I'm also learning not to call them freeways

I'm laying in bed, being super lazy but comfy, listening to Sufjan Stevens' album, Illinois, which has the song that the title of my blog is taken from: "Chicago". I love living here. It's SO nice to be somewhere that I...hmm, how do I phrase this? I feel rejuvenated here. I feel excited here. I feel so incredibly, completely happy here. Granted my ridiculously amazing boyfriend may or may not play the tiniest of roles in my current jubilant state. But a lot of my happiness is self-made as well. I take myself on field trips around the general vicinity. Like my trip to Ikea on Wednesday. I intentionally didn't take the freeway highway to get there, just so I could see more of the...countryside...? That and I find it absolutely ridiculous that I have to pay to drive on the freeway highway, even though the one I avoided that day was only a whopping 50 cents. I feel like if I'm gonna pay, it better get me to my destination infinitely faster, like the FasTrak lanes on the 91 at home. I'm also learning not to call them freeways :P

I had been craving an Ikea trip for a while. I love wandering through the various inviting, delicately staged rooms that sparkle in all their Scandinavian wonder. The Ikea in Bolingbrook did not let me down. Since it was a weekday at about 4 in the afternoon there were only a handful of other people there and made it even that much more enjoyable to peruse through the store since there weren't people taking measurements or sticky, unsupervised children pressing their grimy hands upon the glossy finished cabinets or mouthing the arms of the leather sofas. Kids are so gross sometimes. I saw lots of things I liked and easily could have dropped way more than the $19.74 I actually spent there. Soon enough though I'll have an actual reason to buy things from there :)

Today is the one month marker since I drove into town one chilly December night. I can't decide whether it feels like it's been longer or shorter. Sometimes it feels like I've been here forever, but that's mostly because of how insanely comfortable and familiar my relationship with Boyfriend feels. Neither one of us has to at all try to make things work. And that is such a refreshing feeling. I'll refrain from talking about how absolutely smitten I am with that boy, just because I don't want this blog to be full of mush. But just know that he is more than I could have ever asked for and I feel immensely lucky to have found him. Or have him find for me. Or however you want to classify how it is that all the various pieces and parts of many, many people's lives aligned so that we would find one another. Sighhh :D

MelSav sent me a super cute text today, saying how happy she was to have had the opportunity to embark upon my long, Eastward-bound roadtrip with me. I really never knew it'd be possible to have that amount of fun driving in a car for 33 combined hours. It's one of those memories that you replay in your head from time to time and it makes you smile now just as much as it did then. I'll definitely have to blog more about our roadtrip one day. It's on my list of things to do.

I think I'll go work on a scarf I've been wanting to knit. Knitting is a much more logical pastime here where one can actually use knitted goods. Oh, Chicago. So much about you makes me happy. I love you.