happy belated birthday to me

Soooo...my 27th birthday was back in September and Sean took me to a Jenny and Johnny concert at Lincoln Hall. Jenny and Johnny consists of the duo Jenny Lewis and Jonathan Rice. Jenny Lewis is from Rilo Kiley fame and I have a major girl crush on her! She inspired me to cut my bangs this year...

I recommend getting her album Acid Tongue and then buying Jenny and Johnny's I'm Having Fun Now. Every single moment of the concert was amazing, and it's one of the few I will always remember! A little Jenny Lewis trivia - she was an actress when she was younger and starred in Troop Beverly Hills! Love that movie!

Here are some pics from the concert!

john jewell holiday

My dad came into town a few weekends ago and we had a chance to take him around Chicago AND go to a Notre Dame game in South Bend, IN! The first night he arrived we took him to one of our favorite spots in Lincoln Square - The Chicago Brauhaus! Lucky for us this German restaurant was celebrating the end of Oktoberfest and had their house band playing all night long, including the famous Gody! You can see him behind my dad in the picture below! Those beers were really, really heavy too!

The next morning we drove out to Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery to find the famous grave of Al Capone. We drove around for about 45 minutes before finding the gangster's final resting place. The cemetery was beautiful and full of Italian mausoleums, but also kinda creepy being so close to Halloween...

Bright and early on Saturday morning we took a bus over to South Bend to the famous Notre Dame campus and you can tell from the pictures below that it was a perfect fall day for a football game! Believe it or not this was our first football game together as a couple! Sean and I thought that was really funny!

Below we have a picture of my two favorite guys! And one of "Touchdown Jesus," which I thought was hilarious (and awesome). The dome picture is in one of the Notre Dame halls, my dad got down on the ground to take the picture, supposedly it is a Notre Dame tradition! It was a very fun weekend with Mr. Jewell in town!

library research - oh my!

If you didn't already know I work at the American Library Association's Office for Research & Statistics in Chicago. Sounds nerdy right? Well it is! And I love it! My main job is working to promote and research library technology and funding for technology resources in U.S. public libraries. The study is on its 5th year now and is called The Public Library Funding & Technology Access Study - read about the study on its very own BLOG that I help manage!

Each year we focus on 2 states to get more in depth research and information, and last year I was in charge of talking to Arizona and writing the state report. Take a look at our amazing study from this past year here!

Now I know you have probably fallen asleep by now reading about this and I completely understand but WAKE UP! I have exciting news! This year we are coming to OKLAHOMA! My HOME STATE! THE SOONER STATE! We just got the go ahead today and I cannot be more excited about traveling through Oklahoma and talking to my home state's libraries. So I'll be seeing you in Oklahoma soon!

Here is one of the many maps I created for this year's study.
Go Oklahoma! 95.9% in FREE wireless availability!