So much stuff......

Well as many of my family and friends have been telling me, I am a major slacker when it comes to blogging. It is in part that I am very busy and part that I am very lazy! Nonetheless, this will probably be a long one because a lot has been going on!

Apartment News:

We have an apartment and we love it!!! we got to move in last Thursday! it was incredibly filthy so I spent the first day cleaning like crazy, and now it is pretty and nice.
Side note: I had my first "buying lots of stuff at target and taking the subway home" experience. I have to say it is not my favorite thing in the world. Lo had to work, so i went solo to target to get all the cleaning supplies. It is nice because we live right at a subway stop and the Target is right by a subway stop as well. However, the downfall is that to get back on the subway at Target to go home you have to walk up this ginormous flight of stairs, which when your carrying $100 in cleaning supplies is not the easiest task. I was trying to do it in one quick, power to the top kind of fashion, but of course, as often happens to me, I get stuck behind some slow poke who is meandering all over the place and I can not get around with my arms full of bags! SO, by the time I got up there I thought I was going to DIE and my arms were all shaky from hauling the bags. sad, I know.
ANYWAYS....back to the apartment...we got a pretty sweet deal, aside from our teeny tiny bathroom, the rest of the place is pretty roomy, in a cozy sort of way. The kitchen is bigger than I remembered from when we first looked at the place and the bedrooms are an awesome size. All the New Yorkers that we talked to are very impressed with our find, so yeh, go us!!! AND there is plenty of room for visitors so start buying those plane tickets people!!! Sadly however, we have NOTHING in our apartment. Just a crappy air mattress that we share and our suitcases until we finally broke down and bought two $11 camping chairs at K-mart. But thankfully we should be getting our stuff sometime next weekend. We still won't have a couch though, so yeh camp chairs!!

Employment:

Well, so while all this apartment stuff is great and exciting I still don't have a job and the cost of moving in and getting our stuff shipped has left me BROKE!!! now I know I told you all that I got hired with that company, but unfortunately I don't make any money until I get set up with a family which is turning out to be a rather SLOW process and I am feeling a bit discouraged! I have only received four family profiles, and none of them seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. In most cases it has been either too few or too many hours. I was still willing to interview with them anyway, but that hasn't happened either. One family, the one that looked the most promising, I did interview with. The mom was very nice, and although it seemed that I may have been doing more custodial babysitting stuff than actual teaching I was almost ready to settle. But it turns out that she wants a two year commitment!! Well, I can't do that, for a variety of reasons that I am sure are pretty obvious, but that is what she wanted, so that job went right out the window!!!! BOO!! I talked to my supervisor at the company about it, and she did apologize because they do discourage parents from asking for a commitment beyond one year so early in the process, and she hopes I am not discouraged and she still wants to show me families, which is all fine and great, but lady I am not living off my looks here in New York, I am BROKE!!! I feel bad, I really like this company and the people who work there are sooooo nice and helpful, but it is just taking a little longer than I expected. If I had an unlimited supply of $$$ it would be one thing, but I do not, I a barely even have a limited supply, so I have moved on and started to look into other options.
AND I applied at a preschool this past Monday, the head of the school called me Monday night around 9:45 saying she was sorry to call me so late but she was looking at my resume and really wanted to call me then instead of waiting until the next day. So that is a good sign right?? I had an interview on Wed. The school seemed really great! It is Montessori affiliated school but not strictly Montessori. The position would be as a teacher in a classroom of about 20ish (can't remember the exact number) kids and two other teachers, from 10-2:30 and then I would run the after school program of about 7 kids from about 2:30/3-6 pm...ten to six, sounds perfect, and they offer full benefits....SO I am really hoping that they liked me and will hire me because I think it would be a great working environment! So keep that in your prayers please and I will keep you all posted!!!

In the mean time, to make some extra money, Lo found this company that does promotional events for other companies (such as one of the regional cable/Internet/phone companies) at street fair type events. She got hired on and asked if they needed any more people because her roommate was also very interested. Basically we hand out free stuff and tell people about the company and try to get them to sign up...but my job was a little different. Part of the free stuff was a free family photo with the cartoon character "Bloo" from "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends" (cute show, you should check it out for some giggles), and NO it was not my job to dress up in the character costume, it was my job to escort the person in the suit from our booth the the firehouse across the way every half hour so she can take a break and not get attacked by children! And the pay is really good, even though it is long hours (7-7) on your feet dealing with some crazy Long Islanders! Since it is out in Long Island, and we have to be there at 7 am, we have to leave our apartment by 5:15 am to take the subway to Penn Station and then take the LIRR (Long Island Railroad) an hour to where the event is!! It will all be worth it when I get my paycheck!! So this friends and family is how Emily is currently surviving in New York. I will add some stories about all the CRAZIES out in LI later because this is getting pretty long. I will probably have some more after tomorrow because we are working again....gotta pay rent in less than four weeks!!!

OH and next weekend, hopefully our stuff is coming, so that is exciting, and then the weekend after that we are going to Washington D.C. because my sister and brother-in-law are going to be there!!! YEH!!!!!! I keep telling my sister to bring my Monkey but she wont! BOO!!! something about the five hour plane ride...blah blah :)

Okie, well that is all for now, more soon!!! xoxo!

I am an Anutie of 3 now!!!

This morning my Brother and Sister-in-law had their second baby boy. Sounds like the labor went very smoothly-Go Cheryl, your such a trooper!!! So now I am Auntie to THREE adorable and perfect little boys: Aidan William, Brayden Lee, and now Owyn Kenneth! I can't wait to hear all of the stories of when Aidan sees his little brother, the result of Mama's tummy bump that he has been giving hugs and kisses. I can just imagine him with baby: "Play cars? Baby Brother play cars? hhmm??" Hehe! Okie, well more baby updates as they come!!!

Mice....

Lo and I both saw one this weekend in the apartment were we are staying....I was sitting on a chair in the living room talking to my mom on the phone and one crawled out from underneath Kimi and Muna's bedroom door. It saw me and then scurried back into the room. The next day Lo watched one stroll across the middle of the kitchen floor. Apparently Kimi and Muna just saw one a little bit ago walking from the trash can to under the stove. Kimi says she thinks she saw it stop and laugh at the two traps that have been deactivated since yesterday when one of the roomies stepped on them while cooking. I am not too sure how I feel about the whole situation. When I was little I was a bit different (and allergic to most normal pets) and I had baby mice for a while as pets. I kept them in a big glass aquarium and they always died really easily. Which is why I don't understand how these apartment mice are such survivors. Are New York mice just some sort of hardcore breed that just live in your apartment and there is nothing you can do about it?!?! Is that going to be a part of my life here in NY? Coexisting in the the same household as mice? They don't pay rent! They don't even make you cool dresses! NO BUENO!

I have a job!!!

So this morning I received a call from the woman I have been in contact with at TeacherCare, who has been putting all of my paperwork together, welcoming me!! So yea...I have a job, sort of, I still need to get set up with a family. But she said that she would soon be sending me profiles of families to look over, and once I decide on some I can start interviewing with them. I do really like that i get to pick the families to interview with. It is nice to know that I have a good amount of control over my work situation! But the families still have to like me when I go over to meet them! I will get info ahead of time about their child/ren and then I am supposed to make up sort of a sample lesson plan to show them that pertains to their child's needs and interests. Anyhow, that is the news for now, more later when I find out about the families!

Updates Continued

Monday morning we went to look at another apartment in the same building of the one bedroom that we lost....this one is a two bedroom, but a bit more than what we were planning on spending, however it is still a really great deal for a 2 bedroom in Manhattan, SO...we went to see it and we like it a lot! The kitchen and bathroom are teeny tiny, but the bedrooms and living room are a good size, so we decided we wanted to take it!! We told the landlord and offered to put down money, which he said we did not need to do and that he would call YESTERDAY OR TODAY to get the lease paperwork together, BUT HE DID NEITHER!!!! and so now we are a bit impatient/worried....(why didn't he call?!? does he not like us?!?) hopefully he will call tomorrow, I will let y'all know what happens.....

Also, today I had my interview and it seemed to go fairly well....basically they need to run a background check on me and check my references and then I can begin interviewing with families. I was told that the whole process can take around 1-3 weeks. I am hoping for closer to one because I need an income STAT!!!

Updates Galore!!!!

Oh man, it has been almost a week since I have written anything on here and a lot has happened!!
Where do I start???
okay...the weekend....
Friday: Lo and I went over to Astoria Queens where my cousin Liana and her husband Darren live. We went to lunch at a yummy Greek restaurant and then went into the city to see a play the Darren was in entitled "And We All Wore Leather Pants." Probably one of the most unique plays I have ever seen, and very funny too!! Plus it had a good mix of old classic rock, which makes everything awesome!
All and all it was a very fun evening spending time with my cousin! She and her husband are very fun and entertaining!

Saturday:
Went to lunch with my friend Jess, and then she showed me around the area of the city were she works, which has a bunch of cool, but out of my price range, little shops and cafes. It was a pretty mellow day.....

Sunday:
Went to a church called The Journey that Muna's roommates go to. It is really important to me to find a church here in NY. I liked this church but I think I need to go a few more times to figure out if it is the one for me. One thing I really liked is that they have focus groups that you can get involved in, which is a great way to get to know people in the city, and they are starting a new series of reading the New Testament with your group, which would be really great for me because I am definitely a slacker when it comes to reading the Bible.....SO....I don't know, their are good things, but I am just not feeling 100% yet.....Then, after church Lo and I went to explore Central Park and stumbled along the skating rink...not ice, but ROLLER...and it was one of the most entertaining things I have ever watched. We watched for over an hour! There are some extremely funny characters out there, and we just hung out there and made up names and stories for all of them! It was great comedy. After, we found this little street fair with yummy food, and a few extremely expensive jewelry booths (BOO!) and a bunch of other random boring stuff (which Liana warned us we will see at every street fair), but there were a few booths selling cashmere scarfs (cute/soft/warm!) for only $8!! but sadly they only took cash and we didn't have any, so hopefully we will find them again at another one of NY's many street fairs!

My first "New Yorker" moment....

The other day Lo and I get off the subway and it is super crowded. Lo gets a few people ahead of me because I get stuck behind this huge tall guy with a giant umbrella who is just meandering all over the place in front of me and I just cannot get around him! I go one way, he goes that way, then I go back the other way, and then he goes that way too, and he is sticking out is big giant arm with the crazy long umbrella so I can't get past that either! I look up and see Lo is half way up the stairs already! So, I work up my nerve and somehow make a quick maneuver and manage to get one foot ahead of him and then I give him a nudge and push my way by and then I hear him mumble something about "oh geez, these New Yorkers...." hehe!!