaway!

    June 5, 2014

    One of my very favorite things to do in the city (and usually the first thing I do with out-of-town visitors) is an architecture tour of the Chicago River. I have enjoyed lots of them, on boats run by several different companies, and I learn new things about Chicago every time I go, which is about three times every season. (I know; hardcore!) When Shoreline Sightseeing contacted me last month and asked if I’d like to join them on an architecture river tour in honor of their 2014 season kicking off, I screamed, “YES PLEASE!” even though the conversation was through email. I was THAT excited. (Disclosure: I received complimentary…

    Read More
  • Blessings,  Pretty Pictures,  Travels

    Tap Tap Tap…Is This Thing Still On?

    May 26, 2014

    Oh, hi! Nice to see you again. Did I mention how busy May would be for me? BUSIEST EVER. It’s a blogger’s dream, really, to have all kinds of super fun things going on because blog fodder is like gold around these here parts. It’s a blogger’s nightmare to have no time to write about it while it’s happening. OR IS IT? I guess “living life” really does need to take precedence over social media sometimes. I’ve learned a lot about that in the past couple of weeks and I can’t wait to tell you about it. My return to “normalcy” (or my own version of it), at least for…

    Read More
  • Favorite Things

    #BlogHer14: Will I See You There? (Say Yes.)

    May 13, 2014

    Disclosure: This post is sponsored by BlogHer. All opinions are my own, as usual! If you know me, or if you feel like you know me because you’ve been reading Suburban Scrawl for a while, you already know that one of my most highly-anticipated weekends every year is Blogher Annual Conference weekend. I have attended five of them so far–Wow, time flies! Five??–and this July will make six. Over the past six years my Annual Conference experience has evolved. In 2009, the event took place in Chicago. I had been blogging for two years and wasn’t really sure what to expect at a blogging conference but since I could take…

    Read More
  • Best Thing Ever,  Childhood Memories,  Friends

    It Was On Like Donkey Kong.

    March 5, 2014

    It’s funny, Momo often says there’s nothing much to do in Columbus, but each time I’ve visited she’s taken me somewhere that is unique and so much fun. Last time it was to German Village. On Sunday she and her husband took me to lunch at a really cool place called Dirty Franks Hot Dog Palace. The menu was pretty spectacular: I’ve never seen that many varieties of hot dogs in one place, and they serve Vienna Beef dogs—made in Chicago—so I felt right at home. By the way, Momo and I each ordered a “Classy Lady” hot dog because OF COURSE. Anyway, the decor was pretty amazing, too. The…

    Read More
  • I've Got Mad Skillz,  Music

    Let The Music Play

    February 10, 2014

    About four years ago I had to write up a “musical resume” for The Music Mamas site: Sadly, Melisa was musically stunted as a small child by the presence of too much television. Listening to music was not something she did for fun but rather out of necessity, riding in the back of her parents’ VW Bug in the early- to mid-1970′s singing along to songs like “Delta Dawn”, “(You’re) Having My Baby” and “Afternoon Delight” (not necessarily in that order). She was given a Sony Walkman in December 1981, along with the Olivia Newton John “Physical” cassette, and no other tapes to speak of. It is for this very…

    Read More
  • Childhood Memories,  My Mom Has Mad Skillz

    Grade School Actress

    January 23, 2014

    Here’s something you likely didn’t know about me: I was once an actress. That’s right, from first grade through third grade, I spent a lot of time on the stage at Dogwood School* in Park Forest, Illinois. Well, it wasn’t actually a stage. The school didn’t have a stage. Instead, we used one end of the gym. Anyway, I played parts like one of the Native Americans in a Thanksgiving play, Betsy Ross, and my favorite, Earth. As in, the entire planet. I was the whole world. The play, produced when I was in first grade, was called “A Family in Space”. I found the actual script last night when…

    Read More
  • Food,  Friends,  I've Got Mad Skillz

    Pomegranate Smacking: Not An Olympic Sport, Yet

    December 24, 2013

    Today was the second annual “Jew Help A Christian Day”, i.e. the second consecutive Christmas Eve I’ve driven across town to spend a few hours helping my friend Jen get ready for her big family dinner. (Last year’s recap is HERE.) I had a BLAST, which is something I don’t normally say when I’m cleaning and cooking in my own house. Something to work on. Anyway, last week I asked Jen what was on the menu for this year and it came up in conversation that, among other things, she was going to have me remove seeds from a pomegranate. I was clueless about the task: to be honest, I’ve…

    Read More
  • Best Thing Ever,  Pretty Pictures,  Travels

    If Only Life Was Really A Beach. Or Something Like That.

    December 8, 2013

    I’m in San Diego for the weekend. (Yay!) Jim and I decided not to wait until January to take a quick trip out of town like we have for the past two years, and when we were discussing our December Destination, the only requirements were that it would be warmer than Chicago AND that we could use airline miles to get there. I thought of Southern California immediately because it’s truly one of my favorite places in the whole world. He really doesn’t like Los Angeles very much, so I suggested San Diego and he was all for it. It’s not lost on me, by the way, that I have…

    Read More