Top 5 Evanston Newbie Posts of All Time

You know how much I LOVE lists, so I put one together for you, Faithful Reader. 

Here's the Top 5 Evanston Newbie Posts - EVER! And if you can't read these on your tablet at the beach, print them out and leave them in your bathroom for house guests!

Top 5 Evanston Newbie Posts - EVER! 

#1 

Evanston Newbie Anniversary Series: 40 Lessons Learned Moving from El Paso, TX to Evanston, IL

#2 

Summer Popsicle Recipe: Coconut Milk and Mexican Chocolate

#3 

Evanston Newbie and Family take the $100 Whole Foods Healthy Eating Challenge

#4

Manifesto for the underemployed, not wanting it all and other thoughts on doing very little with your time

#5 

Warning: There is a whiskey distillery less than a mile from my home

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!

Thursday: Food Truck Festival & Free Concert

From the City of Evanston website:

The City of Evanston’s annual Food Truck Fest and Starlight Concert comes to Brummel Park on Thursday, July 25 with delectable food truck delights and the music of The Congregation - classic soul meets rock and roll in this dynamic eight-piece collective from Chicago.

Come early and come hungry to experience a variety of food trucks! Starting at 5:30 p.m., Evanston's first and only food truck, Hummingbird Kitchen, will be joined by The Tamale Spaceship, Sweet Ride, Taquero Fusion, 5411: Gourmet Empanadas, and new for 2013: Babycakes Gourmet and Curried.

Click here for more info.

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!

My Summer Happiness Project Cost $26

Before my 40th birthday (in 2012), I read Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project book because I wanted my 40th decade to be focused on Happiness! If I was healthy enough to live a full life, I should be grateful and happy doing it. I turned to Gretchen's New York Times #1 Bestseller to put some framework around my personal Happiness Project and got working.

One thing that has always made me very happy is the beach and all that comes with it - collecting seashells, walking in the waves, waves, water, seagulls, sand. I love all those things. So part of living in Evanston and getting Happy meant spending as much time as possible at the beach! I aimed to be at the beach daily, day or night, even if for just a short walk. And most days, I come close to visiting the beach everyday!

Summer time beach visits are somewhat tricky as during certain hours a pass is needed to access the beach, which has become MY beach. Had I not read the Happiness Project, I might have allowed the need to pay to access the beach to make me mad or annoyed, but instead I chose to be grateful for the pass. See my logic below.

Thank you Gretchen Rubin and your great work! I now fully realize that "Happiness is choice, not the result of how life treats you."

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I bought my beach token before June 14 and it cost me $26.

So far this summer, I have gone to the beach at least 20 times. Over the entire summer, I will visit the beach at least 40 times putting my approximate cost per visit at around .65 cents.

What does the beach look like? See below. (And I walk to the beach, so there is no transportation cost.)

This beach makes me very happy, so does living in Evanston and so does buying a beach token and so does writing this blog and so does dark chocolate and so does eating fresh fruit from my garden....

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!

This Weekend in Evanston: Ethnic Arts Festival

From the City of Evanston website:

Ethnic Arts Festival Transforms Evanston Lakefront into Global Village July 20-21

Experience the sounds, tastes, colors, and aromas of other cultures and distant continents at the Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival, a two-day trip “around the world” at Dawes Park in Evanston. Festival-goers will celebrate the diversity of our planet at this, the 28th annual event, which will be held from noon to 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 20 and Sunday, July 21. Dawes Park is located at Sheridan Road at Church Street.

Click here for more information

Dave the Sand Castle Builder Rocks Evanston Sand Castle Contest

Last night we went to Clark Street Beach to see the final results of the day's Sand Castle Building Contest. Local sand castle builder Dave and his family were there and clearly the winners with the masterful work pictured below. Everyone got an award (it's 2013 in Evanston y'all and we are all winners) with several other sand castle creations making for great sand art.

I met Dave last summer when he was building another amazing creation on the beach. Click here to read more about Dave and his sand castle building action. Originally I thought Evanston paid talent like Dave to spruce up the beaches but turns out that's just what Dave does, makes epic sand castles when he goes to the beach!

And as if that's not fun enough, Dave also has a huge bubble maker that creates gynormous bubbles. Pictured below is a group of kids trying to gently blow another bubble into the big bubble. Dave provided loads of fun last night at Clark Street Beach! Thanks Dave!

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!

Sand Castle Contest Tonight!

Kids and adults of all ages are invited to take part in this sculpture contest! Bring your own buckets, shovels, sculpting tools, etc., and compete to win prizes. 

Where: Clark St. Beach, Evanston IL, 60201
When: Monday, July 15th from 5:30 to 7:30 P.M.

Art Opening: Dave Ford (my husband), Hauling Graphite: Five Road Recordings at Packer Schopf Gallery

Granted this is a blog about my family's move from El Paso, TX, to Evanston, IL, every once in a while I go way off topic and post a non-Evanston event or food review. I'm dedicating today's post to my husband, visual artist Dave Ford. He's with Packer Schopf Gallery and has a show that opens this Friday that you really should try your best to attend. Below is why.

This Friday, 5-8p, at Packer Schopf Gallery on 942 W. Lake St., meet Dave Ford and see his Truck Drawings.

Dave Ford / Hauling Graphite: Five Road Recordings / graphite on paper
Lines accumulate as Ford drives a 12′ truck with 100 pencil-tipped water bottle pendulums dancing above the paper lined bed. On the road, he checks the drawing, often sharpening pencils, sometimes removing or adding a bottle depending on where he wants a specific quality of marks or textures. After fifteen years and several Truck Drawing projects later, ‘panels’ from separate trips will be shown together for the first time. The burst patterns created by the bottles as Ford drives across the country evoke a grace that simultaneously jars with the truck as medium and flows with the rhythm of travel.

5 Runs: Dallas to New York, El Paso to Falls Village, CT, San Francisco to Las Cruces, NM, Santa Fe to Chicago, and Chicago / Philadelphia round trip.

Click here for an archive of Truck Drawing blog posts on fordart.wordpress.com 

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!

Evanston Symphony Orchestra Offers Fall Subscription Concerts

The Evanston Symphony Orchestra’s 68th season – titled Celebrate Evanston! in honor of the city's sesquicentennial -- features four subscription concerts at Northwestern's Pick-Staiger Concert Hall.

All concerts, conducted by Music Director Lawrence Eckerling, are on Sunday afternoons at 2:30 p.m.

The season opens Nov. 10 with a program titled Evanston 150 and featuring the world premiere of Evanston Fanfare, composed for the ESO brass section by Mark Gresham. The program also includes Ravel’s Bolero, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals with duo-pianists Kyle and Ryan Jannak-Huang and narrator Toni-Marie Montgomery.

Season subscriptions for the four concerts are now available at $96 for adults, $80 for seniors (62 and over), $20 for full-time students and free for children 12 and under when accompanied by an adult.

Order forms and additional information are available online or by calling 847.864.8804. Online sales for single tickets start Aug. 1.

Click here to read the full story by Bill Smith on Evanston Now. 

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with Evanston, just like I did. If you have any questions or need to get in touch with me about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Also feel free to send me announcements about upcoming Evanston events and I will promote them here!