Café Con Monica

My life in Photos

I keep seeing all these fun photo collages and phone dumps and, of course, I must try! 
I finally realized they were doing these damn things on Picnik and I had better take advantage before its gone. Why are they closing it anyway, I didn’t have the patience to read through the long explanation. 
Anyway, I realized I haven’t been taking a lot of photos lately so I try and get some new ones to share
1. My lovely nephew has discovered the front facing camera on my phone
2. I saw these at Target and sent the picture to Cboy…he thought it was cute(I realize how cheesy that sounds) 
3. It was freezing at my desk last week, the vent above my desk was shooting out frigid air 
4. I love soccer and two of my fave Spanish teams were playing Barcelona v Real Madrid 
5. Ummm I can’t find this anywhere in the city…go out to the burbs and a whole freezer full!! 
6. Walking to work behind these two made my morning…she refused to be picked up so it took them forever to get 2 blocks
7. One of my favorite nail polishes (Rimmel-Steel Grey) 
8. Knockout Punch at Buffalo Wild Wings while watching the UFC fights 
9. I had a buzz and was having a pretty good hair day
10. Riding the metra to my parents Sunday morning…sometimes the city has a ugly beautiful look to it
11. My nephew and I went on a field trip to get some sweets and he needed to ride the horsey
12. Ummm football shaped Oreos? yes please…I promise I didn’t eat the whole bag alone

So yea  that is my week in photos…I am going to try hard to join one of the link-ups for these things. 

                                                                          

Book Swap Linkup!


So I participated in my first blog swap and it was all about books. I may not have shared this much but I read, A LOT. So I was very excited when I came across this link-up over at Heather’s Blonde…Undercover Blonde, & Katie @ The Nerdy Katie Check it out! 


I felt kinda bad since her list of books were almost all not out yet but then I found one I liked on her list and sent it over to her! 
She was so nice she sent me 3 books! 
I actually read this over last week and loved it! I am excited to continue the series. 
Champion discount shopper Finley Tanner has never thought of her job in the Estates and Trusts
Department of Dane, Lieberman and Zarnowski as anything but a means to keep her in last
season’s Lilly Pulitzer—until Victor Dane makes her babysit estates client Stacy Evans, who’s
convinced that her jeweler husband Marcus’s auto death was no accident. At first, Finley goes
along with Dane’s wish to appease the client without really investigating her claim. But when she
discovers that Marcus Evans served on a jury with the late Jos Vasquez and Graham Keller in a
malpractice case brought by the estate of Brad Whitley against transplant surgeon Kent Hall and
defended by Dane, Lieberman and Zarnowski, Finley is suddenly very attentive. Petty harassment
at the office—on orders from above, Margaret the evil receptionist makes her sign in and out and
logs her phone calls—and threatening notes pinned to her front door don’t deter her, and the
chance to work with sexy p.i. Liam McGarrity, a stunning counterpoint to her loyal but boring
boyfriend Patrick, is a bonus. But it’s her inner drive to close the deal that makes Finley track
Evans’s killer with a focus she usually reserves for off-price Armani.
Just started this one but so far its pretty great! I love that it takes place in Chicago. 
They say bad things happen in threes. When her fiance, Sam, disappears on the same day her mentor and biggest client is killed, hotshot Chicago attorney Izzy McNeil starts counting. But trouble keeps coming. Sam is implicated in the client’s death, her apartment is broken into and it’s not just the authorities who are following her. 
Now, to find Sam and uncover her client’s murderer, Izzy will have to push past limits she never imagined. Lucky for her she’s always thrived under pressure, because her world is falling apart. Fast. And the trail of half truths and lies is red-hot. 

Safely outside the New York City limits, St. Thomas College was supposed to promise peace and quiet. Unfortunately, English professor Alison Bergeron has found it to be anything but. She recently divorced a fellow faculty member and more recently, her car was stolen. The one evening, she gets a visit from two homicide detectives from the NYPD. The good news is that they found Allisons beat-up Volvo; the bad news is that the body of one of the students in her Shakespeare seminar was in the trunk. 
Now, not only must Alison continue to hoof it to campus(a fate almost worse than death), she’s become a prime suspect for a murder she did not commit–and her efforts to clear her name have landed her in hot water with an even hotter Detective Bobby Crawford, who happens to be a former altar boy, and the sinfully suspicious nuns of St. Thomas. All hell’s about to break loose if Allison can’t find the real killer…before it’s too late. 

I am so glad that I joined this link-up and found some new books to read! Check out these ladies blogs and all the great books that were swapped. 


OOh Mondays…

Well it is Monday again….I don’t know about you all but I am rarely if ever happy on this day of the week. I am also here at work while much of the city is off today. Damn this not working for school business. 
Anyway it was a pretty good weekend, nothing too exciting but still overall a good one. 
1. I got my very first Birchbox! Yay me! I have read lots of posts about them so, of course, I got a subscription. For those of you who don’t know me I am a pretty simple girl. I rarely get my nails done, or my hair done. Not to say that I don’t take good care of it all but I just don’t really get into it much. I also wear minimal amounts of makeup, I’m talking blush and eyeliner/eyeshadow max. So that being said I am excited to see what new things I can try! I did a little dance on Friday when it came… I will have to let you all know in another post once I get to try everything! 
2. Saturday I had a lunch date with a guy from the online dating world. I think we will call him Mr.Hops. I am only giving him a name because I know 100% there will be another date! I knew once he and I exchanged numbers and text that he was going to be very fun to talk to and eventually hang out with. He let me pick the day for the date, asked if I was more comfortable with lunch or dinner drinks, picked me up(nearby-still careful not to let strangers know where I live) opened doors, dropped me off by the door so he could find parking and I wouldn’t have to walk in the snow. Scored a 10 for looking exactly like his photo which happens to be a very adorable blonde hair, blue eyed guy. Conversation flowed well, he made me laugh, complimented me at the appropriate times. I would say he was a winner! He made a very cute joke as I was getting ready to get out of the car that I was smiling about for the rest of the day. The only iffy hiccupy type thing is that he is 39. He doesn’t look his age which is great and he doesn’t act too young or too old so for now I am not going to let that bother me. He already text me asking if I would like to meet up this week. Yay!!

3. Thanks to #2 I was better able to deal with the constant arguments I was having with The Boy all last week. He is still not on the same level of over it acceptance that I am so we tend to have some nasty arguments that result in me being completely flustered. That is definitely something I do not miss and will never do with the next guy whenever that may come along.

4. A and I went to a co-workers party this weekend and had a great time. I wish I had a picture but I completely forgot to take one and that sucks since I know I looked pretty good! I do want to share this picture she just posted on FB from November I think….

look at those cheesy smiles

5. Sunday I went to visit the family. I couldn’t believe how much I missed them. I usually make it a point to visit every sunday and sometimes if the timing is good I also visit during the week. I hadn’t seen them since the Monday after Xmas. I was having family time withdrawls. I don’t know what I will do when I move away from Chicago. I think it will be a lot harder than I think. Luck would have it that my cousin’s were over with their adorable little girl. She is too cute and so active! We can’t forget my gorgeous nephew who talks so much more everytime I see him greeting me by calling my name and giving me hugs!

excuse my messy hangover hair 
he loves those jammies

6.  Ummm I actually don’t have a number six….So that’s all for now folks! 


I can’t forget to say a little something about Martin Luther King Jr. today. Although, I complain about not having the day off it is still a wonderful thing to have a day to recognize the amazing man that he was and the revolutionary things he stood for. 

Source: bing.com via Meg on Pinterest


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