Home Sweet Home

In the eternity since I last posted, we have gone from this chaotic mess:

...to this calm new home:



Sorry for the pictures, our camera is currently MIA after the move, and my phone will have to do. I think the lack of towering boxes at least gets the point across! We are so thankful that the packing and moving experience is over with and thanks to so much help from our AMAZING friends and family we have been able to quickly settle in. Actually Joshua has attacked the experience of home ownership with a passion that is (while not totally surprising) very overwhelming. I woke up yesterday afternoon after work to find that he had spent the weekend completely organizing our two (TWO!!) storage rooms, the linen closet and the office area downstairs. He had also patched up a hole in the brick living room wall, fixed a bunch of things related to the heater and humidifier that sort of made glaze over when he tried to explain them, and he had scrubbed down the kitchen.

Before we moved, I made a big deal about getting ready for the baby, keeping things clean, and the biological drive to nest (I was whining a little ok), but I'll be honest - Joshua's intensity to make and keep this place nice has so far exceeded my own. And I can't even describe how great it was to wake up after 3 nights of work, including a 13 hour daylight savings shift, and find out how much he had done.

Then last night we went to Babies R Us to attempt fixing up our registry and it was at that point, surrounded by brightly colored plastic baby crap, that we both sort of felt like we needed a drink and we had worked way too hard over the weekend. He got to hang out on the couch with some whiskey, I "enjoyed" my lemon water and started a Countdown to Wine calendar, which ends promptly on my due date with this baby getting an eviction notice.

Watch, I am going to be so overdue. Anyways more pictures of the new place, more baby updates, and more blogging coming very soon!

Soon-ish.

Our apartment is such a mess right now.

We've started to pack and the boxes have started to pile up in the dining room. We decided to put everything in the dining room in order to keep the rest of the house less cluttered, but it has had the unfortunate side effect of creating thrilling little obstacle courses, hiding spots, and ledges for the cats and the dog to really let loose with their predatory instincts. Our boxes have created a war zone of leaping, screeching, growling 'domestic' animals.

So that's fun.

We have only 16 days left until we move, and everyday I am more and more excited to get everything into the condo and kiss this tiny-closeted, narrow-bedroomed apartment goodbye. We have wonderful memories here, it has been a great space for us and our growing family, but I'm ready to have all my clothes in one room. And to start setting up the nursery. And just get settled before our world is totally rocked with the arrival of our daughter.

The move has made me realize that over the past 5+ years of apartment living, I have never really become a very organized person domestically. I have a hard time keeping the laundry baskets empty, the shoes put away, the mail filed, the clutter decluttered. I do not have any sort of cleaning schedule, or plan, and I regularly buy more cleaning products only to discover I've got triples of Windex or whatever. The pet hair can get the best of me, and I'll be the first to admit that if you want to hang out, I'm going to leave my dishes in the sink and run out to do something more fun. Which when we are talking about dishes, would be absolutely anything. But...

BUT. The thought of bringing a baby into the chaos that can be our home is really overwhelming to me. We aren't dirty (let's be clear, although we aren't winning any awards with that pet hair I mentioned), but we can both be lazy when it comes to keeping our home organized and efficient. That's fine for two adults, but less so for a sweet baby who needs a clean room, lots of extra (clean!) crib sheets, blankets, bibs, clothes, diapers, and so on. I know that old habits are hard to break, but I'm hoping the vast amount of storage space, the closets in every bedroom (imagine!), the in-unit laundry, and the overwhelming responsibility of MOTHERHOOD will motivate me to take better care of everything I am so lucky to have.

In the meantime, my dog just plowed my cat into the wall and then skidded his way from the dining room into the living room and slammed into the coffee table. My other cat just leapt onto my stomach in an attempt to show the baby how she really feels about her, and I can literally hear our downstairs neighbors grumbling about how loud we are.

These next 16 days cannot go by fast enough!

It's Feeling Real! And It's Feeling Hot.

I was reading through posts on one of my old blogs (that died a slow and totally unnoticed death), and I came across this little gem that I wrote:

"And in 2009 I have decided I'm going to enjoy this limbo time, between being old enough to have a real job and real paycheck (and real vacations) and between having serious responsibilities like kids and a mortgage and GRANITE, damnit. I'm going to enjoy that we could buy a condo, or we can do something totally different and adventurous."

Ha! 2010 has shown up with a mortgage, a pregnancy, and even a bonus dog that I clearly I hadn't planned on last year. I don't think we did anything that was 'totally different and adventurous', but we traveled quite a bit, spent our hard-earned money in ways that homeowners and parents probably should not, and I'm sure generally behaved in a manner unbecoming to both homeowners and especially parents. Several incidents along the coast of Mexico and in international waters come to mind. I would have to say that looking back on 2009 and the first half of this year, I think we did a good job enjoying the DINK lifestyle. And my liver is probably at least a little thankful for nine months of peace, quiet and the total absence of tequila.

Apparently in 2009 I was also very concerned with the responsibility of owning GRANITE, but we actually lucked out with granite countertops later that year when we moved to the apartment where we currently live. I guess wrote that blog post before that deep need was met? Joshua has actually told me that the countertops at our new place are not thick enough. Apparently there are standards. So 2011 may even bring us new ones - I mean, since I was so concerned about it in the past, let's definitely keep the maintenance and improvement of GRANITE as a serious responsibility.

We now have an official closing date, although I know they are subject to change, and a moving date. We should be in the new place by November 1st, and I'm hoping that by then this ridiculous heat wave will be over, but it won't have started snowing yet (this seems like a lot to ask from the Chicago weather). I am so excited and nervous to have a place of our own! Excited because we can actually make it exactly the way we want it, and nervous because we can screw it up only at our own expense. Also nervous because I realized we are moving in 5 weeks at the most, and I am literally busy with work, an out of town wedding, and various other can't-miss-them activities on 26 of the 35 days that I have left to organize, sublet, and pack this place up. We have never really done anything in a calm and methodical manner in our whole lives, so I shouldn't be surprised, but...yikes.

In fun pregnancy news, I now have a definite bump at 21 and a half weeks. It's nice because now I feel like I can move on from the self-esteem loss that comes with looking like I eat a dozen doughnuts after every meal. And every meal is pasta in cream sauce. With a side of...butter. Basically what I'm saying is, I'm thankful to look like I'm growing a child and not a warning ad for a Paula Deen cookbook. Baby girl is kicking away and I can't wait for Joshua to really be able to feel her moving as well. So far, her 21 week self cannot yet pummel through the abdominal fat I so thoughtfully acquired pre-pregnancy. For her protection, of course.

Anyways, both the condo and the growing baby are all feeling very real these days! And when Joshua brings home a carload of boxes, the packing will also feel very real. Apparently all the things I decided would be so fun to postpone in 2009 have now collided in 2010, so thank God I am now familiar with the care and upkeep of GRANITE, or this whole process would probably just knock me out cold.

More updates to come...

Yes, I will be posting here...

To all the doubters, re: Kirsten, my lovely wife, I hope this post makes it abundantly clear that I will be posting here.

The latest? We just got word that one more key step in our home-buying process has been completed and we can now move swiftly toward closing. So, I guess that's it for now--I just wanted to come in with some good stuff right away.

Hello, Internet. You missed me, right?

Well! This is the first post of my third blog. The first two fizzled out due to a total lack of riveting content, so I have done my best to make our lives more interesting over the past few years in order to have something to whine about on the internet.

Just kidding!

Hopefully, I will actually use this blog to keep our friends and family updated on our lives. We have decided to go all out this year in terms of making the leap to incredibly responsible adulthood, and I thought our loved ones might be interested in laughing at us supporting us as we experience the brand new challenges of homeownership and parenthood in the next few months.

We have a fairly busy schedule planned for now until the end of January, which includes but is not limited to: packing up our entire apartment and moving into our new condo when I'm six months pregnant, unpacking into a new place, the entire whirlwind of the winter holidays, and then birthing an actual human. I think it all sounds overwhelming, but they tell me that last one is a doozy.

After that, we don't plan on acquiring any new animals, homes, or children for quite a while.

We both plan to post on this blog (I will be as interested as anyone else to see if Joshua follows through on that), and we definitely plan on being very honest about all the challenges and joys we experience during this crazy period of transition. So do we advise moving 2 cats, a dog, 3,127 lbs of books and furniture a few weeks before Thanksgiving and 3 months before your first baby is due? We agree, it sounds like a terrible idea. Check this site soon for details.

It's good to be back, Internet!