Really Anne

Hi!  I’m a Chicagoan in my early 30’s, living in a condo on the North Side with my husband Bob, and our two awesome dogs, Jude and Meko.  I grew up in Toledo, Ohio and moved to Chicago in 2004, 6 months after getting my BA in Sociology from the University of Toledo.  I have a desk job that pays my bills, but I don’t really need to go into details about that.  Bob and I met in the summer of 2007, after I did a free 3-day trial on Match.com.  Note this wasn’t my first time doing online dating, otherwise I’d be the luckiest girl to ever use it – find my husband in 3 days and not even have to pay for it!  We dated for 5 years, and got married in November of 2012.

Both of our dogs are rescues from New Leash on Life, an amazing, fully non-profit organization that rescues dogs from city shelters that wouldn’t likely get adopted.  Jude is a 5 year old Rottie/Shepherd/Collie mix that we adopted when he was 1 year old in September, 2008; Meko is an almost 8 year old Shepherd/Australian Shepherd/maybe Rottie mix that we adopted in July, 2011, when she was 5. 

Jude & Meko

One of the first things that I started blogging about was food, and although my blogging has evolved a bit over the years, I still like posting recipes when I can.  I don’t make anything overly fancy, but I love experimenting with new recipes and flavors, and finding delicious things that I can make quickly for weeknight dinners.  I added a challenge to this a couple years ago when I started doing Meatless Mondays to be a little healthier.  Cooking healthier, and certainly cooking without meat, has been fun to play around with, and I’ve figured out how to make good food that’s good for you, so that’s a lot of what I’m sharing here.  

Speaking of healthy food,I love anything wrapped in bacon, like this bacon-wrapped pork loin

I started running in early 2012, so I’m still figuring that out.  I’d never been healthy enough to do it before, having been overweight and totally out of shape for most of my adult (and childhood…sigh) life, so it’s totally new to me.  

Some of you probably know that I used to co-author a style blog with a friend of mine.  This in no way means I think I’m actually stylish, but I love shopping and putting outfits together (and now putting more and more outfits together with things I already own since I’m trying to cut down on the shopping), so I occasionally share outfit posts too.  So basically this is a hodge-podge of blogging.

Want to get in touch with me? Send a note to annereallyblogs@gmail.com