(T)arina and (A)tkins in Chicago

Yesterday was our one-year anniversary. Last year on May 31st, we were surrounded by our friends and family and proclaimed our undying love for one another. Unfortunately, our cake topper is still in a freezer in Colorado so we were unable to complete the “eating a year-old, freezer-burned piece of cake” portion of our anniversary.

Still, it was a good day. I’ve been nagging Atkins a lot (to the point of annoyance, I would imagine) about how much I hate our current bed. I finally put my foot down and said that I refuse to move this bed one more time. I constantly wake up with back aches, neck pains, you name it. So, we decided to go bed shopping for our anniversary. It also serves as our anniversary present to each other.

We decided on the Angelique mattress from Simmons. We went to Macy’s during their mattress/furniture sale and got a pretty good deal, I must say. It’s so amazingly comfortable! The nicest thing is that we agreed on it right away. We were both afraid that we would each like a different mattress and our anniversary would be spent fighting and someone would end up unhappy.

After that major purchase, we decided to have a nice lunch and then go to see Star Trek. I have to say, I really enjoyed it. I thought the new actors captured the mannerisms of the characters quite well, and it was a kick to hear all the catch phrases on the big screen.

We also picked up the keys to our new place. Though we haven’t really started packing yet, we are getting really excited about moving in! The thing I am less excited about is the prospect of taking my desk apart. It is a mammoth. And one of those mdf-laminate deals, so you know it’s not modular. Ugh, this is going to be rough.
Oh well. It’ll be fun to settle in to a new place. We’re trying to flesh out a bit of a guest room. You know, summer is the best time to visit Chicago! Beautiful weather, lots to do. Come on over. We’d love to see you!

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Our search for a new apartment was a little rough. We visited several places and saw a lot of great examples of where we didn’t want to live. Many of the apartments were a bit run-down or just plain old. Most of them were okay, but nothing great. And some of them were in less-than-ideal neighborhoods.

It was also difficult to find places to go see. I searched many online listings and found decent places. We decided to use an agent to find our dream apartment, so we looked on this agency’s website. This is when we were introduced to the fact that apartments are renting damn fast. I perused the site, and found 22 properties. A lot of them looked amazing, and some of them looked pretty good. When it came time to see these listings, I was told that all but 4 of them were rented. And three of those were not what we were looking for (i.e. crapholes).

So, disheartened by lack of a good apartment, we drove up to the last place on the schedule for the morning. I liked the street immediately: one-way, tree-lined, quiet. Okay, so the El is right behind the property, but it’s not all that loud.
We go inside and immediately I can tell that this place is a cut above all the others. It’s a three-bedroom with new kitchen, bathroom, hardwood floors, and laundry in the unit. Yay! Here are a few pics. I didn’t take any on my tour because the real estate agent told me there was a virtual tour online. (Had I looked at the quality of that tour, I would have just taken my own pics, but c’est la vie. Here’s the link though it may be taken down soon)

This is the living room, looking into the sun porch. This is the front of the building.

This is the absolutely huge dining room. We’re not sure what we’re going to do with it yet.

Nice, bright kitchen with a dishwasher. ;)

There are a lot of cool things about this place that aren’t apparent even in the virtual tour: there is a little brick patio in the back where we can have our grill. We may be able to do a little bit of gardening as well, though our landlord seems to maintain the flowers around the patio. We’ll have to see about that. And, there is enough space for a guest room! Yeah, there’s only one bathroom, but at least you’d have a nice room to yourself when you come visit!
Okay, so it’s not the perfect place: there is no central AC, no garage spot, and it’s more expensive with fewer amenities than our previous place. The hardwood floors and first-floor location make it a little noisy (as does the El), but we think it’s all worth it for the location! It’s really close to Lincoln Square, which has a lot of fun shops, restaurants, and a movie theater. We will be able to walk to the El in about 3 minutes, and Atkins’s work is only 4 stops down the line. Near to Atkins’s work (3 stops down) is an art studio/cafe where I am thinking about taking some classes this summer. It will be much more convenient and safer than going from Edgewater to Lincoln Park and then traveling back at 10 pm.

In short (too late) we are super excited about the move! That does mean, though, that we are going to have to put the anniversary party on the back burner. In fact, it will probably just become a housewarming party once we are all settled in. What does this mean for our first anniversary? Well, it may mean that we are going to be celebrating with wine and pizza in our new place surrounded by boxes.
That sounds pretty good to me! :D

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I can’t believe that Atkins and I have been married for almost a year! It’s been a great year. We went on an amazing honeymoon in February and have really been enjoying working and living in Chicago. Our love and friendship has continued to grow throughout this year and we are truly and deeply happy!

I hope this cake is as delicious one year later as it was on the day of the wedding. Hm. What an interesting tradition.

This year is going to be another busy one! We are planning on moving in a bit closer to the city. While we have loved our apartment and our neighborhood for almost two years now, we are getting a little tired of the long El ride or drive in to visit friends. We’re looking at a younger, more vibrant neighborhood where we can get out and do more things.
We’re also trying to find a place with a little more character. Don’t get me wrong, our view is second to none, but the apartment itself is a little, well, boring. Add to that the fact that the cheap carpet coupled with the low humidity in the winter turned our cats into lightning bolt factories and fried some of our electronics and you can see why we want to bail.
So, we’re looking quite a bit at the Lincoln Square area. It’s a nice neighborhood, close to Atkins’s work, and there are a lot of pretty two- and three-flats with nice apartments. These apartments boast such amenities as: seeing trees, windows on more than one side of the building and only one or two neighbors.
We are going to look at five promising places this Saturday, so I’m sure I’ll be posting soon with the results of our expedition.

Okay, back to the anniversary thing. I’m a little disjointed today. ;)
We are planning on having a party. Originally, we were going to have a Chicago reception after we got back from the wedding for all our friends here who were unable to make it out to Colorado. Due to exhaustion and financial concern (we had just paid for, you know, a wedding) this never really came to fruition.
So, we thought it would be fun to have a get-together for our friends in the Chicago area (and anyone else who would like to travel to said Chicago area) at the end of May to celebrate our anniversary. I’m going to start looking around for restaurants and getting price quotes and things like that. It’ll be funsies! Mark your calendars. Buy your plane tickets.
And look for new blog posts to come soon!
Love you guys!

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Today was our six-month-iversary, and we celebrated by playing Mario Kart, watching football and eating Jimmy John’s. Pretty awesome all things considered! I love nice relaxing days.

December is always a busy time of year for us. It used to be the time of finals and papers, and I had my boards test in December of ‘06. This year we have SCUBA lessons (for which we must study and read) and of course, as in every year, there’s both of our birthdays, buying presents and celebrating Christmas, New Year’s Eve and, you know, keeping our jobs going and minding the kitties and all that normal life stuff.

Back to the madness. Here’s how it runs down, time-line style: My b-day this week, Atkins’s next week.

Then SCUBA the week after that, then of course Christmas and New Year’s in the following two weeks. It’s gonna be fun! Before you know it, it’ll be 2009!

Bring it on, December! I am ready for you!

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It’s officially one year since we pulled up to Chicago in our Penske chocked full of all our worldly possessions. Ah, how full of optimism we were! How easily we thought we would get into our new home on Lake Michigan.
Our temporary home, the Heart O’ Chicago motel, quickly lost its appeal as we ended up staying there for ten days. Ten long, hot, sweaty, stressful days that put a strain on, well, everything.
In the end, though, it was worth it. Our new condo is amazing, and our new life together as husband and wife is exciting!
We do miss our friends and family and look forward to every chance we get to visit you guys! Or have you visit us. We have a brand-new inflatable guest bed! Queen size, baby! C’mon over.

We look forward to another, even happier year in Chicago as we grow into city folk. We don’t know how long the appeal of the city will hold us here, but we do know that through it all, we will love each other and look to the support of our family and friends. Awwww. Share the love, kids!

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