So, I found a new identity and spot for my blog. Catholic Wedding Girl just didn't seem to make as much sense as an address. For the past few days I've been thinking about a new web identity, and though seemingly obvious, this address came to me last night right before I fell asleep (as all good ideas do). I'll be posting from www.nycnewlywed.blogspot.com from now on, and I hope everybody sticks with me.
The other day we were trekking around the city the other day, heading back to the Apple store, when we saw the FAO Schwartz store. Of course we had to stop in and take a tour, even though we didn't have any pressing toy shopping needs (otherwise the entire piano scene in Big would have been wasted). The ground floor is actually a little underwhelming: there are board games and stuffed animals, along with a candy store.
The true amazement hits when you go up the escalator to the second floor, where the wonderment starts, as off to the left, you see the Hogwarts store, where you can buy your own Gryffindor scarf or hat, which I jokingly threatened to do for my husband. The store seems to go on forever, there is a LEGO section (be still my dorky child heart), complete with giant LEGO sculptures, right next to the DUPLO and Playskool sections (which the husband had never heard of), which brought back tons of memories.
Through another doorway was the board game room, which contained every which board game ever known to man, including twenty-something versions of Monopoly. The next room was an even bigger trip down memory lane, as it was "the room with all the little plastic figurines." Probably not the actual title, but descriptive nonetheless. Now, I don't mean the little plastic figurines of farm animals that you could buy in the grocery store, but the somewhat higher quality, slightly bendable ones that came from somewhere else, apparently FAO Schwartz (and after some internet searching for photos, Target). What did we see on the shelves but these:
I couldn't believe that they still sell Smurf toys, and now I know that FAO Schwartz has them, and so does Target. Seeing them brought back so many memories. I loved the Smurfs, we even took Smurf vitamins at one point (my mom stopped when she realized that we didn't actually want to eat blue vitamins - I only wanted purple Gargamels).
It is official, I have to get my wedding band re-sized. In my poor ring's defense, it may be all the ring's fault. I may have gained some weight (apparently only in my fingers), maybe I'm just retaining water, or maybe the dog straining at the leash has permanently swollen my fingers.
As those who attended the wedding will know, the ring has always been a snug fit, causing my husband to hilariously give up while trying to put it on my finger at the altar, saying that "it would have to be good enough." While the deacon finished the prayer, I pushed it all the way onto my finger.
I blame the woman at the jeweler in Austin, who convinced me to go down to 5 3/4 from the 6 of the engagement band, because my "finger is the most slender at the base." Well, there is also a knuckle involved.
The fit hasn't really been a problem, until the other night when I wanted to take it off to avoid the discomfort that arises the morning after having a few cocktails. I used soap to help it slip off and not irritate my finger, and put it back on the next morning, also with soap. A couple of nights later, I realized that my poor finger had been irritated (red) by the soap under the ring, so I haven't had my wedding band on for the past few days. Maybe I'll try wearing it again now that my finger is better before I worry about getting it re-sized. Advice?
I was on the food network earlier today, when I saw an ad on the sidebar for something that semi-shocked me. Rachel Ray now has a Rachel Ray brand of stock, that you can buy on the Food Network website. At first, I was a little shocked, do we really need branded stock?
I looked a little deeper, and it's actually not a bad deal - three 32 ounce boxes for $10, not including shipping.
Still, do I need to see her face on my stock?
This morning I had one of those moments where you are just utterly content. Mine happened this morning as i was walking M out to the subway station with the dog. It works out well, I don't have a job yet, and the dog needs to be taken out, so her morning walk is over to the subway station at Penn Station, around the block and back. This morning was a little brisk, so I walked out in a pair of jeans, a shirt, and my favorite red trench coat. We walked across the street and the dog managed to stop to go to the bathroom only once and did not pull on her leash like something released from the zoo.
When we got to the top of the stairs to the station, M turned and gave me a kiss goodbye, which he does every morning. This morning however, one of the train porters started hooting at us and shouted "It must be love, I see you two every morning!" at which point I blushed.
Okay, you can stop being sick now. I just thought I would share one of life's simple pleasures.
As I was thinking about what I could do today, I thought that I would look through the wedding pictures and start putting a list together for the album, which reminded me that I haven't really posted any pictures on this, which is (was) supposed to be a wedding blog. So here we go (all pictures by Wei Han at Evoke Photography in Houston):
This is a view of the chapel (at Prince of Peace), which photographed so well, and just looked amazing in person. I am so glad we had the ceremony in the chapel and not the main church.
Here is a picture of me with one of the bridesmaids (I made sure to use one that would love her picture). As you can see, even though I used an inexpensive florist, my bouquet looked awesome. I was so surprised when I saw it, not what I imagined at all, but exactly what I wanted.
Next up, we have the cake, which I only got two bites of (downside to leaving the next day).
Here are the place cards that I toiled over before the wedding, which I think turned out well. If you would like me to make some for you, let me know. As I'm not employed yet, I have plenty of time on my hands.
Finally, one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.
Here is the new hair, well the new hair on the first day. My hair never looks the same the day after a trip to the hairstylist. I think it has something to do with magic air in the salon, and my impatience with blowdrying with a round brush. So, it looks similar, just fluffier, but not frizzy, I haven't managed to frizz it out, yet.
Yay to new hair! After months of growing out my hair for the wedding, it has finally been cut into something that does not resemble a knot and necessitate a ponytail (I guess it didn't have to be in a ponytail, but I lived in Austin, and long hair is hot, and hate that sticky feeling on the back of my neck).
I contemplated getting my hair cut while we were away on the honeymoon, how dramatic would it have been to have it cut off while we were in Greece. Now, obviously, once I arrived in Greece, I had no inclination to find a hairstylist, nor did I think it was necessarily nice to abandon my new husband while I went and got a haircut.
Once we were back in Houston, I tried to get my sister to hook me up with her hairstylist, but that didn't work out. I did not want to use my mom's because, frankly, she has some odd hairstylists, that can give weird hairstyles to people who are not my mom.
Then, I contemplated having my hair cut by the woman who cuts my husband hair in his home town, until he got out of the chair and looked like he had been given a buzz cut.
Since we got to town, I've been trying to deal with the daunting task of finding a hairstylist in the Big Apple that doesn't require an Amex Black card as collateral. Luckily I found an ad on facebook that sent me to a website called Lifebooker.com, where you can book your appointments online, see reviews and get discounts for your appointments. This is where I found a hair salon that would cut my hair for only $65, and do a great job. Yay me!
I have issues with church attendance. I want to go, but I usually find some excuse to not go. I really dislike going to church alone, which I think goes back to high school. Back when I was in high school, I worked at the golf course, which meant that I had to be there by 7:30 am in the morning Saturday and Sunday. Aside from making my weekend schedule extremely nerdy, it made the only mass I could go to on the weekends the Saturday evening mass. Unfortunately, for various reasons, my family always went to the earliest mass on Sunday mornings, which meant that for two years, I basically went by myself, which is no fun.
Anyway, a lot of background for just a little bit of story, which is that I finally decided that I would go this past weekend (yes, even after the meatball). I ran it past the hubs, mostly to make sure that he would remind me to go, but he offered to go with me. What I had been avoiding turned into a lovely hour for both of us.
Oh, this long, extended weekend (how weird is it that half of New York shuts down for Columbus Day, which we stopped acknowledging long ago in Texas?), the hubby and I ate some really good food, sort of by accident (a really extravagant accident).
Saturday night, we ventured out with R & J, our couple-friends (who actually lived in the same building by design in Austin, and again here in NYC) to Gramercy Tavern for a night of good food and good friends. We went for a late dinner (left the apt at 8:30), and wound up not being seated (in the no reservations front room) at 9:30, which meant that I was ravenously hungry by the time we sat down with our menus. One item on the menu piqued my interest immediately - a stuffed meatball. I had seen Rachel Ray make a Gorgonzola "stuffed" meatball (more of a wrap-a-round) earlier in the week, so I was primed for the stuffed meatball at Gramercy. Oh, deliciousness! A meatball the size of a baseball was delivered to the table, and such a meatball I have never tasted. The meat was ground so fine, but not so fine as to be a ball of nothingness, and the spices were almost precisely interspersed in the meatball. The meatball was presented cut in half, and in the center was an ooey-gooey flow of cheese. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Yesterday, the hubby and I were out walking around Central Park (no, I couldn't convince him to row me around in a boat - because the water was scummy, uh huh), then we went tot the Apple store in an attempt to hook up his laptop to the television for optimal instant Netflix viewing (didn't work), when R & J emailed on the hubby's work pda to see what we were up to. A few minutes later, they were crossing 5th Avenue through the Columbus Day Parade to meet up with us for lunch. The hubby found out that Aquavit had a prix fixe lunch, so made a reservation and, lo and behold, one of the entrees was Swedish meatballs. I expected the plate would be smaller, with three or four meatballs, luckily (?) the plate came piled high with eight giant, tender meatballs. Thank goodness my hubby was so generous as to offer to eat one, after stealing the first one.
P.S. - curious to see what kinds of ads pop up on this post, and what kind of people, searching for meatballs wind up on the site.
Finally, the hubby and I get to do something together over the weekend where we can leave a 5 block radius of the apartment. The past few weekends have had work emails come in with a "stand by" message, so we've had to hang out to see if he goes in (no, he's not a doctor or a fireman, he's a lawyer). On the agenda so far are watching the Red River Rivalry, heading down to Chelsea Market, where I will get to show him around, then we're going to dinner with R & J. Tomorrow is up in the air, but a joint trip to the dog park might be in order, and perhaps a stroll along 5th Avenue. We still have to plan Monday, because, apparently, the city of New York actually celebrates Columbus Day, so the hubby won't have to go into work (unless there's some sort of legal crisis).
1. Shorts (especially at Christmas-time)
2. Produce (why are the onions half the size here?)
3. Driving (but not paying for gas)
4. Fewer crazy people on the streets (maybe there are just as many in Austin, but they don't curse at you)
5. Sweaters are always on sale (because - when would we wear them?)
6. Grass, and trees (that's my dog's input)
7. Tex-Mex food
8. Wine Wednesday's
9. Beer for less than $6.00
10. Big grocery stores
11. Not worrying about stepping in puddles
12. Air not permeated by exhaust
There are obviously other things that I miss about Texas, most notably the people I care about that live there, but it should be obvious that I miss them. If not, and you're one of those people, I miss you.
So, one of the lovely gifts that we registered for was a down comforter, but knowing that we wouldn't actually be sleeping in a frozen tundra, we picked the lightest, or the 365-day, year-round duvet. We both like sleeping with a blanket, but I am seriously rethinking this duvet - it might have to be put in the closet until cooler temperatures prevail.
We've tried turning the thermostat down a few degrees, but it still gets ridiculously hot. I think that down is just too much of an insulator, especially for me, a person that sleeps next to a furnace. I really don't know how he does it, but my husband manages to exude heat, but once he gets out of bed, where he was laying is the coolest section of the mattress.
I'm in love with my new jeans. The jean situation has been coming to a head over the last week. My favorite/best fitting pair of jeans has been heading down the path to being ousted for a while. There is a weird bleach "dot" on the right thigh, below the pocket, which hasn't bothered me, but at one point bothered my husband, but he forgot that it existed when I listed it as one of the reasons for getting new jeans.
I am seriously glad that I started writing thank you's before the wedding, but am not glad that there are still so many to go. I really do not like writing thank you notes. It is a bizarre sort of torture, for many reasons, that only other brides can understand.
1) Thank you's take a disproportionate amount of time to write in relation to anything else you would ever write. Case in point: I wrote one of my final papers, which required research, citations, critical thinking in about 12 hours. Somehow, it takes about 15 minutes to write the five sentences required for a thank you note, even though there are only so many permutations of the same message to use.
2) The ever-looming "3 month" deadline. While I initially thought that three months was rather a long time to get out thank you notes, I forgot to take into account the fact that I have deep issues with procrastination, which means there is always time to do them tomorrow.
3) Men hate thank you notes even more than women, not to mention that they're not exactly good at them, and their handwriting tends to suck. I offered to write out thank you's for my husband if he typed them out, he has written three. There are another three that he "wants" to write himself (they are for his old boss/coworkers). I mentioned it on Saturday. For the past two nights I have suggestively laid three thank you cards in front of him while he is watching TV. They are still sitting there this morning. Yargh.
The one gift that I did not mind getting that was off-registry was a gift card. We had gift cards from Pottery Barn, Home Depot, California Pizza Kitchen, Kohl's, Starbucks, and of course Bed Bath and Beyond. One thing that I would suggest to all brides out there is to find an old wallet of yours or your fiance's to keep all of your gift certificates in. This way, they're not making your wallet so huge that you can't close it, but you still have them with you whenever you are out and about. This way, when you return something, you don't have to get a new gift card. Also, you're more likely to wind up somewhere where you have a gift card and have it with you, instead of having to make another trip later.
I'm not sure how many of us are out there, but I think that it is critical to find out if you will be a football widow before you get married. Not only does our television magically turn itself to football from Saturday lunchtime to Monday night, but my husband is a Buffalo Bills fan. Some of you may not understand that, but the Bills have been heart-breakingly awful the three seasons that I have known my husband. That is, until now, when they are undefeated through four games - the last time they were this good was in 1992.
The problem is that the Bills were never on television in Texas, but a quick trip to the wings restaurant or local bar with Direct TV solved that problem. We thought that there might be a few more games offered in NYC, since Buffalo is somewhat close, but there haven't been any yet, which means that it's four hours in a bar drinking $5.50 beers (one day I might get used to the price of beer here).
Anyway, my husband loves football, which is why the house went into panic mode when yesterday morning, the cable box went into error message mode. Yes, at 10 am on a Sunday, the box decided to crap out after three weeks of service. Loud expletives ensued. Calls to the support line were made. More expletives ensued when he found out he couldn't get a replacement box until Tuesday. I think we'll be ok, after watching the late games at the bar yesterday, but I think Mr. D was a little disgruntled about the lack of high definition.
My job hunting day:
This weekend, we're having our friends J & R, who also moved from Austin to NYC (also from the same building to the same building) over for dinner, so I pulled together an order of groceries last night. I asked J (who is also job hunting) if she wanted to come to the Union Square farmer's market with me to see if I could find any of the required produce, and she readily agreed.
Even when we woke up this morning and it was gross and rainy, J and I still went to the market, we just went via the subway instead of walking. Only about half of the vendors showed up, so I couldn't find most of the things I needed, well, at least not in the quantities I wanted.
Since it was such a quick trip, I invited J up for coffee, so we sat and had a lovely chat while we sipped on our coffee. We commiserated about job stuff and life stuff, and it was just a pleasant hour. Then we realized it was almost lunch, so J went to her apartment to do job search stuff, and I pulled up my laptop and applied to several jobs.
After lunch, I ran a couple errands and then came home to find a package, not expecting one to be there. It turns out it was from my mother-in-law and, since she just returned from Norway, she sent us a goody box from her travels. Included in the box was a lovely necklace for me (I hope), a bottle of cognac, and two boxes of chocolates. Yum! This, of course means, that aside from my job hunting exploits, I made a trip to the farmer's market, had coffee with a friend, went to the farmer's market, and ate chocolates on the couch. I think I'll need to have a martini or something in order to turn myself into a total "housewife," but I think I'll abstain in order to save myself from the stereotype.
I dedicate this post to a-bla, because I too am an old married. You know, the kind of person who is perfectly content sitting at home on a week night, or even a weekend night. I mean, it's nice, though occasionally one party will need to tell the other party that they have to put the laptop and random surfing away and just sit with the other person.
This recently came to light when my brother (in med school) and two of his friends I actually cringed when the guy behind us at the stadium recommended a place that was "a crowded frat party," especially when the guys practically cheered. Now, Stan's is exactly the place that I did go to in Houston before Astros games, and it is nice to just go to a place where you can grab a beer (although $6 for a Bud Light is getting old quick), but a loud, body-to-body frat party just doesn't hold the same appeal as it used to. Yes, it was fun after I found a spot where I could stand AND breathe, and the music was pretty good, but I don't know if I would ever actually desire to go there.
The past weekend was much more my speed. Friday was a bit dicey for planning things, since the hubby was at work late and thought he might have to go back in, so just a quick dinner at home. Saturday, we were invited to a "Pig Party" at our friend's brother's apartment, which involved meeting some really nice people, a lot of ribs, and some really delicious pies. The kind of night that goes by quickly because you're having a good time.
Alright, our honeymoon and subsequent trip up to New York have really interfered with our television schedule, which is tragic, I know. It really wasn't a problem for anything, until we were cruising for something to watch during the football commercials last night. We saw that our guilty pleasure show was on: "The Hills."
Now, our Monday's have been somewhat free for a few weeks, so it was kind of disappointing to find out that last night was episode 7 of the show. When we turned the "last week's episode" on, we discovered the most amazing new marketing tool. During the episode, user-created comments were displayed on-screen - it was fantastic. I had to stop uploading the wedding photos to Kodak to watch the comments, which were hilariously snarky. MTV - you guys are geniuses.
I'm not sure if all the re-runs have the backchannel comments, but the Monday night pre-episodes definitely do. To compete, users log on during the new shows and enter and vote on comments posted by other viewers.
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