Saturday, October 31, 2009

Happy Halloween Ya'll

John and I went to his company's Halloween party Thursday night. Man do they know how to throw a party! It was over the top and people's costumes were insane. Being my first Halloween in NYC I wasn't really sure what to expect, but I definitely underestimated the level of commitment. John and I went as Arkansans. For me that meant a camo jacket, cowboy boots and a cut off jean skirt. John went as the guy that dances during the third quarter at all of the Razorback games, I think his name is Hillbilly Hog or something. So John wore a mullet wig, John Deere hat, flannel shirt, jean shorts, and the big hit of the evening, he went barefoot. I thought we looked pretty cute and we thought it was funny since we're from Arkansas. After the party though John and I both agreed we would have to step it up next year.
Just trying to remember some of the more impressive costumes:
Grover as a police officer
All four Teletubbies
The kid from UP in full boy scout uniform, balloons and all
Edward Scissorhands (one of John's friends)
Guys in tuxedos with really fancy masks
LOTS of guys in drag or some kind of skin tight leather

So on to the actual party...
First of all you couldn't get in if you didn't have a costume on. Once you were allowed in the door, the place was decorated from top to bottom including the hallways. There were three bars, all of which were open bar. There was a runway to show off your costume/dance/have performances. There were professional dancers (I don't know if I should really call them dancers because they also did some acrobatics in swings hung from the ceiling). There was even a dancer who did a routine with fire. Like I said, over the top. I was in awe.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Family

John's family came to visit not this past weekend, but the weekend before that. They came for a quick weekend trip to celebrate his dad's birthday. We had lots of fun and tried to pack in as much stuff as we could. We took them to our favorite bakery and our favorite brunch place; we went to Times Square, saw Wicked, and ate at a great steak place.
We did manage to go to a couple of places that were new to John and I. John's sister wanted to go to the American Girl store which we had not visited before, its pretty insane by the way. John's step-brother, Taylor, wanted to go to the Nike flagship store which was another new one for us, also really impressive. We also did some of the standards like go stand on the red steps in Times Square and visit the M & M store.Unfortunately it was pretty chilly all weekend, especially for John's family who is used to Orlando weather. Its much more enjoyable for us to go visit them and take a break from the cold (we're saving that trip for when its really awful up here, like in January).

Saturday, October 24, 2009

Keep Your Fingers Crossed

John and I put in an application on an apartment last week. Its actually a studio, but is bigger than the apartment we have now and has an awesome kitchen (by awesome I mean HUGE and fantastically renovated). For those of you who aren't familiar with NYC apartments, kitchens here are often the size of closets. My sister thought it was hilarious that she could stretch out her arms and touch both the walls in the kitchen we have now.

Here's a picture of the kitchen in the apartment we're hoping to get. There's a full size stainless steel refrigerator on the other side!So now for the not so great part, the apartment is in a co-op building which means we have to be approved by the board to rent there. This has been worse than applying for a mortgage for our old house; we had to give them tax statements, bank statements, and letters of employment to start. After proving we could afford the apartment with all of that we had to provide two personal reference letters, two business reference letters, a letter from our landlord and a letter attesting to the behavior of our dog!

This whole process has been nuts and the worst part is that the board can take up to 30 days to decide. Here's where we need everyone to cross their fingers, our lease for our apartment now is up November 1st. We need the board to decide in two weeks, not 30 days! If the board doesn't decide by the 1st John and I will have to find a temporary residence for another week or two and that's assuming that we will be approved.

*****UPDATE****
We got the apartment and we were able to move in this weekend!!! I'm taking a break from unpacking as we speak :)

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Its Official, I'm a New Yorker

Well technically. I got my NY state driver's license the other day. I'm not really planning on ever driving in NYC but my Arkansas license had expired. I originally thought about just not renewing it because it would be a hassle and I'm not driving, but apparently having an ID is kind of important.

Just a few of the reasons I forgot you need a non-expired license:
Boarding a plane
Getting into a bar
Getting into high security buildings, like the Empire State Building
Filling out paper work for a job :)

I spent a long time at the DMV, but I guess it was worth it. I'm happy with the picture which is good because I'm definitely not doing that again any time soon. I had thought about trying to put up a picture but decided that probably wouldn't be wise in the era of identity theft, you guys will just have to use your imagination :)

Sunday, October 18, 2009

Working Girl

I got my first pay check on Friday; it had been a long, long time since I had seen one of those!

So far the job is going really well, the hardest part is getting dressed every morning. The dress code in the office is a little dressier than I'm used to and not being able to wear jeans is really hard. At my job back in Arkansas I could wear jeans and so I really only had to dress nicely a couple of days a week, here I have to look nice every day!

I've had to seriously re-evaluate my work wardrobe and definitely had to do a little supplementing. Several of the things I used to wear back home don't really work here in NY since I walk a little more. I learned really quickly to walk to work in tennis shoes and then change into my dress shoes. Unfortunately I discovered that doesn't work on rainy days as my socks and shoes were soaked all the way through by the time I got to work. The next day I wore rain boots and it ended up not raining at all. I felt a little silly, but oh well.

I'm hoping since I'll be starting my third week at work I'll be able to get dressed with a little less struggle. I'd really like to not try on 15 different things just to come up with an outfit. I guess the good thing is that I've been doing that for two weeks and I can fall back on some of those outfits. I am definitely starting to feel more like a New Yorker though, so that's kinda cool.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Catching Up

The past two weeks have been a whirlwind!

First of all after eight LONG months, I finally got a job! I'm working at a furniture distribution company as an administrative floater. It definitely has the potential to turn into something a little more design related down the road and the awesome part is that its where my two friends that I've met up here that are originally from AR work. Last week was my first week and so far everyone there is so nice. It also really helps that I already know two people. Its going to take me a little while to get back into the swing of having a set schedule though. I had gotten pretty used to sleeping until whenever I wanted to. I was so tired all of last week but this week so far promises to be better, I actually woke up before my alarm this morning.

John's birthday was also the first part of October. For his birthday we went to see Oleanna, a play by David Mamet. It was another one of those really intense, kind of controversial ones, but it was definitely interesting. Julia Stiles and Bill Pullman were the stars and there was even a moderated discussion afterward. Before the play we spent the day shopping which I know, doesn't sound like something John would want to do on his birthday. The funny thing is that I said I needed to go shopping for a couple of new things for work and John chimed in that he wanted to go too. In the entire length of our five year marriage John has NEVER volunteered to go shopping!

Its so funny to see how living in NY changes you. John has actually taken an interest in fashion! I think a lot of that has to do with working for Gilt and having access to really nice designer clothing. The day of his birthday we went shopping on 5th avenue for most of the day. We both got a couple of things. I was exhausted by the time we finished and John was the one that was excited and wanted to go home and change into his new clothes. He got a new pair of shoes and a blazer that he couldn't wait to wear so he changed and wore that to the play.

The other thing that has been taking up a lot of our time lately is apartment hunting. We've spent the past couple of weekends looking at apartments and I've even gone out a couple of times after work to look. You would think apartment hunting in NY would be really fun, but its not, its so exhausting! You don't realize how much you've walked going from building to building until you get home and finally sit down after hours and hours of being on your feet. Its really draining both physically and emotionally. The most frustrating part is that John and I will be really excited about seeing an apartment and then when we get there its tiny and doesn't look anything like the pictures. Its so frustrating!

Sorry for the two week absence and the super long post, I think we're all caught up now :)