working on some of the finishing touches

Man, yesterday ended up being a little craptastic.  I stupidly scheduled a doctors appointment and dentist appointment before work and neither of them went as planned.  I'm fine but it was just a lot to deal with all in one morning and I came about as close as I've ever been to getting hit by a car as I was walking to the dentist.  I'm not going to miss the frenetic city drivers in Chicago!  Work was fine but my dad got stuck here in Chicago for the second day in a row, so I stressed out about that for no reason.  Then my stupid passport finally came and my old one wasn't in it.  I had just hurt my hand opening some mail so there was a small meltdown involved because my old passport not only has some very expensive visas in it that don't expire for another 9+ years but all of my memories from trips with United that I took, essentially, by myself.  I have no one to sit and remember those times with so my passport was (and is) very important to me.  I've been told from several people that they mail it separately so I'm hoping I'll see it in the next couple of weeks.

On the bright side, the mail I hurt my hand opening was my pictures that I ordered (mpix.com, get the metallic paper) that I took in our new neighborhood.  There are lots of eclectic signs all over Deep Ellum that I took pictures of for the "wall art" in our new bedroom.  The pictures came out really great and I'm excited to get some frames for them and put them up.

In less than two weeks, we'll be in Dallas.  Two weeks from today, we'll probably be sitting at a car dealership buying a car for me/us.  Depending on financing, we're even considering the idea of getting a brand new car, which completely freaks me out because I have never imagined getting a new car off the lot.  I remember when my mom got one and how STINKING cool it was (we were always a used car family).  So yeah, even though the idea of dealerships and haggling and used vs. new and financing totally freaks me out, I'm excited about the prospect of driving off the lot with a new (or new to us) car.  We want it to be our family car for a long time so this is a big decision!

Two weeks from Friday, we'll get to move into the new apartment.  I can't believe it's sneaking up on us.  We have done almost all that was on our bucket list and I'm feeling like this has been a good way to close this chapter on our lives.  I'm going to really miss a lot of our friends and I'm going to miss being able to watch all of our favorite Chicago sports with our core group of pals.  I know we'll end up meeting (and we already have quite a few) awesome friends in Dallas, but the good byes will be tough.

It's been an amazing three years for me.  I did something that I always dreamed of doing:  living in the city, sans car, and surviving some crazy winters.  I was thinking back yesterday to what drew me here to Chicago as opposed to staying in the DC area and I'm so thankful that I'm not afraid of change or of taking huge leaps.  I came here only knowing my two flight attendant roommates and I'm so thankful that the three of us jumped into this together.  It's changed all of our lives, for the better.   I would never have met Adam if I had stayed in Washington and I don't want to think about what my life would have been like.  I'm thankful to United for making the DC flight attendant base so incredibly difficult to deal with that we came here to live the city life.  Things in Chicago haven't always been easy but it's been a great experience and I've learned some important lessons in my time here.  It's hard to believe that we'll be flying away for the last time as residents in a few short days.