new york minutes

new mexico

2009-09-21T20:13:00.048-04:00

Trip to Northern New Mexico, September 5-13, 2009

The Vaille Grande Caldera in the Jemez Mountains:

There IS water in New Mexico!

The McCauley hot spring in the Jemez Mountains:

A full rainbow over Pojoaque

David eating green chili stew at Eske's in Taos
The cathedral in Santa Fe at sunset
hiking near Abiquiu where Georgia O'Keeffe painted
We hiked up to the rim in the background here
there was a 360 degree view, and no other people!

A hike in Tent Rocks National Monument:

Zozobra!

The Santa Fe festival "pet parade"

Nick, Sonnie, Robin, David for dinner at Pasquals
at 10,000 feet overlooking Santa Fe

ooooh yeeeaa

2008-10-15T20:30:00.001-04:00

this is pretty awesome:

www.palinaspresident.com

click on pretty much everything

colorful

2008-10-15T20:23:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went up to Hillsdale with Aunt Mary. The weather was amazing and we got to go on 2 hikes and drink in the delicious colors of the fall foliage.

oktoberfest

2008-09-21T14:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was the start of Oktoberfest, and there was a German-American Friendship Parade and Party. We actually were not aware of it, but happened upon it on our way to breakfast on the east side. We watched the parade and then followed the crowd into Central Park where there was a tent set up with all kinds of German beers and foods. It was a beautiful fall day, perfect weather for spending the day outside! Yay!

kelcie's wedding

2008-09-14T15:30:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we went to my friend Kelcie's wedding. We've known each other since the first week of college. The wedding was in her parent's backyard in NJ. The yard seemed to be made for a wedding! Her mother is an avid gardener and there were many beautiful plants and vegetables. The arbor that has kiwi vines was the perfect aisle to walk down.

Here's the "Skidmore crew." We've all known each other since college, and although we're scattered all over the place now, it's like no time has passed when we get together.

Luckily the rain held off and it was a beautiful wedding and a great party!

pig in a cat suit

2008-09-09T21:00:00.000-04:00

Hercules is a fat cat. We knew this when we adopted him, actually this was part of what drew us to him, he was so darn cute! It is painfully obvious why he is so fat... he will eat ANYTHING. When I was growing up we had two cats, Tigger & Bob, who loved green beans. We never gave them cat treats, just green beans. So, this gave me the idea to try Hercules & Lucy on green beans (Herks = yes, Lucy = no). Then it expanded into other foods. At first "will he eat it?" was a fun game to play, now it's pretty obvious that the answer is always yes. However, now that we've got him on a diet to get his weight to a healthier level, I limit myself to giving him vegetables.

Crashed out dreaming about avocados (or something)...

Here's a list of all the foods he will eat so far:
-lettuce
-avocado
-cabbage
-spinach
-endive
-green beans
-green bell peppers
-red bell peppers
-cucumbers
-pea pods
-snow peas
-tomatoes
-zucchini
-strawberries
-blueberries
-pear
-grapes
-walnuts
Of course he will eat any form of meat or fish he could get his paws on, but they're verboten around here. The only thing he has shown a really strong dislike for is banana. In fact, he swatted at it when it was offered. Hmm?

summer of sewing

2008-09-02T19:00:00.002-04:00

I purchased a couch when I was in college for $35 at the Salvation Army. It was comfortable and cheap, which was pretty much all I was looking for as a student. It happened to be yellow and lime green velvet from the 1950's, but that didn't really concern me at the time. Somehow my college treasure has managed to stay with me through 8 moves and 12 years. I have covered it with slip-covers, blankets, sheets, and even made an amateur slip-cover myself once in an effort to make it blend in better with its surroundings (all of which were more annoying than good). I think the reason it never left my possession is because it really is very comfortable and well-made, and well, I still don't have any money! I decided to make it my summer project to reupholster it myself. I ordered the fabric from one of the companies we work with- it's 100% recycled polyester (why how green of me! not to mention that I saved the whole darn thing from ending up in a landfill!) It took me over 60 hours to complete the reupholstery, one third of which I spent diagramming and engineering just how I was going to do it. And believe me, I now understand why you have to pay so much to have someone do it for you. It's a lot of work and patience. In the end it was totally worth it, and I am loving my new couch!

Before:

After!
Hercules was always willing to help along the way... I think here he's helping me measure out the bolt of fabric... yep, 8 yards!
I started with the seat and back cushions. Here are the pieces before they got sewn together. The welting (or piping as some say) was tricky. First I made the welt out of a rope from Home Depot and sewing fabric around it. The tricky part was sewing it around the edges of the pillow in a straight line. It was a multi-step process.

I decided to just keep the yellow velvet on the couch. It wouldn't do any harm staying there, and in fact it might help keep everything together! I added a layer of batting to make it a little softer.
I decided to approach the frame from the inside ---> out

Don't be afraid of a staple gun if you're going to try this yourself!

Of course, I could not put my old, lumpy pillows on my brand new, custom love seat! What do do... make new ones! I ordered the inserts on line, and sewed away!

I made coordinating ones for our futon (just ignore the green for now, some day I may recover that as well, or we may get a new couch!)

All very satisfying, and the best part is now we get to enjoy a newly decorated space!

Being an interior designer, people always assume that my home is beautiful, the truth is that I don't have the money to spend on my own home, which I think is partly why I enjoy making other people's spaces beautiful. But now I don't have to be so shy about my place ;)

great american pastime

2008-08-17T19:00:00.001-04:00

Summer isn't complete without a baseball game. This is the last year at the original Yankee Stadium, so we wanted to be sure to make it. A contractor I know has season tickets, so he gave us a pair for today. It was great because the Yankees have been not doing so well (as David says, he is coming to terms with the fact that they might not make the post-season this year. Myself being a Red Sox fan, I'm not too concerned) they had 4 home runs and ended up winning! It's definitely more fun to go to a game where the home team wins.

Street scenes outside the stadium:

the best place on earth

2008-07-06T17:00:00.002-04:00

This was a very special year for our annual visit to the beach cottage in Small Point, ME. We all got to go for 2 weeks!! Heather, Ricky, & David are currently all students, so they have a flexible summer, and I got to take a 2-week leave. It was GREAT!

Here's the cottage. The rock wall is from about 3 years ago when a big winter storm took away most of the sand from the beach. Prior to that there were fewer rocks on the beach and about 20 feet of beach grass with a nice lazy path, much more scenic! But hey, we're just glad it's still there!

This year we saw a rainbow:
...ate lobster 4 times!
...celebrated my dad's 70th birthday! (we made him a calendar on flicker with photos of the four of us - a great gift for a man who can buy himself what ever gadget he wants. How does that saying go? a custom calendar... priceless!)
I watched the sunrise and fed the mosquitos while doing so.

Generally we relaxed outdoors on the terrace overlooking the beach, or on the beach itself.
Low tide is great for long walks!

Ricky attempted to defend his sand fort, but the tide won out in the end...

Ricky's parents came up for a few days. His dad went fishing, but seaweed was the biggest thing he caught.
David and Mary were in charge of the grillin'

jamaica!!!

2008-05-26T12:05:00.001-04:00

Continuing with our crazy travel month... we just got back from Jamaica!!
Our friends Valery & Chauncy had their wedding at the Round Hill Resort near Montego Bay, and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up!

This was the view we woke up to every morning:

The hill that gives the resort it's name:

We loved hanging out by the pool! In fact, David declared himself mayor of the pool for our time there.

Girls gone wild! Or, as I like to say about myself, girl gone mild! I was definitely the whitest out of everyone. And, I'm happy to say that by applying sunblock religiously and hiding out in the shade of the umbrella, I managed to stay that way instead of turning bright red. It's my Irish heritage that doesn't like the sun. At least I'm not as white as the Pina Colada! ;)

The next day we were back at the pool...

Saturday evening was the wedding on the terrace overlooking the ocean. What you can't tell from the pictures is that 10 minutes before it was pouring rain. Luckily it was a thunderstorm and it passed quickly and the outdoor wedding could still happen. Perfect timing!

Valery & Chauncey timed it perfectly! Just as they were saying their vows the sun was setting!

california dreamin'

2008-05-18T16:00:00.003-04:00

Last week we went out to California to visit Robin's sister and brother-in-law, Heather & Ricky. They live in Davis, CA which is North-East of San Fran near Sacramento. On Thursday we went wine tasting in the Apple Hill region of the Sierra Nevada Foothills. We visited 5 vineyards all together. Unlike Napa and Sonoma which are now too cool for school, the vineyards in this region offer free tastings and are very friendly and laid back. We had a great time!!!

A view of the vineyards of Gold Hill Winery: Robin, David, Heather, Ricky:

The old homestead on the Boeger Winery:

David tasting in style (the vine growing up behind him is 135 years old!)

Sisters!

A view of the Madrona vineyard:

We also visited Jodar and Lava Cap, but I don't think my attention was very good as the day progressed, so I don't have any photos ;)

After a great visit in Davis, the 4 of us drove to San Jose where we met up with Robin's dad. (He had a business meeting in the area) So, then the 5 of us drove down the coast to Big Sur where we stayed 3 nights in the Big Sur Lodge and went hiking. We did a quick hike Friday afternoon when we arrived through the redwoods to a waterfall. Ahhh, it's great to get out of the city!

On Saturday we hiked in the Andrew Molera State Park. It was about 8-9 miles, partly through Redwood and Live Oak groves and mostly along the hills along the Pacific Ocean cliffs.

We had a picnic lunch overlooking the ocean:

After the hike we relaxed on the deck of our cabin

On Sunday we started off our hike in the fog

Eventually we climbed high enough to come out into a beautiful sunny day

We ate lunch overlooking the fog covered ocean below. And, yes, David, we're glad you added the sausages!

If you look carefully you can just make out the water through the fog

A big old Redwood tree (with evidence of the Cone Peak fire of 2002 on it's bark)

We ate dinner at Napenthe for dinner. We got a table on the deck overlooking the ocean.

A bitter sweet ending to a great weekend!

better than tv!

2008-05-03T12:45:00.000-04:00

We were woken up this morning at 7am by some crazy screeching noises, when I looked out the window there was a big yellow crane on the street right in front of our building. I decided to make some coffee and watch all the action...
First they unloaded a bunch of I-beams and assembled them on the ground. Once the beams were bolted together the crane lifted them onto the roof of the building across the street. It was quite a sight to see!

They lifted a few small loads of wire, tools, and various other things, and then came the big daddy: a pre-constructed building! I think it's a unit for central AC, but I'm not totally sure. Whatever it is for, it was very impressive to watch it being hoisted up in the air.

And voila! Everything's up on the roof now. I can only imagine all the engineering and coordination that took place beforehand to make all this possible. We have a fire house on our street, so I'm sure the permits required to close down the block were pretty complicated. It was really fascinating to watch all the guys work together to get everything up there so fast. (The whole thing took about 6 hours.)

more cat pics

2008-04-16T19:30:00.001-04:00

The cats are pretty well adjusted to their new home (and we're adjusted to having them!) Their personalities have definitely come out. Hercules is very mellow and relaxed. Lucy is uptight and anxious. She gets sweeter as time goes by, but she's so nervous!
Their favorite place to hang out is on the back of our futon couch in the living room:

This is Hercules at his most relaxed. I call it his "bear skin rug" look. Her certainly has no concept of self-consciousness!
An interesting size comparison; little Lucy...
...and giant Hercules

early signs of spring

2008-04-06T18:30:00.001-04:00

These pictures are from the first "nice" day of spring. It was 60 and sunny and, more importantly, it was a Saturday. So, we went for a nice walk through Central Park.

The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater reminded us of Austria:

david's b-day

2008-03-27T12:30:00.005-04:00

For David's birthday this year we celebrated with a fabulous meal at Keen's Steakhouse and then wet to Times Square for a cocktail. We sat in the lounge at the Marriott Marquis and got a window seat that overlooks all the action below. Fun!

wind damage

2008-03-10T12:00:00.006-04:00

(FYI: I'm writing this quite a while after the fact, but I've dated the post for the correct date that I should have posted it!) The night before these pictures were taken there was a crazy storm with lots of rain and lots of wind. The next morning was clear and sunny, and when we were walking around the neighborhood we came across some damage from the storm. A section of the cornice of a building on 110th street had come off and was dangling from the roof top! Someone had acted quickly and erected scaffolding above the sidewalk below to protect pedestrians (but I still wouldn't walk under it!) It was fascinating to me to see how the cornice was constructed. I think it's wood with a copper facing. The wood must have been rotten and the extra rain and wind from the night before was enough stress on it to break it down.

restaurant project

2008-02-08T17:15:00.000-05:00

I have been meaning to put pictures of the restaurant project I just did up for a while now... so here they finally are! The project was VERY fast-paced. We literally had 2 months from the day we were hired to the day it opened for business. Considering our time crunch and limited budget, I think we did quite well! And, they have been getting rave reviews from everyone who stops in.

Here are the "before & after" pics...

The entrance before:
The entrance after:
The waiting area before:

The waiting area after:

The dining room view 1 before:

The dining room view 1 after:

The dining room view 2 before:

The dining room view 2 after:

The dining room view 3 before:

The dining room view 3 after:

The bar before:

The bar after:

cats!

2008-01-05T19:10:00.000-05:00

The BIG news is that we got two cats! I have been wanting a cat for a long time, and David finally agreed that we should get one! :) We went to a shelter in MA looking for one, but ended up getting two! They are brother and sister and could only come together. So, we decided it was good for them to have each other's company.

Hercules is a HUGE black cat. He is a lover! Lucy is a calico or tortoise shell (not quite sure which is correct). She is a bit more shy, but she is a sweetie. We are very excited to have them in our lives!

They had a few days to adjust to life in Wellesley, MA, and then we re-located them a second time back to NYC. They were really good on the car ride, and seem to be settling in well to apartment life. Yeah!

Yes, the couch is ugly. But it is comfrotable!

home for the holidays

2008-01-05T19:00:00.000-05:00

We went home to Wellesley, MA where Robin grew up for Christmas. Heather (Robin's sister) and Ricky (her husband) were home from CA as well. Ricky grew up a couple towns away in Stoneham.

December 23rd is Ricky's birthday, so we all went over to his parent's house to celebrate.
His mom, Mary, and dad, Rick:

Sister Kaity, and her fiance, Dan:

We had a white Christmas! Well, it did not actually snow on Christamas, but there was plenty of snow already on the ground.

We decided not to do presents this year. Although, there were still a few tolkens handed out. But, the real gift is each other's company. Plus, most of the time you get silly gifts you don't know what to do with, and feel bad throwing away. This way everyone saves money and we all help save the environment! And, we really appreciate just spending time together, which seems like a good Christmas spirit.

Heather made an apple pie for Christmas dessert:

David made Bok Choy and I made Gluewein (a mulled spiced wine). Also, we had ham, creamed onions, and smashed sweet potatoes.

One of the tolken gifts my mom gave us all was funky hand-made socks (well, she didn't make them, but someone in Vermont did.)

Also, David got a puzzle of NYC. He, Heather & I spent on afternoon putting it together, only to discover that there were missing pieces! It was a fun puzzle, but in the end it was not satisfying because we never got to have the pleasure of placing the last piece.

For New Year's Eve Heather, Ricky, David & I hung out. We had pizza dinner, played some video and board games, talked and drank champagne at midnight.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! It was a great vacation and we loved spending time with our cool sis and bro-in-law! Fun times!

catch-up

2007-12-12T18:40:00.000-05:00

I haven't posted in a while...

My birthday was last Saturday. I had a great day! We gathered with a lot of friends at the Brooklyn Brewery. I felt very loved, it was great! So great, that I never took any photos! Oh well, I assure you I look the same...

Here is a picture of our christmas tree this year. We got LED lights and decorated it with our "ornaments." We have not actually ever purchased ornaments for our tree. We have some old key chains, ornaments that were gifts, and items that were found or "borrowed" from some local bars. This has lead David to proclaim a rule for our christmas tree: we can only decorate it with items that are gifts, found, or taken (never from a store, mind you). For Thanksgiving we went up to Hillsdale with Mary & Elliot. My dad came out as well. Of course, we had a fantastic meal of turkey and all the fixins'. The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, eating leftovers, and tackling projects.
Elliot and my father fixed a chair:

Elliot climbed up on the roof to check a vent while David and my dad supervised:

Goldie supervised as well:

We'll be heading up to visit my family for xmass, so hopefully there will be some good photos then!

fall hike

2007-11-08T20:20:00.000-05:00

Two weeks ago we went up to Hillsdale with Greg & Bryte. We went on a crisp fall hike on Sunday. We climbed up Mt. Everett, which is in the South-West corner of MA.

The view at the top looking East:

Looking North:

Looking South:

On our way back to the car we walked past a pond and went to explore around it...

We came across some funny chopped trees that we soon realized were the work of busy beavers...

There was a whole beaver village! 5 "houses" total:

bowling!

2007-11-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

On Saturday we went bowling in Great Barrington, MA because it was raining. I took some photos because I remember our bowling experience in Austria and how different it was. So I wanted to show all our Austrian friends what American bowling looks like. And, this particular bowling alley offers "cosmic bowling" in the evening, so the balls are crazy colors. We were not there for cosmic bowling this time, but we have gone in the past. They turn off the lights and just have color disco lights. It makes the bowling more difficult, but more fun for the kids.

urban hike

2007-10-16T23:30:00.000-04:00

Saturday was a beautiful day, and we really wanted to go for a hike. Unfortunately there are no remote hills to hike in Manhattan. We had plans to eat at Danielle and Jevaun's in Brooklyn that evening, so we decided to walk over to dinner. The whole trip was almost 14 miles and took 6.5 hours (including a stop for lunch in Korea Town).
Here's the route we ended up taking: It was a really fun day. There were so many different sights, cultures, and people all in one city! Below are some images from along our route:

voila!

2007-09-20T08:35:00.000-04:00

Here's the finished table complete with a steel base made by a metal artist I know in Queens. I am very happy with the result, it looks like something you'd buy at ABC Carpet & Home (for those of you non-New Yorkers, ABC is a huge designer store with many unique pieces that are VERY expensive and overpriced)

I chose to design a metal base because I like the contrast in elements. Each material stands on it's own and together they compliment each other.

walnut

2007-09-06T22:40:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went up to Hillsdale w/ Mary & Elliot. Elliot had been introduced to the MOST AMAZING store... it's a lumber yard, but not your typical lumber yard with 2x4's and plywood. They get all kinds of unique, very special, one-of-a-kind pieces of wood. They had 3 barns full of wood! There were pieces 20+ feet tall and 5+ feet wide. There were names of wood I'd never heard of (Bubinga, Tulip Wood, Zebra Wood) and exotic wood (Wenge, Redwood). There was an entire floor devoted to burls. I was mesmerized and in love. So, I bought a piece of Walnut burl. I am going to turn it into a coffee table.
Here it is before:

I sanded it down to a 400 grit sandpaper, so the surface feels like glass. Then I polished it with 3 coats of shellac and 2 coats of wax.

Voila! Beautiful...

Now the only thing missing are the legs. I'm going to have a metal artist I know make me steel legs. It was a really fun process, and I have something totally unique. Not to mention about 20 times cheaper than if I bought it in a design store. :) My new fantasy is to make more and sell them!

weird

2007-09-06T22:15:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I bought this fruit in the grocery store simply because I had never seen anything like it before! It's called a Dragon Fruit. It is actually the flower (or pre-flower) of a cactus. It looks impressive, but didn't really taste like much, water mostly. But not yummy water like in a watermellon, just kinda bland.

It's real pretty though! Especially inside! I've definitely never seen a fruit so white before.

my sister's wedding

2007-08-05T17:00:00.000-04:00

Last weekend was my sister's wedding. We went up early to help with last minute details. On Friday our aunt Betty and her friend Sue came over to help roll up all the napkins and tie a little purple bow on them.

Voila!

The "supervisors" of the great napkin rolling event: (Uncle Kim, David S., David L.)

Afterwards, we took a walk around Lake Waban on the Wellesley College Campus.

There is a swan couple that has 4 babies this year.

I've heard the phrase to "have all your ducks in a row" but had never actually seen it before:

Friday evening was the rehersal in the church. Here are all Heather's bridesmaids:

Heather & Ricky (the bride and groom):

Click here for the official photographs from the wedding. They are beautiful!

The whole weekend was great! During the ceremony in the church there was a crazy thunderstorm that you could hear over the organ! As soon as the ceremony was over, the sun came out!

maine

2007-07-13T17:30:00.000-04:00

We spent a week in Maine with Robin's family... mom (Cheryl), dad (David), sister (Heather) & Fiance (Ricky). It was FABULOUS! Cheryl, Heather, & Ricky picked us up in Portland and we ate dinner at the Saltwater Grille which had a great view of the harbor and downtown. This is the cottage we stayed in. My parent's have been renting it the same time in June for the past 32 years! It is a very magical place and we feel very lucky to still be there!

This is the view from the terrace of the cottage!

Hangin' on the terrace:

We had lobster for dinner twice- yummy! Heather and I found these silly aprons and decided to serve the lobster:

This is a view of the tidal river (at low tide) that flows up into the salt marsh. At high tide all this is under water.

I made a painting of the view from the terrace:

Every day at low tide we crossed the tidal river and went for a 3-mile walk on the "big beach"

There is an old ship wreck on the beach, this small part of the bow of the ship is all you can see any more.

If you look very closely at the middle of this pic you can see a rainbow:

A sample of shells we found on our walks on the beach:

We call this the "ouchy sand" because it hurts the arch of your foot when you walk on it. It's made by the gentle wave action of 6' of water over it at high-tide.

florida visit

2007-06-20T18:00:00.000-04:00

This past weekend I (Robin) went down to Mount Dora, Florida to visit my 94-year old grandfather. My sister came out from California, so we got to have a visit together. We stayed at our aunt Betty and uncle Don's home with their 3 cute cats.
We had a good visit eating yummy meals, playing cards, and going to the park. Friday night my sister and I went into town to hear some music and sip a cold beverage. Happy Father's day! Betty & Granddaddy:

The requisit palm tree photo:

These were some neat birds in the park:

I went through some old photos Granddaddy had and kept a few. Here's an old photo of me and granddaddy when I was about 2 weeks old:
Darda and Grandaddy when they were first married:
Granddaddy when he was about 28 years old:

This is a picture of my mom when she was 4 years old: And this is a picture of me when I was about 3, uncanny resemblance (then again, we are related):

summer is here!

2007-05-29T19:20:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was Memorial Day weekend - the official start of summer, at least as far as most socialites are concerned. We were invited to spend a long weekend in Hillsdale with Mary & Elliot. We had beautiful weather!!

Elliot puts pine branches in the window boxes for the winter season. He was too late taking them out this year, and a Robin decided to build her nest in the window box under the branches. There were 3 babies in the nest! Here you can see how well hidden they were: They all ducked down when I opened the screen and stuck my camera out to take a picture.

The mom came by with a worm, but she could see me through the window and got nervous and flew away right after I took this picture.

Here's the window with the nest:

We spent many lazy hours sitting on the deck eating and listening to the birds.

This is the waterfall David and I got married in front of. We like to think of it as "our waterfall"

Sunday night we had a bonfire in the fire pit...

"Bash Bish Falls" is slightly larger than "our waterfall" which is why it was so crowded. Too cold to swim in this time of year though!

eines kleines bier, bitte

2007-05-17T21:00:00.000-04:00

A few weekends ago we went to the Brooklyn Brewery with Matt, Xander, Alana, and John (and his girlfriend Dana not in the picture). It reminded us fondly of an Austrian beer garden.

David and Matt brushed up on their German skills...

After the brewery closed we wandered around the neighborhood...

A view of Manhattan across the East River

spring

2007-04-23T13:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend's weather was beautiful! It was the first weekend everyone came out of their winter hibernation... central park was packed with people!

she sells sea shells

2007-04-15T12:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend we went up to Massachusetts for an escape from the city. We stayed with Robin's mom. On Friday, we drove up to Marblehead, a cute town on the North Shore, and had lunch and walked around. It wasn't really tourist season yet, so there wan't much going on, but it was great to see the ocean and get out of the city environment.

offbeat

2007-04-01T19:20:00.000-04:00

We went up to Hillsdale last night as a spontaneous escape from the city. On our way back today we stopped at the Texas Taco along route 22 for lunch. It is a very unique place. The woman who runs it has been doing it for 30 years! The food isn't amazing, but the decor is unforgettable. She doesn't let you take pictures inside, but I did sneak some pics of the bathroom and outside, so you can use your imagination to figure out the decor.

This is the business card with a picture of Rosemary. She wears this make-up every day! How amazing that someone with this eclectic found a way to make $ off of it. You go girl!

sid

2007-04-01T19:00:00.000-04:00

This post is for you Liz...
Greg & Bryte's cat Sid is all grown up and big! He's still the same mellow guy as before, just bigger! I thought you'd get a kick out seeing him, so cute!!

history lesson

2007-04-01T18:45:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went on a walking tour of the Greenwich Village section of NYC. The tour was full of interesting facts and tid-bits about the societal and architectural history of this once small village on the outskirts of New York city. Check out www.walknyc.com for information on all the tours offered.
We started off in Washington Square Park, named after our first president. We learned that the park sits on top of the site of an old graveyard with the mass graves of yellow fever victims. Maybe this explains all the freaks that hang out there now, they feel right at home with all the ghosts? The day of our tour was the 96th anniversary of the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. The building is now used for classrooms and offices at NYU.
This little street called a "mew" was actually the back alley with stables behind the fancy row houses on the park. The street slopes towards the center where the gutter used to be. After plumbing was included in houses, the gutters were moved to the sides of the street.
The details on the house are beautiful, however, the shocking detail at the time was the lack of a prominent front stoop. Apparently it was shocking to see an entrance right at the street level, and not one where you go up the stairs, because of the ambiguity it caused of where the owners of the house would enter and where the servants would enter. All the details around the windows and doors are hand carved teak with the center window being the biggest feature.

The original fire tower for the village was on this site, so when they tore it down to build the new municipal building with the courthouse and jail they included a tower to keep watch over the village.
Anyone who's been to New York city knows how frustrating it is to try to find your way around the west village because the streets don't follow the grid of the rest of the city. This is because the village streets were originally laid out by the farmers who owned the land. Each farmer arranged their own streets to be parallel, but they didn't coordinate with their neighbors, hence the random angles where the properties met. If you take a look at a map you can make out where the different land plots were. The funny angles made funny spaces and some houses were built back in the awkward lots left over. At the time these houses were for the poor and less well-to-do because having a "street presence" was important. Today it's the opposite. The apartments in the "back-houses" are about 3-times more expensive than the street side ones!
This is one of the only wooden houses in NYC. It was the home of a wood-worker, so it was a great advertisement for his business.

This 8-1/2 foot wide house was built to fill in the driveway of the house on the left. People will do anything to live in NYC!

model room

2007-02-17T10:15:00.000-05:00

I (Robin) have been busy at work on a high-end student housing project. The building is in lower Manhatttan (very close to the WTC and Wall St). There are 17 floors, 238 bedrooms, plus the lobby, lounge, and some administrative offices. We're working in conjunction with architects, engineers, and many sub-contractors. The building is very much a construction site right now, but we had to get a model room together to show the university what it will look like. Yesterday was the big reveal, and it went very well. Everyone loved it! We had no control over the size and layout of the rooms (the architet did that), but we designed all the furniture, chose all the fixtures, finishes and colors. Here is the model room: We kept the raw concrete ceiling and painted it:
One wall has an accent color:

We designed the beds to have lots of storage; underneath and in the headboard. That way each student has their own personal, compact area with all their stuff.

Each room has it's own bathroom:

In the corridor we designed a "feature wall" opposite the elevators. There are steel panels bolted onto the wall with glowing light boxes. Every floor will have a different color, and the color of the room number signs will correspond to the light box color for that particular floor. (This was just a quick simulation, so you can see the ugly fluorescent tubes. The final will have LED's and will look much better)

The bedroom doors in the corridors will look something like this:
And the carpet in the corridors (ignore the dusty footprints, again, this is a construction site, so all the people walking thru made a mess!):
This is the room across the hall from the model, quite a contrast!

opera

2007-01-11T19:00:00.000-05:00

On Monday night Greg & Bryte took us to see the opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) at The Met in Lincoln Center. Neither David nor I had ever been to an opera in Lincoln Center before- it was beautiful! And we had amazing seats right on the floor in about row 20! It was in German, so it was neat to try to understand parts of it. They do have subtitles on the back of the seat infront of you, but sometimes we didn't have to pay attention :)

We were right under the great chandelier. We later learned that all the crystal chandeliers were a gift from Austria to thank the USA for their support following WWII. Good thing David was wearing his Austrian Tracht!

We had a really great time! Thanks so much G & B!!!

winter?

2007-01-07T12:05:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a balmy 72 degrees! In JANUARY!!! In NYC!!! We decided to take advantage of the saturday weather and hold the first annual "greenhouse grill" on Steve's roof.
There was a girl who lives in the building sunbathing in a bikini up there!
Bryte's parents were in town visiting.

We watched the football playoffs projected onto the building next door. The roof got quite crowded with 3 different apartment groups partying outdoors. Crazy!

yeah for family holidays!

2006-12-31T13:45:00.000-05:00

Heather & Ricky drove down to NYC to hang out for a night and then drive David & I up to Massachusetts. We walked around the city to enjoy all the holiday decorations. Here is the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree:
My mom had our kitchen remodeled this fall. The last thing needed was to paint the inside of the cabinets to match the new outsides.

For Christmas Eve we went into our dad's apartment for dinner. He has a great view out his window overlooking Boston.

We enjoyed the "stinky cheese" Tete De Moine for an appetizer.
David FINALLY finished his paper from his work in Austria this morning! Cheers and congrats!!! Wahoooooo!!! Now that's a good Christmas present.

For Christmas day we were in Wellesley. I gave Heather & Ricky a painting as an early wedding gift.
Heather was in charge of passing out all the presents...

We didn't have a white Christmas, but it did snow this week! Here's the house Robin grew up in covered in pretty white snow:

heather's surprise

2006-12-31T13:00:00.000-05:00

Saturday Heather's friends planned a surprise bridal shower for her. We all had a tough time keeping it a secret all week long, but she was totally surprised! Yeah!!!
Left to right: Allison, Jen, Mary, Isabelle & Casandra (the twins), Lindsay, and Johannah.
Kaity and Mary (Heather's future sister and mother in law)
Mary, Suzanne, and Jen
Cheryl and her two daughters:

xmass tree

2006-12-03T09:35:00.000-05:00

We decided to get a Christmas tree this year. Of course, space is always a premium in New York, so we got a little tree. It looks cute, didn't take too long to decorate, and adds the ambiance without any fuss. So, here is our tree before... and here it is decorated...

thanksgiving

2006-12-03T09:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I've been really bad about posting lately. But, there really hasn't been much to blog! Except for Thanksgiving, which I just enjoyed moment by moment instead of by shutter snap to shutter snap, so there are not any pictures. Our friend Liz came out from Ohio, so you can check out her blog for any pics she took. We had a great dinner at Maria's in Brooklyn, and then headed up to Hillsdale for a relaxing weekend. David and I splurged and got new shoes. It seems odd to blog shoes, but they are so great (plus then I get to have a picture on this post!). They are like hugs for your feet :) If anyone is looking for a holiday gift for themselves or someone they know, check out these Merrell's for some very happy feet:

glass and plants

2006-10-29T20:10:00.000-05:00

Today we went to the New York Botanical Garden in The Bronx to see the Dale Chihuly installation. He is an artist that works in blown glass and he had thousands of pieces placed throughout the garden among the plants. Some were large, some were small. Unfortunately, the show has been up since the summer and today was the last day, so we can't really recommend any one go, but I'm very glad we did!

This isn't glass, it was a really neat cactus that I liked because it looked like it was painted!

botanical garden

2006-10-29T20:05:00.000-05:00

We really enjoyed walking around the rest of the garden on this beautiful fall day. It was like a mini vacation from the city.

The garden is really an oasis in the middle of the Bronx. It's quite obvious you're back in the city.

my hero!

2006-10-22T17:25:00.000-04:00

This afternoon David got to be a local hero. He was coming home from kicking footbag and was walking up the step to our building when a girl on the street pointed out a window on the 3rd floor of our building, and said "you might want to do something about that." She was referring to a pot on the stove that was on fire. David went up to the apartment and no one was home, so he knocked on the neighbors door to let her know to get out, and they called the fire department. It turned out not to be a big deal, but who knows if the girl on the street and David had not acted as they each did, the fire could have quickly gotten a lot worse.
As you can tell from the firemen standing around chatting, the situation was not serious:
The fire was in the same apartment we have, but 2 floors below, so after David had alerted the neighbor and fire department, he called me. Well, I wasn't home. I had just popped out for 10 minutes to the bookstore, and I had actually left the oven on because I was roasting beets! So, his call freaked me out at first because I thought it was my oven. Luckily it wasn't, but I'm not taking this as a mere coincidence. Rather, as a big fat red flag not to leave things cooking while I'm not home. So, let this story be a reminder to everyone, and a lesson that it's good to peer into windows from the street!

Reconnecting with the city

2006-10-17T21:20:00.000-04:00

Our friend Liz from Austria came to visit us last weekend. We walked ALL OVER the city with her. It was great because David and I needed to "reconnect" with the city after a year away. The weather was beautiful!!! We explored Central Park...

Walked through the canyons of Midtown...

Survived the mayhem of Times Square...
Saw some famous landmarks. Here is the Chrysler Building:
The reality is that ground zero has become a tourist destination. However, It is a very powerful, meaningful destination that really helps people to understand the scope of what happened.
An old gravestone in the financial district. I loved the way they spelled "lies" as "lyes", and "eight" as "eighte".
We took the Staten Island commuter ferry to get a *free* view of New York Harbor.
Ellis Island:
The Statue of Liberty:
The Verrazano Bridge marks the entrance to New York Harbor from the Atlantic Ocean. The water is very busy with cargo ships.

The southern end of Manhattan (the Financial District):
The bridges connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn over the East River:
old piers in the Hudson River:

We ate dinner at The Corner Bistro in the West Village. They have the best burgers in NYC (although I cannot personally attest to that as I don't eat cows), but everyone who eats them loves them.
We had lunch in the park in DUMBO overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge...
... and then walked across the bridge back into Manhattan.
We are all now totally exhausted! It was a fantastic weekend. Thanks for your visit Liz!

leaf peeping

2006-10-08T22:30:00.000-04:00

This weekend we went up to Hillsdale with uncle Elliot and aunt Mary to their country home in the Berkshires (where we had our wedding). Robin's dad, David, also came out from Boston for the weekend. We had amazing fall weather and the leaves were beautiful! We went on 2 hikes and ate lots of good food. Ahhhh, it's so nice to get out of the city.
We ate breakfast and lunch on the terrace.

We made grilled salmon and tuna for dinner on Saturday. Here are the mushrooms we got to go with the fish. They fondly reminded David and I of the time we went mushroom hunting in Austria. These mushrooms we did not pick, but we did get them from the local farmer's market.

working girl

2006-10-05T23:45:00.000-04:00

Robin got a job! A friend of mine, who I went to grad school with, called me to see if I was interested in working with her part-time. She is an assistant to a young designer, and they just got a lot of new projects for the fall and thought they could use some help. It works out perfectly because I can still paint. Since it's such a small office (just the 3 of us!) I'll be thrown into everything and learn alot. I worked three days this week, and am exhaused and excited.
Here are pictures of one of our residential projects before. (It might be January or February before I can post the after shots.)
The rooms are huge! That's Abby way in the distance.

So, if anyone's curious what I'll be doing at work: everything from researching products, going to showrooms to see products and get samples, measuring, space planning, material choices, product choices, interacting with vendors, contractors, and clients, drawings for presentations, AutoCAD drafting, and lots of running around doing other things I can't even think of now. Whew!

baseball

2006-09-28T12:00:00.000-04:00

Last night we went to a Yankees game. As soon as we sat in our seats, David said "ahhhh, now I feel like I'm home."

The Yankees ended up beating the Orioles 16-5, so it wasn't a very exciting game as far a competition goes, but it sure was a good show off for Yankees hitting. It was fun to actually go to a game instead of watching them on-line as we were doing in Austria.

butterfly

2006-09-28T11:50:00.000-04:00

This butterfly was busy with the flowers in the flower boxes of the building next to us for about 5 minutes. I did not use any zoom on these photos, he (she?) let me get this close! He was moving pretty fast though, so sorry for the blurry photos.

water towers

2006-09-20T18:40:00.000-04:00

We have an Austrian friend, Liz, who is living in Ohio this year and teaching German to students at Wooster College. On her blog I noticed she was intrigued by the water towers that dot the countryside. Something they don't have in Austria. I've always loved the unique, wooden water towers that live on the rooftops in New York City and thought they would make a good blog entry. Which also reminds me of the book The Alienist by Caleb Carr which if you have not yet read, is really great.

mom's visit

2006-09-20T18:30:00.000-04:00

Robin's mom drove us back to the city after the wedding and stayed 3 nights for a visit. The first night we ate dinner at Mama Mexico. It's a really fun "destination" restaurant. They make the guacamole right in front of you and have mariachi players. Oh yes, and the food is tasty too!
We took several walks throughout Central Park and enjoyed the beautiful weather. We also went to the MoMA and the Museum of The City of New York.

Talk about scraping down to the bones! All that's left of this bike is what was not detachable:

amy & gareth

2006-09-20T18:15:00.000-04:00

Last weekend we went to the wedding of one of Robin's best friends from college, Amy. She married Gareth, who also went to Skidmore. However, they met after school. Notice the stylish couple wearing traditional Austrian Tracht:
The girls: Robin, Erica, Justin, Kelcie, Crislin
we've all been friends since the first week of school!
Amy & Gareth
Since both the bride and groom both went to Skidmore College, there were a lot of fellow Skiddies there:

here we are

2006-09-11T20:30:00.000-04:00

We thought it was time to put pictures of ourselves up on this blog as proof that we're actually here. So, here we are...
Tonight we enjoyed the fabulous American dinner preparation known as delivery! (mit unseren Ackern Biergläsern) David is still working hard to finish up his paper of his research done in Austria. At night he likes working from the comfort of bed, but I got him to take a break long enough to snap a picture.

there's no place like home

2006-09-08T10:00:00.000-04:00

Here are some images of our apartment so that those of you who are far away can see how we live in NYC.
This is the outside of our building, we live on the 5th floor (which would be the 4th floor in Europe): Here's a floor plan of our space:
Looking East out our window:
Looking West out our window:
The living room:

The tile on our fireplace was painted black, so I scraped all the paint off to reveal these beautiful green tiles:
The kitchen:
In the kitchen looking towards the entry hall and living room:
Our bedroom (and our fabulous comfortable bed that we're very happy to be sleeping in once again!):

first post

2006-09-05T18:25:00.000-04:00

We're back from our year of living in Austria. We're very excited to be home, see friends & family, and hear English all around us. Of course, there are many people we're sad to no longer see every day. So...

We found that blogging about our lives in Austria was so helpful to keep in touch with people far away, that we've decided to continue to blog some of our adventures back here in NYC, especially with our Austrian friends in mind. So, check in every so often to see what we're up to and learn more about life in the big apple.

Right now we're busy un-packing and settling back into our apartment. I'll post pictures of our home once it's cleaned up so that all you folks back in Austria can see.