2 years

Today marks two years since the chilly and gloomy October day Ben and I said our vows in the warm light of the chapel at Augustana. I'll always remember the feeling of being surrounded and enveloped by the love of all our closest friends and family. It was by far the happiest and most emotionally powerful day of my life.

So much has happened since then! We've made it through some challenging times, and are now settled into a pretty awesome phase of life. There are lots of unknowns in the future, but we're making the best out of what we have and I feel so lucky to be able to share life with my soul mate.

We've also been living in Chicago for two years now, so to celebrate our anniversary we decided to book a fancy room downtown at the Palmer House and enjoy a mini stay-cation in our city this past weekend. It was so fun to get out of the house and play tourist!

The Palmer House is an opulent and dark oasis in the middle of the loop. Very Gossip Girl. I highly recommend visiting or staying here if you ever get a chance--we found a pretty good deal on Groupon and it was fun to pretend that we were high society. There were SIX weddings going on at the hotel this past weekend, so I like to think that we were October wedding trendsetters.

Hi, husband!

The Chicago River is one of my favorite spots in the entire city, and River North is one of my favorite neighborhoods to go out and about. The views from the river are unbelievably spectacular. Last weekend was a celebration of the anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire, so they attempted to set these awesome Victorian mansion floats on fire. Apparently it was a huge to-do and then technical difficulties prevented the floats from actually burning....but we missed it anyway because we were drinking fancy cocktails.

Oh Three Dots and a Dash. Indescribable. This underground Tiki Bar has been on my bucket list all summer and I'm so glad we finally made it! Next time we're making a reservation so we can actually eat. This place is crazy busy but we found spots at the bar and enjoyed the most epic tropical cocktails I have ever seen. If I'm ever having a bad day, I'm coming here and ordering a banana daiquiri--it's literally impossible to be sad when you are holding a fake coconut with a happy banana dolphin leaping out of the top.

After a wonderful dinner at Cafe Spiaggia, we crashed early, woke up to an unbelievably gorgeous Sunday, and spent the morning wandering around Millenium Park.

Obligatory cheesy Bean selfie!

Have I mentioned how much I love this city? It has its fair share of problems and issues, but it's just so dang beautiful. 

We finished off our mini-getaway with an epic brunch at Wildberry Pancakes. Something that the Loop is desperately lacking is a good assortment of brunch restaurants! It seems like everyone downtown and their mother and child wanted to eat here, so prepare for a wait. It's worth it though. 

Two years down, many more to go! I am so happy I get to share my life with you, Ben. You make me into a better person and everything truly gets better and better every day. Being able to celebrate the present moment with joy and look towards the future with excitement is the biggest gift I've ever experienced. 

Self Employment || Month One

It's a dark and rainy Friday morning and I'm sitting in our big oversized comfy chair wrapped in a fluffy blanket with my coffee, wearing my workout clothes because at some point I'm going to muster the motivation to make it to the gym for some endorphins. But for a little while I just want to sit here, soaking in the peace and quiet, and reflect on the crazy whirlwind that has hit me recently.

It's officially been one month since my last day at the zoo.

At the end of the summer I decided to take a huge leap and quit my full time job to be a small business owner/creative entrepreneur/life adventurer. I like to think that this is not the craziest thing I've ever done, because after five years of living in seven different cities, cross country moves, long-distance, and seemingly unending phases of being broke and funemployed, Ben and I are finally starting to slowly settle into a comfortable and stable place, so this decision wasn't actually a huge financial risk. I guess I'm simply unable to stay too comfortable for too long.

Even though I know that this is the right decision for my life and that it will work out for the long term, the last month has been a crazy and tumultuous ride. Being part of two back-to-back weddings definitely added to the emotional chaos, but being able to control my own schedule and work from wherever I am has been amazing.

When I left my job, I didn't expect to feel so vulnerable, unsettled, and thrown off. I assumed that once I could finally spend all my time on my "passion projects" and not have to cram them into early mornings, lunch hours, and late nights, I'd feel amazingly liberated and attain a sense of balance and fulfillment. That hasn't necessarily been the case. When you suddenly leave a job that you've held for over a year, and leave the people with whom you've been spending 40 hours a week of your life to work from home all by yourself and be responsible for your own success without a comfortable system in place telling you what to do, well, it's kind of a shock to the system. I've been lucky to have never experienced a bad break-up, but I almost felt like I broke up with my department. You tell yourself, oh it's ok we'll still be friends and I'll come visit and we'll hang out all the time and see each other more, but in reality life is fast and time moves on. Everyone is engrossed in their own little bubble of busy reality and it takes intentional action to make things happen.

Things I'm learning:

-to trust my intuition
-to believe in myself and the worthiness of my dreams
-that I don't have to have everything figured out all at once
-good things take time
-routine is necessary
-my energy slumps in the early afternoon, so that's a good time to get out for a walk (or watch an episode of Revenge guilt free)
-getting out of the house is the key to happiness
-I need to work harder at establishing work/life boundaries (difficult when I have lots of late night calls and webinars)
-I can't wait until I'm "inspired" to get shit done

The urgent physical feeling of "positive anxiety" is something new that I've discovered and have had to accept as a more or less constant part of my life now. I've been making myself extremely vulnerable by sharing my story, jumping into a marketing and networking-based career as an introvert, and turning my life into my work. I'm trying to channel that anxiety into inspiration and the motivation to keep waking up every morning and making progress on my goals, because fear and excitement give your stomach the exact same butterfly sensation. It's up to your mind to decide if those butterflies are good or bad.

What I'm discovering from my own experiences (and also my friends and peers) is that the "late twenties" is the phase in life to question your path, try new things, and figure out what makes you truly happy, what motivates you to jump out of bed in the morning and tackle each new day with courage and excitement despite the nagging doubts and fear. Don't settle for a certain path just because it's there. If there's anything that you've been wanting to do but have been putting off due to fear, insecurity, or simply because it's not "what people do," I challenge you to just take one baby step towards that ultimate dream, no matter how crazy it seems. Don't use time as an excuse, because we all have the same 24 hours in the day--what you do with them is up to you and your priorities. Time will pass no matter what, so you might as well spend it on creating a reality that you're in love with.

Say "yes" to your heart. Always live on the edge of your comfort zone. Accept the good butterflies, lean into the fear, and throw caution to the wind. If you chase your true authentic self, everything else will start to fall into place and opportunities and people will arise out of thin air to support you. It takes a lot of drive, hard work, persistence and consistency, and you will have moments of doubt that knock you down and bring you to your knees, but it kind of feels like magic when you have a random  moment when things all seem to be falling into place. For me, there is no other path than this one that I'm bushwhacking for myself out of the infinite possibilities of the future.

Here's to month two!

Sirloin Roast with Brussels and Sweet Potatoes

Oh hi October! Where did you come from?

Cooler weather means it's time to turn on the oven and roast ALL THE THINGS! I've been all about the simple, fast, fool proof, healthy weeknight dinners lately. Tonight I whipped up a beef sirloin roast with balsamic-honey glazed Brussels sprouts and caramelized sweet potatoes!

I found this pre-seasoned sirloin roast at Aldi's, you can also do a pork loin roast. I just put it in a small pan and roasted according to the package directions (450* for 30-40 mins).

On the side, I sliced up two sweet potatoes, coated them in olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic salt, and roasted along with the beef. I also dumped a bag of Brussels sprouts into a third pan and coated them with a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper, garlic salt, balsamic vinaigrette, and a little bit of honey.

Flip the sweet potatoes after 15 minutes, and remove them when they're getting browned. Mine took about 20-25 minutes total. The brussels sprouts and beef took the full 35 minutes.

Let the beef rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Then plate up and enjoy!

(Come visit my Facebook page for more of my simple healthy recipes!)

21 Day Fix: 1 yellow, 1 green, 1 red