And many moooooooooore

Two Married People At The Fish Bar

The cherry on top of all of the great stuff that's been happening lately is that I had a birthday! Of course, much like its been throughout my entire academic life, my birthday fell right at the end of the semester. This was pretty unfortunate for my 21st birthday, because we all had finals & nobody wanted to celebrate, but in Grad school life, it turned out jussssst fine.  I had my last multicultural counseling class, which ended an hour early.  Greg had his last student development class, which didn't end early...So I went across the street to a little downtown bar, got a draft beer & cracked open my 1st fun read: The Hunger Games.  Once Greg was done, we headed back up to our neck of the woods & picked up our neighbors, Rich & Charlene to celebrate over dinner.  I could seriously eat seafood every day, & there was a place in our old neighborhood that I'd been really wanting to try, the Fish Bar.  It was DELISH! We had lobster bisque, crab cakes, fish tacos & some REAALLL yummy libations...Sweet Tea Vodka & a "Bourbon on Belmont" served in mason jars. And of course you know we had some key lime pie. It was all delicious. We've already decided that we'll be going back there to celebrate my parent's anniversary next month. They'll love it too.

Even though Greg's last day of his first year of Grad School (Go Babe!) was my birthday, I still had 1 last little class to go to before the end of my grad school life, and of naturally I had 2 meetings, a conference call & a "pre-graduation school friends party" last week too, so we were plenty busy even though things were winding down.  In spite of all the activity we were able to get a group together to go to my FAVORITE Sushi place ever for a little belated birthday celebration. This place is called Fresh & is literally across the street from the Fish Bar. They have the best Miso soup that was ever made by human hands & I could honestly eat there a few times a week & be totally content. Aaaaaand it's BYOB, which is always a hit here in Chicagoland. After everybody parted ways Greg & I stopped in a neighborhood bar for a night cap & I have to say, even though 27 is one of those years that's kind of inconsequential, this year's birthday celebration was perfect just getting together with some friends & keeping it low key.  I used to wonder about "grown ups" who didn't make a big deal about their birthday & think surely they were just saying how little they cared about their birthday because others would think they were silly for caring too much, but now I see why keylime pie & a table for 10 can be just as fun as a big birthday bash. It was truly the perfect 27th birthday celebration!

The Gang at Fresh

In my last post I speculated about what I'd do with all of this free time I have on my hands now that I don't have a wedding to plan or homework to do, and in light of my recent celebration I've been thinking maybe another project I can take on is actually getting a list of everyone's birthdays, anniversaries & the like together so that I can be better about sending celebratory wishes to the people we love. I always want to just sit down, once & for all, & "get organized" but then something inevitably gets in the way, so I'm going to add this to the list of things "to do" this summer (soon). I've seen a couple of helpful ideas to accomplish this goal, some more labor intensive than others. I saw this super cute family birthday board that could come in handy...although that feels more like a thing I'd buy if I owned my home...not sure my "all-in-one-room" Chicago home is cut out for this kind of display.  I do, however, appreciate that Treat (online greeting cards. YES!) has a feature where you can import your facebook friend's birthdays...which really does take care of most of the bunch.  And the best part about Treat is, once you important the birthdays, they send you a reminder & you can order a birthday card RIGHT. THERE. Don't even have to leave the office...I love it.  A little pricey, but SUPER convenient. They also send reminders for other card-worthy holidays like Mother's day, Valentine's day & the like.  I've also been using Google calendar LOTS lately, & I think that might also be a great way to keep track of everyone's big days, since I can just type it all in online & it automatically syncs with my iCal on my phone. Sometimes...I really do love technology. SOMEtimes.

Ok, I'm done talking about cards & birthdays. But I would like to make one final triumphant comment...because even I appreciate when I have my own act together...I have completed my special occasion greeting card & gift shopping for mother's day & a couple of other "special occasions" that are upcoming...& I'm 2 weeks ahead of the game. Don't mind if I do...

Last thing, I promise...I'm just thinking there are lots of things coming up that I don't want to forget to blog about (mostly for posterity's sake, but also for the 3 people that actually read this blog to keep up with our happenings), so I'm going to make a list (I LOVE LISTS!):
- Saying goodbye to Sigma Chi
- Cinco de Chicago
- My parents visit
- GRADUATION
I'm going to stop the list here because right after Graduation comes "Coop's going away party" & "The road back home" & I'm not ready to spend a lot of time thinking about what that experience will be like...but I am pretty pumped about thinking about our road trip to Florida. So...I'll stick with that for now.

All good things,
Meggo