new york!

Every year about this same time, I find myself retreating to my craft room. Finding something to make or create, perusing blogs and books for inspiration, or dreaming and scheming of plans for what I am going to do for the next few months.

It's called football season.

So, a couple weeks ago I was hiding out during the Cardinals game, drooling over pictures online of New York. The wheels started turning and I wondered if I had enough miles to get tickets. A quick check and turns out I had plenty of miles. On to checking hotel rooms. They were completely outrageous (I couldn't find anything for less than $700 a night!). Bummer. Needless to say, those dreams came to an abrupt halt.

The next day at work, a friend mentioned to me that she has a brother who has an apartment in the city and is rarely there. One quick phone call to him and my plans were back rolling. So, with enough miles to get me there and an apartment that basically fell into my lap, I found myself, that very next day, sitting on a couch in the upper east side of Manhattan eating peanut butter cups with a friend and planning our next few days in the city. Thank you, football. Suddenly, I am appreciating you a little bit more...

Ok, so we basically ate and shopped our way through the city. And after we ate and shopped, we ate some more. From coffee shops to pastries and tarts mid-morning to lunch and an afternoon snack and on to dinner, we certainly had more than the average three meals a day. My absolute favorite was Once Upon a Tart, where we ate twice. We used to carry their cookbook (its amazing!), but it is currently out of print as they are working on a new one, which I am sure cannot disappoint. We'll be sure to get it in the store for you as soon as it comes out!

Why is it that in New York there is good food and good shopping around every corner? The shops in SoHo were amazing. We kept stumbling upon one cool shop after the next. Just a quick suggestion however, you might want to rob a bank before you go...

We, of course, hit up the apparel mart while we were there, as well. We have some amazing finds for Spring coming in, as well as some immediates you will go crazy for, so keep an eye on the apparel section at the Willows.

So, you see, this trip wasn't just for me. I did it for all of you, as well...

There were so many restaurants we wanted to go to, but there is only so much your stomach can hold (and believe me, we pushed ourselves to the limit). I guess that's just a good reason to go back, right?

There is this little restaurant called Republic, that we discovered the last time I went to New York. I literally have been dreaming of their Spicy Coconut Chicken Broth Noodles ever since. I would be lying if I told you this soup wasn't a large part of the reason I wanted to go to New York. If you are ever there, you must go get it.

Our second to last day found us in a bit of a panic when we discovered there had been a bit of a misunderstanding about our apartment and we needed to be out a day before our tickets had us flying out. We were frantic to find a room, lest we'd be sleeping on a bench in the park. By the grace of God we found a cheap little room on the upper West side. It turned out to be perfect and so fun, as we never would have gone to that area (or discovered the delicious restaurant Recipe). So, we had our "cozy" little 8x10 room and two more days in New York. That night as we were walking back to our hotel, we seemed to pass by garbage heap after garbage heap with wooden vegetable crates thrown on top. They were literally EVERYWHERE. Some were a little beat up, but most of them were perfectly functional wooden crates. We kept saying, "Seriously, this is trash here?!" Thus, we got the idea of grabbing a few to take back to our rooms to use as side tables. Yes, we found ourselves late one night attempting to decorate and pretty up our tiny little room. Did you know decorating is a bit of a terrible sickness? We even caught ourselves in the middle of discussing how we could take them home with us on the plane... I'm still a little bummed we didn't.

Well, it turned out to be the perfect chick weekend getaway. Pretending we didn't have any responsibilities or a care in the world, but to eat 'til our hearts content.

Just think of the damage I could do during Superbowl...