Jazz, Beignets and a Haunted City

Life has been and is still crazy busy.

With that said I am excited to have the next two days to relax, exercise and have some downtime!

Because after those 2 days..... the party begins!

On Wednesday evening after work, we are flying into

New Orleans for Jazz Fest.

Lots of incredible music on the agenda and I am beyond ready for it :)

We will be there Wednesday evening for dinner

Thursday - 2nd weekend fest starts

Friday - MANY friends flying in from all over the country for 2nd day of fest

Saturday - Third day of fest

Sunday - Fourth & Closing of 2012 fest

Monday & Tuesday - Playing tourist!

I used to go every year and then stopped when that bitch Katrina hit.  This will be my first time back in the Crescent City since then and my heart is heavy with anticipation!!

NOLA is one of my favorite cities in the world.  I have always felt a big draw there.

Funny thing is... I have been on a massive genealogy dig lately and JUST discovered last week I actually have a big connection to the big easy.  I had NO idea.  Fun for me! 

Beyond that - Lots of fun restaurants & bars planned and a TON of walking to offset those calories.

We are staying a few days after fest to enjoy the city and have some touristy downtime as well.

I prepacked all my new summer dresses, fedoras, summer floppy hats and sandals and can't wait!! 

Last time I was at fest, I was BIG. Like Super Chub!  I am SO scanning those photos when I get back and doing a side-by-side!!!

On the weight loss front - things are going pretty well! This new fill brought me a few pounds down finally and I definitely have restriction. I can still pretty much eat most everything but in much smaller amounts. It is nice to get full off a few bites. I am still overcooking and over ordering so I really need to adjust.  I can't seem to wrap my head around the fact that so little will fill me up.

As of today I am at 225.  When I started, I was at 258.  When I met Z, I was 216 and I am excited to be at the weight when I met him SOON and then get down to Onederland hopefully soon after.

Not sure if I will post before leaving - but if not - Happy Losing Everyone and see you on the flip side!!

“New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.”
― Mark Twain

Things are Changing!

For the good....!!

After Chicago, I kicked it into food detox a bit.   (Notice I didn't say wine detox)

Lots of events still going on so I will recap.

We flew back Monday night around midnight. By the time we were home it was after 1am. I came back to a BUSY work week. Luckily I telecommute so I hung out in my pajamas all of Tuesday. I offer no apologies for it.  I was so tired I am not even sure I showered that day.  ha

Wednesday was much of the same but the fog was lifting.

Thursday was Fill #2.  I went to see Dr. Quack Quack.  He said he was pleased with my weight loss since my first fill. I explained I had zero restriction and needed some.  Be careful what you ask for ;)

I still debated him on protein and food.  He is still sticking to me not needing protein.  He said ALL food is bad except green leafy veggies.  He also said the purpose of the band is to eat the size of my hand worth and so it doesn't matter what is going in.  He said lean protein wasn't any better than fattier protein.

What the?   Seriously.. I argued with him and just wanted my fill so I could get the hell out of there.

I was on liquid for that day and mushies on Friday. 

Friday is a slacker work day for me usually.  My work hours are super easy and since I am at home, I admit I usually slip out pretty early.  I met my bestie for lunch at an amazing new restaurant which is Vietnamese and French.   Gorgeous inside, food from heaven.  I ordered lobster bisque and egg salad on croissant.  It was really the only mushy until I noticed the specials said quiche.  Thanks server lady for mentioning that.  I ate the egg salad and may have stolen a bite from that beautiful toasted croissant.  

After that, I went on a shopping trip with her.  She kept telling me to try clothes on in the regular section.  There is no way I told her... I am still in plus sizes. 

She convinced me.  I am HAPPY to say I walked out with one gorgeous, make my girls look fantastic new summer navy and white maxi dress, one really pretty shirt and two casual sun dresses for my upcoming trip to New Orleans.

Well the dresses have stretch but I don't care!  They were all XL - Woo hoo!  The top has NO stretch and fit beautiful as well.  Also XL.  They were all INC from Macy's so it's nice to have better selections that aren't upstairs in the back of the store behind the kids department because no one wants to see fat ladies buy clothes. 

After that, we went to the V inoy H otel (which is that gorgeous hotel I went to back for the Bachlorette Party). I love to pretend I am on vacation and people watch.  I ordered some champagne and a salmon salad.  I think I was either eating too quick or too big of a bite and not paying attention and I then got super stuck and had to go to the restroom to bring it all up.

I stopped eating after a few bites as it was not fun. Not dying pain but it fel like someone punched me in my chest.   By the time I was home, I was really hungry so I tried to eat again. Stuck again. 

Uggg  Like I said - Be careful what you ask for!

On Saturday we had a friends birthday dinner and I was SO worried.  I thought maybe I was too tight and I was scared.  Turns out, I was back to normal but I had MAJOR restriction. I way over ordered.  Z & I shared a cheese platter. I had a few nibbles, no bread.  Then for dinner I ordered a crab cake appetizer, small salad and grilled veggies.  I ate one crab cake and one bite of salad and I was stuffed. Waste of food. I pawned it off on everyone because it's a wonderful place and this food should NOT go to waste.

Hmm wine went down ok.  Go figure.

What really struck me after was seeing myself in photos.   Something new has decided to appear after a long dormant phase.... COLLARBONES!!!!  Wow - I was a bit shocked. It happened overnight. 

Excuse the BAD hair night - It was rainy and humid here and my hair was having a mind of it's own.

But seriously - Look at the new collarbones!!! LOL

Sunday was one of the areas biggest annual art show that gets better each year.  It's called Mainsail.  Z&I went with my great friend of many years and her new man.

He is finally growing on me. I wasn't sure at first because he is just way more introverted than I am but I enjoy him now and appreciate him more.  I think I better because I have a feeling this is going to be her husband sometime soon.

We arrived starving so Z ordered Conch fritters and grilled Mahi.  I was able to eat one conch fritter and about 4 bites of Mahi and it was perfect.  I can't believe how little gets me full! 

We walked around for about 5 hours and bought a copper sculpture for our bedroom wall and a beautiful painting from an artist from Ghana.  His work blew me away.  I can't wait to get it framed and matted and add it to the bedroom as well.   After that, we had an impromptu dinner party at my friends house.  Z&I ran to the Fresh Market and picked up Swordfish, Mixed greens, strawberries, blood orange, goat cheese and sliced almonds. She picked up 2 filets, sweet potatoes and made an off the chain orzo-chickpea salad with feta and fresh dill and garlic.  We had a really nice dinner and I was able to eat about 2 oz of fish, an oz of meat, a couple bites of the sweet potato and about 2 tablespoons of the orzo.  Full off a SMALL amount which is so nice.

Hmmm but the wine sure went down ok.   (see a trend?!) 

Anyways - it is nice to still enjoy being a foodie, still have an active lifestyle and participate in dinners with friends and feel normal while the scale moves downward. 

And lastly - the most fun NSV of the week: 

On our walk this week, I noticed my Hips and Ass shadow has decreased significantly.  Everytime the street light came on previously, I was always mortified. I was smaller up top but my hips were SO big, my shadow embarressed me when I walked next to Z.   Rediculous right??  This week it looked more "normal".

The scale jumped a bit this weekend because of the liquid and fill.  I know if I drank less wine, it would be more but it is what it is for now.  

I think my life will slow down a a bit in June. 

Week ahead:

Elvis C ostello concert and pre concert dinner with friends (tonight) Tuesday

The R ocky H orror Show in the park with friends. Picnic baskets and blankets galore on Wednesday.

& Finally a friends beach wedding on Saturday.

I am REALLY hoping to have some down time, detox and exercise on  Thursday & Friday and did so yesterday (Monday)!

Enjoy your week everyone!!!!

Chicago Part Deux

Hello my lovelies!

I realized April & May are so packed solid, it's been tough to get a blog on here more than once a week.

I wanted to finish Chicago up before I moved onto other things so it wasn't confusing and I will try and wrap it up here.

Ok last blog I ended with the first 2.5 days. 

The remaining portion of the trip consisted of The Museum of Sci ence and In dustry.  If you are in Chi-town this is a MUST.    We had such an amazing time. The building(s) are MASSIVE and it truly takes a day and a half to see the whole thing.  We packed as much as we could in.

We walked all over downtown to Millennium Park and saw the "Bean", gazed at the tulips all over the city and hit up Willis Skydeck which is the old Sears tower. I still prefer to call it the former name. We went into the CRAZY glass cubes which make you feel like you are falling or about to die and had a really great afternoon.

When we arrived back at the hotel, we had faux celebrity siting #2 which I actually enjoyed.   I literally ran right into Brad who is on It's a Brad, Brad World.  He was Rachel Zoe's former assistant. He was hilarious and charming and staying at our hotel. We kept running into each other and actually talked a bit which was fun. He is absolutely adorable in person I must say! This is him:

Some pics from the day at the park, The Willis skydeck glass cubes and bean:

Later that evening was the main event.  We started out in one of the rooms where we had a few bottles of lovely bubbly.  We hung out there chatting and toasting for about an hour.  We then piled into a few cabs and headed out. We were there to celebrate a birthday and it was held at an absolutely incredible Italian restaurant called Francesa's on Chestnut. They had a preset menu for the party and I am so happy I waited for fill #2 after I got home because I was able to nibble on everything!  I didn't go overboard but I absolutely enjoyed it all.

We dined on beautiful salads, truffled risotto, veal medallions, roasted chicken, oven fired veggies and gorgeous tiramisu and profiteroles and oh so much vino! 

Some pics from the evening:

Pre-Party with the birthday man!

Phil, Deane, Mike & Zack.
Backstory:  The three guys were all college roomies. Zack and Mike have known each other since they were about 10.  Deane is an amazing guy and bought a huge house in Ann Arbor MI when they went to UofM so they could live "properly".  He is a really unique guy & quite damn handsome for 80! Wow!

Deanes' cousin, Lisa (Deanes' daughter) who flew in from Spain, my new friend Sandy from Oregon and my friend Ann and then moi.

Cheers, wishes and yummy desserts!

After our dinner, a jazz trio was starting there and we ended up staying there a few more hours.  The kids paid the entire bill and once it was settled we all opened up some bar tabs.  We were all in a bubbly mood so we ordered a few bottles of champagne and the rest of the party ordered up there own cocktails.  We enjoyed the company, the music and the mood. 

We finally ended up back at the hotel for an after party, an after-after party and then an after-after-after party which finally ended in our room.     4am - time to get to sleep!!

Some pics from the after(s) party... you will be able to see a slight change in peoples drunk ass faces HA.

We all awoke the next day and most people were all leaving.  We had one more day so we weren't in any rush.   We all met for the last time at the Pump Room for brunch and it was pretty delish. We said our goodbyes, exchanges some laughs and then Z and I went out for the day to explore. 

We went all over town, popping in here and there and to be honest, I can't even remember what we really did.  I will have to look thru the photos for evidence Ha!  We headed back to the hotel early enough for a quick catnap as we had dinner plans with another couple who I love and adore.  They are Z's friends from Detroit and moved to Chicago last year.  They just moved into a new gorgeous condo in Bucktown so we had dinner plans with them that evening and a chance to see their new digs. 

It was our last night and we were pretty tired by this point.   For some reason, I don't think we took ANY photos that evening which bums me out. But we had some wine at their place and caught up.  We then went to a really wonderful and quaint neighborhood restaurant called Janes in Bucktown.    

I had a Tofu and veggie burrito with an avocado sauce. Wasn't the best food in the world but it certainly wasn't the worst.  I think I just wanted something healthy by this point and saw the words Tofu and Veggies in the same sentence and jumped on it.   Everyone else had other great items.

Some pics of the restaurant:

Our friends drove us back so we wouldn't have to cab it and we called it a night.    When we woke up, we knew it was time to pack.  We almost had a tiny bit of regret for staying the extra day. We were sorta ready to be home relaxing with our puppies. When we booked the trip, we assumed we wouldn't have time to do anything because of the birthday but instead we packing in A LOT!

So after waking, we had the intention of another museum but we were a bit tired.   We ended up doing what I do best.... shopping!   After picking out some fun shoes at Nordstrom Rack and some new yoga pants and shirts at North Face, we decided to call it a day before we had to head to the airport.

The weather was pretty ugly that day. Gusts of around 45mph, some rain and just chilly to the bone.  We went to the Signature Room at the Hancock building for last cocktails and a view.

Some final pics from our last quiet day.... 

After this splurge of calories, Zack asked if I wanted a cab. Instead I wanted to walk back to the hotel which was about 3 miles. Such a lovely walkable city and the rain had subsided.

As we arrived back to the hotel and checked out, we saw our last faux celebrity for the day.  We ran into one of the Real Housewives of DC - Mary Schmidt Amons. Honestly, I remembered her face, not her name since they only had one stint.

 She drove her car there and as they packed her Louis luggage into the back, she apparently was in town for shopping.  I drooled at the MANY Gucci shopping bags amongst others.   Yes - I am nosey. But I wasn't obvious nosey. I had my shades on and we were there waiting on a cab ;)    *Le Sigh* 

And yes - I came home and LOST A POUND after all this food, champagne and sweets!  Oi Vey - I <3 my band!!

More pics if you care to see:  Chicago Pictures

Chicago Recap and Pictures Galore

I am going to try to make this more of a photo blog because there are SOOOOO many photos.  I am also going to split this up into 2-3 posts because it's too much at once and I don't want to overbear you!

We packed a TON into five days and I couldn't add 200+ on here.  So I will post the full album link at the end if you want to see all of them.

On Wednesday evening, the poodle started a hissy fit and saw the suitcase.

She decided to stage a protest:

We flew out on Thursday and this was the incredible view from my plane:

When we finally arrived to our gorgeous hotel, we were pretty tired. We had planned to adventure out to our favorite Chicago restaurant but didn't have it in us.  So we ended at staying at the hotel which holds the world famous Pump Room.  This place is legendary and is star studded, James Beard awarded and a ton of hollywood history in the place. Just an FYI - on a late Thursday night, it was like the model convention was in town.  Everyone was stunning in there and I felt a bit plane frumped and tired.  But we did start the evening off correctly with the following:

After that - we went up for the evening and retired.

When we woke up, we explored the gorgeous hotel.

The weather was definitely chilly and it was quite blustery.  We headed out on foot and decided to explore the city. We ended up walking around 9 miles.  As we started our day, we saw our first "faux" celebrity siting.  I saw Marci from last seasons The Biggest Loser. She was the super sweet mom of Courtney. Well ironically, she was out in full force jogging and looked INCREDIBLE!  Pretty fun siting.

This is a pic of them to trigger your memory:

We went out for a hunt of coffee and breakfast and a place to buy a nice birthday gift.

This is how I started my morning after a brisk beginning 3 mile walk:

And my cute man

After lobster, spinach and truffle Benedict's and mimosas we walked around this amazing market called Fox & O bel.  I picked up some nice french caramels with fluer de sel for the room if we had a sweet tooth. We then went on a hunt for a lovely foodie gift for the 80th birthday party we flew in for.   (a little background - the man we were there for is Z's best friends dad). He was like a surrogate dad to him and helped the boys thru the Univ of M ichi gan.
Since I love to cook and the birthday man loves to cook, we decided to splurge on a gorgeous bottle of Leonardi Cherry Balsamic aged around 30 years.   He has already sent 3 emails of how amazing it was on his trout he cooked up and is planning on using it on ice cream and fresh berries this week.   A success I think!  This is what the bottle looks like.   (was initially bottled at 20 yrs and the manager brought it out from behind the glass and said it was there at least 9 yrs).   Hmm - I want one now!!

After that - we ended up walking around Michigan Mile & went over to Navy Pier.  We jumped on an Architecture cruise which gave us a nice perspective from the water. I took a TON of pics so these will be in the album link at the end.

From there - we walked back towards the hotel where people were starting to arrive. Our friends were having lunch at a French Brasserie and we stopped in and ordered wine. We peeked at the menu and it looked incredible but we were still stuffed from breakfast.  We then went back to the hotel and got caught up and showered and dressed for dinner. We were having dinner this evening at the famous Pump Room.

I REALLY regret not taking photos of the beautiful food that evening but instead, I will list what I ordered. I am still reminiscing about it  ;)

For starters we had the tuna tartar again which was pictured in the earlier pic above.  It was so incredible, the table wanted to try it and they agreed. We then ordered a fresh ricotta ravioli and each of us had one.   Then for dinner, I ordered a half size of tagliatelle handmade pasta which was paired with a very light lemon cream sauce. I also ordered a crispy kale salad which made my eyes roll behind my head.  Yes, that good.
For dessert, we 4 split the most talked about in the place which was a french caramel seat salt ice cream sundae with toffee popcorn in it.   Just the right amount of sweetness. 

We then went and had cocktails and caught up some more & until bed.

The next day, a lot more people were starting to show up. Some of Z's college friends and some people from other spots who were family of the birthday man.   In total, there were around 15 of us who flew in from all over the world.  From Spain, Idaho, Florida, Oregon, Ohio, other parts of Illinois and Kansas City.   I think that says a lot about a persons character on how people will flock to you no matter what to celebrate your milestone. This guy is that neat!

The next morning we all met in the hotel library coffee bar and just went at a slow pace. I sipped on espresso and decided to finally remember I had a lapband and eat healthy. I had a hard boiled egg and Greek yogurt with fresh fruit.   We all decided to drive up to see the beautiful Fra nk L loyd W right - R obie House.  This was in the beautiful neighborhood of Hyde Park which is where a university is at and each mansion is more stunning than the next.  We toured the inside (no pics allowed) but did manage to take a few outside:





 Ok this concludes half of the trip.  I think it will be easier to blog this in 2 parts so it's not obnoxiously overwhelming.

Next up:  More 'celebrity' sitings, the main birthday party, more amazing food, Millennium Park fun, more shopping, lots of champagne and views. 

If you made it this far - I am amazed!!!