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!

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?