patience

apparently patience is a fruit of the spirit that the Lord is still refining in me, because i am certainly lacking it today. we are still waiting to hear about the offer, and i seriously think i might gnaw my arm off in anticipation. i've been up and down from my desk so many times this morning you'd think me a close relative to a mexican jumping bean. we won't even go into the number of visits i've made to the bathroom (it doesn't help that i'm on my 4th cup of tea). each phone call is a dash of hope that it's our realtor only to be quickly dismissed when i see the caller ID. patience. this whole process takes lots of patience and i know the Lord is putting me through the fire so that i come out all refined and shiny, but man, if i'd known it was going to take so long i might have suggested working on a different fruit of the spirit.

why isn't rest (aka napping) a fruit of the spirit? i'd love to learn more of that one!

sigh of relief

well, as tiring as it may have been, our trip to chicago was a success! we found an apartment and it's quite adorable. we will be living on the third floor again (i seem to have a thing for third floors, as i have lived on the third floor of whatever building i was in since my freshman year of college - no joke). we're right downtown, within walking distance of a paper source store and a borders bookstore (and lots of other cute shops). what you can't see from these pictures is the massive living room at the front our apartment. you can only see through the entry way from the dining room (hence, the chandelier hanging there) and get a glimpse of the one window. it actually has three windows across the front and another one on the left hand side. with a decorative fireplace/mantel on the right side of the room. the room itself is 24x14.5, so we will need to find a way to use up all that space! we don't have tons of closet space, which i will miss, but i do get a butler's pantry (swinging door and all)!

all that to be said, it is a huge relief to know that we have a place waiting for us on May 1. and it was quite obvious that this was where the Lord wanted us because the other places we looked didn't even come close to measuring up.

work has been insanely busy for both of us and there seems to be so much going on right now that i am very much looking forward to a quite weekend to just rest and relax, hopefully. i'm already anticipating a nice mid day nap on saturday AND sunday.

windy city

our adventures in the windy city were quite fun. we had wonderful weather (the sun was out for 3 of the 4 days i was there, which i count as great!) and got to spend some great time with friends.

it's an enjoyable city to walk around in. i strolled up and down michigan avenue for most of the day last friday. the crate and barrel store is 5 floors! it was shopping bliss.

then i stumbled upon this: a hershey's store in chicago.

forgive me, but having visited chocolate world many a time as a child (and even as a teenager) i was a bit amused by this recreation of the factory right here in downtown. for a mere $14.95 you could get a little factory worker's hat, a tin pail, and a photo of yourself spinning random wheels on a giant tube, with lights flashing all to get some chocolate to pour out into your pail. i actually got to see some lovely tourist (i must assume it was a tourist, i mean what chicago native in their right mind would do such a thing?) partake in this lighted chocolate extravaganza. it was fairly amusing. and all i could think was... "they are so missing out on not being able to experience the rotating floors you encounter when trying to board the ride at chocolate world" (because let's face it, for those of you that have been there, that's the most exciting part). so if you're ever in the hershey's store in chicago, please know that the actual hershey, pa has much more fun to offer.

Those other beans...

tonight i snacked on some edamame as part of my dinner and as i was trying to bite down on one of the pods to get at the beans inside, one of them popped out and kind of flew across the room. in picking it up i noticed what a wonderful shade of green they were and proceeded to "shell" a bunch more in order to photograph them. 

look at that green! what a springy color! i can almost taste them all over again.

chi-town here i come

well we did not have any showings this weekend. and while that should be disappointing, i'm much too excited about my trip to chicago on wednesday to dwell on it. apartment hunting i will go!

plus i also enormous fun this weekend having a game night with friends saturday evening. it was guys against girls which is always a great recipe for fun and laughter. the guys beat us at catch phrase but we triumphed when it came to playing pictionary.

in the following two pictures they are drawing the same clue, can you guess what it is? (and yes, we were playing with a handicap and still won - as one of our team members was drawing with a broken wrist)



i'll give you a clue: it was a person, place or thing.