I'm In My New Place!

The move from Chelsea to the UES came off, largely, without a hitch. I owe most of that to my brother, Frey. He was awesome! He came down Friday night from Connecticut, helped me pick up the truck Saturday morning, and then carried what I'm sure seemed like a million boxes and pieces of furniture up and down many, many stairs for about 5 hours - all without a single complaint. He just dug in and helped me get everything I needed to done. In addition, he rallied up a bunch of friends to help, all of whom were essential. Thank you Frey!!

I spent much of the remainder of the weekend unpacking and getting to know my apartment-mate. So far, she could not be better. She has been warm, welcoming, flexible and out of the apartment for huge stretches of time. What could be better? We actually had several great conversations in between me unpacking my kitchen stuff, and together we helped reorganize the apartment. I also got to meet her Mom, a wonderful Irish lady from California who knits like nobody's business. I found this out Sunday night when my roommate dropped off her Mom after dinner and went to spend the night with her boyfriend. Her Mom and I ended up gabbing it up for an hour and a half, and she showed me the meanest knit-stitch technique ever. It was amazing; the yarn was just flowing through her fingers. Apparently, when she was growing up in Ireland, all of the girls had to take knitting, so by the time she was in 3rd grade she was already making gorgeous sheep's wool sweaters. Very impressive.

The only detriments of the apartment that have become apparent are the large windows and skylight in my bedroom and the enormous amount of light they allow to shine down upon me at the ungodly hour of 7:30 am, and the odd lack of privacy I've been experiencing due to the fact that I don't have a door to my bedroom. My room is at the top of a spiral staircase without a doorway, and initially privacy concerns didn't even cross my mind because my room was on a separate level from the downstairs area and my roommate's room. However, now I'm thinking it would be nice to have some kind of physical barrier between my room and the open stairwell. I'm toying with the idea of dark purple floor-to-ceiling thick velvet drapes. Yum.

Hopefully, I'll have a bit of time this weekend to do some shopping; both for my place, and for Christmas gifts for my family. I'm starting to get stressed about Christmas shopping. This whole past month was so trying, and now I'm way behind on shopping. Work has also been quite demanding for a number of reasons, but I'm hoping by the end of the week I'll have a bit of time to breathe. I'll give myself a few hours to relax, and then I'm hitting the pavement. No worries; I far prefer looking for gifts, than for apartments.

Here's an important question, speaking of boys, what do you get for the men in your life? My brothers and Dad are so hard to shop for. What are some great gift ideas for the boys/men we love?