jamie ann

This post is sponsored by GapKids. Check out all the fun Shine On activities at your nearest Gap store. For event dates and locations, visit Gap’s Facebook page and join the conversation on Twitter with hashtag #ShineOn.

When I saw this opportunity, I knew I wanted to share it because I totally dig the idea. Now I may not have any children yet, but as someone who has worked as a nanny for several years, has a metric ton of little cousins (hi, big Mexican family) and a tiny (okay, not so tiny. Sorry, boyfriend) case of baby fever – I always believe everyone should encourage kids to express their creativity in whatever outlet they can. I love kids and am always the first one to get down on the floor and pull out some crayons or look up little craft projects we can do to show off mom and dad when they get home. Not only does it keep them busy, it helps them express their feelings in another way and they are so proud of their work afterwards. It’s a total confidence booster for little ones and I’m 100% behind that!

So.

This month, select GapKids stores in stores in across the country will host Shine On Saturdays events, a series of special art projects by Merrilee Liddiard of Mer Mag that will help kids show off their inner artist! Each project was inspired by the GapKids and babyGap fall collection, including the best new 1969 denim (which is adorable!).

At the Shine On events children can make geometric masterpieces on canvas using paint and tape to colorful, custom journals to get kids ready for back-to-school and really get those creative juices flowing. GapKids Shine On Saturdays will be held in the Chicagoland area soon. Check out these dates and pack up the car and get to makin’!

Saturday, August 18th
GapKids at Westfield Old Orchard
4999 Old Orchard Center #A6
Skokie, IL 60077
10am-1pm

Saturday , August 25th
GapKids at Oakbrook Shopping Center
533 Oakbrook Center
Oak Brook, IL 60523

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective, and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

Two days ago, I took an intro class at CrossFit Chicago. Now if you know anything about CrossFit, you know it’s a bit intense. Needless to say, I was pretty freaking scared to walk into the place. Then I walked in and saw a work out in process and almost walked back out.

Then someone basically took me by the hand and said, you are totally in the wrong room and she lead me to a quieter room with only two others and a way less intense vibe. My fellow CrossFit intro-ers and I learned a bit about the gym and what CrossFit is and all that good stuff.

Our coach for the evening, Sara, then ran us through a baseline workout. This consisted of 500 meters on a rowing machine, 40 squats, 30 sit ups, 20 push ups and 10 pull ups. And we had to do it as fast as we could.

I was the only girl (and a very out of shape girl at that) with a group of four pretty in shape guys and I definitely finished last by a couple minutes. Those guys though? They cheered me on and were right there with me until I finished.

My baseline work out time was 8 minutes and 15 seconds. I felt like I was going to die after that – a not even ten minute work out.

The past two days I have been sore as hell. It hurts to sit down, it hurts to go up and down stairs, it hurts to raise my arms. Everything hurts.

But I’m going back, because even though it hurts – I feel fucking awesome.

So during July, you’ll probably find me in the box at CrossFit Chicago working hard at getting fit and strong and sweating my ass off. This post right here will hold me accountable – I’ll check in at the end of the month with my progress.

Every now and then, I come across a band that I just really can’t get enough of.

The Gaslight Anthem is one of those bands for me. Their three albums (and EP) are consistently part of my music rotation and like I said, I just really can’t get enough.

Tuesday night, I finally got to see them live. I pre-ordered tickets a million years ago and have been looking forward to the show for months. I invited Dani because she’s awesome and one of the only people I know and hang out with in Chicago who really digs the same kind of music that I do. I think she liked them even though she was having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

The Gaslight Anthem didn’t disappoint. They put on an amazing show. They are really one of the best bands I’ve seen live (and that says a lot because I have been to A LOT of shows) and there was just an awesome energy the whole night. The crowd, the band, everything. I heard all my favorite songs (Miles Davis and The Cool and We Came to Dance and many more!) and they closed out with The Backseat, which was kind of perfect.

I really can’t wait until these boys hit Chicago again.

+

When the opportunity arose to take a complimentary month long bootcamp with Total Results Training, I knew I couldn’t pass it up.

I needed some accountability. I needed someone to show me what I should be doing.

And this came at the perfect time.

I am really out of shape. Like, REALLY. My weight has yo-yo’ed the last five years from very low to very high. Right now, I’m at the higher side of that, but that’s going to change. It has to change.

Monday was really hard. I did terribly, was nauseous because I hadn’t worked out that hard in ages and it was 90whatever degrees out. Tuesday, I was so sore that I could barely walk. Getting in and out of my car was rough and sitting down and getting back up was so painful I didn’t want to move because I knew how much it hurt to do. Wednesday, I woke up on only a few hours of sleep and almost didn’t go to my second class. I hurt and was exhausted, but I dragged myself up and went anyway. Class was better Wednesday. Thursday, I wasn’t as sore and Friday was tough again.

Every day I could feel exactly what muscles I worked out that day and the day before. Even if I was incredibly achy and super tired, I still felt good. I felt good knowing I shut up and actually did something about it. I really have no right to complain about how unhappy I am with my body if I’m not going to do anything change it.

So, I’m doing something about it.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, you can find me sweating it out at the park. Well, at least for the next three weeks. I’m excited about it and looking forward to classes now. I’m ready to get in shape, change my body and feel better about myself.

I even treated myself to a brand new yoga mat for class as a small reward for making it through one full week.

Of course in true Jamie fashion, I had to convince myself not to spend more money on the yoga mat with pretty designs. I’m pretty sure a solid yoga mat will work me out just as well.

(Or it will at least until I find a really, really cute one.)

Ryan, my coach, isn’t yelly and mean like the kind you would assume goes hand in hand with a bootcamp. He’s patient and encouraging but still firm. Not scary in the slightest and doesn’t make me want to cry. Except when he asks us to go over to the big steps.

(Hate the big steps, Ryan. HAAAATE.)

(Probably because I have no balance and almost fall on my face every 3 seconds.)

Total Results Training also offers bootcamps at different days and times at four Chicago parks. There really is a time and a place for everyone so no excuses.

Chicago, come work it out with me!

Last week wasn’t the best, but it definitely wasn’t the worst. To make up for it, I decided I was going to have a fantastic weekend no matter what. I have to say, I think it turned out pretty great.

I’m not too big on sports, but I do love baseball. White Sox baseball, that is. When Mark asked me to go to a game, I was super excited because it was the first I’ve been to this season. We beat Kansas City pretty good and then there was an awesome fireworks show after the game. I definitely need more baseball in my life.

One of my favorite things in the world to treat myself to, especially now that I’ve stopped biting my nails, is to get a pedicure AND manicure. Of course, I always manage to smudge my manicure like, 5 seconds after I think it’s done because I’m too impatient to wait for it to fully dry. Whatever. Siberian Nights on my fingers and toes right now. Loves it.

Sunday was an especially delicious day. My new, super awesome friend Dani just moved back to Chicago from Austin and she need to check out the local cupcake bakeries. And well, me being the super awesome friend that I am, I stepped up to the plate and brought WG2 with me. We had a mini cupcake crawl and hit three places (it would have been four but Swirlz was closed and that basically ruined my life).

First up was Sweet Mandy B’s and I’d say it was my favorite of the day, but mostly because of the hot tattooed dude who was working the counter. (Hi, call me. Bring cupcakes, please. The vanilla kind with pink frosting because they are yummy.) Next was Molly’s Cupcakes and my goodness, that place was adorable. I got a strawberry shortcake cupcake there and the frosting was pretty yum. The rest? Eh. Third was Southport Grocery, but I haven’t tried the one I got yet because holy sugar overload. I’ll report back once I’ve tasted it. There will definitely be more cupcake tastings in the future though because it was a pretty fantastic way to spend my Sunday afternoon.

Weekends like this are the best.

This past Saturday I was able to have an amazing Girls Night Out with friends and all because of Dove Visibly Smooth Deodorant. I LOVE Dove so it’s was pretty exciting to work with a brand I actually use and respect.

We started out our night as Scoozi!, a fantastic Italian place that had the best prosciutto and gnocchi ever. Somehow while eating all this very delicious food, our conversation got shifted to boxed mac and cheese (preferably of the shaped variety) and we talked about it for a good 10 minutes. And it wasn’t even me who brought it up! But I definitely contributed because obviously I have Very Strong Opinions on mac and cheese. I think everyone knows that by now.

Finishing dinner, we walked out the door to find our car. What? OH THAT’S JUST OUR LIMO. We piled inside and rolled up to Trader Joe, obviously. We had to stock up our limo bar with drinks! Two of my lovely guests, Renee and Maggie, headed back home for the night after that but they definitely got a little limo action in there since we drove them to their destinations.

Maggie, Stacey and Renee in our limo

After declaring that I found that Ke$ha broad incredibly annoying and discussing whether pterodactyls are really dinosaurs, we headed to Redhead Piano Bar. We were officially about 20 years too young for this place especially when made our way toward the piano and  tried to request Bad Romance. If you guessed he didn’t play it, you’re the winner! We also found a Marilyn Monroe wannabe looking lady but it kind of came off more like Anna Nicole Smith and she kept following us around the bar. We tried to get a picture of her especially after she put on this hideous long fur coat. It was creepy/hilarious.

lots and lots of print going on

We hopped back in our limo and still had a little bit of time left with the car so we just drove around, tapped out our bar and had a limo dance party. If you were in the River North area Saturday night and caught a glimpse of a car full of slightly obnoxious girls, OH HI NICE TO SEE YOU TOO.

Suz and Leah making calls from our bad ass car phone.

We bid our driver adieu and hopped out at Streeters for a couple more drinks. Leah and Suz told the dj it was my birthday and requested he play Tik Tok. I love that I went from omg I hate this bitch to THIS IS MY SHIT in the time span of three hours. Yes, it was that kind of night.

I’m assuming this is where I was talking pedicures on my toes, toes and trying on all my clothes, clothes

It was an absolutely fantastic night. Thanks so much to my guests who made it out. Those who couldn’t, you were truly missed. And most of all thank you to Dove Visibly Smooth for helping my friends and I have a delightfully epic night on the town!

And since you all couldn’t be there to grab your own to try, if you comment on this post I’ll automatically enter you to win one of five (5) sticks of Dove Visibly Smooth for yourself. I’ll choose winners next Monday. Yay!

P.S. The thing I love and hate about Twitter*, is that I can fill myself in on all the bad decisions I made the previous night. Along with text messages, I realized exactly why I felt so shitty the next morning. I mean, I DRANK MILLER LITE. I can count on both hands all the times I’ve drank beer before let alone Miller Lite.

P.P.S. If you search #DoveGNO you can see most of our tweets from the evening as well as Tara’s party that was going on in LA at the same time.

P.P.P.S. For the record, I definitely did not wake up Sunday morning feeling like PDiddy.

(DISCLOSURE: To participate in the Dove Visibly Smooth VIP program, I was provided with five (5) product samples to giveaway on my blog as well as ten (10) product samples for my guests, car service and compensation for dinner out with my friends. Dove provided me with these items so I could organize the event myself and without any influence from Dove.)

Every year come November, I start dreading the winter. When February hits, I wonder why in the world am I still living in Chicago. That’s where I am at right now. I’m dreaming of California. Even by late March birthday? Still a chance for snow. Come May, we should be all clear. Then summer hits and I fall in love with my city all over and decide I never want to leave. Until winter hits again.

Repeat. Year. After. Year.

Right now I’m in full on hibernation mode.

I hate leaving the house unless I absolutely have to because it’s way too cold to want to do anything. I’d much rather sit at home in comfy clothes watching Mad Men and wondering how exactly do I make an old fashioned. I have all the necessities for Project Waiting for Spring: a fridge full of wine. A puppy. A shelf full of books and tv shows on dvd. Gchat open for talks with friends. If I had a boy too, someone would probably have to physically drag me kick and screaming from here. I definitely wouldn’t emerge until late spring.

It takes a hell of a lot to get me out these days. Saturday it was lunch at DMK Burger Bar with some of my favorite Chicago girls and it was totally worth it. This coming weekend I have a movie! Valentine’s Day movie on Valentine’s Day weekend.Basically, I go out maybe once every two weeks, if that. I promise you’ll see more of me out and about when it gets nicer out.

Maybe I’m boring, lazy or lame but until you’ve been through a Chicago/Midwest winter, you have no idea. It sucks. A lot.

AND.

Rumor has it, we’re suppose to get hit with 10 inches of snow all in 24 hours.

So now you know where to find me.

Let’s cuddle.

I know nothing about wine. I couldn’t tell you about the floral or fruity hints to it. Smelling or swishing it around in my mouth won’t do anything for me. Years mean nothing to me.

I just like drinking it.

So what better way to choose your wine than picking out whichever is prettiest?

I told twitter about an adorable bottle of wine I bought about a month ago and then decided all the wine I would get from now on would be based on labels. Twitter wholeheartedly agreed with me and I was all, “OMG Let’s have a pretty wine label party!” then the awesome Working Girl Two was like “I’ll host it at my place!” which was fabulous because I live on the south side and people are afraid of the south side (and I don’t mean south loop. That is not the fucking south side.) and it’s is hard to get to.

ANYWAY.

Yesterday was our party. And it was amazing!

This is only a small portion of all the wine we had.

I really wish we would have got a photo of all of the bottles lined up. We had some really great ones. But at the time, drinking totally trumped photo taking. Understandable, right?

We basically had the best group of people come and had like 423 bottles of wine and snacks. Porch hangouts led to wine shots in the kitchen with Jess and Erin. Things were getting a little crazy and Lacey was like just stay with me and Nicole tonight instead of driving home and then the party REALLY got started. We killed off all of the white wine while having the most epic dance party in the history of the world.

No, really. Madonna. Nsync. The motherfucking LION KING.

And it only got better from there because POP! There went the red wine and the iPod started burning up because we were playing dj and dancing like crazy.

It was seriously one of the best nights I have ever had in my life. Everyone got along famously and had an amazing time. I really need more time with friends like this.

Thanks so much, ladies, for coming and hanging out.

I’m SO ready for Pretty Wine Party 2.0!

In effort to be serious about this whole expanding my food horizons thing and trying new things, I accepted an invitation. Earlier this week I attended a dinner for Cruzan Rum at Sushi Samba here in Chicago.

I’m not going to lie, the “sushi” in the name of the restaurant kinda intimidated me and I almost said no. But then they were all, RUM cocktails paired with every course and then I couldn’t refuse. Hell, if the food sucked and they refused to serve me chicken fingers, at least I could probably get drunk.

Then I got there and was a little confused. All the others who were attending were big Chicago bloggers, like Gapers Block or Chicago Foodies. Here I am surrounded by food bloggers and club/bar owners and answering the “oh your part of the media?” question with “Hi, I’m Jamie. I have a blog called Oh! How Lovely! and I write about my puppy, fictional vampires, Lady Gaga’s ass and hating sushi”. I really doubt I was the only one a tad bit confused by that.

But whatever, I ran with it.

Our table was covered with glasses. There were probably at least three different drinks at my table setting at once. It was kind of ridiculous but I was NOT about to give up my raspberry mojito until I was done with it, dammit.

And the food? Well, I tried lots of things I never had before.

Here’s a breakdown of the courses that I yanked from the chef’s twitter account. Yes, he tweeted the courses as they came out with photos. Pretty neat, huh?

Cruzan rum dinner scallops watermelon chili (pic)
Rum dinner tuna sevieche malaguta coconut and key lime (pic)
Blackstrap glazed salmon (pic)
Beef short rib and single barrel demi arepa roasted corn (pic)
Chocolate banana cake. Banana rum ice cream. Maple and plantain chip. (pic)

As for what I thought:

The scallops were kind of salty. They were okay but I’m not a huge fan. I definitely did not like the sevieche. The cold, the coconut and the tuna just did not work for me. The salmon was okay. I’m not a huge fish person so whatever but it was good. The short rib was fantastic! If they hadn’t of given us huge portions of each course, I easily could have finished this but I was stuffed. The dessert was nice. I liked the ice cream a lot. I’m not a huge chocolate cake fan and it was pretty rich but it was good if you’re a chocolate cake kind of person.

All in all, my first step into being more adventurous with my eating went well. I’m proud of myself that I least tried everything, even if it looked or sounded weird because I didn’t know what the hell was in it. Maybe I can bump myself up to eating like an 8 year old now.

I’m now taking recommendations for my next Chicago spot to try.

Preferably a place with raspberry mojitos.