Hey Ya'll!
Tonight is my last night before jet-setting off to London! My emotions are everywhere. I am such a huge traveler and homebody all at the same time. I always get nervous about leaving, but I am more than excited to get over there and settle in. For those of you who don't know, I haven't seen my boyfriend in three months, so that's something to look forward to. Sort of like Christmas Eve! It's always exciting walking through those airport doors from customs into the family and friends greeting area. If you've ever watched the opening of "Love Actually" they talk about that part of Heathrow Airport. I always think about it every time I walk through those doors or wait for Matt on the other side. It's a great place to sit and just people watch. To see all the love in that room is so heart warming. Family, friends, couples....it's a beautiful sight. So that is my next 24 hours. I am even checking into my flight online as I type this. (Multitasking...a specialty of mine). It is becoming so real. It's too bad I still have to unpack and repack everything in both bags. Both bags are still 5 lbs. over the 50 lb. limit. UGH! Talk about last minute packing.
THE EMMY'S
Tonight I celebrated my bon voyage with a yummy white cake covered in coconut, whip cream and strawberries. Soooo good! I also watched the Emmy's and realized how much of a TV-aholic I truly am. I know WAY too much about tv shows, the people in them and those who create it. Maybe that's why I would love to get into the business one day. Working as an assistant on the casting of a new show SMASH coming out this January was an amazing experience and got me hooked. Like my mother, I also have an obsession with many TV series out there and follow them devoutly. I happen to also enjoy "Saturday Night Live." I re acclaimed my love for SNL Digital Shorts (if you're familiar with SNL you will know what I'm talking about), tonight as they did an incredible live performance medley of famous songs created through the digital shorts. For those unfamiliar, Andy Samberg (an SNL cast member) started doing these shorts when he joined the cast. They are pre-recorded musical skits and usually involve celebrity guest appearance: Justin Timberlake, Michael Bolton, Jessica Alba, Blake Lively, Natalie Portman, Susan Sarandon, Lady Gaga Akon...to name a few. They are usually ridiculous yet hilarious. A lot become famous by going viral on the internet after airing on SNL. Those include "Dick in a Box"and Natalie Portman;s "The Chronic-What-Cles of Narnia." YouTube them if you are interested. I included some recent favorites of mine. WARNING these are immature and inappropriate. If you don't think you can handle the humor...close your computers NOW. I have an immature sense of humor. SORRY...NOT SORRY. I also have a problem with obsessively finding those "funny" viral youtube videos. I apologize if you do not find them funny...I torture friends and family by making them watch them. Let me know if you like it! Please comment below because I will add more "funny" videos if it's something you enjoy. If not, you have the OPTION of watching or not watching and I won't even know to get offended. Look, we all win! Enjoy! Check out my BON VOYAGE blog tomorrow!
1) Captain Jack Sparrow; Starring Michael Bolton
2) 3-Way; Starring Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga; featuring Susan Sarandon
3) I Just Had Sex; Starring Akon, Jessica Alba and Blake Lively
Showing posts with label packing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label packing. Show all posts
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
A Little Change
The two things that have me completely stressed out about this move to London are the packing and the money (or lack thereof). Packing has been so difficult. Having to pick and choose and fit my entire life into two suitcases is nearly impossible. I have already packed and repacked three times. The problem is in the shoes! I think I need to get rid of a few pairs. I think seven may be too much. Oops! Luckily some of my best buddies have been helping me pack!
As for the money...well, I've been scraping! I'm banking on my security deposit from New York City to be returned to me to put towards my London rent. I also have birthday money and a little money I earned by working the few days I did at my dad's store these past two weeks. But here's my numero uno shameless money saving trick:
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| Oh hey Huckleberry! |
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| Oliverrrrr!!!! |
As for the money...well, I've been scraping! I'm banking on my security deposit from New York City to be returned to me to put towards my London rent. I also have birthday money and a little money I earned by working the few days I did at my dad's store these past two weeks. But here's my numero uno shameless money saving trick:
SAVE THAT CHANGE
A couple years ago, one of my bosses was telling me how she and her fiance would save their change (instead of throwing it in the tip jar) and put it in their own "tip" jar at the end of each day. After one year of consistently doing this, they would cash in the change and use it for a vacation. When she gave me this idea, I started my own tip jar. I'm not so great at keeping consistent with things like that, but I did a decent job and found it just sitting in my closet. I added a few more coins to the jar and then started counting and rolling. After only saving a couple months of coins, it came to a total of $104! Not bad...It will turn into 60 pounds in London, but whatever.
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| Yes that is Ollie's butt in the picture |
A QUICK THANK YOU
I just wanted to thank everyone who has been following my blog. A lot of you have told me that you've been following. This makes me so happy! I really appreciate it and hope that you tell your friends. I promise I will add more fun things to this blog about everything British. I promise it won't be just me blabbing on and on. Thanks again everyone! Only 5 more days!
Monday, August 22, 2011
Mouse Attack
Wow, what a day it was today. I really feel I accomplished a lot on the packing front...and was able to have a social life! (Always a plus when both are accomplished). I hit the ground running with getting this apartment ready for moving next week. I head home to the Cape for 5 days on Wednesday to help my brother out with events for the campaign with which he has been interning all summer. Then next week my dad comes back to NYC with me to pack it all up and drive it home, while I stick around for a couple days to celebrate my 23rd birthday with NYC friends. So you can see it is quite the week and a half I have in front of me. The problem is, I have to have everything ready to load into the truck when I get back with my dad. Basically I have tomorrow and that's it. And I have a ton of crap!
Along with packing, we need to hardcore clean the apartment. I mean scrub and spackle, wash and shine! Hanna and I are banking on our security deposit that we paid a year ago to come back to us in full. I need that security deposit to help pay my October rent in London...therefore the place must be spotless. I ran some errands down in the Faltiron district to pick up cleaning supplies and drop off something to Hanna. I have rarely wandered around that area, but it was such a gorgeous day with the perfect temperatures (hinting that Fall is around the corner) and I just had to procrastinate packing for a bit. I would like to try to explore a little more of NYC before I leave. It's a shame I wasn't able to see and do more (even though I did a ton). I even chilled out in Madison Square Park for a bit and watched a commercial being shot. I wanted Shake Shack so badly but the line wrapped halfway around the park! I shouldn't have been surprised seeing as there is ALWAYS a line for Shake Shack. Shake Shack has become a popular burger joint in NYC and I guess has spread to some other cities. They also make homemade custard that is a popular item on the menu. There is just something about their burgers that I love! If you are ever in NYC and just want a cool place to have a burger check out Shake Shack. If you want to go to the one in Madison Square Park, go to their website first because they have a live webcam where you can check out the status of the line. So smart! Not sure I would remember to do that but still cool. Also a fun fact if you have ever seen the movie "Something Borrowed," the scenes where Ginifer Goodwin and John Krasinski always meet for lunch is Madison Square Park and Shake Shack makes quite a few cameos.
Anyways...after all my daydreaming about food, I trekked back uptown to my apartment with all my cleaning and spackling supplies and got to work. Not easy to do on such a gorgeous day. Once I got the hang of it, I was on a spackling frenzy. I was ripping out all the nails and unscrewing all the screws from the walls. When I would try to spackle the holes, sometimes there would be extra drywall in the way. I really could have used some sandpaper. I looked through our stuff to see if we had any. No such luck, so I had to get creative. Because they were tiny nail and screw holes, I thought that maybe my nail file would work. Well, sure enough, it proved successful. I would go around, rip out the nail, sand it down with the nail file then fill the whole with spackle. I must tip my own hat on a job well done. Anytime you need some spackling done, give me a call. Then, I got to work on the ridiculous amounts of scuff marks on the walls all over our apartment. Hanna introduced me to the Magic Eraser by Mr. Clean. It was incredible! All you do is soak the special sponge, ring it out and it instantly removes scuffs and marks on walls. I used them up so that they are now torn to shreds. What an amazing product. I really never expected it to work that well. Finally I finished up the day with starting to pack up all my clothes...my endless amounts of clothes.
I decided I needed to get out and see some of my friends as I am not going to be here much longer. I met a couple friends at ANOTHER BURGER JOINT called Mother Burger. I still had the idea of a burger in my head and this has a fun outdoor atmosphere and serves frozen lemonade! YUM! I had the "Single Mother" with cheese, onions and pickles (essentially a one patty cheeseburger). It was a great meal and a great time. I headed home with Hanna to quite the disturbance:
We had just gotten home and I was in the living room when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something scurry along the wall and behind the couch. I started freaking out and I told Hanna. She started screaming and we were just standing in the hallway holding hands. Such babies! We were both afraid to even look in the living room. I finally braved the walk to my room to get my Wellies and to shut my bedroom door in case he tries to get in there. We both are in tank tops, gym shorts and our tall Hunter Wellies standing in the middle of our living room on our coffee table. Hanna has her broom in one hand. We decide to move the couch out. As soon as that happens, we see the little guy scurry along the back wall behind the couch. I start screaming, Hanna starts screaming. We both run like chickens. It's embarrassing but it happened. We started to strategize. We would scare it out and capture it with a shoebox. Sadly we couldn't find him again. We hit and threw things all to try to scare him out, but nothing. Who knows where he went. I doubt it, but it's possible he could be sleeping in my bedroom with me tonight which I'm not happy about. It's possible he went back through the hole he came in. We thought there was potential for his hole to be near to the radiator behind the couch so hand took the remaining spackle and covered it up. It was quite a disastrous and hilarious scene. We made a mess tearing that room apart...just to find a silly mouse. Here is a panoramic shot of the disaster zone we created:
Along with packing, we need to hardcore clean the apartment. I mean scrub and spackle, wash and shine! Hanna and I are banking on our security deposit that we paid a year ago to come back to us in full. I need that security deposit to help pay my October rent in London...therefore the place must be spotless. I ran some errands down in the Faltiron district to pick up cleaning supplies and drop off something to Hanna. I have rarely wandered around that area, but it was such a gorgeous day with the perfect temperatures (hinting that Fall is around the corner) and I just had to procrastinate packing for a bit. I would like to try to explore a little more of NYC before I leave. It's a shame I wasn't able to see and do more (even though I did a ton). I even chilled out in Madison Square Park for a bit and watched a commercial being shot. I wanted Shake Shack so badly but the line wrapped halfway around the park! I shouldn't have been surprised seeing as there is ALWAYS a line for Shake Shack. Shake Shack has become a popular burger joint in NYC and I guess has spread to some other cities. They also make homemade custard that is a popular item on the menu. There is just something about their burgers that I love! If you are ever in NYC and just want a cool place to have a burger check out Shake Shack. If you want to go to the one in Madison Square Park, go to their website first because they have a live webcam where you can check out the status of the line. So smart! Not sure I would remember to do that but still cool. Also a fun fact if you have ever seen the movie "Something Borrowed," the scenes where Ginifer Goodwin and John Krasinski always meet for lunch is Madison Square Park and Shake Shack makes quite a few cameos.
Anyways...after all my daydreaming about food, I trekked back uptown to my apartment with all my cleaning and spackling supplies and got to work. Not easy to do on such a gorgeous day. Once I got the hang of it, I was on a spackling frenzy. I was ripping out all the nails and unscrewing all the screws from the walls. When I would try to spackle the holes, sometimes there would be extra drywall in the way. I really could have used some sandpaper. I looked through our stuff to see if we had any. No such luck, so I had to get creative. Because they were tiny nail and screw holes, I thought that maybe my nail file would work. Well, sure enough, it proved successful. I would go around, rip out the nail, sand it down with the nail file then fill the whole with spackle. I must tip my own hat on a job well done. Anytime you need some spackling done, give me a call. Then, I got to work on the ridiculous amounts of scuff marks on the walls all over our apartment. Hanna introduced me to the Magic Eraser by Mr. Clean. It was incredible! All you do is soak the special sponge, ring it out and it instantly removes scuffs and marks on walls. I used them up so that they are now torn to shreds. What an amazing product. I really never expected it to work that well. Finally I finished up the day with starting to pack up all my clothes...my endless amounts of clothes.
I decided I needed to get out and see some of my friends as I am not going to be here much longer. I met a couple friends at ANOTHER BURGER JOINT called Mother Burger. I still had the idea of a burger in my head and this has a fun outdoor atmosphere and serves frozen lemonade! YUM! I had the "Single Mother" with cheese, onions and pickles (essentially a one patty cheeseburger). It was a great meal and a great time. I headed home with Hanna to quite the disturbance:
We had just gotten home and I was in the living room when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something scurry along the wall and behind the couch. I started freaking out and I told Hanna. She started screaming and we were just standing in the hallway holding hands. Such babies! We were both afraid to even look in the living room. I finally braved the walk to my room to get my Wellies and to shut my bedroom door in case he tries to get in there. We both are in tank tops, gym shorts and our tall Hunter Wellies standing in the middle of our living room on our coffee table. Hanna has her broom in one hand. We decide to move the couch out. As soon as that happens, we see the little guy scurry along the back wall behind the couch. I start screaming, Hanna starts screaming. We both run like chickens. It's embarrassing but it happened. We started to strategize. We would scare it out and capture it with a shoebox. Sadly we couldn't find him again. We hit and threw things all to try to scare him out, but nothing. Who knows where he went. I doubt it, but it's possible he could be sleeping in my bedroom with me tonight which I'm not happy about. It's possible he went back through the hole he came in. We thought there was potential for his hole to be near to the radiator behind the couch so hand took the remaining spackle and covered it up. It was quite a disastrous and hilarious scene. We made a mess tearing that room apart...just to find a silly mouse. Here is a panoramic shot of the disaster zone we created:
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Packing it up
Hello all, Happy August 21st...also known as my wonderful friend Corinne's birthday! Happy 23 years Co! xxx
Sorry...had to do the shout out!
Well the journey to London finally feels real. The countdown has begun! I am currently starting to pack up my apartment which is not proving to be easy. I have so much crap! The worst part about it all is that I've already brought some stuff home. I need to rid myself of so much junk. I think the things that I have an absurd collection of are my shoes, clothes, makeup/beauty products and hair products. I DON'T NEED IT ALL! Also, the amount of denim I own is out of control. I have at least 10 pairs of jeans. The funny thing is I don't even wear all of them and my favorite pair is a hand me down! I have a ton of hand-me-down jeans, adding to all the denim chaos. Packing all of this up scares me because A) I do not know where I'm going to put it all at my house and B) I don't know how I'm going to pack two suitcases with all of my essentials for a whole year. It's just not feasible! I did it for the 4 months I studied abroad, but a year? NO WAY! I also don't want to end up buying tons of stuff that I won't be able to bring home...but I will UGH!
I am mainly anxious about two things in the prospect of this year: the packing and the amount of money it costs to live over there. My student visa only allows me to work a maximum of 20 hours per week. This is not going to help me on the money front. I'm hoping to get a part time nannying position but of course I have to manage school and internships all at the same time. It is so daunting. I want so badly to travel while I'm there as well but I don't think money and/or time will allow that as much as I would like. I'm just going to have to make it work.
I am going to keep this post short because I need to keep chipping away at this whole packing thing. I cannot procrastinate. It's a dangerous thing!
Until next time, I will leave you with this cool panorama pic of my "PACKING ROOM." It's a mess...please do not judge! It also makes my room look huge...sadly that's an illusion.
***I was able to take this pic with a cool new FREE app on my iPhone called PHOTOSYNTH. Check it out!***
Sorry...had to do the shout out!
Well the journey to London finally feels real. The countdown has begun! I am currently starting to pack up my apartment which is not proving to be easy. I have so much crap! The worst part about it all is that I've already brought some stuff home. I need to rid myself of so much junk. I think the things that I have an absurd collection of are my shoes, clothes, makeup/beauty products and hair products. I DON'T NEED IT ALL! Also, the amount of denim I own is out of control. I have at least 10 pairs of jeans. The funny thing is I don't even wear all of them and my favorite pair is a hand me down! I have a ton of hand-me-down jeans, adding to all the denim chaos. Packing all of this up scares me because A) I do not know where I'm going to put it all at my house and B) I don't know how I'm going to pack two suitcases with all of my essentials for a whole year. It's just not feasible! I did it for the 4 months I studied abroad, but a year? NO WAY! I also don't want to end up buying tons of stuff that I won't be able to bring home...but I will UGH!
I am mainly anxious about two things in the prospect of this year: the packing and the amount of money it costs to live over there. My student visa only allows me to work a maximum of 20 hours per week. This is not going to help me on the money front. I'm hoping to get a part time nannying position but of course I have to manage school and internships all at the same time. It is so daunting. I want so badly to travel while I'm there as well but I don't think money and/or time will allow that as much as I would like. I'm just going to have to make it work.
I am going to keep this post short because I need to keep chipping away at this whole packing thing. I cannot procrastinate. It's a dangerous thing!
Until next time, I will leave you with this cool panorama pic of my "PACKING ROOM." It's a mess...please do not judge! It also makes my room look huge...sadly that's an illusion.
***I was able to take this pic with a cool new FREE app on my iPhone called PHOTOSYNTH. Check it out!***
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