Clap Your Hands

I work for The North Face now! Almost 6 months. It's really truly a great company and I have the best coworkers and I really enjoy going to work! This is me and some of my coworkers (Full Circle Group) at the beach (Jersey Shore, actually!):


I also have new roommates and a new apartment. I live with Lauren (23 yr old grad student from North Carolina) and Kathleen (24 yr old, works in advertising, from CA!) in a neighborhood called Stuyvestant Town. Our apartment is wonderful. I really love coming home to these ladies and I think I'll raise my kids here. JK. Californians always go back.

I also have a new bike!
It's pretty awesome and I ride it to/from work as often as possible. I use it to get across and uptown. I love it!

I also just ran my first race! I lost 10 pounds training for it and I feel great! It's awesome to challenge yourself and know you can do something you never thought you would. All week I've been so excited about my finish time (58:58 for a 10k/6.2 miles) but today I realized "whoa! I ran for an hour straight!)My friend Laura trained and ran with me:


I get to go to the Sales Meeting in a couple weeks. It's a week long at a Tahoe Resort with amazing North Face people. NBD. Then Halloween in LA with Laura. Then home in November for grandma's bday.

Maybe

It's been forever! I was feeling down for a while and didn't want to write. There was another snow at some point - so beautiful.



News with me:
1) Still looking for better employment opportunities. It's been a month of hard-core looking and my hope is on the upswing. Let's go Anna!
2) Learning to knit and going crazy with the variety of yarns available. Crafting is a drug. The first picture is of a little clutch/bag/purse thing I'm not quite done with. These things are fun, I'm planning to do a few more.

This one is a hooded scarf. I didn't follow a pattern for this one so it's pretty sloppy. I'm going to use that green stuff to line it or soemthing because it looks like a burka when I put it on.



That's what's in my purse today. I went yarn shopping at lunch at some AMAZING discount yarn place! --->>




3) Going to CA in a week (!!!) Going to hurt family's feelings for only spending a day in Bakersfield but, you know what? If I pay for a flight to California, I'm going to the frickin' beach. Roadtrippin' from Burbank to Morro Bay with mom! (Why am I flying into Burbank you ask? Because I'm an idiot.)
4) Despite the horrible cold and rain about to come down on NYC, I firmly believe Spring and Summer are on their way. Don't believe me? Well, then why have they announced the first half of the Tribeca Film Festival line up? That's what I thought.
5) Going to DC for Easter/a friend's Birthday!
6) Did I tell you I'm knitting now?

Hope all is well!

Son's Gonna Rise

This weekend was super nice. The weather was AMAZING and I spent a couple good daylight hours outside enjoying the city. From my apartment I walked up to Central Park and read for a while, then I went to the Barnes and Noble in Lincoln Square area, then I got some groceries and made myself a nice little taco dinner :) Sunday was just as fun. I spent the entire day with Jarling wandering around and people watching. I'm thankful for her friendship here.

Jarling and I went to a Citizen Cope concert a couple weeks ago:
We were FRONT ROW!
It was awesome because last time I saw him was a couple years ago with Monica in LA and we were in the nose bleeds.

Mom sent me an AMAZING Valentine's Day package!!! So I'm almost done with all the candy, have watched 2 of the 4 seasons of Will and Grace that she sent and have posted up the pictures she sent of the Navarros rockin' the 2010 glasses! I also got a wake up call on Vday from a flower delivery company! My friend Joe sent me flowers and made my day! Monica, my love, also sent me a card! This pouring of love really boosted my happy level. I was having a rough time with the NY winter.

I'm trying really hard to find a new job and improve my situation here. Kady and I think this will really improve my happiness and my life in NY. Better weather would be nice too.

Home

Hayo!
What a frickin' week. For those of you on the Best Coast, you didn't get a taste of the Snowpocalypse that hit the North East this week. It ruined last weekend for me because 1)I didn't make it to DC to see Andrew or to get in all that snowy-goodness and 2)No snow came to NY so it was just cold and sad. I'm coming home.

My DC trip being cancelled was the steamy dog crap on top of a Chinatown-dumpster-like week. So...I went into work this week really bummed still. Monday was ... a typical Monday I guess. But Monday night sucked as much as anything can. I tried to do my taxes online. Suffice it to say I spent a couple hours on the phone SOBBING to mom and went to bed with a cold compress on my eyes. Mom "kicks me back up when I'm down" and tells me exactly what I need to hear to realize I need to sop crying and make changes or accept what's done. Serenity prayer like.

Tuesday was better. My eyes were puffy, I was tired, but non of that mattered when the mailman told me about the snow day declared for Wednesday. Naturally I convinced the boss that it's not safe for us to come in and scored myself a holiday. SKILLZ!

Today, "Snowpocalypse," "Blizzard 2010," "Snowmageddon," was awesome. I slept in, went strollin' around town. Met Kady for some more strollin' and rollin'. The snow was beautiful. I threw snowballs at people from up on the roof.


So to finish I want to put some things out there. It seems I've made up my mind this week to return to CA this September. I don't know if this decision will stick until then. I'm hoping I'll find a job worth staying here for but as of today...I need more breathing room, sunshine and beach. Stay tuned...

California Dreaming

I went to DC again - this time to see Andrew who's there for work. It was awesome. It dumped snow on Saturday and I tried to be out in the downfall as much as possible. Andrew - the southern Californian resident who boasts of wearing shorts and sandals to work in December - was inadequately prepared for the snow but he only complained occasionally. We met up with Rose and John for brunch at a nice place in Dupont Circle - the walk was slow but it was awesome. Then we went out to see Avatar 3D in Chinatown. (I really liked Avatar ... and I was trying not to.) On the way home that night it was still snowing and I tricked Andrew into walking by the White House. It was so peaceful and beautiful! I stopped to make a snow angel! I think it might be my first one ever.


As I lay there in the snow waiting for Andrew to figure how to take a picture on my phone - I had one of those "right before you die" moments where everything was silent and peaceful and it made you realize how fast you've been going and how much you've been missing. I laid there a little longer than necessary staring up at the brownish purplish sky watching the snowfall and hearing nothing but the sound of my own breathing. I've thought about that moment a lot these last few days...
I'm tired but can't get to sleep at a reasonable hour. I stare at the computer most days and my eyes are killing me but I go home and make rings or knit (exercising my eyes even more). Every where I walk I speed walk - I'm always rushing to get somewhere. I am running at full speed (most of the time) but not accomplishing much except keeping a job and paying bills. I wonder if I'd be happier/healthier if I moved to a warmer, more open and spacious place. Like LA.

I'm going back to DC this weekend and CA in March sometime. I'm in a lease in NY until September so I have plenty of time to change my mind a million times. We'll see.

Countdown

I'm free! I have a life again! I can come home after work and do whatever I want! Lately all I want to do is make rings and learn to knit. I got a starter kit for knitting and crocheting for Christmas and have been to Michael's twice in the last week. I'm obsessed. The starter kit was a book, needles and a couple skeins of yarn (thanks, Carey) and after reading the first 30 pages or so I took to YouTube (Google: "How to knit") to get the hang of it. I managed to knit about 10 rows before making a mistake (I had a movie on and got distracted). Unfortunately I don't know how to "go back" yet so I ended up unwinding like 5 rows before I put it down for the night. The goal is to have at least a scarf knit by Mom's birthday at the end of the month.

Another obsession right now is making rings! When I started making earrings at home in 2008 one of the girls at our friends' bead shop was always making simple wire wrap rings and I always said I'd buy the tool and start making my own but...I never did. So once mom left New York and I had to think of things to do to entertain myself I decided to bite the bullet and go get the tool and wire. 15 rings later...I can't stop thinking about making more. I've got three basic designs going on and I'm using up all the single stones and beads left over from earring making.

I'm really thinking about starting an Etsy page. Do you know about Etsy.com? You should! It's a website where people sell their hand made stuff.

Look at some of my rings: mostly I just use left over beads from my earrings but once in a while I get stones at the bead store or buttons from the flea market! (The big square black one is a button from the 1940s)

New Year!

Happy New Year!

Mom and I celebrated the New Year at Times Square (did I tell you already?) anyway it was awesome. Cold too. Cold with a capital "C." I mean I live here. I've adjusted to the cold but standing in it for 3.5 hours (and we were not the early ones) with no refuge but the barrier of people surrounding you - that's cold on another level. But we survived! And although it rained THE ENTIRE TIME, it wasn't so bad. They do a 10 second countdown to each hour starting at 6 p.m. so each hour I'd put on a little more clothing. We were at the front of the barricade at the north side of 51st Street and 7th Avenue. So we couldn't hear any of the entertainment you guys all saw on TV. Luckily this group of 20-something tourist d-bags were right behind us yelling the entire time. What would they yell? Oh stuff like "F*#% Toshiba." (On repeat) Why Toshiba? Because the big TVs in Times Squares are Toshiba TVs. They also liked to shout "I f*&^ing hate America." Why? Oh why not?
Back to the countdown. Midnight came and it was kind of amazing. Everyone counting down together. Blocks and blocks of people who were all out there in the rain and cold for one reason, counting down to a New Year. I've watched it on TV for years - you know how exciting it is with family or friends and pots and pans...well...this was so much better. I'd bet there weren't many New Yorkers in the crowd but the countdown and revelry after was the perfect kind of New York moment that I live for, here. Those moments when everyone's on the same team. When everyone is elated for the exact same reason you are. New York is big. Lots of people with their own schedules and agendas. When you can share a moment with someone/anyone/a crowd of people - wow. So we did it and it was a once in a lifetime experience. And I'll never do it again. (Love you mom.)

Happy New Year :)

p.s. How bout dem Cowboys? ;) Superbowl bound?