Park Ave Roses

Recently Will Ryman's "Roses" popped up on the median of Park Avenue. I don't spend as much time as I used to on the east side so I hadn't seen them in person till this week. The roses are made from fiberglass and stainless steel. Apparently some people aren't so impressed with them. I think they are fun and a great splash of color during the cold dull winter. I didn't walk all 10 blocks of the installation, but since they will be there till May 31st I might have a chance to see the others. PS. sorry for the cell phone pictures...

complete with thorns

notice the ant

no rose smell

pretty against a dull building backdrop

Missouri & New York

Oscar Edition

Of the best picture nominations this year you might not be surprised that one of the films was based in New York City, but did you know there is also one based in Missouri? Yes of the ten nominations one is based in NYC and one in the Ozarks of Missouri (as far as I can tell... I've sadly only seen one of the nominations).

Best Picture nomination from Missouri:

Winter's Bone

Best Picture nomination from New York:

Black Swan

From what I can tell neither movie is expected to win. The one nominated movie I did see was Winter's Bone. The girl's story is gritty and not like mine at her age. But some things about the movie did remind me of home. Like the ford ranger pick up truck that makes several appearances is exactly the truck I drove for 8 years.

Maps

I'm a big fan of maps, but so often they can be pretty expensive to buy. Especially vintage maps as I discovered at my local antique shop on Sunday. There was a pretty cool map of NYC, but it was over $100, which is over my budget.

You know what is not over my budget? Free. When the new subway maps came out last summer they had them sitting out an they were passing them out like crazy and I realized that anyone could have a free map of the city. And they were pretty too. I picked up a few and after discovering how much big mirrors cost I decided to frame the subway map for my dressing parlor.

In full disclosure I have a pretty major fault... I don't like to measure things, or I will but then won't write it down, or will forget to and then just wing it... Thus leading me to buy a frame that was to tall for the map. It was the perfect width though. I thought for sure I was going to have to trim the map on all sides, that is what I get for winging it. My frustrated solution (I am NOT going to lug that huge frame back across town and up town to exchange it) was to make a mat for it... and then paint the mat gold.

I like the finished product and now I can check my handy dandy map on the way out of the apartment unless I'm heading to the upper west side :)

Hang it up

My new apartment is what I have now learned to be called a railroad apartment, meaning there are no hallways just one room after another. For me this is no problem, but I could see it being an issue if more than one person was trying to live here (trips to the kitchen and bathroom would involve tip toeing through a bedroom). It also means that after living in an one bedroom that had walls just to make the already tiny space tinnier and a studio, which had a great big kitchen and lots of closets, but I was still sleeping/eating/lounging/cooking all in one room, I now have more rooms than I know what to do with.

After moving in with the help of my brother, and then my brother leaving I decided that the rooms were all wrong and subsequently switched the purpose (and furniture) of all the rooms excluding the kitchen and bathroom (not easy work for one person).

After a few days of going from one end of the apartment to the other just to get ready in the morning I decided the room with the only closets, which was also the room nearest to the bathroom (other than the kitchen) would become my dressing parlor.

Meaning the smallish room now houses my dresser (duh), shoe collection, and fancy chair for putting on said shoes.

But as everyone knows the closets in NYC apartments just are not big enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty excited that this apartment even has closets (I saw a few that didn't). So instead of buying more storage I made my wall become a little more useful.

I received these flower hooks from my sister for my birthday a few years ago (oh and that photo won honorable mention at the Chilhowee Fair)

I bought the C and W hooks at Anthropologie the were on sale for around $7 a piece

Missouri & New York

In honor of the title of my blog BB to 79th, which represents where I come from and where I'm going (even though I no longer live on 79th and even though I don't know exactly where I'm going) I present to you... Missouri & New York.

So also in honor of President's Day I bring you edition #1 of Missouri & New York, the President's edition

Missouri

The only president from Missouri (so far) was the 33rd, Harry S Truman. He was born in Lamar, Missouri in 1884 and grew up in Independence, Missouri where he was a prosperous farmer for 12 years. He became President in 1945 during World War II.

New York

Six Presidents are associated with the state of New York, however only four of them were born in NY.

Martin Van Buren- 8th President

Born in Kinderhook, NY in 1782

Millard Fillmore- 13th President

Born in Finger Lakes country in 1800

Chester A Arthur- 21st President

Born in Fairfield, Vermont in 1829 moved to NY in 1839

Grover Cleveland- 22nd and 24th President

Born in New Jersey in 1837 was raised in upstate New York

Theodore Roosevelt- 26th President

Born in New York City in 1858

Franklin D. Roosevelt- 32nd President

Born in Hyde Park in 1882

Curb Appeal

Want a cheap way to redo the exterior of your house? Chalk! This building on my block recently showed up dressed in hearts. Makes me smile every time I pass by.

brick love

Life size Ken dolls? yes please

Yesterday after work I walked up through Time's Square with a friend. I was engrossed in telling a story when all of the sudden what do we see, but two well dressed and groomed men taking pictures with people. Ken? I was a big Barbie and Ken fan as a child and having 2 older sisters we had enough Barbies for a large party but only three or so Ken dolls (and being completely honest here, one of my Kens was really MC Hammer, parachute pants, rat tail, microphone, and cassette tape included). Kens were hard to come by (really they just weren't as much fun- no hair to brush and no fancy dresses). I walk around to the other side of the display and what do I see? Human Ken Dolls! I was a little excited. Then I realized that I couldn't take one home with me. I picked up my story where I left off and we continued to walk through Time's Square oblivious to the lights, crowds, and commotion.

Beach date Ken & Winter date Ken

Happy Valentine's Day!

When it comes to knitting, I usually stick to a pattern, not like my fancy free crocheting sister, but last week as I was looking at all kinds of valentine related crafts I thought I could probably figure out a heart.

knitted heart by Courtney

I thought it came out pretty good. I started with one stitch on bottom and added one on each end until I started decreasing for the top. On this one I did one top and cut the yarn to reattach on the other side to finish...

It was cute, but I thought it could be more so I searched for free heart patterns on the internet. I ended up following this pattern. It was close to what I had made up, but in the stockinette stitch and had the ingenious idea of just threading the yarn across the top. I didn't felt mine (I didn't use wool yarn so felting wasn't really an option), nor add eyes. I used yarn I had on hand, which has grown to be quite a collection. Each heart went pretty quickly then I sewed them together using the tails. I stuffed them with the scrap yarn I had left over from knitting my afghan.

Bowl of hearts

MARTHA

A few weeks ago on a last minute impulse I went to the taping of the Martha Show. The weather had been terrible and the morning was calling for sleet and ice, so people from out of town were canceling and they had some last minute openings. I pretty much risked my life to get there. The ice came and even though there was a lot of ice slush a few of the sidewalks were pure ice.

I arrived right on time, but still had to wait outside for awhile. Once inside I was checked in, went through a metal detector, and then to the coat check. I also checked my snow boots (as one security guard said on the way out, I had my snow boots and my show boots). Then came the signing of release forms and a free bottle of water!

Then the audience wrangler came in. He was some comedian... He gave us an overview of the show and taught us some hand cues. Basically when to clap, when to ohhhh, and when to awwww.

in the holding room

Our tickets when we came in had different markings on them. Mine had a pink stripe... which does not mean I get to sit on the floor level, but I got a pretty decent seat a few rows up.

Seating the audience

The show had a nice segment on how to care for your houseplants and what plants are best for the indoors. The curator for the Brooklyn botanical garden joined Martha for the segment.

Garden area of set

Martha did a craft creating paper roses. They were cute in a bunch in a vase (see below), but seemed like a lot of work. It was interesting to see all the show's staff setting everything up and rearranging things on the go.

Craft area decked out for Valentines day

Martha had Shea Gallante making broccoli rabe pesto and lobster mushroom ragu... they didn't share any of it with the audience.

The kitchen

After the show Martha did several promotional shoots and signed a few things for "special guests"

Then Martha took some questions from the crowd. I'm never good with coming up with questions on the spot, so I didn't ask any. Most of the questions were regarding what she likes to do in her spare time and how she manages her busy schedule. The girl to her right was an intern from Baylor.

It was a fun time and there were no show giveaways, but they cleaned out their old giveaway closet to give all of us something "for coming out in the icy weather" I ended up with a whirly popper, a stove top popcorn popper. I haven't tried it out yet and have no where to store it.

The show aired that day, but if you want to see it the segments can be find on Martha's website I can be found in the Heart health types section at 4:46.

What happens to snow in NYC

The snow hasn't completely melted since the after Christmas storm. Its been melting some and then snowing some and been pushed around and salted and sanded and well mixed with trash. With all of that you get something that looks like this:

oh Spring, please bring us some pretty

In related news, melting snow caused my power to go out for several hours yesterday. I'm proud to report I was able to cook dinner on the gas stove, shower, and get ready to go out with only a little help from a flashlight.