The Sweatshop of Love Blog

Elizabeth and I met at Adrian College our freshmen year. We were both there for only one year, but the year highlights include strip monopoly, Optical Illusion Boy, me living off cookies and coffee for 9 months, Cripple Boy, Brad playing Oasis and Travis nonstop, Dreamy Matt Rife, Chelsea and I becoming drummers, The Gloworm, and a WHOLE lot of boy drama. Elizabeth, Chelsea, Lindsay and I, while recapping our weekends one Monday at lunch, discovered that between the four of us we made out with enough boys in the past 2 days to field a baseball team.

Elizabeth and I hadn’t seen each other since my 21st birthday party four and a half years ago. You know, like the Olympics.  She lives in Columbus, just far enough away from Chicago to make that an inconvenient drive. But she did it Friday! And 7 hours later she was in, and then we were out, of Chicago.

We had to drive out to St Charles for Colleen’s birthday party. After Elizabeth’s drive, and I had just gotten back in the city a couple hours before as well, we weren’t exactly pumped about the two hour drive through traffic to the burbs, but we had to do it for Colleen.

Well, I had to do it for Colleen and Elizabeth was a trooper.

Saturday morning we made blueberry pancakes with the abundance of blueberries I brought back from Michigan, and potatoes with fresh dill.

It was hot and sunny and beautiful in Chicago Saturday, so Elizabeth and I walked around Logan Square and Wicker Park for a while with iced coffees before heading to Handlebar for a late lunch.

We walked over to The Clipper for drinks after some Saturday night baseball (that Elizabeth was also a trooper through).

Gil and Martin came with a friend, and PT rode over despite having a Tastee Freeze-for-dinner tummy ache (Elizabeth and I didn’t seem to have a problem with it!).

Sunday was rainy, so we played Clue! PT looks like he is really concentrating on the game, but it was a massacre. Elizabeth won twice and I won once.

Pudge thought we were the lamest people in the history of the world.

So she made us some drinks! The combo of the night? Aloe vera juice and coconut rum. Well done, Pudge. Well done.

They went very well with the beet salad and corn on the cob we made for dinner. Elizabeth has never eaten beets before, and she gave this a thumbs up! Naturally.

After dinner it stopped raining enough for us to drive over to North Avenue Beach, something we had been talking about all weekend, but with the Air and Water Show and it being 90 degrees, it was crowded and loud all weekend.

Of course, without sun the water was a little cold! This was about as far as we could make it.

But the city was beautiful and the beach was empty. There was even a storm over the water we were watching for a while.

I think we showed Elizabeth a good time. I mean, who doesn’t like blueberry pancakes, clue, and the night beach?

It was nice to be back in the city for me, too. Sleeping in a bed was sweet! Seeing the kitties, and PT, was much needed. And those four pounds I didn’t gain while home I sure gained this weekend!

I’m looking forward to seeing Elizabeth again in four and a half years for my 30th birthday party! We planned this one out well, actually.

I got cocky. Again. This always happens! PT and I ate that entire no-knead loaf of bread in about 36 hours, so I thought I would just throw together another loaf! I knew something was wrong right away, and then, of course, out came this hard, flat pizza crust like loaf. It was very disappointing, considering how amazed I was at the outcome of the last loaf, and how amazingly delicious it was with peanut butter.

Somehow PT cut this loaf and made sandwich-like slices out of it. It was very dense but crisp and a nice accompaniment to egg salad. We also roasted up some carrots with bbq seasoning and those made a nice accompaniment to the egg salad sandwich, so amazingly it all worked out. Another loaf, however, is rising it’s designated 18 hours as I write, and I kicked everyone out of the kitchen so I could count everything correctly. We will see what happens.

I found this food blog I’m liking called Keep It Simple Foods. These two women write it and its cute and all about eating simply, which I like. Friday they had a post about Asian noodles, and how simple they are to make.

Friday was the first hot day Chicago has seen this year and I thought some cold Asian noodles would be a great dinner choice! So I cooked up some Chinese noodles, stir-fried up some broccoli, carrots, and the last of the farmers market mushrooms, and made the Asian dressing she recommended. This dish turned out so well! PT and I both loved it so much that we made it again for lunch Saturday.

We replaced the mushrooms with Vidalia onion for lunch Asian noodles. See all those sesame seeds? It is a great summer meal!

Yesterday we made our way to the Belmont Arts and Music Festival, where we sampled some amazing cinnamon roasted almonds, which might be my favorite outdoor food. I smell that sweet nutty smell and I just can’t say no! I want some sweet almonds. And these didn’t let me down! PT and I sat in the shade and enjoyed every last one. Unfortunately there was some terrible music playing nearby and I almost got run over by a couple strollers, but I don’t harbor ill will for the nuts. To get these you usually have to deal with strollers and bad cover bands and lots of sweaty people.

We washed our sweet nuts down with lemonade, the perfect drink on a hot day. Bud would have you think it is Bud Light Lime, but we were sitting right across from the alcohol stand where you could get regular Bud and Bud Light for $5 and Bud Light Lime for $6, which would be enough for me to get the Bud Light (Actually I would just get another bag of almonds! You know me.), but douchebro after douchebro bought the Bud Light Lime! It just can’t be good.

After the fest we biked to the lake, where everyone in Chicago was.

It was a nice bike ride, but there were just too many people laying around, running and biking on the trail, walking around with huge coolers, that we didn’t stay long. And my Snow White skin can only take so many hours in the hot sun. We biked home and relaxed with some baseball and root beer floats.

I started on my Summer Sweater straps and am working through them. 35 is a lot of inches! And K1P1 is much less fun than the diamond lace pattern I was knitting in my sleep I loved so much. I’m going to have to think up a way to use that pattern again soon! I miss it already.