This city is full of surprises

I went to work today just like any other Thursday. Real Simple coordinated what they're calling a "Pop-Up Shop" in Rockefeller center. The store opened yesterday on 49th street right across the street from the gorgeous Norway Spruce Christmas tree at Rockefeller center. I'd planned on going to the shop today with a coworker and fellow NYU alum, but she got too busy so I went by myself. Since Kodak and L'oreal are co-sponsors of this shop, on my lunch hour I got a free makeover and I got to sit on Santa's lap and have my photo taken, all for free. I also looked around at all of the goodies they had for sale and received a free gift bag full of goodies.

Thursday's are usually pretty slow, but with the trip to the Real Simple shop and taking things slow, I was able to stretch my work out to fill the day. Ashley had an interview at Time today she came by my "office" at 5 and I got to show her around, she got to see what I do and I took her upstairs to our art department where another NYU alum works that we both know. It was nice to show someone my workplace.

A few weeks back I signed up for the Time Inc./HBO volleyball league. I haven't been able to attend any games thus far due to my late schedule, but tonight our game was at 8:30 and I was able to go. I braved the cold for a 4 block walk and made it in time. The teams are co-ed and we ended up winning one match and losing the remaining two. Afterwards, HBO sponsored a little holiday party at a bar close by with free appetizers and beers. It was nice to mingle and eat and drink for free, but I never thought I'd be caught dead in a bar in my sweatpants, especially in New York City, but I wasn't the only one.

Since my commute in and out of the city everyday can take anywhere from 30-45 minutes, I've become a much more avid reader. At the moment my roommates and I are consumed in a Nora Roberts series that involves 4 best friends that run a wedding business. The series is called the Bridal Quartet and we are all hooked. I'm almost through with the second book and can't wait to start the third. I never thought I'd actually look forward to reading. If you have any suggestions for books you think I'd enjoy, please leave a comment!

Thanksgiving at home and pre Christmas events

Again, time has slipped away and I've neglected my blog. So, to catch yall up on what's been going on in the big city...

A few weeks ago, Mama came up to visit as a chaperone for a trip with the high school she works at. While she was here, we got to spend a lot of time together as well as attending two things that have been on my New York bucket list since I lived her last summer: see the Rockettes Christmas show and the Lion King on Broadway. They were both equally amazing and the Rockettes really got me in the Christmas spirit.

Mama left Wednesday afternoon and I left Wednesday night after work to go home for Thanksgiving. I rode home with my coworker Tracey and my friend Ashley from the NYU program came home with me for the holiday. We pulled into Tappahannock early early Thursday morning. We split our time between Mama and Daddys houses and caught a Greyhound back to New York from Richmond. We had a great Thanksgiving filled with amazing food and family time.

Tuesday was a crazy night in the city. The lighting of the Rockefeller center tree started at 7, while I was still at work. We could hear the music and see the crowds forming long before. Once I got home, the roommates and I decided to decorate our apartment for Christmas. It looks great and it's fun to come home to an apartment door wrapped like a huge Christmas present :) The city is really starting to transform into a real Winter Wonderland. I've found my official favorite city decoration and it's across the street from my building. A beautiful fountain holds a dozen huge red Christmas balls, I just love them. I'm excited to see the Rockefeller tree for the first time and continue to explore the other magical spots in the city with the coming weeks.

Here are a few pics to help you get in the spirit:

Catch Up

My sincerest apologizes for the lack of blogging...here is a recap of the last couple of weeks...

Two weekends ago was one of my roommates, Lisa's, birthday. I wasn't feeling well that Friday night but decided to go out after work with my other roommate Val, her fiance, and Lisa and her boyfriend for her birthday. Easier said than done. Lisa wanted us to meet her at this club on the Upper West Side, at 72nd street and 8th Ave. From Park Slope, that is about an hour or more train ride. Well we turned it into a two hour train ride by getting on a subway going in the opposite direction we needed. Now, to be fair we had never taken the C train before so we were a little flustered from the get go. We arrived at midnight and ended up doing more people watching than dancing, but still had a good time. I salsa danced for the first time in my life, in public, haha, it was a site. Lisa's boyfriend, who is Puerto Rican and a great Salsa dancer, said I looked like a penguin moving my feet, but at least I tried.

The next day was the day of our house warming party. Between the three of us, we don't have too many friends in the city, so we thought it'd be a great chance to meet our neighbors. There are 8 apartments total in our building. The week before the party, I taped leaf cutout invitations to everyones doors with a bag of homemade oatmeal cookies. We each invited the few people we know in the city and I spent the day cooking up hors d'oeuvres while Val and Lisa cleaned our apartment. In the end, I had a nice spread and no party guests. One of my friends came, Lisa's uncle and one of our neighbors showed up, along with a few of Val and Lisa's work friends. I was slightly disappointed, but I can't control the actions of others, only the way I react, so I enjoyed the company and my pigs in blankets :)

Nothing real exciting to report from last week. I reconnected with Sara, an alum from last year's NYU program who works at This Old House magazine. It was a relief to share with someone the difficulties of moving to a new place. Later in the week, I met for lunch with Lisa, also an NYU program alum but more importantly a KU alum that I happened to bump into in the elevator one night. She works at InStyle and during lunch she was telling me about her journey here and advised me to look into ZogSports, a charity sports league for single people in the city. Zog is a competitive/social co-ed league for singles to play sports together and then mingle after at Happy Hour events. Lisa said she's really enjoyed it and I'm excited to give it a try.

After work last Friday, I made my first venture to Queens. I went to spend the night with Ashley. She was one of my roommates this summer at the NYU program and we have remained close friends since the end of the program. She has a job at a book publishing company named Wiley located in Hoboken and she's been living in Queens since August. This was my first chance to go visit her. She has a great apartment, but is very close to the subway train and in Queens, the subway runs above the ground, so it's very loud. We went to this awesome Pool Hall that was huge and had tons of pool tables, a couple of ping pong tables and one air hockey table and best of all, beer for only $3. We didn't stay out too late and the next morning we both got manicures at a nail salon right next to her apartment that only costs $7, which is a real deal in NYC. We spent the day together shopping and then I headed back to Brooklyn.

On Sunday I went to Time Square to meet with the girl I work with, at Hard Rock Cafe to a mini concert by Carrie Underwood. I signed up for tickets earlier in the week and was told it was exclusively for only 200 people and when I showed up there was at least 300 people already in line ahead of me. It is a CBS holiday show featuring three songs by Carrie. After they hoarded us all into Hard Rock, Carrie sang three songs, twice each and then after she left they played them back and filmed the audience, kind of creepy but check it out Thanksgiving morning on CBS...look for me!

This past week, I've been working an earlier shift. There are 3 of us that work as "Time Imaging Front Desk Coordinators." Tracey is a 24 year old from Eure, North Carolina who has been in the city for 2 years and has worked at Time Inc since she's been here. She started at InStyle, then worked at People and is now at Time. She works the earlier shift and works 35 hours a week, but does it in 4 days. Rudi is in his fifties and has lived in the city his whole life. He is a very nice man and he works the night shift. He told me he has never been in a Wal-Mart. So, this week, I've worked Tracey's schedule while she is on vacation. Monday, I worked 10-6, Tuesday, 9-7, Wednesday 9-6 and tomorrow I'll work 10-10 and I'll have Friday off, yay! Monday after work, I met Val at 34th street and we attended the NYC Wedding Salon Bridal Show together. She's engaged and I love weddings. It was not as fun as I'd hoped it would be though. As usual with everything in New York, too many people and not enough space, but we got really big gift bags when we left full of fun stuff, so we were happy about that.

Today, I helped throw a baby sprinkling, the "shower" for someone having their second child, for a lady at work. Actually, her and her husband work in our department, so having them both there made it extra special. I bought party supplies and some gifts for the couple last night at Babies R Us and Party City. Another woman I work with brought in the cake. At 1 o'clock all of my coworkers met in the conference room for cake and sparkling cider and we surprised Keith and Melissa with a few little gifts such as diapers and pacifiers along with a gift card for $250 that everyone contributed to. It was a nice break in the day, but Wednesday is a very busy day for us at Time, because we close the magazine Wednesday nights, which means we send it to the printers.

Since I was getting off at 6 tonight, Val and I planned to actually make dinner together, an activity I have not been able to partake in due to my late hours. We decided on spaghetti, one of my favorite meals that I crave at least once a week. Through my brother Frank and my friend Cami, just throwing noodles in water and store bought Ragu in the microwave does not suffice anymore. As I got on the trusty F train, all I could think of was making Franks delicious meat sauce. To distract myself from the 45 minute ride I had ahead of me, I flipped through my Sports Illustrated when someone standing over me tapped me and asked if I worked at Time Inc. A young guy with glasses proceeded to tell me that he just started working at Sports Illustrated in September for the web team and he noticed how I was carrying quite a few Time Inc titles and I was aimlessly flipping through my SI as if I'd already seen the pages before . I found out Ben graduated in May and just moved here from Chicago, but is originally from Pittsburgh. It was so nice to meet another young person in my building.

I promise to be a better blogger. I guess somedays things seems so mundane and I have nothing to report, but I will try and get back into my old blogging habits with more frequent updates.

Just your average Wednesday

Even though I work on several different magazines, the one magazine I work most directly and thoroughly on is Time magazine. Since it is a weekly magazine, we work on it intensely Monday through Wednesday and we close it Wednesday nights, meaning we send it to the plants Wednesday nights to be printed. We also work a week to two weeks in advance. Regardless, I am in charge of "putting up the wall" every week, which means I get a mock up, a list of what's in each issue and then when a new layout comes in I put it on our wall via magnets on a whiteboard and by Wednesday nights, the whole magazine for the following week is up there. So, by the time any of you are holding a Time magazine, I've personally seen and had a hand on every page you read.

Now, Time isn't the most glamourous magazine, but I do work in the same building as all Time Inc's various other glamourous titles, such as People. Today, there was a beauty sale at People. I arrived at 4 to a mob of women and an overload of beauty products, clothes, shoes, and accessories. Unfortunately, I had no cash and these are cash only events and you don't find out about these sales until like 2 hours before, so I didn't purchase anything, but it was quite an experience. I will be armed and ready for the next sale though.

They say this city is magical during Christmas time. Ask any New Yorker and they'll disagree due to the over crowding and tourist shoppers, but as a city wintertime first timer, I felt a little flutter in my heart tonight when I walked out of the building and was greeted with the huge lighted Christmas tree at Radio City Musical Hall, which stands on top of the marquee. I'm not looking forward to the cold temperatures, but I'm excited to see the city as it transforms into a Winter Wonderland.

Back to the blog...

With the start of a new month, I though I'd use this opportunity to finally rejoin the blog world. I've really missed my evening reflections of each day in this crazy life I now live. To catch everyone up on the last couple of months...I moved into an apartment in Brooklyn with two college girlfriends. My first day at Time Inc. was September 7th and everyday since I go to work at Rockeffeler Center, in the heart of Manhattan, 12-8PM, an interesting schedule to get used to. Yes, I get to sleep until 10 everyday, but I don't get home until 9 or later every night and my eating schedule has been completely off balance. My official job title is Front Desk Imaging Coordinator and my main duties consists of logging in pages that come in each day for magazines such as Time, Time for Kids, Health, This Old House, All You, and Sports Illustrated. I log in each of the images on each of these pages and once my imaging team is done, and the magazine is complete, I am responsible for sending the magazine to the plants to be printed. It's fun and interesting to learn a new routine and handle real responsibilities and the people I work with have been great. Most of the people I work with are older and married with families, which is fine, but it definitely eliminates meeting people in the workplace. With my job come many perks, the biggest so far being I got to sit in on an interview with Ben Affleck.

I intend to use this blog to reflect on my days in New York as I continue to explore and grow in my new environment. Some days may be dull, but something unusual and interesting always seems to happen in this city. For example, today I was informed of a city wide bed bug epidemic that has even invaded the movie theaters of Manhattan. To say the least, I'm still adjusting to city life and the best conclusion I can come up with is, I'm definitely not in Kansas anymore...