Little Boxes....On the Hillside

Boxes in NJ, Before the Move

 If you watch Weeds, then you know where the title of this post comes from.  Anywhoo, I was just going through the pictures on my camera and came across these that I took before and after our move.  They give you an idea of just how much work we had cut out for ourselves and what we've been up to for the past month.  This was most of the boxes, (I think we had about 150 boxes total) but not all of them, and of course, none of our furniture are in these pictures.

Delivery of Boxes in Austin

A Large Pile of Opened and Emptied Boxes

Another Perspective of the Emptied Boxes

 We actually unpacked the vast majority of the boxes within the first 5 days.  But it took about the rest of a month to organize things and put things in their places.  We are pretty much settled now but there's always things on my to-do list to make things look better!

October Snow

We got snow this past Saturday!  I watched the weather forecast the day/night before and it seemed like it was going to be a pretty nasty day.  I had planned to go to my friend Tara's house and spend the night because Mark was out of town for the weekend.  I tried to leave on the earlier side since the weather people were saying that it was supposed to be the worst in the afternoon and evening.  Even though I left at about 10:45 AM and it's mostly highway driving, it was a pretty tough drive.  Parts of the highway were quite slushy, so people were going only about 40 mph.  Other times, the snow was coming down pretty hard so it was somewhat difficult to see.  Other parts of the drive were kind of ok.

By the time I got down to where she lives, it was pretty bad and snow was accumulating quickly.  We ended up going out to lunch in her town (less than half a mile away) and my car was slipping and sliding all over the place!  When we finished lunch, we witnessed part of a tree crack and a limb broke off due to the weight of the wet leaves and snow.  We ended up staying in for the rest of the day, which was nice and cozy.  We watched the Sound of Music, which is my all-time favorite movie, ordered in food for dinner and spent a lot of time catching up and talking.  It was fun to have a girls weekend! 

The next day the weather was sunny and clear.  A lot of the snow was melting, even though there was a good amount still on the ground.  We ended up going to this wonderful tea house (which we have been to together once before) called Teaberry's.  I love this place!  They have about 80 different types of tea to choose from and their food is delicious!  They also serve traditional afternoon tea.  I got this turkey sandwich with chai apple butter, thinly sliced Granny Smith apple, cheddar cheese, bacon, and field greens.  It was out of this world!  The bacon was extra crispy, just how I like it.  The flavors were a perfect balance of sweet, salty, and tart (sour).  I forgot to bring my camera this weekend (bummer) so I took a picture of the leftover half at home.

After lunch at the tea house, we did some outlet mall shopping and then I came home.  The drive home was much better than the drive there!  I had such a great and relaxing time, kind of like a mini vacation...thanks to Tara for hosting!

Pretty Flowers

This picture is a few weeks old...I'm just getting around to posting it.  Mark had bought these for me on one of his trips to Trader Joe's.  (So sweet!)  I loved them--they were so cheerful!  I think these flowers usually droop pretty quickly, but these ones stayed perky for quite a few days.  I enjoyed having them around!

Dude, Where Should I Park My Car?

One major perk about living where we do is that we are SUPER close to the Lincoln Tunnel and midtown Manhattan.  Most of our good friends live in New York City, so we go there a good amount.  We always drive into the city because Mark's not a big fan of public transportation.  Driving in is nice though so we don't have to worry about train schedules and other hassles.  In good traffic, it only takes us about 15 to 20 minutes to drive to midtown Manhattan.

The major downside to driving is that parking fees in NYC are ridiculous, especially for this Texan girl.  We had gotten used to paying $35-$40 for parking each time we went into the city, and that's on top of toll costs and whatever we actually planned on doing that day.

On July 4th, we went to a BBQ and my in-laws' neighbor told me about a website where you can get discounts on NYC parking.  Even though we've gone into the city several times since then, I totally forgot to check out this website.  It randomly dawned on me on Thursday, so I checked to see if we could get discounted parking around Radio City since we were going to see Cirque du Soleil there.  The website was super easy to use--you just enter the date of your visit and approximate time you plan on arriving and leaving.  Then you can move the map around to the area you plan on parking and it shows you all the parking lots in the area and rates.  You just print out a coupon, and show it to the cashier when you pay for parking.  You don't have to sign up for anything on the website or give them any personal information.  We saved about $10-$15 in parking fees!  We paid $25 for about 8 hours of parking, whereas the normal price probably would have been about $40.  I'm definitely going to use this website EVERY time we go into the city from now on! 

Shoo Fly--There's A Better Life For You Out There

About a week ago, a house fly somehow got into our apartment.  I have no idea how he got in, maybe he snuck in under the front door.  I also assume this fly is a "he" for some reason and will refer to him as such.  So at first we were like, that's annoying.  When we first noticed him, Mark even ran around the apartment trying to kill it.  We weren't successful so we just didn't think much of it.  We figured he would die or escape in due time.

But he never left the apartment!  Day after day he would be buzzing around.  We would see him for a few seconds, then maybe not for a few hours, and then he would be back again.  He had been around so long we even named him Frankie the Fly.  I was even wondering if people would believe me if I told them we had a pet fly we got from the store.  Funny thing is we actually became sort of attached to him.  So now we were past the point of being able to kill him.

Anyway, on Sunday Mark felt that he was flying around slower and getting smaller and we were kind of sad because we thought he was slowly dying.  We even sacrificed by turning off the AC and opening the one window we have without a screen in it, hoping he would fly outside.  Mark even put a chocolate chip cookie with a blueberry on it to try to entice Frankie to the window.  How cute is that?!  He put that there while I was napping and I woke up confused as to why there's a cookie and a blueberry perched on the window.

Cookie and blueberry on the window--our "fly trap"

If we saw him around, we would try to shoo him out the window, but he would often fly the opposite way, and then we wouldn't see him again for a while.  I finally saw him buzzing around the kitchen table and got the idea that maybe we could trap him under a cup and then release him outside.  It didn't work though because he was still too fast.  Finally, he landed on a box of crackers I had sitting on the table.  I was able to GENTLY pick up the box and walk SLOWLY across our entire living room to let him out the window.  I was scared he would get startled and fly away, but he didn't.  We shut the window quickly and were SO relieved!  Goodbye Frankie....we hope you live a long life!