time flies when you're eating cheese

Phew! Made it through another busy week. I know everyone's job is busy and stressful but I really need to make more of an effort to leave work at work instead of dreaming about it every night. Its much easier to refresh your creative juices when you take a break so thats what I will be trying to do. Giving 110% while at work and then realizing there isn't anything I can do once I walk out the doors. Anywho... this is what I constructed this week - A "petites" shop within our antrho store. The customers are very excited about it and I really like the simple, clean style of it. (Apologies for the back lighting - what am I? A professional photographer or sumptin'?

After a week of running around I get to come home to my favorite person every night. Mid-week Mike surprised me with tickets for Saturdayto see "Wicked" on Broadway and it was ABSOLUTELY PHENOMENAL. I was most impressed by the set and all the moving props. Could this be a possible career direction for muah? It was just what I needed - another thing to check off the bucket list! and we enjoyed a lovely dinner beforehand. You haven't had sangria until you've had it out of a milkshake glass with a straw at "Sosa Borella." We also split some mussels and an arugala pizza.

Feeling very blessed for all the wonderful friends i'm surrounded by both at work and across the country.

Earth day windows!

I finally shot some photos of our earth day "monarch" themed window. It is made up of about 4,000 monarchs made from different papers ranging from tissue to watercolor. Although it was not my original design, which was this:

 I am happy with the way the window turned out. In display land we are already starting on summer displays and rolling out a new shop within a shop. I am currently making an entry way for the "Petite Shop". I'm slowly learning that there is never really any slow times at work so I'm going to start making more of an effort to leave work at work and try to have a good work/life balance. It doesn't help that I dream about displays every night but hopefully that won't continue forever.

In other news my brother recently rescued a dog from the streets of Akron. Check out this ADORABLE video of Sadie (my brothers dog) playing with the much bigger yellow lab that is C.J. (Mike's family dog).

And this equally adorable video of Sadie listening to whistling.

hot town, summer in the city

Finally the cold is gone and the city is becoming MUCH more enjoyable due to the excess of sunlight I received this weekend. Luckily the sun rises right outside my bedroom window so I made sure to do some sun bathing in the morning. The whole weekend was spent on the go in the best way possible. Manhattan on Saturday - Long Island and Queens on Sunday. Saturday started off with a trip to "Black Tree" for their famous "winter pig" sandwich featured on the food network. Then a trip to "Big Gay Ice Cream" followed by a walk in the park where we may of may not have seen a dead person laying in the grass...I don't think he was dead because just an ambulance came and not a police officer so there is my logic. After that uplifting moment we watched about 20 dogs having play time in the park - and we named most of them. Damien was a beautiful husky, and lil princess was a tiny morsel of a dog. You get the gist. After some more wandering around the lower east side we popped into "Crif Dogs" which is home to the famous speakeasy "PDT." Below is the awesomeness that is a bacon wrapped hotdog.

Sunday was a 6AM wake up to get some laundry out of the way, followed by church and a good cleaning of the kitchen and bathroom. After that we hit up a flea market in Long Island, grocery shopped at trader joes and set off for brunch all before noon. Gotta love a productive Sunday. "The Station House" in forest hills is located right by the long island rail road station and features an electronic beer board that informs people the status of each keg on draft in terms of ABV, origin, and which kegs are almost gone or freshly tapped kegs. Everything is rotated very often so there is always something new! This might be my new favorite local spot. As you can see below I had to get the chicken and waffles - a staple of my diet, and I was not disappointed.

I might have caught Mike in a moment of bliss with his cappuccino milkshake from "Martha's Country Bakery." It was a pre-movie dessert before we saw "Noah," which by the way don't waste your money on seeing. 

As you can see we took full advantage of the "wandering around" weather we had this weekend. We cook about 95% of our meals so it was nice to be out exploring without a real destination in mind and just trying little bites of everything on the way. Happy urban exploring everyone!

Go, go go!

There has been so much "go go go" this weekend that I missed my usual Sunday night post! Let me take you through the play by play of the best weekend so far in NYC. To set the scene it was mildly warm for the first time in 2014 so of course we took full advantage of that and spent most of the weekend walking around Manhattan. The Anthony's arrived Friday night and we met them at their hotel in the Flat Iron district - I would get into how not classy the lounge in the hotel was BUT we are letting that go and moving on! (Think red velvet couches, waitresses wearing the bare minimum, and LED lights that went through the entire rainbow of colors). Anyway after a cocktail in the lounge and catching up we ventured across the street to Vin Sur Vingt - a little french wine bar with great service. We shared some pinot noir and a bunch of small plates including escargot, beet salad with pistachio cream, duck, brie, ham, and quiche! Everything I tried was better than the last and I think this was my favorite dinner of all time in NYC. 2 thumbs up from this girl. I wish I had taken pictures of the food BUT I suppose I'll just have to go back again sometime.

After bidding adieu to the Anthony's for the evening, Mike and I made our way to Brooklyn for my friend Caitlin's birthday party. I got to see some of my favorite new friends from NY, drank some limoncello, and danced to "turn down for what" in the coolest brooklyn apartment I've ever seen - definitely a magical NYC evening. Saturday morning was a little bit of a rough wake up but totally worth it since it was a B-E-A-utiful day. The Anthony's came over to see our apartment and enjoy some forest hills brunch. Below are some good ol' fashioned "our first apartment" pictures from Mrs. Anthony.

Brunch was at Jack n' Nellies where we enjoyed some live jazz music, french press coffee for the table, and DELICIOUS food. On our way out we met the owner (not named Jack OR Nellie) and we became one step closer to securing our position as "regulars" at this forest hills establishment. From brunch we took the subway into Manhattan and visited the 9/11 memorial. The memorial site was beautiful, see pictures below.

After the memorial we walked through Battery Park, shared some more small plates, and looked out at the water on a very sunny and windy afternoon. We made our way to the financial district and stopped at some NY landmarks on the way.

We ended up back at the hotel after a walk through union square, checked out a few places to eat, and decided on Maysville, which was an amazing choice. Maysville is a bourbon bar with an amazing menu. We decided to go with entrees this time instead of small plates but small plates or cornbread came anyway - its like they knew! It was truly a great meal and we got to eat in a private dining room by total luck.

After dinner we said our goodbyes and I think everyone slept very soundly that night from all the daytime walking. Sunday morning came and with it was another gorgeous day - what better way to spend the day then doing some necessities around the house in the morning and then joining some fellow Akronites for brunch in Manhattan. We went to paradou for their unlimited champagne brunch. I REALLY was going to refrain from the champagne and just do some eggs after a full weekend of wine indulging but peer pressure led to Mike and I both getting a little tipsy on some bellini's. You might be able to tell we were feeling in from the pictures below.














After this was a long nap, some greasy pizza, a little headache medicine, and a lot of water. Probably could have had a more productive Sunday but how often do you get to enjoy a whole weekend with some of your favorite people?