I’m having one of those days! I want to be home reading all day. I went home for lunch and started reading Living History by Hillary Clinton and got sucked in once again. It’s a really fascinating read and one of those books that you could just read and read and lose track of time. I have to watch the clock very closely when I go home for lunch or I’ll just read all afternoon without realizing what time it is. It doesn’t help that it’s raining out today and it’s a bit chilly. A perfect day to stay home, curl up on the couch and read!

I just realized that I forgot to mention what we did last Friday night. We went to see The Innocence Mission at Schuba’s in the city. It took us two hours to get to the club where they were playing. Friday afternoon rush hour traffic was horrendous! The show was really good. Mila Drumke opened. She has a song called “Motorboat” that has Karen Peris (the lead singer for the Innocence Mission) on it, so it was cool to see the two of them on stage. It’s a really nice song. I think I might have to hear more of Mila Drumke before I buy one of her albums though. Sometimes you can really tell if you like a band or a singer when they open for a band and other times you feel like you just have to hear more of them because you’re not really listening very intently as you are waiting for the band you came to see to be on-stage. Did that last sentence make any sense? I apologize if it didn’t make any sense. I hope you got my point. :)

The Innocence Mission put on a really good show on Friday. We have most of their cd’s and when we found out that they were recording that evening’s show, we decided to spend our money on the live cd. It sounds really great and it was fun listening to in the car on the way home. I wish that they would record more concerts because sometimes you really like a concert and you’d love to have a recording of it. I like live cd’s but sometimes they don’t pull you in as much as if you had actually been there, so if you could buy a cd of the concert you just saw after each concert, I’m sure a lot of people would buy them. I would definitely buy all of the Metric concerts we’ve been to. I know some people do bootlegs, but to me those just aren’t the same because the sound quality is so bad on some of them.

Well, I should go. I need to clean up the kitchen a bit before Bryan gets home.

Friday night we went to another Metric show!! I got a TON of photos. It wasn’t until Bryan was looking at the photos on the digital camera on the way home that I realized how many I had really taken. He’s like, “Wow! Sixty-three pictures.” So I will get a fair amount of the good ones on my site soon. I need to take an entire three or four evenings just to get all of the concert photos on my site. I still have to put up photos for Erin McKeown, Innocence Mission and Neko Case. I will definitely have all of them up by Christmas!

So back to the Metric show. It was at the Empty Bottle in Chicago. We walked in and the three guys from the band, James, Josh and Joules were playing video golf. Bryan talked to James for a few minutes and then we sat and waited for the show to start. There were two opening bands, who we had never heard of at the time. Come to find out that my sister is friends with one of the guys in the opening band, Timeout Drawer. When Metric came on about half the crowd was there just to see them. They started out with the two songs they started out with at the Double Door - “IOU” and “Succexy.” Off of their album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, they played “IOU,” “Succexy” (as mentioned before), “Combat Baby,” “Hustle Rose,” “Dead Disco,” “The List” and “Wet Blanket.” Emily, the lead singer, introduced a song as “we’re going to play this for those that follow us around, I don’t know why” and then they played “Calculation Theme.” I didn’t like that song much at first, but it’s growing on me. I think they also played “Grow Up and Blow Away.” I can’t remember, I wasn’t familiar with the song until Saturday after the show, so I’m not the last word on this one. They didn’t play an encore, which I was bummed about, but there weren’t enough people there to make a lot of noise to get them back on stage. I think was also one of their few shows headlining. After the show, we went to the merchandise table and talked to Josh for a bit. We told him that we had seen them at the Double Door the last time they played in Chicago. Bryan said we were buying the Static Anonymity ep because we need more Metric. We also bought t-shirts. He was really cool and said, “hey, you guys need some buttons too, and how about a poster,” which he signed for us. Emily signed the poster too, so we now have two posters signed by Emily.

We got home late after the Metric show, it was definitely worth it staying up late for.

Backing up a bit, Thursday night we had Bryan’s nephew, Michael stay over at our house. We played a ton of hands of Go Fish and Old Maid. Friday, I went and bought CandyLand and Chutes & Ladders, which we played for several hours on Friday morning. Michael went home around noon on Friday. We hadn’t slept very well on Thursday night because Michael was coughing a lot that night, so we took a very long nap on Friday afternoon, we needed to be well rested for the Metric show that night.

Saturday and Sunday, Bryan worked, so I was home doing my own thing. Saturday, I slept late and read a good part of the day. Sunday, I spent a lot of time working on a birthday card for Susan for her 30th birthday. I will post it on my card page (when I get it up). I learned how to do embossing several weeks ago and decided to do embossing on Susan’s card. It turned out really cute. I can’t wait to hear about it from her. She’s been showing her friends the cards that I’ve been sending to her. :)

This weekend, Bryan and I are going away for my 30th birthday. He’s taking me to a bed & breakfast in Wisconsin called Inn Serendipity. I am really excited to be going somewhere that’s just the two of us, we won’t know anyone and won’t have to entertain. I’m hoping for a nice relaxing weekend.

Current music:
Metric Static Anonymity
Stars heart

Current reading:
Babyville by Jane Green
The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist

This was originally published on my former “up to” blog.

Before I forget

HAPPY

THANKSGIVING!!!!

We had a very nice weekend at Monica & Pramod’s in Indianapolis. Bryan knows Monica from his undergrad days. We drove down on Saturday morning. When we got there, we all sat and talked for a bit then went for a long walk down a path close to their house. We also saw a little neighborhood “downtown” that’s really close to their house. If we’d stayed longer, I would have liked to go to the little shops that were there. We went out to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. Then came back to their house and talked for a while longer before going to bed.

Sunday, we got up and had bagels for breakfast. We looked at their photos from their trip to India in January. Pramod is from there and it was Monica’s first trip to meet her in-laws. We had some Indian food for lunch and then headed home. It was really nice to just talk and get to know Monica and Pramod.

So now I’ve met two of Bryan’s friends. I know I have a lot more to meet.

We’re starting to think about where we want to go on our honeymoon. We started out thinking about Victoria, British Columbia until I started pricing things. Then I realized that we could go to England or Ireland for about the same price, if not cheaper than Victoria. Then Bryan mentioned he wants to go to Iceland, so I started researching that and it looks beautiful, so it’s been added to our list of places to go. We’ll have to seriously start looking and pricing things after the first of the year. I’ll definitely keep you up to date on our plans.

We haven’t been up to a whole lot in the last several weeks. We tried to take Bryan’s nephew Michael out Trick-or-Treating and we weren’t very successful. We got to the first house and he wasn’t in the mood to Trick-or-Treat. I think he wanted to go out with his dad, who got home later in the evening.

We went to see Kristin Hersh at the Old Town School of Folk Music on November 15.

Need to go, Bryan is leading a book group tonight on the book we just finished, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. It was good. It was a bit slow and about 100 pages into it I was sure that I was going to have to miss the book group. But once I sat down, really read it and got into it, I read the last 255 pages in a week. Since Bryan’s next book group isn’t for a while, I’m going to read a chick-lit book - The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman.

Metric!!!! What a great show! They opened for The Walkmen, who Bryan and I have never heard. He just got the Metric cd “Old Word Underground, Where Are You Now?” about two weeks ago and we’ve been fighting over the cd for the last two weeks - I want to listen to it at work and he wants to listen to it too.
So we went to the see Metric at the Double Door on Oct. 25 , the same place we saw Bettie Serveert on Oct. 17. We had so much fun! Both of us were totally “rocking out” to Metric while they were on stage. We worked our way up to the front so we were right there. There were very few people who seemed to know who Metric was because they were there to see the Walkmen, but I’m sure they gained a few fans after the show. Emily, the singer, was very into the music. It was really cool - most of the bands we’ve seen recently have been the lead singer with a guitar type so they can get into it in a certain way, but they can’t really dance around the stage the way Emily did.

After Metric played we went back to the merchandise area and waited for someone to start selling Metric merchandise. It was really cool because Emily was the one selling the merchandise. We didn’t have a lot of cash with us because the ATMs around the area either weren’t working or didn’t have any money. So we bought a poster. We told her that we love the cd and that we fight over who gets to take it to work. :) She said she saw us rocking out in the front. :) It was so cool that she noticed us, now they know that people really do like them and not everyone was there to see the Walkmen. :) She signed our poster and we’re going to get it framed and add it to our collection of band posters in our office. I might have to scan it just to have it on my site. We’re both kicking ourselves for not having more cash with us because we really want to get Metric’s ep “Static Anonymity.”

So the rest of the weekend! My parents are in town for a conference that my dad is attending.
Saturday noon - I went to try on my dress at Marshall Field’s. It is SO beautiful! It was so cool to try on a dress that fit and was just the right length for me. I have a few photos of me in the dress and a photo with me in a veil that I like. I will email the photos, I don’t want to put them on my website because Bryan may be sneaky and look at them, I doubt he would, but I don’t want to tempt him. :) After I tried on my dress, Meredith tried on a bridesmaid’s dress that I really like - it’s my new favorite and definitely the one that I am going to have the girls wear. It’s so gorgeous and I think gives the girls the elegant look that I’ve been looking for all along.

After the dresses, Mom, Meredith and I went to lunch at the cafe at Marshall Fields. Then we went a looked at my china, dishes, silverware and wine glasses that I’ve registered for. Mom bought a few pieces for us. :)

Saturday evening - Bryan’s dad joined my parents, Meredith, Bryan and I for dinner at Chowpatti Vegetarian Restaurant in Arlington Heights. My dad and Bryan’s dad were both a bit hesitant about going to a strictly vegetarian restaurant, but they both had Mexican food and I know were very satisfied with their meals. We celebrated a belated birthday for Meredith and an early birthday for me. Mom gave Bryan & I a place-setting of our flatware and one of the serving sets. After dinner, Mom, Dad, Meredith, Bryan and I drove back into the city and we dropped Mom & Dad off at their hotel. Then we went to the Metric show. Bryan and I got home about 1am.

Sunday- We got up and spent a bit of time making cards. Then went to the city to take my sister to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. After that we went and picked up my dad at the hotel and went to dinner at the Italian Village. We had a great dinner and sat around and talked a bit after dinner.

A busy concert weekend - Neko Case on Saturday and Innocence Mission on Sunday. I don’t have any of the photos that I took up on my site yet, I can’t find the cable to attach my camera to my computer. I will get them up as soon as I find the cable.