Donny and I took a little road trip to the Texas Hill Country. He was just dropping me off at my daughter Bethany’s house because she was going to have her baby girl and I was needed to watch her 4 year old. I was so excited to get to spend some one on one time with my grandson Cassidy.
Donny couldn’t stay long, but after he left we decided to go have dinner at Hays City Store. It is the cutest place with a huge outdoor playground which kept Cassidy busy until the food came. Speaking of food it was so good. I had the veggie poblano enchiladas.
After dinner we headed to the Shady Llama. We, unfortunately did not get to see the llamas as they had already headed down the hill.
The playground was so fun. There was a huge astroturf slide and a regular slide that all the kiddos were clamoring on.
Last night after we had dinner I felt awful. i had spent over two hours ironing. Why does it seem like I never iron winter clothes, but all the summer ones are always wrinkled? I hadn’t eaten much all day and then Donny went and picked up Jucys. It must have hit my stomach wrong because it tore it up. I ended up falling asleep on the couch and didn’t get a good rest at all.
Luckily Donny was off today so while he took the kids to school and ran by the radio station to record some commercials, I slept.
My thyroid is, as my doctor put it, very serious right now, so I’m thinking a lot of my symptoms are stemming from that.
Around noon I took a quick shower and we decided to get out of the house for a little while. We ended up at an estate sale. The house was gorgeous and since it was the second day a lot has already been bought. I did manage to find this pretty, gauzy, tie dyed maxi skirt and sleeveless T-shirt, so it wasn’t a totally wasted trip.
Donny cooked dinner because I’m still feeling puny. I’m going to try and get a full night’s sleep tonight. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better.
Anyone who knows me knows I’m not a huge fan of Thanksgiving. I hate turkey in any form. I’m not fond of most of the side dishes. Last year I tried to make an effort when we rented an Airbnb in Dallas. That was a shambles that has taken me almost the whole year to get over.
The one thing I do like to do on Thanksgiving is go to Cracker Barrel. It puts me in the holiday spirit browsing the store while we wait for a table.
This year we met Hannah’s boyfriend Gavin, his mom and his aunt there. Of course I forgot to take pictures of all of us, but it was such a fun lunch.
Aunt Betty is so interesting. She has a ranch that has cattle and zebras. She is having the zebras moved to her land here so hopefully I’ll get to go visit them.
I found the candy I wanted and I knew I should have bought it before we were seated because after we ate I couldn’t even think of candy I was so full. Dang you chicken fried steak.
Happy Thanksgiving from our family.
We are awful at selfies.
And just to let you know I’m not a complete Thanksgiving party pooper, I wore the earrings Donny got me because he thought it would be funny.
Today I was tired. I went to work for the first time in 6 days. When I got home there was so much that needed to be done. My kitchen was still in disarray because I still needed to paint the wall that was repaired. I had groceries to put up and move the bakers rack back in with all that entailed. The chick pen that is still in the living room needed to be cleaned out. It’s days like these that I miss our house in Baton Rouge.The square footage was only about 100 more than where we are now, but it had so much storage and vaulted ceilings and I really loved it. It was actually the 3rd home that Donny and I have bought and sold during our marriage and it’s my favorite. It’s the smallest and the one that needed the most work, but when I saw it on Zillow that Sunday morning, I just knew that it was the one for us.
I don’t think I’ve ever put an actual house tour of that house on here. I tried to find the before pics, but I can’t find them anywhere. We knew when we bought it that we were going to remodel eventually, we just didn’t expect it to be all at once when our whole neighborhood took on over 4 feet of water. Here is our sweet little home on Holly Street.
Our plan was to paint the brick a charcoal color.
Walking in the front door.
The sliders led out to a little patio.
We completely reconfigured the kitchen. When we bought the house it was a galley style. We kept the upper cabinets, but had to replace all of the lower ones. We did the work ourselves and because we were on a budget we used wood for our countertops which I loved. The island was just a high table that FEMA gave all of the flood victims. I stained it and added the distressed wood to the front.
I found this navy blue oops paint that was perfect for this small area.
This main bathroom.
Our main bedroom. The home is 3 BR 1.5 Bath. The french doors led out to the covered patio. The carpet in all the bedrooms are carpet tiles that I laid myself.
And one of the main reasons we bought this home was the backyard.
Home is where the heart is and we are very happy where we live now, but this house held so many really good memories for us and sometimes I still have homesickness pangs for this sweet little home.
Our train was departing at 1:45. Since Chicago was the start of the line we were told it would leave on time and we would be able to get seats together for the whole trip.
We headed to the little coffee shop around the corner to get our morning cups of coffee.
The coffee was damn fine and I was thankful for it every morning.
Next door was an amazing bakery. Everything looked so good it was hard to choose. This was just one side.
I loved where our Airbnb was located. There was a sushi place on the corner. We grabbed dinner before the concert and it was awesome.
There was a grocery down the street where we were able to pick up some staples like juice, milk and cereal.
Across the street from the coffee shop was a record store that Jackson and I went to a few times where he bought a couple of albums he’d been looking for.
The street itself was just beautiful. There were always people out walking their dogs.
The Airbnb we found was perfect. It was spacious, clean and well, cute as can be.
Our last Uber ride and Hannah’s last time to play trivia games.
It started raining as soon as we got our bags into the station. Union Station is beautiful. We aren’t much for souvenirs, but I did pick up a postcard in the gift shop that I’m going to put in a little frame.
The train ride back was much easier than going there. I think it’s because when we woke up we only had about an hour and a half left to go. We didn’t bring any extra food, just what we had left from the trip there, so we did end up eating snacks, light food and drinks from the cafe car. They were expensive, but not crazy expensive.
We’ve been asked this question so many times.
Why Chicago? Well, the train from Longview goes there. We knew we wanted to take a train trip, so we just looked at direct trips. We actually booked the trip and Airbnb in December.
Chicago is huge. 3 days there is not enough to see everything. We wanted to go to the art institute, but it’s closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We didn’t know that when we booked.
Donny compared Chicago to Luby’s cafeteria. There’s a lot to choose from. Just pick what you like and enjoy it. We didn’t do a whole lot, but we did enough.
People are not as friendly as they are in Texas. You will find a few, but most people look startled when you say hello to them.
we had great Uber drivers. They were always willing to share what they liked best about their city.
We had a wonderful time, but I will say that seeing the hustle and bustle makes me appreciate Longview so much more than I did before the trip. I like our hardly any traffic, slower pace of life.
This was our last full day in the windy city. The forecast was sunny with a high of 50. Perfect weather for exploring downtown.
We had several destinations on our list to get checked off. First we were headed to Portillo’s for an authentic Chicago hotdog.
The Chicago hotdog is like nothing I’ve ever had before. It’s an all beef hotdog with mustard, tomato, a pickle spear, raw onions, relish, peppers, celery salt on a poppy seed bun. It was really good. Their onion rings are to die for.
Donny got the beef sandwich. It was huge. I had a couple of bites and it was delicious.
We got there about 11:30. There was no line at all. By the time we sat down there must have been at least 20 people in line.
The restaurant itself is so fun. Her are a few pics.
I snuck some pics of the kids just to prove we did actually bring them with us.
Next stop was a walk to Millennium Park to see the bean.
The kids wanted to find a mall. We were told that Tower Place, on magnificent mile is a good one, so we got on Google maps and headed there.
The river was still green from when the city dyed it on Saturday.
The skyscrapers are amazing! I would have loved to have taken the architectural boat tour, but they weren’t running them because it was so cold.
We finally made it to the mall which was 7 stories tall and pretty amazing.
While Hannah and I were in one of the boutiques, Donny and Jackson went into a jewelry store. Jack has been wanting a watch. He tried one on that he liked. Too bad it was a $1300 Fendi watch. A little out of his price range. Hannah and I did find this very small boutique that had super cute clothes. We actually found her prom dress there.
After all the walking we decided it was time to go find something for dinner. We had passed Giordano’s on the way to the mall. We heard from one of our Uber drivers that it’s some of the best pizza in Chicago. He was not lying.
There was about a 20 minute wait, but what you do is put your order in when you get on the wait list so it’s already being made before you’re seated. It takes 45 minutes for a deep dish to bake.
Jackson got a thin crust because he doesn’t like deep dish. We ended up taking leftovers back because one slice will fill you up.
We took an Uber back to Logan Square to start packing up since we were leaving tomorrow afternoon.
We woke up to 21 degree temperature. It was cold so we decided we’d go to the museum of Science and industry. The problem was, we didn’t really know how to get there. We needed to get our metra cards to be able to ride the L trains. We googled the closest station. It was about a 20 minute walk so we bundled up and headed out.
When we got to the station there was no attendant. Luckily I saw a guy going to catch the train and asked him where to get the cards. It was another 20 minute walk to a bigger station.
We made it the other station, got out cards and hopped on the blue line. I had a map of the routes, but we still didn’t know which one would take us to the museum. We ended up choosing the red line until some man asked us where we were trying to go because I’m sure we looked extremely lost and confused. We told him and he said the bus takes you right to the museum. I said, where do we catch the bus? He said, it’s too late now so when you get off the train you need to walk really fast because it’s a super sketchy part of town. Yay!
While we were on the train we decided the green line would get us closer. So green line it was. Yeah, it didn’t. We ended up walking through some slightly iffy neighborhood, through the University of Chicago campus, which by the way is gorgeous. I’m horrible at remembering to take pictures and Donny had my phone with the GPS trying its hardest to get us there.
After walking 8 miles total we finally made it to the museum. The temperature was 30 degrees.
The museum was huge. We saw as much of it as we could, but what we saw was impressive.
We took an Uber back to the Airbnb and the driver took us by Lake Michigan. Seeing a great lake has always been on my bucket list and of course, I didn’t get a picture. I would have loved to have gone swimming in it, but I’ll save that for another warmer time.
The kids had never been to a concert, so a few months ago we got tickets to see Colony House at house of blues. To say we were a bit worn out with all the walking we did would be an understatement, but we were really looking forward to going.
Waiting for the show to start. If you wonder why my kids are rarely in the pictures, it’s because they are teenagers and don’t like their pictures taken.
Little Image opened the show. They’re a band out of Dallas. I thought they were really good and would go see them again.
The place went nuts when Colony House came on. Everyone was jumping up and down to where you could feel it in the floor. Such a great concert and would definitely go see them again.
It was a full day. We didn’t get back to the apartment until midnight. Time to rest up for day 3.
Our train was supposed to leave at 6:45. When we got to the Amtrak station this is what we were met with.
We didn’t want to leave because the time kept changing so Donny ran out to get McDonald’s and we just hung out in the lounge, walked around and people watched. There was a little library where you could borrow and leave books and there were also vending machines. It wasn’t too bad, just added hours to what was going to be a long night and afternoon ahead.
We finally boarded about 8:30. I thought we had assigned seats, but we didn’t. There were only two seats together. So until, I think it was Little Rock, we weren’t able to all sit together.
Trains are MUCH different than planes. There’s no security to go through. Once the doors close it starts moving so you need to hurry up and get situated. The leg room is fantastic and not only does the seat recline but there are also leg rests that fold out.
Quiet time is from 10:00 until 7:00. You can talk, just not loudly, watch movies or be on your phone. You must use headphones so you don’t disturb anyone trying to sleep.
There were stops along the way where you could get out and stretch your legs.
Once it got light outside the cafe car is open. You can get food and drinks. We brought stuff from home so on the way there we didn’t buy anything off of the train.
If you look real hard you can see the Chicago skyline in the far back.
After 20 hours on the train we finally made it to Union station.
Union station is huge. We found a taxi to take us to Logan Square where our Airbnb was. Because we got in right at rush hour it took about 35 minutes to get there. The traffic is crazy!
Once we arrived and got all of our baggage up the stairs we needed food. I had read about the Punch bowl Social. So we arranged an Uber and off we went.
It’s what they call a scratch kitchen which means everything is fresh and made to order. It takes about 45 minutes to get your food, but they have games you can check out to play at your table.
The food was delicious. Jackson has chicken and waffles with Sriracha maple syrup. Hannah has garlic shrimp tacos, Donny and a bison patty melt and I had a burger.
Afterward we went to the arcade and played some games. It wasn’t a huge arcade, but all the other ones you had to be 21+ and since this one was in the restaurant it was all ages.
We played Jenga by the fire. The kids also played darts. They had a giant Scrabble board, an oversized dice game, corn hole, shuffle board and a whole lot of other games. It was a really fun place to go on our first night there.
We definitely could have spent hours there, but we were really tired and needed sleep to get ready for day 2.
This time tomorrow we will be on the train headed north. It was 80 degrees here today, so it’s a little hard to wrap my head around 22 degrees tomorrow night.
The trip will take almost 20 hours. We did not get a sleeper because we would have needed 2 and that was out of our budget. At least coach seats are big and luckily I can literally sleep anywhere, anytime no matter what’s going on around me.
I’ve gotten my things together. Donny got his stuffed packed tonight and hopefully the kids are working on theirs.
We went shopping for food to take to eat along the way and when you have two teenagers with you, things can get a little out of hand. I think we have more food than clothes except I haven’t seen what Hannah has packed.
Now I’m going to go to bed because the time change happens tonight and I need to get up early.
i eat oatmeal every morning. If you happen to like oatmeal, here’s a super easy way to fix it.
1/2 cup of oats with 1 cup of water in a large bowl. Microwave on high for 2 minutes. Give it a stir and microwave for an additional minute.
i add about 2 tsp of brown sugar, cinnamon, turmeric, a dash of salt and a drizzle of maple syrup. I like a lot of cinnamon and turmeric.Then I add fruit. Lately I’ve been into strawberries.It ain’t pretty by any means, but it tastes so good.
On another note, Donny and I share a very small closet. I realized that I was very much encroaching on his space. Oops. He is much better at having a minimalist wardrobe than I am. So today I took everything out of my closet and tried everything on.
This is during 😳This is after. I store my jeans and leggings in the baskets and shoes I don’t wear often in the boxes.
It feels so freeing knowing that everything in my closet fits just right. I’ll have to do it again when I switch out for winter. Not gonna lie, I’m kinda dreading that.
I also want to add (for my memories sake) that I went to the ENT doctor today and my ear that was dreadfully stopped up has healed and is perfectly fine now.
The Funky Frugalista 