It didn’t occur to me that my marriage is a little unusual until a tour guide in Sarajevo told me. Somehow it had come up that I was traveling in Bosnia alone, while Charles was in London. Sometimes it feels like we are playing a global game of tag, meeting up in foreign countries after weeks apart. We are two extremely independent people who happened to get married. And I think that if we weren’t both equally independent, we would drive each other nuts.
When @properties asked me to team up to help spread the world about #TheLifeWeShare, I thought about how we each travel over 100 days a year and how that helps to define our relationship. When I meet up with friends, one of the first things that they usually ask is if I ever see Charles. Of course I see my husband, but at the same time, we aren’t phased by spending a couple weeks apart. I mean, we committed to spending the rest of our lives together, so we can handle a little time on our own.
We have this crazy all over the place life, and because of that we cherish our time at home. We have little routines that we follow when we are both home. We love living in Old Town because there is so much to do just outside our door. The neighborhood feels like its own community. We are greeted with hugs when we walk into our favorite brunch spot. The baristas at Starbucks know my order. The lovely staff at the Treasure Island store knows me extremely well (they recently caught me helping another customer find basil and jokingly offered me a job). Even our mail carrier knows me and somehow figured out that I am a blogger. It is the first neighborhood that I have lived in during my adult life that truly feels like home.
When we are home on the weekends we rarely even leave Old Town, everything we need is within walking distance from home. When we were younger we couldn’t wait to go out on Friday nights, but now we are excited to stay in. We love to get takeout from the restaurant across the street and then to catch up on shows like The Good Place and Brooklyn Nine Nine.
For over a year now we have been working out together on Sunday mornings and then going to get brunch at Le Pain Quotidien. And last fall we discovered that our favorite bar, Woodie’s Flat, hosts trivia and has $5 burgers on Mondays and it has become something to look forward to that makes Mondays more bearable. We might be set in our ways, but the routines are ways of making sure that we get time together, even though we spend a lot of time apart. These routines and places in our neighborhood help us to find the beauty in every day and make the life that we share special.
To encourage us all to celebrate the beauty in these everyday moments, @properties has launched the #TheLifeWeShare campaign.
If you aren’t familiar with @properties, it is the #1 independent real estate brokerage firm in Illinois and the #1 brokerage firm in Chicago and the North Shore. @properties is a locally-owned company that is committed to supporting Illinois communities. As a local company, @properties wants to see how you find beauty every day in the communities and neighborhoods around us, so share your own photos using #TheLifeWeShare and tag @atproperties on Instagram and be entered to win a giveaway! For the next five weeks, there will be one winner for each of the following prizes:
o Friday, February 9 – 2 pairs of tickets to the Joffrey Ballet.
o Friday, February 16 – 2 $100 Gift Cards to Boka Restaurant Group.
o Friday, February 23 – 2 Ancient Thermal Bath & 30’ Relaxing Massage packages for two from Aire Ancient Baths Chicago.
o Friday, March 2 – 2 one-night “staycation” for 2 at the Waldorf Astoria.
So if you are in Chicago, don’t forget to enter each week. I am so excited to see the photos that you share!
This post was sponsored by @properties. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.