New House Addition December 10, 2008

Robert and I are having a baby! Good thing we moved into a house with a yard. I’m 20 weeks along, and due May 2, 2009.

We are beyond thrilled – now that we’re well into the second trimester, we feel really good and have had very positive results from the blood work and ultrasounds, baby looks awesome. I’m starting to feel it move around, which is the weirdest thing I’ve ever experienced, and the coolest. I feel pretty good, although I usually have to go to bed by 8:30 PM.

We’re not going to find out if it’s a boy or a girl – we love surprises and suspense. We have 9 nieces and nephews between the two of us – 4 boys and 5 girls, and they are all amazing people, so we would be happy with either kind of kid.

We’re also not telling anyone our name selection because we aren’t interested in a lot of unwanted advice – although we are leaning towards the name Shecky, which works for either a boy or a girl.

It’s official. I’m growing a human. Hooray!

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.

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 Do Not Miss Living the City November 24, 2007

I like to explore all sides of the issue. Here’s some reasons why we do not miss living in the city of Chicago, and why we like turn to each other when we’re there to say “I do not miss (insert below reason here)!”

1. Parking problems – tickets, the boot, parking meters, exorbitant parking fees in parking garages.
2. Mayor Daley…well, I kind of miss him.
3. Traffic
4. Tourists – except now WE ARE THE TOURISTS
5. Gunfire on holidays
6. Living among steel and concrete instead of anything green.
7. Gasoline being much more expensive in the city
8. Really, everything being much more expensive in the city
9. Marathons, ballgames, festivals, parades, fairs, and other traffic-delaying commotion
10. Too many dogs, with over-enthusiastic dog owners who don’t leash them, and un-picked-up dog poop on the sidewalk
11. The El – too crowded
12. Rats
13. Pigeons
14. Car stereos turned up to a mind-numbing level
15. Fighting with fellow neighbors on winter street parking with their passive aggresive chairs

Now we can breathe a sigh of relief that we live in the suburbs. Sure, there’s two sides to every story and reasons not to like the suburbs too, but I can’t focus on that, because we live here now.

But we are glad to get away from the rats.

Reasons We Miss Living In the City November 23, 2007

I thought it would only be fair to publish the other side of the story – the reasons we miss living in the city of Chicago. As you know, Chicago is an amazing city – and there are millions of reasons we love it, and why everyone should love it. But here’s some of the top reasons that we miss living there.

1. The restaurants.
2. The culture.
3. Our friends who live in the city, and being able to make plans with them at a moments’ notice.
4. We miss being able to say we live in Chicago. Now, we’re just another boring couple from suburbia. I guess we miss the cache of saying that.
5. The lake, beautiful, freezing-cold-year-round Lake Michigan, just down the street.
6. The takeout available at all times.
7. The sense of the city never closing – everything closes early in the suburbs. And a lot of things are NOT OPEN ON SUNDAYS. That is a very irritating reality of the western suburbs.
8. Having a 312 home phone number.
9. For me, living 5 minutes away from where I work. But now Robert doesn’t have to commute, so it all evens out.
10. The tourists. Oh, wait, we don’t miss that.
11. The lights of the skyscrapers at night, and the moon rising over the skyline.
12. The fun shops and stores we used to visit regularly, like Uncle Fun, and Paper Boy, and Paper Doll, and CB2.
13. All of the Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants.
14. The parks, especially Millennium Park.
15. The holiday celebrations – and the holiday lights and trees, and festivals, and fairs, and just general fun stuff to do downtown.

The good news about the majority of this list is that most of what we miss about Chicago is just a short train or car ride away. We just do NOT want to become one of those suburbanites who never go into the city, ever.

I don’t think that will happen to us. At least, I hope it doesn’t.

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.

We are moving! April 12, 2007

We’ve decided to move to the suburbs after 15 years of living in the city. There are many reasons why we are moving out of the city; cheaper to buy in the suburbs, get more for your money, time to stop renting and become a grownup, we like trees.

This is the first time we are buying a house, the process is overwhelming and exhilarating all at once. We like to make all of our major life changes at one time. And so, the roller-coaster ride has begun.

We searched for a house for about a month, we looked at about 30 houses before we chose one. We made an offer, and actually walked away, and finally (after 10 times back and forth with the sellers) negotiated a great price that we are happy with.

Our new house is 25 miles outside of the city, just a mere small commute by Metra train. I’ll be commuting to work by train when I’m not working at home, and Robert’s commute is now just 15 minutes – sharp contrast to the 2 hours a day he commutes now.

Yippeee!