Hi friends!
Well, after a 2 month hiatus from blogging, I’M BACK! Summer got out of control and between my actual job, moving out of NYC (which I’ll get to in a minute!), and just the busyness of life in general, I needed a break.
But I figured there’s no better time to get back into it than around my 1-year anniversary of when I first started this blog. So you might notice the page has a little bit of a different look, I figured it was time for a fresh start.
So, what’s been going on lately? Well I turned 31 (yikes!) last month, and AJ and I spent 4 days in Chicago for my birthday.
I’ll have to do a recap of that trip, but we had tons of fun being tourists, eating literal pounds of deep dish pizza, and even made a spontaneous decision to go to a Coldplay concert while there (ummm, amazing).
But the big news is, WE MOVED!
If you know me or have followed my blog for some time, you know that I HEART NYC. The idea of moving was bittersweet. It was definitely time for a bigger apartment, but leaving New York City and the Upper West Side? Tears.
In May, we started apartment hunting in Hoboken. If you’re not familiar with the NY Metro area, Hoboken is right across the Hudson River from Manhattan. (So yes, my emotions around moving a few short miles across the river were definitely extreme.) It’s a cute little town that I say is full of Babies and Bros. That means, part of the population is singles just out of college and there are lots of bars that definitely play into that demographic; but the other side of Hoboken is the young couples, young families, and lots of strollers and preschools. We’re clearly closer to the latter group.
So anyway, we spent part of Memorial Day weekend looking at apartments and must have seen over 10 in one day. By the end of the day we were exhausted, hungry, and a little discouraged. We saw some great places, but both agreed on a pretty long list of “must haves”, and nothing that we saw so far was “the one”.
Around 5pm we had our final appointment and AJ and I were both like, sigh, why did we book this last one? But we sucked it up and met with the realtor. We walked into this apartment and the couple still living there at the time were home and super welcoming, we ended up just chatting with them for awhile about the unit, the building, the neighborhood. At this point I’m thinking, this just feels right.
By the time we hopped on the train back to NYC, I started getting more and more excited. I turned to AJ and said, I want that one! He said he was thinking the exact same thing. It really just checked all of our boxes, so by the time we got into Manhattan, he called the broker. Even though we’re just renting, the real estate competition in this area is crazy, so we had to quickly submit our paperwork, go through our background and credit checks, sign the lease, drop off our checks and then just wait until we find out if we’re approved. It took a few days and we both bounced back and forth between thinking, we got this, and uh oh, we think we would have heard by now. Finally we got the good news that it was ours!
That meant July was spent packing, moving, unpacking and decorating.
We’re still not completely there, but we’re mostly settled and LOVING IT!
Honestly, being completely in love with our new apartment helped the transition of moving out of Manhattan. The idea of more space (a whole extra bedroom and bathroom!), dishwasher, washer/dryer in unit was so alluring. Plus, we have many friends within blocks of us, which is super fun. I also didn’t think I’d appreciate getting out of the hustle and bustle of the city after a long day of work, but so far it’s pretty darn nice.
That being said, we still have lots of exploring and restaurant trying ahead of us. I’ll also share a little apartment tour soon, show you all what we’ve done with the place so far, and be asking for decorating tips 🙂
What’s new with you all? Missed you!
xo,
Jamie
Pushups, Pasta, & Pinot Grigio 