Great friends, great food, and great conversations

"Lauren, why aren't you writing this blog on Sunday? Its what I look forward to waking up to?!"...I'm sure thats what you're thinking to yourself. Well, folks its because I was busy having an awesome memorial day weekend so lets get down to business. Friday was a half day at work and a half day of inspiration at the NY botanical garden. What a wonderful experience it was. I got to meet up with fellow Display Coordinators and Visual Managers and share some laughs while gathering inspiration for our upcoming windows!

Saturday we cleaned, relaxed and awaited the arrival Chris and Kate, a couple of smurfs from high school. Katie had spent the night sleeping in the Paris airport so upon a pick up from the air port she of course opted to go out and have a delicious meal rather than waste time sleeping, showering, etc. My kind of people. Honestly what a great foodie weekend we had. We had a vegan in the group so that led to trying some new food items, which was a refreshing change. Basically our entire weekend was planned around eating, snacking, shopping for food, restauranteer-ing, watching Gordon Ramsey, and a hint of dining. Oh, did I mention we ate a lot? Let me just go ahead and give you the play by play.

Saturday we hit up our regular spot Station House, which I've referred to in previous blogs as our spot to become regulars at. Then we grabbed a soy dirty chai or two at Matha's Country Bakery and I purchased a couple little treats to take home so that we could sample them later - I didn't want any guest to miss out on the worlds best tiramisu and fruit tart so be prepared if you come visit!

After a night of sleeping on the world best air mattress (thanks for the Christmas present mom and dad), our guests arose ready to see what other delicacies the city offered. We had researched the best vegan brunches in town and landed at Champs which has a 100% vegan menu. The hour and a half wait did NOT disappoint. I went with the breakfast enchiladas which has tofu scramble (substitute eggs), soysage, guacamole, sour cream, beans, rice, and salsa - it was the best enchiladas I've ever had. I'd say what really stole the show though was Kate's K-bomb smoothie which had banana, kale, agave, and almond milk. Okay I've really got to stop giving such detailed descriptions of what we ate because between us eating food and discussing the food we will eat next, you'd be reading this for dayyyyyys. In fact there is so much food in this blog that I don't even have time to tell you about our visit to MOMA but these pictures should sum it up nicely.

So why don't you just check out the websites of the restaurants we all visited together:

Bagelsmith - pumpernickle with sundried tomato cream cheese? foggetaboutit
Chelsea Thai - Pad See Ew, heloooo peanut saunce
Peoples Popsicle - Strawberry Ginger? Yes Please
PizzArte - Truffle mushroom pizza - ugh ya

Everywhere in Chelsea Market - This is a great article to sum up of what its like in there. Stop in the        grocrery store and grab some cocunut rolled dates with almond!

Great friends, great food, and great conversations make life what it is. I wish Cathy could have joined us but no doubt she'll be able to next time! In fact I've been enjoying life so much these days (now that is finally warm out) that I don't even mind that my car died on the way back from taking the girls to the air port yesterday and I had to hitch a ride at 5:30 am to work with a coworker and pay a hefty mechanics bill. Money is just money anyway and I'll make plenty more of it I'm sure.

Enjoy these lovely pictures of the view from williamsburg flea and central park.

I'm a grown up

So I've definitely grown up a lot since a few years ago, when did that happen? I have a 401k now, a savings account, a steady job that offers vacation days, etc. Speaking of being an adult and taking vacation - thats exactly what I'm doing at the end of June! Mike and I are going to Caye Caulker, an island off of Belize in late June/ early July. I'm so incredibly excited. Originally I wanted to explore Thailand for that week but the 21 hour flight there and back along with the need for serious relaxation beach time led me to Belize. Shout out to one of the best gals I know, Chrissy Knopp, for suggestions through the process. We will be staying 3 days in a one room cabin on the beach and 4 days in a more resort-like hotel so I think we'll get the best of both worlds. The Cabins were rated in the top 20 hotels in the world by trip advisor. They aren't much to look at but every single review is 5 stars because of the hospitality and experience they had there so I'm looking forward to its tranquility very much. On the list of things to do besides soaking up the sun and eating fresh seafood for every meal is: snorkeling, scuba diving, cave tubing, exploring the mayan ruins, zip lining through the jungle, and kayaking!  By total accident we booked the trip during Caye Caulker's LOBSTER FEST so I guess I'll just have to have lobster every day. It's gonna be a hard life...

In work related news, I made the highlight album again! This is an internal online photo album for all the anthropologies across the country that showcases some of their favorite windows. It's definitely a goal of mine to keep this pace up and try to make it into this highlight album as much as I can. Other than that, spring cleaning is complete at Anthropologie. There was an art room clean out competition and since our store is moving in a few months I went all out with this clean up. I threw away/donated about half of the art room and it feels so much better to work in there now. I also feng shui'd  the room a little bit so now I have a desk space for all my paperwork. Check it out for yourself! H

Here are some before/during the cleaning pictures:

and here is the final results. Fingers crossed I win the contest!

A place for everything and everything in it's place.

Mexican bulldogs

What a fun week and weekend its been so far. Finally the display world is slowing down just for a bit. The past few weeks we've been moving things around on the floor, remerchandising, and doing a "summer refresh" to the display. I took down one large scale display and made a few macrame chandeliers out of brown and white clay, model magic, pennies, driftwood, copper, and seashells to take its place. I'm in love with them and can't wait till we don't need them anymore so they can hang above our bed.

I also refreshed the bamboo arch with some strips of different colored fabric on top and I wove dried palms into the sides of the arches for an added detail. I strung new glass lanterns for the arch so that it had a less busy feeling than the prayer bells that hung there before. I also hung shear scrim fabric from the rafters behind the arch to give it a breezier, lighter, and more intimate feeling. Very happy with the results!

Marina was probably one of my favorite refreshes. The original idea for this concept was that the room should have an ocean, light, and beach-y feel using a lot of blues - which is why I made the 3 abstract blue paintings for the room (which earned me some commission work with some art-loving anthropologie customers). But throughout the weeks the merchandise changes, the bedding changes, we sold the bed frame that the bed was originally in so the room needed some new love and attention. While cleaning out the art room I was lucky enough to find some sea lace so I decided to dye it some different shades of blue and use it as smalll scale display in the room. The home manager put all new bedding on with blue shades, and the merchandising reflected that aquatic feeling as well. This room came together really well.

I made a few other items throughout the store including a small scale seashell display inspired by an abacus! Also I made a beachy umbrella stand to hold this gigantic bamboo umbrella in our front of store. Oh and bernard found a new home ontop of a table in our back of store. 

As for my weekend its been one of the best ones so far. Friday Mike and I both agreed that "Station house" that I've mentioned in one of my previous posts is competing with Jack and Nellies to be our regular spot. This time we had a couple of happy hour beers from the electronic beer board, sat at the industrial looking bar, and enjoyed a lamb burger with fried green tomato and feta on top with truffle fries. Shout out to Dan and Kase because these were BETTER than the pom frites in Cleveland - I didn't think it was possible. 

Saturday we went to bed, bath, and beyond because we're soooooooo crazy. Did some grocery shopping and then spent the rest of the day in the city. We checked out "Blockheads" which is a small mexican place in midtown with a HUGE patio. Of course it started raining on an off so enjoying the sun on the patio turned into hiding under the awning with a lovely group of people. We ended up hanging out with them for several hours and enjoying mexican bulldogs (which is a margarita with an upside down beer inside it) and having a lot of fun. Glad we got to meet some really nice people by total accident and we might see them again soon. 

As for today I'm trying to get out of bed a little later than usual because our downstairs neighbor likes to sleep in on weekends haha. But on the agenda is bacon, church, and a birthday BBQ on a brooklyn rooftop! Cheers.

Oh also Mike and I did some sound recording on his new phone on the subway ride home. I was trying to upload the short clip but there are several steps and its just us rambling for 2 minutes to its probably not worth your time, but it got us thinking that we may start doing a weekly podcast as we explore different neighborhoods in NYC. Might be a fun new project to take on. 

California Chrome

*small break in my normal blog posts to address something I've been thinking about and desicussing for awhile*

Appreciating what you have is the key to happiness. Its very easy to get caught up in a materialistic lifestyle in NYC or envying those with the money to provide a more comfortable lifestyle. If you look around you and say "man I'm lucky I get to experience all this culture in one place" instead of "I wish there weren't so many people crowding me everywhere I go" then ultimately you'll be happier.  Everyone I know is guilty of this including me so I'm definitely making that one of my goals while I'm here. Its very easy to idealize an old lifestyle saying, "oh remember when I used to be able to drive everywhere I went? But the truth is you (and I) moved out of that old lifestyle for a reason - you weren't satisfied, so looking to the future is the best thing to do. I'm definitely adapting to the NYC lifestyle and finding it a lot easier to do so now that there isn't a wind chill of -18 degrees. There are so many amazing things to experience here that the only dilemma you should have is choosing which event to go to. Being present in the moment is what its all about and right now this is my circumstance. I intend to get everything I can out of it so I don't look back and think "oh I should have appreciated this or that when I was able to." Sure are PLENTY o' things that frustrate me about living here every week but choosing to focus on the opportunities rather than the downfalls is a hell of a lot more productive.

This weekend we spent Friday evening in Manhattan, Saturday in Queens, and Sunday a combination of both. Friday evening was a typical New York TGIF kind of night. We hopped into Eataly (your one stop gourmet shop for all things high class Italian) where we purchased some asparagus creme and artichoke spread. See pictures below of this gem of an establishment. We grabbed dinner in midtown via groupon, walked to a street festival in the flat iron district where we sampled local beer chocolate (who knew they made such a slice of heaven), and grabbed a beer at an oyster bar before heading back on the E train.

Yeah, thats a wood palette below these gigantic cheese wheels.

Saturday was a great day to explore some more of Forest Hills, Queens. We meandered around Austin Street and had brunch at Banter- an Irish pub we've been wanting to go to for some time. We opted to watch the Kentucky derby at the apartment while we placed our bets and made our first ever mint juleps which turned out pretty well. Good thing we like bourbon because thats pretty much the only thing in them besides sugar and mint. Oh! which reminds me, we've got a small herb garden growing in our window seat - only including mint and basil so far but I'll be adding more once I make a window box for them to go in.

Onto the real adventure of Sunday. After some chores and a nice homemade omelette & smoothie we drove to Manhattan (Parking is free on Sundays - yay!) On the way we passed the 5 borough bike event where thousands of bikers started in the LES and rode through all 5 boroughs on a set course. These are the kind of events I need to keep up with instead of only hearing about them the day of the event. Anyway, in Manhattan we visited the American Museum of Natural History. Mike had been wanting to check it out for a while and after our visit I can see why! If you are in NYC for a couple days I definitely recommend checking it out. First of all - you will never see this much indoor open space anywhere else in Manhattan. Second - we were there for several hours and only got through about half the museum. All of the exhibits were beautifully done but I loved seeing the dinosaurs, sea life, beetles, and mineral exhibits.

Could my next job be doing the display for museums? 

After the museum it was such a nice day that we decided to check out an antique store and the local flea market where we sampled horseradish jam, considered some old cigar boxes, and purchased a pair of aviator sunglasses & a chocolate chip cookie. After listening to some church via rock city, and making quesadillas for dinner I'm having a quiet evening at home. We popped in "Night at the Museum" because it was filmed at the Natural History Museum and I just saw about a dozen more exhibits I need to check out there. Evening all!