A New Venture: Saying Goodbye to Ann Written Notes.

Hey there!  So, you have probably noticed I have been MIA as of late.  Well, it’s not that I have been sitting around, eating bonbons wasting the days away.  I have been coming down the home stretch of my new venture, my new blog project, House & Host! And, you are the first to know so go on, check it out!

It’s been a work in progress in my head for over a year and tangibly for the last five months.  I found an amazing designer, Joy Laforme and she did an incredible job bringing my concept to life.  It’s been a super-duper creative outlet, a challenge and just so fun to see something from start to sort-of-finished (it’s never really finished, right?!).

So to that.  Goodbye Ann Written Notes.  The last 2+ years has been fun sharing my crazy stories, my love of all things beautiful, my travel adventures and a lot in between.  Thank you for being on this ride with me and I hope you will join me on this new, slightly modified, a bit more passionate, more colorful and a little more in my zone ride.

A couple of housekeeping notes:

1. Will Ann Written Notes go away?  Sadly, yes.  But, after a few tears, I am actually excited because I think House & Host will be that much better, more creative and more storytelling.  After months of brainstorming and ideating and getting my creative juices flowing, God make it clear this was the right move.  And I’ve learned a ton along the way which I am SO thankful for!
2. Will you need to subscribe to House & Host to receive the blog updates?  Yes!  You just need to go to the blog and scroll down slightly and on the right there is an email sign up box.  It takes 20 seconds.  Sign on up…first post goes live tomorrow!
3. Have you enjoyed reading Ann Written Notes?  Have I made you laugh?  Cry?  Have I inspired you?  Well, I hope I have done something to make even the tiniest impact in your life.  And to that, I have a personal favor.  I would be SO grateful if you would share out House & Host to your friends and family!

Here’s to pursuing passion, closing chapters and opening new ones.  Here’s to creating, to trying, to learning, to growing.  Here’s to taking risks.  And to finding something you are passionate about and staying tremendously interested in it.  #livelikejulia

Thank You. Thank You. Thank You.

If you have been following my blog, you know that I love a hand-written note.  Well, to be honest, I actually love any kind of note whether it be an email, a card or a text message to say hello, thank you or I love you.  Hence “Ann Written Notes” as the name of this bloggy blog.  Anyways, this past week, Rick and I received a few great thank you notes that I wanted to share.

Being in the hotel business, Rick and I want to make sure that our friends and family have great hotel stays and overall, a memorable and inviting experience while in Chicago.  And it’s a perfect tag team:  Rick knows how to take are of people at his hotel (I guess being in the business for 30 years has taught him a few things).  And I know how to take care of people in our home (ahem, we have an extra bedroom and I love having dinner parties and serving Moscow mules…come on over!).   Getting notes like the below is exactly why we love doing what we do.  God didn’t make a mistake when he brought us together…we LOVE the hospitality business!  And we love making people happy 🙂

And to that, I wanted to offer you a little challenge for this weekend:  Write someone you love a card.  Write a note to your boss to say thank you.  Write a note to an old friend just to say hi.  I promise they will love it and you will bring a smile to their face 🙂

Meeting Monica Pedersen

This past weekend I attended a designers dream event at Pottery Barn on North Avenue in Chicago featuring the ever vivacious, creative and warm HGTV legend, Monica Pedersen!  Admittedly, I didn’t know a ton about her going in but grew to learn more and love more about her during her book signing event.  Unlike other book signings I have gone to, Monica was engaging, informative and welcomed a conversation.  It wasn’t all about her, but rather, it was about her sharing pages from her book and how-to’s, hilarious stories and really inspiring hosting ideas.

What I personally loved most about the event was her story.  Her journey into design.  The fact that at age 35 she started her career with HGTV and pursued her passion of design is amazing to me!  Most of what she knows is because of testing, learning, doing, experiencing.  Not a Harvard design education (hmmmm…not even sure Harvard has a design program…).  Of course, she has a gift of the design eye and incredible hostess skills.  But, she activated and gained credibility in the entertaining and design world because she went with her heart.  #loveit

Check out some of the shots from the event below and a huge thanks to Pottery Barn for the great feature!  Oh and P.S. can we talk about how cute she is?!  And she’s like 8 months preggars?!

Birthday Party Ideas for Tweens: My Attempt at Winning Aunt of the Year.

There are things that I write about that I can say with confdience I know what I am talking about.  Travel.  Food slash eating.  The hotel business.  Awesome interiors.  And so on.  Having a birthday party for a little girl, in this case, my niece Hannah, wasn’t one of those things.  Until now.  I brainstormed with my sister and we ended up with having Hannah’s birthday party at my house.  So fun!

As I don’t have young children, I sort of forgot there should be a bit more to the party than just ordering pizzas.  You know, um, like decorations.  Cake.  Maybe some tween flare.  So the tween birthday party challenge was on and I was going to attempt getting the aunt of the year award and make it special for not only Hannah, the cutest tween ever, but everyone who attended.  See the play-by-play below (I’m watching football right now, hence the use of that weird sporty language).

Set the theme.  We decided on a mani/pedi party which seemed fitting for not only the tweens, but the adults, too.  Oh and don’t forget to rock some awesome bright colors!

Spruce up your space with some girly, but not cheesy, decor.  I raided Paper Source and walked away happy, despite their ridiculously over-priced everything.  It’s so cute and chic it’s worth it.  Ugh, I’m such a sucker.  I bought a pinwheels kit and a happy birthday banner kit which made me feel like a DIYer, even though I’m not really a DIYer.  Paper Source is smart like that…they can make even gals like me feel like Martha Stewart.

I’m not sure about you, but when I was a tween I was obssessed with arts and crafts. So naturally, I had to have an activity.  I bought craft letters and a bunch of stickers and paper and tissue for the girls to decorate the crap out of them.

{We have some serious crafting going on here}

Having a girly mocktail was also a must.  Thanks to my friend Vaneesha for loaning me these cute mason jars and straws.  What tween doesn’t like a pink lemonade spritzer?!

It’s always good to have door prizes so I whipped together these cards (same color scheme as Paper Source kits) for everyone to add a personal touch to the giveaway.

Speaking of personal, it’s always good to give the birthday girl some extra love via the art of personalization.  I used my chalkboard easel and slapped on her recent school picture.  Done and done.  Easy breezy.

And last, but not least, the sweets.  Cakes are a little circa 2008 so of course, I defaulted to cupcakes.  In the continued battle of having the best cupcake here in Chicago, Sweet Mandy B’s is for sure a front runner.  Not only are they beautiful, but the flavors are creative and the taste is DEE-LISH.  Yes, please.

{I hope all your birthday wishes come true, Hannah!}

What to Get the Person Who Has Everything.

As Rick’s birthday was approaching this year, I knew I had to think of something good, creative and F-U-N.  You see, in the game of “who gives better presents,” Rick is kicking my you-know-what.  Not that it’s a competition or anything (ahem and not like I am competitve) but I really did want to make this birthday memorable for him.  And then I remembered my friend Katie’s blog (Katie is Keen On) where she hired this dude named Chef Andrew from The Crying Onion, a private chef, as a gift for her friends that were getting married.  Oooohhh, this could be good for Rick!

I contacted Andrew, we dialogued a bit, I asked some questions, I chose the menu (there are literally so many options to choose from and Andrew is super flexible) and I invited my parents, sister and brother-in-law to come to the city to surprise Rick.  Perfecto!  A mini, intimate surprise dinner party at home where I we don’t cook or clean up  (oh, did I mention Andrew takes care of that, too?) for the guy who has everything. Okay he doesn’t have everything but being in the hotel biz, he goes out to tons of dinners so this would be a nice treat, something special, something we’ve never done, something memorable and if Andrew is as good as my friend said he was, it would also be tasty. Now, let me take you through this culinary delight.

{First things first.  The menu at a glance.  On our new chalkboard wall in our dining room.}

{Next up, setting the table.  I was really excited about this as we just bought our new Restoration Hardware Flatiron Dining Table so this was our first dinner party using the new goods.  Plus, I scored the Neiman Marcus cocktail glasses on clearance from Target and busted those out for a little gold bling, naturally.}

{This vase is actually the Illume Boulangerie Jar candle from Anthropologie. I love the single pink-tipped rose in it!} {I love these paper placemats from Cake Vintage.  They are perfect as they do the job, they’re super cute and are customizable.}

{Enter Chef Andrew.  Cooking in our kitchen.  He brings all the ingredients, pots, pans, everything!}  

{First Course – The Appetizer:  Crab cake with a spicy and sweet relish, siracha and brown mustard.}

{Second Course – The Salad:  Arugula salad with shaved vegetables and mandarin oranges topped with seared salmon and salmon sushi on the side. Mouth watering yet?}

{Third Course – The Soup: Roasted butternut squash soup with roasted pork.}

{Fourth Course – The Main Event: Braised beef short ribs with some ridiculously awesome other stuff like scallions, rice noodle salad, sweet and sour yumminess and a lot of things I am forgetting.  Just trust me, it was de-lish.}

{The Fifth Course – The Dessert: Homemade (obviously) apple fritter and um, oh…homemade donuts with saffron glaze, chocolate glaze and vanilla glaze sauces.  Yeah, that was dessert.  Watching him fry those bad boys in the pan caused me to drool a bit which was a little embarrassing but he understood.}

{And of course, a birthday toast!}

Well, ladies and gents, hiring a private chef hit. the. spot. Pun intended.  It was an incredible night, Andrew is ridiculously talented, the prices are reasonable and none of us will forget the experience.  I would highly recommend not only him but the concept of hiring a private chef for a special occasion!