Happy Blizzard from Evanston Newbie

This will be my 4th winter in Evanston and it's been a beautiful one! You know you're a local when you use words like "beautiful" to describe a Chicago winter.

Today a blizzard arrived and already news outlets are saying it will rank in the Top 10 Chicago storms, bringing up to 18" of snow to some areas.

We made an igloo in the backyard to celebrate. You should go out and try it right now, it's super easy and looks really cute in the barren winter landscape.

Because we've made such amazing friends in Evanston, someone dropped off winter clothes for my younger son. Now we have better gear to play outside tomorrow if school is cancelled. Thank you Matt and Tory!

I made it outside, walking around the neighborhood and took some photos. These are the best I took, by far. Every time I passed another person I said "Happy Blizzard!" as if that was a normal salutation.

Location Change! Icescape now at Lee Street Beach

Winter HeARTh 2: IceScape

Saturday, March 8, 12-4 p.m.

Lee Street Beach

Bundle up and bring bursts of color to the bleak (but beautiful) icy landscape of Evanston's Greenwood Street Beach, because what's a better way to protest the cold by celebrating community during our second Winter HeARTh event?

Bring your friends, family your own food coloring (all-natural preferred - check out Whole Foods' options), and super-soaking water-blasters of choice. We'll also be freezing water balloons to create spheres of color - so bring any extra balloons you've got laying around too!

What is the Winter HeARTh anyway?

The Evanston Public Art Committee is trying to get folks out of their homes and into public places this winter to encourage community-building and creativity to enliven what can be the solitary cold months. We are aiming for all of these events to be inter-generational and fun for all. We are also asking community members to help us help each other by bringing their own supplies. Not only will this let you really leave your mark on these art projects, but you'll be able to teach others with the supplies you've become an expert in using - that way even our neighbors who may be arts-and-crafts newbies can come and join as well.

Spread the word, spread the warmth!


For more info and a map visit the Facebook event page here.

If you attend the event, help create a buzz on social media and upload your photos with #icescape

Dear Abby, is it offensive to wear a mink stole in Chiberia in 2014?

Although this is my third winter living in Evanston, this is my first real Chicago winter - the first two winters living here were very, very mild. This winter, I have learned terms like Polar Vortex, Chiberia (Chicago + Siberia) and ice damming (an ice dam occurs when water builds up behind a blockage of ice and water then gushes down your walls inside your house). This winter has been cold, for real!

This was a recent Facebook post from the Chicago Tribune: Chicago weather update: Arctic air blowing across Iowa and southern Minnesota will drive temperatures to as low as minus 10 today, minus 23 overnight and maybe 3 above zero on Tuesday. Wind chills will drop to minus 35 today, minus 40 tonight and Tuesday and minus 30 Tuesday night.

Most of my relatives live in California, where there is no winter, and they cringe at the weather updates for Chicago, asking questions like "You walked how far in the snow?" and "Do you wear ski goggles on the walk to work?" These are all legitimate questions and they should be scared for me, I'm a notorious weather rebel!

Once when I was living in New York City, I wore shorts to the gym and walked for more than 15 minutes in 9 degree weather. I had wind burns on my thighs for weeks! But I've grown up and I respect Chicago's weather and have rarely been under dressed when out in the cold.

During the last Polar Vortex my mother was in a total panic for my life and dug up Grandma Min's mink stole from 1957 and sent it to me in the mail. A mink stole? My mother wanted me to wrap it around my head to keep to warm, "Wrap it around your hands when you walk to work!" she screamed into the phone when I called to let her know it arrived safely.

So now I've got this mink stole (photo above) and granted it's very pretty, and very soft, and totally needed in this weather, do I wear it? Will someone throw a bucket of blood at me? I know this isn't Portland in 1995, but what's the social etiquette for wearing mink in 2014? In the Berkeley of the Midwest? Any thoughts?

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog dedicated to helping you too fall in love with the City of 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 and its Sexy Frozen Beaches

How can a frozen beach be described as sexy? Go see for yourself! Take a walk to any of the Evanston lakefront public spaces and you'll see some sexy, frozen, tundra instead of warm, sandy beach.

This time of year, the waves crest and break on the beach and then freeze onto one another, creating a massive ice structure at the waterfront.

And soon, in fact too soon for some of you winter lovers, spring and summer will be here and so will the muggy weather and bugs. Enjoy the sexy frozen beach while you can!

Photo: Naked Trees on Lake Shore Drive

One thing I didn't really think about before moving to Chicago was driving. I assumed I would ride CTA all over town but this winter because of scheduling needs at home, I've been driving to work.

My commute takes me from the north side of Chicago all the way to the south side, along Lake Shore Drive. It's gorgeous and most days my cell is busy taking photos of the sunrise over the lake.

Today I got this amazing photo of naked trees before dawn.

Hope you have a lovely Thursday and a lovely commute!

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Thank you for reading my blog Evanston Newbie, a blog devoted to covering my family's move from El Paso, TX, to Evanston, IL, in 2011. We arrived in June 2011 and several people have pointed out that I am no longer a "newbie" and should start some other blog. But I disagree and want to keep the "newbie" status for a while longer, maybe five years and for several reasons. #1 - there are many Evanston families who have lived here for generations since the town incorporated in the late 1800s, so in comparison to them, I am very much a "newbie". #2 - I firmly believe this blog is a good branding tool for the city of Evanston and it's the least I can do to thank our new town for being so AWESOME! If you have any questions or need to get in touch with my about this blog, Evanston, or anything else you can email me at thelisadshow@gmail.com. Thank you for reading and have an awesome 2013.

My dudes just wanna dance and other thoughts on apartment living and greelighting the Wii

Our family didn’t have a television for several years and the only thing we missed was the Olympics and I tell you this because much like we kept television at bay, we had kept video games at bay until recently. Also we used to live in a house in El Paso, TX, that was more than 1600 sq ft and now we live in a 1300 sq ft apartment in Evanston, IL. 2012 is going to be very different from 2011 on all kinds of levels, back to the topic at hand.

My parents offered the Wii as Christmas presents to both my sister’s family and my family as holiday gifts for our children (mine are 10 and 6) and my husband and I set about debating whether we would we accept the gift. We polled lots of friends and got mixed reviews;

Response: “The Wii accounts for 90% of the arguments in our house, I would say ‘no thanks’!”
My Point of View: My children aren’t allowed to argue about anything for more than :45 seconds so we wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Response: “We love it, especially on freezing winter days when it’s too cold to walk to the library.”
My POV: If we moved to a place where it’s actually is too cold to walk six blocks in the winter, we should leave immediately.

Response: “Hell no, don’t do it! My kids don’t watch TV and are never allowed to have video games in the house!”
My POV: Like the Spanish introduce wine to children, we want to introduce video games and wine to our children responsibly, set limits so they don’t turn into drunken video game junkies in college when they finally move out of our house. (I’ll expand on the wine part in a later post.)

We finally said yes to the Wii and my parents were thrilled to gift it. My parents live in California and are very worried for our boys living in an apartment during a Chicago winter and thought the Wii would be a fantastic physical outlet. Of course the boys were crazy excited to open a gift they had put on their Christmas list for more than two years in a row!

Here are the Wii rules we set;
1. No Wii Monday thru Thursday, really no electronics on school nights.
2. 30 minutes of Wii on Friday, Saturday and Sunday if playing sports or Mario Bros.
3. Unlimited “Just Dance” Wii access Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

When I mentioned rule #3 my boys were so excited they couldn’t believe it, but I didn’t think they’d take me up on it more than once or twice because they are boys, why would they want to dance all weekend? Oh how happy I was to be wrong about this one.

Dancing has become a major weekend activity in our house. You can make the argument that the Wii promotes poor dance moves and bad music like Katie Perry (sic) and a number of other legitimate gripes, but I’ve got two boys who love to dance now and that brings our home and my heart great joy.

I remember growing up around boys who would rather eat glass than dance don’t you? And even though my boys were spending time dancing in our apartment, I didn’t think they’d dance in front of girls. Awesome surprise #2! Our boys love dancing so much the older one chose to host a dance party for his 10th birthday and on a recent Friday night we spent the night dancing in the Duffy’s apartment (our upstairs neighbors and new friends) with their three daughters ages 6, 9 and 12.

Maybe we’ll expand pizza movie night into Pizza Dance Party Night as long as we have an apartment building full of children willing to dance the night away!

As I post this I fully realize that we are five years late to this party and that most of the planet has been dancing to the Wii for years. Thanks for the memo.

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Thank you for reading my blog "Evanston Newbie", a project that I am using to chronicle my new life in Evanston. Do you have favorite Evanston bakeries, bike shops, events, summer camps that you can recommend? Send me an email at thelisadshow@gmail.com and I will post my review on this blog. -Lisa Degliantoni