And I wield my technologically savvy sword!

Ok, so I didn't really know what I was doing and through a funny misunderstanding of Blogger ended up with a totally new blog. I've been posting there a little bit since I've had it and forgot to put a link to it in this one. oops...

http://www.windycitysarah.blogspot.com/

Long time coming...

It's been a very long time since I've updated this. That's all I will say about that.

I need to change the title of my Blog since I no longer live in Humboldt Park. I currently reside in Horner Park, but it's not quite as catchy of a name. For that matter, as far as city living goes, it's not as interesting of a life either. Anyone familiar with Chicago neighborhoods would agree with me. Actually, they'd probably be asking, "Where in the world is Horner Park?" My old neighborhood was diverse with increasing racial tensions and a wide variety of economic backgrounds. My new neighborhood is still diverse but is composed mostly of families with similar economic brackets.

What else has changed besides my location? A lot. My job. My marital status. My life, pretty much.

Steven and I got married in September in Indiana. I have candid pictures from friends up here: http://picasaweb.google.com/sarahkonet It was beautiful and exactly what we wanted. It was absolutely phenomenal to see how God provided at every turn. We went on a honeymoon in Colorado, which was equally beautiful. We loved it there.

Right now I'm working as a nanny for a family from our church. Hmmm. That sounds familiar. This time I'm only watching 1 child instead of 4 though. :-) I love it. It's a tremendous blessing and exactly what I needed for this stage in my life. I took over the position after my former flatmate moved to Bangladesh for the year. (Here's her spot, for any mutual friends out there, http://priscillakdriscoll.spaces.live.com/)

Steven and I just got back from Florida where we spent Christmas with my dad's side of the family in a giant family reunion. It wasn't really giant compared to my mom's side of the family. It was only 18 people, but every other aspect of the holiday was of gigantic proportions. It was fun. I'm glad we only do it once every 10 years though. Steven and I are planning on continuing last year's tradition of giving our Christmas gifts to each other on Epiphany. Which reminds me that I need to do something about obtaining a Galette.

A lot of other things have changed...but I can't think of what they are right now and I've procrastinated long enough on the things I am supposed to do this afternoon.

(insert creative title here)

I haven't posted anything for a little while, but it's certainly not because of a lack of stories. The following is the account of my first Halloween spent in Humboldt Park. I should state here that the following would be rated TV-14 if it were, in fact, on T.V. Consider yourself warned.

So the day started out fairly normal. I taught classes in the morning, none of the students dressed up for Halloween. I saw a couple of costumed people walking around on the street. Nothing big though. On the way home I was passed on the street by two men, one dressed as some sort of zombie-esque character. He was pretty decked out- a full waist-length wig and torn up clothes, green and black make-up all over his face. The other man was dressed as a woman with a denim mini-skirt, silk camisole and little jacket. He was wearing make-up and imitating a woman as he walked down the street. I made brief eye-contact with the two as I passed and the "woman" winked at me. I continued on my way thinking to myself that those two won the prize for the most elaborate costumes I'd seen so far. Little did I know, that wouldn't be the last or most I saw of them. Oh no. There was more to come.

I stopped at a small store to pick up some random items. While I was there, who should enter the store but ghoul-man and drag queen. They seemed to be searching for girly looking accessories, all the while laughing a little too loudly. I continued shopping without paying them any attention until I realized that they had strategically placed themselves between me and the check out. I was beginning to get a little annoyed with their obnoxious laughter.

Before I could ask them to move or step around them myself, the girly dude whips out a hanky, daintily drops it on the ground, and proceeds to moon me as he picks it up. "Oh no, you did NOT just do that." But in fact, he had and he was quite amused by it. Turns out his little silk camisole had a little silk thong to go with it. How sweet.

While I was in line at the cashier I could hear them mooning other people in the store. The nervous tittering beforehand, the expression of surprise from their victim, the loud guffaws afterwards. Sigh. Life in the city. So October 31, 2005 will now be known to me as the day I was mooned by a transvestite. He winked and blew a kiss at me as I walked out the door.

Russian Spy?

my newly updated profile is courtesy of my sister Rebekah. can't take credit for things i didn't write. her blog and myspace is entirely more interesting than mine. although, i think i take precedence in the truth/factual dept. but then, it's the internet. isn't that part of the charm of it? you can say whatever you want. uh oh. i'm getting into some social commentary here that i don't have the energy to fully engage in right now.

Hoosierville

My family is celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. We're a month early, I know. We're not going to be able to get together for the actual day though. I caught a ride home with my dad and sister this afternoon. We took a fun little detour through Gary, IN. It really didn't seem all that scary or run down. Did you know that Goodwill has an outlet store? It's in Gary. Everything is under $5 except for the wedding dresses....bizarre. Erika and I were laughing over that. The wedding dresses were $200. I don't know who would pay that much for them new much less used from Goodwill. Of course, one of them still had the original price tag on it, $800. From $800 to $200 is quite the mark down. But imagine the type of dress that would end up in a Goodwill outlet store (think 1992 with mass amounts of dangling beads), certainly not worth $200. Out of curiousity we asked the cashier if that was really the price on the dresses just because it seemed so high. It definitely was, but she informed us that if we came back on the weekend the dresses are 50% off. In fact, everything in the store was 50% off on the weekends. A weekly clearance sale at the outlet thrift store? Somewhere along the line shouldn't that equate to being pretty much free?

Anyway, there's a 9:30 showing of "Back to the Future" starting in the family room so I'm going to stop rambling about Goodwill.

Life with Internet Access

Ah, so keeping up with a blog is so much easier when it doesn't take a 30 minute bus trip to get to a computer with internet access.

Teaching is going well. Things are snowballing quickly as I try not to drown in paperwork. Between putting together attendance lists, phone lists, lesson plans, grading, and curriculum, I feel like my bedroom has turned into a miniature paper mill. Sheesh.

Random Humboldt Park news of this week. Walking down the street this weekend I ran into a classmate of mine from college. She happens to live 3 houses down the street from me. It's a small world.

I was almost run over by three guys running down the street this afternoon while waiting for the bus. One had blood spatters all over his shirt, the other had it all over his face (presumably coming from his nose) and the third was just running with no visible blood. I was almost run into because I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. I was too busy trying not to stare at the two girls kissing each other on the corner. I was definitely feeling the fact that I live in a city.

On a more pleasant note, also while waiting for the bus, a friend of mine from church pulled up at the stop light. She happened to be going to the same place I was. It was a bus rider's dream come true. Rather than stand there and wait for the bus you run up to a car, open the door and hop in. It seems that every bus rider I've ever talked to has wished they could do that at some point in time. Today I experienced it. Let me tell you, it's great. Sadly, it was probably a once in a lifetime event. Unless...I start running up to random cars and jumping in. Yeah, I don't plan on starting that. Especially not after the other events that transpired today.

It's late. I'm going to sleep. The blog has been updated. G'night.

Back in Chicago

I didn't know how much I would need a "Sarah's 8 hours of Sleep" chart. Let's just say that life with 4 other people and a dog sometimes doesn't lend itself to lots of sleep. Certainly not anywhere near 8 hours.

I'm back in Chicago now and have an update on the job situation! God answered prayer! The teaching job has informed me that they are starting classes on the Oct. 3rd but only at one teaching site and guess who's site that is? I was pretty excited. So, I do have a job for the month of October. I'm still looking around for some light, part time work. But what I earn teaching is enough to make ends meet.

Also, here's some info about "Humboldt Park" http://www.localchicago.com/ There are some cool pictures of Humboldt Park's park at LocalChicago.com. Apparently, from some of the other research I've done on the web, it's one of the few neighborhoods in Chicago that has been consistently resistant to gentrification http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification Go Humboldt Park!