Finally! After getting back from Paris and back into my normal routine, I’m getting to the rest of my Chicago trip in May. Check out Part 1 here.

I started the morning off with a run down the Magnificent Mile and the Riverwalk. The weather could not have been more perfect! Running past all of the stores, people on their way to work… it was exhilarating. There was a nice breeze and it hadn’t yet become too hot. It was a great way to start the day!

Dad let me pick our brunch spot on Sunday (brunching in Chicago – how fun is that?) – Thanks to a recommendation from my dear friend, E, we decided to check out Yolk.

The wait was long and we needed our Starbucks. Like father like daughter! So, I decided to walk down a couple of blocks and pick us up something while he waited at the restaurant.

The whole time I couldn’t help but think of how what I had heard about Chicago and what I had been seeing was completely different. All I had heard about was the crime. But, people were so friendly! They held the doors open for each other and said please and thank you and didn’t cut in line. It was like a little southern town but up North. I guess it was probably the part of town we were in and stayed in, but still – sorry, New York – I have a new favorite big city.

Who said eating healthful had to be boring? YUM!

We headed to the convention to spend most of our day… I won’t bore you with the little details – it was fun. There was so much food. I didn’t try 99% of the samples but when I heard some woman shouting, “Schmacon!” I had to try it. It’s beef… but it’s bacon. Interesting concept. Still didn’t taste like bacon.

Dad also liked to tell everyone we met this was my “second” time visiting the NRA convention. The first time he snuck me in in a shopping bag when I was three months old. He and my Mom came to Chicago for the convention and didn’t know until they were turned away at the door that “no children” were allowed.

So Dad gets the bright idea to stick his baby girl down into a shopping bag and walk in. Thankfully, Mom had a collapsible stroller and was able to stroll me around and they didn’t say anything else to them. So – it was fun to walk in on two legs and not be smuggled in in a shopping bag.

Some other notes to mention… A woman was carrying around two miniature baby lobsters in her hands. Why.

Of course, Dad was full of jokes and good ideas as we meandered around the convention. One of the vendors was selling work shoes and he exclaims:

“That’s what you should do! Design worker shoes but still cool looking.”

I’m not against designing shoes. But, not that kind, Dad.

At some point in the day he started squeaking his tennis shoes across the floor in the convention lobby. What are you, twelve? Yes. The answer is yes. That’s when he delivered this gem:

Him: “Bad habits are hard to break.”

Me: “Man, that is so true.”

Him: “So you know what you do?”

Of course I’m thinking he is going to deliver some sage advice. Think again.

“Pick up another bad habit!”

I’ll be sure and blame you for all of the bad habits I’ve acquired, Dad. For some reason that day I got the old Diana Ross song, “Do You Know Where You’re Going To?” stuck in my head and started singing it. Probably to the point of being obnoxious, but what else what I supposed to do to entertain myself? I’m an only child – that’s what I do!

So, we’re sitting in the bus to take us back downtown and I’m just quietly singing… “Do you know where you’re going to, do you like the things that life is showing you?” And he pops me in the mouth!

“Did you just hit me?!”

“Whoops. Sorry. Accident.”

Right before he punched me in the mouth.

Hot Chocolate

Later that evening we decided to go to a restaurant we had heard good things about and I had also happened to pin on Pinterest. Can I make a living at planning trips for other people? Please and thank you.

You’d think with a name like Hot Chocolate it would be a dessert restaurant, but they had some of the best reviews for an amazing burger. All of their ingredients are farm fresh. They also are a dessert bar – I’ll get to that in a moment. Man, that thing was AMAZING. Not as amazing as the pizza we had. I think about that pizza a lot. I may have had some dreams about it. I can just taste it… Okay, getting off into a rabbit hole.

MMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!!

I’m not a big burger snob but I do enjoy a good burger and this was definitely one of the best I’ve had. I highly recommend stopping off there if you’re ever in the area.

We were enjoying our pre-meal and someone-who-shall-remain-nameless was glued to their phone. I may love my phone but if I’m out to eat with someone I put it away. The conversation about electronic devices at the table went a little like this:

Me: “Why don’t you put your phone away and talk to me?”

Him: -pauses- “Nah, I don’t want to.”

And, we wonder why I have issues.

evidence

Of course, you can’t come to a place that is one of the most popular dessert spots in town and not get something.

A little salted chocolate thumbprint cookie with chocolate frosting.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel. I curled up on the window seat and read until I actually fell asleep there. That was one of my favorite parts of the whole trip… to just lay there and read and look outside.

Can’t wait to share Part 3 – coming soon!

until next time… xoxo, patty lauren

I wasn’t going to blog about this but it was a special request (love you DC!) and I figured I could correlate it to something. I’m slowly working my way through my Summer 2015 Bucket List (not as fast as I would like though). One of the things I wanted to try this summer was a new workout class. I’m not really a workout class kinda gal outside of my yoga classes, but this is a year of new things and trying as much as I can!

While this wasn’t my first choice the class time fit in well with my free Saturday morning this past weekend. Zumba. One of my best friends religiously asked me to go to Zumba with her for months and I would always decline. So, of course, here I am a year later and going to a Zumba class. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty. I’m not the most coordinated person in the world and while I think I dance well in private I’m not real sure about shaking it salsa style for an hour.

I showed up and was the ONLY PERSON IN THE CLASS. For someone who has dealt with anxiety that is like one of my worst nightmares. But, I survived. So here I am standing there waiting for other people to show up… one other person comes in and the instructor turns on music. Are we starting the class? She hasn’t made any announcements. Do I just start dancing? Then the instructor starts busting it all over the room – like she is getting down. Having a party all by herself. No one else is dancing. Ummm…

So I did the weaseley (yeah I made that up) thing and left the class. I walked out into the lobby of the Y and just stood there for a minute debating if I wanted to go back in there. I was worried I might break a hip with what she was doing. I’m kidding. I sucked it up and went back in and thank GOD more people had shown up.

What. A. Hot. Mess. I felt like the whitest white girl in the world. Any pride I had in my dancing/booty shaking abilities got shot to you-know-where. I mean, I still think I have some skills but not in that setting. Good grief. Where is the Zumba 101 class?! It was nice, however, to be in an environment where no one else really seemed to be doing a stellar job either.

I don’t know if I’ll be going back as soon as next Saturday but it was a fun experience – and, surprisingly, a very good calorie burner!

When you go outside of your comfort zone you are not going to awesome at everything. You’re going to have moments of struggle. Moments when you feel like a flop. I have those moments when I workout and I do something different or add more weights – it’s like starting all over again. But, you CANNOT let that stop you from going forward. How else do you master something if you give up when you get uncomfortable? In moments of being uncomfortable is when we grow. Sometimes you just have to dance through the growing as best you can.

Have you ever had a realization that hit so close to home it literally affects your heart? Maybe it’s a good thing – you feel like you have hit through another brick that makes up a wall around your heart. Or, maybe it’s a sad realization. Maybe it’s both at the same time. Maybe it even makes you cry. Maybe it hurts so bad your heart squeezes just a little harder and causes you physical pain. It’s those light bulb moments that are in cartoons except this isn’t a cartoon – it’s real life. Your life. And, you realize life isn’t always so easily mopped up and tidied up in little boxes but rather a constant mess you find yourself tending. To keep the cobwebs out, to keep the sun shining through. To keep walking forward.

We all deal with our own demons. Some are darker than others but what remains the same is we are all faced with a box full of mess that life dumps all over the floor and we can either decide to clean it up – little by little, day by day – or leave it and let it grow and get bigger, dirtier, and finally getting to the point it overwhelms us.

We all have untapped hurts and emotions that can be exploded by actions or words of another person. In the same way, what we say or do to someone – no matter how insignificant or out of whatever emotion we may be feeling – can be detrimental. 

Imagine standing face to face someone on the top steps of a basement staircase. You trust the other person 100% and all of a sudden they push you as hard as they can down the stairs and slam the door in your face. You’re in the dark, alone, scared, confused… 

Maybe those moments when our inner demons are fighting so hard we are that little girl who never felt like she did anything right, who was told she wasn’t good enough, who always felt like she was doing something wrong. Or, the little boy who was always unpunished infairly and he didn’t know why. Maybe you revert to someone who was in an abusive relationship and you become withdrawn. Or, maybe you go home and cry alone because you don’t feel worthy. 

We have no idea what eachother have gone through or what issues from our past we struggle with on a daily basis. And, what one moment of saying a hurtful word or shutting someone out or telling (or showing them) they’re not good enough can open wounds that must be healed all over again. 

Sometimes we can protect ourselves from the moments – and sometimes we can’t. Hopefully we can always remember to choose our words carefully and to treat each other with love and respect. And, when we truly care… to not just give up. Not to shove someone down the stairs because they make you mad. Or, throw them up against a wall and break them. 

The toughest people are truly often some of the most sensitive and those are the people who need the most love. We all need more love. To take the time to look at each other in the eyes and care. My pains are not your pains, but we are in this together and that bonds our hurts more than you can imagine. 

“Gentleness is not apathy but is an aggressive expression of how we view people. We see people as so valuable that we deal with them in gentleness, fearing the slightest damage to one for whom Christ died. To be apathetic is to turn people over to mean and destructive elements, to truly love people cause for us to be aggressively gentle.” ― Gayle D. Erwin