New Apartment

We are now the proud renters of this rowhouse in Bucktown! It's a three-flat (obviously) in a great residential neighborhood that is close to a ton of restaurants, shopping and bars in Bucktown and Wicker Park.

Here are the specs: It has a living room (which, apparently, is not standard in some Chicago apartments so I thought it was worth a mention), 1 bedroom, 1 bathroom, closets (!!), a decent-sized kitchen with new appliances and plenty of storage space. I'll also have an walk-in-closet-esque office, but a private office nonetheless that looks out into the backyard! And it's a very short drive to the highway so whenever M gets a job it'll hopefully be a pretty direct commute. One drawback: coin-operated laundry units in the basement. Boo. But compared to some of the other apartments M has seen of late, we'll gladly go without!

Since neither M nor I have never lived in the actual city of Chicago before, we are trying to get to know our new 'hood, courtesy of our old friend Google. Just a quick search has already resulted in a huge list of places we want to try. There's a Cuban restaurant down the street, a Mediterranean place that evidently has the best falafels in the city, and a BYOB sushi place less than 4 blocks away. Oh, and gourmet deep-dish pizza at a place that has live karaoke on Saturday nights (that's karaoke with a BAND, not a recording). And I'm going to *try* to stay out of trouble with all the cute boutiques around.

M has been in Chicago looking for our new place for the last four days straight, so it was a huge relief to him to sign the lease today. I'm ready for him to come home because it's getting a little stir crazy after four days of complete isolation! But I know that the next time I see him, we will be in the single-digit countdown, and we will really need to get in gear to start the move.

Also, I am very excited about next weekend - our last one in Georgia. We are going to dinner with two of our good friends on Friday night, and on Saturday we'll be attending one of the most unique ideas for a dinner party I've ever heard of: Southern Thanksgiving in July. Yes, all the "fixins" of a traditional Thanksgiving in the South, except when it's 95 degrees outside. Who would have thought of such a thing? My "creative" husband, of course! The hosts and contributors are very excited and being really good sports about it, although I guess they have to be because they left the menu request completely up to M! I just might have a little meat because it's such a special occasion -- guess I might as well since all the vegetables are going to be fried in something called "back fat." :) Seriously though, I think the menu will be pretty extraordinary considering the cooking talent that will be contributing.

Not much more to say for now, except that I am glad that decision is out of the way and now we can start looking forward to our new home!