Tag Archives: Home

NYC

Comin’ Home

“I’m home”, I tell myself as I make my way down the jetway. I’m not sure of my intonation. Was it stated as a question? Disbelief, dread, excitement?

It had been three months and three days since I had been to JFK. As I saw the airport come into view my stomach started fluttering. I wasn’t going to see my immediate family, but I was going to get to spend time with my new family, I was going to get to hang out in the grass (Yakima, Washington had no snow yet) and I was going to go SKIING!!! Freedom! I was finally getting out of the city. I was finally going to be able to workout outside and feel like I was in nature again, something I was sorely missing. Then something strange happened – after the rush and excitement of Christmas I started to miss my new home. But what parts was I missing? That I wasn’t sure about.

You see, I have been getting the question, ‘oh my gosh, don’t you just LOVE New York!?’ My first reaction is a sideways glance and the immediate thought of, ‘you must not have ever lived in the city before’. So what could I possibly be missing if this was my gut reaction to that question?

We returned briefly to the city for New Years. I had been told by numerous people (including those who live in NYC) that after our first year we are going to want to spend New Years elsewhere. Not many people I know get to say they were in Manhattan for NYE, so I figured we needed to do it. We had some friends over, watched fireworks while dancing to music in Central Park (I wasn’t standing in Time Square for 13+ hours), and watched Sharknado until the wee hours of the morning (now there’s a movie to ring in 2014). But we were only back for a couple days before making our way to Park City (the fantastic, amazing Christmas present from my husband). Returning from there was when ‘coming home’ really hit me.

Getting off the plane my husband looked at me and said, ‘we’re home’. Meh, I don’t know about that. But as we got closer and closer to our apartment I got more and more excited. Walking through the doors of our apartment I realized what I missed. It wasn’t the big city, the bright lights or the towering skyscrapers that I wanted to see. It was the comfort of a home that I had finally made our own that I missed. Through countless hours of painting and decorating, making sure every picture was in place, every dish organized, I had made a place that felt a little like being tucked away in the mountains while being 18 stories high.

While I have not reached a ‘love’ stage for the city, it is home. I have made my happy place. It’s one small step outside the snow globe into this wild adventure that is now my life.

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NYC

Living the High-rise Life

Now that our couch and dinner table have FINALLY been delivered I feel like I can quite literally sit back and share this moving experience.

When we first met I was temporarily in the Financial District. Knowing I was going to be on the East Side before coming to New York was a system-shocker enough, the Financial District was a whole other beast. Needless to say, I was quite relieved to be out of that confusion. . . until I realized what I had signed up for being the ‘home setter-upper’. This task included, but was certainly not limited to: painting (which turned out to be the entire place!), organizing, folding, buying miscellaneous items, organizing, folding. . . did I say organizing and folding?

Paint cans

A little color to brighten up the other white walls!   photo 2 (2)

My husband and I had felt pretty good about the amount of ‘stuff’ we were bringing with us to New York. While we both had some separation anxiety with items we left behind (or forced each other to get rid of), we headed east convinced that we really didn’t have that much. After move in day I decided I needed to meet a minimalist and have them impart their knowledge and organizational skills on me.

Our clothing pile kept growing with each day I put things away. It was like those fall days when you go out, breaking your back to rake up all the leaves you can, only to come out three hours later to discover that while your pile was still there, nice and neat, a pile twice the size had manifested itself in red, orange and yellow scattered angrily across your yard. Yes angrily, because really how else do you describe something that won’t go away, that even though it’s inanimate, you want to scream at it to get its act together – angrily.

The kitchen is something I really couldn’t quite understand, and I am convinced that my husband snuck in items that I had specifically said ‘no’ to. We had just gotten married! Thanks to our wonderful friends and family we had a whole new kitchen practically. That meant that all of our old college life dishes we had collected over the years could finally be passed on to the next generation of starving college students. Apparently my husband is a big nostalgic?

Bedroom                                  photo 3 (1)

People kept telling me that months would go by and there would still be things you discovered you needed to do or to get for our new place. I thought, “psh no way. We are organized and on top of this, we’ll have this down in two weeks max!” Oh so young and naive. Here I am, almost a month post move, and two other furniture pieces have just been delivered. We still have two more things coming (hopefully within the next week, fingers crossed). We have almost finished putting up the new blinds we bought – which, let me say here that if you ever buy blinds, paying the Home Depot guy the extra $180 will be money well spent – and at some point this week we will mount our TV on the wall (now that we have a couch we can properly get the height the TV should be at). So. . . yeah. . . did I say two weeks? I’m sure I meant two months.

As stressful and mind boggling as this whole situation has been, I must admit that I am finally starting to feel at home – at least while I am in my apartment. I can honestly say that I did not think that would happen, or at least not for quite awhile ( six months minimum), but this apartment is becoming my happy place in the city.

Now if it could only fit my piano. . . oh well, a simple place to truly call ‘home’ is a great start.

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