Happy Thanksgiving!

This was my first Thanksgiving away from my family and I daresay it turned out quite well! We planned for our friends to come over the day after Thanksgiving for a pot luck dinner since many of us are without family in the city. Megan and I spent Thanksgiving day cleaning and getting every thing ready, but we did manage to make a nice little Thanksgiving dinner of Buffalo wings for ourselves.

It took a lot of prep time to get our apartment ready for guests.
We did a lot of cleaning:

Some crafting: 

Some food prep: 

I cheated and ordered Boston Market sweet potato casserole

Megan did not cheat and made pie! Pumpkin and Pecan! 

A little bit of Decorating:

My dollar store center pieces turned out quite nicely indeed

And it all turned out to be worth it because out apartment was incredibly quaint when everyone arrived:

All in all it was a lot of fun! There was too much delicious food, some really incredible friends, and so much to be thankful for! 

I have only known these crazy kids for 6 months but I couldn't be more thankful for them in my life!

Turning Over New Leaves

So this past Saturday I had my last day watching Des, which made me very sad because he was really a joy to take care and put a smile on my face every day.
I mean just look at this kid!

We had a lot of fun together! 

So it was definitely hard to say goodbye. But unlike most of my other nanny positions I am not leaving the state so I will hopefully be called upon to babysit every now and then. 

So here was my job in review: 

• I got really caught up on my reading: 
• The Hunger Games Series
• Bossypants
• The Boxcar Children (because they had it and why not? You know for nostalgia's sake)
• Wicked (just in time to get to see Wicked in a week!!)
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
• Mirror Mirror
• Truth in Comedy (Just started this)
• Devil in the White City (I just started reading this and I am super excited!)
• I got to read lots of Children's books and practice different character voices, because you can only read the same book so many times before you have to mix it up for your own sanity!

• Because Sharon works as a stage manager at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre I have had a lot of opportunities to meet people and see theatre in the city that I wouldn't have had otherwise
• Shadowed the SM of Shrek at Chicago Shakes
• Shadowed the SM of Pullman Porter Blues at The Goodman
• Got tickets to see Cyrano de Bergerac at Chicago Shakes 
• Travis got the see The Table at Chicago Shakes
• And next week I get to shadow the SM of Wicked at the Oriental Theatre!! 
• Plus Sharon helped me with my cover letter and resume for the Young Performer Supervisor at Chicago Shakes for their production of Gypsy in January! 
• Most importantly, I got to play with a wonderful little boy every day who made me smile and laugh and play like a kid again! Which is great not only for improv but also just to be reminded of how wonderful and exciting the world is. 

I recentl just got hired at a toy store called Timeless Toys for the holiday season. Then after the holidays I will either have a job working theatre professionally or I will go back to nannying... either way I am very excited for the new year.

And since this post will be going out on Thanksgiving here is what this job made me thankful for:

• Sharon and Geoff for giving me a job and then for being incredible and helping me out in the theatre world as well
• Des for bringing joy to my days
• For having a new job to help me make it through the end of the year and the holiday season

And those are just a few of them!  

Looking forward to Thanksgiving with friends tomorrow! 

The Never Ending Halloween

Having never experienced Halloween outside of the suburban bubble or a small college town, Halloween in the city is a totally different beast.

Growing up in the suburbs Halloween is easy and exciting! After having planned my costumes (and trick or treating route) sometimes for months in advance being set loose in the neighborhood was a few hours of joyous (generally freezing cold) bliss! With an average 8-10 pound haul of candy I was set until Christmas. At a very early age we were set loose (chaperone free) in the neighborhood with a watch and a check in time... otherwise we were about as free as you could be! I am proud (or ashamed) to admit that I trick or treated all through high school and don't regret it for a second.

My first experience with Halloween in the city made me realize how easy it was to be a kid in the 'burbs. It had never occurred to me that children in the city can't go door to door to trick or treat. Instead they often collect candy from businesses in the area. My first encounter with this was jarring and eye-opening. I didn't realize what was happening at first. As I got off the train on my way to class I was immediately surrounded by hoards of young children dressed to the nines in costumes running between all the different shops and restaurants. My initial thought was "aww, that's cute! All the businesses decided to have a trick or treating event for the kids on a Sunday afternoon." And then it came to me, "kids can't go trick or treating door to door knocking on strangers doors asking for candy!" I thought to myself "man, they are really missing out, they have no idea what trick or treating is really like..." That is suburban naivety right there. Of course they are not missing out, that is just what Halloween and trick or treating is to them.

Different areas of town had their trick or treating extravaganza at different times on different days all last weekend and this week. (If I were growing up here I would see that as a perfect opportunity to make it Halloween Week and trick or treat every night).

This leads me to my second observation about Halloween in the city (although this is true of college as well). Halloween is not just one night! There were parties all last weekend, wednesday and thursday of this week and I can only assume that there will be a few more this weekend.

So what does that mean for me? That means that I have to continue reminding myself that seeing a guy in a luchador mask, a teletubby on a motorcycle, a man with no pants crutches and an Obama mask (ObamaCare), and Poison Ivy are still mostly socially acceptable.

My Halloween was a nice low key party with friends. Here you can see me with a pirate and a cowgirl. I was Rachel Berry circa Season 1 of Glee (although you can't tell in this picture).