A Summer in Summery

We are now back home in North Carolina, and back online (it took a few days).  This is the first time I have really been home in the last 15 months (it was a crazy last year) and I am very happy for it.  It was a great summer though, Daniel and I got to go a lot of places and see a lot of things and I thought I would use this chance to just look back at the summer.

Trips:
Boston                                2 visits -      3 days -               3 college friends
West Virginia/ Kentucky    1 visit -        9 days -              3 family, 1 - high school friend,
                                                                                                  10 ish friends
New Jersey                         1 visit -        3 days -              Loads of family, (like loads)
New York                             3 visits -       7 day  -              3 theatre friends -  1 high school friend
Pennselyavina -
    Engagement Party          1 visit -        2 days -              5 college friends

Totals                             8 trips -      22 days traveling     23 friends seen as well as lots of family

If you are wondering when we spent anytime in Norwalk, we are wondering the same thing

Guest we hosted 2 visits to our apartment in Norwalk 2 family - 1 college friend

Excursions:
New York Day Trips - 6 times
Beach - 4 times (only once in a bathing suit)
Westport - 4 times (sadly no b&b there, ran out of time)
Downtown coffee shop- daily where I wrote my posts
Drive In - 3 1/2 times

•  Super 8, 
•  Bad Teacher
• Green Lantern, 
• first half of Hanger Over 2, 
• Captain America one and half times) 
• Transformers 3 (it was so bad I had erased from my memory and Daniel had to tell me we saw it)

Museums - 4

• The Museum of Modern Art
• The Met
• The Museum of Natural History
• The Museum of Fine Art (Boston) 

Plays Seen: 

• Memphis
• Mother F*cker with the Hat
• Catch Me if You Can
• Alls Well That Ends Well (Shakespeare in the Park)
• Olive and the Bitter Herbs
• Jerusalem

(Random Celebrity Sightings at plays - 2)

Sewing Projects:
Messenger Bag
Baby and Mustache Ornaments
Recycled Polo Dress
Recipe Bags

Other Projects:
Earring Organizer
Herb Garden (failed miserably, but at least the Basil was well enough for me give it someone when we left)
Learned some Origami
Immense about of Cooking

Employment Letters:
10 ish - two possibilities
4 days of work

Money spent on entertainment:
Ha, Like I am going to do that to myself.  We spent too much but we packed a whole lot of summer into it.

Goodbye to Norwalk.

As this was my summer project the frequency oh these postings will be going way down, but I hope to keep posting as Daniel and I's year continues.  Luckily I will be working!!! so there will certainly be less of a demand for cheap entertainment,  not like there is any more money just less hours to fill.  I hope everyone has an much fun in their summer as I did and here is to the start of a great fall.

Natural History Museum & Washington Sq.

So one last run to NYC before heading below the Mason Dixon Line.

Daniel had to go into the city for work yesterday and decided to have dinner with one of his old high school buddies that lives in the area.  I still have a round trip on my train pass so I decided to join them.  I had a little time before Daniel was done with work so one more museum couldn't hurt... and to change it up with an educational museum.

The American Museum of Natural History!

Everyone loves the museum

With my trusty student id I was able to get in for $14, it is odd like the Met you just make a donation and it can be any amount, but they really want it to be one of their per prescribed amounts.  Either way I plan to get as much millage out of that student idea as I can until I feel bad about it.  

As you might have guessed there was a huge dinosaur exhibit and who doesn't love large toothy skeletons, I know I do.

Stegosaurs makes a great picture

So my camera battery died half way through the museum which left me taking pictures with my phone which hopefully explains the quality of the next picture

So hard to fit a brontosaurus in one picture.

Armadill-oh!

There was also an interesting exhibit oh man's link to monkey's.  Sure it was also about the evolution of man and the migration of the species.. but you know man = monkey cousin.

Not every picture I took is bones... just most

Also fun was the planet exhibit, in particular the scale model of the planets.  One exhibit kept scaling the model up or down by the power of 10 for a comparison of our size in the universe.  What I learned from this is we are very small and what we are made of is even smaller.  

Pictured Sun, Saturn, Jupiter and... moons?

I could not agree more American Museum of Natural History.

Daniel and I had some time to kill before his friend was off work so we enjoyed the scenes of Washington Square park, near NYU, for a few hours.  It was the perfect day for it sunny but not too warm, at least not in the shade.

The park is really pretty and full of activity.  We watch the dogs come and go from the dog park behind us.  Enjoyed the jazz band playing at the end of the garden. I spent time judging some Greenwich fashion, apparently I have turned into an old prude.  Oh and there were some "bros" practicing some intense hacky sack moves.  Two things  1) I never new anyone practiced hacky sack  2) I never knew you could spend an hour and half practicing hacky sack moves.

Daniel caught up on some reading and I got some sketching practice in.  It might have been the most enjoyable afternoon we have spent in the city.

We had dinner at a burger bar in the Village, they were great: cash only, half a dozen things on the menu, and cheap(ish) beer.  We stayed a little later in the city (and drank a little more) than we meant to but had a great time catching up.

Poor Daniel caught the 7:20 am train in and then we took the 10:30pm train back and he had to catch the same train this morning.

Summary      

Cost:

              Transportation (train+ Subway )        $21.00 

              Museum                                                 $14.00

              Park                                                        $         0

        

             Total                                                        $35.00

                

Time:  7 hours

Average : $5.00 /hr entertainment 

 

Perks: 

I learned about dinosaurs, did you know some of their relatives still live today like bunnies? 

 

Sunday Brunch

Daniel and I are wrapping up our summer, in fact we will be starting the trip back to NC on Friday (by way of Boston, cause that's how we roll). We spent our last weekend in NYC.  We aren't sure they next time we will be able to get back, because of our huge trip next summer traveling will have to be kept to a minimum until then.

The weekend held very little cheap entertainment. That isn't too say we didn't get some good deals.  We price line our hotel and got it for a third of the advertised priced and got half priced tickets to an amazing show Jerusalem.

If you have the opportunity to see the show you should absolutely see it.  Heads up it is a three hour show, but it never felt like it.  even though we had great seats for a good deal... Broadway tickets are still expensive ($65) and our good deal hotel room was still upwards of $100 a night.  

We also spent this trip catching up with friends which was great, though almost all of that time was spent over meals. At the end of the day Saturday we realized we had had four meals in the various of seeing friends.  Money all well spent but like I said hardly "cheap."

There was one great moment of cheap entertainment which was Sunday Brunch.  We met up with a friend at Alma, a south western restaurant in Brooklyn, my first trip to Brooklyn.  It was amazing, and while my Chilaquiles con huevos was delicious it is really the atmosphere that made this such an enjoyable brunch.

Roofrop Brunch

It has roof top section that is open year round with a postcard view of Manhattan.

View from brunch

The back wall of the seating area was covered in mirrors so everyone can enjoy the view, talk about making the most out of what you have.

Good food, amazing view and atmosphere, and then to make it even better five of us had brunch for $45. I pay more for brunch in North Carolina.  Oh and FREE COFFEE REFILLS.  I haven't had a free refill of coffee since I came to Connecticut, ridiculous I know but true.  We were never hustled out of our table either, water and coffee refills continued long after the plates had been cleared.  

It was the relaxing brunch I have been missing all summer, however it did take us an hour to get down to the restaurant from our hotels.  Why are they always doing maintenance work on the train I need to take?

Our Tourist Moment
(photo compliments of Kegley's FB page)

You may notice I wore my polo dress to brunch.  The messenger bag also got plenty of use this trip.  And I am finding myself a fan of Brooklyn.

Summary      

Cost:

              Transportation (train )        $2.25 

              Food                                   $10.50 (had to include tip)

        

             Total                                     $12.75

                

Time:  2 hours

Average : $6.37 /hr entertainment 

                   $4.25 /hr entertainment (if you include travel time but that's not much fun)

Perks: 

Breakfast and friends!

Polo Dress

For years I have been thinking I wanted to try and make a dress out of one of Daniel's old shirts, and now seemed like a good time.

While I cam up with the idea a while ago, I have been following the blog New Dress A Day which really pushed me to finally do it.  The writer spent an entire year making herself clothing from what we found in dollar bins at thrifts stores.  She does some really fun stuff.

Now for my dress:
The shirt:

strips!

No worries this is an old shirt Daniel doesn't wear any more.

Pinning it into a dress, I'm going for sexy.  The use of the form provided to me by the Fashion Camp.  I am dying to have my own form one of these days.

Halter seems like a good choice, just add scissors.

Evening it up.  Not exactly the most exact sewing I have ever done.

Just because it isn't exact doesn't mean I should neglect the detail work.

The finished product. Ignore the fact I looking like I am going to fall over, the ground is perfectly level.  I decided to ditch the darts in the front so it could be more of casual summer dress. I am also excited it didn't end up too short which I thought could be a real possibility   

 My favorite part is the long collar and the buttons in the front.  I think it is what makes it interesting.

A little back action. The halter worked out pretty well.  So this is the first clothing piece I have ever made myself, despite years of costume stitching.  I realize it isn't exactly from scratch but I am excited none the less.

Summary      

Cost:

            None

   

             

Time:  2 1/2 - 3 hours

Average : $0 /hr entertainment  Yippie!

Perks: 

A new summer dress! 

Origami Craze

Over the past few years I have noticed our summer housing rarely feels homely, often it has the same attachment one has to their dorm room.  Yes it is home but you don't feel particularly connected to it.  This summer I wanted our apartment to feel homey and I thought decorating it would go a long way toward that homey feeling.  But I hear I have no money so I tried decorating with what I could make do with.

This lead to me learning a bit of origami.  So I have done origami before, the way you do as a kid and your summer camp needs to keep you busy for an hour or two, but it isn't like I remember any of it.  I found this great website Origami Club, they have lots of cuties stuff but I stuck to more traditional shapes.

It's a Box! You might be able to make out some poorly shaped stars inside.

I didn't exactly have any origami paper handy so you might recognize the familiar pattern of writing paper.  There were a few failed attempts at coloring the paper, but nope just looked like and elementary school project.

Box Number 2

I am a currently a box making genius.  No coin jar, no problem make yourself a Origami Candy Box.  This has actually been great and held its shape and our change all summer.

The boxes were nice but were not doing much to decorate.  So I tried the most traditional, or cliché, of origami the Crane.

Crane Farm

Cranes of all sorts and sizes all created out of scrape paper around the apartment... ie.. mail.

I definitely had fun with how small I could fold a crane. This one is made out of the envelope they bank gives you with your cash.

I was liking the idea of using the cranes to decorate but I needed a lot and I didn't want to deplete our only writing paper so I started getting creative with materials.  

Receipt Cranes:

Cutting Action

By folding them in half I was able to get square sheets and could get anywhere from 3 to 5 pieces depending on the size of the receipt.  Some of them even had fun colors on the back.  It also turns out most stores regardless of what they sell tend to have the same width receipts.

I bought some fishing line at Walmart so I could put my cranes into flight and I created a swarm of paper cranes in our three season room.

It very much gives the room a whimsical feel when it is lit up at night.

Crane Closeup

I even decided to embrace the type on the receipts as a fun print detail.  I finally had to start throwing away my receipts as I have a huge back log of pieces waiting to be folded and hung.

Summary      

Cost:

            Fishing Line                 $2.50

   

             

Time:  Hours, it is a on going project so it is hard to tally.

Average : pennies /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

Fills a 15 minutes here and there when you just need something to do.  It also had a little personal feeling to an apartment that is now ours.

Updates

I decided to start the week with an update to some of my pervious posts:

Fish Market: 

I was finally able to get a picture of the inside of my fish market without looking like a complete tourist.  Really I just took the picture when no one was in the room.

Fishiness

Not much, but here it is in all of its fishiness.  It has just enough fisherman paraphernalia on the walls to satisfy my tourist needs.

Farmer's Market:

I stopped by Westport for the Farmer's Market last Thursday and took the time to take a few more pictures that better sum up the old wealthy awesomeness that is Westport.

This adorable shop in this renovated 1800's building is not unique in anyway, it isn't even one of the cuter buildings.  All of the shopping area looks like this.  

I stumbled upon the shopping street full on awesome high end chains such as Kate Spade and Brooks Brothers and Coach, all in adorable historic or at least historic looking buildings.

Swanky looking YMCA, yea I thought so too 

Looks like a Ivy League Library

Continuing on the Westport update a little proof on the adorableness of the Anthropologie in town:

Oh and they sell wallpaper and curtains in this store!!! If this news is not exciting to you, you are obviously not a girl or have yet to discover the best store ever.  OK stepping back crazy girlie girl.

Messenger Bag

This has become my favorite bags and despite not geting to the city yet, I have been carrying it everywhere.  It also fits my laptop which was a great surprise.

Herb Garden

Not so good.  My poor plants have been cursed with lack of sun, sweltering heats, and the misfortune of being flooded by my above neighbors.  They only place I can put my plants happens to be directly under where my neighbor keeps her plants on the balcony and mine catch all the excess water.  In short everything is dead except for the basil which is doing surprisingly well.

Garden of Death

So that is what I have on the update front I will let you know when more comes up.

Music at the Beach

Norwalk has been offering a Summer Concert Series at the beach Wednesday nights. We finially had a chance to go check it out.  The beach is a public park so the concert is free,  we did have to pay $5 to park.  Residences of Norwalk can get a pass for free, but as we aren't really residences we lacked the necessary paper work to make that happen.  So I like to think of it as our donation to the Norwalk Parks and Rec. Department.

I don't know if it is the theme of the music series or not but most of the bands are 60's & 70's tribute bands. A Buddy Holiday tribute band was playing the night we went, though they seemed not to play much Buddy Holiday.

Pretty good turn out

The concert is played out on the lawn so everyone brought their own chairs and blankets along with picnics.  Nights like these makes Norwalk feel more like home.

This little girl's dance movies would put most of us to shame.  Talk about commitment, the umbrella she is holding doubled as a guitar for most of the songs.  The band was good, she and her friends were better.

Bonus: The night we came was also a classic car contest!

So shinny

Dozens and dozens of beautiful classic cars.  After the 8th row of cars I was starting to doubt these were all local entries.  There were also a few cars I questioned the reason for restoration, if it was an ugly hooptie when it was new it is still an ugly hooptie when it is old.  Oh well beauty in the eye of the beholder.

You have to love a purple roadster

At the end of the first set they announced the winners of various car categories, I would would have picked the roadster. 

Half way through the second set we decided to stroll the beach, which was so pretty in the dusk light.

The moon was much more distinct in the sky, but I am still pretty happy with the picture.

I believe next time I will be joining the picknickers (if that is how you spell it).  We might also ride our bikes and save the 5 bucks.

Summary      

Cost:

             Parking                  $5  

   

             

Time:  2 hours

Average : $2.50 /hr entertainment 

Perks: 

Relaxing night... and a few bug bits.