Catching You All Up

So it's been an awkwardly long time since I posted here on my little ol' personal blog. I continue to attribute that to the joy I'm finding in being both Editor-In-Chief and a Blogger over at The Green Room Blog. If you ever want to read some really inspiring posts by artists trying to make their way in the showbiz industry, you have to check it out.

But enough about that, over here it's all about me. Hah! Things have been going really well lately. I'm just coming off of working on a fabulous show this summer, where I got my Equity card (a big deal for you non-actor civilians); Dan just got hired as an assistant at a busy NYC casting office (can I get a "woo hoo" for health insurance?!?), and we celebrated our second wedding anniversary just last night. So yeah, other than the super long hours that Dan is working, I have no complaints. I mean, I'd love to book another acting job ASAP, but that will come. I'm not worried.

And although I'm always sad about summer ending (god, I hate winter), I am excited about heading into the holiday season, which really begins for us with our October anniversary, I suppose. Next up: pumpkin picking and choosing a Halloween costume :)

So now you're caught up on all the big changes in our lives of late. I hope you forgive my absence. I do want to leave you with a gem of a picture from my show this summer, just because the costume is so out of character for me:

Yes, those were actual S.W.A.T. team uniforms. The costume shop had to take mine in from every possible direction. I guess they're not used to small people being on S.W.A.T teams, huh? :)

One (very over-sized) dose of holiday cheer, coming up!

We were in Jack's 99 cent store last night looking for cheap ornaments to fill up the cheap vase I bought from TJMaxx. We did find those and create this (I think) decidedly non-cheap-looking Christmas centerpiece:

But what this post is really about would be this lovely holiday decoration:

The LARGEST CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENT KNOWN TO MAN! Dan and I kept trying to figure out what this could possibly be used for. The only thing that comes to me would be something like decorating the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, but come on...you know they don't use dollar store ornaments at Rockefeller Center.

Any ideas?

Thanksgiving Brunch -- Realized!

I know we're all starting to get into the Christmas spirit (at least I know I seriously am!), but I just wanted to share with you how our little Thanksgiving Brunch turned out, since I teased you with a little inspiration board already.

Here was the spread, pre-devouring (also, no one had shown up yet, so a fruit salad and some more muffins were added after this picture was taken):

I loved the tablecloth and how cute Martha's pumpkins looked. Also, there's something so fun and fancy about whatever you've cooked/baked when it's served from either a footed cake plate or on a cool platter. Thank you, wedding gifts! 

A close-up of the Pumpkin Cream Cheese muffins, the Blueberry Cheesecake muffins, and the Coffee Cake. Plus, the little orange tented signs I made the night before so everyone would know what they were eating!

Please do yourself a serious favor (and your waistline a serious disservice) and run, don't walk, to your nearest grocery store to get the ingredients to make these Pumpkin Whoopie Pies. They may be the best thing I've ever baked, and I bake a LOT.

Yummy from-scratch Cinnamon Buns that taste so much better than store-bought. And they're on the pretty platter my Mom bought me for my bridal shower! :)

Dan insisted of getting a picture of me in front of my masterpiece after watching me work so hard to get it all together. It took me the entire day before Thanksgiving to bake everything and almost three hours that morning to do last-minute prep and assembly! Totally worth it, though!

We had some seriously yummy things to munch on while loving that view.

And just in case you wondered if everyone else enjoyed themselves, too...

After the parade, we went to a friend of a friend's house and had a delicious and entertaining Thanksgiving dinner with new friends. All in all, an absolutely lovely Thanksgiving, if a bit a-typical!

How was your Thanksgiving? What did YOU make (or eat?!)?

Holiday Cards 2010 Style

We had a very talented photographer friend come over and take some cute pictures of our little two-person, two-canine family last week for the express purpose of sending holiday photo cards! I don't want to show you the photo we chose to use (because some of you may be getting our cards in the mail!), but I can show you one of the silly outtakes:

(photo credit)

So I started looking for places to get holiday photo cards printed (since I am way too lazy to go the DIY route this year), and I fell in love with the adorable charm of the Shutterfly cards.

These are a few of my favorites:

(photo credit)

I love the simplicity of the message: "joy." How lovely, right?

(photo credit)

I think the charm of these fun fonts just won me over for this card. I love a good word montage.

And finally, this one, which is the card we'll be getting, minus the adorable child, of course:

(photo credit)

Again, I think the fun fonts and the cheerful colors won me over. And I think the swirls are sweet, too. I can't wait to see how our cards turn out, as this is the first year we've ever done photo cards! I always write a little family newsletter to include in our cards, too, so hopefully everyone enjoys opening our little paper holiday greetings! :)

*Disclaimer: Shutterfly is currently offering 50 free holiday cards to bloggers who write a post about their holiday products, so I am being compensated for this little dose of holiday stationery cheer.*

Thanksgiving Brunch Buffet Inspiration Board

So what do you do when you love to craft/plan/organize and you've already gotten married? Create an inspiration board for your home parties, of course!

Next week is Thanksgiving, of course. Which on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan means birds-eye Macy's Parade views. You might remember from last year that I posted a picture or two of the awesome view we have of the parade from our balcony.

Well, this year, I wanted to take advantage of our view and the fact that we don't have time to travel and be with family for Thanksgiving, so we are hosting a Thanksgiving breakfast/brunch for friends who would like to come over and share in the parade and some yummy food with us. I can't wait! I'm so excited that I bought a new tablecloth (we only owned one before...bad wife, bad wife...) and have spent time imagining how I want our little brunch spread to look:

(Photo credit, from L->R: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,11,10&12 are personal)

The serving ware we already have from wedding gifts, I bought that pretty tablecloth at TJ Maxx, the flowers are mums from the corner deli, I want to craft those paper pumpkins a la Martha, and the foods are all ones I'm considering making.

Whaddya think? This will be my first time hosting more than four people for a meal -- any suggestions?

What are your interesting/a-typical Thanksgiving plans?

Have a Frighteningly Fun Halloween!

Just wanted to take a second to say "Happy Halloween, All!" We're particularly excited about Halloween this year because we missed it last year, given that we spent the whole day flying back from our honeymoon in Greece. Not that we were complaining or anything, but we did miss celebrating one of our favorite holidays!

This year, we carved some really fun pumpkins. Mine was an "Elphaba" pumpkin:

And Dan carved a ghoulish "Rock On" pumpkin:

Not to mention, we're dressing up and attending the Village Halloween Parade with some of our new and old besties tonight. I'll be sure to post costume pictures when we get them, but for now...it's a surprise!

Hope you all have a fun, costume-and-friend-and-candy-filled Halloween!

Happy Birthday, America!

Just for you, I did this:

A big shout-out goes to the Founding Fathers, who all risked their own lives, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness so that we might have those rights today. Thanks, dudes.

A Manhattan-Style Memorial Day "Cookout" for Two

You'll have to pardon the photo overload that this post is going to be, but the absolutely incredible food we ate yesterday caused my camera to start snap snap snapping away!

Besides bragging about how good my Food Network recipe-finding skills are, I wanted this post to be another one of those "this is how different it is to live in Manhattan than anywhere else" posts. It seems like nearly everyone else in the entire country was either at a family picnic or the beach yesterday, which makes our little "cookout" that much more of an oddity, I guess.

You see, we grilled...

Granted, it was on a 14-inch-wide hibachi grill with easy-lite charcoal and on a balcony 23 stories above 6th Avenue, but we grilled. And, as always, my husband made goofy faces.

But he did grill our burgers to perfection the very first time he ever grilled anything! He was like a man discovering fire for the first time. I think I may have created a grilling monster ;)

Meanwhile, I was inside baking our garlic french fries (check out this super easy recipe here for a side dish that is next to godliness), slicing up my homemade bread, and picking lettuce leaves from my AeroGarden. When everything combined on our gorgeous new black (wedding gift) dishes, it looked incredible, if I do say so myself:

I'm not usually really a foodie, but damn, I couldn't resist snapping some up-close shots of those fries.

And the burger...ugh, I'm getting hungry again just writing this...

Dan paired his meal with some high-class fruit punch and a smile:

I paired mine with some sun tea I had brewed earlier and could barely restrain myself from digging in long enough to let Dan take this picture.

So that, my friends, is how us New Yorkers (or at least, my little New Yorker family!) celebrate what seems to be National Cookout Weekend.

On a more sombre note, a big, heartfelt thank you to all of the men and women and their families who have sacrificed their lives, their health, or their security to defend us and our right to grill on our balcony, if we so desire. This year, I have a brother in the Marines and it always hits a little closer to home when your own family is involved, right?

How did you celebrate Memorial Day?

Ice Skating in the B to the ryant Park

For someone who loves Bryant Park as much as I do (and who lives so ridiculously close by), I can't believe it took me until nearly the end of the second winter season of us living here to get my butt on that ice skating rink.

I guess part of it was the long line to get in, which looks daunting, but actually moved pretty quickly, and the fact that I was terrified that I would fall on my face. That fear isn't exactly unfounded, since I'm pretty sure I fell the last time I was on ice. I look slightly concerned in this picture:

But in the end, I had nothing to fear! I didn't fall down once and was actually one of the better skaters on the Pond, besides the few superb skaters who were there. I have no idea how this happened, but apparently my five-year skating hiatus made me better. Mysterious, indeed. The mister is actually a pretty good skater, which isn't all that surprising, since he is always to be very athletic whenever we do anything remotely sporty, despite his distinctly non-athletic looks. Don't worry, honey, I don't look athletic and I'm also NOT actually athletic, so you have me beat :)

At any rate, I highly recommend skating in Bryant Park. If you have your own skates like the mister, it's free. I had to rent a pair for $12, but anyone who lives here knows that any fun date you can go on for $12 in Manhattan is definitely a win. Oh, and a tip for going? Bring your own locker lock because it's free to use the lockers, but they gouge you $9 for a lock. We didn't have anything of value, so we just gambled and won (our own stuff back, I guess!).

It was a perfect way for us to spend the first day of a new decade! Happy skating, all!

A New Year in New York

At the changing of each year, I put my own little spin on tradition and instead of making resolutions, I set goals. To me, a resolution is rarely successful. It's too vague. It's too over-reaching. And at this point, I think a lot of people don't take them seriously because of their high failure rate.

Now that's not saying that there's no value to be had in reflection and trying to improve in a new year, I just prefer goals as a means to that end because they seem, well, more accomplishable.

I just dug out my goals for 2009 and was a little disappointed in myself, though. I had about a 50% success rate, which is okay, but I don't usually strive for 50%. I guess goals can be a bit unmanageable sometimes, too, but I will say that I made at least some progress towards almost all of my goals, so I think that my time spent making them wasn't wasted. I also didn't really appreciate how much time the wedding was going to eat up to the point that it made me have to cut back in how much time I spent working on my acting career, but the wedding fun is all over now, so that excuse is eliminated for next year :)

In 2009, I succeeded at many of my goals like creating more showbiz industry relationships, spending at least one morning/afternoon/or evening out of the apartment on a date with the mister, getting a new pet (we got two!), and making sure to visit with at least two friends a week, to name a few.

I also failed at some like joining one of the acting unions, getting onto a soap set, and putting more money into savings (uh, I blame the wedding for this one, too).

Although I am a very ambitious and goal-oriented person, I also think it's important not to get too wrapped up in where you didn't quite meet your own expectations, because sometimes, things change. I could never have predicted a year ago that I would be a Weddingbee blogger, would have started my own dog boarding company, or would be celebrating the opening of my own Etsy shop. None of these things were on my list of goals for 2009, but I wouldn't take them back for anything.

That said, I will be sharing with you a partial list of my goals for 2010 (you'd be bored by the whole thing, I promise) :

Acting -- Join AFTRA, put together a reel, perform in another musical, use up my Network credits

Family and Friends -- Continue once-a-week date night with Hubby, make 3 new friends to hang out with, teach my sisters something new

Home -- Finish decorating to-do list, start gardening on the balcony, finish wedding recaps, blog at least 3x a week on my personal blog (that's here!), start acting blog and recruit other bloggers for it

Businesses -- Build up to making at least two Etsy sales a week, Board a dog at least three times a month, replace at least 50% of babysitting income

Photo Credit

Maybe sharing my 2010 goals will help keep me even more accountable in the new year.

How successful were you in 2009 by your pre-2009 self's standards? What are your goals or resolutions moving forward?

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

As I was working on adding new items to my Etsy shop and writing wedding recaps for Weddingbee, I heard strains of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" seeping in under my door and realized that there were, in fact, Christmas carolers making the rounds in my apartment building! How festive! I was especially in need of such a surprise, since I've been finding it particularly hard to get into the spirit of the season this year, inexplicably.

I smiled to myself and thought, "Only in New York would there be Christmas carolers in an apartment building." Just another reason to love New York.

Happy Mashed Potato Day!

To celebrate our first Thanksgiving as a married couple, we were able to watch the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade right from our balcony. It was quite the sight and we were thrilled to have such awesome seats without fighting the crowds!

Seeing such a famous and impressive parade from the perfect bird's-eye-view spot was truly one of those "you may never get to do this again!" New York experiences. We hope that we get the same thrill next year, but who knows if Mayor Bloomberg's new pedestrian malls will stay in place so that the parade can't go down Broadway again? Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Belated Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day from Times Square!

Maybe the groundhog wanted a little salt on his corn-on-the-cob

I just read this hilarious article in the Times about how a Staten Island groundhog bit Bloomberg yesterday as he tried to lure the little guy out of his cage with a piece of corn.

My guess is that he was mad because the corn had NO SALT. Who eats corn-on-the-cob without butter and salt?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/why-chuck-the-groundhog-bit-the-mayor/

Christmas on West 37th

Tonight we bundled up, lit a fire, drank a good deal of eggnog, turned on the Pandora.com Christmas carols, and decorated our tree.

It came out beautifully, I might add, for a first Christmas tree! Yes, it's small. But so is everything in our life at this point.

We also hung four stockings. One for each of the two of us, plus one for Duncan and one for our foster kitty of the moment, Chloe.

Merry Christmas to West 37th street and all of New York!

Pumpkin carvers extraordinaire!

So Dan and I were walking home from my show the other night and outside of Gristedes on 54th, they were selling pumpkins! Yes, pumpkins! I didn't know you could buy pumpkins in the city; I thought you'd have to go out to a pumpkin patch in Long Island or something, but not so!

Dan being the eternal optimist that he is, made the decision to carve out the drama masks pattern that I found online, despite how difficult it looked to achieve.

We didn't have the proper pumpkin carving tools, so we had to use a kitchen knife, which certainly didn't make anything easier. Our lesson learned this year was to be a little more modest in our pumpkin carving goals or to be a little less modest in how much money we shell out on the proper accoutrements.

The final result was pretty, but didn't much resemble what we were going for.

I did make the pumpkin seeds into roasted cajun seeds to snack on, though. Those were delicious!

And suddenly, I feel right at home again

Two things today made me feel like NYC is my home even more:

1. I started a 2-week trial membership at NYSC two blocks away and got to run my little heart out on the treadmill and then do a bunch of ab workouts in the weight room.

2. As I was walking to said gym, I noticed that about half of the stores on my street were closed. Did I lose track of the days? I thought to myself. Is is after five? No and no. It's Rosh Hashanah! THAT'S why everything is closed. And here I was just a few days ago almost getting a little sad because I missed the days off we used to get at Hofstra because of Jewish holidays. Awesome.

Temple on wheels!

For many days, I have walked past this "temple on wheels" and thought about taking a picture of it and, for some reason or other, haven't gotten around to it until today.

It parks at the corner of Broadway and 37th, right outside a kosher deli and advertises that you can "do a mitzvah!" or buy shabbat candles.

I love the whole idea of this. The idea that you don't even have to go find a temple...there's one parked right outside your lunch haunt ready to fulfill your every religious urge!

I think every religion should do this, including the atheists. Can you imagine an atheist wagon? You'd never have to search for Ayn Rand again.