Last day in Chicago

I finished my Chicago project today! (Well, I still need to add one more coat of polyurethane and caulk the countertop... which I'll do after i get one last custard from Hole in the Wall and make the homemade poptarts and homemade marshmallows that I promised second-cousin-Marty!)


Before...


After! Next time I visit I'll add a long shelf across the room above the window. If I was going to stay longer I'd paint, for now I leave it (mostly) primed and ready for action!



Tonight we went to Chicago's Home of Chicken and Waffles II for dinner. It was way swankier than I expected inside based on it being a chicken and waffle place. Though had I seen the logo, a chicken in a tuxedo next to a large waffle, I would have guess as much :)

I found a picture f the interior, the picture of the logo is proving difficult to find, so use your imagination. The food was super tasty, now I can add "eat chicken and waffles" to my bucket list, and cross it off.


Oh and I'm the subject of today's Cover Freak, the blog of my second cousin's husband (so... my second-cousin-in-law?). I've been staying with them a week, hogging the TV room/my bedroom.

Tomorrow I head to Columbia, MO when I get up (so like 11 :P)!

Chicago: Amazing lunch, books and projects

Yesterday seems so long ago. Perhaps because I was still full from yesterday's lunch until about 2pm today! In the morning I started working on the mud room remodel (pictures to come soon) by patching the hole that Marty thought was 5"x5" but when I removed the painted pieces of cardboard that was covering the hole it turned out to be more like 14"x7"! Then I met Marissa and her husband in town and we had an amazing lunch at Bandera.
To start we shared a side of mac and cheese and Bandera's famous cornbread.

Then my main was the Seattle style (BBQ? not sure how that makes sense) salmon with cucumber salad and green rice. Inthe background there Eric (left) got a stake sandwich with awesome fries and a cup of jus to dip the sandwich in. Marissa got a salad with rotisserie chicken, when I took a bike of the chicken it melted in my mouth! It was all sooo good, so good. I hadn't saved room for dessert but I got it anyway, berries and marscapone. It was heavenly! Eric got banana cream pie and Marissa (right) had key lime pie (which she said was amazing).

After lunch, I rolled myself over to After-words bookstore on Illinois (once I figured out how to get off Michigan street... curse your layered streets Chicago!) I find myself drawn to the travel section; I purchased 2 books. I stumbled across A Field Guide to America's History, it's full of entries like "mills and factories" and "barns" with information on where to look for things and brief histories including drawings. I'm pretty excited about it! The second book I bought is blue highways which was recommended to me by a friend of my mom at church back in Delaware. I started reading it on the L back from the city yesterday and have already been inspired to take the blue highway route.

"He said, 'I noticed that you use work and job interchangeably. Oughten to do that. A job's what you force yourself to pay attention to for money. With work, you don't have to force yourself. There are a lot of jobs in this country, and that's good because they keep people occupied. That's why they're called 'occupations' (page 10)." I'm looking for job opportunities in my travels with the main goal of finding work... I guess he's referring to life's work?

I almost bought a book called Experience Architecture, but decided I won't need it until I try to write more about architecture and continue my thesis from undergrad... hopefully I'll get around to that someday soon, perhaps in my travels. With my new plans though, I don't think I'll be going back to school. I might just have to try research and writing on my own. That's a topic for another day though :)

Today I worked more on the mudroom remodel, here is a before shot (after the room had been cleared out).

The mudroom is becoming an extension of the kitchen, along with repairing some holes I am installing some cabinets and a countertop. Hopefully I'll be able to paint it as well, or at least prime before I head to my next stop (Columbia, MO)!

Chicago

Yesterday, I finally got to take the car to the autobody shop, I got a quote for the damage to the back door (it's all going to need to be replaced; I noticed yesterday also that the bike rack did also break, but only a tiny bit). They said with going through insurance it will take about a week and a half. Since the insurance company is in Canada I have no idea how long it will actually take for this to go through. So now I'm going to wait until I get to MN and my brother said I should get a few quotes. We'll see what my options are when I'm in rural Minnesota! Then the AT OIL TEMP light has been staying on longer than usual when I startup the car so I wanted to get that checked out but neither of the local mechanic shops had time for me til Tuesday.

So, with car stuff out of the way for the day it was time for the inaugural bike ride on Minty Fresh! Borrowing the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture map from my cousin I headed North to the Frank Lloyd Wright district. I saw some neat buildings and stopped in the FLW home and studio to refill my water bottle (I'd already done that tour when I was here for a day a year ago).

Wright awesomeness, so lucky to be staying in Oak Park, surrounded by Wright buildings!

This one is not a Wright but I love love love this kind of shingle detailing! It's like the bottom of the ocean.

After my excursion bike ride, I came back to the house to chill for a bit then I met my childhood friend Marissa and her Husband at Wrigley Field for a Cubs game! Prior to this game I'd been to one baseball game (the Mets, high up over left field) and never really cared for baseball. Wrigley totally changed that! I'm not like a super fan or anything now but it was fun! I attribute a lot of my enjoyment to my company and the manual scoreboard that I thought (and still think!) is awesome! I think it also helped that in our seats we could see the whole field well and the field is smaller than Citifield, it felt more intimate.

Eric's finger, Marissa and me...It's not a ballgame til you have a beer in your hand!
Awesome old-school scoreboard

The cubs won, 0:1 which was sweet because apparently they hadn't won in like 11 games. I had just posted to facebook that I wish they'd hurry up and score so I could go home... 4 minutes later, they did! You're welcome :P The guy, Darwin Barney, who slid into home plate went to the same high school as me (and I think graduated in my brother's year) which was also kind of cool to have a little hometown pride while in Chicago! To get home I walked up one L stop to the north so I'd have a seat. Brilliant plan (kudos to Marissa) cause I got a seat where I could read my National Geographic book on the National Parks (the West is calling!).



Today I don't know what it was but I was super exhausted and had trouble getting up. When I finally did get up I took the car to the shop to look at the AT OIL TEMP light that's been turning on when I start the car then I took Minty Fresh on the L and went for a bike ride by the water in downtown Chicago. I'm so jealous of this city and the beaches and paths right in the center of the city. I biked and drew and took some pictures then headed back in order to avoid have to come back after rush hour. (No bikes allowed on the L between 7-9am and 4-6pm), which also allowed me to pick up my car from the mechanic.

The waterfront marina downtown and my sketch of the marina, the note in the sketch says "Clearly I haven't drawn anything in a while, I mean... it came out Purple!"

I'd dropped my car at Russo's, the neighborhood and he said it was $100 for the diagnostic but if it turned out I just needed the fluids changed he's waive the diagnostic fee. Well he coudlnt' find anything wrong with the car, he drove it around, poked around and even called his transmission buddies and still nothing wrong. So when I came back to get my car, he didn't charge me anything! For his awesome customer service and help (and understanding of my road-trip-car-paranoia) I picked up a gift card for the Hole in the Wall custard shop I will drop by tomorrow on my way to the L as a thank you for his awesome customer service. So far I have been quite happy with the customer service in Chicago!
Keep it up, Chicago!

This is a chocolate dipped custard cone... it melted all over my hand and was super delicious. I <3 custard! If you find yourself in Oak Park go to Hole in the Wall Custard & Cones on Oak Park Ave right by the Oak Park-Blue L stop!

My goal for tomorrow was to leave the house by 10:30, and now it looks like it's supposed to rain and Marty and I just got back from the biggest hardware store ever (with the worst signage ever) to get materials for me to remodel her little mudroom into more kitchen storage space. So stay tuned for another Handy-Kaydee project! Hopefully I'll get to hang out with Marissa and Eric once more before they fly out on Friday morning too, so busy!

Cleveland > Chicago

The timing to go through Cleveland worked out really well because it's the same time Ashley needed to be dropped off with her brother to hitch a ride back home and my friend Nathan happened to be there for work building a playground (actually, rebuilding because the last one was accidentally burned to the ground).

Before I dropped Ashley off we went to the West Side Market in Cleveland, it was so awesomely full of amazing looking/smelling/tasting food! Dang that's a lot of butter!

After some unremarkable Mexican food we found this ice cream shop called Handel's... it was soooo good! They have a huge number of flavors and you stand outside to order. It was warm out so when they opened the little window to take our order the frozen breeze was lovely :)

Here is the playground at Bexley Park, I helped assemble that slide!

I came to the playground after dropping off Ashley, after putting on some closed-toe shoes I helped out a bit on the playground. Nathan was kind enough to let me sleep on his hotel floor (yay for AC!). I taught him Zombie Fluxx and we caught up and went to sleep. He had to be at the site at 7am, I woke up when he left... if you can call it that, and went back to sleep. I arrived at the playground sometime around 10am, I felt a little bad, but hey, I'm on vacation :) We then worked until about 9pm and I got to go out with Nathan and his coworkers to Rummy's, a local bar they'd been going to almost every night. After a couple drinks and some too-hot-for-me wings, we went to this other place, the name of which I can't remember, Swing something, because one of the guys working ont he playground was playing that night. After he played it was back to the hotel, at this point it was getting pretty late, especially for guys who get up at 6:30!

Friday morning I slowly woke up and eventually made it over to the playground to say goodbye (and return the Allen wrench I found in my pocket). Then it was off to Chicago! I was using my phone's GPS which seemed to take me on a few extra turns, but no matter, I got to Chicago in one piece! In Chicago I'm staying with my dad's cousin (my 2nd cousin) and her husband and 4th grade daughter (my 3rd cousin). Friday night I watched a movie and passed out, exhausted from all the driving. The next day, Saturday, was the epic bike day, and in the evening my 2nd cousin's nephews (so I guess also my 3rd cousins?) were all over for hte night. We played Zooloretto, a German board game I hadn't tried before, and had Chicago pizza (I will never understand the square slices of a round pizza, but when in Rome I guess!)

After dinner, Marty (cousin) and I did some grocery shopping and stumbled across this...

Now why someone would buy this canned product of Bahrain when you are right next to Wisconsin, home to cheese... I have no idea!


I will update more on Chicago later, now I need to get off my butt and go explore Chicago! (And get my car checked :( fingers crossed that my transmission just needs new fluids!)