About Me

I’m female, married, and live in Chicago, IL (Beverly, specifically). My husband and I had our first baby on July 26th, 2006 (Dorothy Rose), so that’s been a bit of a central theme in my life lately.

I used to work in an office building in the Loop, but now I stay home and take care of Dorrie. And make a concerted effort to corral the fur-tumbleweeds. Sometimes. I’m pretty domestic on the whole - I love cooking and don’t mind cleaning (when I have time between nursing and diaper changes). However, the baby takes precedence over the housework, so, um, don’t judge.
I love public transportation. While I’m not terrible at driving, I don’t do it a whole lot. One time I managed to forget where the headlight switch was.

My marriage is a very happy one, and my husband generally can make my day better just by walking in the room. Now, every once in a while we do disagree (and by “disagree” I mean, “we both argue and I cry because I’m a pansy”), but I try not to write much about that. I’m sure that I couldn’t be much luckier with my choice of husband, and so it’s not an aspect of my life that I really worry about much. He’s also a brilliant meteorologist, a brilliant lawyer, and is his own little encyclopedia of music, baseball, and beer-making.

Our dog (named Ogie Oglethorpe for one of the goons in the ’70s hockey movie, Slapshot) is a collie mix we got from Chicago Animal Care & Control. He’s also the reason for the fur-tumbleweeds. I theorize that he’s got some German Shepherd and perhaps some husky (he holds his tail up over his back like a sled dog), but who really knows. Most mixed-breed dogs have so many different breeds in their ancestry that it’s generally futile to try to sort them out. I’m a huge proponent of adopting dogs vs. buying them from breeders (and you all should already know that buying from pet stores is perpetuating cruelty to animals — if you don’t, follow that link and learn more), and I have a standing (one-sided) feud with the AKC because they don’t let mixed-breed dogs compete in their Agility or Flyball competitions. Perhaps they’re scared that the mixed-breeds would show up their precious purebreds? At any rate, one of my favorite movies is Best In Show, as it is a wonderful, hilarious movie that also makes fun of crazy purebred dog people.

I’m originally from northern Michigan and love it there. My mom, dad, sister, and brother still live up there, and I miss all of them a lot. I have, however, adjusted to city life very smoothly and I probably wouldn’t be able to choose my favorite area if you asked me to. I love them both — just for different reasons. My husband’s family is nearly all in the Chicago area which is great for us. I’m Lutheran, also — ELCA by birth and LCMS by marriage.

I lean pretty far towards libertarian, politically, and therefore hate everyone! Liberals! Conservatives! Everyone! Except for individuals. I like individuals. Sometimes.

I love reading and read just about anything. My husband is horrified that I hate Faulkner and Dostoevsky, but other than those I’m open to anything from chic-lit to classics to children’s books. I’m also a very fast reader, and I have fairly good reading comprehension even though I can whip through book in one sitting. Thankfully, I enjoy reading books over and over again. Otherwise we would be poor and one day I would be reading on the couch and a mountain of books would come crashing down on me and I would be crushed.

Another favorite hobby is homebrewing. My husband and I have been making our own beer for about two years now, are in a homebrewing club, and spend a lot of our entertainment money on new beer-making equipment. We’ve had some entertaining (and not-so-entertaining) mishaps with the beer making, but it’s an extremely fun pastime for us. We’re hoping to open a brewpub someday. Also, we bribe our friends with beer fairly often.

Being from northern Michigan, I absolutely love hockey. I love the Detroit Red Wings and Stevie Yzerman has been my favorite athlete since I was 6 years old. Before I met my husband, I was actually just a mild fan of baseball. He introduced me to the complexities of the game, and before you knew it I was keeping score at Cubs games and threatening the drunk people in front of me with bodily harm when they stood up to go to the bathroom during a play. I still like the Detroit Tigers, but the Chicago Cubs are my team. They are the team that taught me to love baseball, and the team I drool over when they’re good and bang my head on walls when they’re bad. Thankfully, the Tigers are in the AL and the Cubs are in the NL so there’s not much chance of them competing directly against each other in a situation that is important to both teams. If they did, though, I’d have to root for the Cubs - if only just because it’s been so much longer between World Series appearances…

The Baseball for Casual Fans series tries answer questions that normal people have about baseball — the questions (about infield flies, etc.) that prevent people from enjoying the game completely because they’re confused. If you’re confused, email me and I’ll post a breakdown of it that will help you impress your boss, boyfriend, (or girlfriend!  Am not sexist!) or dad — but more importantly it will help you enjoy the game more. I’ve been doing the Baseball for Casual Fans series to try to introduce people to the game and/or help people remember what they loved about it before they got distracted by all of the shiny objects and cheerleaders that basketball and football throw at you. I really have little-to-no interest in non-baseball-or-hockey sports, though I like to see the Bears do well.  It just makes the people in this city more pleasant.