it's been one week

Ways in which the internet won this week:

- Simultaneously making me feel better and worse about life in NY: http://theworstroom.tumblr.com/ (conclusion: I can never move apartments)
- The Celebrate Brooklyn lineup was released this week, and looks great!
- Parks and Rec was renewed!
- Adding nothing but amazingness to my week / making me want to go on a road trip with John Krasinski and sing Katy Perry songs (which he probably has some time for now that The Office is ending. Emily Blunt can totally come with.):

- I'm gearing up for GoogaMooga #2 next weekend and praying that it has worked out some of the kinks since last year. At the very least, I hope it isn't quite so hot and sweltering, because the temperatures + lack of shade + consuming allofthefood is what really did us in.

- But the real highlight is that my friends Alex and Kendall are visiting all of us from high school here in NY this weekend and I could not be more excited!!! It's gorgeous out today, so I'm going to go be a tourist this afternoon and soak up some sun.

welcome to the space jam

Saturday night I fit a seemingly impossible number of people into my one-bedroom apartment for a space themed housewarming party. It was overflowing with aluminum foil, pop rocks, and really awesome friends who dove head first into the theme. I also threw the party so it coincided with several friends visiting from out of town, which made the festivities extra fun. I'm having some party-planning withdrawal now, though - it was all pretty consuming! The various elements included:

An almost 4-hour-long mix of space-related songs. Highlights here:

The playlist was visually-aided by a (mute version) of this Youtube playlist.

It got pretty middle-school-dance-ish with silver stars hanging from the ceiling, alongside a homemade galaxy (lit with christmas lights). Plus, more tin foil made an appearance to decorate an unused Ikea lampshade I had lying around.

There was "rocket fuel" made of Jager and Dr. Pepper (which wound up being my undoing), plus some sweet treats: Blue Moon cupcakes, and adorable alien rice krispie treats made by my friends Ana and Tiffany.

My friends came as a wide variety of spacey things...almost every costume involved aluminum foil, as you can see:

 space test animals (an elephant and a cat...)

the satellite that recently crash-landed on Earth, and the solar system 

generic foil/space hipster

Now that I've fully recovered (and my apartment no longer looks like the apocalypse happened), I'm definitely in search of a new project. Thanks to all of you who came out - my apartment is nice and warm now :-)

so fresh and so clean

For over a month it has felt like I've been in a state of perpetual motion. Starting with a new company, looking for apartments/signing/moving/unpacking, and now I am finally starting to settle in. There is still a lot to be done with the apartment, but most things are out of boxes and have a home. Until I manage to get a new couch and frame some of this art, things are more or less how they'll be for good. Thank goodness, because during that stretch of time I had more-or-less sequestered myself into a life of packing and unpacking and trips to Ikea/The Container Store/Bed Bath and Beyond. Now that things are less hectic, I'm getting back into the swing of things, including working on a summer mix.

Over the weekend I (finally!) saw some of my friends and two movies (and, of course, The Dodos concert). I saw Bill Cunningham at IFC (smallest theater I've ever seen!) which was amazing. The man is an icon and so endearing. I also saw Bridesmaids which really was just as funny as everyone told me it would be. I was nervous to see something with so much hype, but all of those ladies knocked it out of the park (and Jon Hamm, who had such a ridiculous character...). We also went to the new-ish home of the Brooklyn Flea in Williamsburg, which was a little surreal. The entrance is near one of those newer waterfront condos, and it really looked like an architectural mockup of the "outdoor space" with people lounging in the grass, sitting on benches, with dogs and children interspersed. I picked up a bottle of ginger syrup for Morris Kitchen (insanely delicious), and an old 7Up crate that I'm now using as a spice rack:

As a visual reference, this post is being written from this corner of my living room where I've set up camp. Here's a before and after:

 (as you can see, I really need a real couch...I ditched the futon frame during the move, so now I just have the mattress which is looking pretty sad these days).

I haven't forgotten about Memorial Day

I am so behind in re-capping the deliciously wonderful Memorial Day that I had on Monday!  It was also my last day before the big, bad world of working every day at 9am(!) - I guess I'm a grown-up now or something.

I hosted a small brunch party - I made corn-blueberry pancakes, biscuits, and spinach-egg-halloumi-stuffed baked tomatoes.  People brought over bagels, fruit, champagne, and daisies!  I bought my produce at the Union Square Greenmarket on Saturday, which was the first time I had gone there w/ the intention of actual grocery shopping.  All of the things I got were insanely delicious and fresh, and not expensive at all.

Post-brunch was spent in the park under the Manhattan bridge, first eating ice cream from Jacques Torres w/ Luiz and Nick, and then I was joined by my lucky friend/(now)former co-worker who lives rightthere on Main St.

It was beautiful out for 90% of the day, but I made it home right before the rain started to pour out of the sky - lucky me. :-)

"snow day"

Hey - it snowed yesterday!  While blustery, that was no blizzard...I could still walk and see the street in front of me and managed to run a few errands (like mailing a 60th birthday/valentine's day package to my parents!).  And then I came home and made this really nicely colorful mixture which managed to mostly look uniformly tan once it got cooked into a chicken pot pie.  Oh well.  It was delicious, if not extremely garlic-filled.

 

  

This morning you really couldn't tell that there was a "snowstorm"...at least not out of my windows.

  

 

...and the most exciting part of today: I figured out how to turn off Google Buzz in my Gmail inbox.  Phew, that was getting annoying FAST.

Happy Chanukah!

Tonight is the first night of Chanukah! I've set up my cork-in-bottle menorah on the mantle, and draped a sparkly, twinkly branch along the woodwork for some extra festive cheer. I'll be half-celebrating by having some potato pancakes, but at a distinctly non-Jewish locale (Lederhosen) for a friend's birthday. Not to worry: there's also a latke party in my future next week with some college friends!

rain, and lots of it!

The forecast was not kidding around for today when they said it was going to rain all day and night. My mom is here visiting for the weekend, which always has its ups and downs, but today was pretty good, all things considered.

Our task for the day was to find some lamps for my apartment, which has pretty bad lighting. I really wanted to go by Apartment 48, because it's right down the street from where I used to work, but I had never gone in. It's a really cute store, curated perfectly with tons of quirky little things that would make fantastic housewarming gifts, stocking stuffers, and birthday items (but, alas, no lamps). My mom fell in love with several of their larger furniture pieces, but alas they were all too big for any of the gaps in our house back in Chicago (and the store wasn't sure they could ship them there anyway). I came away with this cute candlestick in the shape of a tree branch, which I have paired with a white ceramic dish adorned with some painted gold birds. It now sits proudly on my bookcase, but may very well move:

I wound up buying two lamps- one for next to my futon, and one for next to my sewing machine. The larger lamp (for the futon) was from Pottery Barn, and it was large enough that we didn't feel like carrying it with us, so it's being delivered this week. The smaller lamp is from West Elm, and is totally over-priced. Regardless, it's kind of cute and now will give me some much needed extra light in my (extremely messy) sewing area:

After all of this shopping, we met up with my friends for some dinner at BLT Steak, up on 57th Street. I had heard good things about it, and it truly did not disappoint. The only regret I have is that I was too full to try one of their dessert specials: spiced pumpkin pie with cinnamon ice cream - I really am a sucker for fall flavors.

Above: a red wine jelly-topped spread, served with toasted baguette

Fresh out of the oven gruyere popovers, served with butter and sea salt. (so good!)

We all had hangar steaks - this was mine. I also had some bernaise sauce and potatoes gratin.

Tomorrow I'm taking mom to the Brooklyn Flea, to see a movie, and to dinner at Perilla! I'm crossing my fingers for smooth sailing the rest of this weekend.

housewarming

Saturday night was the official unveiling of my new apartment, so to speak. The party was a success, with punch themed perfectly to my cross streets (Pineapple St and Orange St). There were a bunch of Cornell people who I don't get to see very often, which was amazing. Pics of the apartment/party below:

Clare's friends in the kitchen...
"Livingroom"
Sleeping space

The playlist was about 4 hours long...with several Michael Jackson tributes interspersed, clearly.

I wished that I had my camera when I was out today (Sunday) because it was such a nice day full of lovely things! We had brunch in Morningside, then went to the Pride parade for a while, and headed down to SoHo. I took my first walk home from Manhattan across the Brooklyn bridge - not too long, and pretty efficient! I got a bit lost trying to find the entrance to the bridge on the Manhattan side, but eventually I got there. The bridge is pretty spectacular, I must say.

On a parting note, I'm really liking the new album by Electric Owls called Ain't Too Bright. I got one of their tracks ("Magic Show") on some random sampler playlist, and it's been getting a lot of play on my iPod lately. The album dropped on June 23rd - check it out, seriously!

"Magic Show" - Electric Owls

I think I need a new keychain now

My mom is here for the weekend, and today we went in search of a housewarming present for me.  While most people thought I should go big, i.e. get a new TV, I figured that she wouldn't really be into that idea (but perhaps my dad can be conned into it whenever he comes next).  So instead... I got this awesome Jonathan Adler valet tray:

If I ignore the horrible lightswitch cover (being replaced) and the clumpy paint on the buzzer (being sanded down), I think it fits in quite well!  Now if only my keys weren't on such a sad little keychain...

work in progress

It's official, I've moved!  I'm still unpacking and arranging things, but here's a sneak peek at the apartment on move-in/painting day:

paint colors! blue-green walls and yellow and white mantel

John painting...he and Ana were super helpful!

The kitchen, with 90% of my stuff piled into it while we painted

The amazing view of Manhattan from the Promenade a few blocks from the apt:

I'm pretty much in love with Brooklyn Heights!  My mom will be here this weekend, so after she's gone I'll probably be more settled (or at least enough to take some more photos!)

Apartment Story II

One of the nerdiest things that I do before I move into a new space is measure all of my furniture, and the space, and make a diagram to scale to figure out how I want to arrange everything.  It was especially helpful this time because the apartment is a sort of weird shape with the window area and the fire place jutting out.  This is my proposed layout:

My floorlamp will probably go behind the futon, by the fireplace.  I'll need to get a new nightstand, and I want a cute little end table to tuck into the fireplace.  I'm tossing the coffee table I have now (it's kind of a piece of crap), which has given me a lot of extra space.  

I'm also trying to choose a paint color still.  This blue-green-grey color is what I want to do for the walls, and then the yellow is for the trims, mantel, etc.

And as a parting note, here's a little photo I took of my new subway stop.  Brooklyn Heights!

apartment story

I finally picked up my keys to the new apartment today after work! I stopped by to size up how much room I'll really have (now that I'm not in a daze from viewing space after space), and take some photos! I'm especially in love with the mantel, the depth of the closet, and the nice old detailing on the walls.

the main space, as seen from the kitchen:

the kitchen:

note the cute mantel!

inside the closet:

bathroom shot:

and...that's pretty much it!  Now just to pick a paint color and move all this stuff on Saturday (both easier said than done!)  Stay tuned, folks.