My homemade Oatmeal-Raisin Cookies for our desert. :)

It is simple and delicious.

We had a perfect Thanksgiving Day full of loving people and homey food. Right before eating, all of us held hands and stood around the table to give thanks. Everyone had deep sentiments with gentle tears. At that moment, my heart warmed deeply. Also, I really missed my family. I truely wanted to hold on to that feeling for a long time.

We are going on a one night trip to Indiana to have a warm Thanksgiving Day with his mom and Della's family. Needless to say, Mike has been expected to eat tender turkey. He is one of those turkey lovers. :)

After we come back, my silkscreen class that I have looked forward to taking almost for one year will start! yeah~~~

My first trial, Potato and Onion Frittata. It was successful, but I needed to use a little bit more onions for the flavor. :p

Here is our arranged living room. We need a new rug and curtains to make us warm in this windy winter. :) 아빠, I finally can show you, how is our space?~

We hung my friend CHANG-JO BOO's work, my last birthday present from Mike, on the wall instead of a television in our living room. The yellow painting makes our living room more bright. And still, we didn't buy a sofa and television. Just because, we just don't feel we need them. We will buy them sometime, but not now. :p Actually, I found a great sofa designed by Naoto Fukasawa that was exactly what I wanted to buy. Unfortunately, that one was over our budget, included the shipping fee from Japan.

Luckily, the Green City Market opens an indoor market around our house. We went there twice on Saturday morning, it was crowded with people. I got a good purchase-paid $5 for a huge bunch of celery and $2 for one Japanese sweet potato. It was exactly same flavor like my favorite Korean sweet potato from home. Anyone who likes to buy fresh foods without taxes directly from the farmers has to go this market. :)

Mike is sitting on the kitchen window with a half ripe avocado. His mom gave this MIKE to me. He is there whenever I want to see him. :)

We were super busy to arrange our new house. Funny thing is that I can't talk about it as decorating, it was more like finding space to put our things. His things and my all things gathered together, so we needed much more space. A lot of his stuff is still in the storage, though. :( This picture was taken by me two days ago. But from today, our space feels like a real house. haha~

Arranging all day required a lot of caffeine and sweets. I kept drinking tea and coffee. I tried to get rid of my stress with cooking and baking in the dirty air. :) Brownies in the oven filled the air with a sweet smell and it made me relaxed.

Finally, we got our shipment!!! Now, I can use our comfy skillet, potato peeler and our special espresso machine, too.

And finally, we have our bicycle parking space inside apartment building. :) The weather was so beautiful today. We went on a bicycle ride to the beach around Lake Michigan. It was an incredible feeling to get fresh air from the lake while on a bicycle. That was what I was dreaming of. At this moment, I am very happy!

A balance-

I got a homemade chicken noodle soup recipe from a real cook Della.

I made this for dinner today, by the way, it turned out really good!!!

Each of us had two bowls of the soup. Thank you, Della~ :)

This is the email from her:

"My Chicken Noodle soup is really simple.

I boil in (appx. 6 cups water) 3-4 skinless chicken breasts till firm. Remove from the hot broth and set off to the side, cube when cool, add to the broth you removed the chicken from along with the next list of ingredients:

Chunk 2 stalks of celery, 2 large carrots and dice 1 small onion, you can also add parsley if you happen to have it for color more than taste:) Add two small cans of chicken broth or use chicken bullion to make your broth richer, add 1 teaspoon of garlic salt and black pepper (if you want a soup with a punch add a bit of crushed red pepper)

Bring all of the above to a good boil and then add a 16 oz. bag of your choice of dry noodles, stir for appx. 1-2mins. then turn heat down to a slow simmer for 10 mins. then put lid on and let sit for awhile to thicken a little. If it seems there are too many noodles and not enough broth just add a bit of water. If vice versa, too much broth add more noodles:). Just depends on how you and Michael like the consistency of it."

We keep arranging things and still are waiting a lot more than this. :( We were really annoyed by our shipping company, because they keep delaying our shipment without saying sorry. It should have arrived here at least yesterday or today, actually, it supposed to be here last weekend. But, nothing happened. Help us!!! We need to settle down~~~

I got my green card two weeks ago, so we went to apply for my social security card. I picked up this ticket while waiting for my turn and I laughed, just because. Maybe I was oversensitive about this number. I just remembered my feelings when I registered for my green card process with the Immigration.

From that time I applied for my green card, the number that I was classified by the government was always front of my name. Sometimes, I only needed to write down my number on the form without my name. When I emailed to the Immigration, I had to introduce myself as, "My case number is 000000," like this. It made me feel very weird. It was not a good feeling.

We are living like we are camping these days. We just have a few kitchen wares from his New York apartment. Usually, we drink two cups of coffee a day. So, we tried this funny way. We just bought paper filters and used his blue funnel. To make coffee this way takes a long long time. :( But, one good news is that we will be suffering only for two days until all of our stuff comes. Yeah~~~

A week ago, his mom's friend, Ann, invited us to see her Christmas tree. She made two Christmas trees, each were decorated with mooses and ceramic houses. She collected all types of moose characters and miniature houses and decorated with them everywhere in her house. I want her to be featured on a TV show if somebody is interested. It was like a lively museum, amazing!

My sweet husband assembled this grocery cart for me yesterday. Walking with this cart was more funny than I imagined. The wheel made noisy sounds clinking against the metal body. But today, we found a new grocery store right next to our apartment building back door. :p

Vivid red colored leaves on the road-

We are still waiting our shipment from Korea. It is stuck in customs in LA. Moreover, it will take another week. I don't mind waiting for it. But, part of me quietly wishes to be cooking and baking with my kitchen utensils. I have been feeling that way for one month. I never imagined that my feelings would be like this. I miss our smelly kitchen a lot, really.

The first impression of Chicago was "Gentle". This one word was bouncing around my head. What made me think is that this city seemed clean, a little bit conservative and smart. It was worthwhile to walk everywhere to enjoy the various scenery.