ChiKat

It has taken WEEKS for our alley to be paved. They totally over-hauled the entire alley. At the end of the alley, there is now a stamp carved into the pavement designating the alley as a City of Chicago Green Alley.

I had no idea what this meant, but it turns out we have a FANCY alley! The grading, pitch and material of the alley all help facilitate drainage into the ground rather than the sewer system. In addition, the alley is made from recycled materials. The handbook even shows pretty plants along the alley, but I don't think we are getting *that* nice of an alley.

I'll just be happy if they actually finish the alley. The entire alley is paved, but the connecting ramp from our lot to the alley is just a gaping hole that my little VW Golf cannot traverse. So I've been parking on the street along with everyone else from the alley for the past two weeks.

Having the alley closed to parking has meant there is hardly any parking on the street these days. Yet the nearby University insists that the new 800+ bed dorm isn't going to impact street parking at all. Give me a break.

My son was born with black hair and blue eyes. My husband and I both have dark brown hair and brown eyes, so the black hair wasn't a surprise. The blue eyes were a bit of a surprise, but lots of kids are born with blue eyes that change to a darker color after a few months.

Rather than having those blue eyes turn brown, but son has gone the opposite way. His blue eyes are still the prettiest blue ever, and his hair has gone from jet black to light, light brown with streaks of blond in it.

BLOND.

Who does this child belong to?

I have two bad qualities that I am trying to change.

The first is that I can be very judgmental. I try to be laid-back and open-minded. I try to be calm. But really, those aren't my natural qualities. Worse, if I say something snide or point out something funny about someone, my husband often laughs. So I think we have been encouraging each other to be more cynical and judgmental.

I don't want to be that person, so we've both been trying to be nicer people. (So far, my husband says we are becoming boring, but hopefully we will adjust to these new-found higher standards).

My other bad quality is my concern about what other people think about me. I want to be confident in my decision and not care what other people think. But I really care what they think. It's so ridiculous.

When I was pregnant, I distinctly remember talking with a group of friends and agreeing with them that there was no good reason to leave the city. There was no reason why we couldn't raise children in the city. Of course, this was at a time when my husband had an easy 10-minute stroll to work. Not needing to drive or depend on the CTA made this neighborhood so much more livable for us.

I do remember at the time saying that the Chicago Public School system worried me, but that was my only concern. And there are magnet schools! So la la la, we'll stay urban forever!

Now that I want to move to Oak Park, I am actually *embarrassed* to tell my friends. Like I've sold out or something. I've compromised my integrity and become one of *those* people…suburban people. Next I'll be driving a mini-van and making cookies for a bake sale.

This is my decision with my husband. We're trying to figure out what's best for our family. I can't believe I care that much about what some friends think of my decision.

So we are back to thinking about moving. I've never sold a place before, so I have no idea what to expect, especially in this economic climate. I know there are some things in our condo that I want to put into storage to make the place look a little bigger. And I want to build a storage unit in the basement because I think that would be a nice selling feature. But other than that, we could really put our place on the market any day.

I think out best plan of action would be to actually go to these "fixer-uppers" in Oak Park and see if we can actually live in them and enjoy it. I already know I love the community, but can I live in a less than ideal home? We're not talking about a little cosmetic TLC – the places we are looking at need major work that will span several years.

I want to actually view the homes inside and out, get a sense for what we are getting ourselves into, and then decide if we are going to put our condo on the market. All of this will happen after Bolivia, but I think the summer is an OK time to sell. Not ideal, but not terrible. If our condo doesn't sell by the fall, we'll take our condo off the market in the winter and then try again the following spring.

Again, I have no idea what I'm doing – I don't know if that is a good idea or not. But I'm excited about the idea of seeing these homes.

I will miss the lake, I will miss all the park space, I will miss my neighbors. But I just can't get past the violence here. And I don't trust the Chicago Public Schools to keep my son safe when he is ready for kindergarten. I know that is years away, but with 22 deaths of Chicago Public School students this year, many dying on school grounds, it weighs on my mind a lot.

I don't require a top-notch education for my son, but I do expect him to be safe on school grounds. I just don't feel like he will get that in Chicago.

After our experience falling in love with the house that wasn't actually for sale, we checked out some more houses in Oak Park. The finances still really make my husband nervous. Plus, I don't do anything small, so I say, "We'll buy a house there and live in it FOREVER!" and my husband turns green because he doesn't know if his next job will even be in Illinois, let alone in Chicago.

He wants a place for a couple years. I say, if it's just a couple years, we should stay in the condo. But if we want to take the chance that he will find a job in the city, which isn't entirely impossible, then we should dive into this house-owning thing because the idea of another condo association makes me want to blow my brains out.

We talked about it for a little while, but the financial risk was just too great for my husband to get past. I totally respect that, especially since he is the primary bread-winner. I know if something financially bad were to happen, he would feel like it was his fault for not pulling in a large enough salary, even if the financial risk was my idea in the first place.

So I went to sleep knowing we were going to be in the condo for a few more years. In the morning, I woke up, my husband rolled over in bed and said, "After you went to sleep, I heard one gun shot, followed by at least fifteen more in rapid succession. The gun fire sounded like it was only a block or two away. We are moving. I've been thinking about the high Oak Park property taxes and you know what? Property tax is deductible. We might pay more in taxes, but we won't pay a condo assessment anymore and the condo assessment isn't deductible. I want my son out of this neighborhood."