So Far in Chicago ...

We've been here almost a week. I'm at a B&N right now. I wrote this first part the second day we were here, the part that's italicized down below. Then I'll recap some other stuff. I'll also try to choose the last of the winners while I'm able to do so right now, and promise when I get home to do the grand prize drawing. I've got a huge stack of great books that I got from my old house here that I'll be taking back with to give to the grand prize winner(s)!

Here's the first thoughts I had upon return here:

I feel displaced. We’re back ‘home’. Literally, in our old neighborhood, and I never thought it would be this emotional. It’s like I have discovered I really don’t have a home now. We went back to our old house today. My daughter, “Diva” broke down when she walked in, and that made me cry. It brought back too many memories. She said, “That’s the tree we used to climb in.” We saw the swing set they played on forever. So many things in the home are still ours. Things we left behind for the new owners. It’s still a beautiful house, we loved that house, it’s still a great house. It might have been a mistake to go back. To be at a party there, with the new family and their people, their friends, their family. We felt displaced.

Then I think back to our house in Arizona. I’m trying to think of how it looks, what it’s like. I was just there two days ago. It’s like I can’t remember it. Does it feel like “our” home? Just because it’s got “our” stuff in it? My kids are here now, in Chicago, the place they grew up, and you’d not believe what they’re like—they are so happy here. My oldest has been with his best friend non-stop, running around having a blast, and so has Tukey. Diva has spent the whole time with her best friend, sleeping over there, swimming, doing each others’ hair. They have missed each other like crazy.
I’ve seen a bunch of girlfriends. I’ve cried. I don’t have friends like this in Scottsdale. I mean I have friends, some really great ones, but not a huge bunch of close friends in my neighborhood like I did here. And not a big group. Not yet. I haven’t tried all that hard. My neighborhood in AZ is not like this one. Not like I can tell my kids to just go on out and come home at dinner time. This neighborhood in Illinois is a 1950s dream ‘hood. Go out, play all day with your friends, and when you hear me call you for dinner, come home. That’s what we lived when we were here. Damn, I missed it. I realize it now. And now, it’s like we’ve got to relive the whole moving away from Chicago all over again when we go back home to AZ in a few weeks. I don’t know how my kids will react when it’s time to go home.
So, I'm not feeling THAT sad now. And hey, I've since heard there was a HORRIBLE SAND STORM by where we live in Scottsdale. Have you guys heard about it? Whoever reads this and lives there, please comment and tell me how bad it was! I don't know if I'd rather be in a sandstorm like THAT or be in the Blizzard Chicago had here last winter?

We went to Naperville Ribfest when we got here with neighbor friends and had a blast--REO Speedwagon played and a band called DOT DOT DOT opened for them and they actually were really GREAT! I have to google them to find out more about them. Then Saturday was kind of a melancholy day because we went back to our old house and where I wrote that stuff above. Sunday we had a GREAT day in our old hood with awesome neighbors and friends at a pool party, and Monday we went to a friend's lakehouse.

SUMMER SHANDYs are a plenty out here and I've finally found the drink of choice (aside from my beloved POOL BOYS) that do not give me hangovers!

Then Monday we headed to Mr. Manic's boyhood home and met up with his sister and her family and I got to see my nephew and two nieces, one of whom I never met, and they are ADORABLE! We got so much lovin' from them.

And then... THEN, Tuesday night, I got my U2 redemption! We saw Bono! Last time I was supposed to see U2, this is the horrible thing that happened to me. So let me tell you, it was awesome that I FINALLY got to be at a U2 show! And it ROCKED! And they played ONE TREE HILL, which apparently they've only played it four times EVER! And With Or Without You was awesome, and so was Where The Streets Have No Name, and I personally vote Bono for President!

Yesterday we had an awesome day doing a whole family photo shoot and there are pics on FB if you're my FB friend, and if you're not my FB friend, go ahead and FB friend me, just tell me you know me from MaNiC MoMMy when you friend me. I gotta run now but thanks for checking in!

xo MaNiC