of course i will!

anna maria island, 8/11/12

i have been dying to go to anna maria island since i had found out about it a few years ago. as a matter of fact, i had told two little birds that go by sara and christine, that i would LOVE to get engaged there. and so when my family was visiting last weekend, and pat suggested we take a day trip there, i knew something was up. but alas, my two brothers decided they wanted to go to cocoa beach, i was out voted 2-1 for probably the one billionth time in my 27 year life, and was put in a terrible mood. when we got to cocoa beach, i jokingly told pat "do not propose to me here, i am in the worst mood right now."

fast forward to a week later, pat (on his own) booked a hotel for the three of us and made a dinner reservation at the best restaurant on the island for just us two, and off we went to anna maria island. we were there for about 15 minutes, before i said i wanted to go down to the beach to see the gulf of mexico. we sat down and started talking about chicago, and how different our surroundings are. patrick kept saying "you know i love you, right?" so often that i finally stopped saying "i love you too" and started saying "i know you do." he finally turned to me, on one knee, and with shaky hands asked me to marry him. i wanted to tell him to calm down, that he had nothing to be nervous about. but all that went out the window the second i saw the ring. i grabbed it out of his hands, put it on my finger, then asked "does my dad know?" and when he nodded his head, i threw my arms around his neck, nuzzled into his shoulder and said "of course, of course i will marry you!"

i wanted to wait until my mom was home from china to tell everyone, and so that's what we did. we spent the rest of the day just us; talking about where we want to get married, who we want to stand by our sides, we referred to each other as "fiance" so often that we now say it with a very exaggerated french accent, and i just stared at my hand as the most beautiful piece of jewelry sparkled back at me...

"of course!"

i love this man, and i cannot wait for him to be my husband.

give me the most.

“Some people bring out the worst in you, others bring out the best, and then there are those remarkably rare, addictive ones who just bring out the most. Of everything. They make you feel so alive that you’d follow them straight into hell, just to keep getting your fix.”

- spied here

the importance of being nice

eileen gallegos-lewis and polly lewis-heckel; august 2012

my parents and little brother traveled to the sunshine state to visit ross, patricio, polly, and me for the long weekend. we had so much fun eating out, and going to the beach, and relaxing and  i was reminded just how lucky i am to be best friends with my mom. 

if you have had the pleasure of meeting eileen, then you know what i mean. she is a gem. ever so stylish, so so beautiful, extremely well traveled, and hilarious as all get out. she also happens to be the nicest person on the face of this planet. she told me a little secret this weekend, one that i will share. every few months, she buys a handful of $5 gift cards: starbucks, i-tunes, whatever. and she hands them out to strangers who do something nice for her.  

it's things like that, that make me stop and think about my life and the things that i do, and say, and how i react to others. and i realize that however much energy i spend on the negative, is way too much. that's not how you make this world a better place. but you can do that by recognizing and celebrating random acts of kindness. these two feet have been all over the world, and i can honestly say, there isn't one town, city, country, or continent, that couldn't use more of that.

the best kind of friends

"the agony of defeat"

last night, while watching our little ladies trounce the rest of the world in gymnastics, (i mean really, FIVE POINTS in a game that is scored in tenths? so proud!), we couldn't help but look at each other and think, "gosh, i kind of wish we were in chicago right now." and so when i received this picture via email, shortly after i took the below picture of patricio, i almost fell off the couch in a fit of giggles.

"olympic champions"

you couldn't dream of more different people than the four of us. patrick and i are pretty conservative, they're pretty liberal. ben loves the bears, pat loves the packers. jess has a heart of gold, i have been told ice runs through my veins. and yet somehow, the four of us just get along, even when we are all screaming over who is the worst person in the world, michael vick, or aaron, the bartender at goldies? meeting these two people, is one of the many wonderful things pat has brought to my life and i hold on to a little bit of hope that fate will work in our favor, and we will again share the same city with this lovely pair.


so cheers to the herman-prators. we absolutely, positively love you and cannot wait to see you. oh, and we'll take 2 manhattans, 1 gin and tonic, and a delirium. thanks.

that girl could write. (and direct)

this week we lost ms. nora ephron and to be quite honest, it felt like losing someone that you once knew a very long time ago, but hadn't thought of for ages. i was much too young to appreciate her movies when they first premiered, but i found great comfort in my late teens, watching them all and knowing that it was ok to be a highly verbal, slightly neurotic, bright, feminine woman who isn't always ladylike, but is terribly funny. 


she closed her book, "i remember nothing," with two lists: one of things she will miss, the other a list of what she won't. here are my responses to those same lists:


What I Won't Miss
body odor
dry skin
burning rice
bras

losing sunglasses

high heels
the anxiety i feel over the potential of lost luggage
open windows on a highway
moving
the day after Christmas

facebook

junk email

junk mail

junk

What I Will Miss

my patricio

my polly girl

shopping for a new favorite dress

finding my new favorite dress

movie trailers

spring

fall

winter

summer

butter

driving on (a traffic-free) lakeshore drive, early in the morning, in january

seersucker anything
new years eve
chicago
champagne

ice cold chardonnay

thai food

"dinner with friends in cities where none of us lives" - i stole this from nora