Houseshow recap

So, the houseshow was completely lovely.

It's always a push for me to feel like my home is adequately prepared for guests. It's my easiest stresspoint, I think, and I get irrational and testy about how hard I perceive it's going to be to clean up and make food and get myself presentable plus be welcoming when the people come. For my dad, it was getting the car packed for roadtrips. For Tim, it's memory cards with wedding pictures on them before they're backed up. We all have the easy stresspoint. Mine is my house before people come over.

But Tim and I finally created this and I sighed and snapped a picture right as Sara pulled up. I should add that, weeks later, those flowers are still in that vase on the right and they're totally dead and gross. We don't keep up appearance when we aren't having people over, which is probably why I try to have at least monthly gatherings here. Good motivation.

If I ever wondered at some point in the planning process "Why am I doing this?", I was immediately reminded as soon as we all got settled in our cozy, softly lit living room with our dear friends and Sara's sweet voice washed over me and I just melted into the experience. I love live music. And I love my home and my friends. The perfect blend of those three things was a profound gift to me. It was an I'm so lucky! moment. And those are always the best.

I was hoping for a packed house so Sara could walk away with a fat bankroll of sweet tips, but we were a sparse group of 14. It's probably just as well since we have a third floor apartment in a quiet neighborhood. Even though we invited our neighbors, none came so I was worried about bothering them. But no one complained! So either we weren't that loud or they're just very tolerant. Both work for me. The people who came were incredibly attentive, appreciative, and generous listeners. I think Sara was happy, so that's all that matters.

Sara is one of those sparkly-eyed people. Have you met one of them before? They just keep sparkling at you and they can hold a genuine smile in their eyes for hours and even talk through a real, honest, from the heart smile. It's really impressive.

Kate and Joel right up there, you guys. They're cute.

Just to convince you to come to our next Houseshow, take in the video below. Sara gave me permission to share this even though this brand new song of hers isn't finished yet and it's not going to stay the way it is in the video. She's about to move to London on a wonderful new adventure, and this song really captures that sure anticipation of leaving behind and beginning again. I love it.

we're moving!

And now for a post where I don't overthink my life too much and just tell you what's new:
We're moving in January. In Chicago, also known as the Windy City, where the wind chill is known to cut through layers of wool and leather, straight down to souls, and makes eyes water not just because it's a physiological reflex, but because being outside in that weather just makes you sad. It's going to be great!

The first time I came to visit Tim in Chicago, we spent a Sunday afternoon at a dear family friend's home in Oak Park. As we were driving through this neighborhood, the old architecture turned me into a rubber neck and I suddenly piped up: "Where are we right now?!".
"My mom grew up here," Tim answered.
That's a valuable statement for a guy who was raised in France and didn't come to the states to live until he was 18. This neighborhood has rich history for him. I find this so fascinating; my mother-in-law grew up marinated in the culture of Oak Park, then moved to France, fell in love, and raised her children there. Without even realizing it, she must have continued to live and teach cultural norms specific to Oak Park to her children, and when Tim decided to go to college in Chicago and encountered his mom's old neighborhood, he felt like a certain amount of "home" was there too.  I loved it.

Tim's parents own the place we live in now and we've been renting from them. It's been great, but now that Tim's brother and sister in law are expecting a little one, they need these three bedrooms and finished basement more than we do, and we want to be closer to the city for work anyway. The first place we looked was Oak Park. After seeing a couple of duds and getting discouraged, I got a call back from a building management company that had advertised an apartment with lots of windows. We went to see it, and fell in fast, optimistic, googly eyed love. We do that a lot.

This is the building; a concave structure with the ethereal light of heaven shining down into everyone's homes and hearts.

This is that wind I was telling you about. Flattering, no?

There was a problem: we saw the apartment at the beginning of November and couldn't move in until end of January. We knew it would be gone by then, so I called up the building manager and expressed my undying love and affection for her apartment and begged her to please call us in January if another one came open. She must have found my begging to be charming because she replied that they might hold it for us if we put in an application fast enough. So we did and we were approved. We decided to go see the apartment again and think realistically about living without a dishwasher or in-unit laundry, on the third floor without an elevator. It turns out that modern inventions can't trump natural light and deep, deep closets or free radiator heat.

This is our new place: