25 days, 24 nights

until we move. this july, i will have been a chicagoan (or at least a wisconsin transplant in chicago) for 12 years. crazy. and april 30, my family and i embark upon what will be my 7th residence/move in the past dozen years. while i think about it, it does sound like a lot, but my whole life has been a nomadic lifestyle from the day i turned 18 years and got the hell out of argyle.

if i try to count, can i even pinpoint my different addresses?

argyle: 2
river falls: 3
wisconsin dells: 5
oshkosh: 6
chicago: 7

so - 23 places in my 34.almost 35 years? eesh.

but i'm SO ready to move. between the sketch pad bums that infest the third floor of my building and the frat party bros directly above us and the seasonal cockroaches and gangbangers in our basement - i. am. so. done. we had to call our landlord to report police/security issues eleven times in two years. i mean, c'mon. that's not even bitching about the gross/annoying stuff, that's just 'oh there was a gunshot in our building two floors up and we have little kids, so uh, yeah,' or 'our storage unit was broken into by the gangbangers who got pissed when we ratted them out for letting their buddies sleep/live in our basement where we keep our stroller, so uh, yeah,' or 'there's a homeless dude sleeping outside our unit on the stairwell, anything you can do about that?'

UGH.

moving is expensive. you have to a) pay to get out of your lease at said slum; b) pay moving application fees, background check fees, move-in fees, mover fees, extra babysitting hours so your kids don't drive you even more crazy than you already are when packing your million boxes (that you had to pay for on amazon), and alllllll the random shit that type A crazy OCD people like me insist is necessary for making a new house a 'home' (see: random impulse buys at marshall's - new oven mitts, kitchen towels, cupboard/cabinet thingy for cats to shit in, new rugs, blah blah blahhh).

but you guys i am so excited. for real.

for the first time in my adult life (i dont count the college years bc i had no identity and listened to good charlotte and newfound glory and wore plaid pants and boyscout shirts), i will have a BACKYARD. like, a real one. fenced in. ON THE PARK. with not one, but two playgrounds within our line of sight. a two car garage! remember that time my car got completely totaled just by being parked in front of my apartment last year? because some dumb bitchass kid didn't know how to parallel park and it ate 12k out of my savings that i still haven't rebounded from? well at least that won't happen in our private secured garage. and we can buy a picnic table! a kiddie pool! a grill! mama can have beers in her backyard! lounge in my mom swimsuit with spotted cows while the kids run around. holy hell. with all of this, you'd think we're just living in someone else's backyard. but nope. we have private free laundry too! what the what??? it's a lovely bottom unit of a two flat in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, but that's besides the point. it's a really lovely family friendly quiet residential street. sure, my commute to the office will be 20 minutes more inconvenient, and i'll prob end up putting some kid who's dad is an uber driver through college, but - no more gunshots! no more break-ins! NO MORE PARTY BROS LISTENING TO THE BACKSTREET BOYS. (i mean what, why even?)

it's more space. it's safe. it has all the comforts we need. with a dishwasher! as a mom to little kids who never even has time to use the restroom without company barging in, dishwashers and laundry onsite is like a halleeffinglullah. and we got sunrooms.

and the best part? it's only a couple hundro more than our current rent. i feel like an ass for not getting out of our squalor earlier. and it's a good school zone!

so yeah. 25 days. 24 nights. and then, we move.

it's not out of the city like i initially envisioned. turns out, it really does take a village to raise a fam with lil kiddos. so we're not going anywhere until the boys are big enough to not need grandparents and nanny help. i keep saying 'minnesota 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019. . . .' yeah. we're in chicago.

even with this umpteenth winter wave (i mean snow? in april? gimme a goddamn break), i'm still super stoked for summer time, even if it means we completely skip over spring.

you can catch me sipping pbr's with a straw in a sexy fashionable mom swimsuit in a kiddie pool (maybe or maybe not sporting bright blue brand new oven mitts, b/c they are so fly). i'll be the freckly whale just off the river park, bumping some moana and frozen songs on the bluetooth speaker - with or without kids.

here's to life dealing you a shitty hand and karma doubling down to make it up to you. let's hope there's no 24th move before year 15 as a sconnie transplant.