Day Two

Day One

If you have  been reading over the past few weeks you have probably been hearing a lot about the IL Bar and not so much about inspiring recipes in my kitchen.  Studying for the bar exam makes you go on autopilot.  Every day is a new subject that just gets put on an endless list and the last 2 weeks are filled with a 10-12 hour-a-day impossible review schedule and then suddenly it is the night before the Bar.  Dave and I made a pact to wake up early this morning to get our body clocks in line, review until 10AM and then clean our apartment for the rest of the day, finishing with a early night of fantastic pizza and craft beer.

 

 I just wanted to thank y’all for your kind words of encouragement this summer.  I promise to be back with plenty of new things to share with you. I have been taking pictures of all the colorful bounty at the market  and eaten simple meals but I just haven’t shared them with you.  We are taking a post-Bar trip to TX to attend the wedding of one of my favorite sorority sisters and to take some law school friends to float the river and eat great tex-mex, bbq and fuzzy’s queso, and I will be sharing our fun with you.

are you done yet?

I am 4 days away from the Bar Exam and it can’t come any faster.  I feel like I just need to take the damn thing already before the massive volume of arcane legal knowledge just drips out of my ears.  I feel like I am running a marathon and I am on mile 22 and just don’t want to go anymore but know that I have to because I have come this far.  This post isn’t about food because I have truthfully not been very creative or had time to be inspired in the past few days but I just wanted to put up some cute pictures of Lucy, because cute pictures of cats just make anyone’s day a little better.

PS.  I took a study break this afternoon and met up with Kath who is in town for the BlogHer Conference.  She is just as sweet as she seems from her blog and we had a great time walking around Millennium Park and such for a couple of hours.  Just the break I needed.

crunch time

I truthfully don’t have a lot of time to talk (or spare brain cells to be creative) but it feels weird to not post for over a week.  Stupid Bar Exam.  Anyways, I made a batch of these cookies this afternoon as a study break because they are the perfect chocolate chip cookie.  The first time I made them I made the frosting that Andrea suggests and it is wonderful, but if you just want a cookie, the cookie is quite wonderful on its own.  

summery salads and ranch dressing

 

While I have certainly been enjoying the summer market bounty in the form of berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, cherries), peas (sugar snap, english shelling) and beans (favas), I think that the best part about summer is the salads.  I really do enjoy a salad with my dinner and sadly most of the year this means produce that had to be trucked many miles (probably from California, bagged) and it inevitably is tasteless and a little disappointing.  But for a few months out of the year, everything is different.  

red and blue

Happy 4th of July! I hope that you are out at a BBQ or watching a parade and gearing up for a night full of fireworks. Growing up the 4th of July holiday was always a hot and steamy affair. It would start with a July 3rd night at the Pavilion for the free concert complete with picnics and real cannons for the 1812 Overture. The next morning was the parade where I would dress up my bike with patriotic streamers and ride with the Indian Spring Village Float. The afternoon would be filled with cold watermelon, swimming pools and BBQ. Ended with a fireworks display over the golf course and the lake. I am unfortunately “celebrating” with some Contracts and Real Property review (but maybe I will throw in some Con Law for good measure) on a somewhat rainy and cloudy 4th. Today wasn’t a total bust because the farmers were out bright and early this morning at Green City.