pretty pictures for a tuesday

 Sometimes I awake feeling very uninspired and this is one of those days. Not glum, not stressed necessarily, even rather contented, but with nothing too excited to post about or think about or write about. So instead I will give you some pictures on this Tuesday - which feels like it should be a Friday. Oy.

PS - And yes, I'm pretty sure I've posted some if not all of these pictures before, but they're favorites for a reason right? Taken from Here and Here.

Painting completion

 {Before}

No, the room does not look professionally painted. With any luck, maybe I'll get motivated in a few weeks and want to do a second coat, but as Saturday night rolled around, the last thing I wanted to do was go back over those walls with another coat of white. And the other last thing I wanted was to be faced with having to put the ugly plastic tarp back over my bed and dresser and start all over Sunday morning. So I called it a night on Saturday and made peace with the slightly splotchy walls and very splotchy ceiling. It's probably pretty bad that my initial enthusiasm could have been so swiftly replaced with the mindset, "eh, it's just a rental." I didn't even bother to paint my grey accent wall. Still, all my worrying that I only gave half-effort to this painting endeavor, does not diminish the fact that even my one-coat paint-job has brightened the room immeasurably. It even makes the awful, broken blinds that came with the room look less shabby, if a bit more disposable. Cleaner and brighter, the room now looks, and I now only have to strip the layers of paint off my remaining light switch plate and 1 outlet face plate to bring them back to their original white color, and remove the paint drips that currently decorate bits of my floor and a corner of my dresser, and the room will be single-coat complete. Not too bad for a day's work, really, even though more dedicated souls would probably have done the requisite 2 coats and done their clean-up in the same amount of time. Now, let's get through this Monday!

 {After}

Endeavors

 {Image via}

This weekend I am all set to paint my new room. That's right. Me. Painting. Can you imagine the Vachal Debacles that may come about from this?? I shall be sure to report back with a full-scale story as well as photos - I may take some before shots, just to assure myself that job will surely make it look better than it started out, even if it ends up being a rather shoddy job... But the supplies have been purchased, pre-painting cleaning, patching, etc. will take place this evening, and tomorrow will be the day of transformation! I am proud to say that I spent a couple of hours last night cleaning the stove top and scrubbing down the shower. Those now look 100% better than they started out, but there is still work to be done. :) Oh rentals that have been inhabited by boys for years and years. And I say that as a messy girl - I'm not going to lie when I tell you that I generally scrub down my apartment twice, once upon move-in and once upon move-out. So I'm not claiming to be some Susie Homemaker here. Still, proud of my common areas handiwork, and excited to keep the momentum going with this weekend's touch-up of my own space! Until Monday kids, have a fabulous and safe first-weekend-of-November!

worn

I feel like the past month I have been running non-stop, fretting about and hunting for housing, fretting and worrying about the timing of my old place being rented out and my ability to find a new place, worries about money, money, money, worries about whether New York really was the place for me or whether it had beaten me and it was time to pack it in. I feel like I've just been a stress ball since October 1. I am happy to report, however, that even in all that running-to-viewings, making it to work on-time, and trying to spend as little money on necessities as humanly possible, I still managed to make myself get into the gym on the 4 days a week allotted for ensuring I get some weight training in. My eating has been abhorrent, sporadic and incredibly unhealthy, but at least the weights have helped to keep me sane. I very much believe it was a saving grace that, for 30 minutes in a day, I was able to focus only on the feeling of my muscles contracting, focus only on the pride of lifting a pound heavier than I'd managed the last week. When I saw this picture, I felt like it hit two nails on the head - first, my relief at - for the first time in so many weeks - not having to think about where I'm going to live or how I'm going to pay a deposit, and second, the reason I keep pushing myself to make it to the gym for weights. I want to increase strength and capability, I want to stop relying so heavily on outside sources for my emotional strength, and I think a good manifestation of that effort, for me, is to push for a strong physical self. Regardless, this picture seemed fitting for today, so there it is.

moved!

 {Image via}

I am happy to report to you that, after my first night in my new apartment, I am 100% happy in my decision to make the shift from Manhattan studio living to Brooklyn roommate living. I hadn't realized how lonely it really did get living on my own - there was something comforting about just knowing there was someone in the house last evening as I puttered about unpacking my room and he continued about his Tuesday night. Added bonus to living with 2 hetero guys? There was no qualms about my putting my stuff anywhere. I asked about everything, "is there a cupboard that would be mine?",  "Is there a shelf I should use?",  "Is this area empty for a reason or can I put something there?" and every single question was answered with a quizzical look, a shrug and a "Sure, do whatever." Very lucky to have such laid-back roommates, I believe. Never mind the fact that my room's former resident apparently had a bit more stuff than anyone realized so the living area - while undoubtedly small - feels a bit roomier than it did when I first looked at the apartment. And, as I left the house to make my commute into the city, there was something beyond lovely about looking up to see sky above the apartment buildings, pink and orange brilliance as the sun came up, and to make it to my subway stop where I stood with plenty of room all around me waiting for my train. Upon reaching my Manhattan transfer station, of course, I was sardined in with the rest of the commuters, but I can already tell that my move to seek more space and peace has been successful, the goal accomplished. There's still much setting up to be done - gotta finish up the cleaning in my old studio tonight, hand off the keys - and I want to do a thorough cleaning of both the bathroom and the kitchen - these are boys I'm living with, after all - but I am very excited.

borough-bound

 {Image via}

I am relieved to let all of you know that I have found a new abode with lower rent, to appease money worries, get me out of my own head with more frequency thanks to the existence of two roommates, and introduce me to the idiosyncrasies of a borough outside of the claustrophobic rushing of Manhattan. I have loved my little studio, and I am sad to give it up, although not as sad as I thought I would be. Presumably because my goals are loftier now - thriftiness plays a larger role than most in my life now that I know what it feels like to be struggling to keep your head above water monetarily - but regardless I am incredibly excited to get started on yet another chapter in my New York journey. I will be moving to Brooklyn as of this evening - returning only to my UES stomping grounds to finish cleaning the apartment and tie up any odds and ends deemed necessary by my property management company. I am excited for my new neighborhood, one with which I am already a bit familiar thanks to a friend who used to live in the area, and which I am excited to get to know on my own, with my own agenda, my own time-line and my own interest base. Never mind the fact that Brooklyn is such an enormous borough that there are going to be plenty of neighborhoods I will soon be able to explore, especially thanks to the freedom that my now-essential-for-commuting unlimited metro pass will provide me to train it up and down and all around. Added bonus to the fact that I am already somewhat familiar with the neighborhood into which I'm moving? The fact that this room was the largest for this rental price that I saw in all the weeks I was searching out rooms. It has 2 closets (that's right, 2), a window (that looks outside) and it's own door! And for all this I will be paying less than $1,000 a month. There was a lot of panic at the end there, but I am more happy than even I imagined for putting into action this move-out plan, and I am relieved beyond belief to start having some wiggle room in my monthly earnings. Wish me luck with the move and I hope to have tales of my new life as a roommate and a Brooklynite soon!

Snowtober

Yup, that's what some people are apparently calling the 10 inches of slushy snow that pummeled New York on Saturday. While yours truly was traipsing about the borough of Brooklyn hunting down housing. After my umbrella was sufficiently destroyed, my feet soaked through, and my jacket so wet that I was literally shaking with the cold, I called my housing hunt quits for the day after having only made it to 1 viewing out of 3 scheduled appointments. As I fumbled into the subway station, umbrella-less, and shaking snow out of my hair, dropping my credit card and my ID (they were still in my cell phone case from the night before, just general lack-of-togetherness on my part in the art of putting things back in their proper places, really) in the process, a rather hapless-looking older man asked if I could swipe him in. I gathered my belongings, and told him I'd see if I had enough on my card as I wasn't sure I had 2 more entrances available. Sure enough I didn't, as after I got myself in, a measly "$1.15 remaining" blinked on the screen. A full $1.10 too short. I apologized to the man and kept walking. What could I do? I was already in.

A few minutes later, as I chomped on some trail mix I'd bought, I saw him coming down the subway platform - someone else must have swiped him in. I  congratulated him on getting in, and asked if he wanted some trail mix. (Yes, I felt bad about having left him standing there by the turnstile.) He accepted my offer and we munched on trail mix in silence. Then he walked along his way. Until a few minutes later when he came walking back towards me, with a sheepish smile, and handed me his umbrella. "Thanks for the snack, but you're all wet, you need this." I protested, told him it was fine, I'd be home soon, didn't he need it? But he insisted. So I took his offering and thanked him profusely. And that umbrella kept me dry between my subway stop and my apartment.

It really is crazy how nice humans can be to each other for really no reason at all. And in other news, Happy Halloween all!