Roses & Thorns

Roses and thorns, peaks and valleys, strikes and gutters, glums and glows. No matter which moniker you use for the activity, it’s a way to reflect on your highs and lows from the day. (Or week, month, or year before.) I know a lot of teams do this at work, and I’ve even heard of some schools doing this, which I think is so great for kids.

I’ve seen parents use “Rose, Bud, and Thorn,” where their child gets a minute think and then shares a โ€œroseโ€ (e.g., a positive in their lives), a โ€œbudโ€ (e.g., something they are looking forward to in the near future), and a โ€œthornโ€ (e.g., something they feel stuck with or need support with). A great mindfulness practice and definitely something I wish I had learned at a younger age!

Since I don’t have co-workers, Dave and I sometimes share our โ€˜Weekly Winsโ€™ with each other on Fridays. We started this last year as a way for me to get more comfortable talking with him about work and now it’s become second nature. You know I love a good reflection moment, so earlier this year I started sharing my Rose, Thorn, and What I’m Looking Forward to in my Friday newsletter.

Life has been kind of chaotic lately and unfortunately, my weekly newsletter hasn’t gone out in a few weeks, so I figured I’d use this space to catch up with all of you!

The last few weeks have felt like a whirlwind and I can’t believe it’s almost May! Where did April go?? I feels as if I blinked and an entire month passed. It’s been one thing after another that would pop up and consume my entire day… a furniture delivery gone awry (all was well in the end, thankfully — you can see the pieceย here!) or a busy weekend where every hour was accounted for. For example, two weekends ago where I had a styling client forย a full wardrobe reviewย (four hours) on Saturday, went all the way out to Libertyville for dinner with friends on Saturday night, and then had another new client’s wardrobe review out in Naperville on Sunday. Lots of back and forth to the suburbs and not a second to spare!

The last few weeks have been quite busy, so much fun, and also kind of a pain in the ass at times. 🤪 So here’s a big long list of some of my roses and thorns from the last few weeks…

April’s Roses

HELLO SUMMER IN APRIL! 😎☀️ We had a week of warm, summer-like weather and it was just the best. We grilled and ate dinner on our rooftop each night and it put such a pep in my step. Sunsets and warm weather are like music to my soul!

We booked a trip to New York!! Well, we actually found reasonable flights a few months ago, but since there’s been a lot going on as of late, I was telling Dave in early April that maybe we should postpone the trip to the fall. I was feeling overwhelmed with all that we need to do around our place to get the rooftop ready for summer entertaining, but Dave convinced me that New York is always a good idea. So now that we’ve booked our hotel, I’M SO EXCITED!! I haven’t been back since October of 2019, thus I’ve never visited with Dave, and I can’t wait to show him some of my favorite spots and old haunts. I’m seriously giddy just thinking about it! We’re staying on 11th Street, which is actually the same street that my first apartment was on, so it will be such a fun trip down memory lane. You better believe I’ve already started our itinerary, which is basically just a food crawl around the city.

We just got back from a long weekend in LA! While we had a hell of a time getting there, we had the best time with newish friends. I just love LA so much and daydream about having a little bungalow there some day. The weather, yes. The views, yes. But it’s really how I feel simultaneously relaxed and also inspired while I’m there, I can’t really explain it. We rented the coolest AirBNB in Laurel Canyon, which I definitely have to share more about sometime soon!

Before I left last Friday, I got a killer spray tan by Brittany at Beauty Commons that looked amazing all weekend, as well as a fresh highlight, haircut, and blowout that lasted me all weekend on our trip! Nothing like a little glowup before a trip, and bonus points that it still looked fresh even on the way home.

I stopped in to All She Wrote earlier this week to pick up a few cards that I ordered online to pick up in-store, and they had the sweetest gift (a candle and monogrammed Foggy Dog bandana for Marley) waiting for me as a little ‘Thank You’ for ordering from and sharing about their store over the years. That’s the beauty of shopping small… It’s the little things like remembering a customers name (and their dog’s name and neck size!) that goes a long way!

Marley went to the vet for her bi-annual checkup and bloodwork and she’s doing great! We started her on a NSAID when we were there last so it’s good to know it’s being kind to her organs.

We got to sit on the glass at the United Center at the last game of the season for the Blackhawks! It was planned months ago to celebrate our friend’s 40th birthday, but it ended up being Jonathan Toews’ last game, which was so special to get to see. And we got to see it from sitting directly behind the Blackhawks’ bench. Definitely a memory I’ll have forever! (You can see us in this Barstool video!)

The cabinet we ordered for our living room finally came!!! Remember this post? You can see it IRL here!

I still really haven’t been drinking! I haven’t set any rules around it… If I want a drink, I can have one. But I’ve been LOVING exploring a bunch of new-to-me non-alcoholic wines and absolutely love that I can get a taste of wine without any of the lingering fogginess, sleep issues, or anxiety. (Or calories!) Promise I’ll share more about this ‘sober-curious’ journey sometime soon!

One of my best guy friends from college recently celebrated his engagement here in Chicago and it felt like a college reunion in the best way possible. (That was one night that I did drink… While the evening started off civilized at RPM Seafood, it ended at Streeters, which required alcohol to enter. 🤪) With the pandemic and life changes (like becoming parents and moving out to the suburbs), I have barely seen some of my longest friends for the last few years and it was such a good-for-the-soul kind of night. ❤️

I’ve been feeling pretty good about my workout schedule! I made it my goal this month to go to both Lagree and a Ritual Hot Yoga class every week, and now that SoulCycle is on ClassPass, I’ve been adding one of those into my weekly mix, too. It’s felt soooo good to get back in the habit of going to workout classes, and it’s been even better that these classes are filling up, too. Don’t get me wrong, I love our Peloton and still use it regularly, but it’s good for me to switch it up.

I think we get our car back later this week! I got rearended the Monday morning after Daylight Savings Time (which is apparently a thing, I guess accidents are more common that day!) as I was merging onto the highway. It wasn’t that bad, but we finally took the car in to get fixed last week. Luckily, the guy’s insurance (State Farm) has been great to work with and is completely covering 100% of the damage, as well as our car rental for the time being. You should see the little compact car we’re driving around! 😂🚗

April’s Thorns

There was one week in April that kind of did me dirty… 🥵 My phone called it quits randomly overnight on Monday. My alarm didn’t go off on Tuesday morning and when I woke up, I couldn’t get it to turn on even though it was plugged in. I took it into AT&T and they couldn’t get it to turn on either. It was unexpected, but wasn’t too much of a surpriseโ€ฆ It was over 3+ years old so I knew it would be time for a new one sometime soon. Unfortunately AT&T doesn’t carry phones with larger storage in stores so it had to be ordered, which left me without a phone for a few days during the week. You forget just how much we rely on our phonesโ€ฆ Outside of my job (which is mostly on my phone), I couldn’t pay for parking, call an Uber, send a text, you name it.

From there, it was just a comedy of errors all week. I ordered some non-alcoholic beverages for delivery and the store ended up subbing the out-of-stock non-alcoholic wine with regular wine. Like what? 🤣 I went downstairs (from our third floor apartment) to get the delivery and the delivery man needed an ID, which I thought was bizarre considering it was N/A wine. So I went all the way back up the four flights of stairs (naturally my wallet was on the 2nd floor of our place) to get it and grab the wine I didn’t even order nor want. Of course, I got a refund and all was well, but it was just a mini pain in the 🍑 to deal with.

Took Marley to her bath and ended up getting a $100 parking ticket for โ€˜parking in a bus stopโ€™ when I was picking her up. 😅 Her groomer has a flashing zone right out front and there was a car taking up most of the zone, so I parked right in front of it. I even left the windows down, as I was truly just running in and out to get her. The receptionist was on a call when I got there so it took a minute or two longer than expected and I walked out to my car getting a ticket. Turns out the car taking up the flashing zone space was the parking attendants carโ€ฆ 😅 I was like I wouldn’t be getting this ticket if you weren’t in the way?? But she didn’t see it that way. So that was fun! 🤪

Like I mentioned above, thankfully Marley is totally fine and doesn’t have a UTI, but we had to learn the hard way that we need to limit her water after dinner as she gets older. It was days upon days of cleaning up pee in the morning. But on the bright side, both her bedding and our bedding has never been more clean! 🤪

All such tiny, minuscule little โ€˜problems,’ of course, but when they were all compounded on top of each other in a short amount of time, I was feeling like I had some majorly weird energy going on!

Our travel day to LA last Friday was next level… 🫠 We were supposed to fly out around 9am and our flight was delayed until ELEVEN PM due to a mechanical issue. With all of the crazy weather the last few days, the airport was backed up and all other flights to LA were totally booked. We ended up finding an angel in the Admirals Club (Thank you, Eileen!!) that helped us out all day long with different standby flights and finally all four of us took off (on two different airlines and three different flights) by 5pm. It wasn’t ideal, but we’re looking for alllll glimmers of silver linings lately!! We spent the day in the airport, but had a pretty good time doing it and made some memories with new-ish friends. And Dave and his buddy got to their concert (directly from the airport) right as it was starting. So it all worked out!

Our poor neighbors… They were gone for the weekend and came home to their entire lower level being flooded. It basically has to be gutted, as there was close to a foot of water standing over the weekend. We feel awful for them!

Speaking of neighbors… Our other neighbors are moving, so I’m just unexplainably a little worried about who will end up buying that unit and moving in. The six of us got along so well, so whoever comes in has some big shoes to fill!

If you follow astrology at all, yes, Mercury is in f*cking Retrograde. 🤪

What are some of your roses and thorns from this past month? Would love to hear!

Also, get on my newsletter list here and you’ll get my weekly Rose, Bud, and Thorn note in your inbox on Fridays.

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