#96 – Spend a lazy weekend day at the Art Institute of Chicago with Dave.

Is it still a Valentine’s Day date when you have to drag your husband (and yourself, for that matter!) out of bed early on a Saturday morning?

Well, that is exactly what we did.

We are members of the Art Institute.  This means that we can show up an hour before opening time and get into the Art Institute and all of the special exhibits free of charge.  We thought that we would be able to casually view the current Edvard Munch exhibit, taking our time and enjoying the exhibit as members.  Well, it turns out that there are a lot of other members.  We enjoyed the exhibit, but had to push our way through the crowds.

And much to my disappointment, they did not have The Scream - the painting, but only The Scream - the black and white lithograph.  I turned every corner in the exhibit looking for the painting, holding out hope until the end.  Dave gave up hope as soon as we saw the tiny little black and white lithograph.  Different versions of the painting have been stolen, damaged, put up for ransom and recovered by the Norwegian police.  So what?  I still thought it would be there.  And I had my expectations set pretty darn high after admiring The Scream – the 8 ft. tall inflatable doll at the touristy gift shop across the street.

The “lazy” part of this goal came after the Munch exhibit when we wandered around the museum, ate lunch and admired all of the great works of art that were closest to benches.

We called a snow day today in Chicago.

I sure do wish we had storage for the bikes.

I will confess, if you send me a chain e-mail about how I have to make seven wishes, say seven prayers and send another seven e-mails to seven people within seven minutes so that my seven wishes will come true…I will delete it.  So how will I respond to the blogging equivalent?

Carrie, a friend of mine from college, “tagged” me with a Kreativ Blogger Award.  Carrie is a newlywed herself who just celebrated her first wedding anniversary.  Originally from Ohio, Carrie and her husband, Shawn, now live in the Pacific Northwest.

“What is a Kreativ Blogger Award?” you might ask.  Basically, I blog about six things that make me happy, and then ask six of my favorite bloggers to do the same.  It gives me a reason to share a few things on the blog and gets me in touch with other bloggers.  I think that if I am going to be a real blogger, I should sit down and accomplish the task at hand.

Six things that make me happy:

• Seeing Dave happy – Not the kind of happy my husband gets from playing hours of video games or from dreaming of going to race car driving school, but the kind of happy I can see in Dave’s eyes and know that he is happy to be married to me…that makes me happier than I anything I can think of.
• Entertaining – I will cook you something from scratch and I will get you drunk.  It makes me very happy to combine my love of cooking with my love of family and friends.  Anyone want to come over?
• Accomplishing something big at work -  I work hard and I am proud of the work that I do.  This is not, however, a professional blog.
• Looking at old pictures – I framed 120 of my favorite old pictures from my family and from Dave’s family and used them as decoration at the wedding.  It makes me happy to remember all the good times we have both had and the family and friends who helped us get here.  You can see above one of my favorite old pictures of me and my Dad.
• Coming home to a clean apartment – Not that I have a clean apartment at the moment to reference, but it makes me happy when I come home from vacation, from work or even from errands to a clean and clutter free space.
• Chicago – Yes, we have corrupt politicians.  Sure, the taxes are really high.  Of course, the Cubs did not win this year.  Chicago makes me happy just the same.  The vibrant culture, the good Midwest people and the endless opportunities all come together to make Chicago one of the best cities in our country.

Now I have to “tag” six of my favorite bloggers to answer the same question.  Since I don’t actually know six bloggers that well, I am just going to pick two who actually know that I read their blogs.

• My sister, Amy, who is a blogger and photographer extraordinaire.
• My sister-in-law, Mrs. Pickles, who blogs about her baby pickles.

What other blogs should I know about?

Dave and I checked out the mountain views on our honeymoon.  This is what a glacier on top of Mount Rainier looks like…in June.  Very similar, actually, to what my walk to the train in Chicago looks like…in December.