Why I Oughta...

There are a few plants in our garden that are there because I was drawn to them.  There are a few that were simply impulse-bought.  There are others that I was influenced by others like Roy Diblik , Austin Eischeid or Erin the Impatient Gardener.   Then...there's this other set:  They are the ones that exist in our yard and garden because of Nat.     That list of Nat-influenced plants includes the Saucer Magnolia and any/all of our Allium.  Another one of those that Nat-influenced plantings are anemones.  I've likely written this story before, but the connection with Anemone flowers comes back to our wedding day.  We've had them (now) in both of our houses (not in Equation Boy/Man and Vic's house that we lived in for two years) since last year when I planted three from Northwind Perennial Farm. Here's a post from more than ten years ago (eeek!  ten years!) of the plant that Nat's Mom gifted us for our garden back in Elmhurst ....

If you haven't been able to pick this up by now, I'm not one to hold back my opinion on some things.  Nat insists that I think that the entire world should think just the way I think on some things.  And, I guess that's true.  I do, often, wish that the world thought the way I did on a bunch of topics.  But, I'm not sitting by and leaving it up to luck that people will come around on some topics.   If you've followed along at all over the years, you know I have an opinion on when it is acceptable to listen to Christmas music .  And I tried to do something about skunks in Elmhurst .   Today, I'm excited to release my latest web project.  The wedding industry is chock'd full of advice sites.  How-to guides.  Tip sheets.  Consultants.  In fact, my wife Natalie was an award-winning member of the industry for a bit.  My project is aimed at the wedding industry. It is an advice website called " Holid...

Earlier this month, we got all gussied up in tuxedos and fancy dresses for a wedding and I gotta tell you:  there's nothing I like more than a good wedding reception photo booth.  We had one at our wedding a while back, and I try to make sure we pose for a few sessions whenever we come across one.  This wedding was no different, so we spent some time (well....I actually spent *more* time in there than Nat!) doing our thing.  I don't wear a tuxedo very often (gasp! I know!), so photos please! Btw...for those keeping score at home *this* was my wedding tuxedo!  We're coming up on 8 years of marriage, so having this thing fit (everything!  The pants, the shirt, the jacket) was a nice thing and made me feel good about myself for a minute or two.  Also...this helped me amortize - in my mind - the cost of owning the tuxedo across at least another event. Oh...the wedding?  It was pretty awesome.   Lots of tasty craft beer was served at vari...

Back a couple of weeks, I met my childhood friend Neil at the Chicago Athletic Association building for a few beverages and some what-have-yous.  We got the full tour of the place from the drawing room to the game room to the new rooftop place called Cindy's.  We didn't however, get into the Cherry Circle Room.  It didn't open until 5.   The Cherry Circle is a place that I've been before.  In fact, it was likely one of my few times when I was served in a bar before I was 21.  My oldest sister was married back in the 90's at the CAA and I remember spending time with her soon-to-be-husband and his wedding party in the Cherry Circle the morning of the wedding.  I really like what the new owners of the place have done with the place.  They've kept everything that was wonderful with the old CAA and breathed a lot of new life into the place.  It is funky and weird, but not so off-putting as a place like the Ace Hotel in DTLA is for me.  I'...

There isn't a wedding quite like a Moran wedding.  And last week, my sister-in-law Elise's wedding was a spectacular event and a success for the Moran family.  More planning went into this party than for a Gubernatorial Inauguration - and you could tell.  As the day and evening went on flawlessly. And....the bride and groom?  So happy and so lovely looking.  They're destined for great things together as they walk paw-in-paw in life.  (Get it?  They're Foxes!) BTW....see that cake topper?  Brother-in-law Bill (he's not quite that, but I suppose that's the easiest way to describe him.  He's NOW married to my sister-in-law, so that makes him my "sister-in-law's husband"?  Sounds crazy.  I'm going with Brother-in-law.) carved that himself.  Yes.  Out of wood. You could say he's talented.  Just a bit.

Three years ago, Nat and I were married in front of all of our friends and family.  We're extraordinarly blessed and lucky that most of them are still in our lives today.  Here's to 60 more years together, Nat! I still think about our wedding a lot - and with Nat being a wedding pro (literally), I think the event was a great representation of ourselves and spoke about who we were and who we wanted to be as a couple.  We kept the wedding website (NatalieandJake2008.com) out of search and I think I remember having the guys from 1871 (Thanks Phil and Rick!) meddle with the robots.txt file so that may be why the WayBackMachine doesn't have a copy of the site.  But....we do have some relics from the wedding still around.  Specifically....I have dug up digital copies of the invites just this morning - Thanks to Flickr (where they have the bulk of my digital life from 2002-2006 locked up!  The rehearsal dinner - which was my domain in terms of planning (mostly) ...

Last night, Nat and I dropped the Babe off at her folks house (Thanks Grammy and Granddad!) and went downtown to knock a pizza place off our the top 25 list (watch for a post on that later) and to see a stand-up show that was part of the TBS Just for Laughs Comedy Festival - which takes place across a bunch of clubs in Chicago.  The Just for Laughs folks got started up in Canada - which is (in my mind) the second best place for comedy behind Chicago.  They started this festival in Chicago - a companion to their one in Montreal - a few years back.  Nat and I have talked about going each year, but something always came up.  This year, we took the plunge and bought tickets.  As we walked out, we both noted that we should try to get to even more than one show next year.  This is a great thing for the city and based on the fact that a lot of the shows were sold out, it is well supported.  The headliners are Martin Short and Steve Martin who are playing ...

While there were certainly plenty of highlights at Matt and Suzie's terrific wedding a few weeks back, one that I knew I had to share here was this photo of Matt's Groom's cake.  I don't know the full backstory (if Matt knew about this or not, where it came from, etc), but this cake had a prime spot - right on the dance floor as we entered the room after cocktails.  And, it was a hit with everyone there.  Now, while I'm certainly gushing about the looks of this Herkey the Hawkeye cake, I can proudly tell you guys that I didn't try one bite of that stinkin' thing.  I wouldn't dare let a crumb of Hawkeye cake cross these lips.  Wouldn't think of such a thing. I did, however have like 4 pieces of their normal wedding cake - which was my favorite (carrot!), so I guess that more than makes up for my stubbornness towards the Illini's enemy. 

Big day!  Here's to many great years ahead. Now...how about moving to the suburbs and having some kids?

Just 11 days away until I'm a married man. With the longest engagement on record (21 months!) winding down, I thought it'd be appropriate for me to share with you all (Ahem...is there anyone still there?) one of my favorite parts of this whole wedding planning business. Sure...we had all the showers, thank you cards, chicken dinner tastings, table cloth selections, ring shopping trips, and discussions of the various shades of pinks (It's not my color!). That was all good and important stuff. However, the part of this whole experience that Natalie let me run wild with and really leave my mark on was the rehearsal dinner. It's coming up in a bit over a week, and while I'm excited about the wedding, I'm really looking forward to the rehearsal dinner. From the location (Southport Lanes!) to the menu (Italian Beef Sandwiches!) to the invite list (skewed toward my friends/family!), Natalie gave me a lot of room to run. The most interesting/challenging part was t...

September 6, 2008. 365 days away. If you head over to our wedding blog , you'll see the countdown widget is finally under the one year mark. Natalie and I were engaged last December, so we're 9 months into it with 20 to go. Seems like a long time, eh? It is. But for Nat, the planning never stops. I'm excited about gearing up for this year and all that it entails. We've secured the venue, the caterer, and the church. That leaves pretty much everything else. Nat's on top of it, so I don't have to be. We're having a discussion over the band as we speak. I want one group, she wants another. We all know who's going to win that battle. There's so much to do and see that Nat has even started to write a secondary blog about all the wedding things she sees and reads about called i heart peonies . She's a great writer who puts a smile on my face. You should go subscribe to her feed on the site now. I'm excited that she's enjoying t...

Some of the folks who are reading this blog may be startled to find out that I was once an exercise fiend. Yup. I was in a daily routine that included plenty of exercise and a healthy consumption of food. Somewhere in the midst of training for my 3rd marathon, I had a severe flameup of some back issues and that's where I fell off the wagon. Aside from the occassional jog and a 5K here or there, I've followed the doctors order's pretty strictly. When I asked him what I should be doing, he said, "Stop running". So I did. And guess what? My fitness level dropped like a stone. The "el-bees" piled on. I lost my focus. There's plenty of attention on how brides need to/want to/should attempt to get into shape for their weddings, but there isn't a general guide for grooms. We want to look our best, don't we? I think that, knowing Natalie, we'll have those pictures up in our house for a long, long time, so it's in my best interest...

Natalie's been very "in to" our wedding planning lately and it's becoming a little contagious. She's been writing blog posts over on the wedding blog and just this week, she unveiled what I will call her wedding "touchstone". She calls it her "inspiration board" . It's basically a bunch of reference points. She's done a great job of pulling together the details (which are more and more everyday). She's even gone so far as to participate in the wedding blogosphere. One way or another, Nat had her inspiration board featured on one of the more popular wedding blogs called Style Me Pretty. Natalie was really happy with seeing her work over there and reading all the comments about her style. I'm really proud of her. We didn't have a ton of traffic, but a pretty steady stream of regular visitors (friends and family) and quite a bit of search traffic (brides to be, I'm guessing based on their search terms). The past f...

We've been having a lot of fun over on our wedding blog . Natalie and I have been posting a lot. It's not the most compelling stuff for general consumption, but it's a nice way for us to keep in touch with our families, friends, and members of the Wedding Party. We're able to connect with the folks who will make our Big Day special, but it also allows us to share our experiences with everyone involved. We're trying to do things like polling the audience on how much they'd pay for a hotel as well as sharing our notes from our experience with our vendors . Natalie has been good about giving me a lot of latitude on what I post and what I do with the blog. As we come closer, I'm sure the design/content will come under closer scrutiny. ( Some folks were wondering how I slipped the Major League quote by her. Other's were just puzzled as to why I would slip it in there in the first place! ) Most importantly for me is that the wedding blog provides me ...