deer, rabbits, and fireflies in chicago

no, i'm not talking about all the woodland creatures being featured on papers and embellishments at cha, i'm talking about real live animals in the middle of a flight pattern in chicago.

mary kay and i got into the windy city late afternoon, and after checking into our hotel we took a QUICK cab ride over to a restaurant for dinner. it was so quick that we decided we could probably find our way home in a short amount of time and save ourselves $6. i need to preface this with the fact that chicago is not a pedestrian friendly city, but we did manage to find a path over the freeway. it happened to be next to a forest preserve and mary kay stopped, pointed, and said, "rabbit!" sure enough, there, just 20 feet away was a cute little bunny. we oohed and ahhed for a few minutes then looked up to see a deer looking at us. and then another one behind it. right there, in the middle of the city, yards from the freeway, directly under a busy flight pattern: forest animals. we stood in amazement and awe. it was an unreal experience. after a few moments, we decided it was time to move on so we crossed the freeway, the path being fenced in by 10 foot chainlink on both sides, no way to get out but go forward (aside: i'm having visions of someone attacking us and us having to climb said chainlink, so every little sound was freaking me out). once we made it to the other side, mary kay noticed the fireflies. we had to stop and stand in awe of those as well. it was magical, really. we got to the end of the chainlink prison and mary kay saw ANOTHER deer, this one was even closer. she started slowly walking toward it, i decided to follow, hopeful to protect her should some maniac jump out of the forest. the deer let us get within a few yards before it walked into the woods, but it was one of those moments you'll never forget; it was one of those "there should have been a soundtrack" kind of moments. very cool.

we finally got back to the hotel and headed to bed. houston and christyn were in chicago sightseeing and got back just after we turned off the lights. it was great to catch up on their adventures as well.

the next morning we had a breakfast fiasco then headed to the conference center to take a class from tim holtz. houston cemented for me the fact that she is one in a million by sitting in line, shooing others away, and making sure we got front row seats to see tim. i love that girl! it was a great class, i'm technique challenged, and tim is adorable.



i did a really good job of maintaining my composure.

houston and i went to see how things were moving along at the set up of the october afternoon booth and picked up some of the new paper, weathervane. cute. here's a picture of side a for you:


and side b:


the two of us met back up with christyn and hung around until paula showed up.

paula and i met up with sarah and mel and we all took ride on the el into downtown chicago for dinner at harry carry's. i was carrying a heavy bag, so sarah suggested i leave it in her hotel room, and paula said i could use her camera for any pictures i'd like to take. well i was glad to leave the bag, but i wholeheartedly regret not bringing my camera along. but paula, sarah, mel, kimber, and sherry ALL had their cameras and PROMISED to send me all the pictures, don't make me steal them off your blogs girls.
we had a delightful time snapping pictures from the restaurant all the way back to the hotel. some good times were had by all.

but we were tired, took a cab back to our hotel, met our roomie from canada, the fabulous christine, went up to our room, scrapped for the show, went to bed, and well i'll tell you more later. a good day it was!