Work it Out

NEW: SONG OF THE WEEK

Tuesday January 13th was the second day of the year that Rachel and I got a workout in. Hopefully this will be a great start to workouts for the year and I can keep after it the whole year. Last year I slacked off far too much and am way out of shape. By lifting weights and running more I plan to get in way better shape in 2015. Rachel then served us a crock-pot chicken covered in cream of mushroom soup for dinner. It was very succulent and tasty. We watched some Always Sunny in Philadelphia to end the night off.

On Wednesday January 14th, no one can remember what I did, maybe just cleaned and organized at my parents house after work a bit?

Thursday January 15th was a success at first, with Rachel and I getting another circuit workout in. We then made pasta with sliced sausage, squash, zucchini, and onion for dinner. Yummy. However, I then realized that our sink had cracked below at the trap, and was therefore leaking everywhere. Sink officially broken and cannot be used. Yikes! We watched the movie Sex Tape that evening, and it was a decent red box film. Don't upload to the cloud folks! That is all I can say!

On Friday January 16th I worked and then headed over to the new Lodge in Lisle. After stopping at Gio's, we walked over and met up with my college friends Jeff and Chelsea. We had a few drinks and chatted for awhile with the sounds of live music in the background of the bar. Just after midnight Jeff, Chelsea, & I walked over to Chelsea's apartment to hangout for a while longer. Around 2am I said my goodbyes and headed home.

Saturday January 17th was a busy day that started at the library and a few new (used) DVD purchases. I then picked up some Dunkin Donuts for the family. Rachel and I drove back to New Lenox to get Rachel's haircut and I browsed around Petco while she was getting her hairs chopped. Looking at all of the lizards, making me think I should maybe get another one soon. We got some Jimmy Johns for lunch and head back to Rachel's house for the afternoon. We then were treated to some Chili's with her parents that night. Despite the service being terrible, it took us over 15 minutes to get a drink at the bar, the food was delicious. I got the buffalo chicken sandwich to along with my Sam Adam's Cold Snap. When we got back to her house we watched The Grand Budapest Hotel and it was a pretty good movie! Even though I fell asleep for a few minutes in the middle because I was so tired. Looking forward to watching the quirky Wes Anderson film again soon.

I started Sunday January 18th by heading over to a second day of lax tryouts for a different age group. Afterwards I picked up a McChicken and a McDouble on my way to my Aunt Elaine's to help move her things to a new place. Check out our moving team selfie to the left. Once done moving all of those things, I picked up Rachel from Avery Coonley and then we drove over to get some pizza at ZaZoa's in Darien. Some delicious pizza! We got some meats at Tony's Finer Foods that evening and some amaretto. Rachel made us amaretto sours for the night and we enjoyed a gummy while hanging out, cleaning, and watching This Means War.

Monday January 19th, MLK Day, I tied my shot speed record, shooting 96 MPH with my right and 89 with my left. Not bad considering my highest in College was only 83. Add a bit of whip and you can do it too! After work I picked up some Olive Garden for Rach and I, complements of her brother Phil who hooked it up with some giftcards. We watched Mad Men while enjoying our pasta dinner. We also had the plumber come out during the day and they fixed our sink, the cold water works now too! Yay! I finished the night watching an episode of American Horror Story Season 4, which I have not been too crazy about, but am finishing since there are only 2 episodes left.

Enjoy these films I watched this week and thought were pretty amazing.

Looking forward to this full film coming Fall of 2015.

NEW: MOVIE OF THE WEEK

Thinking of changing up my blog style soon. With additions like song / video / movie / book of the week.  Enjoy!

Josh

Happy One (New) Year of Blogs

Tuesday December 30th, after a day of work, I went shopping and then picked up Beth. We then drove to my place in the city where Rachel made us some spaghetti for dinner. We relaxed the rest of the night.

Wednesday December 31st, New Year's Eve! Cam came to visit and we were fortunate to find him a parking spot with the help of Grant. After hanging out for a bit, we all got ready and then had a few people over to our place: Brian, Sarah, Colin, Matt, & Caitlin joined us for snacks and games. We played cards against humanity, as well as friends and enemies. Around 10pm we headed over to Kim's place for a party and we were not liked by many, as we (I) kept counting down well before midnight arrived. Finally midnight came and we all cheered and celebrated. We then got our coats and left around 12:30am. 2015 was here!

January 1st, 2015 was spent with a morning of mimosas and a lot of football being watched. Michigan State put on an amazing comeback and won their bowl game. We then got some dinner at Duke's which was delicious and we got an awesome Thursday deal. I had 4 burger bites and got a free 12 wings since it was buy one item, get one free! Duke's is always an enjoyable time and probably my favorite place in the area.

After Duke's we walked over to Lincoln Park Zoo and enjoyed the Zoo Lights. Check out some pics from the night where we saw handfuls of sad monkeys, ice sculptors, lighted animals, & pretty lights. Also learned that ice sculptors use a special machine to keep the water flowing so the ice appears to be clear, just like a frozen river bed. This will be the new way I make ice cubes. No more cloudy ice for me!

Beware of the Rainbow Tunnel! This tunnel was a tricky part to the Zoo since it was outside the zoo and we ended up in this tunnel when they closed the zoo doors on us, so we had to walk around the outside with no lights, how sad.

On Friday January 2nd, I headed to work for the first half of the day, then once home I made some rigatoni pasta for Cam, Rachel, and I for dinner. We then met up with friends and walked over to Mary & Jeff's for some Edward 40 Hands. With a lack of 40s in the 5 liquor stores we stopped at, our little group ended up just have 25oz cans, which worked out just fine.

After the party ended, Rachel, Cam, Colin, Sarah, and I hit up a bar across the street for one last drink before they had last call and picked up some Fat Sandwich on the way home. Cam, Rachel & I split the fat milf. Tastyyy. It also snowed on the way home, first snow of the year!

Saturday January 3rd started with me clearing snow off my car, then a bit of work. I picked up gas for an all-time low price of $1.79. Will prices continue to drop!? It rained on the way home and Rachel and I watched a bunch of Mad Men. We made a delicious pork dinner and then had some wine & gummies to go along with our lovely 4 hours of chatting to end the night.

On Sunday January 4th, Rachel and I spent most of the day watching TV shows. We finished season 3 of Mad Men, and season 2 of The Walking Dead. Both shows are solid. We went out to get some groceries and saw where the Best Buy close to us got robbed earlier that morning. Crime scene! Had a couple of buffalo ranch McChickens for lunch and after watching TV for a few hour we made succulent beef sandwiches in the crock pot for dinner. Sooo good.

After a work lunch at Lou Malnati's and a day of work, I spent my evening watching a few episodes of The Walking Dead Season 3 and then shoveled my driveway and sidewalks at my parents place around midnight!

Great end to 2014 and great start to 2015. Looking forward to the year. Maybe next week I'll post a review with bests of 2014 and some goals for 2015.

Josh

A Christmas Miracle

On Tuesday December 23rd, I worked and then played some lax after, the first time playing lacrosse in a long while since I moved to the city and don't have time to stay and play anymore. Fun stuff. I drove back to Chicago that night and hung out with Rachel for a bit before bed.

Grandma with her Grandkids & Great Grandkids

Wednesday December 24th was the first Christmas Eve Rachel and I were to have together. I spent the morning slaving over some scrumptious chocolate covered pretzels, and Rachel made a delicious breakfast casserole. We did these things while having some mimosas of course! We packed our car full of presents, oh how I wish I was a kid again, getting awesome toys and gadgets, and headed out across town. We had Christmas Eve at my Grandma's as usual which was a lovely time for the family to be together. We then headed back to Naperville. On the way there I finished The Shining by Stephen King on tape. A great novel and actually way way better than the movie. We then opened Christmas presents with Beth and my parents. Once the presents were open and we watched a few family videos, we headed to New Lenox for my first Midnight Mass. What an experience. Got to love Church at midnight. It helped that there was an awesome choir providing the music for the evening. Afterwards we hung out with Rachel's family and then I got to experience a Hyma sibling tradition where they put on Lethal Weapon and wrap Christmas presents. Since we got a late start, we ended up being up until 4 am. Santa is on his way, get on your Santa Hat! Hard to believe this was 7 years ago. Freshman year of College on break.

December 25th, Christmas Day 2014 was here. We headed to Rachel's grandparents and had a great Christmas Day Dinner. I headed home by myself after the party was over since I had to work the next day. I watched the movie Rush with my parents and Beth. A great inspirational sports movie about formula 1 racing. I highly suggest all those to watch! I then watched a few Walking Dead episodes that night. Emma and Anna can't believe it's Christmas! 4 Years ago!

I spent Friday December 26th at my parents after work and had some of my Mom's chili. Yum. Then I watched a bunch of Walking Dead episodes and fell asleep late into the night. Oh, I also got gas for under $2.00. A Christmas Miracle for us adults. I think this is the lowest gas has ever been since I have been driving, circa 2005? Or at least since I've been filling up with gas since 2011... ha

Saturday December 27th was another long day at work, and I also successfully changed my windshield wiper blades, with some help from a co-worker. He had to get the blades off for me, as they proved to be more difficult than I thought they would. With new wipers installed, that are a bit too large for my windshield, I will welcome rain/snow with open arms (still hasn't happened). Rachel and I watched The Shining that evening which had a way different and worse ending compared to the book. I sound like such a book nerd.

New pots, new pans

Rachel and I finally cashed in all of our Jewel stickers on Sunday December 28th, and ended up getting a nice 12" non-stick skillet, a 12" every day pot, and a 13.5" lasagna pan. A $160 all for free! Well, actually we had to spend $4,100 to get these 3 pots, but luckily we didn't spend all of it, our parents and some other relatives did as well. Thanks everyone for chipping in! Now we get to cook with these new pans! We got some Wendy's for dinner, and as I received my food, a nice gentleman with dreadlocks said, "You have a great night, OH, and Nice hat too." I smiled and replied, "Thanks, Go Titans!" When I got home I attempted to change our kitchen faucet out. After about 3 hours of working, I finally was successful at getting the old sink faucet out and the new one in. Then I came to the conclusion that somehow the cold faucet ended up getting clogged because only the hot water works, but it works great! Yahoo!!

Gotcha son! Mission half complete!

On Monday December 29th, I ended up having to work late which I wasn't happy about, so I picked up 3 Buffalo McChickens on the way home. I finished Mystic River, on tape by Dennis Lehane. It was so strikingly similar to the movie, there were really no differences at all. So it was solid and great, just like the film. That night I ended up watched a lot more Walking Dead episodes before falling asleep late.

Oh for Christmas this year I was very satisfied with many wool socks, warm gloves, lovely sweaters, power drill, car shovel, whiskey, gift cards, a wine rack, an awesome calender, & a Titans Hat for Johnson from Management. Go Titans.

Get ready for my year in review for next week! As well as my top lists of 2014!

Josh