year of fun

After a short shift at work, I decided I wanted to enjoy the gorgeous weather by wandering around one of my favorite Chicago neighborhoods, Andersonville. My husband and I moseyed down Clark (around Foster), checked out a few new shops and wondered over where to eat.

Our first stop was at a new dog store and groomers called Jameson loves Danger where we looked for a sweater and/or witch costume for Elphie. Among their selection, which was mostly for smaller dogs, was mobster, shark and beer wench but no witch. The sweaters also looked too small, but we did end up buying her a thunder shirt (for her separation and doorbell anxiety) and some cheese flavored treats.

Next we popped in to a farm fresh grocery called Urban Orchard. We were looking for some food and had already struck out at Ann Sather (who knew they closed at 4 on Sunday?). Their chalkboard claimed they had a cafe but it was not really what I expected. Nothing prepared to order, just some pre-boxed food. They did have some great looking pumpkins though!

Then, we admired some reclaimed wood furniture outside of an antique-y store. A barn wood table caught my eye, so gorgeous but $300 and not really big enough to replace our current table.

By this point, we were pretty hungry so decided on our old stand by, Lady Gregory’s. Named after an Irish author, Lady G’s is a total pub with delicious food. Over dinner, we had a shared fantasy about moving to a farmhouse near the lake in Michigan, eating at that barn table every night and living out of our vegetable garden. I would cook fresh every day, bake bread, can vegetables and make jam and pies. He would work in the nearest big city and BBQ and brew beer on the weekends. We’d have kids, dogs and a fireplace and basically always look like we stepped out of the J Crew catalogue.

After we’d had our fill of deviled eggs and dreams, we planned to stop by the furniture place to admire the table one more time but the shop was closed up and the table moved back inside, so we decided to end our Andersonville adventure there. I wish I had a picture of this table! But you will have to settle for this one of me admiring the local fall decor.