Penny pinching at it's very best!

Have I mentioned my friend Dipti? She's the best! She is new here too, having just moved from Toronto, Canada on a teaching exchange program and coincidentally we met while touring the same apartment complex back in Oct. We recognized in each other a need for like-minded friendship. We've had long talks about dealing with moving from a large city to a small suburb in Virginia and we've explored a lot of DC together too. So, we've been bouncing around the idea of going up to Manhattan for the weekend but with work, company in town for both of us, and every day life it was almost impossible to plan it. So we decided to just try and fly by the seat of our pants when the time was right and it worked!! There were definitely challenges. We couldn't afford to spend a lot of money and NYC is a notoriously expensive city. We only had 3 days (Fri, Sat, Sun). Since both of us love it there, we had A LOT we wanted to show each other and do while in the city. Here's how we figured it out and I really hope it inspires someone to do it for themselves too!! Get away and enjoy life!

Question: How do you find a reasonable price for a hotel when you try to book just 6days before your arrival?
Answer: Hotels.com- 2 nights at the Paramount Hotel in Times Square, mid-town Manhattan. Cost= 94.50 per night!!!

Q: How do you get from DC to Manhattan in the least amount of time/hassle without paying a fortune?
A: Megabus.com- Dropped us off in mid-town at 11am on Fri and picked us up at Penn Station at 6pm on Sun.
Cost= 40.00 roundtrip!

Q: How can you possibly see a SOLD-OUT Broadway show on OPENING WEEKEND?!
A: Box office at the theater. West Side Story standing-room only tickets on opening weekend.
Cost= 26.50 per person!!

Q: How do you go have dessert at Serendipity when every single other visit before to NY you've walked in and there is a 2hr+ wait and you just end up saying screw that?!
A: Midnight, baby!! (FYI: I'm so glad I finally ate at that place! WAY over-rated. If you want good dessert go to Max Brenner's instead. That place was rad!) http://www.maxbrenner.com/

There are other things we did to keep costs down. It was my first time in NY that I didn't sit in the back of a taxi-cab. Dipti convinced me to just take the subway for everything and she was totally right. Once you resign yourself to walking everywhere, it was fine. We bought day passes and just told ourselves we were walking off all that dessert. Also, we didn't shop til we dropped either. We hit up Canal Street, but nothing was really all that appealing. We had 2 meals a day after our morning coffees.

So, there you have it. Penny pinching at it's very best. It was a wonderful weekend and we are gonna try and do this again. We'll see if it's anything worth blogging about!

xo
C

Surprise snowfall.

Just as I was starting to misplace things like gloves, scarfs and such, thinking I don't really need them anymore, THIS HAPPENED! The worst snow storm of the winter season barreled down on us. On Monday morning I woke up at 5am, looked outside and promptly text messaged my client that I wasn't going to make it into DC. Then I crawled back into bed. Later when Bryan and I realized we had no food in the house, we got bundled up to go grocery shopping and walked outside only to realize we didn't own a snow shovel for digging out the car! Ahh.....good times. Anyway, I was awestruck at these beautiful trees covered in white. It was just an incredibly beautiful day everywhere I looked.

The newest addition to Casa de Schmidt!

Found this lovely set on craiglist and we picked it up this weekend. Right now it is sitting in the garage because I lack the strength to help Bryan get it up the stairs to our bedroom. ;( The wardrobe is VERY heavy. Can you believe we fit both pieces into the back of the Expedition? Neither could we!

Dinner conversation tonight.

B- "So I was going to place that Nutrisystem order today..."

C- "I know, I have every intention of getting back on track too."

B- "Let's just say that whoever gets motivated to start first, the other one HAS to follow in their footsteps right away. No matter what."

C- "We need some sort of real goal to work toward....I know!! Okay, I really got it!! What if....whoever hits the 40lbs lost mark first picks the color of the living room paint. No exceptions. That's just the color it's going to be."

(B thinking about it.)

B- "Whoever hits the 80 lbs lost mark first gets their wildest sexual fantasy fullfilled."

(C's eyebrows hit the roof.)

B- "Mine is going to involve you drinking copious amounts of alcohol."

C- "Mine is going to involve you needing some form of topical numbing agent."

B- "Bring mouthwash."

The best book of 2009....so far.

So, I am now convinced that I actually really do have secret magical powers! Allow me to explain....Bryan and I love to spend hours at the book store. It's something we both enjoy and look forward to on weekends. That being said, we have very different experiences once we arrive. This is why:

Me
I go to see what new magazines are out.
I go to see what new bestseller might be interesting.
I go to pick through the bargain books.
I go to see what new children's book I could give as a gift.
I go to get good ideas out of home design books.
I go to find a new recipe.

Bryan
He goes to READ.

That's it. He walks in, goes straight to graphic novels, grabs a handful and then he sits down and reads. Man alive, that husband of mine would read (at the book store) for 4 maybe 6 hours if left to his own devices. I'm usually done with what I was doing after the 2nd or 3rd hour and I'll go find Bryan and tell him "I'm ready when you're ready" which is code for "I'm bored", but apparently since it's 'unfair' to assume he's going to jump out of his chair and follow me out the door that very second, I always have to wait around another 10-15min.

THIS is where magic happens. I start wandering around, just waiting really, and I'll spot a random book sitting on the shelf and I am inexplicably drawn to it! So I go to it and pick it up and read the description and I am intrigued but not yet excited because it's just a random book after all. I don't know anything about it or I would have already looked at it hours earlier. Maybe I buy it that day or maybe I request it from the library, but the result when I read it is always the same.....I LOVE IT. I absolutely can't put it down and develop book lust, I love the book so damn much! This phenomenon has been happening for years now and has brought such books as The Historian, The Thirteenth Tale and The Monsters of Templeton into my life and it's now happened again with The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

It's a story set in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights movement of the early 60's. It's about black housekeepers working for white families. I'm not going to go into a long explanation of the book because if you're interested, you'll look it up and read it and then you'll see what I'm taking about. It's a very easy book to read, especially since you can't put it down.

I finished it this morning and this evening when Bryan and I were playing around as we always do he accidentally poked me in the eye. I don't really understand what happened at that moment but I just got all these flashes of parts of the book in my head and I sat down on my living room floor and I cried. No, I SOBBED. I was crying and crying and Bryan with that endearing, confused look on his face just sitting next to me asking if he had really poked me THAT hard. I kept trying to reassure him that I was perfectly fine but I couldn't form words. I had to really reign it in though when I could tell he was getting a little desperate.

B- "Honey, you know crying confuses us men."
B- "Is this a water faucet thing?" (This has happened to me before and that's how I explained it to him.)

I'm going to carry the memory of this book for a little while, I think. It was so thought-provoking, how could I not?

Winter, Summer, Spring, Autumn and Holiday

I'm back from holiday travels and I just HAD to post a quick comment about the spectacular window scenes at Bergdorf Goodman on 5th ave in Manhattan! I am currently in obsessive lust-phase 1 with them. I'm SO GLAD I took a pic with my phone of my favorite because it's not featured on their website.

Tis the season...

Birdie got her gift a little early this year because I'm leaving for California on Wednesday. I've had this little project floating around in my head for a couple months now, but finding doggie clothing without logos or silly phrases is surprisingly hard. Considering this is my first iron-on attempt, I think it's pretty rad. Isn't she the cutest?!

Santa Worm~ The Amazing Mark Ryden
Model~ Birdie Willoughby Schmidt