2022

 Here we are in a new year. I’m looking forward to a good year ahead.

You may have noticed a little name change here. I’m planning to focus primarily on books, movies and a little TV here. I’ll share my thoughts and I welcome yours! I’ll still drop an occasional post about life and my crafty stuff.

I hope you find something positive that happened to/for you in 2021. And I wish you a very happy, healthy 2022! ❤️

Sunday Post

 

I’m joining Caffeinated Reader this week for Sunday Post. Feel free to join in too! Let us know what you’ve been up to.

My post will be a quick one this week…

We are house hunting. My stress level is through the roof! The real estate market is moving so fast and the prices are crazy! 

Current audiobook:

I hope you all had a great week and the coming week is a good one.

It's Friday!

Happy Friday!


I had intended to do a travel post for today. But it has been a sad news week and my heart wasn't in it.


Between a school shooting; a Chicago police officer being killed; and the 10th anniversary of the shooting at NIU, I have been struggling to find some happy this week. My heart is heavy and I can't bring myself to watch/listen to the news.


We are enjoying watching the Olympics though. So I guess that's SOMETHING happy! :)


I hope you all have a good weekend and hug those you love!

Monday, Monday

Well, here we are again. Another week is here. How was your weekend? Did you do anything exciting?

We took my Mr. out for his birthday on Friday night. I worked all day on Saturday and again Sunday afternoon at the library. (It's my part time job) #librarylife   The weather took a little wintery turn yesterday. We woke up to about 4" of snow this morning and it is still coming down. Hello, January!

However, the Cubs Convention was held this past weekend. Do I wish I had been there? YES! Did I enjoy the highlights I got to see anyway? YES! I am SO ready for baseball to start again.

I did get some reading done this weekend. I am working on 2 really good books. One is an ARC for a British author (review in a few weeks) and the other is Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser.

Happy birthday to my mom, today! I hope you have a great day!

To 2018!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful 2018

2017 was pretty good

2017 was a pretty good year at our house.

In January, a certain someone hit a milestone birthday (it wasn't me...) that begins with a 5 and ends with a 0.

In February, another someone hit a milestone birthday....

In March, my Mr. and I went to New York to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame

April brought regular season baseball. Mr. got me a ticket to Opening Night at Wrigley to celebrate the banner raising of the World Series Champions flag.  Wet and awesome night!

In May, we went to St. Louis to watch the Cubs get beat by the Cardinals.

In June, Mr. and Young Miss went to Washington DC for a week. It was hotter than blazes (100+ everyday) but they saw quite a bit.

In July, Mr. & I went to see Sara Evans and take in a South Bend Cubs game

August 22, was a the complete solar eclipse. Mr. & Young Mr. traveled to the path of totality and enjoyed it.

August & September, brought a car repair that took the mechanics almost 2 months to figure out and fix. (I'm still pretty angry about it and haven't been able to post the whole tale here yet)

We visited Disney in October with some friends. It was a lot of fun!

November was our 20th anniversary and we took a few days to visit San Francisco

We are looking forward to our 2018 adventures.

I hope your 2017 was wonderful and wish you all a fantastic 2018!

Happy Tuesday!

HELLO!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. I hope you had a Happy Hanukkah (I know it ended last week) and a Merry Christmas!

Our holiday was relaxing and restful. We haven't had one of those...probably ever. We stayed home, watched movies, ate, and just enjoyed being together.

Oh what fun

Last Friday, my office hosted our annual ladies' shopping day. We take a bus of clients to downtown Chicago for shopping.  My Mr. came as my guest this year. We had a nice time.


The weather was PERFECT! Sunny, no wind, 50 degrees.


We went to see a movie - Bad Moms Christmas. SO crude but SO funny!


We got a little shopping done and spent a lot of time walking around. (People watching is always fun) The Macy's windows are fun this year. We plan to take the kids to see them in a few weeks.

Proud Mom!

Young Miss auditioned back in September for the all district junior orchestra. (The district covers the northwest part of Illinois)  She made it and they had their concert a couple of weeks ago. She spent a whole day rehearsing with all the other students from the other school districts. She had a good time and enjoyed her experience.

The concert was wonderful!

With her "swag"

Happy Autumn!

I know autumn is almost over but I hope you are able to get out and enjoy some of it.

Hello November!

I have been a terrible blogger this year! I just haven't felt much inspiration to write and post. October has come & gone....  I hope you all had a nice month! We had a vacation; a few photo shoots and a wedding to photograph.

I did get some scrapbooking done this past weekend (just a little bit!). I am hoping to continue on that track between photo editing and other crafty projects.

My little crafting corner, where I was most of this past Saturday:

These are the layouts I got completed:

I got another one spread out on my desk but didn't make much progress.

On another note, it's 100 days until the Winter Olympics open. I am looking forward to them!

What are you up to this month?

This & That

My Cubs are the NL Central Champs! Post season here we come again!

The skies have been beautiful in the Midwest the past couple of weeks:

My Mr. and Young Mr. traveled to the path of totality on August 21. Mr. took this with his phone just before totality. They were both psyched about the whole thing and are looking forward to the next one!

These are the loaner cars I have had from the dealership since August 22 (still driving the black one). I am still waiting for MY car to come back to us. Frustrating does not even cover my emotional state in dealing with the dealership right now.

When this is finally figured out, I will post the whole saga. (And it's a doozy!)

I hope you all have a great weekend!



All the Feels

For those of you who don't know, I work a second job at our local library. One evening a week I hold a children's story time. I love it!

Last night story time was a lost cause on all the kids that were there. I may as well have been reading to a brick wall. As I was reading, I noticed a young lady (probably college age) slip into the room and sit down quietly. Since we live in a college town, I didn't think too much of it - thinking she was observing for a class or was with one of the families who were there.

After 15 minutes, all the families had left because no one was listening. And there sat this young lady. She asked me to keep reading. Ok - feeling a little odd reading to an adult, I continued. She moved closer and sat and listened. When I finished the book, she said "I am learning English."

Lightbulb!!!! 

I asked if she would like me to read another book or if she would like to look through one by herself. She asked me to read another. So I did and she stopped me to ask what different words meant. I don't think about it on a daily basis, but there are MANY things in the English language that are confusing and actually difficult to explain. We made it through and she asked if she could come again next week.

That question made me so happy and I can't wait to see her again next week.

Happy Friday!

Most importantly, my heart goes out to and I am praying for all the hurricane victims in the Caribbean, Texas, Florida and all the other areas and to the earthquake victims in Mexico.

Happy Autumn Equinox!

I am thrilled with all the photo shoot bookings I am making the past week. I have a few more openings at the end of October in northern Illinois/southern Wisconsin area - contact me if you are interested. (photosbyjenmcgee@gmail.com)

(This song has been stuck in my head for a few days-you're welcome)

Wishing you a safe, restful weekend ahead!

This & That, part 2

A little more summer catch up, since I am SO far behind with this little corner of the inter webs.

Our July started with some friends getting married. 

My annual work conference (after going through a merger about 10 days before that), was held in Chicago. We had a nice time and it was nice to meet some new co-workers.

Our team building exercise was each table was given a picture to paint - they all came together to make this mural. It was fun and turned out really cool!

The Mr. & I took a night away for ourselves. We went to see Sara Evans, which was entertaining, as always.

A $5 bet got me this at the casino... 

We went to a South Bend Cubs game on one of the few really hot days we had this summer. That ballpark is beautiful!

That pretty well sums up our July.  I will be back with another this & that post soon!

Cadillace Truth + Dare Event

About a month ago, my Mr. & I were invited to participate in the Cadillac Truth + Dare event near us. We went, not really knowing what to expect. Well....it was a REALLY fun evening!

We got a little swag:

We participated in four stations. The road drive (yes, they let us drive the cars).

We drove the "drag strip" (aka: acceleration test) - put the hammer down and let it go. I will admit - THAT was fun!

Then we rode on the safety course. That was the station where we had drivers so they could demonstrate crash avoidance and auto parallel parking.

Then our favorite stations: Auto Cross.

Drive as fast as you want and don't hit any cones!

A little video of the auto cross, sorry it's not better quality!

(You get the idea)

It was a fun night! Awesome cars and adventure.

If you have the chance to do this, I would advise you to.

#cadillactruthanddare