Big day in Palatine, big day in Illinois

Today, two awesome things happened. Number one, we closed on our townhome and started moving in. The place is awesome and I'm super excited.

Number two, the Illinois House of Representatives voted to enact civil unions! I'm completely thrilled for my LGBT friends, and all same-sex couples in Illinois. It's a great first step toward completely marriage equality.

I had been harassing my state rep., Suzie Bassi, over phone and e-mail all week. I was disappointed because early articles reported that only one Republican supported the bill. However, the final roll call shows that Rep. Bassi did vote "yea" on the bill. I take back all the bad things I said, and I want to thank Rep. Bassi for her vote in support of marriage equality. (I also e-mailed her, but I figured public mean words mean a public apology.) I have no idea if my calls affected her vote, but she is pro-family and somewhat socially liberal, so I had a lot of hope that she would come down on the right side on this one.

Tomorrow morning, I'm taking the next step and beginning to harass my state senator. I'm sure he's looking forward to it. (You can find yours here.) We need to get this passed before the session ends this week.

Seems like Thanksgiving was just over, and already I have a bunch of people to thank. Let's see...

Thanks to my lender, who was working until 8 p.m. last night finishing the documents so we could close on time.

Thanks to the real estate gods, who found us this beautiful townhome and managed to get us in before the interest rate began to rise again.

Thanks to all my attorney friends who gave me advice on the closing.

Thanks to all the people helping us move on Saturday and also to those who have provided endless decorating advice.

Thanks to Rep. Greg Harris, who introduced the civil union legislation and pushed it through with emotional, personal pleas.

Thanks to Rep. Suzie Bassi, who voted for marriage equality today.

Thanks to Gov. Pat Quinn, for supporting the bill from the beginning.

And a big thanks to friends who also harassed their state representatives to support the civil union bill. The squeaky wheel always gets the grease.