Saturday, July 17, 2010

Bust a move

It is time to make a confession, the reason I have been so absent from my blog is because we are moving. I haven't wanted to talk about it too much in case I jinxed things, and of course that could still happen. But at the same time, I am feeling so guilty about not keeping up with my blog, I decided it was time to give a reason why. We are leaving Chicago for the durty South, we are headed to Atlanta. I will so miss the amazing city of Chicago, the people, the architecture, the neighborhoods, the food, the walkability and Lake Michigan, but we are ready for this change, and going to embrace it.

We spent the last 3 1/2 weeks in Atlanta looking for a place to live, and wow that was not an easy feat. We have lived in our house for almost 4 years, so apparently I didn't remember what it was like to look for a new living space. Not only did we have to find a place that we enjoy, but we also had to find a place in the right school zone for our daughter, which was never a factor before. But after looking at over 40 places in the sweltering heat and dragging Z from place to place, we finally found a place we love. Here is a glimpse of our amazing new backyard:


We will be living intown in a wonderful neighborhood full of gorgeous old houses and tall trees, with lots of bike paths and trails right out our door. It is hard to believe it is in the middle of the city. And the best part, there are lots of restaurants close by that I can easily eat gluten-free.

The last several weeks we ate out a lot, I think more than we have the last 2 years put together. I guess that is what happens when you don't have your kitchen. And in those 3 1/2 weeks, I ate out successfully every time without getting glutened...Chinese, Mexican, Italian, even Waffle House! Unfortunately, I did get glutened once and that happened on the 4th of July from chips and salsa that I bought from Whole Foods. The chips looked safe enough, the same ingredients of all other corn tortilla chips I buy, and I bought some of the Whole Foods pineapple mango salsa, which also looked pretty innocent...all I know is one of them was the guilty culprit, but I have no idea which one. It didn't seem like a risky snack, but I guess I was wrong. And let me tell you, having a gluten attack while waiting in traffic for the fireworks traffic to move is excruciating!

I have a lot of catching up to do, and a list of posts and articles to write that I hope to get done before the actual move, in a month. I did have a chance to review a couple of restaurants that you can check out here: Fuego Mundo, FIGO pasta and Jason's Deli, with lots more to come.