Aprés le noël soirée

Since the holidays fell on Monday and Tuesday, work resumed that Wednesday.  It was nice having a 3 day work-week.  My brother out of the blue texted me that my Dad’s wife wanted us to come over for dinner.  It wasn’t expected, but I figured I should go because I wanted to see my Dad.  Well it turns out that he wasn’t going to be at the dinner.  I was upset at first.  I had other errands to run and I made the exception on the hopes of seeing my father.  The next day I thought about it some more.  I told my brother in the future, I wouldn’t mind having dinner with my Dad’s wife but I couldn’t guarantee that I could make it to every one of them.  Sometimes the internal dynamics of blended-families gets complicated because you are not aware of who you should be devoted to.  It leaves me and my brothers confused and we sometimes hurt people’s feelings trying to figure out what to do.

That Friday I had dinner plans with my friend who was in town.  She was trying to get a group together and settled on Café Con Leche restaurant in Logan Square.  Some of her friends that showed up use to work together at a retail store that is no longer around anymore.  It seems that my friend was having a blast seeing everyone.  I need to visit her out at the East coast one of these days.

Christmas Eve 2018

I’m FINALLY posting about the holidays!  Lol.  Since I’ve been laying low so far in January, I think I should be able to catch up to January posts much sooner.  Lately I’ve been reading a book about French culture and I am intrigued!  I’m hoping to finish some chapters this weekend.  I didn’t realize MLK holiday was this upcoming Monday, so this would be a perfect opportunity to do that.  This book has made me realize that I’ve been missing out on some of my travel experiences.  For the most part, I’ve traveled to get things off my bucket list.  But I’ve noticed when I come back home, I feel that I had a void that I couldn’t figure out.  Once you encounter a new place, it becomes something bigger than you!  The good news:  you get to enrich your life with new experiences.  Reading about France and French culture has made me want to go back and venture out to other regions.  After all, France is about the same size as Texas! 

Back on Christmas Eve, I watched what I ate throughout the day because I knew I was going to have a feast later on.  My brother and mother came to pick me up, and we rode off to my aunt’s place.  My mom made a dish as well.  I felt bad because my aunt and her family were rushing a bit, but it was ok since we knew we were going to have a long night ahead of us.  Unfortunately, some of our family members were out of town, but we made the most of our little group.  It was nice seeing my cousins open up their gifts.

Tango Sur with The Ladies

I’m still trying to finish up December events!  The funny thing is, I’ve been laying low so far this month.  We just got news that a snow storm is heading our way this weekend.  I can’t wait to work on my weekend project which is to rearrange my bedroom closet.  I’ve been dealing with an issue for 10 days and it’s driving me crazy.  More on that later.

Right before the holidays, my friend from Michigan came into town with her family.  She wanted to meet up for dinner at Tango Sur with the girls, but only two of us could make it.  They picked me up and we made our way down to the Lakeview neighborhood.  It was nice catching up with the happy couple.  Our other friend beat us to it and was waiting for us there at the restaurant.  Once we all got together, we were chatting away.  We ended up closing the place down!

Santa Baby Bar

I can’t believe I’m recapping a Santa themed bar but here you go.  My friend wanted to celebrate her birthday earlier than later this year.  This Christmas-themed pop up bar was located in  Wrigleyville.  Our friend wanted us to dress in appropriate Christmas gear, so I brought along my goofy Gingerbread sweater to work to switch out afterwards.  I was the first one there, but right away I noticed a group of CHILDREN running around on the 2^nd floor.  I almost spilled my glass of wine over one!  I think if I were to give them feedback, I would suggest having families show up earlier than later to the bar.  We ARE in Wrigleyville after all, and there are a string of back to back bars along the strip.  I wouldn’t consider it family oriented, but possibly provide hours of service earlier when there’s not too many people out for happy hour.  

The specialty cocktails were filled with whip cream and milk shakes.  I was worried about triggering my migraine, so I stuck to wine.  At one point, it switched to an open mic karaoke session and the singing was terrible!  Mostly because the participants were drunk out of their minds.  Lol.  I felt out of place here, but I think the birthday girl enjoyed herself.  She even wore a mini elf dress costume to her party which impressed everyone.

Birthday girl showed up!

After that night when the birthday girl slept in her own party, she texted me apologizing for what had happened.  She was feeling better from her cold and wanted to celebrate her birthday that Saturday.  Her friends were going to have a table at Tao Nightclub and invited her and her friends to join.  She extended the invitation to me and I told her I might consider it if I got back at a reasonable hour from a Simbang Gabi celebration at my church.  They were hosting a filipino Christmas and my friends were going to be there.

I did manage to get back on time in order to meet up with the rest of the girls.  We were told to get there specifically around 10pm so we could walk in and not wait in line.  I didn’t realize the entrance to the club was at the side of the building.  The nightclub was HUGE.  Much bigger than I anticipated, but then again, the layout was more spacious than they had it before when it was Excalibur.  We enjoyed ordering cocktails at the lounge near the women’s restroom.  We walked around to look for her friends who had the table.  After a while, the girls weren’t feeling the place.  They were disappointed in the music and asked if we could go somewhere else.  They decided on Underground nightclub.

They found their friends at the table and said goodbye.  I was indifferent.  I felt the music was going to get better as the night went on, but it wasn’t my call.  We took an uber to Underground, and luckily there was no line to get in.  Once inside, we found a spot to hang out and ordered more drinks.  This time the girls were enjoying themselves more.  I was happy that they were happy.

    

Danny’s Bar

A few Fridays ago, a friend had sent out a facebook invite to her birthday weekend bonanza.  She listed all the things she would be doing from Friday-Sunday.  She noted, if anyone wanted to join in the festivities to contact her.  I wasn’t 100 percent sure what my plans were yet, and as the day went on, I called up one of our friends to see if she was going.  She told me her and her boyfriend would be heading out soon to the party, and asked if I needed a ride there.  I told her I would uber it since I was not ready yet.  In the end, I got there before my friends, but I did not see the birthday girl.  She chose to celebrate at Danny’s Bar in Wicker Park.  It was my first time there, and the place was packed.  I saw my friends walk in and we found a spot towards the back.  Her boyfriend went to the bar, and me and my friend took pictures to kill some time.  After about 20 minutes, we texted the birthday girl to see what time was she coming.  We waited and enjoyed our cocktails.  5 minutes later, she texted us back that she had fallen asleep on her couch.  She was trying to get rid of a cold and was not coming out.  Me and my friend decided to go back home.   We were both tired from work earlier and were not up to hang out at the bar.  It was funny if you think about it…

Rose of Damascus

Following up after my friend’s birthday party on Friday, my mom wanted to go to a flamenco performance that Saturday.  I had a migraine all day and it never went away.  I was getting burnt out by work and having to go to one thing after another.  I knew how much this meant to my mom since she personally knew people who would be performing.  I made a promise to myself not to get caught up with too many social activities.  It wasn’t fun anymore and I missed my time alone at my apartment.  Constantly having to turn on the switch of getting ready, catching up with different people and having the same conversation was getting to me.  I felt bad because I knew I wasn’t “myself”.  I did not want my friends to think they had done something wrong because I was always in a bad mood.  The worst part about all of this was that me and my mom had a bad argument leading up to this day in particular.  In the past, we’ve handled our differences by ignoring the issue and continuing on with our day, but sometimes that is hard for me because my blood is boiling.  It’s not easy for me to keep intense emotions bottled up.  But this is the dynamics of my family, and for her, I buried them once again to make her happy.  She wanted to see this and wanted me to go with her.  I could not object.

Back to the migraine.  It never went away.  And that day in particular the temperature was in the teens.  It was super cold.  We decided to meet up at Division street right off the Blue Line so we could have dinner nearby.  Because my mom was stressed with the flood issues in her apartment and dealing with her landlord, she moved back to her place but was still settling in.  She barely ate, but did manage to enjoy her meal. 

I ended up forgetting something that was SUPER IMPORTANT.  I knew I had screwed up big time.  I couldn’t go to the show just yet, but my mom insisted to ride with me back to my place to make sure everything was ok.  I ordered an uber and in no time, we both jumped in and headed back home.  Luckily, everything was fine so I ordered another uber and we headed back to the theater.  We made it right on time!!  My mom is a freak about time, so I know she was nervous we were going to miss some of the show.  Since we barely got to our seats, we managed to take some pictures before the show started.  It was beautiful!  We were hypnotized by the flamenco dancers and their beautiful dresses!  It was a lovely storyline about how flamenco was formed by migrants from various neighboring countries.  In the end, the message was loud and clear:  Love knows no borders…

Cheetos Birthday Cake!

Due to the increase of social activities I participated last month, I will be low key during the month of January (or much longer for that matter.)  I had finally finished my book “Declutter Your Mind:  How to Stop Worrying, Relieve Anxiety, and Eliminate Negative Thinking”.  I was upset with myself for not finishing it up much sooner since I got this book back in October.  It should not have taken me so long to read it, but I wanted to make sure I read the passages thoroughly.  What I enjoyed about this book is towards the back, there are a list of words that you have to jot down according to what values you associate with.  You have to go over the lists a couple of times to narrow it down to 5-10 words pertaining to your personal life and work life.  It was interesting for me to see what key words I thought were more important than others.  In the end, the goal was to have a mission statement that applies to both areas.  I’m hoping to tweak these statements, and I’ve already purchased a 2019 planner to set my goals in a 3 month grace period.  According to the book, it’s easier setting shorter goals because they will lead up to the bigger goals, and I already know what it is.  I’m excited to try these ideas!  Hopefully this will be a good structure for me to follow.  
Following our holiday party on Thursday, my friend’s birthday party was being held at her place that Friday.  It was a crazy weekend, now that I look back on it.  I had some time off to take from work, so I cleaned up the apartment for the most of the day.  My friends picked me up and we went to a nearby Colombian restaurant to pick up an order I had placed for the party.  It was nice getting everyone together.  My friend looked so happy.  Her boyfriend surprised her with a birthday cake topped with Cheetos!  I’ve never seen anything like it before!

Holiday Party 2018

Hello everyone and happy new year!  So far this 2019 has been a bit sad for me.  I went to my first funeral of the year on Saturday and it was awful.  I’m pretty sensitive already so I knew this was going to bother me a bit.  I kept it low key on Friday, went to the funeral on Saturday, and on Sunday saw my friends for Three Kings Day.  That part was nice.  Sometimes moments like this makes you want to reach out to your loved ones.  I hate the fact that this happened right after the holidays.  This family is hurting so badly…

I’m finally on December events and I want to get that going so I won’t fall back behind like I usually do.  I’m trying to work on this I promise!  Our holiday work party was being held at Buddy Guy’s Legends and we were excited!  This blues bar has been a Chicago staple for many years.  I knew we were going to have a blast when we got there.  Our usual trolley ride lead us down Jackson avenue, but then we noticed some police activity on State Street.  Someone onboard decided to look into and found out there was a shooting on the Blue Line tunnel underneath.  Me and a coworker were distraught because that’s our line to go home.  This put a damper on our evening.  We couldn’t help wonder what had happened.  When something like that occurs in the city, they shut down the transit line so the police could investigate.  Me and my coworker knew we had no choice but to enjoy our time out at the party until the city decides to open the transit line again.

The music was putting everyone in a good mood.  Me and my coworkers enjoyed our buffet and they even had prizes raffled off.  At one point my co-worker checked into the Blue Line and the line had opened up.  It was now 8pm.  Pretty early for me, but since it spooked us both, we decided to ride home together.  So much for staying longer at the holiday party…