I looked out the window...

And what did I see?

SNOW covered Wall Street and the Trinity...

Here we go again!

Spring semester started this week!  No more winter break.  No more hulu.  No more breakfast at noon and writing papers just for pure love of the game. Alas, alack, it’s back to bleeding violet, my friends.  So just in case you hadn’t heard, Christmas vacation is officially over.  Dox has been trying to tell me for weeks, but I had little interest in commiserating its departure. 

(19 University Place, New York University--This is a cell phone picture of where we spend our days reading or writing)

Remember the days of elementary school?  When one might celebrate the new school year or a fresh term with an especially flattering pair of Guess or Girbaud jeans (nicely zipped at the ankles) or a Hypercolor sweatshirt (“but mums, it’s pink and purple!”).  Ironically, I might consider everything I wore in elementary school to be right on trend for the current set of intellectual fashionistas a la Greenwich Village these days (technically, I was more like baby Rainbow Brite to the Manhattan black—the sentiment remains the same).  Regardless, I just can’t seem to revamp the style the way others can.  Sometimes I see women (and men--regular “Ducky 2.0’s”) who do Tiffany, Debbie, and The Bangles just right.  And secretly, it makes me wonder if Anna Wintour is in her office at Vogue demanding her assistant to crimp her hair.

(Washington Square Park, New York University, www.nyu.edu)

At any rate, before I start digging through old, musty boxes for Girbaud jeans and a slap-it bracelet, I have to stop and be grateful for this past week at school.  I love being a graduate student, especially at NYU.  I am particularly grateful for the brilliant minds that are both my peers and professors.  And, I am grateful to be back on-campus for its nearness to the best cupcakes and Thai food (minus the tuna, right Nad?!!!), best school friends (seriously, I love these girls!), and endless hours back to reading ditties such as the one pictured below.  My mind bloweth.  And, let's be honest. The last time I took a classics course was with a professor who wore nothing but a purple turtleneck ALL SEMESTER LONG!  Sadly, I grew more interested in his fashion choices than in his vast understanding of the cradles of civilization.  Hopefully, my lovely new class (sans turtlenecks) shall fare better…

"The Golden Ass" by Apuleis

Recapitulation (and choosing paint with a color-blind husband)

I love New York City when it snows! Especially when I can watch it from a window inside my cozy apartment and do not have to sludge away at freezing temperatures and icy sidewalks down in the trenches.   So today, as pretty snowflakes fall outside and the city transforms into a sparkling picture, I’ve decided to write a little “thankful” list about this week.  For example:

·      Thank you, my nearest and dearest Melissa Suzanne, for introducing me to the delights of Ruby. Seriously, I had no clue that “Jeff, you need prayer!” would make me so “hacky.”  As per usual, you introduce me to the greatest things in life.  And “unscripted scripted life” reels me in with its sentimentalism.  I'm a total sucker.  And completely guilty about it.

Photo credit: mystyle.com,  "Ruby" cast photo)

 I am grateful to finally know the Wilton method of life.  I truly believe that this knowledge will bring only great and sweet things into the near horizon. My cute friend and I decided to take a cake decorating class from an instructor who “gave up Wall Street for his passion.”  Ironically, cake boss runs classes like he most likely ran board meetings back in the day before the financial crisis.  As a result, we spent two hours last week fearing our frosting rosettes were going to fail his cost-benefit analyses and hearing him bark out things such as "I said ONE INCH fondant rolls! ONE INCH ONLY!"  I must confess, however, I really love that our instructor has such a great history.  I am confident that he is going to have the best stories! Besides, who else could compare salt and sugar measurements to the decline of the stock market, right? (and, K, “if you can imagine it, you can bake it!)   

     

     I also love that I saw Perez Hilton at Trader Joe's in his Land's End pajama pants and a jaunty "celebrity blogger swagger."  I think he was buying the same pizza dough I was (which means that Pee-rez is not super organic, my friends).  Which is why, despite my best efforts at delightful places such as Trader Joe's (which I really do love) I ended up at Taco Bell that night (which is an establishment I've come to appreciate since moving to the city despite the abundance of urban organics and pretty consumers). Thus Taco Bell is the jewel-among-gems because it renders all sorts of delightful people, things to see, and conversations to overhear all while downing thousands of calories of processed goodness.  It's like high school nights all over again!   

(photo credit: google images, Perez Hilton at the Hollywood Gossip)


Finally, I am thrilled for painted apartment walls!  Let’s just say that color-blind husband and indecisive wife attempting to choose paint colors has been quite the feat. (Remember when I once asked my husband what color my eyes were and he responded, "caramel apple cider."  In his defense, it was  Christmastime and we had stopped in to Starbucks for salted cider (as we don't drink coffee or the like.  Diet coke suffices. )).  Consequently, we finally settled on painting our entryway “lush” and our living room “storm."  So, after settling on paint colors (I felt I properly consulted HGTV Design Star) and asking husband for his assessment (“um, looks dark”) we slapped that stuff on our walls.  We were inspired by Mamadox, who recently painted her entire house in a single go (she is her son's mother).  I feel good about the results! And I really dig the man that painted them!

Before

"Storm" colored Benjamin Moore paint sitting atop "the hope for the Jets"

Almost finished

So, thank you NYC, pretty snowflakes, and all the wonderful people that live in this city.  You and pretty walls make me wonderfully “hacky!”

Let Them Eat Cake (or Fondue!)

It is no secret that Dox and I struggled in our cross-country move.  Specifically, we had difficulties in getting our physical possessions to follow us to our new home in the big city.  Each night, we whipped up macaroni and cheese in our lone pan, stared forlornly at our sad blow up mattress accommodations, and called our moving company (they who shall not be named, though pictured below) to provide a little mood music (the tunes from HOURS spent on hold were the closest we got to Pandora or an ipod dock for weeks, my friends!)  It was that pathetic…

(Dox took this picture of our apartment after our stuff failed to arrive on "moving day")

Yet, hope prevailed.  After a month roughing it (one can only eat so much peanut butter and Indian takeout), our stuff arrived.  In a single day, Dox put together furniture and organized the entire apartment after working 19 hours at the office.  I, however, spent a leisurely day concentrating on the finer details.  Like color-coding the books in our bookcase and arranging our set of cake stands and fondue pots just so (yes, I am that girl— guilty of selling my couch but shipping a set of cake stands across the country.  Priorities!)

Last weekend, however, we stumbled into heaven; a place that would have made our month of camping in the Big Apple entirely doable. A restaurant so divine I would have NEVER noticed the absence of my fondue pot in the month of Kraft after Kraft.  The kind of establishment that makes chocolate so rich you want to spend the rest of time attempting to find the “back of the shampoo bottle” type words to describe it.  Indeed, I am talking about Max Brenner Chocolate.

(photo credit: Miss Erica and her iphone)

In fact, this whole weekend was fairly horrendous for that whole New Year, new health philosophy.  After swimming in chocolate on Friday and being a party of four eating for eight in Chinatown on Saturday, I resolved to eat something healthy on Sunday. At some point, however, I gave up and put the cake stands to good use! 

Thank you (moving company that will not be named) for making sure that our most prized possessions were shipped to our new lil’ abode.  We missed them (and were sadly naïve as to the delights of MBC until now).

(Dox moving electrical wires with a broom in order to help our moving company make their way down the street...alas, a sign of the good things to come! You and your creepy t-shirt make them look good, husband.)

p.s. em, you asked as to blogspiration.  I think it had been percolating for a while?  And, let’s be honest, I REALLY love to be able to read your lovely thoughts via blog (as well as those of our friends). So, even if it is kind of random, why not?  Besides, my dad promised me over Christmas (in the Belaggio--  thus, it is the Belaggio Contract) that he would guest post on our doxieblog one of these days…

p.s.s [For those of you who have kindly asked about making comments, forgive me.  I am so technologically advanced (ha!), that I haven’t figured out the comments thing quite yet.  I believe if you click on the “comments” link next to the pencil, it should take you to a comments page.  I will keep working on it]. 

this year...

(photo credit: the supremely talented Kimber Crandall. Thanks, K!)

Dear Mums,*

In the spirit of New Years and resolutions, and with the support of my really sweet husband (who will come home tonight and lose TWENTY BIG ONES because I did, in fact, start a blog today...only 18 mos. later than I once intended, but, oh well, the road of good intentions and all that), I am beginning the Doxford family blog. Yet, I promise, we will do our best to feature all the exciting things going on around us, the people we love, etc. And, since I know that you, dear Mums, are the one that will read (and care...thank you for that!) about our crazy adventures in this wonderful city of manhattan, I am dedicating this first post to you.

So, since we've been home from the holidays, I have done the following things that have made me think of you. Truthfully, I am a little concerned that since school doesn't begin for a few more weeks, I am only moments away (seriously, thisclose) until I break out the glue gun at midnight and start crafting. And, mums, we all know that story. At any rate, in 2011, I have accomplished the following:

I have contemplated painting my walls green;

I have contemplated painting my walls blue;

I have contemplated wallpapering my walls;

I have given up the difficulty in such a rigorous pursuit for design, and watched several episodes of the Gilmore Girls (which Dox regrets giving me for Christmas because he says the songs drive him nuts);

I have contemplated a new schedule for running, all the while happening upon (it was fate!) a new little place in the neighborhood that serves the most divine milkshakes!

See what amazing posts you have to look forward to in the next year, mums?!!! On a more serious note, thank you for being general inspiration and inspiration for our little doxieblog.

Loves!

emma

p.s. *if you are reading this and you are not my mother, we are not from the UK (well, at least not in the past 100 years). We are not German either, and yet we also call our mom "muter."