turning the BIG 3-0 in the BIG APPLE

Two weeks ago I turned 30!  Although I had not been dreading this milestone as much as some friends have, I was bummed that I was in NYC and away from some of closest friends & family.  So to help me cope, Nick made me a video montage of all of my friends & family to wish me a happy birthday!  I had breakfast & coffee in bed and enjoyed the show.

Isn’t my husband the greatest?!?!  AND a BIG thanks to all of my friends & family too for sending me your birthday greetings!  LOVE you all!  (Don’t kill me Mom!!)

Later in the day, I went to the airport to pick up my old roommate, Michele.  She came into town for the week, I was so thankful to have her here to celebrate!  We hung out that afternoon and then rallied to get ready for my birthday dinner.  Nick had class that evening, so Michele & I got ready and headed into Soho to find a restaurant and then Nick met up with us when he was done.  We settled on Diva, which had a great atmosphere and a storefront that opened up to the street.  The food was so-so, but the company was great!!!  During dinner, Nick presented me with my present – birthstone earrings (aquamarine), they have this neat setting that looks more like the stones are set inside of a crown.  He got them at (Doyle & Doyle) a local jeweler here in NYC.  A fantastic memento for my 30th and our time here in the city!  After dinner we came home and had cupcakes from Crumbs bake shop!  Yummy!!!   

The rest of the week consisted of ramming around the city with Michele.  We went to the Lincoln Exhibit at the NY Historical Society, waited in line at Regis & Kelly (didn’t get in – you have to get tickets 12 months in advance, so we waited in the standby line, the guest co-host was Jerry Seinfeld & Donald Trump was the guest – we NEVER had a chance!), went to Magnolia Bakery for cupcakes & banana pudding (I am hooked to the pudding!!), cooked dinner at her swanky quarters in Columbus Circle, shopped, got our hair done, and lots more! 

Friday morning we went to the TKTS booth on South Street to get tickets to a Broadway show.  It was raining and mucky out, but there were still enough people already assembled in line.  Our schedules were flexible & we thought we could either see a Friday night show or a Saturday afternoon matinee and got tickets for Saturdays matinee of:

Saturday turned out to be quite eventful!!  It was POURING down rain out all day.  I met Michele in Times Square for lunch before Mary Poppins at Applebee’s.  Can’t believe we ate at a chain, but the weather was so horrible and it was right next to the theatre, it was just easy!  We went over to the drug store to get candy to take into the show and met Nick outside the theatre.  The play was AMAZING!!!  My favorite scene was “Step in Time”, it was a tap dance routine and one of the guys walked up the wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side of the stage all the while tap dancing!  We got a picture of Michele & I by the Mary Poppins sign as we were leaving, but I don’t have it yet. 

On Saturday night Nick organized a birthday dinner at Buddakan in the ubercool Meatpacking district .  Our table was downstairs and off to the left of the room pictured immediately below (This is the table that Carrie & Big sat at for their rehearsal dinner in the Sex & the City movie.)

our group: Michele, Nick, Missy, Jordan, Maria, Lindsay, & Kim

After dinner we went across the street to a hotel that had a bar downstairs to hang out. 

So thankful that Kim & Lindsay were here!!!  LOVE you girls! :)

My college friend Katy now lives in the city so she came out!

Old roomies!  I LOVE this girl!!

Nick was commenting that on my profile picture for FB that it was basically a picture of him with me in it.  So I had Michele take a few shots of just me!  :)

I wasn’t as good about taking pictures as I should be.  More of our friends that went to Law School with Nick at U of A also came out,  but I didn’t get pictures! 

On Sunday morning Kim, Lindsay, Michele, Nick, & I had brunch at the Bowery Bar in the East Village.  We went with Kim there a few weeks ago and it was so yummy!!!  I got the bacon, avocado, lettuce, and tomato (don’t really like tomatoes usually on sandwiches but with avocado and bacon you can’t go wrong!!!). 

Thanks to my hubby for organizing everything and making sure I had a great birthday!!!  Love you!!

three LONG weeks

So last Friday we bottled our first batch of beer (a Golden Lager) into liter bottles & have been waiting for them to carbonate.  All week the bottles have been resting  atop of our “armoire” & at least 6 times a day Nick will go over and squeeze them to check their progress.  Today we put two of the bottles in the fridge to enjoy tonight with dinner!  I will let you know how they turn out.

I think a drink might be necessary as I am ripping out my 10+ rows of knitting tonight /  this afternoon.  I decided that I would try a different pattern on this baby blanket for Caleb.  I have been SO concentrated on making sure I knit the right stitches & purl the right stitches that I guess I must have done one too many rows because the pattern is off.  Now to the normal “untrained” eye it might be undetectable, but I know it’s there & it’s going to drive me nuts.  The pattern is a basket weave and you knit & purl in series of 4 stitches in each row and then after 5 rows you knit an entire row, apparently it’s this entire knit row that I screwed up on because normally this row would be on the back *wrong* side of the blanket but in one section it’s on the front *right* side.  UGH!!!  I might have to switch over to Paige’s blanket for a little while and take a break.  Wish me luck!

snowicane feb 2010

This week NYC got slammed with what weathercasters were calling a “snowicane” for the majority of the week.  It started on Thursday morning with a wintery mix of snow & rain which continued for most of the day.  I have been helping a friend out with errands and paperwork and had scheduled to go over Thursday morning to do some work.  She lives in the West Village less than a mile from our building (and not conveniently located near any subway stops – UGH!) so I have been walking over, which proved to be not so fun.  I bundled up, put on my rain boots, grabbed the umbrella and headed out.  It wouldn’t have been so bad if the weather would have made up it’s mind whether it wanted to snow or rain, but instead it did both!  Yuck!!!  Luckily all of my work was inside and I didn’t have to run around in it.  I walked back home and ate lunch before going to volunteer that afternoon.  With the weather not cooperating, I took the subway in to volunteer and was hoping by the time I was done that the rain would be done so the snow could stick.  This proved to be the case and by 4p the snow was starting to accumulate on the ground so I took the opportunity to walk home.  At the time this seemed like a good idea, I could walk home leisurely and snap pictures of the freshly fallen powder.  :)  But halfway home I thought my fingers were going to fall off, I was having trouble taking pictures with numb phalanges that couldn’t feel the trigger on my camera.  I did manage to snap these…

 

 

The storm continued to gain strength and threw the night dumped about 12” of snow in Manhattan.  Nick and I stayed inside for most of the day on Friday but I was able to convince him to take a walk with me to Washington Square Park and through our neighborhood. 

  

arch at Washington Sq. Park, Nick making a snowball

Nick making a snowman, another snowman

in the park

me

Christopher St. in the West Village (LOVE the look of the arching trees!!!)  Would take a picture of every street that looks like this!!!

We are supposed to have a few snow showers continuing through the weekend, but the worst is over.  February set a record for most snowfall in a month, breaking the previous one set back in the 1890’s!!!  In the city we got between 18 & 24”.   

There might be another storm headed our way this coming week, fingers crossed!!! 

purl

Over Christmas I started a blanket for Rachel’s daughter Paige.  I decided that since I would be making a blanket for their newest addition, Caleb, and had already made one for Layla 4 years ago, I didn’t want Paige to be left out! 

This pattern is all purl stitches.  Each row you decrease a number of stitches by purling two stitches together and then increase by that same number of stitches by doing a yarn over, the result is this gorgeous twisted lacy pattern.  Perfect for a little girl!  I am knitting 3 different yarns together once, all are delicate & very soft: one is a pink variegated yarn that I have used before in my baby blankets (it comes in this huge skein, about 600 yards, and I can usually get at least 2 blankets out of it), the next is a light pink & white yarn, and lastly a super soft white one. 

the yarn

 

the blanket

So far it’s about 2 feet long, I want to take it out when I visit at the end of March which means I need to get cracking (I keep getting sidetracked though with other projects)   :)  

want to make this scarf

directions can be found here:  http://www.purlbee.com/easy-hand-knit-scarf/

Valentines Weekend

We had a leisurely four day weekend, since Nick doesn’t have classes on Fridays and Monday was Presidents Day.  We spent most of the weekend just hanging out. 

We have been trying to go to the Museum of Natural History since we arrived in August, but every time we set off in that direction we get sidetracked.  On Saturday we attempted again!  We made a pit stop for lunch, tried to stop at the Shake Shack that is famous for their yummy shakes, but the line was too long.  So we walked around the neighborhood & stopped at the Chirping Chicken.  I got a burger which was so-so and Nick the roasted chicken which was delectable!  After lunch we headed over to the Museum and the line was snaking around about 1/4 of the foyer so we decided to postpone the trip once again.  Since we were so close to Central Park we walked through the park.  Wednesday was the big blizzard so the park was covered by a blanket of snow still – it was BEAUTIFUL!!! 

We had about $400 in gift cards at Macy’s, so we stopped there on our way back home from Central Park.  Up until this point every time we have visited the store we have left empty handed!  :(  This time we purposely went in with two things on our list:  1. a winter coat for Nick so he can look like he belongs here (he has been sporting his windbreaker & freezing!!), and 2. an immersion blender.  Since it was a holiday weekend, they were having MAJOR sales, Nick’s jacket was 60% off and the blender was marked down to $50 from $70.  I think we did pretty good!!  Armed with our new kitchen toy, we went home to find a delish soup recipe – creamy broccoli cheese!  We ventured back out into the cold one last time to get some supplies for our Valentine dinner (the next night) & to pick up some wine!  :)  The best of shopping, since we didn’t have to spend our own money! 

On Sunday morning I made crepes with caramelized apples & honey for breakfast.  For lunch we met up with Kim in the East Village at B Bar & Grill.  Nick let me choose what we he made for dinner on Valentines Day – for something different I chose lamb.  He slow roasted lamb shanks in the slow cooker with tomatoes, garlic, and onions and made polenta to go with it.  I made individual molten chocolate lava cakes for dessert.  Everything turned out so tasty!!! 

While we were waiting for the lamb to finish cooking in the crock pot I gave Nick his gift – Mr. Beer home brewing kit.  He loved it!!  We got everything ready while we were waiting for our meal and have our first batch fermenting!!  Now we have to wait 3 weeks until it’s ready, in about a week we can test it and dispense it into bottles but then we need to wait another two weeks for it to carbonate.  Nick has already asked me about 40 times if his beer is ready yet!?  :)  Nick got me some chocolate covered strawberries (MY FAVORITE) and a box of chocolates from Dean & Deluca!  I am trying to savor them, but my sweet tooth is getting the best of me I am afraid!

I bought some brown paper and stamped out my own wrapping paper for Nick’s present.

6 months

Hard to believe last Monday Nick and I have been married for 6 months already.  *Truthfully, it had slipped my mind what the day actually was.*  I don’t know where the time has gone!  Doesn’t seem possible.   Maybe it’s because of the change in location or how different life is now, I don’t know. 

Nick surprised me with taking me to dinner to “One if by Land, Two if by Sea”.  This is a saying made famous by Paul Revere click here for the story (as you remember from my previous post, Nick is obsessed with American history), so this was very fitting.  We have walked by this restaurant before when we’ve been out walking in our neighborhood, it’s located in the West Village.  The ambiance inside was rustic & very romantic!  Just to the left of the door is a grand piano with a pianist playing classical music that guides you in to the bar area where a fire is roaring.  The tables are cozy and stained glass colors the walls and leads your eye up to the vaulted ceiling.   

We decided that this would sort of be our Valentine celebration since I don’t like paying an inflated price for a meal on Valentine’s.  It was also “restaurant week” in NYC, so they had a prix fixe menu developed for a discounted price.  You had a selection of appetizers, main course, and dessert. We both got the duck tureen (me not knowing what it REALLY was) for our appetizer.  I made this decision from process of elimination – I didn’t want the bean soup & I hate micro green salads so this was the only thing that sounded remotely appetizing to me.  When it arrived it looked amazing, a little brick of pressed duck meat accompanied by a pear chutney, but my tureen had about 1/4” of a waxy white coating top it.  I glanced at Nicks and noticed that I couldn’t see this on his, so I asked about it and he said do you know what it is?  I said no & that I should probably wait to find out until I was done eating it.  I tried to eat that top layer, but was finding it hard to digest -it had this greasy texture to it.  So I finally just flipped the brick over and ate from the bottom up, leaving the white top on my plate.  Apparently this waxy layer was duck fat and it’s coveted for being delicious!  I was not impressed!  :)  For our main course selections:  I had the cheese ravioli (this was by far the best I had EVER tasted)  & Nick had red snapper, and then for dessert I had the chocolate cake & Nick the crème brulee (for a change – this is my favorite dessert).   

Typically I eat about half of what’s on my plate at a restaurant (and Nick will usually finish my scraps before we leave), but I LOVED the portion size at One if by Land – it was perfect for me!  I cleaned my plate! 

Such a great night!  So thankful for such a thoughtful husband!  xoxo