Ya know, softball really takes up much of my life this time of year. But I guess that's a good thing, because I'd probably be a complete unhealthy fat ass if not for softball. I play again tonight, in Forest Park. Then, probably I'll roll over to Street Side Cafe, where my cousin's man is DJ-ing for the first time in awhile...a good relaxing time will be had, I'm sure.

Tomorrow, my roommate is having his non-wedding party...celebrating the day he was supposed to get married before he realized he'd be making a huge mistake if he did. It should be a drunken blast for many involved. And a good way to ring out the apartment life. So I'll be spending the day cleaning mostly, but packing a little. That is, before heading to my parents' for my brother's b-day "party"...yippity skippity.

Sunday I'll be spending just about all day cleaning and packing and watching football. I'm moving on Wednesday, so I need to get everything packed up and ready to go, either into storage or my parents' house. Somewhere in all this time, I need to take Kazak out to Bolingbrook for his month-long stay...

I haven't posted in a while.

Officially, Happy Birthday, Troy! Although I wished you a one-day-early Happy Birthday this evening...

The first step, as many of you have recently found out, toward moving is packing. The first step toward packing is cleaning. Well, tonight I began the long process of cleaning off my bedroom floor, which is littered with stacks of paper and junk. I made good headway, I must say. I threw away plenty o' crap, including much of the junk I used to try to find a job when I was unemployed. Didn't need that any more. :)

But there is still more to do, that's for sure...so I'll have to start actually making time for this.

Despite my sore arms and torso, I played well in softball tonight at Park Ridge, though we lost by 2. We were down 7 heading into our last raps, but we could only push 5 across the dish. Oh well...my arms should hurt again tomorrow...but that's OK too...it's a good, just-worked-out kind of hurt.

I had PB&J tortilla rollups for dinner today. Interesting, and not bad. I didn't have any regular bread in the house, so the tortillas won out. They were flour tortillas, not corn...that would taste gross, I bet. As you can see, I'm living large...

Ugh...I think I'm going to go to bed now though...I've become tired quickly.

Well, we got it! Assuming they sign the contract and the inspector clears the place, we have a condo...We ended up accepting their lowest possible bid, which was $6,000 below the asking price. It was $3,000 above our original counter-offer, a gap we were willing to make up.

See, this condo needs little work, compared to the one in Edison Park, which we would have paid about $4,000 less for if we took their final offer. We would not pay for that owner's laziness...this owner took care of his/her place, and thus, we were willing to reward them by meeting their price.

Let me tell you about this beauty. :) It's on the 2nd floor, which is perfect. The only work it needs at/prior to move in is the kitchen counter needs to be replaced. It is outdated and doesn't really match the floors or newer appliances. Also, it is in two pieces, which are completely different colors/designs. The shower fixtures probably we will also replace, as they are a bit cheap and old looking. All that of course doesn't count painting.

Otherwise, the place is in great shape, so far as we can tell. It is hardwood parquet (think Boston Garden if you don't know what parquet flooring is) floors throughout. Except in the bathrooms and kitchen, where it is ceramic tile. All the floors are in great shape. The appliances are 2 years old only...that's nice.

Size-wise, it's excellent...it has 2 areas for a dining room set...one hutch area off the living room and a gargantuan eat-in kitchen. The living room is a good size, as are the other rooms. The 2nd bedroom is a good size too. It has 1.5 baths...a master half-bath and a general full bath. Both bathrooms could use a facelift, but nothing that's pressing right now...it can be done later. The fixtures in there are older, but they are in really good shape. There's a good-sized balcony with a ton of sunlight all day long, a very good-sized storage room downstairs, plenty of laundry machines at 50 cents per load (cheap!) and it's in a great location.

We'll be about a half mile or so from Kim and Nick, right by the expressway. The Metra that stops by my work (and by the SuperNovas' house) is a mile walk from this condo. I could do that every day, easily, if it means avoiding traffic and parking hassles. And it's in a great up-and-coming area too. Although we're right by the Metra, expressway and Blue Line, parking looks as though it will be easy--all the houses around there have driveways...they're all mansion-like too. We're basically about two blocks N.E. of the Irving Park/Kennedy interchange...

And how could I forget...it has a garbage disposal.

We have set up a closing date for Oct. 29, which means I will be living with my parents or on the streets for a month and Kazak will go to Bolingbrook for that time period.

So woohoo! A major weight has been lifted off my shoulders now...I'm so thrilled and relieved at the same time. I just hope the inspector gives it a clean bill of health.

In the hopes of not jinxing it, I will speak nothing of the condo we viewed and bid on on Saturday. I just want this damn search to be over already...it's really taxing, I have to tell you.

I will say this though...I will have to spend almost a month living with my parents and bare-bones necessities because of the fact that our closing date, if we were to get this place, is the end of Oct. The people actually wanted early November, but that's too long, not to mention too late into winter...who knows what the weather would be like then?

I had hoped that I wouldn't have to spend more than a couple weeks there, but now it seems that it will be longer than a couple weeks. This is going to be not easy, and I'm not even speaking from a "have to live with the parents" perspective.

I get along pretty well with my parents. Of course, that may be helped by the fact that I don't live there like my brothers do, but still, it's a good deal. I'm not too worried about it...sure, I'm positive it will be frustrating. I'll be sleeping/living in the basement, so I'll have some privacy most of the time. But I probably won't be down there much otherwise...I'll have to shower upstairs and everything too. And there's nowhere near room for all my crap. So I'll have to live on the basics and find somewhere to put my stuff. Plus, Kazak will have to live in Bolingbrook for this time...I'm not too keen on him being away from me for that long, but it has to be done. I can't figure anything else out, really.

So we shall see how it goes, I guess...that is, of course, assuming we get this place...