I think I was born for NYC: Part 2

I am finally posting part 2 of my big move to NYC! I know I have been here for 2 weeks now, and I should have probably posted this sooner….oh well, I’ve been a busy city gal. Okay, so my first day of work was a success. J was still here with me so he rode the subway with me to work to make sure I got there okay and on time. I was nervous that I would be late so we left super super early. We stopped for breakfast and ended up having like an hour to kill before I had to be at work. I told you we left early! Anyway we hung out in a little café that was on the way to work sipping coffee and people watching.

So besides people watching I was dog watching of course. So I have always lived somewhere where there was a backyard or an open field for our dog to run around in and…well…poop. Seeing dogs in the city just squat in the middle of a crowded sidewalk and poop is something I don’t know if I will ever get used to! It seems so sad to me. They can’t even pee on the trees along the sidewalk because they are all fenced off! It’s crazy. These dogs just poop on the sidewalk! Or in the street! It’s weird.

Anyway, back to work. Everyone was really nice. I have a pretty big desk and a great computer.  I was worried about what I would do for lunch, seeing how I don’t know anyone yet and I don’t know of any good places to go eat, but it worked out. The owner was turning 50 that day so they had a little lunch party for him. They ordered tons of little sliders and salads and we all ate together, which was perfect.

J came and picked me up from work when I was done and we went out to dinner and to have a beer to celebrate my successful first day.

My celebratory beer after my first day!

At the subway stop after work getting ready to come home. I did it!

It was sad leaving for work the next morning because I knew J was leaving. But I made it to work just fine all by myself and when I got home these were waiting for me. Awww.

Beautiful surprise flowers J left for me

So all in all my first week was a success. I made it to and from work just fine. I love my job and the people who work there. I love the city. I feel as if I have become very brave and although it has been tough without J here, I feel as though it’s been good for me, a good reminder that I am very capable of doing big things. I am very brave. This is just the beginning of this wonderful and exciting next chapter of my life. J moves in for good this Friday and I am very excited. I missed him terribly! I feel all citi-fied now and I am ready to show him the ropes ;)

Well, now that I have reassured everyone that I made it through my first week and  talked about all of the boring but necessary stuff, my posts from here on out will be much more exciting and entertaining, I promise!

Peace, Love, and Dogs who Poop on the Sidewalk,

Chels

I think I was born for NYC: Part 1

I did it people. I got through my first week (well, half week) in NYC!
Things are fabulous!
I am going to break this into two posts because I just have a lot of stuff to say and tons of pics. I also don't have a very long attention span so that is the other reason why this will be delivered to you in two posts.
Here I go.

PART ONE

We got into the city Monday morning with a FULL truck load of stuff. The drive was pretty quick and easy and we basically got off at an exit and turned onto our street (which means not much crazy-honking-flippingthebird-city-driving.)

The truck loaded to the brim!

My job was easy when we got there. I basically stood by the pile of our stuff on the side of the street while J used a hand truck to wheel everything into the building. Luckily our super came out to meet us and was incredibly nice and helped J carry everything inside.

While J was making trips in and out, I stood there guarding our stuff, which was boring until I looked to my right and saw this crazy pigeon!
Okay, I mean I have seen pigeons before and I know there are lots of them in the city but this was a bright white pigeon in the bus lane and it was flipping around all crazy! I don't know if it got hit or what, but its head looked a little squished and it was like flapping around and somersaulting and couldn't seem to stand upright! It was so crazy! 
Of course I was captivated and when Joe got back to the truck to pick up another load of stuff I'm like 
"J! J! Look at this crazy bird!!"
As J has veins popping out of his head because he is lifting a box full of canned foods. He was not as interested in the bird as I was.
Whatever.
Then an old lady stopped and picked this crazy lunatic pigeon up and carried it onto the sidewalk and put it down under a tree. It just sat there for a long time...then I got bored and started looking at a 300lb woman in white stretch pants and when I turned back to check on the pigeon it was gone.
Long story short, we moved everything into the apartment.

At this point it was late in the afternoon and we were starving so we walked to the little store next to our building, bought a six pack of beer and went back to the apartment and ordered a pizza. No joke it was delivered in 12 min. And it was AMAZEBALLS.
We ate it on the floor because we have no furniture yet.

Amazing pizza...on the floor.

On Tuesday we did more unpacking and then did a practice trip to my office. I wanted to make sure I knew where I was going and wouldn't get lost and die. We had dinner that night at the place next to our building. It is a teeny tiny place and we walked in and were the only people in there. We both really wanted a big cold beer but when we looked at the menu we discovered that it was basically all wine. Except for a few "beer mixed drinks"
I bet you are wondering what that means...so am I.

5 drinks. All with weird names I can't pronounce. Each description is this:
'beer, sprite, ____' The blank space is for any number of things, such as : grenadine, peach nectar, champagne, grape flavor.
I am not kidding. 
You couldn't get a regular beer. 
They already brought us bread which J had already begun to tackle so we were committed.
I ordered the beer, sprite, peach nectar combo only to have the guy tell me they were  out of peach nectar, so I reluctantly settled for grenadine.
5 min go by...no drinks.
A young guy from the kitchen runs out the front door.
5 more min go by...no drinks.
Young kitchen guy bursts in the front door with a 6 pack of Stella Artois and a receipt.
5 more min go by...drinks arrive.
The drinks sucked, but the food was pretty amazing. We probably won't ever go back there.
Good times.
Okay, this brings us to my first day of work but I am going to keep you waiting for part 2 to hear all about it. Until then...

Our feet riding the subway. We were practicing going to work.

Giant buildings.

Peace, Love, and Big City Livin'
Chels

I'm gonna get lost and I'm gonna have to sit near a crazy on the subway.

Okay so I'm not going to pretend like I'm a city savvy girl. I have only visited NYC a handful of times outside of supervised field trips in middle school to Ellis Island and the like.

I have a serious problem with directions. Following directions. Like maps.
I am directionally impaired. I could drive around in circles all day looking for something thats right in front of me. I get serious anxiety about getting lost. Like I will take the route that tacks on 20 minutes to my commute because I am familiar with it. And even when I am familiar with a route there is still a good chance that I will find a way to get lost.
Needless to say I am terrified of using the subway system. It's one thing to be lost in the safety of my car with 2 GPS devices, but its a whole other thing to be lost on foot AND underground!
Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. I did spend a semester in Prague, Czech Republic and not only did not speak, understand or read the language, everyone there hated American students. So even when I found someone who spoke a little bit of English, it was still very difficult to get them to even talk to you. I survived that. I took trams, subways, and walked around an underdeveloped Eastern European country by myself and didn't die. I can do this right? At least I speak the language in New York.
Anyway, besides my deathly fear of getting lost I am nervous and excited to see all kinds of new things. This included good things, bad things, weird things, freaky things, funny things, and basically any other kind of thing you could think of. This being said, I did some research. I looked for things that I can only hope to see on some of my adventures in the city.

This is my kinda chick. She is hungry and doesn't care who knows it. And she is not about to sacrifice eating healthy or delicious food just because she is on the subway. Go 'head gurl.

I wonder what his bunny's name is?

Illegal Massage eh? I was hoping to fall back on that if times get tough and this new job doesn't work out. Shoot.

Only 2 Damn Dollas. I can afford that.

Although I can not take credit for any of these awesome photos, I sure hope that in due time I will have some doozies of my own to share with you. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we will get the call today to tell us our apartment is ready to be moved in to!

Until then...

Peace, Love, and Crazy People

Chels

I miss New York. I still love how people talk to you on the street - just assault you and tell you what they think of your jacket. -Madonna

It's been a really really long time since I have posted. A lot has happened.

To fill you in, I lost my job in October. So did J. We worked for the same idiot company and they could no longer afford to keep us. While it was devastating and very unexpected, it was also the best thing that ever happened to us.
We were both extremely unhappy working for this company. We needed the money and I needed the experience for my resume. For the few months leading up to our lay off we both went back and forth debating on whether or not we should quit. It was a stressful time in our relationship and we were so miserable. Thankfully we got laid off, which meant we didn't have to quit and we were able to collect unemployment. This was also difficult. J and I have both always had a job since we were old enough to have one. Collecting unemployment made us feel like shit. I was bored, I felt bad taking money that I wasn't working for, and felt like I didn't have a purpose. This sucked.
I spent hours every day sending my resume out to companies all over the U.S.
J decided to go back to school. He had been talking about wanting to get his MBA and this was the push he needed. He enrolled in an online school and started right away. I was so proud of him, but I have to be honest, it made me feel like double shit. He was at least going to school and working toward making a better life for us, and what was I doing? I'll tell ya what I was doing. Knitting, eating, applying for jobs, working out, watching movies, applying for jobs, bugging J, cleaning, applying for jobs, napping, walking around the house aimlessly, applying for jobs. In that order. EVERY DAY.
It got old fast.
After going on multiple interviews, including one all the way in Boston, something happened. I got a call. A fashion company in Manhattan wanted to interview me. Holy moly.
My parents bought me a train ticket, my mom took off work to be my travel buddy, and we went up to NYC for my interview. Then something else happened....

I GOT THE JOB OFFER!!!!!
Hallelujah thank you sweet baby Jesus!!

I accepted. I am a graphic designer in Manhattan.
Okay, not quite yet. I mean I haven't started yet. J and I just signed the lease on a beautiful 2 bedroom apartment on the upper east side in Manhattan. The building was just bought by a new management company so as people move out they are completely gutting and renovating each unit. So our apartment is still being worked on. They put in all brand new hardwood floors, brand new bathrooms, all new paint, and brand new stainless steel appliances in the kitchen. The kitchen should be finished early next week and when it is, we are outta here!

Google maps view of our new place. Legit.

The plan is to drive up in J's truck with a bunch of stuff to get me started. J will stay with me for a couple of days and help me to unpack and navigate the subway system so I don't get lost and die.
Then he will come back to our house and continue packing and then move up with me for good.

I still have to pinch myself to make sure this is all real. I get goose bumps every time I say it:
I am a graphic designer for a fashion company in Manhattan. (goooooosebuuuuuumps!!)

So I know this was a boring post, and I know I have not been blogging regularly but stick with me people because shit is about to get good.
I am convinced that good things happen to those who wait, and who also work their ass off and have a great resume.
I don't regret working for my previous company. I learned a lot. Especially how not to run a business.
J and I learned how to lean on each other in tough times.
My new salary is double what I was making at the previous company and I have benefits. (suck on that previous company!)
Life is good, and it's about to get even better. I will keep you all in the loop as this next chapter of our lives unfolds.

Peace, Love, and NYC
Chels

Chicken and Waffles, Hermit Crabs, and Pumpkins...a lot has happened since I posted last.

So much to talk about. It's been like a whole month since I last posted...that's a long time.

It is now October. It has been busy busy! I am going to cut right to the chase and talk about all of the things that have been going on lately.

My cousin got married. She looked amazing, but more importantly the reception rocked my socks off. Open bar the. whole. time. Amazing food. Not a lot of speeches and no toasts. I mean don't get me wrong I love weddings and all that lovey dovey stuff but once I am at the reception and I have kicked off my shoes, I am not trying to have anyone interrupt my drunken dance moves to watch 28 couples I don't know all get their own time to dance. Or to try and catch a stupid bunch of flowers. Or watch the groom put on a show taking the garter off of the brides leg, even though we all know they live together and have been banging it out since their third date 6 years ago. Lets cut to the chase, in this order: 

cocktails, food, cocktails, dancing, cocktails, dancing, cocktails...you get the rest.

But seriously their wedding was great. They had chicken and waffles with hot sauce for their appetizer. The brides drink of choice was Dogfish Head Punkin Ale with a cinnamon sugar rim. And she didn't toss the bouquet or do the dumb garter thing. Right. It kicked all other weddings asses. 

Before the wedding. Pre-chicken and waffles and beer.

This is apparently one of the dance moves I mentioned above.....

Next thing. I made a chicken. Well, I cooked a chicken. I fancy myself a pretty good cook when it comes to throwing things together with whatever random crap I have in the fridge. Planning and measuring are not my thing when it comes to cooking so following a recipe is challenging for me. Cooking meat is also challenging. But check out mah chicken!

I was very proud. So proud I took a picture of a cooked chicken and posted it on Instagram and now I am posting it here. I am clearly needing someone to acknowledge how great my chicken looks. This means you.

J and I walked down to our little beach the other night and I was of course looking for treasure like I usually do, when I found an awesome shell. It was like a giant snail shell. I wanted to bring it home but thought better of it because a few weeks before this I did bring home a giant shell that looked like a snail shell and on my walk back a long claw reached out and touch my finger. Uh yeah. I FREAKED out as you can imagine. It was a hermit crab. I took it back to the beach right away. This is why I decided not to bring this shell home...even though it looked empty, because the first shell looked empty too and then a crab touched me.

Anyway, I told J about this incident and why I didn't think we should bring this shell home. But when we walked into the front door J reaches in his pocket and pulled out the giant snail shell thing!  He sneakily brought it home. He said he liked it and he was sure there was not crab in it. Then he rinsed it off in the sink and apparently the HERMIT CRAB LIVING INSIDE OF IT didn't like that and reached his long claw out and scared the crap out of J. He never listens to me. 

Long story short we now had a pet hermit crab.

Meet Shell Dwell. J named him.

I looked online the next morning to find out what we could feed him, and it said you can never keep an aquatic hermit crab (which he apparently was) because the need to be in fresh salt water at all times or they will be dying a slow painful death for a few days before they dry up and fall out of their shell.

Say what!? 

We immediately rushed him to the beach the next morning and set him free. We do not want to have a dead aquatic hermit crab on our conscious.

Long story short, we now do not have a pet hermit crab.

So I saw thing thing online. This thing is a wine rack. I reallllllly wanted it but it was kind of expensive. I asked J if he could make it for me and he said yes! And he did. This is my new super awesome wine rack.

You are probably thinking I stole this picture off of Pinterest or some other awesome site. But I did not. I only stole the idea and everyone knows there is not such thing as intellectual property. So there. J really made it for me. I stained it. WINE :)

Okay, so my last thing to tell you is that I am pumped about fall. The weather has been super gorg and I have been drinking pumpkin lattes and sippin on pumpkin beer, and burning pumpkin candles and buying pumpkins. Yeah. I also made a fall-y wreath for our front door. 

Fall-y wreath.

J and I also bought bales of hay and gourds and decorated the front of our little home last night. I hope we get trick-or-treaters :) I want to see cute kids in costumes, J wants them to come so as I am handing out candy he can sneak up behind me and pretend to kill me. He basically wants to see how many little princesses and batmen he can make pee in their costumes. I think he's gonna be a good dad someday right?

Okay. Thats whats been happenin. I will try to be better about posting so I don't have to post a billion randoms pictures I had on my phone all at once.

Peace, Love, and Pumpkins,

Chels

Corn dogs, beer, giraffes and red necks

Today is September.  It's not September 1st, I am a little late on that one, but I still can't believe its already September! It's so sad when summer is coming to an end. But it's also exciting because I love fall. Fall means wonderful things like pumpkin coffee, super crunchy leaves, and bon fires. I really love all of those things.

But this post is not about fall. I know that intro may have misled you, but this post is in fact about summer. One of my favorite parts of summer is...get ready...don't make fun of me....seriously, cuz I'll punch you......the Delaware State Fair! Woooo rednecks!

Okay, let me explain. When J and I started dating 4 score and 7 years ago...wait that's not right...2ish years ago,  we went to the Delaware State Fair. Hey, it was something to do and admit it, who doesn't like to people watch and eat fried food outside?

Anyway, we were a new item at this point so J paid for things and tried to impress me by winning me prizes at the fair games. It was a great night. So it has become tradition. And the fair always falls on the week of our anniversary, so yep you guessed it, the fair was our little anniversary celebration this year. It has been such a crazy summer and we have had people coming to stay with us almost every weekend. Our anniversary weekend we had nothing to do and it was the weekend of the fair, so we went. We got drunk, we ate corn dogs and funnel cake and pizza and fried oreos and then almost threw up.

We pet pigs and goats and cows and sheep! We also fed a giraffe. 

This is a giraffe.

I have never been this close to a giraffe before. I mean I have seen them on t.v. and in magazines but I have never been up close with one. She was so tall! I mean, yes I know giraffes are tall, I'm not a complete idiot. But when you're standing under one...they are really freaking tall!

This is J feeding her. Carrots only. No cupcakes.

Yeah, I fed her too. She licked my hand which I then immediately wiped on J's shorts.

As you can see the giraffe stole the show. She was very cool. Okay so back to my story. The Delaware State Fair is in Harrington. People who are not Harrington locals call Harrington "Lower Slower Delaware"

The fair grounds are connected to a casino. The perfect storm.

We gambled and drank beer. And J won money! Wahoo!

He then tried to impress me for old times sake and remind me how good he is at throwing a dart 3 feet to pop a tiny half deflated balloon stuck to a wall. He won me lots of stuff.

We spent 5 hours at the fair. Who does that!? 

Crazy people.

Peace, Love, and Watermelon Ninjas

Chels

The list of people I want to punch in the face is getting too long, I am going to start a list of people who I do NOT want to punch in the face

When I read other peoples blogs I am not usually judgmental…like at all.  I am interested in what they have to say (most of the time) and I am actually envious of their ability to just put it all out there. I can’t do that. I can make a joke of most things, and then it’s easy for me to talk about it on my blog. But really important things are more difficult for me.

This has me wondering what exactly the purpose of my blog is. Is it for me? Is it for others who read it? Is it a way to express myself and vent and say what’s on my mind? I mostly find myself trying to write things that are meaningful or funny to others. Granted, I am my own biggest fan and I crack myself up. But do I really need a blog to do that?

The point is, I am going to try and be more open.

To talk about things that are actually poignant and meaningful to ME.

Here it goes:

I am highly annoyed. Angry. Frustrated.

I need to vent. Big time.

What does one do when they feel this way?

In real life you can’t just freak out and tell everyone who even breathes too loudly in the same building as you to go fuck themselves. That would be just asking to have everyone from there on out wishing you would check into your anger management meetings, pop a Xanax and get over it.

If I was a kid I would just hit the person, steal their Lego’s and then fling myself onto the floor and cry until someone did something about it.

So how do…err SHOULD adults handle their problems?

I go for a run when I am mad. I drink a glass a wine or 6 when I am mad. I cry when I am mad. But these aren’t solutions to the problem. They are a quick pick me up. A cheap temporary out.  I need solutions people.

How do you tell someone that they are wrong? Uneducated? Immature? Inappropriate? Unprofessional?  A bitch?

What would happen if I got tired of taking the high road and just went ape shit on everyone. It would be pretty funny. I think I would feel better. I can’t go ape shit.

I am a grown up…ish.

I suppose I need to take inventory of the wonderful things in my life…so why not do it here for all to see eh?

Things that are super awesome in my life…go:

Joe

Our new house…at the beach

My wonderful family

Joe’s wonderful family

My new Victoria’s Secret bathing suit. It’s green.

Summer

Our new paddle boards

My new bike that J surprised me with!

The sand between my toes anytime I want

Well. That’s a lot to be thankful for. I am lucky to have someone in my life that loves me for me. Someone who is my bestest best friend, someone who I get to come home to every night. Who I get to fall asleep next to, and even better, get to wake up next to: the best part of my day every day.

Mainly what I am trying to say is, thank you J. Thank you for being my rock and always standing in my corner. Thank you for letting me yell and vent and cry when I need to. Thank you for emptying the dishwasher tonight.

You da you da best.

Most all other people suck.

I probably mean you…but maybe not.

Peace, Love, and A Higher Does of Xanax

Chels