Go Cubs Go!

30/11/201630/11/2016 / khargs / Leave a comment

Guys. Something amazing happened. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series! I was out at the bar watching in D.C. I wore as much Cubs gear as possible (hat, tshirt, blue nails) and brought my jersey for my friend to wear. I didn’t tell anyone at the time but I also brought my W flag.

Clearly, I was moved by the win. I grew up a Cubs fan. One of my grandpa’s worked for the Cubs and even had a baseball card of him in Cubs gear. My other grandpa was always sitting in front of the TV watching the game. Unfortunately, neither of them are alive anymore. Knowing how much this win means to the older generation who have waited their whole lives to see the Cubs win the Series brought me to tears.

Fortunately for me, I was able to make it home to the Cubs celebration (mind you, the win was on a Wednesday and the parade that Friday morning). One early morning flight and train ride into the city, I was ready.

We started out at an apartment that was only blocks from Wrigley so we made our way to the stadium. It was packed!

Pssst! That’s not coffee in our cups! After a late start, the parade got going! Again, it was packed so it wasn’t super easy to see. And I was even on a friends shoulders!

After we went to a bar for snacks and to watch the rest of the parade and the rally on the TV.

After a snack, a nap, and some dinner, we wandered back over to Wrigley. Now that the crowds had thinned a bit, I wanted to get up close and personal with one of the greatest ballparks in America.

Since the building is brick, people started writing names of loved ones who were unable to be present for the win; this could be due to distance or if they had passed away. It was really amazing.

One of the big goals I had for the quick trip back to Chicago was to write my grandparents’ names on Wrigley. I was grateful to find some chalk and limited space to write (just their) first names on the wall.

This trip was honestly one of the best few days in my life and I am so grateful to have been able to be 1 in the 5 million who attended. It was an experience I will never forget.

Halloween 2016

09/11/201630/11/2016 / khargs / Leave a comment

If you know anything about me (or have read previous posts), you know that I’m a bit of a nerd. When the boyfriend suggested a nerdy costume for us for Halloween, I was all about it! He’s a big Game of Thrones fan, both books and TV show. I’m fully committed to the show and have read the first 2 books. I’ll eventually get to the rest of the books. We decided to go as Melisandre and Stannis Baratheon. For those who don’t know the show, here are some reference pictures:

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As you know, I am not a natural red head. Nor do I have hair down to my waist. So I basically was starting from scratch with this costume. I went out and found 2 potential dresses: 1 was just a long wine red tank maxi and the other was a long sleeve low cut wine red dress that went to my knees. I bought both and have worn them multiple times already so don’t worry, both good purchases.

I found an inexpensive wig online and (big surprise) the wig “got lost” in the mail and I was refunded. Thankfully, my brothers have Amazon Prime and I ordered a different one to arrive in a few days.

The other main identifier of Melisandre is her necklace. In the book there is less detail than the show, just that there is a large red gem on it that seems to glow sometimes. Obviously where I get my power! Luckily, this was decided early on and when I went to Purdue with some family, I swung by Von’s Bead Shop. I found a red gem bead and this fabulous string of metal circles that the bead fit into. Bought it. Just had to assemble it.

The thing is, Melisandre isn’t a most loved character. She’s kind of a witch. She seduces Stannis and then a few days later, she gives birth to a shadow demon which does some dark things. Like murder. In the book moreso than the show, it is described as looking like Stannis. So I made myself a little shadow demon baby and put on some string and wore it as a backpack all night. So here I am:

For the Stannis costume, the stud went and bought a black cape. I picked up some spray paint and foam craft sheets to make armor. We went and got a black shirt to put the armor on and find a sword. We went with a dagger. I originally wanted to try to spray paint chain mail by stretching fishnets over a shirt, but it didn’t work out great so we moved on without the chain mail.

The characters are not very gleeful. They almost never smile. So we tried to not smile (okay maybe I just smirked) the rest of the night. Here are a few of us.

The wig was heavy and kept falling back so I had to readjust it a bunch. But it was fun!

Be careful. For the night is dark and full of terrors.

A Fort?

02/11/2016 / khargs / Leave a comment

Wickett and I decided that we needed to get out of the area and city feel for a bit so we hopped into the car a drove just a ways up. There’s a spot called Fort Marcy that we thought we’d explore.

Despite not finding any ruins of the fort itself, like walls or building remains, we did find 2 cannons.

We decided to see what we could find just past the trench surround the fort’s prior location.

What we did find was a fenced off area with a run down house. Maybe it was a shed. I couldn’t tell so we high tailed into a different direction with a more clearly marked path.

We came to a small creek. It was quite enjoyable to just sit and listen to the water running. No one was around so it was lovely. As you can tell, there is a bridge over the area so there were cars going over the whole time. But being from a city area (and having younger brothers) I could zone out and just listen to the nature.

Wickett get super excited about the creek. He never likes playing in lakes and water in general (I suppose it reminds him of bath time) and I was thrilled that he was taking the lead to cross the creek!

There was no path at all to cross, it was just a bunch of scattered rocks. So to make it to the other side to the path, we had to find our own steady rocks to hop across on. Wickett started out and we made it halfway before he fell! I had my phone in my pocket to not drop it into the water (like Wickett) so I didn’t get a picture of that.