Hot Day!

Yesterday was a long day for me.  I was on the road by 8:00 a.m. to attend the funeral of the Mom of some dear friends – my friend Jacky, her sisters Jody (who is a Cross Fit fanatic and wants me to start Cross Fit and stop drinking hazelnut creamer in my coffee!) Terry and Kelly.  I didn’t know their two older siblings because they are older than me and we wouldn’t have ever been in school together.   I only met their Mom on a couple occasions and didn’t know her well, but Jacky’s son Andrew did the eulogy and did an amazing job describing his grandma – Andrew is the oldest grandchild, thus has the most memories of her.  She was the life of the party, a die hard Democrat, loved her happy hour, and most importantly, loved her family and friends and her husband of nearly 55 years.  What a blessing to be married to your spouse for 55 years!

Egg white McMuffin for the drive into River Forest.  Traffic wasn’t too bad at that time of day and it only took me an hour and fifteen minutes to get there.  7 smart points, and for the record, I was stopped, and not driving and taking pics.

This is the church in my hometown, St. Luke’s.  I had no idea they have a massive reconstruction going on outside, but the inside of the church is beautiful.  It’s been years since I’ve been inside.  The service was lovely, I got to see some people I haven’t seen in a long time, and I was happy to be able to give all the sisters big hugs.

I had to work my Lincoln Square market yesterday, so after the service I had enough time to go to Whole Foods and grab some lunch.  I always drool over the cheese area – check out this goat cheese – only $38!

I ended up getting the salad bar, and then accessorizing with some grilled rosemary chicken from the prepared foods aisle.

$10 salad – but it was really good and hit the spot.  It kept me full for a long time, and around 6 I ended up eating my snacks – 1/2 cup of grapes, 1 cup watermelon and this snack pack of rice crackers and hummus (that was on sale at Jewel for 10/$10) and 4 smart points.

I was working with Edmundo, the 18 year old that has an amazing work ethic and most importantly – he’s super organized and clean – check out the sample cups he put together.

So yesterday when I told you that sales is my jam, and that I had just broken a record at that market?  Well, turns out you need actually customers to sell to – it was such a ghost town at my market.  I get it, it was hot – the temps dropped to 82 on the drive to Chicago, but were back up to 92, with 80% humidity, and I guess everyone wanted to stay inside.

That picture was taken at 5:30 – normally we are swamped with wrap orders for a solid hour.  Oh well!  One of the things I love though is that all the vendors look out for each other.  I’ve had people help me with my tent when I was new and didn’t know what I was doing, and across the way was a guy that was selling mushrooms and he was struggling a bit with his tents, so I ran over and helped him out. 

Not long after, Daniel came over and handed me a paper bag as a way of thanks – mushrooms!  Long time readers may remember that I never really liked mushrooms, but in the last few years, I’ve become to love them.  Nothing like a sautéed mushrooms on a perfectly grilled steak.  You can check out the story of River Valley Kitchens here.

I didn’t post my dinner on Instagram last night, because it was just two pieces of leftover frozen pizza that I broiled in the oven.  I didn’t end up getting home until 10:00 p.m. and I didn’t have the energy to cook anything, or eat the soup that I made the other day.

Do you guys use the app Time Hop?  So crazy how you think your life doesn’t change all that much day to day, but looking year to year – wow!  Let’s take a journey back, shall we?

1 year ago:

A year ago today was when the beginning of my whole living room reconstruction.  What I thought was going to be a quick $1,000 dry wall job, quickly turned into a $20,000 because the whole front of my house was rotten and had to be rebuilt. 

2 years ago:

Two years ago today I was standing in the elevator at Extended Stay America where I was a finalist for a cooking competition – who knew that just a few months from them I’d actually be taking to Sunny Anderson!

Three years ago:

Three years ago I was already on Day 52 of Insanity – I am hoping by reposting pictures like this it will give me the inspiration to get that motivation back.

I am off work today, so I slept in – hence the late post of this blog today.  I was given cherry tomatoes by a vendor last Sunday, so hope to make a roasted tomato soup with them for lunch.  Hannah and Jacob will be having mushrooms tonight – Jacob’s on a steak, and Hannah’s vegetarian with pasta.  Me?  Um, it’s Party Pizza Friday!  On my menu thanks to Helen?  Buffalo Chicken Pizza!  In my head it turns out – you’ll just have to follow me on Instagram to find out.

Hope you have a great weekend and I hope the rain stays away during my markets this weekend.  I’ll be in Glenview on Saturday and Frankfort on Sunday – the Frankfort one is my favorite

Make it a great day!