Thankful for Friday

Last night was a blast!

After work, I went to a local bar with two girls from Urban for a few drinks.  It felt so nice to get out with friends and build relationships with them both.  We had a great time chatting about the crazy customers we get at work, school, our boyfriends, and other usual girl talk.

Not to mention, the bar really reminded me of a bar in Brooklyn that my friends and I used to frequent.  Made me feel right at home.   : )

I can honestly say that I'm making some good friends here in Boston now, and for that I'm thankful.


Hope y'all have a great pre-Thanksgiving weekend!

In One Week..

...I will be in North Carolina with my family for Thanksgiving!  I am soooo very excited to be able to go to my Dad's new house and see his whole side of the family.  All my aunts, uncles, and (most of my) cousins will be there for the holiday-Grandma is even coming up from Florida! Yay!

The last time we were all together was in 2005, for Christmas.  That was before my Grandpap passed away and before more babies were brought into the family and before my brother even hit puberty.  Here's a quick flashback:

My oh-so-handsome Dad

Most of the cousins with Grandma & Grandpap

Matching sunglasses at Gap

My adorable Grandpap and his favorite bread

We all had a wonderful time together then, and I'm sure we are all bound to have a great time together now.  I'm counting down the days!

Weekend Recap

Well guys,  I must say this weekend was pretty awesome.  The main reason?  I finally met up with my friend RJ!

When Guillermo and I first moved here to Boston, I tried to get in touch with RJ just about every other day so we could get together.  After all, he is one of only 2 people in this city I knew upon moving here.  Week after week, we couldn't arrange a meeting so we both just forgot/gave up.

Cut to Thursday night when he asked what I was going to be doing Friday-which I had off from work.  That meant we got to finally hang out!  I met him and some of his friends at a restaurant downtown called Papagayo.  It's Mexican and delicious and they make some bangin' margaritas.  We ate there, then headed back to his apartment so we could all relax and chat.  RJ has a hookah that he fired up and we all had a great time getting to know each other.

The two friends that I got to know the most that night, Catie (featured in the picture) and Ben, are both friends of RJ's from their church.  Since I've been looking for a church to go to here in Boston, they invited me to join them on Sunday and explained to me that the 4 o'clock service is the contemporary one so I would feel the most comfortable there.  I decided to go for it and met RJ at the church yesterday and had a great time!  They played my favorite song and I met a bunch of new friends.  I'm definitely going to try to make it my routine every Sunday now.

What about you guys?  How was your weekend?

Thankful for Friday

Today, I am thankful for people's generosity and willingness to help others.  Let me explain:

One of the blogs I like to follow is Project Little Smith.  It's about an architect-turned mother and the life of her adorable baby boy.  As I was flipping through her photos, I realized a lot of them looked familiar so I looked into where they live.  Turns out, they live in Boston!  Mama Smith still does freelance jobs here and there, but her husband (Papa Smith) is still a working architect in the area.  When I found all this out, I figured hey what the heck-I've got nothing to lose-so I emailed her asking if she knew of anyone hiring.

Well.

Yesterday, I got an email response from her husband saying he forwarded my information to the hiring committee at his firm, and I should be hearing back from them in 2-4 weeks.  I also got an email back from Mama Smith saying she forwarded my resume to multiple firms that she knows are hiring.

This just goes to show there are people out there that are genuinely nice and willing to help others!  I'm doing everything I can now to get myself out there more and network and not be afraid because as I said before-I've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain!


PS - Tonight I am going to meet up with one of my friends that I met studying in Copenhagen, RJ.  We haven't seen each other in over 2 years, so I'm so excited to catch up with him! (And he works at an architecture firm here in Boston as well!  I'll be meeting some of his work buddies too...definitely bringing some cards with me!)

'Tis The Season

...to start panicking about what to get people for Christmas!  With the weather turning cold (it's actually been snowing here all afternoon!) I have been thinking a lot about how to prepare for the holiday season.

Of course I would like to attempt at decorating our apartment, just a little bit.  There is no room for a tree at all, but I may snatch up one of the small fake ones we sell at Urban and try to make it...not so ugly.  Some crafty, handmade ornaments and some spray paint may be all I need to make it cheap-chic.  Aside from that, we don't really have a mantle or anything to decorate so I'm kinda drawing a blank on what to do, but I want to do SOMETHING.  Any ideas would be a great help.

When it comes to gifts I really only have one idea for my step-dad, and that's only because he blatantly pointed it out while he was here a few weeks back.  He found a pair of pint glasses he likes a lot and I plan on doing a little beer tree for him to go along with the glasses.  The tree would be like this (except it would be Bud Light, of course):

Aside from that, I'm clueless for gift ideas!!  I definitely want to start buying gifts ASAP so I don't drop a huge amount of money at once.  Just need to figure out what to buy.....

Next Project.

We desperately need a rug for our living room.  It's hardwood floors, and we have a hardwood coffee table that doesn't match the wood on the floors and it slides all over the place, which drives me bonkers.

When I say we desperately need a rug, that's probably not really true, but I'm allowed to be dramatic every once in a while.  I would just really, really like one because I think it would bring us one step closer to having a real, grown-up apartment.

Thankful for Friday

This week, I am thankful for my Thursday night and here's why:

As you know, I am looking for a job at an architecture firm.  (I'll take any help I can get!) Well, I talked to my friend Hai last week and he suggested I look up the AIA chapter here in Boston, which I did and I found out its called the Boston Society of Architects.  Turns out they have an exhibition space downtown, and Thursday night they had an author speak about his book Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next, and about urbanism and global growth in general.  It was a very interesting lecture and it was nice to be in a room of creative-thinking people again.  

The real reason I went in the first place was to 'get out there' in the architecture world and network, and it seemed to work to some degree.  I met a woman named Katrina, who is a teacher here in Boston after graduating from Columbia in 2007 for architecture (I think).  She offered to put my name out there wherever she can and suggested that I email her my resume so she can then forward it to friends.  I am immensely thankful for her willingness to help me and hopefully we can keep in touch.  If she doesn't help me find a job, I may have at least made a new friend!