House tour

[mamagotcha]

Hey, I figured if I waited until the house was actually cleaned up and ready to be photographed, I'd never get it done. So you're getting a glimpse of our space as it is right now... messy and a bit cluttery, but it's working for us right now. Come on in!

ETA: If you click through to the Flickr page, there's a way to turn on the comments so you can see what I wrote about each photo.

Comments

[mamagotcha.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, most of the nicer bookshelves and our bedroom set are all the lighter oak stuff... that's why I decided to keep those and mostly jettison the larger darker shelves (still kept a few, though... we got rid of a LOT of books, but still had enough to justify a couple. And there's another one in Clay's room, too).

Our basement is underground with thick stone/brick walls and 3" thick glass block windows. You don't hear the drums much outside at all. Indoors, it's another story... but there are apartment drum sets that are supposed to be pretty nice.

Bill's loving his job so far; he's almost done with his first term, and will be teaching a couple graduate courses starting in January. He gets a big freshman class next fall. His lab is pretty much all set up, he already had a student request that he be one of his advisers, and he's getting deliveries of his fly stocks.

DePaul seems to be doing well through the recession so far, although most departments aren't hiring at all (biology is actually looking to hire one more teacher, though, because their teacher/student ratio is one of the highest in the school and they want to bring it into line with the other departments).

The commute has been okay so far... he bikes one mile to the Metra (commuter train), rides for about 15 minutes, and walks the last mile. He says it's about 45 minutes door-to-door, which is shorter than we thought it would be when we decided to rent here. He's mostly liking the exercise, but we'd like to get him a folding bike eventually so he can carry it on the train and bike on both ends of the commute. I figure I'll drive him to the station and he'll taxi the last mile on really awful days.

I'm having fun exploring... we found a good local game store, joined the closest Y (where guys can rent rooms!), took a class at the Old Town School of Music, found a local vet, visited a local dentist and optometrist, and headed to a doctor on Thursday, scoping out the libraries and such, signed up for Peapod, found a mechanic to work on the car, meeting homeschool folks, etc. etc. The drivers here are FAR better and more courteous than in KC, but the parking situation is abysmal. I'm working on using the El when I can, but for some stuff, like bringing the dog or hauling cases of food, I need the van. I still haven't found an accessible Nia class, which is kind of discouraging, but everything else has been easy to find (fabric store, drug store, knitting store, Target, etc. etc.).