After finally finishing my blog about the Colorado trip, it is now time to talk about an event that happened a little over a week ago, moving to Chicago.
Let's pickup from where we left off, just ending the most amazing week of my life with another Deer Tick show back in Chicago on Saturday night.
It is now Sunday August 24th, 2014.
Aunt Lil and I on her birthday!
John and I take off relatively early from Rachel's place in the city and I head home for a family party for my Aunt Lil. We have the party at Auntie Wanda’s. It is good to catch up with relatives and I tell them about my journey, unfortunately with no photos. There was great food and great company, resulting in a great party! My Dad and I stop at IKEA on the way home and pick up a new desk for my new place I will be moving to at the end of the week. It is pretty darn heavy, but I man up and carry that box out of IKEA all the way to the car, instead of wheeling it out on a dolly. Man Strength.
Monday August 25, Tuesday the 26th, and Wednesday the 27th were all spent packing for the new place.
ACS summer camp tees, keep or toss?
Thursday 8/28 I am starting to get really excited about the new place, but still going through boxes and packing. Nothing new except realizing I have more than a lot of stuff. Stuff explains it well because most of it is not essential, yet I feel attached to it and do not want to see it go. I am making progress though and beginning to let go of more and more of this "stuff" since I really have no use for it anymore. We are talking about old childhood toys, posters, clothes, stuffed animals, things like that. Don't worry though, all the essentials like adult clothes, photos I have taken, computer equipment, video equipment, and my DVD collection are all being packed up.
Fri 8/29
Had to work pretty early, but was planning on getting out early as well, unfortunately I had to wait for the boss to get back with my keys, so I had to wait an extra 2 hours, but got the keys, so it was worth it. That night we ordered Jets Pizza for my final meal living at home. Half hawaiin and half bbq chicken. Mmm tasty Jets. I finish up the majority of preparing for the move by packing up my car and putting the rest of the larger items in the garage. I head to bed just around midnight. I found out the next day, Rachel was up until 4:30 am packing. Dedication! What a lady!
Some classic phrases put together by YaBoys over the years, found on the filing cabinet, in my room. You know many kids who had a filing cabinet as a kid? High class.
Sat 8/30
Move in Day! I wake up and go get the Uhaul with my Dad. Then we pack it up and head to the city to buy a couch off a guy on craigslist. Very nice guy and very nice leather coach with 2 recliners. Pretty heavy and somehow he took it upstairs by himself when he moved in. Must have been his giant calves. Man strength! We then drive over to Rachel's current place and began to put her items in the UHaul. Her parents arrive and meet my parents for the first time! Exciting times for everyone. We pack up most of her stuff, leaving a little for a second trip later that day.
Brian was nice enough to come help us move after playing volleyball. We drive over to the new place and get a perfect spot to start the move in, just in time too because 2 or 3 other groups moved in the same day and we beat them to get a good parking spot for the truck. The move in could not have gone any more perfect, even though the place was pretty dusty and dirty, everything else went flawless. No rain, we had a good system going and everyone was helping out in different ways. I can’t thank my parents, my sister, Rachel’s parents, & Brian enough for all of the help. We couldn’t have done it without everyone. My family heads out around 2:30 after a full hard working morning of moving in. Brian stayed around and sorted through all 360 or so of my DVDs, putting them in alphabetic order and arranging them on the bookshelf, or shall I say movieshelf. Amazing.
Rachel’s parents help us do a few more things around the place and then we go out to eat right across the street around 6pm. First meal of the day tastes so darn good. I had a chicken sandwich. After dropping Rachel’s Parents off at their car (we did some rearranging of the cars earlier by still parking at Rachel’s), we head back to our place for our first night living together. We do a little more unpacking, cleaning, and organizing. Rachel falls asleep on our new comfy couch watching Friends as a I start putting my new desk together. About half way through I am pretty tired and we call it a night. What a day. Here is a little gallery from the move in.
Sun 8/31
I wake up and finish putting my desk together, while setting more of the apartment up. I clean the apartment, mopping the floor twice over, moving things around in the process. We go shopping to Walmart Express, Bed Bath & beyond and TJ maxx to pick up some things for the place. We decide on Wing Stop for dinner, which is just a few doors down. Chili Lime & Mild wings are our choice for the day. Surprisingly the same price as it is in Naperville. Delicious.
Around 9pm friends come over to check out the new place. Brian brings John McCoughly’s pick from the DT show at the Metro. First he helps with the move, now he honors us with a Deer Tick pick, what a noble man. Grant, Becca, and her roommate come over and we play Loaded Questions as well as Cheers Governor. Rach and Becca head out to GasLight Bar down the street, and Brian, Grant, & I jam out to some Deer Tick for another hour so. They both leave and I head to GasLight to meet up with Rach and Becca. We have a couple of beers that Rachel so kindly bought and then head back to our new place to crash for the night.
Mon 9/1
-Wake up late, clean a little then nap on the couch for a few hours.
Around 3pm wake up and start to clean and organize more. Have canned soup for lunch. Listen to Deer Tick for a solid 2 hours while swiffering the floor and cleaning. Head out to the store around 7pm and pick up some things, as well as McDonalds for dinner. 3 mcdoubles, 3 mcchikens, and a large fry, which came out to exactly $10. We must remember this order when we only have $10. We eat McDonalds while we watch Divergent. Divergent is a bit different than the book, but still a pretty good movie.
Tue 9/2
I found out about the huge celebrity nude leak at work. Apparently not having internet and being buys moving in over the weekend caused me to miss some serious internet news. The drive to and from work that day was not too bad at all. That night I brought weights back to the new place and got a decent workout in. I cooked some tasty pasta with peppers, onions, and brats for dinner with Rachel.
Wed 9/3
I took lower wacker on the way to work on Wednesday, which gave me memories from the movie The Dark Knight. I stopped at the parents’ house after work and did some serious cleaning and organizing, trying to get rid of old clothes and items I won’t be using anymore. I have also began to listen to Speak for the Dead (2nd book in Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card) on CD for my longer drives.
Thur 9/4
Standard day of life including work, eating, sleeping, and working out. I also finally received my prize pack from a stick trick contest on laxallstars. Pretty cool shorts. Gotta love free gear.
Fri 9/5
Worked late and then got home and met Rachel’s friends out at Gaslight. After a drink we had them come over to our place and played some drinking games and talked. We also played Deer Tick for them all night. Nice people and friends and always a good time with some DT on.
Sat 9/6
Woke up late and got Chipotle for lunch. The lady who was making my burrito sucked at wrapping it and ended up breaking it, throwing out the shell and some of my burrito with it, then tearing it again the second time she tried. I left a little upset, so stopped at McDonald’s on the way home and picked up and ate a McChicken before indulging in my burrito at home while watching Breaking Bad. After cleaning up and such, we had Tori over for what was going to be a grillout for dinner. Unfortunately we found out that the grills on our patio do not provide us with the propane to actually grill, so instead we just got to see some really big spiders. We came back up to our apartment and grilled burgers on the George Foreman. They actually turned out to be pretty good. Since they were smaller I had 2 double burgers. I topped them off with a couple of gummies and we had more friends over for the night.
Everyone has enjoyed seeing our place which is always a good thing! We found out that one of our friends who occasionally tweets/instagrams for KFC took a photo of Rachel and Sarah. Only Rachel made the picture, but look at that latina hand, lovely. Rachel looking cute has caused the photo to get 4387 likes right now! Woo! Most peeps ending up going out, but I was determined to finish my Colorado blog, so I stayed in and worked on the blog until Rachel returned around 2 AM.
Sun 9/7
Rachel and I watched a bunch of episodes of Breaking Bad while eating some tasty frozen Jacks Pizza. We finished season 4 and the show is getting really good. I love the character development and cannot wait to see how the show ends with season 5. Only 16 episodes left! To Rachel’s dismay, I also watched a good amount of football. To be fair, it is the opening weekend! The Bears looked pretty poopy and proved it by losing to the Bills. I am excited for football to be back though. It is by far the best sport to watch along with hockey and lacrosse. Everything else I could really care less about, except maybe some world cup soccer. I spent my evening staying up pretty late finishing my Colorado blog, but finally finished and posted it as you all saw.
Mon 9/8
I actually finished my blog this morning, not Sunday night and posted it up. Be sure to check it out, as it has close to 100 photos of the beautiful landscapes in Colorado. After work, I stopped at home and grilled up 15 brats for the family. A tasty dinner for all!
Speaking of brats, it has been 3 years since cookout 2.
I leave you with this photo from the early 90s. Thanks for sending Aunt Lil!
Yaboy
Josh