Month: December 2024

Gingerbread Houses With ODS

I did Gingerbread houses with my kids when they were kids, many once or twice, and I thought I was not into it. But when a staff member in the West Town Shelter suggested that I do this with the youth in ODS, I felt I should give it a try. She suggested we do it together with another volunteer. That volunteer spent a lot of time asking me whether I knew she was a jew and had nothing to do with Gingerbread houses, and I thought this whole thing was not going to work.

I purchased four houses, and I thought that there would be at max one or two residents interested and that we would end up doing houses by ourselves, but in fact, I regretted I only got four – we could use at least six if not eight, and the residents’ creativity and patience were astonishing.

The City Of Chicago 111th Annual Christmas Tree

Monday was the only day I could take my mom to see the Christkindle Market and thr city Christmas Tree, so we went despite my three sleepless nights before that. I will do it again with the gitrls in a couple of days, but most likely during the day, so I am glad we went!

Then we went to see the tree. I like it better when it is green-red-yellow than when it is white-clue.

We passed the skating rink – I didn’t get a chance to skate in the dark this season, so this is also on my list :). And even if I just went skating, I always want to go again when I see the rink! Same as when I see people biking 🙂

Tree Decorating

Since I have the pictures my mom took while Igor and I were decorating, here they are. I really liked my tree this year. After some hesitation, I ordered from Tree Santa again, and I am much happier this year. The tree is really fresh, and it is better shped than the last year’s one – not so chubby 🙂

Cookie-Making

All the cookies I baked on Friday afternoon and on Saturday:

Continue reading “Cookie-Making” →

I Think I Found The Limit

… of how much I can squeeze in one unit of time. Namely, I can’t do something for what I need five days into two and a half days.

That’s what was going on. I confirmed with my friend Lena, who comes every year in December to help me with cookies that she is coming for Dec 6-8, and then I launched my usual cookie advertisement. Two weeks later, Lena told me she wouldn’t be able to make it. It was 100% not her fault; she had an unexpected personal situation, but the fact was that I was on my own. And also, although at least five people told me they would come and help decorate, nobody showed up. On top of it, I had only one weekend instead of two due to the late Thanksgiving, and Vlad going to be in town on the second weekend.

At least I was smart enough to take Friday off (I planned it anyway), but it didn’t help much. Before I had a chance to get to baking:

  • Unpacked and shelved Amazon Fresh deliver
  • Had a call – somebody wanted to connect with me professionally, and that was the first option available, 45 min
  • A visit from a social worker from mom’s insurance (1.5 hours, including walking)
  • going through my baking supplies, finding mice dropping, cleaning the whole pantry, throwing away damaged goods
  • another professional call was scheduled for Friday for the same reason: “I am at home anyway.”
  • Going to the Night Ministry office to drop the presents (the last items I ordered arrived on Thursday, and I couldn’t fit this trip into any other day before the deadline) – two hours

That way, I started baking at 3-30 PM and baked until pretty late. My phone was showing a very low battery, but since I knew I would plug it in for the night, I thought it was not a big deal for it to run out of power. It was already 11-30 PM, and suddenly, the screen went black. I plugged the phone in and waited, but nothing happened, and no buttons could wake it up. I tried three different plugs and waited, and it didn’t even show the battery picture. Finally, i went to bed and left it plugged, and then I woke up at 3-30 AM and saw that the screen was still dead.

To be continued:)

Starbucks Roastery Reserve

Last time I wanted to go to the Starbucks Roastery I found it closed, and was very disappointed, especially because the weather was awful, and I would never thing about walking in such weather if not for holiday martinis.

On Thursday it occurred to me that it was possibly the last opportunity in 2024 to get to the Roastery. I was going to a CSO concert in the evening, and also I had a ticket to the Art Institute lecture right before that, but I could still fit an eggnog martini before that!.

I ended up leaving work a little bit later than I hoped, and then waited for martini a little bit longer than I thought it would take, and then I went to the second floor to get food. After I finally set down I realized that if I still wanted to get to the lecture I would have to hurry up and would still be a little bit delayed. Having how the week was progressing, and having that I had something to celebrate (the PG Day Chicago website was finally up) I decided not to rush!

Continue reading “Starbucks Roastery Reserve” →

Christkindle Market

Yesterday, I went to Christkindle Market for the first time this season. I dragged one of my co-workers (who didn’t mind), saying we were “doing work-life balance.”

Later that day, when I went to the musical with my neighbor and told her that I was at the market, she asked: why do you like it? What is in it for you?

I know that not everyone loves Christmas markets (like Boris sacrifices himself for my Christmas passions), but I am one of the people who love them! I ran around greeting the vendors whom I knew from the past years and showed “the best of” to my co-worker. We toured the ornaments shops and the chocolate shop and browsed the food offerings. I already went there one more time today, and bought a package of Christmas tea that I put my eye (and nose) on the day before. And I will go there again.

& Juliet

I saw this musical yesterday, and somehow, it left me non-engaged. Everything was perfect on the surface: great dialogs, cultural references; the audience laughed where expected (sometimes too loud). Still, it didn’t click, and I do not think it was because I was tired. Just something didn’t work.

Official photos below:

Continue reading “& Juliet” →

Life Is Happening

Once again, a million things at the same time!

One hand is doing work, another hand is testing the website for PGDay Chicago, another hand is making sure we have all things we need for Prairie Postgres, another hand is packing presents. Some other hands are submitting Amazon Fresh orders for the remaining cookie ingredients and booking three different hotels for three different trips.

Presents for Secret Santa, presents for the Night Ministry, Amazon returns, returning boots which turned out to be too tight even though the size is right. Work. Going to Chriskindlmarket, buying roasted nuts and chocolate. Finding time for meetings with friends and out-ouf town peers. Boxes for cookies. Christmas bubble mailers. Tissue paper. Work. Going to the show. Finding the right presents for half of the family who are still without presents. New Christmas tree stand.

Work. PGDay Chicago new Volunteer form. Checking the dates on the form. FInding cost allocations to close the support ticket. Schedule an email to my mom for 10-30 PM saying we are going home from the show.

And it’s actually time to go, just need to refresh my makeup!

Riding In A Holiday Train (Not The “Real” Holiday Train)