One Fine Day

I know that I still owe a couple more apartment pictures, but those haven't been snapped yet (I know, I know..), and I wanted to talk about what we did last Sunday instead. Maybe it's not quite as exciting, but it was one of my favorite days in a long time!


We started the morning by having one of our good friends come over to do a fitness/posture/muscle alignment assessment on us to help us determine what corrections we may need to make while working out. It was very informative, and I was actually sore the next day from one of the moves we had to do (Judy: don't judge).

By about 2:00pm we had not eaten and were STARVING; so naturally we went and got chicken and waffles. Not exactly the most healthy meal, but when you're about to eat your own arm off sometimes that can be over looked a tad (or a lot). Although the service in the restaurant was sub-par (at one point the waitress walked away in the middle of taking my order!), the food itself hit the spot perfectly.

After our late lunch we headed up to the Museum of Natural History to wander around and check out the new exhibit on bioluminescence called "Creatures of Light". I had been looking forward to this exhibit since it opened at the beginning of the year, and although we learned a lot and enjoyed it quite a bit I was a little disappointed at how small the whole thing was. We checked out some of the other parts of the museum as well before heading for a stroll through Central Park.

A 40x actual size portrayal of a bioluminescent mushroom in the "Creatures of Light" exhibit.

An Angler fish display

Now, the main reason I even suggested we go to the museum and park that day was because the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Slightly cool, no humidity and lots of sunshine made for a perfect day to be outside. We sat by one of the lakes and watched the boats paddle by for a while, and then we walked in the direction of the Boathouse to grab a drink and watch the sun go down.

Watching boats in Central Park

After our rest stop and cocktails at the bar we decided we were hungry again (which I didn't think was possible after the late lunch we had), and I made a last minute reservation at a restaurant called Jo Jo on the Upper East Side. I had heard good things about it, and the reviews on Yelp were good.. plus it's a Jean-Georges spot so that was enticing as well.

Oh my word was it ever delicious! We split 4 appetizers and I had a dessert, and I think it just might be one of my favorite meals ever. To start we had the tuna roll which was rare tuna wrapped in crispy pastry with a wasabi sauce, edamame and ginger. We also had the cheese ravioli with very, very fresh crushed tomatoes and Parmesan and a crab meat salad with mango and cumin crisps. After that we were still hungry and decided to get the crispy salmon "sushi" roll with a soy spread.

Tuna roll at Jo Jo

All of the ingredients were minimal and simple, but everything was so fresh and delicious that I was in heaven the whole time. Especially once the dessert came along. I know that I've talked before about what I thought was the best dessert ever, but I believe that has been trumped. The dessert I had at Jo Jo was a passion fruit pavlova that had a passion fruit filling, was topped with passion fruit seeds, and sat on a bed of fresh whipped cream. I died. I also asked the hostess if this was a seasonal dessert or one they had all the time, and she (thankfully!) told me that it is Jean-Georges favorite dessert and they have it year round.

Jean-Georges has good taste, I see.

So that was our fun day, and I enjoyed getting to have so much fun and experience so many new things with Vlady! Looks like this weekend will be beautiful as well, perhaps I shall have another fine day again.

New Apartment: After - Living/Dining Room

I feel bad. I promised to post these pictures about 3 weeks ago.. Oops! Well I'm happy to finally share some "after" pictures of our place, and I'm going to start out with my favorite room in the house: the living room.

Our living room is a combined living and dining space, and after having lived in a 1 room studio for a year I was so excited to finally have enough room to entertain. Our last place had a 2 seater table and the couch, so we sometimes had to sit on the floor to eat when we had guests! Now we have the 4-seater table plus some ottomans to provide extra seating, as well as more than enough standing space.

 (Sofa, Pillows)

 My favorite part about the "dining room" space: the artwork! We found the vendor in Union Square, and while we admired their work we never really found any that we loved enough to buy. That is until we went to their website and found this series with the wine glasses and bottle! It's hard to tell, but the color of the glasses and bottle are actually a bright citrine, and we loved that with the other citrine accents in the room.

(Dining Set, Pictures)



 That's our "bar". The plan is to keep the wine fully stocked at all times! (Also, I'm beginning to realize that my iPhone doesn't take as good of pictures as I'd like. This one is slightly tilted also, which is human error..)

(Vases)

 Looking into the living/dining space from the entry way.

(Coffee table/end table set)

 You can tell where the cat's been on the couch! We love that print of the city from Ikea.

 We have two of these, flanking the TV. There was a long discussion about what to do with that space (leaning bookshelves, floating bookshelves..), but I love the end result!

(bookshelf, bird, ottoman, wine cork cage)

 The other book shelf and ottoman.

View from the "dining room" looking into the living room.