its friday friday friday !!!!!

what a long tiring week -_-;; 

i've been experimenting with different routes (okay, there are really only two routes, but i've been checking out all the establishments along the way!) from the apt to the 23rd street e station during my morning commute, and treated myself to the seasonal apple cinnamon cake donut this morning! it was ... sooooo much better than i expected! next time, the pumpkin ...

and a simple soboro-don at ootoya for dinner :) sooo simple and tasty !!!

home sweet home!

despite feeling a little sad about leaving brooklyn and wistful about our impending separation with our lovely neighborhood, i couldn't sleep well at all last night! i had a few dreams, which i forgot shortly after awaking, but most of all, i was EXCITED to move into our new home together :)

it's MOVING DAY! but a fun moving day because we had just 3-4 bags each which were 99% packed last night. i enjoyed seeing lizzie & michael's apartment one last night sans all our crap lying around, organized, and neat, took a few photos of our october home, before closing the door behind us and that chapter of our lives.

we ubered to chelsea and did a quick walk through of the apartment. still no bathroom vanities! haha ... but 95% of the construction materials and equipment had been removed, and the floor protection throughout the apartment was removed. the blue protection on the cabinets were all removed and our kitchen started to look like home. i can't wait to unpack our cutting board, pots, and pans, and cooking ingredients, and start making a huge batch of stock, braised beef, stir fry some veggies, and steam our japanese short-grain rice.

staycation was very nice, and it kept me distracted from realizing how much i missed our belongings and our kitchen routines :)

friday @ work = BLUR. it was sheer madness from 730am until 630pm, thank goodness i picked up a doughnut plant pbj donut, breakfast of champions! every index provider made announcements multiple times throughout the day and there were a number of spin-offs and a russell monthly rebalance on top of it all. i think the anticipation of going back to our new home kept me excited and focused, and i was able to maintain relatively humored about the action-packed day.

kevin made it home before me for a change, and we were pleasantly surprised with a gorgeous arrangement or welcome home flowers (stunning birds of paradise!) from our contractor and a six pack in the fridge. well, half of a six pack in the fridge. 

we spent the next few hours vacuuming, unpacking boxes, and i started to put our life back together one cupboard at a time. we skyped with my parents and jess&ben, and celebrated our first night in the new place with kimchi jijimi, sul lung tang, and kimchi fried rice delivery. i think we'd unpacked just 15 or so boxes that night and the place was still covered in dust, but it's a start.


finally, home sweet home begins!

best: sleeping in our own bed with our own pillows! :)

worst: busy month end fridays! and daisy reminded me that november will also have a month-end friday. boo!!!!

smile: im pretty sure our contractor mike got a kick out of drinking beers and leaving the leftovers in our fridge. lol. we've had a great experience with these guys and i couldn't be more pleased with the construction process and quality. how often can you say THAT about your contractor?

in good company

friday friday friday !!!!! i heart jeans fridays! TGIJF!

man times have changed. i remember starting work at lehman brothers in 2003 fresh out of university and it felt great to put on a suit every morning. everyone looked so trim and proper, and to be honest, it allowed you to focus on your work and less on what the woman at the end of the next aisle was wearing. in addition, the wardrobe rotation was simple - ten suits and then mix and match tops and accessories. brilliant!

sometime in mid-2009 (after the brunt of the financial crisis), when i joined nomura new york, the work dress code changed from "business formal" to "business casual". what this meant essentially was the same outfit, but drop the jacket, five days a week. fairly simple.

flash forward to december 2012: upon joining instinet, i learned that every friday all year round was JEANS FRIDAY! it was a little appalling to me at first and the sight of my coworkers in their unruly tops (which apparently range from tshirts to hoodies to polo shirts to crisp dress shirts) and varied jeans style made me want to gag a little.

started off the beautiful crisp friday morning with an apple cinnamon cake donut from the doughnut plant. two thumbs up! the doughtnut plant rarely disappoints!

after a non-stop afternoon of working on a few different forecasts and notes at work, i finally finished - thank you s&p for not making a slew of announcements - around 5:45, totally exhausted and brains fried. i don't like afternoons like that ...

the evening made up for the crazy afternoon as we met up with good friends for dinner at cafe mogador in williamsburg. the restaurant had rustic decor and a very comfortable and fun vibe. also noticeable was the spaciousness in the restaurant relative to manhattan restaurants. despite the roominess of the resto, we still ha trouble fitting our drinks, apps, and entrees on the small tables, even with our tiny dinner plates!

we shared all the dishes and ordered: slow-cooked meat-falling-off-the-bones lamb, chicken with couscous, seated salmon, hummus, naan with various dipping sauces, and a greek salad. everyone was in high spirits and we finished the night off with desserts at momofuku milk bar and a little tour of the loft.

i couldn't have asked for a more relaxing and fun evening with our great company.

pizza pie friday

fridays! i love fridays! what's not to love about JEANS fridays! such a wonderful day of the week, fridays kickoff weekend getaway trips, relaxation, and two days out of the office (for most)! actually i just realized that some people have monday off (kevin!) so this friday is actually the start of a beautiful three-day wkd for those.

i started off my friday with a doughnut plant carrot cake donut! yes, i treat myself with guilty edible pleasures usually once, sometimes thrice, a day :)

doughnut plant carrot cake donut

then i opened up my web browser and the read about microsoft ceo satya nadella's previous evening's comments at the grace hopper celebration of women in computing conference. my initial reactions to the articles were of horror, but after watching the livestream of the talk and reading some of the articles written from nadella's perspective, it seems like it is possible that the blunder was a product of nadella's inability to articulate himself and the context of the question. and the media took advantage of an opportunity to vilify the poor guy.

there's a video at the bottom of this nytimes piece: http://nyti.ms/1EAwQfc

the more i read about it, the more i think his comments were inarticulate and blown out of proportion by the media.

the rest of friday flew by in a blur. work was busy with a number of client requests, all while trying to get a weekly note out and planning out contingency plans for the upcoming weeks after my analyst has left.

friday evening is another story :) PIZZA PIE FRIDAY! we had prepared four pizza doughs at our brooklyn kitchen roberta's pizza class on wednesday that we would top on friday!

we picked up an assortment of delicious toppings: soppresata and ham from murray's; fresh mozzarella, pecorino paglierino (cheese with a FUNK), and stompetoren gouda grand cru (for fun!); and pineapple from wholefoods. 

we were planning on making a margherita, a meatlovers, a hawaiian, and a cheese party pizza! but ... without a pizza peel, our first pie, the margherita, did not survive the trip from the counter to the pizza stone :( RIP ... for the three others, kevin ingeniously floured the back of a disposable lasagna tray and meticulously transferred the pies into the oven without a hitch!

thus, our three survivors:

woohoo! :) they did not taste anything like roberta's though. i think we either need to get a pizza peel or need to stop trying to make our own pizzas in the future.