Weekly Sundown Rundown

Hello hello!

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Links:

I love these smartwatch stickers. I could not stop laughing when I saw the link.

Refinery29 has some great tips on how to move past common work screw-ups. A lot of these are totally avoidable (never fake a sick day, never snark about coworkers through your work email) but aside from that, these are good tips.

I love these tips from The Kitchn on maximizing your countertop space. Living in a city means countertop space is a precious, precious thing. TL;DR: Use your walls.

I love Liz’s tips to being happier. Know what’s crazy? Short of one quick 10-second Snapchat video, I didn’t take ANY photos of Chicago’s fireworks displays. I was too busy living in the moment. And it made me happy.

I love this idea for making a kite aerial photography kit. I’m hoping to spend more time on Chicago’s beautiful beaches now that it’s finally summer. This would be so fun!

The U.S. Women’s team won a game or something.

This woman has the perfect butt. Which is kind of annoying because most of us don’t… so how are we supposed to get jeans that fit?

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And my week highlights?

• A trip to Cheesie’s Pub and Grub in Lakeview with my coworker for mac and cheese grilled cheese and PBR.
• Italian for dinner at Club Lucky in Wicker Park with a friend.
• Pizza and Oberon at Homeslice in Lincoln Park! I had the Miller White and it was delicious.
• Sangria, tapas and paella de mariscos with my college friend Emily at Café Ba-Ba-Reeba in Lincoln Park! Emily studied abroad in Spain and had been dying for some close-to-authentic cuisine. I’m not sure how authentic it was, but it was pretty damn good!
• Consignment shopping in Lincoln Park.
• Shopping shopping on Mag Mile. H&M had some amazing sales going, so I was able to grab these pants, this shirt in a candy-colored tribal print, these rings and several of my favorite basic tees.
• Doughnut ice cream sandwiches with a coworker from Firecakes Donuts in River North.
• Homemade guacamole! (Recipe here.)
• Nitro coffee from Beatrix in River North. It’s kegged and on tap, so it’s foamy and frothy and has three times the caffeine of regular coffee. It was so good.
• Fireworks against the Chicago skyline! One of my friends has an incredible view from the roof of his place in Wicker Park, so Emily, Mickey and I went to a party to catch 360-degrees of fireworks and paper lanterns with a glass bottle of wine in hand.
• Homemade RumChata French toast! (Mimosas on the side, of course.) Recipe post coming soon.
• The arrival of my new pouf from Etsy! I spent forever searching for an ottoman that I liked, and the tall gray burlap one I picked out from Hello Homebody could not be more perfect!

You can keep up with this stuff as it happens if you follow me on Instagram or on Snapchat @RandiMShaffer.

It was such a great Fourth weekend. I had several friends in town, and most of those several friends consented to tequila shots and Cards Against Humanity at an impromptu mini apartment party.

How was your Fourth? Let me know in the comments!

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