Sweet Disposition

Due to working this Sunday I had today off. Conveniently, Nina's mom (Jill) and Jill's friend Eileen happened to be coming into town today from Atlanta for a trade show where they will be promoting a children's book Eileen wrote and Jill illustrated. We spent the morning brunching next door at Colador and walking around the neighborhood/Pratt's campus (Jill and Nina both went there). It was an unexpectedly lovely and hilarious morning, which will unfortunately be followed by a night of laundry:

A little blurry Jill, Nina and me at Colador

The straight out of a horror movie neighborhood nunnery, where nuns have never actually been spotted

Tree-huggers on Pratt's campus

Outside Pratt's library, which I'm now obsessed with. See further pictures for reasons why

Inside of library. Tiffany glass floors and gorgeous bookshelves. Apparently no one actually studies there...students just go to draw it.

Glass floor

Bookshelves

Glass stairs

More campus art, plus Nina and me

and a confused photographer 

"All the wine is all for me"

Thursday night art gallery openings in Chelsea make me feel like Edie Sedgwick:

Floating orb garden

Plant in bag

Minus the boys

"She's a Southern girl without a drawl, she's a good girl who wears black bras"

When I was first planning on moving to New York and was considering job options I nixed out the idea of nannying pretty quickly. I had been babysitting/nannying/camp counseling since the 8th grade and although I enjoyed it, I was ready for something new. Now that I've been away from it for a while though I've decided that I miss it (and the significantly better pay), so I've recently started babysitting a bit on the side again. This morning I watched the happiest little 2 month old girl named Penelope in the Upper West Side. Given Penelope's age, our list of activities was limited and naps and feedings were in excess, so I got to enjoy sitting down and mindlessly watching cable for the first time in months. Naturally, I chose Kathy Lee and Hoda. I've had Christina Perri's recent hit "Jar of Hearts" stuck in my head non-stop this week, maybe because it plays at the store or maybe because somehow in-between 21 and 22 I might have discovered that emotionally raw female singer/songwriters hold an unusual soft spot with me. Interpret my newfound taste how you will, but I like to view my feelings as meaning I have varied and non-judgemental taste in music. I also have recently acquired a taste for alt-country. Once again, varied and non-judgemental. ANYWAY, Christina Perri preformed on the show this morning and it made me like her even more:

Not the Today show performance, but you get the idea. 

Also. my current favorite alt-country song, "Blue Eyes" by Middle Brother. I may or may not like to pretend it's written about me:

Sidenote: the guy popping up in the middle literally made me laugh out loud.

And while I'm at it, "Marathon" by Tennis is going to be my song for the summer...I can feel it:

"You know all those words we wrote are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go"

This weekend:


Planned to have a night in watching Coco Before Chanel while falling asleep Friday, only to discover that it's subtitled (obviously I should have seen that coming and I normally wouldn't mind at all, but they kind of defeat the purpose of sleepy movie watching) and that my neighbors were having a party that seemed to involve a megaphone.


Discovered that fried cheese with chipotle sauce is the best snack in the world thanks to the grocery store across the street uncharacteristically giving away samples and a hungry boyfriend. 


Bought these ridiculously comfortable flats to replace my smelly got caught in the rain go-to ones and a skirt that I can't wait to wear with a grey sweater and said flats, a la What Would a Nerd Wear.


Oh and one of my very best friends and fellow former English major, Heather, just started a blog about her adventures in grad school at Florida State. I have a feeling my nephew Huckleberry will be making quite a few cameos too.

Get dressed, jump out of bed. You do it best

I've been so so horrible at this for the past month, but I PROMISE that I will try my very best to be better. Lately I've just been so caught up with everything (i.e. SPRING IS FINALLY HERE!) that I haven't been taking many pictures. So many fun events are coming up in the next few months though and it's time to get back into the swing of things. Here are a few highlights of what's been going on:

$4 champagne in a stolen Delirium glass 

Birthday banana bread for Nina

Penelope. Aly's second roommate

Obama chaos outside the French consulate

Aladdin sing-along party at The Bell House

Aladdin sing-along costumes: Purple Peacock #53 and Jafar in snake form

And I made these cookies from one of my favorite food blogs for Sue Sue's birthday. They sort of kind of tasted like lemon Girl Scout cookies, but softer. Or a lemon bar in cookie form. Either way very lemony and not the best thing I've ever made, but still pretty good:

 Cool Whip Cookies:

1 (8 ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

2 eggs

1 (18.25 ounce) lemon cake mix

1/3 cup confectioners' sugar for decoration

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease baking sheets.

2. Beat together the whipped topping and eggs. Add the lemon cake mix and continue to mix. Dough will be sticky. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

3. Drop by teaspoonfuls into a bowl of confectioners' sugar and roll to coat. Place cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 11 minutes. Cool on racks.

And last, but not least I've been reading Random Family by Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, recommended by my BFF Nick Hornby. I 100% also recommend it. 

Melt your heart

Nothing says spring is sososo close like Upper East Side perfectly tended tulips making an appearance. As much as I love my current apartment, I can't wait till I live in a place where I can let my grandma tendencies come out full-force and have a garden (which I can knit in and have book club meetings too. Siiiiiiigh). I also can't wait till I have one of these little guys to frolic in the garden:

In the mean time if anyone -Mom- needs an Easter gift idea for me this could hold me over. Or the puppy...either one.

"I say that the true artist-seer the heavenly fool who can and does produce beauty, is mainly dazzled to death by his own scruples, the blending shapes and colors of his own sacred human conscience"

Tuesdays are my Saturday. Usually my day consists of sleeping in, sitting around the apartment for a bit, Girls Inc., and then some sort of night activity. However this Tuesday Nina had the day off too, so we decided to spend the morning at Urban Vintage reading, eating parfaits, drinking coffee/apple pear cider, and devouring AMAZING peanut butter cup cookies. It was a lovely morning and made me nostalgic over "studying" in coffee shops nearly everyday after class in college. 


More along the lines of what getting coffee actually meant:

More not studying at coffee shops. This was also the first time my very good friend Heather and I ever hung out :) We look like such babies/shiny (Milledgeville in August is tons of fun):

Nina actually got some work done. Keeping with my habits, I think I read half a chapter of my books tops:

"I see you colorful, I see you in the trees, I see you spiritful, you're in the breeze"

Today it was even colder and even windier than it has been since winter reemerged and all I can think about it how I can't wait to be able to wear these dresses and get some use out of this book:

Ugh.

Lost Chicago pictures pt.2: oldies

A little blurry, but I LOVE my Aunt Debbie's wedding dress.

Wylies and a Maclaren: Aunt Debbie, my great-grandmother Nana, Sue Sue, my mom, and surprised baby me:

Chunky little nugget (and quite stylish) 3 year old me:

Present day Pilar and me at Southport:

Lost Chicago pictures pt.1: relaxing at Sue Sue's

Sue Sue has an original Picasso sketch. I'm obsessed with it. She got it as a gift from a friend who bought it on a street in Paris when Picasso was still living and not a big deal yet. Also, these twin beds were mine in elementary school for a while. My family trades furniture a lot if you haven't picked up on that yet.

The Picasso up close:

I somehow had never really sat down and read a New Yorker, so while everyone else was organizing closets, I did:

The sweet part of the city

Whenever I go out in Brooklyn I tend to migrate to one of two locations: either Ft. Green, which is a twenty minute or so walk from my apartment or I take the G (ugh) a few stops to Williamsburg. This particular Friday called for Williamsburg, specifically Alligator Lounge, one of our go-to bars given that you get a free mini pizza with every drink and there's a bearded bartender who will do pirouettes if you ask nicely. Afterwards, we ventured to Velvet Lounge which supposedly has a jazz band on Friday nights. It turned out to be completely empty with no jazz band, but we got girly cocktails (with the exception of the only male who got the very manly and serious Brooklyn) and the friendly Australian bartender put jazz on the speakers for us. A halfway success.


Nina's espresso martini and my Palm Beach:

Stand still, look pretty

My great-grandmother was an artist and as a result my parents' have a good deal of her artwork in their house. Growing up, this painting lived in our dining room and out of all of her pieces I have always liked this dark, mysterious, slightly ridiculous, caped man the best. A few years ago my mom gave the painting to my Aunt Debbie on loan with the promise that whenever I was ready it was all mine, i.e my most recent trip to Chicago. I think it will be a good contribution to my still bare-walled living room, plus it's nice to have a little part of my old Atlanta house here with me. 


Some more of her paintings aaaand my dad and his friend, Mr. Kim, lounging in the same exact pose:

Little golden age

New York has been cooooold this week. There was a small glimpse of spring around St. Patty's Day and now it is the dead of winter again, apparently. I'm tired of any cold weather related pictures and since all I did today was just go to work and come home and watch obsessive amounts of 30 Rock, I would much rather reflect on my summer of being outdoors working at Camp Woodmont. My good friend Katie worked there the summer before me and gushed about it for a good half a year, making me deicide that being a camp counselor would be the perfect solution to being newly graduated and unemployed. It was a perfect summer. I made some wonderful friends, spent my time off lounging around blue holes, fell in love with Chattanooga and have never been so tan in my entire life. 

Week off

I had a quiet picture taking past week due to needing a new memory card...I walk by a Best Buy almost every day and for some reason taking 10 minutes and running in was very difficult. Not too much happened though. I made some delicious sweet potato biscuits that are even better when made into a veggie sausage and cheese sandwich. I discovered that my apartment has a slight mouse problem (I'm only ok admitting this because I've been assured by numerous people that it is a building problem and not actually me) and learned the best way to capture them is to just take the trash bag out of the can, so when they climb in they get stuck and then barricading their entrance, i.e. the closet with an open washer attachment hole and the trash can...surprise, surprise. Kenny suggested drowning them once caught, but they looked so pathetic huddled together and staring up at me that I just carried the whole can outside and dumped them in the trash out there. It was a successful battle against NYC wilderness, minus not having a tucked away place for the trash can anymore. I went on a cleaning supply buying binge, due to the end of the mouse incident. I hung out with the same people as always and had Mexican food and huge frozen margaritas outside on the prettiest almost spring night at Caliente Cab with my new friend/co-worker Jackie. I read a terrifying article from Refinery29. Annnd in the middle of writing all this found out that my college roommate/friend got in to vet school and that one of my very best friends is coming to visit in early summer (yay tax returns)! Not a bad low-key week at all. Also, I had a pleasant walk around downtown Brooklyn on my way from Girls Inc. to Target and remembered that I haven't been to BAM since I saw Edward Scissorhands the ballet when I was visiting back in 2007. Hopefully my upcoming guest will want to catch a movie or a show there!

For those wondering: 
Sweet Potato Biscuits 


1 pound sweet potatoes or yam (1 large one is usually sufficient)
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (chilled), cut into small pieces
1/4 cup milk


Preheat oven to 400 degrees.


Prick the sweet potato and bake until soft (about 1 hour...you can also do this more quickly in a microwave). Once the sweet potato has cooled, scoop the flesh from the skin and pass through a food mill, ricer, or sieve. You should have about 1 3/4 cups puree.


Stir together the flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and cayenne. Cut in butter with a pastry cutter (or use your fingers) until it resembles a coarse meal. Mix milk with sweet potato puree and add it to the other ingredients. Mix dough, just to incorporate (I use my hands). If the dough is really sticky, add a touch more flour. Turn dough out into floured surface and knead a few times. Pat out to a 1/2 inch thickness. Cut biscuits with a biscuit cutter or glass. We make ours small, about 2 inches in diameter. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Place in preheated oven and cook until risen and slightly brown, about 12 minutes (longer for larger biscuits). Serve warm. 


Yield: about 20 small-size biscuits


*I have absolutely no clue where I got this recipe from. Most likely my favorite food blog Framed Cooks

"I'm so blessed to have spent that time with my family and the friends I love, with my short life I have met so many people I deeply care for"

While I was in Chicago I stumbled across some old photos at Sue Sue's house. The first one is my great-grandparents.

Me with my great-grandmother...a few years later.

My great-grandfather. Can you tell he's Scottish?

Great-grandfather's fraternity. He's in the top row, second from the left. They all look awfully old and serious. 

Sue Sue, age 18

My parents' wedding announcement. Can you tell it was the 80s?