Living in NYC = Brunch on the weekends

Everyone here always said they discovered brunch when they moved to NYC. I've always liked brunch and have been doing it with friends occasionally since college, but never to the extent that we seem to do it here in New York. I went to a new brunch place on Saturday with a couple of girls…Good Enough to Eat. It really was! It was a very cute place on the Upper West Side. I had a brie and pear omelet that was amazing. I couldn’t taste the pear much, but I decided brie might be the best cheese to pair with eggs! Afterwards, we trudged through the piles of snow across the park to 5th Avenue to catch the end of the St. Paddy’s Day Parade. It was pretty anti-climatic. I don’t think I’m a parade person. They’re all pretty much the same with high school bands and random groups of people. There were lots of groups of bagpipers though and they were pretty cool. I imagine if we had been closer to mid-town it probably would have been a different scene, but we were on the Upper East side with all the families with children watching the parade.

During the parade, we were standing just outside the MET, so after we got tired of the parade, we decided to go check out the Louis Comfort Tiffany exhibit. I had walked through this exhibit very quickly back in December, but had been wanting to go back and do the audio tour. I really like this exhibit. It is mostly things from his home, windows, his piano, the outside terrace…all pieces of art created by Tiffany.

After the museum, I made my way back through the park to do some shopping on the Upper West. I knew there are lots of cute baby stores over there and wanted to pick up something to take home to Baby Beau in a few weeks. I got a couple of cute new summery outfits he can wear out by the pool this summer while Beth and Ryder swim.

Sunday was my first week to teach the kids. I taught the 3-5 year-olds with a girl named Katie. Turns out she’s from Dallas and went to Baylor as well. This church is full of Texas transplants and I actually love that about it. Also, teaching the babies-2 year-olds was another couple from Dallas and it turns out they went to my sister’s church in Dallas and they are good friends of my brother-in-law’s twin brother and his family. I had been told about this couple and their children when I was moving up here, but never met them until now. It is nice to make connections like these up here—makes it seem like home! The kids at church were so cute and fun. The curriculum they are using seems very good and our pastor’s wife does an excellent job organizing everything. Katie and I only had two little boys in our class this week. Both are from Dallas, of course. My friend Michelle one day asked one of these boys, Griffin, where he was from. He replied, “Texas”. And Michelle asked, “where in Texas”, expecting to get Dallas, or Austin, or Houston for an answer. Griffin quickly responded, “a really big house”. Even the little 3-year-olds realize that their lifestyle here in their tiny apartments is very different from where they came from. I thought that was really cute.

Joy visited Apostles yesterday—don’t think I can convince her to leave The Journey because she has so many friends there and is a rock-star singer for the church, but she was VERY impressed with JR’s sermon. She commented to me after that if she wasn’t already saved, his sermon yesterday would have convinced her! After church, she went with Michelle and I to brunch. We went to a great Mexican place near church, so that was fun. They even served free drinks with your meal—that never happens here! I never get drinks at brunch—too expensive, but, when offered a free Mimosa, I’ll take one!

I went back to church last night so I could actually attend worship myself. It was good and I was once again very thankful that I’ve started getting to know people there and had people to sit with and chat with afterwards.

My roommates and I went out to dinner together last night. This is a rare occasion. I think Cathy would like us to do it more, but we all have such different schedules and it is hard to coordinate sometimes. I was actually very surprised that Sharon came along—she should be sleeping at that time! We decided to pick a restaurant none of us had been to and ended up at Vinyl, just down the street. I’ve always been told that it’s kind of a hip diner. It was hip, but I wouldn’t consider it a diner. They had all kinds of food- from Kansas City barbecue sandwiches to Mexican to Thai and on. I just got a burger- kind of boring, but it sounded good and it was.

Is it Spring yet??

The weather has been crazy this week! It was in the 60' and 70's all week-- so nice!!! Then, today, it starts snowing and icing. It's supposedly the worst storm of the year-- won't know until tomorrow if that's the truth. They did close our office early- at 3:00. Most offices here don't do that, but for whatever reason, the NHL looks out for people when the weather is bad. I did some fun things this week- here's a synopsis...

Monday night I went grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. My family discovered Trader Joe’s when my parent’s lived in California—they have them all over out there. It is a great place for groceries, but there is only one in NYC so it is always a mad-house. The line to check-out wrapped around the entire store. It was worth it, though. Their food is so cheap and really good. Ever since I moved here, I’ve been buying a salad at Central Market that I take to work for lunch a lot. I decided to buy the ingredients at Trader Joe’s and start making it myself. It has turned out really good this week! It has cranberries, walnuts, and goat cheese—a great combination, I’ve discovered. The main reason I went to Trader Joe’s was to get ingredients to make a chicken dish. A girl in my church was hit by a car a couple of weeks ago and is still in a coma. Her parent’s have been in from California, so my Bible study was taking food for them. My friend Jennifer, who is a personal chef, came to my rescue with a recipe for something they could easily freeze for later. It was a fiesta chicken dish with rice and black beans. I made enough to keep some for myself and plan to try it for dinner tonight!

Tuesday night was food-delivery night for my Bible study. We dropped off the meals we prepared at one of our minister’s apartments and he was going to deliver them to the girl’s parents. This minister, Kenny, just came on staff at Apostles and moved from Dallas just last month. His apartment was really cute—much more decorated than mine is! He made a comment that in Dallas he had started to get the 7-year itch. That made me realize that I had moved after about exactly 7 years. I wonder if I had the 7-year itch, too? It really makes me think it’s a real thing! After dropping off the food, us girls went out to dinner. It was fun just hanging out together.

Wednesday night I had class. We had our first quiz this week. We graded our OWN! Hysterical. I’m sure everyone got 100%. I really did get 100%-- I missed one, but there was an “extra-credit” question that I got right. After the quiz, we began discussing themes and I was having so much fun. We were split into groups and given a color and had 4 minutes to come up with a themed party based on that color. My group was assigned the color white and we came up with a Winter-Wonderland party. We had a white-carpet (instead of red) entry outside and as you walked into the event, you would walk through a cold igloo-type tunnel filled with snow. We would serve white-chocolate fondue, have white-chocolate martinis, The Average White Boy would provide entertainment, white snow-flakes would decorate the room, the caterers would use white-glove service, the bar would be made of ice, etc…. It was a lot of fun to come up with all these ideas in 4 minutes. My group presented first, but I had to leave early so I missed the other groups and was disappointed!

I left class early because Joy and I had tickets to the opera at Lincoln Center! We’ve had the tickets since before I registered for the class. This was my first opera experience! We saw Madame Butterfly and it was amazing. I loved it. I didn’t know before that the musical Miss Saigon, is based on Madame Butterfly. Miss Saigon happens to be my favorite musical, so that made me love Madame Butterfly all the more. The singing and costumes were so pretty. They have the English translation on a screen high above the stage, which was kind of awkard. I’m sure from some seats it is okay, but from where we were sitting, it was like watching a movie from the first row and it was impossible to watch the stage and the words at the same time. There is another theatre next door and I’ve heard that it has individual screens at each seat with the translation- that could be interesting. I loved the show anyway- just had a slight headache when we left!

Last Weekend

Just now getting around to posting about last weekend. I saw two plays, so that was fun. On Friday night, I went to see a play called “Coming or Going” that my friend, Amanda, was in. It was excellent!!! It was in a really tiny theatre with just three rows of chairs. The story was of 4 sisters from Texas. They did a really good job portraying different Texas stereotypes. It was funny and sad all at the same time. I really enjoyed it.

Saturday night, Joy and I got half-price tickets to see "Vertical Hour", with Julianne Moore and Bill Nighy. It was closing on Sunday, so this was our last chance to see it. I really enjoyed seeing Julianne Moore. Bill Nighy was also very good, but I really had trouble getting into this play. It was very political and I get bored by that pretty quickly.

I also went to brunch with Joy and Amanda and her roommate on Saturday at a French restaurant called Felix. It was really good and a very cute restaurant down in SoHo. We sat there forever people-watching…very fun. The restaurant was on West Broadway which I hadn’t really walked down much before and I discovered that it is a really cute street filled with great shops. After shopping for a while, Joy and I discovered a bakery that sells only crème puffs!! My family has a special love for crème puffs because our grandma was known for hers. So, when I saw the bakery, I just had to go in! Joy and I both got one—mine was chocolate covered, Joy’s was not. The crème inside was really good. Definitely a good new find!

Sunday I went to church and afterwards attended a meeting for the Kids Ministry. I am going to be on the leadership team for that and am really excited about it. One of my new responsibilities is to buy the supplies for Sunday School every week so that will be fun. This Sunday I am going to teach for the first time and I’ll be with the pre-schoolers. I am really looking forward to getting to know some of the kids there!

INTRODUCING....

Beau Hamilton

March 5, 2007

7lb, 11oz; 21.5 inches

He arrived at 12:21 on Monday. He and Beth are doing great. I swear she's like the energizer bunny. She has these babies and keeps on going! She is very excited about his blonde hair and mentions it every time I talk to her. We're not sure where it came from as our family and Brian's family all have dark hair! They said Ryder doesn't notice him much, but that he has been WILD lately. He just wants to get into everything but each thing only occupies his attention for a few minutes and then he's on to the next thing. I cannot wait to see these boys in April!!

My crazy sister

I know I mentioned a few weeks ago that my sister's baby could be coming any day-- I thought maybe I should give an update. Apparently, this baby is a bit stubborn. My sister is being induced tomorrow morning! We are all excited to meet this new baby. It is still a couple of weeks early, but the doctor told her on Thursday that her body continues to prepare itself for labor, but for some unknown reason, she's not going into labor. His concern was that if she did go into labor on her own, everything else would be so ready that the baby would just pop on out. He was afraid of them having the baby so quickly that they wouldn't make it to the hospital. My nurse friend, Michelle (who delivered Ryder), said most women who are as far along as Beth have already experienced labor pains for a long time, so in a sense, Beth has been lucky because she's skipped right over that part. Unfortunately, Michelle won't be working tomorrow to deliver the second McFarlane baby. I'm excited, yet a bit sad I'm so far away from the excitement.

Beth called earlier today and wanted a recipe for icing for cookies. I was like "You aren't making cookies are you? You're having a baby tomorrow!" But, yes, she was making cookies to take to the hospital to give to all the friends/family that will come visit. Aren't they supposed to bring cookies to her?? This is very typical of her, yet, very insane! She is obviously not feeling too nervous or unprepared for this second baby!

Beth has been trying to tell Ryder about the baby that will soon be invading his space. I've been worried about him losing all the attention, but the closer it gets, I realize that he's still too young to hardly know the difference. He does know that the baby is in a stomach, although, he seems to think it's in his stomach! If you ask him about it, he will lift up his shirt and point to his belly.

My family is not good at sharing pictures. Brian is the most likely to be able to get a picture on the internet or emailed, so I made him promise to get me a picture of the baby as early as possible. Hopefully, he will follow through. If not, I'll have to call Michelle tomorrow and get her to take her camera to work on Tuesday! I will post a picture on here as soon as I get one!!

I worked out with an actor on Tuesday

I went back to Devachan, the Curly Girl salon, to get my haircut on Saturday. I’ve been really disgusted with my hair lately. It just hasn’t been the same ever since I moved here. Not sure if it’s the weather or water or what. This may come as a surprise to anyone who knew me when I was on my Curly Girl kick, but I’m kind of tired of being one right now. What happened to my old motto of embracing my curls and taking care of them?? At the salon, they just started doing make-up and offered to do mine for free that day, so that was fun. I was there for a total 2.5 hours being pampered- a good way to start my Saturday!

After the salon, I hiked up to the Upper East Side to meet some Journey folks for brunch at Sarabeth’s. I’ve been wanting to go there- I went once way back in 2002, but hadn’t been back since. It’s well known for it’s brunch, but I actually think some of the other places we’ve gone are better. It was fun though.

Sunday, I went down to Chinatown to check out the parade for their New Years. Like any parade or big event in the City, it was SO crowded and there were barricades everywhere. It was kind of frustrating trying to get to a spot where you could actually see anything. I only watched for a bit and then left because it was just too crazy.



















I spent some time working on my Oscar cookies. I didn’t end up using the Gold Lustre Dust. You see, when I wrote my last blog, I didn’t actually have the luster dust yet. I’d seen it when I was at the baking store in Chelsea, but hadn’t bought it because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to try it. After doing some research on it, I went back to the baking store on Saturday intending to buy it. But, they had received a shipment of edible gold glitter during the week—this was what I had wanted in the first place. So, I got that instead. I knew it would be a ton faster than the dust because you have to mix the dust with vanilla and then literally paint it on each cookie. Plus, I have used the glitter before and knew it did the trick of giving the gold look I was going for. I still want to try the luster dust on something sometime- I think it gives more of a metallic gold look and could probably be pretty amazing!

















The Oscar party on Sunday night was fun. Joy’s roommate, Kimberly, threw it. There were 10ish girls there, most of whom I had met at sometime or other. We had a good time, but I do have to say the Oscars seemed a bit anti-climatic this year and WAY too long, especially when you live on the East coast. I was pretty surprised at some of the winners- thus, I did not win the pool. We all brought wine & cheese to share. I used to think I didn’t like cheese but since moving here, I’ve decided I do- I think I’d just never had good cheese before! My favorites right now are a French Brie and an Irish Whisky Cheddar that I get at the cheese place down the street from me. I took some of both to the party. Anyway, it was a fun night!

Tonight I went to my first event at Madison Square Garden. I got two free tickets to the NHL’s suite for the John Mayer/Mat Kearney concert. Joy went with me and we had fun. The suite was really nice and came with free drinks. It was kind of weird sitting in there for a concert—I told Joy I felt like I was observing the concert more than experiencing it. Although, I am an observer in general, so that was okay with me.

















I worked out with a celeb this week!! Liev Schreiber was working out at my gym on Tuesday night. While I ran on the treadmill, he was just yards in front of me doing weights, push-ups, and jump roping. I wish celebs would always work out in front of me while I run- it made the time fly! The funny thing was, I knew without a doubt that he was a famous actor, but I could not figure out his name or what he's been in. I figured it all out today when I ran across a picture of him related to the Broadway Play he's currently starring in, Talk Radio. If you don't know who he is, he was in Manchurian Candidate. He's also dating Naomi Watts and is the father of the baby in her belly. There's a picture of him here.

The Year of the Pig

I would have loved to have posted earlier in the week, but our Internet has been acting up!! So, this is my update from last weekend! See fotos here!

It's time of the Chinese New Year celebration and they're celebrating hard down in Chinatown. Joy and I ventured down there last Saturday afternoon to check it out. We went to the flower market they have every year-- it's customary to buy flowers to give away. It was only open for Friday and Saturday and by the time we got there it was pretty picked over and so crowded it almost wasn't fun. But, I was glad to see it. People were all over the streets shooting off confetti crackers. The streets were completely covered with confetti and it was only the 2nd day of the 10ish day celebration! I imagine the NYC cleaning crew are spending a lot of time down there right now. I'm hoping to make it to the big parade this Sunday.

While in Chinatown, Joy and I also got some bubble tea from TenRen. This is something I've really been wanting to try! It's an odd concoction, but I liked it! I got honey, but it was a very light flavor, so mine tasted pretty much like green tea. Joy got peach and it was very good. I'm definitely going back there to try more flavors!

Joy and I also did some shopping in SoHo and then I took her to the Chik-Fil-A at NYU. We also went to see the movie Notes on a Scandal. I had no idea what this was about. It was a good movie, just a little racy and shocking.

I went to membership class for my church last weekend. I'm now a member! I figured that the sooner I joined, the sooner my membership at The Journey would go away (oops-- did I say that??). No, I wish The Journey the best. I just knew from my experience in Dallas, that if I put off joining, I would keep putting it off. I want to be involved and serve and this was a good way to get a jump-start.

On Sunday, I went to church and afterwards walked up to the park. I had noticed through the weekend that although the streets of mid-town were not very snowy or icy, the parks still seemed to be. Like I said in my previous post, I really wanted to see Central Park in the snow. I'm glad I went. It was so pretty and peaceful. Kids were even sledding on a few hills!

My day off on Monday was very nice and relaxing. I didn't get out most of the day, but did make it to a baking supply shop in Chelsea. It was amazing!!! So many cookie and cake baking supplies. I could go crazy in a store like that with my cookie making hobby. I was on a mission for edible gold glitter to use for my Oscar cookies for a party on Sunday. They didn't have gold, though. So, I'm trying something new called lustre dust. I've seen pictures of it used and it looks amazing, so I'm hoping it works well!

That's about it. I've got a weekend full of activities-- well a huge part will be spent working on the cookies-- so, I'll update next week!