More insight on living in Illinois

I think this picture says it all about living in Illinois right now:

Diet Soda Withdrawl Update: the 330AM soul-crushing headaches continue unabated. Moments of fiery rage - severely diminished. Worries that I am going to get fat again - increasing.

Me duele la cabeza

When I was in Miami years ago as a missionary, you learned very quickly to NOT ask an elderly Cuban lady how she was doing. Why? Because she would tell you. It was always a litany of pains, beginning with the head, always the back, and then issues in the legs. "Ay mihjo, me duele la cabeza! Y la espalda siempre me duele. El dolor me mata!" I hear those refrains like some kind of painful lamentation in my head to this day.

Yet, here I am today, lamenting in much the same way. My head is killing me. It once again began at 330AM today and has hardly let up. Can someone please remind me why I decided to stop drinking Diet Coke/Pepsi et al?

I mean I know why. Ultimately it will be good for me. However, right now, no likey-likey what's going on. Give me strength!

A little time in the city

Today was our last day with our eldest home. Our Lady of BYU returns to Provo and her friends tomorrow. She's ready to go and that's truly a good thing. It's been fun to have her home and we wanted to do something today as a family. So we decided to go into the city, regardless of the weather. The weather looked good - not a lot of clouds and temp right about 30 degrees, so we were determined to enjoy the city.

Before leaving I discovered that Bank of America has some real boss program called Museums on Us. It's cool - on the first weekend of every month at all sorts of museums across the country, simply show your BofA card (ATM, Checking, etc.) and admission is FREE! Color me happy! Here in Chicagoland, it includes the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Chicago History Museum. It's really a cool deal and we decided to take full advantage of it. With three BofA cardholders and two with student discounts, this would be a great way to see one those places today.

We opted for the Chicago History Museum in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. We were really glad that we did. It was really fascinating. We learned our fair share about our fine city. Who knew this was where Ron Popeil ("Wait! There's more!") got his start? Same for the Pill. Who knew!

It got a thumbs up from the kids - the eldest declared, "I liked it and I hate museums." Whew!

This is when the weather turned on us. While we were in the museum boning up on our Chicagoland history, it turned cloudy, windy, and cold. Undeterred though we cruised down LaSalle to get some lunch. While I was unsuccessful in getting everyone convinced that bao would make for a good lunch, we wound up at one of our favorites, the Weber Grill. Thick burgers for everyone. It was even colder when we left so we did ditch the plan to walk Michigan Avenue - no one seemed disappointed. It made for a good day.

So now we're home. Laundry is getting done. Suitcases are getting packed as the oldest gets ready to go. It looks like it'll be a quiet night.

Diet Soda Withdrawl Update: Number of wicked, near vomit inducing headches: two so far; number of incidents of getting snappy/angry too quickly: too numerous to count; desire to mow through a Golden Arches Drivethrough for salvation: diminishing daily.

2009 Resolved

And so it's here, another year. It's very quiet here in the house this chilly, even freezing, first morning of 2009. I am, thus far, the only creature stirring here. I blame this propensity to getting up early, regardless of how late I might have been up the night before, on my parents. They were always up early and passed that on to me. Even now my dad gets up early but now I think it's because he's operating on "old man" time...I won't even tell you what time he wakes every morning. But you know that time I'm talking about...it's the reason for the "early bird" special at certain restaurants, so I needn't say more. I'd love to break the habit but doubt that I ever will.

One would think I would make this a resolution for the new year. I am not going to do that. I see no need to change it. Frankly, not a real big fan of the whole New Year's Resolution thing. It just seems to lead to frustration instead of tangible results. That being said, I am making one resolution for 2009 and it starts today, 1 January. Today I bid farewell to Diet Coke, Diet Coke with Lime, and my beloved Diet Pepsi Vanilla. That's right - I'm done. And this time, I mean it. I gotta give it up...for a host of reasons.

I'm not going to list all the reasons, or any of them. I just know that this is something I need to do and writing it down should help me to stick to it. And if nothing else since I've gone public with it here, hopefully the risk of shame will help me remain committed. I will admit that an article I read recently about energy drinks proved to be the proverbial tipping point.

So here's what I know...the next few days promise to be fairly, if not highly, unpleasant here. It will not be awesome, so buckle up. I also want to apologize in advance to the folks at McDonald's. I'll apologize now for that fact that I will not be giving you several dollars a day this coming summer when you bring back the "$1 Large Diet Coke" promotion, so you may want to revise those profit projections. I will likely cry like a little girl when that promotion with its siren song starts calling my name. I don't even want to think about it.

So, 2009 here we go. Let the games begin.