For five seconds, it looked like we would be living in Chicago when we returned from New Zealand. During that brief moment, I researched Chicago's public schools and neighborhoods. There was a map.

I did the same thing when we decided to move to Seattle, and I don't mind the extra work. Having a plan--even one that will change before we enact it--settles my brain. Most of the Chicago details have spilled out of my brain already, but if you want to know about Seattle public (elementary) schools and neighborhoods from someone who's researched them to the Nth degree, I'm your girl.

I’m in a bit of a funk over here. I am by no means a mindless consumer, but I’ve started trying to buy something to make me happy.

Our house is cluttered with books, and I don’t give a lick about clothes. We eat good, sometimes amazing, food, and our days are filled with fun and frolic. My family is awesome.

So what gives?

Earlier this week, I stumbled upon this website: 

http://freecabinporn.com

Like Bookshelf Porn, it’s pornography for the rest of us. And I realized what was missing. I yearn for what the Dixie Chicks called wide open spaces. Like Thoreau, I want to extract life’s honey from the flower of the world. (And, who am I kidding? A little cooler weather wouldn’t hurt.)

Right now, I can’t very well extract myself from this suburban life, but I’m actively seeking the widest spaces Chicago’s suburbs have to offer. Somehow, I know they’ll never be enough.

**Photo plucked directly from Free Cabin Porn, a totally SFW site, unless it inspires you to quit your job and move to the mountains.

I've lived in the western suburbs for nearly five years.  I miss Chicago's food.  I would pay big bucks for Art of Pizza or Hema's Kitchen to open restaurants out here.  Orange, too. I miss our friends and the lake.  I long for the parks and museums.

Most of all, I envy our former neighbors, who can walk to Harold Washington Library at a moment's notice. We lived so close that my arms never tired on the way home, even in winter. A few steps from Harold was a bookstore where we spent many a date night.

And then we moved to the suburbs.

In 2011, my suburb lost our last book store. How does that happen? Sure, there's Amazon (and yes, we're Prime members, so my books arrive within 48 hours of my purchase,) but I love wandering the aisles of a bookstore, looking for new friends to take home.

Our closest indie book store is twenty minutes away. And a big, big Barnes & Noble is just a bit further. But what does it say about my community that we no longer have a place to buy books?