spring is nearly here

:) :) :)

the days are getting longer and the sidewalk ice is starting to melt. temperatures in nyc reached highs of 60F today, though it was still a bit too brisk to go jacket-less. and i wore my birkenstock gizeh sandals for the first time this year, signaling the start of the running season again.

we scored a walk-in table for four at basta pasta this evening and enjoyed a high-carb dinner with kris and jessica. construction on their loft began on monday and we were overdue a get together. we literally feasted at dinner. lol. for appetizers, we shared the hamachi crudo, spaghetti with tobiko, and spaghetti with proscuitto and parmigiano. for dinner, kevin and i doubled up on pastas - fusilli with chicken ragu and linguine with uni, while kris and jess indulged in the chicken and duck breast. for dessert, we had the almond flan, which tastes a bit like chinese almond tofu, but a little richer, and the parmigiano reggiano cheesecake! it was my first time trying the latter and it was surprisingly light, and oh-so-tasty!

(that reminds me, i still have to check out harbs when we get back from taiwan.)

best: received the latest comics from shawn cheng in the mail! the drawings are so intricate and detailed, and each comic has a dedication to one of his family members.

worst: leaving my coat at home today. haha. it's definitely not warm enough for birkenstocks + skirt weather yet.

smile: lorelai poured her heart out singing "i will always love you" at karaoke to luke and logan asked lorelai for rory's hand in marriage!!! gilmore girls is coming to a close very soon, and hopefully i will find something a bit more intellectually stimulating to do with my time afterwards. or something outdoors - the weather is on the up and up!

reconfiguration

happy hump day!

it's a snowglobe outside (again) today so we are enjoying our 肉燥飯 and catching up on gilmore girls tonight. i think we only have 4-5 more episodes until we finish the seventh and final season, and poor kevin is still trying to figure out how luke and lorelai, and jess and rory are going to get together by the end of the show.

we also reconfigured our bedroom furniture by turning everything 90 degrees tonight! now our bed is against the northern wall, and our nightstands are below the two windows. we lose a little privacy this way, but it might be a better use of the space and creates a cozy little sitting area. anyways it's one of the ideas kris, our homepolish designer, proposed, and we wanted to try it out for a while to see how we like it.

good night!

another chelsea loft gem

it started to drizzle after lawrence and catherine left, and we were both a bit sore from saturday's workout, so kevin and i lounged around the apartment all afternoon on the MLK holiday. i occupied the chaise with my travel & leisure, real simple, and american sniper on kindle, while kevin programmed at the island.

haha. just kidding, kev. he always corrects me when i comment on his "programming". well, to the amateur, when someone opens up the black msdos prompt window and starts typing in commands to navigate a linux or windows machine, it looks, smells, feels, and is programming! haha ... but just kidding :)

at some point, we joined forces and posted a couple things under kevin's account on ebay. after unpacking his boxes of jackets and being forced to admit that he has uhm +15 patagonia/mountainhardware/northface/arcteryx rain/soft/midweight/hard-shell jackets, kevin's successfully posted and sold two pre-owned jackets on ebay! i decided to give it a whirl with my similarly fabulous collection of dresses compulsively acquired mostly through gilt and ruelala from 2009-2012 (some still with tags on!). 

i realized that, however, without the professional photo of the dress on a model, regardless of the lighting, clothing on a hanger is not very appealing to consumers. i wouldn't buy it! oh wells - good thing goodwill is one block away!

for dinner, we met with some friends in the neighborhood for chips & guac, ceviche, and soft tacos at cafe el presidente. although we've only hung out a couple times since meeting through rose & dustin, i think the experiences that we share through our respective loft remodels have forged a bond between us, kris & jessica. for example, we are all in cook-at-home mode after our savings accounts have been pillaged through the confusing, yet extensive manhattan design and construction process. haha.

we dropped by their new pad after dinner and saw the beauty. i think i may have surprised everyone with my smiles and excitement. the place was a wreck. the previous owner had taken liberties that no one should ever have. she had handfuls of cables and commercial-size outlets running throughout the loft, extra cabinets haphazardly installed above original kitchen cabinetry, and a surprise with every closet opened. it was a sheer wreck, but the bones WERE SO GOOD.

even the littlest amount of work would yield vast improvements and increase the market value of this unit. they have hired an architect and both have a background in design/art, i think, so i am excited to see the transformation of their space! really glad to have new friends in the neighborhood :) 

and when the place is done, i might even get to run my fingers across their steinway & sons ivories OMG!!

getting to know our neighbors

today kevin did the unthinkable - he accompanied me to the divine trinity: bed bath & beyond, container store, and home depot, all in one trip! hahaha ... walked into bbb with the intention to pick up some pillows and sheets, and came out with those, as well as a red kitchenaid stand mixer. yay! last weekend when daisy and i made cookies, we used a mixer that i'd purchased straight out of college which probably cost me less than $15 and felt like it had the power of a construction tool, not a kitchen appliance. haha. time to get our bake on! kevin was grimacing the entire time - sorry hubbs! :) apple red, on sale, i basically SAVED him money by buying it.

also, CHA-CHING! found my bath waste baskets at containerstore! for some reason, public bathrooms (yuck) and waste baskets in general have a huge ick factor for me. so when it came to choosing a waste basket for our baths, i was having a difficult time. the opening on top has to be the perfect size! not too large or you'll be graced with a view of its contents and not too small because then it's impractical for nonchalantly tossing items in. no lid, because then you actually have to touch it every time you want to use it (ick), and to find a waste basket that's actually proportional with the size of the modern one-piece european-style toilets is actually not easy. it felt like everything we saw in bbb and container store were quite large - "american" style. most of the openings weren't much smaller than the toilet bowl itself lol.

anyways finally found these simple white plastic square waste basket from the containerstore. i removed the flip-lids and they go pretty darn nicely with the toilet brushes we got from muji too. done!! woohoo ~~~ mini challenge complete.

enough about baths and waste baskets. kevin and i spent the majority of the morning cleaning, setting up the guest bedroom, and stuffing packed boxes into every closet possible so we could make the apt somewhat presentable for friends in the afternoon.

oh and kev found time to make us this simple yet delish soba lunch :)

around 2pm, the doorbell rang and we were greeted by some cold guests: vadim, monica, john, sonam, thinley, and pema! kevin gave the adults the tour while i hung out with thinley and pema. they are so much fun to be with - not shy, very open and happy kids. afterwards we all naturally gravitated to the island (or perhaps it was due to the cheese, grapes, and olive bread), with the kids perched on the stools. it was really nice to see everyone, since the last time we really all got together was wow over the summer.

a little later in the afternoon, we had our second set of chelsea neighbors, kris and jessica, swing by for wine and yumm maison kayser desserts! they are about to remodel a loft just two blocks north of us so it was fun to hear about their process and hopefully pass on some lessons learned from our process (so that no one has to go through that again)! it turns out that jessica has a good amount of experience managing these types of projects in line of work and she seems much more level headed than me so i think they will be just fine.

rest of the night? pecorino, gouda, proscuitto, pears, apple, and gilmore girls. winding down and ready to start one of the last weeks of 2014!