We Have a New Pet??

Since I put my plants out on the fire escape, I have been keeping a close eye on the squirrels. I feel a bit crazy, snapping my eyes out the window every time I see movement (especially because there's a tree that is often blowing its branches in the wind right outside the window.) There has been a particularly daring little guy out there. He was recently teasing me, running up and down the stairs of the fire escape. Each time I knocked on the window or try to shoo him away, he'd come sauntering right back down moments later.

I knew I spotted him out there again!

Turns out, he's a busy guy. He's pulling branches off of a tree to build a nest under the grill lid left propped up against the stairs of the fire escape. I caught him out there... 

He spotted me looking at him.

Look at him hiding. He's slouching down really low behind the herbs. Silly squirrel. 

This shot was even better... He moved a few steps away from his slouched down hiding spot, and I moved out the window a little more to follow him. He automatically froze sprawled out flat on the bottom of the fire escape! Ha ha! I wonder if he thinks we can see him :) 

He continued to work. 

Eventually he got tired of being filmed and photographed, so he ran away and hid. You can't really see him in the photo but he's on the 3rd floor fire escape next door, hiding with his body stretched out on the railing. He thinks he's so sneaky!

Now the question is, do we leave his little spot or do we stop him? I know we should stop him from building a nest on the fire escape, but I feel so bad making all his hard work go to waste! Maybe I'll make Seth go be the home-wrecker...

Through the Viewfinder

Just wanted to share a few photos I took from my phone. I love how they have such an old feel to them...

The Way I See

It's such an interesting experience, coming back to the place I was before with all the changes I've had since leaving.

It's been a while since we've been home, almost 20 months. Before leaving for New York, I'd spent almost all of my life living in the midwest. Day in and day out I saw the same country roads, same country farms, same small towns, same signs, same rundown buildings and weathered barns. But for me, so much has changed since I left. I see so differently now.

And even though I know this place from years of living here, I am seeing so differently. I know there are multiple reasons for this. One, I now live in the largest city in our country instead of my small country midwest town. My life is literally worlds away from the life I lived before. Two, I literally see better now. I don't think I realized how much I didn't see before, how I took for granted the world that surrounded me. Photography has helped improve my ability to see.

Right now is really the first chance I've had to sit down and just be. With my brother's wedding and family and taking photos and friends, I've been running and running non-stop since we flew in. Saturday morning I was up early to meet the bride and start the day of photo taking. We had stayed on my brother's farm, which used to belong to my great grandparents. He'd just moved in right about the time I was moving to New York. I was the only one up, and when I came outside and saw the fog muting the morning, I knew that I had to capture it, the gray mist of the morning. I wanted to capture the weathered farm, the old equipment that has seen years of work.

Wii got a Wii

It came in the mail today!! Funny, I was trying to think of clever names for my blog post when I clicked over to reader and saw that someone else was sharing a Wii bit of Wii in her post today too! :) I haven't ever really wanted a game console. I'll play games with others, when they are playing... but I'm definitely not hard core, and I rarely request to play (although I did have a good time playing assassins creed over holiday break at a friend's house. of course, I was mostly watching...) Yet, over New Year's Eve, while playing Wii at a friend's house, I decided I wanted one. Seth took my one random mention of getting a Wii to heart and was online searching down the one we'd buy before I knew it!! He would, my little gamer husband.

Now we are creating characters and playing Mario Brothers... While we lounge on our sumos (large bean bags that take the place of the couch we don't have) and drink Root Beer floats.

Tomorrow, after work, I'm off to check out an art gallery exhibit in the East Village and hopefully a quick trip to the book store afterwards to pick up a few books I saw last week. I feel like I haven't much blogged here lately - have a few posts to share from last weekend, but it'll probably be this next weekend that I get them up (MoMA and a Surprise Birthday!)

And one last thing before I go, has anyone seen the latest daily photos I've been taking?? I'm loving this project! I look forward to finding the interesting moment that I'll share for the day, and I really feel like I'm noticing things that I would otherwise not even see. Plus, I LOVE the iPhone camera and shakeit app!!

Painting

I love the beauty of watercolor paints and have swooned over pieces of are created with watercolors for so long... I finally decided to create watercolor pieces on my own. So this afternoon, I headed to the art store (only moments before a thunderstorm set in...) to get some supplies. Of course, I'm only experimenting... Nothing too fantastic... But it was so relaxing and I was so focused while I painted and experimented with my new brushes and my new paints.

My beautiful window work space.

One of the things I realized today is I kind of don't know when to stop. I was happy with the flower piece and then I kept adding to it... and it got to the point that I was not happy with it anymore.

I used the pages from one of the old books I found on a stoop. These pages have come in handy (remember the birds... and then again as a texture here). I bought watercolor paper, but thought I'd do a few practices on these pages before I put anything on the actual watercolor paper...

The New Apartment

Wanted to share a quick walk through of our new home. It's not the best video (because of the light coming in the windows), but it'll suffice for now. I didn't show the washer and dryer in the hall closet, but if you look close enough as I come down the hall, you can see the door to it and maybe even hear it running. Also, the last room I showed was the bedroom and it's a bit of a wreck! We still have major work to do on it... need a box spring so we can get the mattress off the floor and into the new bed frame, have 6 boxes of school stuff and files that will return to the classroom in the fall, but for now are taking up a corner of the room, in desperate need of a dresser or something to help store the clothing (because we now are closet-less). But the bedroom is for sleeping and it has a great view of the living room and windows to the outside through the french doors, so I'm okay with it as it is for now.

Here is a list of the things I love about our new home... (because, as my husband says, I have too many favorites and I can't choose only one!):

• my kitchen table and the view of green outside it
• my desk location, again with a view to the green backside of the building
• the fire escape of plants (some are just visiting for the month of July)
• the vast amount of space in the living room (we are no longer all sitting on top of each other in here)
• the closet that holds a piece of Heaven (a.k.a. washer and dryer)
• the birds are hanging again (you can kind of see them in the kitchen window)
• the shelves are also hanging once again (my amazing husband put them up... despite how nervous I was about them being as perfect as my father-in-law made them in our old apartment... Seth has a bit more practicing before he gets his father's talents, but I think he's on his way!)
  

And here are a few questions, scavenger hunt style!
1. What side of the hall is the washer and dryer closet on?
2. What chore do I have to do in the kitchen (only gave a quick glimpse)?
3. Can anyone make out what is sitting on the kitchen table (part of my birthday present from my husband... something I've been asking for for over a year because my grandmother has these too)?
4. What do you notice about the books on the shelf?
5. Can anyone name the singer of the lovely music playing from my computer?

Happy Friday! Seth and I are off to pick up some good friends of ours from the airport this evening!

Birds

My birds are a tangled mess on our the heater by the window. I don't think I'll be able to get them sorted out until I get back from our upcoming vacation. It's hectic around here... But tonight's the night to get it all squared away. We are leaving on a plane tomorrow. My room at work is looking nothing like the room I usually have. Every piece of furniture will soon be pushed up against the wall for the summer. My house is starting to get sorted out, and it already feels like home! I love, love, love the new space we have! I can't believe we lived such a cramped life in our old apartment. Our old apartment is handed over, walk through done, no problems found with the state of it (happy security deposit!).

I will be a bit scarce over the next week and a half... I'll be taking lots of photos while we are away, but will not be posting and sharing them until we get back and I can process them! Maybe I'll squeeze in a photo of the great Colorado while I'm there... My new iPhone will come in handy for that :)

Basket o' Strawberries

More photos to come... a quick phone photo to try it out. I can't find my cords to transfer the photos from my camera to my computer! I took some photos last night at open mic and also took some today of these wonderful, delicious red strawberries on my kitchen table.

I guess maybe I should start looking for my camera cord. It's going to be a hectic week and I really need to get some things done before it flies by me and leaves me scrambling to get everything together.

Quick story to share how thankful I am to not be living in my old building... When we moved in, we had major problems with the lock on the door. It would twist in the door and leave us standing outside the door twisting and turning the key for many minutes, getting frustrated, while we were trying to get in our home. At one point, after locking the door, you could twist the door knob and it would open, despite the fact that it was locked. After getting the Super out to check on it, I was told that indeed it wasn't "broken" and that if I didn't like it, I could get a new lock on my own dime.

So my lovely and talented father-in-law spent hours installing a new lock for us. (I feel bad leaving behind his work!) When it came time to give the keys to the landlord so he could share with a realty company who was taking care of renting it out, I didn't give the key for the lock we installed. I don't really trust the people who are coming into the apartment... and I really wanted to show the potential tenants what they would be getting. I wasn't surprised to get a phone call yesterday from the landlord asking me why the realtor couldn't get it. I explained that the lock was like that when we moved in a year ago, and I had made them aware of it back in August. I told him there wasn't anything I could do... I wasn't aware of any trick other than twisting the key and jiggling it until the lock unlocked. Of course, the locks were changed today, and even though we have the apartment until the 30th, he wasn't going to give us the new keys. We agreed that they would be in the kitchen cupboard, but I definitely got hung up on by him because we'd had a change of plans and didn't make it back over there to clean tonight.

I really just want to have the place cleaned so I can wipe my hands clean of him and that tiny apartment. Seth is NOT getting out of it tomorrow night for sure! I'm not putting up with anymore excuses... We are going (HEAR ME S? I'm serious!) :) Happy Monday... I am so happy to have the last Monday before Summer completed! 4 more days...

And the Sun Sets

No more rooftop sunsets from this view. But I'll always have the photos to remind me of the beauty of the city from my first NYC apartment roof. The sun sets on that home, and will rise on our new home. New memories, new beginnings. New space. :)

A quick moment to share what I am loving about our new home...

• Washer/Dryer stack in the hall closet between the bathroom and kitchen. The first moment I had in the new place, I was loading a load of laundry. And one of the first things I did this morning was laundry! The convenience makes me so happy!

• A kitchen table. I searched through craigslist yesterday to see if I could find one since we had a van to pick it up with, and I was so lucky to find a lovely black one that came with two sweet black chairs. It was made for my kitchen, and it now sits happily looking out the window.

• Living room space. I cannot believe there is living room space! Something we didn't have last week! And even though it's still filled with lots of random things, including pieces from our loft that we are trying to figure out what to do with (sell, put back together, give away???), I love love love the space we have!!

• The prospect for a new subway route to work! I feel like a child getting ready for her first day of school in the fall. :) F train, here we come!

Tomorrow night, we'll hopefully finish up at our old place with the cleaning and be able to close the doors to that apartment for good... We have a couple days to try to get things put in a place, even if it's just temporary, and then we start packing again, this time, for something a little different... My countdown priority is for Friday... the day I jump on a plane with Seth and fly to Colorado for a wonderful week of complete relaxation, family, and outdoors!

Finding a New Perch

This weekend, Seth and I will be moving to our new resting place. We have only 4 boxes of the house packed at this point... and they are small boxes on top of that. The place is filled with piles of Stuff... and I have no idea how we'll get all of this moved pleasantly on Saturday. But it will happen. At least the moving will happen, the pleasant part is in question. (2 moves in our first year of marriage... You'd think we LOVED it. Maybe we secretly do on the deep down insides of our souls. We really must.)

Anyway, I'm off to my second to last Friday before my summer starts! Hope you have a beautiful one... And don't forget to leave a comment on the Giveaway post!