Chicago Summerdance 2018

I am so scared.  I get this incredible rush that goes straight to my stomach.  I’ve been trying to fight off feeling at least once a day.  My anxiety now has been giving me migraines, tension at the shoulders, as well as vivid dreams at night.  I’m pretty much miserable.

I finished a book on “Less is More” and have been going over my notes.  Sometimes, reading soothing passages makes me feel better.  I’m wondering if I should bring a book along this trip.  I am trying my best to be strong about this, but I’m so nervous.  I am also doing my best not to worry my mom about my insecurities.  She is going to be flying out to Mexico once I come back to visit her friends.  She hasn’t flown in over 20 years and I don’t want her to get the way I do.  I know through experience that fear is taught.  I  would feel horrible if I jeopardize this for her.  She is very excited.

Back to recapping my events in July.  My friend out of nowhere texted me that she was going to be downtown.  It was Friday, and I had just gotten out of work.  I wanted to do some window shopping, and decided to go to State street.  Luckily I was still in the neighborhood.  She was attending Chicago Summer Dance at the Spirit of Music Garden stage.  I made my way over there and found her with her family.  It was nice catching up to her.  I miss her a lot and wanted to see how things were going for her.  Jesse de la Pena was mixing too.  Chicagoans love a free house party!

Memorial Weekend! Part One

So far I’ve been enjoying my summer.  For the most part I got pretty down after I came back from Italy, and my birthday creeping up on me in June did not help my mood.  But I started to feel more myself once I focused my attention on other things.  I’ve been reading “Less is More” by Goldian VandenBroeck and got into the World Cup tournament.  Now that it’s over, I’m looking forward to planning my next trip out of Chicago, and to finish catching up on the blog.  Time to recap Memorial Weekend!  Lol.

Like I mentioned earlier, I was in a funky mood once I returned from Italy.  The annual house party at Millennium Park was taking place the Saturday following up to Memorial Day.  I’ve enjoyed this festival in the past and knew I didn’t want to miss this.  Plus, dancing to good music ALWAYS puts me in a good mood.  I needed to do this!

Luckily my little brother was available to accompany me.  We made our way down there late afternoon and caught a few sets before heading home.  I was not up for clubbing whatsoever, but I did get my dancing fix in.  I love watching people enjoy themselves.  It automatically lifts my spirits and I found myself smiling at everyone.  My brother loved it as well.  This was his first time being there and he thought it was amazing.  For putting on a free festival, Chicago knows how to do it right!

My souvenir t-shirt from Rome 

Chicago House Party at Millennium Park

I hope everyone enjoyed their Memorial Day Weekend!!  I had an eventful one despite it raining heavily on Friday.  I wanted to do some window shopping but never got a chance to because of the rain.  By the time I got home I decided to take a nap thinking the rain would eventually pass, but it never did!  I was a little annoyed because I was excited about the three day weekend, but the weather definitely killed my vibe.  Oh well.

The next day was a different story!  I was excited because I woke up to a sunny apartment.  I laid out for a bit on my balcony hoping to get some color.  I did my usual Saturday routine which was cleaning up my place, but I noticed that the forecast was not including rain for a change.  I went to the gym earlier so I could get Leg Day out of the way.

Once I got back and showered up, I grew anxious.  I wanted to go out and enjoy the sunshine, but everyone seemed to have prior commitments.  I knew the house music party at Millennium Park was taking place.  I figured if people showed up later on, I’ll find them eventually.  What a party it was!!  My brother and his girlfriend showed up towards the later part of the evening but I had a blast regardless.  I love that our city celebrates house music.  It started here in Chicago and the music spread all over the world!  I have included a mini history of Chicago House Music from Wikipedia.  At least it will give you a better understanding how much dance music means to me!  

House music became popular in Chicago clubs in 1984. It was pioneered by figures such asFrankie Knuckles, ^[19] Phuture, Kym Mazelle,^[20] and Mr. Fingers, and was associated withAfrican-American and gay subcultures. House music quickly spread to other American cities such as Detroit, New York City, Baltimore, andNewark – all of which developed their own regional scenes. In the mid-to-late 1980s, house music became popular in Europe as well as major cities in South America, and Australia.

Mother /Daughter Day

Since my mom retired in mid October, I told myself I wanted to do something with her OUTSIDE of the house at least once a month.  My mom has been in mourning since her husband passed away, and for the most part has continued working until her retirement.  She rarely steps out of the house unless it's for running her errands.  I felt it was important for her to continue to live her life during this transition which meant I needed her to look forward to something.  Sometimes her depression gets the best of her and she would cancel on me at the last minute due to bad weather conditions, feeling tired, or whatever excuse she would make up.  I knew on my end I didn't want to push her into doing something she wasn't ready to do.  I had a scheduled day off from work on the last Friday of December.  When I spoke to her the night before, I had suggested we do something concerning the holidays before all the festivities would be taken down.  I cannot go over her place too long due to her dog, so she has to work with me whether she likes it or not.  I wanted to checkout the Museum of Science and Industry to look at the Christmas trees around the world exhibit.  Automatically she brought up how cold it might be, and of course, I debated back that we are in winter after all and that's expected.  She didn't seem to budge so I dropped it.
In the morning I enjoyed watching the news and wanted to finish up my last book I was reading for the year, "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People"; a self-help book I got off of Amazon.  I figured it would be a great way to for me to prepare for 2017, and I was down to the last chapter.  Sure enough, around 11am she called me out the blue.  "You know, I took Lucky out for a walk and it didn't seem that cold out".  It looks like my mom wanted to step out after all.  Unfortunately we went back and forth on the phone, and concluded that heading to Hyde Park to the Museum of Science and Industry was not going to work for us.  We still had to get ready and meet up somewhere since we both don't have a car.  If we wanted to head there, we should have left much earlier.  I had a back up plan.  I told her we could head down to Millennium Park to watch the ice skating rink and she agreed. 
We got downtown around 2pm and made our way there.  But since we were passing State Street, we realized we did not get a chance to see the Christmas display at Macy's.  We walked around the building to see the window displays and took pictures.  We figured we could checkout what they had inside.  It was nice looking around with my mom.  She's worked in downtown all her life and loves the glitz and glamour of nice things.  Even though she couldn't afford such stuff, it never stopped her from appreciating the finer things in life.  We made our way to the Walnut room to checkout their tree, but the line was too long for us to be seated for lunch.  We kept on going.
We made it to Millennium Park and watched the people ice skate for some time.  My mom wasn't aware of the skating rink there, so that's why I took her so she could become familiar with it.  She was having a good time.  The line to have lunch at the Park Grill was short, so we decided to have lunch there. 
I realized we were doing good with time and thought maybe we could catch a movie.  During Christmas Eve, my mom had mentioned how she wanted to see Lion with Dev Patel.  I was surprised she even knew about such a film, but she claimed she saw something on tv about it.  My mom is not the artsy film type.  When her husband was alive, he was mostly into blockbuster movies and that's what they would see.  To have her tell me she wanted to see this type of movie surprised me.  But I wanted to make her happy, so I looked up the movie times and found one for 5:30pm at the AMC at Streeterville.  She seemed glad we were going.
Off we went to the show.  It was an amazing film, and it haunted me for days afterwards.  There is an Oscar buzz and I hope they get the nominations in.  Lion is based off a true story about a little boy that got lost from his older brother in India at a train station.  My mom claims when she was a little girl back in Guatemala, her and her younger brother would sometimes roam the streets at such a young age.  I often wonder how she randomly remember such times now that she's older.
I cried a lot during the movie and so did she.  I felt that it brought us closer.  At one point as we were having lunch, my mom said to me out of the blue "Thank you nena."  It was nice...

I can't believe Tom Brady is going to the Super Bowl again!

Pretty tree at the Walnut Room

Goofing off at Macy's

We got a chance to see people ice skate at Millennium Park...

I always order crab cakes whenever it's on a menu!

My wooden Santas are watching me.  lol

Wore an old winter white flannel blazer that helped keep me warm that day.  Perfect alternative to a thick sweater.

Let's Play in the Park!

I've been getting my things ready for my big trip.  I opted not to get a haircut because apparently the weather right now in Athens is in the high 90s!  Yikes!  I probably will be wearing my hair up to be practical.  We didn't get that high up in the temperatures in Chicago, but last week was just as hot.  On Thursday I ended up meeting my friends in Millenium Park for a concert.  We were dripping in sweat while we heard the sounds of African rock.  We even decided to checkout Cindy's rooftop for a cocktail and it was still very humid up there as well!

Packed crowd at Millenium Park!

Last weekend I basically caught up on all of my laundry and chores around the apartment.  I went through my closet and pulled out some pieces for my trip.  I didn't want to get bombarded this weekend with those details.  My friend in Italy has given me a short list of things to get her when I meet her.  She loves her MAC products but in Italy it costs 3x as much.  Who knew?
I was invited to a birthday party in the evening and met up with my friends at Roka Akor.  They had been out on the boat all day but I opted not to go.  I knew I wouldn't get things done if I had joined them.  I also skipped out on dinner because I need to stay on my budget for my trip.  I knew they were planning on going out afterwards and figured I'll celebrate with the birthday boy there. 
We had a big group and things started to get a little hectic when we couldn't decide on what to do.  I ended up back at Cindy's rooftop with a group, only to find out the other half of the group stayed behind on Hubbard street.  One thing about me is, I'm pretty flexible when it comes down to partying with friends.  Some people are not.  Trust me, crazy things can go wrong but that's to be expect when there's alcohol involved.  lol.  I felt some tension because of the mix up, but the important thing was for us to start celebrating to get passed the frustration.  After all, we were out for the birthday boy!

I caught up with my friends at Roka Akor...

We came back to Hubbard and ended up in Hub51.  It was very crowded, but we made the most of it there.  Afterwards, we decided to walk down the street to see what else was happening.  That's when we stumbled upon Disco upstairs from Celeste.  I loved it!!  It has a very 70s Saturday Night Fever vibe to it, and the music was amazing!  We couldn't stop dancing! 
We closed out downstairs at Celeste and that was our evening.  I hope the birthday boy had fun because I sure did!

Me and the birthday boy at Disco! 

Checkout the names of those cocktails!

I'm glad I wore my gold sequined purse for Disco! 

As far as this past week goes, I've caught up with all of my work and feel good about it.  I saw my mom on Tuesday and went over the details on my trip with her.  I also met up with a friend on Wednesday and did the same drill.  I don't want anyone to worry about my whereabouts.
Today I've been messaging my friends in Italy and in Greece.  I'm getting very nervous again, but as long as I have everything ready this weekend, I should be fine.  I can't let my anxiety get the best of me!  I want to see the world and there's no way to do that but to get on a plane!  Until then, wish me luck and I'll be back in September!  ciao ciao... 

 
 

House Party at the Bean!

I'm still recapping Memorial Weekend!  lol.  Hope everyone's enjoying their summer so far.  This month there's a lot of stuff going on, from baby showers to baptisms.  I love every minute of it because it shows me how much me and my friends still manage to keep in touch.  Sharing these milestones with one another creates a lifetime of memories!  I love looking back and seeing how much we've grown. 
That Memorial Weekend Saturday, I got a chance to see my friend from Italy before she flew back home.  We had a quick brunch before we said our goodbyes.  I am currently trying to plan something with her, but we'll see if it pans out.  It's hard when you get older and have more priorities to consider.  Oh well.
I got home and did my usual Saturday workout routine.  For those who don't know, I try to workout at least 4x a week.  I've been following a healthy lifestyle for some time now.  It's basically become a natural thing for me to do at this point in my life.  It was something I started with back in my 20s when I got a gym membership for me and my first boyfriend (that I lived with).  I was never involved in any sports growing up, besides the usual Physical Ed we had in grammar and high school.  Once I graduated I gained the freshman 15 and was very unhappy with my new physique.  I was discouraged and my boyfriend at the time would buy me workout tapes so I could do at home.  Eventually, we figured I needed more motivation and we got a membership together.  I've been hooked ever since.  Saturdays for me are usually Leg Day.  If I have too much going on, I'll skip the gym and workout the following Sunday after church.  It's a no brainer at this point.
Once I was done working out, I rushed home and quickly got ready to meet up with my friend.  We wanted to checkout the House Party going on at Millenium Park.  This was a free event being held at the Bean.  I didn't know what to expect.  Because of that, we were not very prepared.  We didn't bring anything to set up a picnic with, but luckily we saw some friends and stayed with them at their spot.  They had a range of live performances with a couple of Djs to get everyone grooving.  Me and my friend had a blast.  We even made our way to Mariano's to grab some more wine and snacks to share with everyone.  I met up with my brother and his girlfriend and they came and joined us.  After the show, I went with them and we checked out Bar Louie before we called it a night.  I was too pooped to go out.  All of that dancing finally caught up with me!

Good times with this girl...

 So many people checking out the live house music!

Hopefully got some vitamin D.  I feel I'm always at work whenever the sun's out.

My brother and his girl...

Spicy margarita at Bar Louie!