Early Voter October 21, 2008

Our ballots have been cast!

Robert and I went and voted early today at the nearby local mall. I like the early voting. You never know what could happen to you on election day – snowstorm, voter intimidation, long lines, underwear mishap. Knowing that our votes are cast is very reassuring.

The process was very easy. If you’d like to vote early in Illinois, you can check out the website here: Early Voting. We went to the mall, had to sign a document stating we wouldn’t vote again on election day, and then visited the electronic voting machines. I voted for Obama – and was happy to see his name was spelled correctly and he was listed first on the ballot. I’m happy that we got an “I Voted Today” sticker.

Read up on the issues in newspapers and on websites, it’s everyone’s responsibility. And then Vote Early! Or Vote on Election Day! Just VOTE!

Hail, Hail Storm August 7, 2008

Monday night Chicago was plagued with scary storms, including a series of tornado warnings that even caused the fair city to blare it’s warning tornado sirens.

Out in the western suburbs, we were quietly enjoying some tivo, but keeping one eye turned towards the sky, which was an unnatural, otherworldly color. Suddenly, the tornado warning sirens went off and our adrenaline started surging. TO THE BASEMENT, we shouted, and grabbed what we could as we ran downstairs – computers, i-phones, and for some strange reason, I grabbed Robert’s wallet. In case we needed to buy something down there, I guess.

We discovered we’re woefully unprepared for any type of emergency. The basement is still in a state of disrepair, and the flashlights were no where to be found. No bottled water, no emergency radio, no ponchos, no umbrellas, no first-aid kit, no nothing.

We used our wireless internet on our laptop to track the thunderstorm from the basement.

The first warning we saw on weather.com was for a tornado in our area and possible nickel-sized hail.

About 10 minutes later, after refreshing the page, the warning was changed. No tornado, and the hail size reduced from nickel-sized hail to penny-sized hail.

Robert turns to me, and without missing a beat, says “Recession”.

I couldn’t stop laughing. Luckily, we didn’t get hit by a tornado, and the Mini didn’t get hit by either nickel- or penny-sized hail. We lost our cable but not our power, but all of our neighbors across the street were without power for a day. I’m glad we weren’t swept away by any tornado or pelted with any type of money-sized hail.

City vs. Suburbs July 1, 2008

When I lived in the city of Chicago, I was judgmental about the suburbanites who would venture into the city on the weekends, especially during the holidays or summer. I cursed their presence during traffic jams, I was annoyed when out-of-city drivers were in the loop, I was incredulous when anyone decided to move outside of the city limits.

Now, the tables have turned.

We’re in the suburbs. We no longer have the cache of saying “We live in the city”. We’ve moved 15 miles outside of the city limits.

Recently, I saw an acquaintance of mine who lives in Chicago, whom I haven’t seen since we moved. It was like Robert and I had suffered a death of a close friend or family member.

Her: “Wow, I can’t believe you live in the suburbs, how is it?” (said with a very sympathetic tone, and a fake-frownie face)

Me: “We really love it – we have a yard with real grass, trees, animals…”

Her: “But gosh, it’s just like you are in a whole ‘nother world – so removed from this world of being in the CITY. I mean, you’re so far away from THIS world.

Me: “Well, it’s the same world, just different. We love it.”

Her tone, her sympathy, her entire demeanor indicated that we were to be pitied, poor couple who couldn’t hack it in the city and had to escape. Exactly how I treated people from the suburbs when I lived in the city for 15 years.

So it was a good lesson to learn, but I wanted to point out that she’s actually BORN AND RAISED in the suburbs.

Neighborly, Part Two March 13, 2008

We’re VERY new to the neighbor stuff. We don’t know a lot of people here, and are unsure of how the whole having-neighbors-thing works. We’re used to living in the city, where you ignore everyone and pretend that they don’t exist. In the suburbs, it’s not like that. People are nice. They say hello.  They look out their windows to see what you are up to. And now, we look out of OUR windows to see what THEY are up to.

Before a recent trip, we decided to leave a note for our neighbor with a request to please call us if the house burned down, or got hit by a tornado, or squashed by the foot of Godzilla.

I left a friendly note in their mailbox, and right before we left, saw our neighbor out on his front step.

“Hey there,” I said “I left a note in your mailbox. We’re going out of town for a few days, would you mind keeping an eye on our house for us?”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on that house for 20 years” he said.

I didn’t really know how to take that.

Filled with Corn Doggy Goodness February 19, 2008

Robert and I went to the gas station in our little town the other night, on our way home from work. We were surprised by the sign on the gas station pump:

Who knew you could get a corn dog, filled with corn doggy goodness, for only 49 cents? I wonder if you can get something else filled with corn doggy goodness? Like a donut? Or maybe a gallon of gas?

And although we love a good corn dog (especially from a state fair), we did not partake of the 49 cent corn doggy goodness-filled corn dog. Too cheap. I like my corn dogs to cost more than a dollar.

Vote Early, Vote Often February 5, 2008

Today was the primary election here in Illinois, and the first time that we have had the opportunity to vote in our new town. We’ve been accustomed to voting in the city of Chicago – voting in the western suburbs seemed very different than voting in Cook County. We’re used to long lines, indifferent election officials, red tape and bureaucracy, and being in the democratic majority. Here in our new suburb, we’re in the minority – our town is very republican – which is true of most of Illinois outside of Chicago.

The first, and most important, key to voting was finding our voter registration cards. After much looking, blaming each other, and retracing our steps, we found them. We read up on the Tax Referendums facing our town, learned about who was running locally, and made our plan to vote early today.

We voted in a small elementary school just down the street from us, at around 6:50 AM this morning.

The magic of voting took place in a very narrow multi-purpose room, with desks stacked against a wall, and tiny collapsible voting booths erected in a line. I think the election officials were surprised we asked for a democratic ballot. I don’t think they see many democrats in these here parts. I tried to share with them that it was our first time voting in our new town, and that we were new around here, but they were all business and uninterested in my story. And a little annoyed that I tried to be social with them.

We both voted, and were not challenged by any officials and didn’t even need to show our newly found voter ID cards or personal IDs. We didn’t even have to wait in line. I was hoping for a more scandalous story, but that’s really all that happened. Oh, and it was cold and wet. And early. And I’m sick, so I cough a lot. And we got our “I Voted Today” stickers, and I wore my sticker proudly to my client meeting, all day.

I voted for Obama.

Deep Freeze January 19, 2008

Winter has set in for sure in Chicago-land. Coming this weekend is a deep freeze unlike any we’ve seen so far this winter. It will be so cold the squirrels will freeze to the trees. So cold that any exposed skin will feel like it’s going to crack off if you’re outside. So cold that without long underwear, you’ll be miserable. So cold that my friend cancelled a party this weekend, because no one likes to go outside in this kind of weather.
It’s the wind chill that will get ya. This is the time of year that I long for a fireplace, or at least a puppy to keep my feet warm. Robert – what about a puppy?

But then I think of my Canadian relatives, in the plains of Canada, who deal with this kind of weather often, and huge amounts of snow, not these wussy 5 or 6 inches of snow that we’ve been getting this year. And then I pretend I’m in Canada instead of just outside of Chicago, and then the cold is easier to bear.

Speaking of bears – we even saw two bears when we were up near Calgary at my Aunt and Uncle’s house – one was a baby bear, alone in the woods.

I like bears.  Maybe we should get a bear instead of a puppy.

Snow Business December 7, 2007

It’s winter here in the Chicagoland region. Officially winter because now we have snow – we got about 5″ of snow the other day, with another 4″ expected tonight, if the weatherpeople aren’t lying.

Here’s our little tiny garage covered in snow:

Notice the shoveled paths, courtesy of early-morning Robert. It makes me cold just looking at it.

Holiday Competition November 28, 2007

Ok – the holiday competition for decorations has officially begun in our neighborhood.

Our neighbors have a huge inflatable snowman, along with a happy inflatable santa riding a motorcycle, and a lot of pretty holiday lights around the eaves and doorway of their house. And it’s not even December 1 yet!

I wish we had power outdoors, ’cause we would totally win the imaginary competition if we did.

Reasons We Love Living in the Suburbs, Part Two November 25, 2007

Over the Thanskgiving holiday, we reflected on a couple more reasons of why we love living in the suburbs.

So, here’s part two of our list.

1. The Top Ten Library! I go to the library at least every two weeks, and come home with a stack of books. I love it, especially because now it’s winter, perfect reading time.

2. Living close to the grocery store. While making pies before the thanksgiving holiday, we realized we were out of lemons, (for the apple pie) and it was just a quick trip to get more.

3. It’s a shorter drive to relatives houses, by us living 30 minutes outside of the city instead of in the heart of the loop-de-loop.

4. Not one, but TWO IKEAS within a short driving distance.

5. Competing with the neighbors on who has the best holiday decorations. Game on, man – it’s our first year and we’re doing it up big.

6. Squirrels. Really, we love the squirrels. We’re a little worried about how they will stay warm during the cold Chicago winter, but they seem to have it worked out by getting fat and storing nuts.

We’re happy with this first thanksgiving in our new house (even though we weren’t here). It will be exciting to have the upcoming holidays here!

Reasons We Love the Suburbs November 22, 2007

Here’s some reasons why we are happy with our decision to move to the suburbs of Chicago after over 10 years of living in the city, three of those years in the West Loop. It was a controversial decision, especially among our friends who are long-time city dwellers, but one we didn’t make lightly.

Here’s why we love our little house in the suburbs:

1. It’s quiet.
2. There’s no traffic.
3. There are animals in our yard that we watch daily. We even love the squirrels, although everyone hates them.
4. We have trees with leaves and green grass instead of cold concrete and steel.
5. The amount of money we spent on our four-bedroom house with a yard, basement and garage would have gotten us a one-bedroom condo maybe with a parking space, (if we were super lucky) in the city. So, economical!
6. Any kind of shopping we need to do, it’s available and closeby, and we don’t pay for parking.
7. That’s a big one – not paying for parking. When I worked in the gold coast, I was paying $24/day for parking. (and there was no public transportation available from where I was living that wouldn’t have taken two hours).
8. We can go to the movies and not pay for parking (See, I told you it was big)
9. We’ve never lived in the suburbs, it’s new and different.
10. Neighbors – never ever talked to our neighbors in the city. We felt inferior because we were renters. Now we have funny neighbor stories almost weekly!
11. We can do whatever we want to our house without a bossy landlord to tell us no, you can’t paint the walls.
12. No elephant-footed upstairs neighbors, or loud, stereo-with-God-awful-music playing.
13. No people “holding” parking spaces on the street with lawn chairs and sawhorses after it snows.
14. Now our formerly-wasted rent money is going towards our mortgaged future, instead of down the toilet each month.
15. Squirrels are better than pigeons.

All good, important reasons, I think.

Evidence November 18, 2007

Here’s the smoking gun evidence that our entire yard and driveway was covered with leaves. Robert worked hard filling 14, yes FOURTEEN yard waste bags full of these leaves. And sadly, our trash day is on Thanksgiving, so the leaves will have to wait another week until they get tossed. Good thing we don’t use our garage for car storage!

Wonder what would have happened if we just left the leaves in the yard for the winter? Besides making our neighbors angry, I mean.

Jumping To Conclusions November 14, 2007

On Halloween, several of the neighbors avoided trick-or-treating at our house. We watched them go to the house on the left, and on the right, and the house across the street, but not to our cute, decorated house. We created this whole scenario in our minds of why they went to every house but ours – like we were being shunned by the neighborhood because of some offense. We’re very new to the whole neighbor thing – we aren’t very good at it, really.

We thought:
-they were mad about the tree-trimming at 7:30 AM
-they hated us because we are democrats
-they somehow found this blog and decided we sucked

But I’m happy to report that the shunning was all in our minds. Completely fabricated. The neighbors came over the other night while walking their new puppy and talked to us for a while. It was nice, pleasant even. They were friendly and kind and not judgemental.

So we’re working on not jumping to neighbor conclusions anymore.

Fall or Still Summer? November 11, 2007

Autumn is taking it’s own sweet time arriving in our neighborhood in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. Most of the trees still have the majority of their leaves, and our maples are still green:

One of our little plants is changing colors – well, I guess it’s really more of a bush, in our front yard:

I hope we don’t skip autumn and go right to winter. Come on leaves, change color!

Squirreling Away November 8, 2007

The squirrels are in high-gear around our yard.

They are running about, burying nuts and getting fat for winter. They have been seen hiding nuts in flowerpots, under bushes, and around our patio furniture. Like it’s some great Easter Egg hunt for nuts that will take place later this winter.

They seem to be leaving nuts everywhere – even on our detached garage window:

We don’t agree with this practice. I went to drive my car the other day, and there was a nut on the license plate ledge. I don’t drive my car that often, but goodness! It’s not a permanent fixture of the driveway, it’s a moving target! Get a clue, squirrels.

The Sunroom Bench November 6, 2007

Moving over to the sunroom/family room/dining room – or the all-purpose room, as we call it. This is the room that’s just off the kitchen of the new house, and we’ve placed a bench under the sunroom windows.

I’m proud to say that I hand-painted this bench after reading this poem by Walt Whitman. I painted this about 12 years ago, but it’s held up to daily abuse well, and we use it a lot. The bench was given to me by my parents – thanks Mom & Dad!

Here’s what the bench says in case the picture isn’t large enough to read:

“The earth, that is sufficient,
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.”
-Walt Whitman, 1856

Ahhhhh, Walt.

The Tally November 1, 2007

Trick-or-treating was a little underwhelming. We don’t have to move, because we had some trick-or-treaters, just not as many as we would like. I really wanted the doorbell to ring non-stop. We bought over 6 bags of candy, expecting thousands.

We had just 26 trick-or-treaters.

But the ones we did have were cute and had a lot of sugar. Now the squirrels are devouring the pumpkins and it’s time to take the Halloween decorations down and put up the Holiday decorations. Well, maybe not yet.

Orange You Glad it is Halloween? October 30, 2007

We are in the holiday spirit around here for our first spooky new house Halloween.

Here’s a picture of our front door, very welcoming for the trick or treaters, I think:

And here is our front step Halloween Tableau – notice the hand-carved punkins and spooky scary skulls:

And here’s the spooky pumpkins in the dark:

And now we wait for the trick-or-treaters to arrive…

Empty or Full? August 29, 2007

I like to think of the glass as 95% full.

And to celebrate, here’s a picture of the 95% full moon over Chicago last week.

Summer = County Fair August 2, 2007

Robert and I are trying to do local things, to get involved in our new community, and learn more about the town we’ve chosen to call home.

We decided to venture out to the local County Fair last week.

For those of you who don’t know Robert and I personally, we LOVE fairs, be they State, County, or World. We frequently visit theme parks, fairs, faires, carnivals, and even fests.

We weren’t disappointed with this County Fair – it had all of our favorites. Kettle Corn, Corn Dogs, and Corniness. We visited the poor animals in cages (rabbits, even!) and saw the cows, sheep, and pigs, viewed the 4-H exhibit, made friends with the local Democrats, and learned how we could get involved with Obama.

The most interesting thing we saw at the Ag-Ventureland – an agricultural area devoted to local farming, with farm equipment, farm animals, and real-live farmers. It was an advenutre to visit Ag-Venture.

This area here:

Click on the picture to get a better look-see. It was sponsored by BP! BP – the “one of the largest integrated oil companies in the world”.

Does anyone else see the irony?

Does this get recycled? July 17, 2007

Our new town has a very extensive recycling program. It’s quite brilliant. We moved from the city of Chicago which has the failed attempt at recycling – blue bags – where you put recyclables into “blue” bags and in with the regular trash. We did it, but were very suspicious that it was ever sorted.

Now, we are recycling fools. Our trash/recycling day is Thursday.

In our new house, we get charged for each trash can we fill with garbage, but recycling is FREE – no matter how much recycling you have. You could have a whole yard full of recycling and they would take it. And I’m reassured to see that different trucks pick up the different types of recycling and trash – it’s not all going on the same truck to the landfill.

The only trouble is that we don’t really know yet what’s recyclable and what’s not. Every single thing we throw away, it seems like, we look at each other and ask the inevitable question “Does this get recycled?” We’re still learning. If you put something in the recycling bin that is not recyclable, the people take it out of the bin and throw it on your lawn.

Some Thursday evenings, our lawn has a lot of non-recycled items on it.

Productive July 9, 2007

It was a very productive weekend at our new house. VERY PRODUCTIVE!

We started waving the white flag last week, with our hands in the air over how much there was to do around our house. My Mom and Dad volunteered to come up and help us with our giant, never-ending to-do list.. I tell you what – they are hard workers! We got so much done over three days that we feel like now we could actually have people visit our house.

First, we tackled my home office. Shelves needed to be put up, the desk had to be moved, the wall had to be painted, and the black wood trim for the ceiling had to be bought, measured, cut, painted, and hung up.

We painted the trim black:

And the next day, we painted the chalkboard/magnetic paint in between the two closets and hung the trim. (Thanks Shalyn!) Yes, it’s not only a chalkboard – but it ALSO is Magnetic! It’s very cool. The Licorice Allsorts vision of the home office is almost complete!

My mom hemmed all of our curtains in the whole house, and they are perfect. Absolutely perfect!

Here’s a partial list of what we accomplished in two and half short days…We fixed the doorbell, moved furniture, hung curtains, planted marigolds, put up a birdhouse, hung curtain rods, fixed the retaining wall, hung trim, had fun working together, hemmed curtains, painted a bookshelf, fed the birds, glued chairs, ate and slept, installed a new shower head, installed silver door knobs, watched the rabbit outside, trimmed a door, created basement shelves, installed garage door locks, bought plants, and the list goes on and on. Whew!

THANK YOU Mom and Dad! We couldn’t have done it without you, thank you for all of your support.

I’ll be posting more pictures of what we accomplished – cause we’re PROUD! Hooray New House!

Go Fourth and Prosper July 5, 2007

We spent yesterday with our neighbors for a Fourth of July cookout. We were excited to be invited, and looking forward to meeting new people. We realized too late that we don’t have a lot in common. Sure, they were nice enough, and friendly, and the food was good, but it felt like Robert and I were interviewing to be accepted into the neighborhood.

Here’s a small sampling of the questions we got:
“Where did you live before you moved here?”
“Where did you grow up?”
“How did you two meet?”
“How long have you been married?”
“What do you do?”
“What work have you done to the house?”
“Which neighbors have you met?”
“What future work do you want to do on the house?”

I realize that questions are all part of getting to know each other, but at the beginning, we were just answering rapid-fire questions, not actually having conversations.

Here’s what we learned about the neighbors.

1. They are republican
2. They hate vegetarians
3. They do not drink alcohol
4. They hate squirrels

I guess we don’t have very much in common with them, being the liberal, democratic, vegetarian-friendly, alcohol-drinking,
squirrel-loving people that we are.

Top Ten June 26, 2007

Last night, we did something I’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time. Well, at least as long as we’ve lived here, which is exactly 51 days.

When I was a kid, living in a small town in Central Illinois, nothing made me happier than going to the library to get a stack of books to read. That’s how I spent my spring breaks, and summer vacations throughout my childhood, sitting in my red vinyl bean bag, reading library books.

Our new town library is A TOP TEN LIBRARY, a fact that they are very proud of. There are banners announcing it in the streets, and in the library, and on the library brochures, in the parades, and on the website. But I don’t know what TOP TEN LIBRARY means, and they don’t tell you. Does it mean that they made David Letterman’s top ten list? Or that they are one of the Top Ten Libraries in the City? State? Country? In the whole World? Hard to say, because there’s no qualifiers, anywhere.

We went to the library and got our official library cards last night. We were assisted by a kind and friendly librarian, who Robert thought looked like one of my cousins. She helped us with the procedure of getting a card. It was very easy. I thought maybe because they are a TOP TEN LIBRARY that we would have to go through a lot of red tape hurdles to get our official cards. But we didn’t, and we were all set in about ten minutes.

Our new library card allows us to go to any neighboring suburb, or even back to the Chicago Public Library, to check out books. Any book we want! Even if it’s not a Top Ten Library!

We looked around, and I scooped up books like a kid in a candy store, and ran out, laughing. AND THERE’S NO LIMIT TO THE NUMBER OF BOOKS YOU CAN CHECK OUT!

That makes it a NUMBER ONE LIBRARY in my book.