Thanks for the thankless

You never notice a proofreader until they miss something. Thank you to my underappreciated husband who keeps our paper credible and catches errors like these.

"Its closure would be an irreplaceable loss for our city, state and region and four countless readers across the nation."

By the numbers

17 The floor we're on

30 Number of floors in this building

2 Minutes to get to the train from the new place (if you don't have to wait too long for the elevator)

92 Number of steps to the train from the door of the building

35 Minutes it takes me to get to work

7 Of those minutes spent on the train, the rest walking

2 Months we've been in the new place

$20 Average spent in a night on takeout dinner at work for the two of us

$1.75 Cost of a ride on the PATH train

$54 Unlimited monthly pass for the PATH train

$2 Cost of a ride on the New York subway system (the MTA, soon to be $2.50)

3 a.m. Our approximate bedtime.

2 a.m. The time they shut off the lights at the Empire State Building

4, 21, 67 My favorite channels. NBC, Food Network, HGTV, respectively.

8 million Population of New York City

Romancing New York

I wouldn't say New York is not a romantic city. Sure, there are romantic things to do here. But it's certainly not a hand-holding city. Everything and everyone in this city is moving so fast around you that you can hardly walk next to each other, much less hold hands. There are just too many people in a hurry, and they inevitably want to go around you, in front of you, through you. Trying to hold hands on the sidewalks of this city is like one big game of Red Rover. So if you find a place to stand still here, get your kicks while you can. Because if you don't, you just let a rare opportunity slip through your fingers.

Family ties

They say it's a small world, and I guess whoever they are, they must be right. A few months ago, as I was complaining to my mom about having no friends here, she told me I have a relative who actually lives in Jersey City. I'm not sure what you'd call us? But he's my dad's cousin's son, and his name is Nathan. She got his phone number for me, but I thought it would be weird to call — Hi, we're related! And we live in the same city! — so I put it off for a while. A couple weeks ago, I found him on Facebook and so I just wrote to him (which for me is much easier than calling). We've been writing back and forth a few weeks now I guess, and so today, we finally met up. We had brunch/lunch at Brownstone Diner (which, if you're a Food Network junkie, was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives), and then walked it off for a few hours at Liberty State Park. After we were sufficiently hot and dehydrated, we headed back into Jersey City proper to get some ice cream. Best idea. Totally good. Scott and I had milkshakes; Nathan had the passion fruit sherbet, which was also really good. This place has 24 flavors of soft serve and a lot more homemade flavors we didn't get to today. I intend to go back. But anyway, it was a good afternoon; I hope we get to do it again soon.

From Liberty State Park, looking into Manhattan


Second cousins once removed...or something like that

Grocery shopping the lazy way

How to buy groceries when you don't feel like leaving the house.

1. Plan ahead. If you want groceries on Friday, you'll have to order by Wednesday night.

2. Go to the FreshDirect website.



3. Add items to your cart.

4. Choose a time and day for delivery.

5. Wait.



6. Accept delivery.





7. Open the boxes.



8. Unpack and put away groceries.



And because I know you want to know, the eggs come in their own plastic bag, and wrapped in foam, so they don't break in transit.



Happy shopping! Oh, wait, actually...it's probably not available if you don't live in the New York area, so, uh...you'll have to keep doing things the old-fashioned way.

What you've all been waiting for...

Pictures of the INSIDE of the apartment.

With my back to the front door. Kitchen on the left, living room straight ahead, bedroom and bathroom off to the right.

Kitchen (See the stepstool? The cabinets are a little tall...)

Kitchen looking out into the living room

Bookshelf. I was hoping to have a couple squares for photo frames and whatnot, but as you can see, the book collection is quite large. Oh, actually the DVDs are on three shelves. Still pictures leaning there waiting to be put on the walls.

The new couch, which we're enjoying, and the table. It's really supposed to go over near the kitchen under the light, but we have our reasons.

Looking back from the windows (Large coat closet near the front door, and the door you see on the left is the linen closet.)

"Hallway" to bedroom (left) and bathroom (right). Linen closet again there on the right.

The CD collection, which is what you see on the wall in the photo above

Bedroom

Our new bedding ensemble. It also has euro pillow shams and regular pillow shams besides these that go with the sheets, but I don't have pillows to put in them yet.

Walk-in closet, which we share, believe it or not. See? I gave Scott FOUR whole slots in my shoe organizer! (the all-black row at the bottom)

Bathroom

Nice big mirror with storage!

So, not every place is perfect, even if you live in a luxury high-rise. See the towels hanging there on the left in the above photo? Yeah. See how far they are from the shower? I don't know about you, but I prefer not to have to walk across the room all wet for my towel. (I try to remember to put it on the sink before I get in.) I wish people would think about these things. The towel bar is also too low and the towels cover up the toilet paper holder on the wall.

To combat that, a few of my favorite things...

(*trumpeting*) The washer and dryer!! SO nice to have my own. (It's in the bathroom. In the first bathroom pic, you can see in the mirror part of a blanket that was sitting on top of the washer.)

The faucet/sprayer combo in the kitchen, so there's no separate piece. The handle just pulls away from the base. Super handy.

And just because I have issues posting anything without pictures of my view now...this is how it looks from the 17th floor when it's pouring.