Coconut Milk Mango Hypnosis

Spring.

It feels like years away in Chi-town in March.

Woke up to a dusting of snow this morning which, for it's own good, melted right away.

My friend Alyce defiantly wore a gorgeous mint green spring coat on Sunday even though it was a bitterly cold day, and I rallied;

I'll burn my favorite spring candle even though snow touched down today.

Chicago, you can't brainwash us.

We know it's March, and March is spring.

The coconut milk mango candle has been sitting on my night stand, brand new and waiting for spring.

It's on sale at Anthropologie for $10 right now, so hurry hurry!

I'm off on Mondays so I lit this gorgeous spring scent today, did two loads of laundry, finished two books (this one and this one), had two cups of green tea with honey, and took an (almost) two hour nap. 

I was so pleased with myself until it hit me with an awful panic-- and entirely too late-- that I completely forgot about a mandatory meeting today at work.

Awful.

Apparently coconut milk mango hypnotized me. 

I rarely allow myself a day of such peace, and then this.

Lest we be dismayed, let's remember that spring really is coming, and we won't need to hypnotize ourselves any longer some day soon.

And lest we be dismayed, this signature spring candle is on sale right now.

This is a beautiful scent for a bedroom, my favorite place to burn it.

Halfway

Photo taken by husband, in baby's future nursery

I have been the absolute worst at taking any bump photos or recording the weeks in my Belly Book that my sweet friend Alissa sent me.
Someone help me.
For a first pregnancy, you would think I would do better!

I'm 21 weeks now, but the last photo (and only real photo) I have is from 19 weeks.
I feel fantastic, after getting rid of the last of the morning sickness around 18.5 weeks (finally!).

I dream of him every day and am especially loving how my mom now signs all her emails to me, "Momma/Grammy."

Equally loving the tweets I get about my sister shopping for him, texts from friends squealing about his ultrasound pictures, and Kirra interacting with Craigslist sellers as my "designer" for the nursery as she scored a mid-century dresser we were looking for for his room.

Here's to halfway!

A Teaser

I've made it no secret that Shauna Niequist is one of my favorite authors.

She's a Chicagoland author too, so all her downtown references scattered throughout her books are especially fun for Chicagoan readers.

I read her first two books, Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet, in a painful season of my life where everything was upside down and sideways in the worst way.

Both books are like two friends that helped me along and shaped the way I walked through those years.

Neither are on my shelf right now because they're always on loan to someone else!

I'm pages away from finishing her newest book Bread & Wine, which will be released on April 9th.

I was lucky enough to be sent an advance copy to review here on City Lights, so that when it comes out you'll be all up and ready for it.

I know my book club already has it slated for our April book of the month.

I'm so looking forward to sitting down and writing a review of Bread and Wine here... look for it soon!

Teaser: I'm dying a little bit over how good it is.

This is the official trailer for the book, enjoy!

To my book club girls, you can pre-order Bread and Wine here.

Love

I don't know, I just love this picture.

A box of (blue) balloons awaiting the arrival of all our friends the night of our gender reveal party.

Chi-town baby boy!

In Like a Lion

Photo credit: Neal's phone!

March in Chicago.

In like a lion, always.

Out like a lamb, always a long shot.

These pictures are from a mini adventure on Sunday afternoon, even before the fresh dumping of snow we got today.

I was the only therapist in the office today because of the snow storm, and that's probably because I can walk there from my apartment.

No snow days for walkers.

Back to Sunday, though.

Husband and I rolled out of bed from a Sunday nap that never went into a deep sleep for either of us, but apparently was just enough to fuel an adventure.

"Wanna go out?"

"Yes, out the door in 10 minutes or less?"

"Yep."

Cue closet doors opening and closing, and keys and gloves being shoved into coat pockets.

It's a freedom and a spontaneity under a Sunday sun that I drink like living water.

We drove south on Lakeshore Drive because we usually go north.

We drove until we found something of interest to explore, which signs named as 63rd Street Beach.

There's a long, long, long pier that you can walk out over Lake Michigan, and a beautiful old public beach house (closed for the season) that has a serenity courtyard inside and a gorgeous old promenade deck with wide open views of the water and the distant skyline.

We poked around the locked up beach house until it was official that we would come back in warmer weather.

Out on the pier, we walked around and explored and dreamed of spring, 

while the lion roared.

We'll certainly be back when the lamb comes out to play.

It's anyone's guess when that might be.

Have you been to 63rd Street Beach?
And if so, why have you been hiding this secret from us?  Wink.

It's a...

 

Oh hey!

It's a baby boy!

We've been harboring this secret (and these memorable photos) for a couple weeks until we were able to have a gender reveal party with our friends this weekend.

The day after Valentine's Day, husband and I went alone to Goldenview Ultrasound to find out if our baby was a little mister or a little miss.

I honestly wasn't sure for weeks how I wanted this to play out... to find out or not, to find out in front of friends or alone, and the seemingly far off possibility of having our favorite place, Montrose, be able to set the scene in the sub-freezing temperatures of February.

As it turned out, my family tumbled into the city to celebrate my brother's birthday one weekend in February, and the timing clicked.

Husband and I scheduled an appointment to find out alone together the night before, and then my bestie Kirra helped me throw together a reveal for my family out at Montrose and capture it on camera, with secrets kept all around until we could have a party with our dear friends here in Chicago.

It was the best of everything (besides the absolutely frigid temperatures out at Montrose!) and we are absolutely over the moon about our little mister... who I was completely convinced since about 9 weeks was in fact a little mister.

I love knowing, and I'm so very thankful for the ways we've savored him already with each other and with our people.

It's a boy!

Montrose, here's another one for our stories together, wouldn't you say?

Photography credit: Kirra Sue