(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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So a while ago, I hired a wardrobe consultant to help me go through my closet and get rid of clothes that don’t fit me well and give me advice on what I should buy. Let’s just say in the end there were a LOT of clothes on the floor.
I boxed these up (eventually) and then called the Salvation Army to come pick them up.
It sounds like I did this fast, but there were boxes of clothes in our closet for months. *whistles innocently*
Anyway, I call the Salvation Army to schedule a pickup and this was supposed to take place last week. They call me 5 hours in to the 7 hour window (keep in mind I’ve been sitting around waiting all morning/afternoon) and say they can’t come pick up that day. Can they come Monday? No, they cannot come Monday as I work all day. The earliest I can do is Wednesday. Okay. Case closed, or so I thought.
I get home on Monday and there is a message from the receiving room that the Salvation Army guys are there to pick up. Yeah. Apparently “No, I can’t do Monday because I have to work” translates to “Sure, come on over on Monday.”
Yesterday, the Wednesday in question, I call, just on the off chance that they might still remember that I wanted a pickup on Wednesday. Nope, nothing on the books. So I schedule one for today. The window they give you is 9am-4pm, but they assure you if you call back before 9 am, they can give you a more specific window.
I call this morning at 9:10 and am told that the driver is not done writing out the tickets. Can I please call back in 15 minutes? Ugh. Okay. I give them over an hour and a half instead (just to be thorough) and call around 11. After a while on hold, the lady comes back on and asks if I’ve been home all morning. Yes. Is there any reason they wouldn’t have been able to get a hold of you? No.
Suddenly this is my fault? Grr.
She seems surprised, like he should have already been here, and gives me a window from 9am-2pm. Wow, thanks guys. Way to narrow it down there. She also instructs me if he hasn’t made it by 2 to give her a call. So she can do what, exactly? Reschedule AGAIN?
It’s so frustrating. I wonder if it is this way for everyone who calls in or if I’m just getting “lucky.”

We’ll see how this shakes out…

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No, we didn’t attend the rally downtown, but the energy in Chicago radiated far and wide. It was amazing to be here, to be a part of history in the making.

Even late into the day, I was nervously thinking, “What if he doesn’t make it? What if the dems have a poor showing at the voting booths?” and other quasi-paranoid, Palin-fearing questions.

Of course, all my fears were allayed by 8 or 9 pm when all the networks started calling an Obama victory. Still, I didn’t fully relax until McCain’s concession speech. I have to admit, it was really classy, especially at first. The Republicans in the crowd booing was decidedly less classy, but that’s how it goes.
Seeing Oprah, Jesse Jackson, and tens of thousands of other Obama supporters cheering, hugging, feeling elated was amazing, and I admit I was moved to tears more than once. What an amazing milestone to have accomplished.

I only hope that people can come together without fierce party loyalties and we can all help to improve this country of ours and once again make it great. I’m filled with an optimism that I haven’t known, possibly ever, in an election. I am sure that despite what happens in the next four years, it will make history. I just hope it’s for the best.

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Well, nothing too crazy has been going on here. Atkins and I headed out to Lollapalooza this last Sunday to check out the madness. Yes, there was a lot of madness. Lots of people. I’m just glad it wasn’t hotter than about 85 or so degrees, because then it would have been miserable.
But we got to see a few acts before we reached our threshold. My favorite was Flogging Molly. It was pretty sweet to see them.

Atkins and I are trying to work out exactly how to get all the car stuff situated. We have to get Illinois plates (something we probably should have done a while ago) and driver’s licenses as well. I suppose I should figure out what I am doing about my last name before I go get my driver’s license taken care of, but that’s another matter. Haha. So, a trip to the local DMV is in store. Terribly exciting!

We’re getting a new practice manager at work. That’s going to go a long way to helping us out, I think. The clinic could use a little more direction. Overall, it’s going well, though. I have done some pretty exciting surgeries!

That’s about all for this tiny little update. Sorry it’s not more exciting. ;)

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Hi all!
So, if you read the post below, you’ll know our AC partially flooded our living room and destroyed our bookcases. If you didn’t read it, do it now. I’ll wait…
Okay, now we’re all up to speed. We decided to get two new bookcases. Oh, and a new TV stand to go with our new, giant TV. I ordered the tv stand a few weeks ago and the bookcases a couple of days ago.
All of our furniture was delivered today. Yup. The TV stand was delivered by three nice gentlemen and then I called down to the receiving room and was told that we had “a really heavy thing” waiting for us down there. That turned out to be our two bookcases. I got those up to the apartment, and I’m currently working on assembling them. As you can see, Anubis is “helping”:

Completed pics will follow. I just wanted to post this while I took a break so I didn’t forget.
The best part is they are all solid wood! No more particle board covered in veneer for us! No sir. We’re getting ourselves real, grown-up furniture. Yay!
Okay, then. Pics will be up shortly.

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If anyone tried to call our home phone in the last couple of days, they might have noticed that the line kept ringing and the answering machine didn’t pick up. That’s ’cause our phone (and therefore our internet) was out.
We first noticed it Wednesday night. Atkins mentioned that his iPhone wasn’t connecting. We figured it was down because of a line of storms that had come through that evening. In any case, we didn’t notice the phone was dead until Thursday morning. I spent many hours on the phone with AT&T for that and some other billing issues (that I’ll leave for another blog). Long story short, everything is all fixed up now. It was a “problem in the central office.” I’m not really sure what that means, but it got fixed and didn’t cost us anything, and that’s all that matters. haha

So, we are back in action. It was kind-of odd not to have the internet or home line for even such a short time. I wanted to look things up several times, only to be disheartened. It’s funny how reliant on technology we become! I wouldn’t last too long in the jungle, would I? Haha.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Fourth of July! It’s one of my favorite holidays, and I wish I was with my family to share it. Atkins and I are going to go to a party, though, so it should be fun. We watched some fireworks last night, but couldn’t see the big show from our balcony. Once we figure out the prime viewing spot in Chicago, we’ll be set!

I’m sure there will be more blogs now that the Internet is up and running.
Ciao!

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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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When I moved to Chicago in the summer of 2007, I thought that living near a beach would be a summer time bonus. It turns out that Lake Michigan freezes over in the chilly month of February. Living on the banks of Lake Michigan is kind of like living on the ocean. The body of water is so large that you can not see across it even on the clearest of days. If the weather is just right, you can see the smoke stacks of Gary, Indiana and Michigan City. Since the lake is so massive and sea like, I wasn’t expecting much ice to form on it during the winter months. The ice formed in amazing patterns and melted and refroze in a rapid manner. Ice near the beach would reach 20-30 feet in to the lake and 5-10 feet above the beach, then in a matter of 24 hours, it would be gone and the lake would instead be frozen out towards the horizon.

I started taking pictures in January and tried to take them as often as possible. I took the photos using my iPhone camera, which is great because it’s quick and not so great when there is a lot of reflected light. When the sun was hitting the ice on the lake, the reflection caused photos to appear almost as if they were taken at night. While interesting, these photos are not ideal for the photo documentary. Anyhow, on to the goods.

Here are some of the highlights. The complete set is available in high resolution on my flickr account.

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