Meagan Adele Lopez' Blog

Since my last personal entry, times have been busy! Chicago is proving to be a great city with lots of exciting weather patterns and incredible food. Our waistlines aren’t telling the tale just yet, but if we keep eating like we are, I have no doubts we will be fat little porkers.

Here are some of my faves in Chicago thus far:

We’ve found a local pub where we get 20% off every bill, where we routinely eat BBQ Pulled Pork Nachos and where they have the hottest wings known to man (Jake Melnick’s).

We’ve found our favorite pizza joint where it literally melts in your mouth (Lou Malnati’s);

A great local beer (Goose Island’s 312 - named after the Chicago area code);

Amazing Indian food – for Jock when he misses English cooking (Veerasway);

An Irish pub that costs more than most fancy restaurants, but whose authentic Irish chef keeps us coming back for more. Plus, they were one of the only places open during the biggest snow storm Chicago has seen since the 1960′s. (Fado’s Irish Pub.)

This winter, it snowed. A lot!

But before that, there was a nice respite of a lot of Miami sun!

We have a LOT of weddings over the next year planned. Cities or Countries that will be on our agenda in 2011 for weddings are as follows:

New Orleans (Bachelorette party this weekend)
Austin, Texas
Baltimore, MD
Wales, UK
England, UK
Dominican Republic

So excited to be doing a lot of traveling. Yes, it won’t be a cheap year, but who would turn down any of these places for a good party with our best friends?

In the last post, I mentioned that Meaglo 2.0 (aka LadyWhoLunches 2.0) was on its way – these things take time. In fact, I’m not really expecting the relaunch of the blog to happen for at least six months, so there’s no reason I can’t keep everyone up to date in the meantime, right?

I am in the middle of having someone take a stab at designing the cover of my novel. Images that I sent the designer for inspiration are below:

Below is the single image that my best friend, Courtney, and I have been including in our notes to each other since we were 8 years old. Still to this day, we draw this symbol whenever we send cards. And yes, we have alternating necklace – she is St Ends and I am Be Fri. This book is largely dedicated to her.

Then, the other image is one of letters. Since the novel has letters, postcards and emails sent between two people, I thought this was a fitting image:

The crumpled note I like (not what this one in particular has to say), but I love the visual of the crumpled love note in the background.

I also sent her a few cover ideas from other novels that I really was drawn to. The point of getting a cover finished is mostly for the ebook – when I do get it published, I’m sure I will have a publishing house guiding me along.

Below are a few of the book covers I am most drawn to – whether it be for color, lettering or just design. My book is Chick Lit to an extent, but I don’t see pink and flowers sprinkled all over it.: