Getting By With a Little Help From Our Friends

I think it goes without saying that we are WAY over the Residence Inn. Even before the incident with the mysteriously wet pillows (Really, I think housekeeping was just being nice and washed our personal pillows. They smelled like roses.) We miss our own space and our own bed and our red wine glasses.

The glasses in our "kitchen" (more on that in a second) look something like this:



Only uglier. (FYI, I found that picture by googling ugly wine glasses.)

Those wine snobs are onto something. Red wine really does taste better when it is served in the right glass. I thought my usually questionable ability to select wines (I choose the pretty labels) had really bottomed out. Then D suggested that maybe it was the glasses. I'm going with that.

Now, the kitchen. It's nice to have a full size refrigerator and a real microwave and dishwasher, but, friends, our stove does not work. We had a frozen pizza in there for an hour and a half last night at 100 degrees more than the instructions called for and it STILL was not cooked. So our sustenance choices are eating out or stovetop/microwave dinners. Any suggestions for the latter would be appreciated. Kraft dinner? Not all that I remembered.

But! When we sent out the email letting everyone know we were moving to Chicagoland, our friend from way, way back (half our lives, yo), Kris, wrote back to say that she and her husband and 7-month-old son were also moving to Chicago just days later! I drove into the city (only half an hour on the expressways on a weekday! Yay!) last Tuesday and had lunch with Kris and her gorgeous, happy son. We successfully navigated the El and shopping on Michigan Ave with a stroller. I controlled my shopping impulses, but did find some couches we might neeeeeeeeed for our family room.

And yesterday got to have lunch with our friend Marty. Marty went to Western with D and made sure his resume got into the right hands when he applied at Indian Head. She now lives in Milwaukee. We met her halfway in Gurnee and had some delicious lunch. At least mine was ... ribs ... mmmm ... we also really, really miss our grill.

It's so good to be able to see some old friends again.

I Forgot the Best Part!

The absolute best part of living in a Residence Inn is that we aren't paying the electric bill. I'm keeping this place meat locker cold, just they way I like it.

Five Things

Five things to love about living in the Residence Inn:

1. We have a maid. It's great to come home to a clean towels and a perfectly made bed.
2. No washing dishes by hand ever. They aren't our pots and pans or wineglasses, so everything goes in the dishwasher.
3. Free faxes 10 steps from my door! Especially convenient if Cook County screwed up your certification and you are scrambling to get everything together again in time to start your new job in 10, er, 9 business days.
4. D's per diem. Not only is the hotel paid for, but we get a generous food allowance. This is extra nice because ...
5. There are about 10,000 restaurants within 5 minutes of this place.

Five things about living in the Residence Inn that are less-than-awesome:

1. We are right next to a fairly busy road ...
2. that is under construction ...
3. and across from a fire/EMT station.
4. There are only a handful of TV stations, none of which are HGTV or the Food Network (and needless to say there's no chance of DIY or Fine Living). I am loving Shark Week on Discovery, though.
5. The only place to sit, other than a kitchen or desk chair, is a tiny little sofa. Not enough room for both of us to sit, let alone sprawl comfortably. We need our space.

Three days down, twenty eight to go!! I miss my couch and coffee grinder.

We Chose Well.

Today, D and I walked the Illinois Prairie Path. It runs right through downtown Wheaton and near our new house. We wanted to see how long it would take us to walk to town. It's an easy and beautiful 20-minute walk. We found a park off the path with a picnic area and playground. Nice! We are thinking about investing in some bikes this fall for when we don't want to walk.

We also discovered even more Wheaton awesomeness.

This park is right down the street from our house. In addition to the ballfields and playgrounds that we knew about, today we found rentable garden plots. The public can rent a little space and grow their own vegetables and flowers.

Then! Then! We stumbled onto this. It's about a minute from the new house. We walked the path around the lake and love it. There were a bunch of people there running and biking, cooking out and fishing. There's canoe and rowboat rental, too. We can't wait to explore it some more.

Mostly, after today, we are even more blown away by how lucky we are!

New digs!!! Sort of....

Well, we have officially moved to Illinois. Sort of. We have taken up residence at the Mariott Residence Inn in Lombard. This is where we will be spending the next month of our lives. It's nice, but I have a feeling we will be climbing the walls to get out by the end of August.

Also, since we technically have somewhere to live now and I will be employed again on Monday, I decided I could start shaving again.

On the move...

On Sunday July 22, we left Maryland and began the trek to Michigan. We spent the weekend with Jason while we were homeless in Maryland. We rented a U-Haul trailer for our belongings we didn't have the movers take. We stayed Cleveland with Graham on Sunday night. Not sure why we thought going straight to Niles was a good idea in the first place. So for a week we were at the mercy of friends and family for shelter. Good times.

Ashley's Helpful Moving Tip #3:
Don't let the movers pack all of your socks.

Also? If your dog will chew through a plastic tote to get to stale pretzels, she'll probably chew through a cardboard box to get to your giant, club-size bag of powdered sugar.

I'm counting down the hours until the vet opens so I can get her some drugs and until Sears opens so I can get us some vacuum bags. (Another tip: don't pack all of your vacuum bags.)

Someone Else's House

We do not live here:




I thought that I would be sadder about that. This is our first home. We love it. We've poured sweat and tears and lots of cash into making it ours. In fact, we only finished that this spring. Just when we got it the way we want it, we're moving out.

Eh. At least we don't have to figure out what to do about that dessicated front lawn.

Cardboard Jungle

The packing people did a fantastic job today. So fast! It would have taken me three days to do what they did in three hours (and I would not have done it nearly as well).

Ashley's Moving Tip #2: Spring for the packing option.

This is what our ex-house looks like now:





The man with the truck will be here tomorrow morning. Hopefully he brings a friend or two. Our TV is heavy as hell. Then, after 37 trips to the landfill, we will be out of here.

Second Thoughts

It looks like maybe Maggie isn't quite so ready to move after all.



(I love how you can tell Damian was shaking with rage when he took the picture.)

My number one moving tip: get rid of your dog for the day. Especially if she ate an entire box of instant oatmeal, a bag of pretzels, and a can of Nestle Quik the day before.

When I got the sedatives for the cat, I should have gotten some for the dog too. And me.

Looks Like Salem is on Board, Too

Both of our pets seem to think that box fan is a great place to lay. Weirdos.

Maggie Can't Wait to Get Out of Here