Cheers to 500 days of enjoying simply, feeling deeply, loving faithfully and taking photos pathologically — all in the wonderful city of Chicago.

Today was spent milling around home — which included lounging my way through a Food Network marathon, feeling inspired to create a homemade brunch and taking a relaxing post-meal nap underneath my cozy duvet. It didn’t take long for feelings of laziness to settle in, though, so I opted to rally the beau for a stroll in the sunshine (despite ironically ending our walk with a trip to the movie theatre to see both this and this).

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Whether above the sofa or adorning a wall in the master bedroom, mirrors can serve as a great way to make a space look bigger and brighter (especially if you have few or no windows).  The right mirror can also work as a piece of art, so if you have the wall space to play with, forget hanging one extra-large mirror — instead, hang a collection of smaller mirrors that allow for a matched, mismatched or somewhere in between decorative flair.

| Unknown |

Dear Tess,

You’re pretty amazing.

Love, Ashley

Did you make a wrong turn recently?  Good for you!  Whether you realize it or not, that may have been the best mistake you ever made.  You will learn from it, be humbled by it, and hopefully be motivated to avoid THAT mistake again.   Don’t spend too many minutes shaming or blaming.  Instead, take a few deep breaths so you can access your best, full self and then decide how you will move forward from here.  Remember that wrong turns are as important as right turns.  More important, sometimes.

| Quick pit stop for hard cider at Industry after my long drive home |

So happy I’m spending the next four days holed up with my sister in Pennsylvania.  No one can make me laugh quite like her.

This morning was so overcast and cool that I spontaneously seized the opportunity to measure the new 10K route for our December running event.  Though I was greeted with inches of mud and bulldozers around the second mile marker (with no guarantee that the construction would be complete in time for our race), riding my bike along the lakefront trail was just the daytime escape I needed from the office.

It feels like I haven’t seen the sun in days and the forecast doesn’t look very promising for the remainder of the week.  Though I’m loving the warmer temperatures, the rain makes it increasingly difficult to stay motivated about work when all I want to do is clear my schedule and leisurely sip coffee in bed.  Fortunately, I spent the afternoon exploring this venue for our upcoming fundraising event and couldn’t be more pleased with the choice, especially when the weather improves.