life - getting hectic

now that i'm posting a bit more often... and let's hope that continues... i have to say my life is crazy.

i have three jobs, two apartments, a boyfriend, and a million little things taking up my time.

now don't get me wrong my life is awesome! i really wouldn't change anything for the world. (well... maybe somethings, like how much i owe in student loans.)

so the three jobs... i think i've written about this before, but i just want to let every know nothing has changed for the most part. i'm working three days for an interior designer doing autocad work. i work part-time for a material library company. i used to have one account, and i would sometimes cover other people's accounts. then i had two accounts, but the new one was just a half day here and there. now the second account has seen the light, and they are expanding the time i spend there. so now i work two days a week, between two accounts. there was also this in-between period where i was supposed to have extra hours at my first account, but that was VERY short-lived. the third job is as a project manager's assistant. this is what i really want to do. make sure things get built. the hours are completely random - a couple here, a couple there, nothing consistent. this job is going to suffer with the actual usage of all five working days by my other jobs. what makes it that much more crazy is that at three jobs (four if you include the two different library accounts) are in different locations.

the even crazier part is the living situation. i have an apartment of my own, and my boyfriend has his own apartment. a rare thing in nyc. we both don't live with roommates, so it's all very redundant. but i love having my space and things are working out so no need to rock the boat by moving in together. the crazy part is commuting to and from my apartment, his apartment, and my four job locations. i'm not always sure where i'm going. the one thing i would change is working from home... oh if i could!!!

my boyfriend is great. he is always super supportive and let's me be crazy. (you couldn't change that about me no matter how hard you tried!) i was sort of scared about moving back, but it's working out great. a big blow was finding out his greencard application was getting audited right after moving here. the thought that he might have to leave the country just as we were finally living in the same city was too much. but his application has since been approved, and now we're just waiting for the paperwork to get sorted out. (another reason we did not move in together... we weren't sure if he was going to be here to pay his part of the rent!) everything is running smoothly so no complaints there.

the million other things occupying my time are so numerous i could never talk about all of them here. if i haven't written about them before, i'm sure i'll write about them eventually so you'll definitely get the dish. they generally follow similar lines: finances/student loan debt, apartment furnishing, getting more work (the kind that will further my career), staying in touch with friends, living/eating healthy, general big city annoyances, family crazies, and etc. that's just the past two days.

i hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into my life. and that it makes yours seem that much easier, or that it helps you realize that you are not alone in the multi-tasking world we live in.

design - website is looking good

so it's been quite a long time since i have posted about my website. at first my main goal was to learn how to use adobe dreamweaver in order to build a website for one of my bosses. then i decided i could really do something with it, like create my own website! who knew? but so i've been stumbling along trying to learn different code and tweaking my design.

(this is just occurring to me, but once i get an idea for a design in my head, i don't waver much from it. be it an interiors project, organizational problem, or a website. weird.)

anyways, first i came up with a basic list of pages i would have to have (i.e. a bio page, contact page, or project images). then i figured out a basic layout with the content in the center. then came creating individual pages. this is where things started to get hairy. i originally built one page and then used 'save as' to create all the other pages. this works when you start with a template as that first file. this is not what i was doing. so every time i realized i needed to tweak something in the basic layout i had to change all the files. oh god...

then i figured out templates. this worked and still works, except i left out a few bits in my original template so i still have had a lot of errors to work through. namely if you don't make the title editable in the original template at the start, you can't make it editable later on. (well you can, i found a work-around, but it time-consuming.)

now i'm building the content on the individual pages. i finished the homepage, which doesn't use the same template, the contact page (how easy!), the bio, and the start of my projects page. i haven't decided what happens when you click on a project so that's on the back burner. currently i am working on turning my pdf portfolio into a turn page book. there are lots of tutorials and lots of code and lots of software, so i'm sure i'll figure it out.

do you like the look of it?

oh and i'd like to move my blog over to wordpress.org so i can host it myself. we'll see how that goes.

room by room - sitting in the sitting room finalist

 and the finalist was...

# 3!

the Room&Board - Murray Sofa in Salt (Additional color)



being the cheapest out the bunch didn't hinder this selection from coming to the front of the pack. i headed to the store to check it out in person (something you should always do when buying furniture) and LOVED it!

we got to the store and wandered through the entire first and second floors sitting on couch after couch. every single one was a solid 'no' - either because of price, fabric, or style. then we headed up the stairs to the third floor. and there it was, right at the top of the stairs. immediately i knew it was the one! forget falling in love with people at first sight; this couch was IT. it was displayed in the hideous blue it's stocked in, but i didn't let that deter me. i knew going in that i didn't want the stock color. sitting on it is a dream. the back is a comfortable height, as are the arms. and both are appropriately cushioned. the back was firm enough to keep you from hitting the stiff back, and the arms are more stiff than mushy. i hate me a rolled arm! plus the wooden legs and seat proportions! what! amazing!

then we flipped through the selected fabrics. (if you want the fabric the couch is stocked in you can receive it right away. if you want a selected fabric/color, it'll take about 6 weeks. if you want any of their other fabrics or one of your own, it can take six weeks or longer and cost you a lot extra.) so flipping through the selected fabrics i was dismayed at seeing the 'salt' i had selected. this was not the fabric i thought i wanted! so then the question is: what does it cost to pick something else?

well the room&board fabrics are sorted into "levels". level 1 is $100 extra, level 2 is $200 extra, level 3 is $300 extra, and so on and so forth. and i can tell you straight out that i had already expanded my budget to its extent to afford the base couch; i was not excited about shelling out more for a nice fabric. then the boyfriend and i headed over to the fabric swatches. and by swatches i mean giant yard-long samples. flipping quickly through the greys i landed on two fabrics - both in the "level 4" category. the first i immediately dismissed as being out of my budget. now you must be wondering why i didn't dismiss the other. why you ask? because it was the original fabric i picked out!!! i know... some how in the small swatch they had by the couch the color was hideous, but in the larger swatch it was perfect. oh well... it saved me $400.

i still wasn't set on dropping all that dough on first sight, so i walked away to think about it. and a week later i went back and purchased the couch. now in 4 weeks i'll be the owner of a brand new couch! i'll make sure to post pictures when it comes.

food - valentine's feast

so as previously mentioned i was in desperate need for a recipe to make on valentine's day. my boyfriend and i have been a bit strapped for cash lately. i bought a couch (oh god! find out which one on monday!) and he ended up having to pay all the fees to get his greencard (more on that in a later post). so not having the finances to make a big deal of the day, we opted for a nice dinner at home. i'm sure he thought it would just another night at home. and i was super eager to make it anything but.

my search for a recipe began at 8am. i hopped onto thekitchn.com (one of my new favorite food blogs) and started searching their database of valentine's day articles. lots of recipes presented themselves. pulled pork, smoked ribs, lobster, and many others. all with a hitch. they either take a gazillion hours (i'm planning on using the next weekends to make them), ingredients i definitely couldn't get my hands on at the last minute, or were things my boyfriend doesn't eat (kind of against the point of valentine's day). so the search went nowhere.

then somehow i stumbled onto smittenkitchen.com (another new favorite food blog). i'm sure that thekitchn.com linked me to it, and as i went through her recipes i was encountering the same problem as before, too large, exotic (the ingredients), too time consuming, or all wrong. and cataloged a couple of recipes, then moved on. i don't know how i stumbled upon this recipe but holy crap! was it good.

the pork was perfect tender ( it helps that i got it at a local butcher) and the apple sauce wasn't too sweet (the pork drippings gave it plenty of umami. we had it with mashed potatoes which soaked up the delicious sauce and asparagus. the boyfriend set a romantic scene with tablecloth, candle, and rose.

i hope you had just as lovely a valentine's day!

room by room - sitting in the sitting room

okay so remember how i said for christimas all i wanted was a couch? well if not, you can read about it here.

anyways. my family was super lovely and donated to the "i'd like to buy a couch" fund. everything should have come up roses, except when i went to order my couch, this one at IKEA except with the silver base, they notified me that it had been discontinued! what?!?! all that research and effort by my family and nothing...

well, i had to start at square one, again. after much searching and changing of the budget, i came up with a couple of finalists.

1)  West Elm - Blake Sofa in Gravel (Special Order Fabric, Linen Blend, Gravel) (Not color shown)


2)  Crate & Barrel - Klyne Sofa in Delight Dolphin (Stock color)


3)  Room&Board - Murray Sofa in Salt (Additional color)



after checking out cb2 (the furniture is cheaply made, the designs are awful, and it isn't that much cheaper than crate & barrel) and a few other stores, i picked one. a week later i headed back to the store to order it. guess which one i went for?

food - buttermilk chicken the healthy way?

so nothing beats fried chicken that has been soaked in buttermilk. nothing!

except maybe this recipe for buttermilk roasted chicken.

i'm not sure how much healthier it is than the fried chicken, but since it is lacking the carbohydrate crust and doesn't get dunked in oil i would assume it is.

i was just poking around a new food blog i found (www.smittenkitchen.com) looking for a good valentine's day meal, when i came across this recipe. i couldn't use it for that occasion. (i was looking this up the morning of valentine's day, before heading to work.) but i thought i could make it the following night.

the recipe calls for a 8-24 hour soak and i went all the way. 24 hours (maybe more?) for my chicken. and holy crap! it does not disappoint! i was unable to get the fat to really crispen (got to wipe off that extra buttermilk!) but the meat was super-tender fall-off-the-bone! i made it extra delicious by using the full leg of chicken. oh that thigh meat!

served with an ear of corn (also roasted in the oven) and a small salad, it was like a summer picnic in february.