Time to play catchup

My apologies readers but owning a home has proved to be a busier task than I expected. Also summer finally set in around here so we have been feverishly trying to soak up as much sun and time outside as possible. Let's replay the last three weeks for you shall we...

May 4th- Prom

This was the second annual prom at Tallgrass Sudbury and it was another success. May 4th also happened to be Kentucky Derby Day and a friend of ours across town had a derby party. It worked out perfectly that Peter and I got to wear our prom attire to the derby party. We only looked slightly over dressed. From what I've read there is no over doing it on Derby Day.

Skip ahead to the 12th as we usually don't do anything all that interesting during the week. We had a favorable open house party welcoming everyone to visit our home. Of course because I never think about it I took absolutely no photos but I can assure there was merriment and laughter galore. My little one (Adlyn the girl I nanny) came with her mother too which was a special treat. She wouldn't let me sit down the whole time she was here.

The following evening Monday the 13th I was the MC and read stage directions for my friend Dan's play, Kid Yesterday, at the Den Theatre. It went very well and hopefully the powers that be will want to produce it for him. The rest of this past week was also pretty standard.

Although I did get to see an old friend from Austin on Friday night. Colin Gilmore played The Space in Evaston and Peter and I trekked out there for his show. I love that venue and wish it was not an hour and half outside the city but it was nice to see a familiar face and enjoy some excellent tunes.

Saturday Peter and I made a fire pit in the backyard and had some friends over to use our new grill.

Ain't she a beaut!? Hopefully we don't get shut down by the city. We both did a ton of research trying to find the fire code laws for Chicago. Even called 311 to discuss it with someone but never received a call back. 

For anyone who doesn't already know in 1871 a little over 3 miles of the city was destroyed by a great fire. Supposedly the fire started when Mrs. O'leary's cow kicked over a lantern in a barn. Needless to say Chicago now has one of the largest fire departments in the country and also once a week has a city wide fire siren test on Tuesdays at 10am. 

Naturally Peter and I would have thought they had some pretty strict fire codes about open flames in backyards and what not but we did not find much information regarding this practice. There were a lot of forums with people saying they "think" this is the code or have had their pit shut down for various reasons...i.e. neighbors complaining about smoke, not having a spark guard over the flame, being within 14 feet of a structure but none of these "reasons" could be found in any state or city code. We are good friends with our neighbors and I'm guessing they would just come over and hang out with us around the flames, a spark guard is in the works and we don't plan on having a fire until it's done, and we are 12 feet from a structure which hopefully no one will notice ;-)! All in all if we do end up getting shut down it was fun to build and looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself. 

Beaten

After many fruitless attempts at making a virtual tour I have given up! I will however post many photos of different parts of the house over time.

Rain, Rain, go away

Chicago has been experiencing some pretty torrential downpours as of late. Last week some areas received as much as 16 inches in a 48 hour period. As a result a lot of families, schools, churches, and the like have experienced flooding in their basements. My heart goes out to all those people, as Peter and I thought we had a water problem in our basement but through further investigation found it was just that our back door in our basement is not sealed correctly. Once our contractor is done with all his flooded clients he'll be by to take care of our place.

This basement thing is all new to me. Growing up in Texas we don't have basements. Mostly because of things like clay soil, high water tables, and solid rock. Although I think the number one reason there are basements in the North is because you have to dig below the frost line to install water and electrical pipes and those things need to be some what insulated during the winter. If you are digging down that far why not make it usable space. It doesn't get that cold in Texas in case you didn't know.

Oh and this happened on the South Side.

Yes that is THREE cars in a sink hole caused by a 98 year old water main breaking. If you search the internet there is actual video footage of one of the cars falling into the hole. I'm unsure as to why the owner of said vehicle did not try to save their car as I imagine falling into a sink hole can do significant damage. Perhaps they were hoping to become famous.

Once the clouds clear I promise to put up a virtual tour of our home.

A new decade, a new house.

I am finally settled in enough and have the time to let you know how busy we have been. Expect to see a virtual tour on these pages soon. I'm waiting for a really beautiful day where the light is just right. It's the Terrence Malick in me :)! 

Peter had a fantastic 30th birthday. His brother Ian was in town from Toronto but unfortunately his wife Lana didn't make it in. But we had a nice dinner at Table, Donkey and Stick, named after a grim fairy tale, and then a lovely Easter weekend. 

Forgive the poor photo quality as it was taken with my phone. From left to right we have Claire, Wyatt, Elliott, Drea, Me, Peter and Ian. Good looking crowd and the food was great. 

Our move was successful and we now feel pretty settled in. The basement is still a wreck but that might just be the permanent state of the basement. It is strange moving from a space where I could always hear or tell what room Peter was in to a space where I can yell from downstairs and it's possible (if I'm not really yelling) that he won't be able to hear me. It's a lot of house but we have managed to fill it sufficiently. It also amazes me that we were able to fit everything in this home into our little two bedroom apartment. 

This weekend we went out to a crawfish boil at a neighborhood bar in Uptown called Toons. Usually they have a few of these events every season and you pay $25-$30 for all you can eat crawfish. Basically all day or until they run out. I believe I put away at least 7 lbs Peter made it through about 3. 

The scene of the massacre! They also had a great New Orleans musician Davis Rogan, you may know him as portrayed by Steve Zahn in the HBO show Treme. He was amazing! Unfortunately I did not get his photo. We headed up the evening at Second City for a stand up show performed by Nick Thune. All in all it was a fun day out and it was even more fun to come home to our brand new house! 

Packing

Our moving date is two weeks from today! We have been packing little by little and the place looks wrecked but we should have it all done in time. Peter's birthday is also a week from Today and he will be 30! I have big birthday plans for him but for now we need to stay focused on the tasks at hand.

A Very Merry Un-Birthday

My husband Peter received an instrument in the mail this week. It was hand made by my dad and is serial number #5 in his arsenal. You should read my Dad's blog theolderyouwillget.blogspot.com to find out what the other ones look and sound like. I also added a link to the right in case you want to keep up with my dad as well. Peter is still working on the sound aspect of things but for now it looks really awesome.

The resonator is made from an old Cafe Du Monde coffee can I assume because Peter speaks French. The head stock design is one of his newer ones and can double as a weapon if you are jammin' with a rowdy bunch. I'll post some tunes once Peter figures out how to make it sound good but it did stay mostly in tune traveling half way across the country in a cardboard box so I think my dad's construction is quite sound.

No snowpocalypse here

True we did not get the snowmageddon of two years previous but it was a hefty amount. Peter got a snow day last Tuesday and we both got to sleep in. On Weds we took the school kids sledding and it was a blast. Not having grown up with sledding I feel like I have to make up for a LOT of lost time.

The most exciting news is over the weekend Tallgrass Sudbury (the school Peter is a teacher at) hosted a conference titled "Freedom in Education". The event was well attended with 114 total participants and counting myself and Peter nearly 30 volunteers. I only was able to attend one presentation but it was about video gaming and how it is not as evil as parents tend to think. I'm of the nintendo generation and have never really thought that video games were a major problem but I did learn a lot of useful information about how children can and do actually learn from them. Mostly I was impressed by the feelings of self reliance, advanced problem solving, and that through failure we learn best how to solve problems. Gamers are not afraid of failure but they see it as a way to try again and do it differently this time. That's a very hard life lesson to learn and one that usually takes a long time. A very informative and eye opening presentation indeed but there were many different panel discussions, speeches, and open forums that I missed because I was a volunteer. Fortunately someone was filming a lot of them so I will be able to receive the information none the less.

I spent most of my day caring for the 2-5 year old kids. They are (with Adlyn's help) quickly becoming my favorite age group. Their lack of verbal filters and immediate ability to trust someone are completely joyous things to experience. Each kid I cared for that day didn't leave with out giving me a hug goodbye. It feels so nice to be needed and loved so unconditionally by so many in one day. Especially when that day is extremely exhausting. Hopefully the conference will result in more awareness about alternative education and Peter's school will come away with a few more enrollments.