Cheers to 2011

Hi world,

Can you believe Aly and I have been in Chicago for a year now? I guess it's true - time flies when you're having fun. Since it's the beginning of a new year, I figured I'd quickly rehash the events of 2010.

In 2010 I went through three jobs - two in PR, spending time on fun clients and celebrities like Lauren Conrad and her Milk Mustache campaign (right) , Kelly Ripa and her magic Electrolux touch, and of course, great food groups like Chef Boyardee, Slim Jim and Manwich. My third job, which I hope to stay at for a long time is at Groupon, which I mentioned in my previous post. It looks promising, they trusted me enough to transition me to City Planner for six cities! Aly and Gloria were also promoted to Account Executives and Sheila moved on from brainstorming for Axe to another fun client. Besides big girl jobs, 2010 brought laughter and tears, boy drama to parties and Lollapalooza to weddings. Valentines day was spent with Sheila sipping on fishbowls and meeting navy boys, while the summer was spent at North Ave beach flirting with pretty boys and tossing footballs with Chicago Rush football players. Summer weekends were also spent at neighborhood festivals with live bands and delicious food. I feel like the girls from Sex and the City, minus their fabulous clothes I can't afford (although I do dream about Jimmy Choo's and Manolo Blahniks).

Anyway - Here's to a great 2011. And here's to the ambitious first two days, some of it spent as a professional apartment hunter:

So after a full year in our lovely Lakeview apartment we decided that it might potentially be time for apartment hunting again. After considering the cultured Bucktown and homey Lincoln Park neighborhoods, our hearts stopped and jaws dropped at what we would like to call the wonderland, also known as the South Loop. Envision, if you will, high rises with doormen and soaking tubs. Aly's nickname for us would be the "South Loop snobs," which is totally ironic to our typical low key, down to earth selves. After this decision, or should I say commitment to apartment hunt, I made sure to recruit a few strong men to help us move, bribing them with booze (they have no idea how much these couches and my queen size bed weigh, ha) and enlisted the same old Scott from the previous December to be our professional Realtor/professional apartment hunting leader. Jan 2nd was spent, Starbucks in hand, looking at five different apartments. We did find a liking in two, however let me tell you about the nightmares we did look at first. One apartment was designed with the industrial look in mind, which is cool until you realize that the walls don't quite reach the ceiling leaving very little privacy - although it did say "such a big miracle for a little girl" on the wall - it almost had us sold. Another apartment had just as much privacy - one of the bedrooms didn't even have a door, and to top it off the in-unit laundry was located inside the bedroom next to the closet. My first thought was "morning Aly, don't mind me, just need to toss in my whites." Those two were nixed. The ones that we did like include one on S. Federal and one on Dearborn. The one on South Federal is quite large for Chicago standards and leaves me with a winding hall in my bedroom with two closets leading to the private bathroom. It also has a giant kitchen for Aly to listen to country in while she makes me dinner (I now associate country with food, which I can't decide if it's a good thing b/c of my strong dislike for the music genre). The Dearborn apartment has floor to wall ceilings on the 18th floor - great way to face my fear of heights and a billiards room to make anyone playing pool on ESPN jealous (ok not quite, theirs is probably nicer, but then again my drunken pool skills aren't career worthy).

So after this ambitious apartment hunting day, we decided to give Scott some time off as we headed to a bar to watch the Packers and Eagles games. Our empty stomachs were fed with delicious nachos as we were entertained by the Packers win (I just can't bring myself to be a Bears fan). I'm pretty sure we were the two most hated people at the bar cheering for the other team (well Aly more than me, b/c my team is still the Eagles). After the games we headed home where Aly decided to go back out for Sunday Funday and I relaxed the night away in front of the TV fighting my writer's block in order to document my adventures of 2010. 2011 continues tomorrow when Al and I head back to work and then draft up a pros and cons list of the two apartments we looked at, as well as our current home. At the top of the Lakeview pro list is Horizon Cafe, which is seriously going to be a tough one to replace. I do think they deliver - or maybe that's my hopes getting the best of me....we'll see. Cheers to the year 2011, may it be a good one.