Happy birthday and top o' the mornin' to you, Marmar!

Happy birthday to my mom on her 86th! Marmar loves her St. Patrick's Day birthday and we love her.
Have a wonderful day, Mom!

St. Patrick's Day comes early in Chicago

I know that St. Patrick's Day is March 17th. After all, that's my mother's birthday. But in Chicago, we don't feel the need to wait until the actual day to celebrate. It's been that way for many years. In the neighborhood where Jack grew up and his parents still live, there is an annual event that is held on the weekend before St. Patrick's Day. Here is a picture from the world famous South Side Irish Parade.This picture was taken back in 1991. (Check out the gas prices!)We had a ball that year. We got to walk in the parade with Jack's parents as part of the Mercy Hospital group. Wayne was thrilled, Sally not quite so much as she was a little afraid of the clowns. The South Side Irish Parade is more than a parade...it is a neighborhood celebration that lasts all day. Unfortunately, over the years it became too fun and now it is no more. Not officially, anyway, though word on the street is that the celebration was going to continue today

Another fun tradition that we have participated in for the last 15 years or so is the St. Patrick's Day party that our friends Marty and Sheila throw every year. Marty's birthday is also on the 17th and he is very Irish so it's a wonderful reason to have a party. It is always fun and delicious. Sheila makes the best mini-Rueben sandwiches. Yum.
Christy, Carol and Jack in our usual spot in the living room




One of the highlights of Marty and Sheila's party is The Cat. Marty and Sheila were given an obnoxious ceramic cat many years back and they decided, as a joke, to have a drawing every year to see who gets to have possession of The Cat for the next year. Here is Marty, getting everyone ready for the big announcement.

And guess what? WE WON!


The fun will continue this week and we are looking forward to celebrating Marmar's 86th birthday next Sunday.

Rainy Saturday

I have not posted in almost a week and I apologize to all three of my regular readers :) Part of the problem is that not much has been going on this week and the other part is that I have been going to bed early. One night I was in bed by 7:30! I don't feel too badly about that since Sally has also been in bed by that time too.

Sally is loving her student teaching experience and says that she is learning so much. She said that it is not as easy as it looks and I know what she means. There is a ton you have to do and all at the same time...deliver curriculum, manage behavior and connect with your students all at the same time. Her cousin, Arne, teaches chemistry at the high school level and he tells her the same thing that Sally's cooperating teacher has said: Be tough. Sally is working on it and said she is developing her "teacher voice". She also found out yesterday that she passed her final test in the state certification process. Yaay!

We had a big maintenance week here this week. Jack, Sally and I all had eye exams and ordered new glasses. Jack had his first root canal; Sally and I are both way ahead of him in that area. And I went to the dermatologist and had my purple spot on my lip zapped. It's not too pretty to look at yet, even though I had it done on Tuesday. One of my preschool speech kids told me I had a "monkey lip". Love the honesty!

Illinois just lost to Ohio State in double over time in the Big Ten tournament.Bummer. Wonder if they will get a bid for the NCAA tournament?

Transitioning

We have had a good week here, making our transition to being not-so-empty-nesters and Sally is making the transition to being home. I am sure it is not easy for her to be home, away from the fun of college and her apartment and friends, but Sally is being a good sport and fitting into our AARP lifestyle. For example, on Friday night, Sally, Matt, Jack and I went to dinner at The Reel Club, a wonderful seafood restaurant in Oak Brook. Did I mention that we went to dinner at 5:30? That is lunchtime for college students! We had a marvelous evening (didn't hurt that The Reel Club has an exceptional wine special) and we had our favorite waitress, Cheryl. Another waitress tipped us off that it was Cheryl's 40th birthday and we had fun with that, with help from a fun family sitting across from us.

By the way, if you ever go to The Reel Club, I highly recommend the blackened mahi mahi.

On Saturday, Sally and I went over to see Abbie and Nina at their new house. Arne and Beth recently closed on a home that is about 20 minutes away from us. They are working hard to redecorate and clean before they move in, which should be sometime in the next few weeks. Here are a couple cute pictures from our visit. Sally and I did not stay long because everyone was working waaaay too hard, hanging wooden shades, cleaning under the washer and dryer, replacing toilets, painting, etc. We didn't want to get in the way or have to help :)

As I write this post, Jack, Sally and I are watching the Academy Awards. So far, I think the Oscars are pretty entertaining, though I would have to say that my favorite host ever would have to be Billy Crystal. We miss Wayne being here since he is the Oscar specialist in the family. Who can ever forget Wayne's big Oscar contest wins when he was in high school?! Wayne is in Cincinnati watching the Oscars with Julie and his friends, including Nate (his roommate), JMike, and Alan and his girlfriend Susie. Alan is one of Wayne's good high school friends who is in his 3rd year of medical school at the University of Louisville. Alan is doing a rotation in Cincy this month and so is staying at Wayne and Nate's. I am glad that Wayne is having a fun time on one of his favorite nights of the year.

Three weeks til Spring Break!

Great having Sally home

It is so wonderful having Sally back home. There is lots of positive energy with her here. Her first day of student teaching went well. Sally is blessed to be with a fantastic cooperating teacher. She said everyone was welcoming and they even gave her her own desk in the Foreign Language Department office. Love it.

We had a big night of TV last night. Bachelor finale and then "After the Final Rose" AND they announced the new cast of "Dancing with the Stars". We had fun watching it with Sally and her good friend Mere. We are so mature.

I am so glad it is March and it is getting lighter and warmer out.

Weekend update

Yesterday was a productive Saturday, today not such a productive Sunday. Nothing like sleeping until almost 10am. I can't remember the last time I did that and boy, was it nice.

Sally got back in the area yesterday just in time for her hair appointments, so she went straight to the salon and then from there, straight to Matt's. That was fine by us as we were busy doing our Saturday cleaning (by that I mean the cleaning we do on Saturdays when we are having people over...I don't want to give the wrong impression that Jack and I are diligent in cleaning our house on a regular basis!). We had invited our friends Deanna and Brad (that is them in the picture below) over for dinner sort of spur of the moment and so wanted to get the house presentable, though after they left, I realized the chair where Deanna was sitting had a giant clump of cat hair on it. Yikes. Nice. Anyway, we had a fun night and it was so good to catch up with them. We only get to see them on average once a year and when we do get together, we always wonder why we don't get together more often. Brad recently celebrated a big birthday and we wanted to celebrate that. On a sad note, Deanna lost her brother Mike to a brain tumor (same type as Tom's) in December and we also wanted to acknowledge that loss. The evening went by so fast. Sally got home around 10:30 and joined us for awhile. Deanna introduced Sally and me to a great iphone app called "Words with Friends". It is, in essence, Scrabble. You invite different friends to play a game against you. You can have several games going at once and you play the games at your leisure. So fun. I am a little sorry Deanna showed us this app because I have spent waaaay too much time on it today. But at least my mind is getting a little exercise :) Speaking of exercise, I might go out and take a little spin around the block. Or I might just walk to the refrigerator and have some leftovers.

Quasi-empty nesting (*with pictures added later!)

Sally comes home today! On Monday, she will begin her student teaching at a high school near us, so she is moving home. We love having Sally around and can't wait to have her here. It's such an exciting time in her life. Luckily, Matt is also in the area, so she won't get bored hanging around us oldsters.

Feb 25 wasn't so hard this year. Feb 24 and the few days leading up to it were harder. Jenny said the same thing. It's almost like Feb 25 is a day of celebration of Dane and so it feels good to have him front and center in our lives on that day. I felt good the minute I woke up on Thursday. It was a beautiful sunny day and that always helps. When I got to work, there was a little white bag containing 5 Kirschbaum's glazed donut holes sitting on my desk. My thoughtful co-worker Ellyn brought those for me...so sweet. The day before during lunch, Ellyn and I started talking about Dane and it ended up with me reliving the day that Dane died. We went through the whole day and she listened and cried with me and that really helped! Ellyn is such a great person, I love her sense of humor. Ellyn told the story of the time her husband was having a heart attack (seriously) and she went upstairs to finish drying her hair because she was in such shock and wasn't processing the whole situation so she followed her routine. Of course, she realized what she was doing and then stopped right away, but isn't it weird how we process crises??

On Thursday night, I met up with the fam at Muldoon's for a celebration dinner. Marmar and Jack were not able to make it and we missed them, but it was great to be together. I will post some pictures later. I am having some technical difficulties and I gotta get moving on my Saturday chores. Check back later.

Okay, here are a few pictures from Muldoon's. Sorry it took me a while!