new york photoshoot

Greetings from Dallas!  We drove here Friday from Kansas City and thanks to some stern conversations Al had with our movers, our moving truck arrived Saturday (after they had told us it would be Tuesday before we'd get it due to the storm on the East Coast). We are settling in nicely to our new town home and have almost unpacked. The cable and internet guy came yesterday and I've never been so excited to be "connected" again (is that bad?). I've still got quite a few boxes to tackle and the furniture we ordered won't be here for several more weeks so while we're here, it's no where near a complete home yet. 

Forgive me for the rest of the week while I finish up stuff around the house and try to put together my new routine. I'll be back to regular scheduled posts next week, but in the meantime I have a lovely little surprise for you..

For a going away gift, several of my girlfriends got together and gave us a day with a professional photographer in New York. We spent a f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g morning before we left the city taking a photos in some of our favorite spots around the city. It was such a thoughtful gift from my friends and we will truly treasure the images. What a great way to remember our life in New York.  Take a look at a few of my favorites...

  

  

 Thanks to our friends for hooking us up with the incredibly talented and friendly Elizabeth Shrier. 

See y'all back here next week. Now off to unpack more boxes...

farewell week recap

Hello from Kansas City! We're not in Dallas just yet - we don't have access to our place until the 29th so we stopped off to hang with our families for a few days before we drive down to Dallas. We made it here Sunday night and missed all Juno-related snow issues, thankfully. But I'll admit, I did have a little bit of Juno FOMO yesterday.  

We had one spectacular last week in New York City. We started to call it our Farewell Tour since we had something just about every single night. It was a great way to see tons of our friends (and eat some great meals). Here are (quite a lot of) photos of our last week in the city...

Two Saturdays ago we had a fun morning doing a little goodbye surprise (you'll see photos of it soon, I promise).  After several hours in the freezing cold we stopped for brunch in the meatpacking district.

That night we had a big group dinner with some friends at Fedora. It came together last minute, but ended up working out perfectly. I called Fedora meekly on a Thursday asking if they had a private space available for ten people that coming Saturday (a notion that completely absurd). Thankfully, it worked out and it turned out better than I expected. Highly recommend their private dining room in the basement. We had great service, great food, and the private space made for a much more intimate experience.

The following Sunday we met my boss, her husband and darling daughter for brunch at Marta - a new place that I'm so sad we just discovered! It's so close to our apartment. I mean our old apartment. Yikes. Anyway, carbonara pizza for the win!

After brunch, we decided to tackle some of the drawers and spaces in our place that have been collecting the most random of our possessions over the past five years. Since we didn't have to pack (Al's new company paid for packers and movers), this was the extent of our physical work for the move (so lucky). We found some seriously great things - a first generation i-pod, 6,000 lip sticks, tons of old Lily toys, FLOPPY DISKS, my stash of Taco Bell sauce, and way too many expired foods. I'm thinking we should have been doing this exercise once a year...

^^ Not pictured: a first generation i-pod. I had to persuade Al to throw it out. He claimed we might want it as a "back up".

^^ "Guys, this bag better not be the trash bag. I need all these toys."

^^ The winner of the expired food awards. Food coloring from October 2011. 

^^ Threw out all but the essentials in our fridge.

^^ The great lipstick sort. Moses parted The Red Sea. I parted the lipstick pile. Can you guess which side was keep and which side as trash?

Sunday night we met our friends Matt and Megan for a delicious dinner at Dell'anima. I forgot how much I love that place. We ended the night with an after dinner liqueur they introduced me to and now I'm hooked - Amaro Nonino. Oh it's so yummy. Can't wait to sip an Amaro Nonino in Mexico in October at Matt and Megan's wedding! 

We had Monday off for MLK day and finished the clean-out process and called around and did the ol' cancel cable/power and change address routine. So many different people you have to notify about a new address. You'd think there'd be a site that you could enter the information once and it would change it on your bank, credit cards, post office, catalogs, voter registration, etc. 

Monday night we had dinner with our friends Ryan, Laura, and Patrick at The Smile. It was good to get the group together. Ryan and I work together and also went to KU together, and he's engaged to Laura who went to law school with Al and Patrick. How's that for a circle of friends? Another great goodbye meal. The Smile is darling, btw!

Tuesday my team at work threw me a little goodbye celebration. It was so nice to have all my friends from work from different groups stop by for a going away drink. And Al made an appearance too! We miiiiight have over-ordered on the appetizers a bit. So typical for my team (we are known for our eating habits...and our excellent work product, of course). 

Lily was so over us and our weeknight plans. She's used to us coming home after work to be with her. Not a fan of the farewell tour. 

And after some seriously intense work days (writing down a training manual for your future replacement is so daunting), it was Friday and the packers and movers were at our place and it all started to feel real. 

^^ Going to miss this view, for sure. 

We sort of forgot that we didn't have overhead lights in our apartment except for the kitchen. And with the lamps all packed up it made for some early dark evenings sitting around in our place. The future tenants wanted a few pieces of our furniture which worked out well so that we could seep on our couch for a few nights before we left. So we pushed the couch as close to the kitchen as possible for some light and hunkered down for the night (and watched The Wire). 

And then it was time - our last night in the city. We asked our friends to meet us at Anfora for a going away celebration. So many people turned out. It was really perfect and a very bittersweet night recalling old times and saying so long. 

^^ Hardest part was saying goodbye to my dearest and closest friend, Jolie. There were some tears for sure. Love you Jo Jo!

^^ Couldn't imagine doing any of this life stuff without Al. I feel like with him we could do anything and live anywhere. Love you, Al.

Sunday was our last day in the city. We spent it walking around to some of our favorite places and having one last meal at Friedmans with Jolie and Sean (we just couldn't say goodbye for real on Saturday night).

^^ One last carry home. Can't wait for the stares we'll get doing this in Dallas.

^^ One last play in the dog park for Miss Mayo

All packed up and ready to go. We definitely both had tears in our eyes (and mine streaming down my cheeks) when we walked out of our building for the last time. So much life was lived inside those walls.

And then we took our one-way tickets (!) and headed for Kansas City. What a great last week in the greatest city in the world. We love you New York and all of our friends.  See you very soon, I'm sure!

We're hitting the road for Dallas tomorrow (we hope - we were just informed that our moving truck didn't make it out before the snow storm - ughhhh).  See you soon new home!

2,399 days

2,399 days. That's how long we've been New Yorkers. Exactly 2,399 days. That's 1,004 more days than we spent in college. 1,151 more days than we've been married. We've spent almost a quarter of our lives, and some of our most important years in this city. The truth is, we grew up here. We became who we are today because of those 2,399 days. So now the question is, how do you say goodbye to a place where you've spent so much time, a place that has been so much more than a number of days gone by?

New York has been something of an identifier for me. My Twitter and Instagram name was "KatieinNYC" up until a few weeks ago. I liked that I could tell people we lived here. I felt it said a lot about us - that we work hard, that we have good small-space storage solutions, and that we are survivors (because, let's face it, living here is not always a walk in the park). I liked that I could recognize streets and places in movies and TV shows. I liked that there were songs written about New York and that people from all over the world came to visit. I liked the rich history and thinking about all the people who came here and succeeded long ago. I liked being able to call myself a New Yorker. 

But it was more than that. It wasn't all Meg Ryan movies and Frank Sinatra. New York allowed me to be me. Even more so, it allowed me to figure out who I was. Growing up I tended to go with the flow. If the cool kids liked it, so did I. By having the same opinion of my peers I was able to fit in. And fitting in is what it's all about in school. But then I came to New York and no one gave a damn about me. I say that as a compliment. No one looked twice at me to judge if my jeans were this season's or last or if the music I was listening to was old or new. Everyone here was too busy trying to get where they needed to be and worrying about their own lives to tell me my outfit/interests/personality was or was not "cool". There are so many different people here. I realized I didn't have be to be like everyone else, because I couldn't. It was when I experienced that freedom - that you could be whoever you wanted to be - that I fell hard for NYC. I felt like I was finally allowed to form my own opinions and craft my own personality. When you lose the nervousness of trying to fit in and learn to just do what makes you happy, you realize that who you are deep down is good enough for anyone, and more importantly, good enough for yourself. 

This isn't to say there aren't things I won't miss about New York. I won't miss how there's only one M train for every four F trains. I won't miss how when in a down pour the price of umbrellas doubles (and then the piece of crap turns inside out in 2 minutes flat). I won't miss the trash smell and sweaty backs in the summer or the frozen dog poop and cold toes in the winter. I won't miss the terrifying cab rides that leave me nauseous. I won't miss trying to arrange my errands based on proximity to the subway. 

But I will miss how much it feels like home. I'll miss the sweet doormen at our building who serve as our resident grandfathers. I'll miss our dog walking family who treats Lily even better than we do. I'll miss my team at work who will always be more than colleagues. I'll miss the friends we've made here. Friends who have gone through it all with us. Friends who are life-long and know us better than many people back home do. Friends who get me and love me and support me. Sure, I'm going to miss the city. But really, it's the people who I love in this city that I'll miss the most. 

There is really no way to say goodbye to a place and the people who have meant so much to Al and me over these 2,399 days. When I think about leaving I don't get one clear thought. I get floods of memories, from the ordinary to the extraordinary, of all the little moments we've had within this city. And for that I don't know how to properly say goodbye. I guess the only thing I can think of is THANK YOU. Thank  you New York. Thank you you for all of it. 


{photo by Tyler Wirken}

friday finds

Heyo! Just quickly popping in to tell you that (i) I'm alive, (ii) moving cross country (or quarter country?) is a lot of work, and (iii) trying to tell someone how to do every little part of your job is exhausting. No joke this week has me spinning. I feel like I'm in a cartoon where I'm in a revolving door and Wylie Coyote just came an spun the door really quickly and I'm all smashed up against the glass and finally emerge collapsed with Xs for eyes and little birdies chirping by my head. Another analogy for you - we're in a very long race, we've made it past a few mile markers, but still have a lot of ground to cover and we have to pack up all our Gatorade. We'll get there one way or another, but for now we're focused on packing up our life here and saying goodbye to friends (we have never been so popular! Our social calendar is packed!). 

This weekend is our second to last weekend here, and thanks to the stress of getting sh*t done, I haven't had time to think about the fact that we're actually leaving this place. We have some fun New York-y things planned this weekend that I'm sure will make me aware of our numbered days in the city. And thanks to the long weekend, I feel like Monday will be a good panic day for us to freak out/get a lot of stuff done around our apartment. 

Here's hoping your weekend doesn't include the words (i) "panic" or (ii) "frantic". I DO hope you have fun this weekend. I hope we do too. 

Links I'm loving below. Check 'em out! 

••••••••••

IPO-ing is so hot right now. Another of my favorites is going public. 

Don't be a dining douche!

What a beautiful gift idea for a new mom and baby. 

My blog reading focus lately has been heavy on interior design. Some great home decorating tips here. 

The Oscar nominees have been announced. Who are you gunning for? We're going to try and watch Boyhood this weekend. 

Genius! Mac and cheese wheel of flavor combinations. 

Love reading the Go Fug Yourself girls during award season.

How our phones are preventing us from being bored. And that's a bad thing. Embrace boredom! 

••••••••••

Wishing you an easy weekend! 

{image source}

weekend recap

Well hello! Hope everyone survived the first day back to work. A quick New Year's Eve & Weekend Recap here for you.  We had a low key NYE and generally a friend-filled weekend.  Here are a few photos...

For New Year's we kept it simple and in my opinion, it was perfect. Our friends Elle and Greyson (and their ten week old baby!) hosted a beautiful dinner for us in their apartment. Reflecting on the year with close friends, resolving to commit to silly things (there may have been a bet about a man bun), and toasting the new year. Wouldn't have done it any other way.

^^ Elle's beautiful table setting.

^^ We had our own (much prettier) ball for the midnight countdown. Thankfully ours didn't drop at midnight.

^^ Love this crew.

New Years Day for most is a day of lounging and napping, but for me January 1 means one thing - my darling friend, Jolie's birthday! Going on six years together celebrating her birth.

Friday was super lazy. Perfectly lazy. Starting with the two sleepiest Rose family members staying in bed until the late morning hours while I worked from home. Al works very hard and very late hours during the week so I don't mind him catching up on his sleep during the weekends. Especially when I go in the bedroom and see this...

A full day's work (from the couch) followed by a soak in the tub, face mask, and pizza. A homebody's dream. 

^^ This was my second time trying a paper face mask. They're a little hard to put on (see half my cheek that I missed), but they leave my skin so soft! I've tried this brand before and this time used one Jolie got me for my birthday (unsure on the brand).

^^ New Year. Same Friday positions. 

In an effort to actually leave the house for the first time in two days, we met our friend Carrie Saturday night for dinner at a new-ish place we've been wanting to try - County. Both the decor and the food were fantastic. Definitely get the salmon tartare for an appetizer. We also tried the charcuterie board and I had the grilled lobster. I'm thinking of resolving to eat a grilled lobster every Saturday in the New Year it was that good. Highly recommend County. Go check it out!

^^ You know how much I love those lights. I heart big bulbs.

Sunday was all about gearing up to be working, productive human beings come Monday. From thank you notes, to budget planning for the year (for both our household and for my sister - Al is helping her with her budget and savings plan this year so sweet), to soup in a crock pot. It was a real-deal, get stuff done type of Sunday. Just the kind I like. 

^^ It only takes a few minutes to write a thank you note. JUST DO IT! I also like the notion that you should try to write a thank you note without including the word "thank you" more than once. Try it - it's difficult, but makes your note much more powerful and thoughtful.

^^ Loving my new planner from May Desings. Remember, I had them on my holiday gift guide?  And after searching for 26 years for the perfect pen, I've been using Pilot G2s for the past three years and love them. Especially a fresh 20 pack. 

^^ Don't worry. There was still time for naps for one of us. #SundaysAreForNaps

^^ Sunday supper was chicken and wild rice soup in the crock pot. Trying out a new recipe. It still needs a little work, but I'll share soon!

^^ My sweet husband (excel master and budget enthusiast) on multiple hour long calls with my sister (master shopper and budget novice). It was so fun to listen to them. Love you both. And Al, you're totally nuts if you think she's going to reconcile her bank account with her spreadsheet EVERY DAY. :) 

And then it was Monday morning. And we could barely keep our eyes open while sitting up. 

Hope you had a fantastic New Years Eve and weekend!  Here's to crushing it this week!