Today, for only the second time here in Chicago, I actually got hot outside.

You know that saying, what a difference a day makes? Completely true for the difference between yesterday and today. The weather was finally starting to wear me down and two nights of coming home after dark made me feel like I had little to no free time, even though my entire life when I am home is nothing but free time, but that's besides the point :P I got off at 6:00 tonight, got a lengthy Target shopping session done, and made it home just as the sun was setting. It felt good :)

Lately, Boyfriend and I have been trying to make a habit out of working out on a regular basis. We both have...expanded...since my arrival here in The Prairie State and we've been making a conscious effort to rid ourselves of the extra squishiness we've accumulated, hopefully in time for Summer :) I've heard that summers here are beautiful, although they are notoriously humid, a weather condition I am definitely not accustomed to in my desert-like hometown. I fear for the health and safety of my hair. Haha. Humidity is a girl with a Hungarian Jew-fro's worst enemy. Ideally before then I will have learned how to properly wrangle my mane. 

(This is completely off topic but I just made some vegetable dumplings and dipped them in some hot dumpling sauce Boyfriend bought at the Asian market the other day and their scent is still lingering in the air though they are long in my tummy and it's making me want to eat the whole bag. Curse you, portion control!!) 

Back to the previous paragraph's original subject matter: working out. More often than not, Boyfriend and I go out running in the morning. I'd love to leave the house around like 10:30-11:00 but unfortunately Boyfriend also suffers from extreme procrastination issues like myself. Which only further validates how ridiculously similar we are, haha. Today, for only the second time here in Chicago, I actually got hot outside. Granted I was running and that most definitely attributed to my raised body temperature, but still,  I was hot. I almost was unfamiliar with the feeling since it's been so long since I experienced it. The only other time I've felt hot outside was a few weeks ago when a freakishly warm 85 degree day arrived as the precursor to a most epic thunderstorm. I don't know how I feel about Chicago being warm. I had become so accustomed to the frigid temperatures and frequently cloudy skies that they had become my new norm and I learned to embrace them. 

Everything about Chicago is changing now that Spring is slowing emerging. I've never seen the city with foliage. Well, that's not entirely true. I was here for a whirlwind 42 hours in September but it was such a speedy trip filled with so many (unbeknownst to anyone at the time) life changing events and experiences that I forgot to take in my surroundings. Since my arrival in December, Chicago has been a vast, FLAT (which is something I still am learning to deal with), desolate landscape that was sometimes covered in snow. Now it's a vast, flat, colorful landscape as the trees are beginning to get their leaves, plants are returning from their winter hibernation, and bulbs are shooting up their beautiful flowers (primarily tulips and daffodils, which grow wild on the side of the freeways highways here!). The city has completely morphed into something almost unrecognizable to me. It's a welcome change and I'm slowly going to adjust to warmer temperatures, and by warmer I mean today it was 62 degrees. 

Moving to the Chicagoland area was something that I never could have anticipated myself doing, especially not in the middle of Winter. But here I am. And there Winter went. And I survived it. And now Spring and Summer will bring with them so many new experiences, such as finally getting to explore this city, hopefully with the tour guide assistance of the girls :P I asked them what they want to go do this summer, since I'll be with them for about 11 hours every day, and the only thing they could come up with off the bat was that they wanted to come to my house, haha. School lets out one month from today. 

I've got a lot to accomplish in the next 30 days, including mustering up the motivation to go running without Boyfriend since our schedules will conflict during the week. And with only two weeks until we leave for Hawaii, I need to try to get my squishiness in shape so I can confidently lay on the beautiful beaches and know that I look great :)