No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow

"April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks 'Go.'"
—Christopher Morley

Living in Arkansas, where you can practically blink and miss winter, made me forget how much appreciated the arrival of spring can be. Living in New York has made the arrival of the season much anticipated, particularly after a very cold, very wet Monday this week where I unintentionally walked the wrong direction going somewhere and arrived at my destination longing for warmth with jeans soaked practically to the knee.

All week I eagerly discussed the 80 degree weather predicted to be coming this weekend with colleagues, random friars in the elevator and a college classmate I bumped into on the subway platform. I was skeptical when Thursday was still fairly cold and trying not to get my hopes up Friday morning when it was still relatively chilly. I was even doubtful Saturday morning when I checked the temperature to find it was in the high 50s.

But sure enough, the temperature rose as the day went on and by the time I was ready to venture out it was somewhere in the 80s, just as promised.

Its amazing how much warmer weather can brighten a day and beckon you to be outside. Yesterday I walked to the grocery store and made a pasta salad for lunch (I also bought some strawberries and angel food cake for strawberry shortcake). After a bible study later in the evening, I couldn't believe I wasn't shivering in my short sleeves when the sun went down.

I strolled to church in warm weather for the first time this morning and took more time than usual making my way home. But that wasn't enough time outside for me. Sitting in my apartment knowing how warm and sunny it was outside I decided to go for a walk with no real destination. So I headed toward Williamsburg (the neighborhood next to Greenpoint, often described as being full of hipsters*) and the park. Mostly I just walked in and out of shops and didn't buy anything, although I did end up getting a few more groceries, a couple of blisters, and possibly a slight sunburn on my back (too soon to tell).

All in all, it was a lovely excursion that left me truly appreciating living in a place where I am walking distance to pretty much anything I need (not the case in Ohio) as well as some things I don't need but are still very interesting.

So now the important question: Is the weather going to stay this way? Well, the weather channel is predicting highs in the 80s tomorrow, and a high of 90(!) on Tuesday. Honestly, 90 degrees might be a little high for me, especially in April. After that it trickles down into the 60s and 70s.

And with that, I am exhausted.



*Definition of hipster, per UrbanDictionary.com: Listens to bands that you have never heard of. Has hairstyle that can only be described as "complicated." (Most likely achieved by a minimum of one week not washing it.) Probably tattooed. Maybe gay. Definitely cooler than you. Reads Black Book, Nylon, and the Styles section of the New York Times. Drinks Pabst Blue Ribbon. Often. Complains. Always denies being a hipster. Hates the word. Probably living off parents money — and spends a great deal of it to look like they don't have any. Has friends and/or self cut hair. Dyes it frequently (black, white-blonde, etc. and until scalp bleeds). Has a closet full of clothing but usually wears same three things OVER AND OVER (most likely very tight black pants, scarf, and ironic tee-shirt). Chips off nail polish artfully after $50 manicure...

It's snowing!

Not that that is at all a new or exciting sight for me, I just happened to look out my window and see this though.

So, not really feeling in an extraordinarily creative mood, but a little bit about how I spent my weekend.

Determined to pick up some necessities I'd been neglecting buying (read: hangers), I headed out Saturday morning to go to a Kmart I had spent a decent amount of time at on Monday while killing an hour or two before going to an evening event in Manhattan. So, Saturday I went back to pick up some things on a mental list in my head that I had been feeling a need for. Some of the things I purchased: trash liners for our kitchen trash can (we had been reusing plastic bags), hand soap, a cutting board, and about 30 hangers. The hangers were by far the most worthwhile purchase (although the cutting board is also very nice) since without any real furniture, my clothes didn't have a lot of places to go. Now I was able to hang up the majority of my tops and store the rest in an under the bed storage box left by a previous roommate (of course with no bed, it is just in the corner of my room). My next goal is to get a mattress and some bedding for that, and also a dresser. At that point I will be in pretty good shape.

Saturday evening one of my roommate's friends knew a DJ who would be at a bar in the next neighborhood over, so I tagged along with them where we ended up meeting three Australians. When explaining to one of them where I work and what I do, he replied, "Oh yeah, I think I've seen their ads on the subway." Which I appreciated hearing, because sometimes I wonder how many people actually read the ads on the trains.

And finally, today was a bit more relaxing (but still exhausting). I ended up checking out St. Patrick's Cathedral for Mass, which I think would be incredibly large to most people, but lately I've been playing a game where I think how many Our Lady of the Assumptions (my church in Booneville) could fit into a given church in New York. For example, St. Francis, the church right next to my office, I've decided, could fit somewhere between eight to 10 Assumptions. St. Patrick's could probably fit about 100. So I just couldn't get over how enormous the place was. I think I am going to keep exploring the city's churches though.

After Mass I forced myself to go grocery shopping since I had been just running to the organic store around the corner for 1 or 2 meal shops. So I decided I would stock up a little. Except that I have no car and it is about a 2 block walk to the grocery store. Granted, this is not very far ... but it seems much farther when you decide to buy 3 1/2 gallons of juice and milk, eggs, an assortment of canned goods and other miscellaneous foods. Thankfully, it managed to all fit into the two reusable shopping bags I'd stashed in my purse.

So now, I guess I'm ready for the start of yet another week in New York City...

Just some of the amazing things I've seen

I know I should probably write something about how my actual life here is going, but in the interest of time (and the fact that I don't know if I'm in the mood to write something of any sort of length), I thought I would share some of the unusual things I've seen over my first two weeks of living in New York.

This first is a picture I took in Target in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. It was the most amazing thing I'd ever seen: an escalator for carts!


This one is from my ride home on the subway today. I didn't even notice it at first, but after a stop or two I looked over and noticed that a man sitting not too far away from me had the most enormous, what was I'm guessing a, stand-up bass. I just can't imagine lugging it on and off the trains, so I had to take a picture.


And lastly, because I was shocked to see how large the monitor is to my beautiful Mac at work: