New Apartment Needs Stuff

We all know that stuff is bad. Ok, maybe I just think stuff is bad. I don't even think it's bad, but I'm three days out of a move and so right now all the stuff is sitting in my dining room and I'm wondering what would happen if I took a match to it and walked out...well I mean assuming that just the stuff burned and not the apartment as I'm not really looking to add that piece of crazy to my resume. 

But aside from just the stuff we own, our new apartment is a lot bigger, including a second full bedroom and bathroom. By full bedroom I mean not these closet sized bedrooms we have been utilizing (...uh....utilizing...really I used that word?) for the past 8 years or so. In fact we think it's going to be big enough for some queen sized mattresses along with our office furniture...but might be a bit tight......WAIT! We have queen sized mattresses that are really uncomfortable. If we move those to the second bedroom...we would have to get new mattresses that are comfy...like clouds. 

On Tuesday we went to the apartment to get the keys and the apartment is all ready for us to move in. I wish they would have really known that it was going to be ready because then we could have moved on Saturday. After just sitting in the apartment for about an hour we walked around our new hood with huge smiles plastered on our faces. We walked by a mattress store and we decided to see what they had going on. Of course I'm brilliant (I mean I do have PhD you know) and I laid on the most expensive mattress first. You know what the means right? Every other mattress in the store sucks ass. So we laid on a bunch of them and tried out the memory foam ones and some other types. Finally we settled on a pillow top type thing that had all that kind of foam stuff in it. It was really comfortable and when we got home we wondered how we could have ever slept on our current mattress. The place we got the mattress was called Sleep City right on Clark just south of Belmont. The owner's name is Charlie and so far I would highly recommend the place. Charlie was really nice and owned that store and another Sleep City on Diversey. We could have had the mattress whenever we wanted but as our bed frame won't be there still Sunday we have to wait till Monday. 

We also have a second bathroom and so will need to get bathroom stuff in there and so we looked around Linens' and Things. Kinda wish my mom was up here from Florida to help pick out stuff. I think she would get as psyched up as me about little things like shower curtain hooks (yes I might be one of those people). Understandably most people do not....but I suppose most mothers and daughters do. She is going to come to Chicago for Mother's day in the spring though and help us get some flowers and stuff for our back porch. 

Our apartment is almost completely packed up and ready to go, which is awesome and terrifying. We are going to take our electronics over to the new place before the move I think and I'm going to call the movers today and see if there is *any* way we can move our move up from Sunday to Saturday. I'm sure we can't, but I might as well ask. 

Alright. How about that for a ramblin' post. Stay tuned for our next installment when we talk about how we are pretty sure we are going to join a gym similar to Average Joe's in Dodgeball.

The Office

Not the TV show....rather our office at home. It's looking like it's about halfway done. It's been funny reading peoples blogs and twitters when they talk about moving. It's such a horrible process and everyone thinks they own too much stuff and there is always this feeling of we'll never have enough boxes. My cousin gave us a ton of small boxes but not many large or medium sized ones. I don't know how she moved her stuff, but she owns way less than I do I guess. So Jason and I ran over to Home Depot last night at 9pm to buy some larger sized boxes. If you saw a girl in a ratty IU t-shirt and some rockin' pink shorts, that was me. 

We are being very good about throwing stuff away, but there are just some things that I'm like...hmm....would I care if I let this go? No, but that doesn't mean I want to let it go. But I hate owning stuff....so anyways, it's annoying. We need to get the office completely emptied then we can move some boxes back into there to get it out of the dining room. Dawn mentioned that professional movers take the boxes first so I'm going to call them and find out if that is in fact the case because if it is we are closer than we thought. 

Tonight we are going to pick up the keys for the new place. We are wondering if they are just giving us keys or if they are giving us keys if the old tenant has moved out...in which case....well we can go sleep on the floor in our new place :-). I'm so excited to get out of our old place. I just wish it be over already. I'm always a nervous wreck on moving days....but this might be easier as we have professional movers and so hopefully most everything is done so I can step back and just watch the moving magic happen. 

Great Weekend...But Sad Ending

This weekend Jason and I headed to Fort Wayne where his parents threw us a big PhD graduation party. They invited so many people including a lot of Jason's teachers from middle and high school (Jason's dad is a teacher at the school Jason went to so knows all of these people). It was fun to meet all of them. So a big thank you to them. Also want to thank Lisa, Evin, Mike and Barb for making the trek from Chicago to help celebrate. 

Our best friend Joe and his new girlfriend Heather also came. Every time I have seen Joe lately it has been a lot of..."Hey, yeah I'm tired. What's up." So it was so great to see him with all the stress melted away. We all stayed in Fort Wayne on Saturday night and enjoyed a big ihop breakfast on Sunday morning. 

After breakfast we headed back over to Jason's parents house where we found that Jason's grandfather had taken a bad turn. Jason's mom talked with one of her brothers and it was decided that he go into hospice care as his quality of life has deteriorated enough that it's time to make that decision. It's looking like we will back in Fort Wayne in the next few days. So a sad Sunday.

We stayed for awhile in Fort Wayne to help out as much as we could but then decided we had to get home as our packing needed to be an expedited process as we don't know what's going to happen in the next week. We got home around 5pm and just decided to not cook anything this week and so we packed up the entire kitchen. We left out a couple of plates and bowls and glasses but other than that everything is in a box and broken down. We have put everything into the dining room which as I was looking at last night I was realizing was probably a bad decision as you can't get to our furniture in the living room. SO. I think once we get the office packed (tonight and tomorrow) we can move all the boxes into there and then there will be a path for the furniture to get back out of the house. Getting the kitchen done was a huge step. The office is still a *disaster* but that should be done soon as well and then I think we'll be just about good to go which is nice. I'm starting to get really nervous because I haven't heard back from the dude that I am supposed to get the keys from so I've got to give him a call back and hopefully get a hold of him. 

So that's what's going on here. Kinda a lot and just hoping the week isn't *too* stressful. 

Wait...didn't I finish school?

Uh...apparently not and the hours in the days don't seem to be enough.

For some reason...and the reason is Jason's procrastination ways...theAdviser wants the thesis submitted NOW. I also want it done and so I'm glad he's pushing hard for this to get fixed and turned in. The deal is that your committee reads your thesis and then marks it up with comments etc, you fix all that and then submit it...turn in mounds of paper work and then if all the eggs are in the correct basket your thesis is accepted by the graduate school and 3 months later they mail you your degree.

So Right. I'm on the first step. Earlier in the evening I got off the phone with one of my committee members who wanted to go through the thesis commets in person and so I have all the corrections in hand. Some are just typo corrections and some are not as trivial.

Tonight I have to make some plots to send in to the reviewers for my publication and so my plan is to get that done. Then tomorrow I'm going to get going on the thesis corrections. Hopefully it's all done by the end of the night...whenever that might be. I also have to write the acknowledgments which is a non-trivial endeavor

Jason and I managed to squeeze in a 3 mile run this evening and are just going to watch the cubs have some dinner (which is going to be *awesome* as we are trying to eat all the food we have left before we move...so Mac & Cheese it is) and then try to get to bed at a reasonable hour and not think about the disaster that is our apartment at the moment.

Looking Better

Well Ok, obviously, this beautiful newness wasn't all me. It was time to finally get a new template, although from there I was able to make some good changes (just say they are good). I'll just keep it here for now and as I learn more or whatever maybe I'll keep changing it, for now though I think it's good and I like the new simple look.

Yesterday was just a typical Monday morning. The new apprentice started and so I'm not longer the newest employee...even if it is only by a week. I finished reading the HTML book and I'm moving onto some Rails/Ruby stuff as well as starting to work with a dude on updating the design on the Obtiva website.

After work Jason and I walked home like we like to do. The plan was to run to Powells to sell some books as they said their buyer would be there after 4:30. I told Jason to call to make sure as it's not in our neighborhood....he did and apparently the buyer left at 5pm. WTF. Apparently this magical buy will be back on Wednesday and will be there all day. Those books that Powells doesn't buy we'll take to the most excellent used book store on Clark and Wellington(?). Last time he just took all the left overs we had and gave us some cash. Nice guy.

Tonight I have a phone conference with one of my thesis committee members to go through the corrections to my thesis. My goal to have it submitted by Friday. I finished up some other things for theAdviser last night for the publication and so maybe this could start to be the end of all that stuff.....we'll see.....it's seemingly always something else.

Jason packed up all the CDs and DVDs last night and so we are getting there, one step at a time. We also decided to cancel our Comcast cable as they are super expensive and wouldn't give us the triple play deal even though we were moving....which I don't understand. In our new neighborhood we can get RCN so we did that and got DVR added on as well as The Big10 Network, and the NFL network so that should be fun.....although IU is going to be super crappy in bball this year....so maybe not the year to have it.

Alright, well on to Tuesday...or 13 day before we are out of this crappy apartment (I already feel bad for my future children as I know they are going to be all, "MOM I KNOW ABOUT THAT CRAPPY APARTMENT. Why do we have to drive by it again? We know we know...you didn't have any money and now you think it's funny".) Alright, LeahC out.

What's Up!

That's right...it's probably going to look a little crazy around these parts as I attempt to take somethings I have learned at work and apply it here in my tiny corner of the web. I'm guessing every time you come here things will look different :-) Thanks for the patience. 

Oh ... blog update. Ran 5 miles yesterday although ended it with a screaming headache, gave us 12 miles on the week. 

Had a great weekend with the Obtiva family outing on one of the boats on lake Michigan...had a crazy busy Sunday as we had tons to do and got through lots of packing. We are moving in 13 days (!!!) which is uber exciting. 

That's all for now!

Fun Evenings and a Packed Weekend

The last two nights have been good times in the LeahC/JasonR households. On Wednesday night we went to Wildfire for dinner where we enjoyed too much food and way too much wine to celebrate our 4 year wedding anniversary (I can't believe it's 4 years already!).

Last night Jason had drinks with his work peeps and I went along just cause that's how I roll. Home late last night and I fell asleep on the couch watching the Olympics.

This weekend should be fun as there is an Obtiva family outing on a boat on Lake Michigan to enjoy the air and water show, but there is also going to be lots of packing as well as a trip to Fermilab to pick up somethings from my adviser and drop off stuff to take back to Bloomington to get signed and turned in.

Tonight we are going to run and do some packing. Super fun!

Wow....I'm bad at blogging in the early hours. Ah well.

Blogging at NIght?

Wait...running at night? Both? 

Wow...it's been over 6 years since I have been on a regular schedule. Not that I haven't been worked harder than a red headed step child over that time, but it was all the time and not in one block. So I could say, hey time for a break, so let's go for a run at 2 pm and then come back and finish things up. I don't even think I work very well with that kind of schedule however as I'm pretty driven by schedules, and todo lists and it helps to be like, ok, every day you get up at 5:30, get ready, go downtown, enjoy the coffee shop, work 8 hours, go home, run, eat go to bed. It's just funny to get used to again. 

So today that schedule listed above is just about what we did. I woke up at 5:20 and dozed in and out until the alarm went off at 6am. Then I went and enjoyed the Corner Bakery and read the paper and a book for work. Then it was another enjoyable day in the Obtiva studio where I got a new MacBook (which was a total surprise as I didn't know I would be getting a new laptop)  and did some reading as well as shadowing two of the dudes that work there. 

I met Jason at his building and we came home, and went out for probably about a 3.5 or so mile run. And now it's time to relax, watch some Olympics, eat some frozen pizza and get ready to do it all again tomorrow!

Quickly!

The first day at the new job was awesome. Really good people that work there....but I am noticing that now that I am working there isn't going to be all the lalala.....I think it's 12:57 and I'll blog now. The routine will fall into place though as time goes by.

Up early this morning to beat the rush downtown and to do some reading.

3 miles on the schedule for tonight.

Unplugged

Well it's been awhile since the ole' JasonLeahRun has been updated. After the defense last week I just wanted to unplug for a bit as the weight of that PhD was finally off my shoulders and it would be a week until my new job started. So that's just what I did.

I first want to thank everyone in my family for coming to support me and watch my dissertation presentation (usually no family goes to that, and I had both parents, step parents and inlaws there) and hang out with Jason and I in Bloomington. It was so nice having all of you there. A big thank you to Rick, my adviser, as without his help, guidance and patience there is no way I would have finished the program. Lastly...of course Jason, thank you....you are my everything.

So there, now that I got my awards speech out of the way, what else has been happening in LeahC's world....quickly as it's been awhile!

After the defense Jason and I stayed in Bloomington by ourselves and walked all over campus and went to check out the dorms we had lived in our freshman year and all the places that we loved so much while we were living there. The weekend after the defense was my cousin's wedding which was awesomely fun although I think although the shoes I wore completely completed the dress outfit, I think they also completely broke my toes....ah well, as my aunt says, it's painful to be beautiful sometimes (especially for those of us that usually walk around in Converse and patagonia flip flops). My cousin had a whole wedding weekend with a brunch and a cubs game the Sunday after the wedding which was really fun....after the Cubs game Jason and I came home and passed out around 8pm.

Monday I had planned on doing nothing, but with me that always lasts for about an hour. For the rest of the day I walked around the city and headed to Borders to get some Photoshop books as my dad got me the Creative Suite 3 for my graduation present (I'm *so* excited about it...but oh so much to learn!). Tuesday morning I headed out to Michigan to my aunt and uncle's lake house which was a total blast! I just played with my little cousins for 2 days including taking the 8 year old (she's almost 9) on a walk around the lake to go to the candy store....it's about 5 miles around. She's quite the little trooper though and made with only minimal complaining :-)

Thursday I helped my dad and Sue run some errands as they were leaving on Friday morning. Friday I really did nothing until about 2pm when I went down to Wicker Park to sit there and read for a few hours while I waited for Bridgette to come into town for the weekend.

We have had a good time with Bridgette these last few days. She's still sleeping and so I am thinking that I successfully wore her out yesterday like I had hoped to do. We got up early and went to get manicures and pedicures, then headed downtown where we walked through millennium park over to the lakefront path and then onto the architectural tour which although expensive...was really really fun even for this Chicago native. From there we jumped onto the bus, back to our apartment to change, then walked through West Fest a few times and then back to Ashland to get back on the bus to go East. Off at the brown line, then we walked through our new neighborhood and showed Bridgette our new apartment...seriously we are going to be arrested for stalking soon enough as we keep doing walk by and drive bys. From there we walked into the thick of Wrigleyville, noticed that we are really close to a Penny's noodles, and then had a beer at a bar. From there it was off to Matsuya for dinner with Bridgette's aunt who is awesome and bought us dinner AND gave us a ride home. THANKS VICKI!!!

In sad news, Jason's grandfather is very very sick and so he headed to Fort Wayne today to be with his mom and to hopefully see his grandfather. I think he might have gotten a little better yesterday evening, but I'll know more when I talk to the JMan.

So that brings us to today. Sunday. You know what comes after Sunday. Monday. And this particular Monday is super special because I start my new job at Obtiva. I'm pretty nerved up about it, but as the people that work there are some of the nicest people that I have met I'm guessing they will make it pretty comfortable when I start. So that should be a really really exciting and fun day.

So that's it. Bridgette just woke up and so we are going to walk to a diner to get some breakfast and then we are heading back downtown for some shopping and some beach time!

Oh running...yeah not so much. I don't care though, I have been basking in the glow of being finished with graduate school. Running will be getting going again shortly. Maybe the name of this blog should be, jasonleahneverrun.....well maybe not.