Monica - Café Con Monica

Holiday Blog Challenge: Day 7

December 6, 2011

Todays Topic: How do you celebrate the Holidays? Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa??

This is super easy for me since I have done the same thing every single year as far back as I can remember. The majority of my family always gather at my mothers place. We eat an early dinner exchange gifts we bought for each other. There are a lot of kids in the family so they all find a spot and get all their presents piled up and then everyone opens their gifts at once.

After everyone goes home and its just my siblings, parents and nephew to wake up the next day and open Santa’s gifts 🙂 We almost always play whatever video game my brother got and then go see a movie on Christmas day. Last year we saw Sherlock Holmes.

What do you do for the Holidays??

A little bit of Green and some of that

December 5, 2011

I was worried that doing a recap of my weekend would get lost in all this Holiday Blog challenge blogging I am doing but I can’t just do that! Anywho, last week was pretty uneventful as I was exhausted with no good reason. So lets read some of my rambles….

~Wednesday I went out for Texas de Brazil with A, she had a Groupon she needed to use before the 1st. That place is hella expensive(yes I said hella) but it was worth it because we ate our hearts out and then talked for damn near 3 hours! I am pretty sure we only left because we felt like the waiter was ready for us to get the hell out of his section. I was so happy to see her and talk about everything and nothing!

~I have been on a new birth control for the past few weeks and I am convinced that it hates me. The thing is that usually I can’t take any because I get so sick that shit like the last time I fainted on a train happens to me. Well, luckily I am not having that problem with this one…just shit like having the first breakout I’ve had since I hit puberty. Occasionally I will get a zit here and there but I have been dealing with full on breakouts the last 3 weeks…someone please kill me. That is not the only problem but I will spare you the rest…haha

~Thursday I finally used my LivingSocial deal for the yoga studio 3 blocks from my place. I tried out their Hot vinyasa class and it was amazing. I loved being able to walk there and I felt fantastic afterwards. I have 9 more classes to use, I really do love the deals on LivingSocial 🙂

~Friday night I went up to E-town to meet G & A for some wings at our favorite spot Buff Joes(if you are in Chicago you know!) We hung out and talked for hours some more…do you see a theme in my life? It was great, they are my besties and only they can tell me whats going on without me pitching a fit.There is a running joke that when your girl doesn’t get any for awhile I tear things up…

Check out the cup

~Saturday morning was the Santa Hustle 5K, it was lots of fun except for the fact that I did not stretch at all and so my calves and then shins were killing me! My dad thankfully was so great and stayed with me. Around the 2nd mile I slid in the mud and hurt my ankle so that slowed us down even more. We still came in before the 45 minute mark but I paid for that later. My ankle is still feeling off. We were a big hit in the crowd since we were the only Grinch’s but there were lots of fun costumes! I’ll post more pictures when I get them from the site.

Green hands

Clearly we used different paint

~Sunday I went to my parents as usual and we put up the Christmas trees and decorations. It was a great time and I love putting on the Xmas music and just dancing around while we decorate. My nephew was sooooo very adorable this year trying to help. He kept overlapping the ornaments so we had to wait till he moved onto the next to move them but it was great to have him help!

Front room tree

Helping w/the family room tree

It was a great week and weekend!! Hoping this week is just as good and I can’t wait for Christmas!

Some Turkey, Some running and some TV

November 29, 2011

I spent a lot of time in my bed this past weekend. I should be ashamed to have wasted 4 days off of work that way but really, it was fantastic. My mom is on the injured list right now so she wasn’t able to join us in the Naperville Turkey Trot 5K but I ran with some of my other family members and it was fun. I was an unhappy woman getting up so early on a day off but I am very excited to report I got my best time in a 5K yet and I ran most of it alone since my dad opted to help the kiddies run.

After the run we had breakfast and went back to my parents to start cooking and watching the parade. I am the only one left in the family who makes it a point to get up and watch the parade while I bake so I made sure we DVR’d it before we left for the run. It was quite fun to have them watch it with me this year! I made some of my delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies(I will add the recipe to the recipes page tomorrow).

Friday I did manage to leave the house for a bit during the day to do some shopping for myself. I braved Target knowing I needed shampoo badly! I also went with T to have some sushi and see Breaking Dawn for the 2nd time. I told you all I would end up seeing it more than once! We found this yummy and reasonably priced Sushi place by my apartment that had an amazing roll that was actually vegetarian!

Saturday was spent in bed watching Friday Night Lights. I am new to the show and thanks to Netflix I can spend hours catching up! I love love it!!

Sunday I went to my parents and we went downtown to Macy’s to take a picture with Santa…I would share it but my mom hasn’t posted it yet. We had dinner at the Walnut room, which is delicious and lives up to the hype! If you are ever in Chicago check it out!