Six Month Blogaversary!

Today I am 10,000 days old and I've been blogging for half a year now! So I figured I'd share a little bit more about myself and this blog.

For Anyone Who Hasn't Read the About Me
So I was born and grew up just north of Chicago. I have two little sisters, E2 and E3, who are now my best friends. It's amazing how much your feelings for a person can change when they aren't constantly taking things form your room without asking and messing up or hogging your shared bathroom. I went away to college in Maine where I ended up finding Mr. H. We have no idea when we met but we were both in the same groups of friends and he ended up in all the same teaching classes as my roommate sophomore year so I saw him a lot. We ended up dating and we're still together today. After graduating he started teaching and I started law school. His first year of teaching was so much harder than my first year of law school, FYI. I finally graduated law school, got married, and passed the bar. I worked in a temporary position at a non-profit for most of my first year as a lawyer and now I'm looking for a permanent position and figuring out how I might hang out my own shingle.

We had so much fun with photo booth when we started dating.

Why Exile in Vacationland?
I love Maine and I love being here with Mr. H. When our relationship became serious we talked a lot about where to live. We decided on Maine mostly to be close to his parents. It is so much easier for my parents to travel, they are used to traveling and they have enough money to do so. His parents would have a much harder time coming out to visit us in Chicago. The cost of living here is so much less. The Bar here is friendly and welcoming. I didn't think it would be hard for me to get used to living here. I was kinda wrong.

It's been a huge shock going from the one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world (no. 19, no. 3 in the country) to Maine where the state wide population is only 1.3 million. For example, the City I went to college in had half the population of the Village I grew up in. Sometimes I think even miss traffic jams (I think what I actually miss about the traffic are the regular updates on weather and traffic on WBBM 780.) I miss my high school friends. I miss my family. I miss the variety of life in a big city. I can't get gyros! There's no polish sausage! The Chinese food is weird. There's only one mall and I have to drive half an hour to get to it. There is no Nordstrom.

Winter here never seems to end. In Chicago, there is a real spring and a real summer. Here it's cold all year round and there isn't a real summer where it gets warm. It just winter from December to April and then it's Spring and maybe a day or two of summer and then fall and then winter begins again.

I grew up in a mostly white suburb and went to a mostly white and East Asian school school (me and my sisters were the only black people there until a Nigerian family moved into our school district) but a fair number of people where weren't white and Christian around. Plus the city itself was much more diverse. So being different didn't make me stand out. Here that's not the case and it's kind of weird sometimes (like no one ever shouted the N word at me before I moved here or mistook me for the other black person woman my age in town).

People are generally so nice and friendly that it's scary to someone who's used to polite but aloof city folks. I was used to anonymity because I was just one of ten million or so, here everyone knows everyone. I feel left out sometimes because I don't know everyone and haven't known everyone my whole entire life. Also, here I'm always thinking about how I'm acting and if that's appropriate for a lawyer because my future clients probably see me all the time around town. I can never leave the house in yoga pants unless I am on my way to a yoga class, I can't listen to loud music in my car, I can't really have a really bad day in public, I worry about people talking about the groceries I buy.

So while I like it here, it's been hard sometimes and I kind of feel like I'm on a self imposed exile.

#myrealselfie a la College Prepster

Why Start Blogging?
In law school I read blogs and they looked like fun! So I started blogging in fits and starts in law school. Although, as soon as I could I had a Xanga and LiveJournal so maybe I've been blogging in fits and starts for over ten years.

What's your Name?
So, last spring at my temporary job they hired a new paralegal. That process involved looking at what was public about them on the internet. I realized that if you googled my name you could find my blog. I didn't blog about anything particularly embarrassing or bad. But, I still didn't like the idea of prospective employers or clients finding my blog and reading about my struggles to find a good strapless bra, read about my adventures in cooking, or think that I was obsessed with manicuring my nails. I also wanted to be able to share more personal things that I assume other people struggle with but never talk about because it's sometimes embarrassing (like menstruation).

So I made my old blog private, created a new one with a new email address. Here I only go by eHa. I don't even want to use my first name since you could probably figure out who I am by searching just my first name in the state attorney directory. I mostly just want to keep my professional life mostly separate from my personal life.

If you have any more questions, just leave a comment and I'll answer if I can!

Update: Jennifer/JMO at Crazy Shenanigans asked "Where's one place that you'd love to live if you could live anywhere?"
I would likely move home and live in the town I grew up in on Chicago's North Shore only I'd like to live closer to the lake. I wouldn't want to live in one of the really big old fancy houses right on the lake but it would be so nice to live within walking distance of the beach. I think I'd also be willing to give Cleveland a try.

I can't imagine living any place without seasons so while it would be tempting to say I'd love to live in Florida or California I couldn't do it. I'd also like to live in a more populous area than I live in now. I much prefer the lake to the ocean. I'm also hesitant to live some place where there are a lot of natural disasters. There are hardly any earthquakes in Illinois or in Maine. There are no hurricanes in Illinois and by the time the hurricanes get to Maine they're weak tropical storms that seem less scary than thunderstorms back home. While there are tornadoes in Illinois there aren't many thunderstorms that spawn tornadoes close into the City. There are no tornadoes in Maine. Blizzards don't faze me. I don't like ice storms and freezing though and there are more of that in Maine. I also hate driving on hills in the snow or at night so I'd be happiest back in the Midwest.