Looking forward to fall!

A lot of people are very upset about summer being officially over. Apparently everyone considers Labor Day to be the unofficial end of the season. While I am also sad about this, I thought I should write a post about the things I am looking forward to for my first fall/winter in NYC! There are so many parts that I love about September-December - I want to focus on that instead of the fact that my swim suits will probably not see the light of day for the next 8 months (moment of silence for that, please). And there are other things that are happening right now that I am excited about, too!

• My adult swim team is starting tomorrow. I started swimming with the team during last season, but we just had a 2 week break while they cleaned the pool. Now this season is starting up again tomorrow night and I cannot wait to FINALLY get back into shape. AND to compete at meets!
• Moving into and decorating my new apartment. I've talked about how I am currently living in the building of my next place, but we are moving to the unit exactly 5 floors below us. In a week we will be all done with that and will just have to put the finishing touches on decorating and such! Very excited for this headache to be over (and to not have to be sleeping on a blowup mattress every night).

• Football season! I. LOVE. FOOTBALL. I know a lot of people like college football, which I do too, but my college team WAS AWFUL, so I gravitate more to the NFL. Football is my favorite sport, and I am excited for my first season as a New York Giants fan! Though the Chicago Bears will always hold a special place in my heart, I gotta get with this NYC sports camaraderie!

• Seeing what is going to happen with this guy...I've been hanging out/talking with this guy for a little bit now. He's so awesome (I've written about him before) and I am excited to see what happens with us! Still not looking for anything super serious at this point in my life, but it will be fun to just hang out and get to know each other better :) Big smiley face for that one!
• Halloween. It will be my first Halloween in NYC!! I've had some costume problems in the past (ie - I put on a teal dress with a black belt and called myself a crayon) but this season I want to be so much better and go all out with my costumes! Ahh I need to start looking into different parties at clubs and bars and such to see how my friends and I will celebrate this crazy fun day/weekend.
• TV shows resuming. Now that I have a TV again, I am really looking forward to some of my favorite shows starting up again! The shows I keep up on are Parks and Rec (actually watching a marathon of it right now that's on this FXX channel I just discovered), Modern Family, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and Workaholics. But now I will probably be watching a lot more shows because one of my roommates works in TV production. 
• Fall fashion. I love fall and winter fashion. The coats are so cute, and a great pair of skinny jeans makes me incredibly happy. All the fashion trends are great for this coming season, and I can't wait for the weather to change so we can all take full advantage!
• Holidays in NYC. Saved the best for last - SPENDING THE HOLIDAY SEASON IN NEW YORK CITY! This is probably going to be one of my favorite things about living here. I'm already planning going to the Rockefeller Center tree early in the morning to beat the tourists. And OBVI I'm going to participate in SantaCon (been counting down the days to that since I saw all the pics of it last year). It's going to be awesome!

So beautiful! What's not  to love about this?!

So, if you're really sad about summer being over, I am definitely with you on that one. But just think of all the fun that's to come! I'm so excited for the last part of 2013 :)

<3, Charlotte

I like him :)

Alright, I promised an update about the guy that I saw on Saturday night (I mean, the whole thing made it to the peak of my week - there's some good stuff there!). Here it is:

I went to get drinks with Kristy and Chloe before going out. Our friend had bought a table at a club in Midtown, so we wanted to drink a little beforehand. The guy that I was going to meet up with was going out in Murray Hill that night, so we wanted to stop by and say hi for a few minutes and then head to the other club. (For all I knew, this guy could be a total WEIRDO! I hadn't seen him in over 2 months and I had no idea what his deal was.)

He texted me that they were at Joshua Tree (known to be the DOUCHIEST bar in
the neighborhoodall of Manhattan). I didn't know what to expect. We go into the bar and I saw him from a distance. I didn't really know what to do - should I just go up and say hi? Should I take 10 shots beforehand? I was having a slight mental breakdown.

Where the magic happened...Joshua Tree.

Kristy and Chloe went to the bathroom to give me time to say an initial "hello" and kinda scope out the situation. I decided to just go for it.

I walked up to him and tapped his shoulder. He turned around and I gave a little "hey!". A grin spread across his face and he gave me a hug. We started talking and literally didn't stop the entire night (aside from when we were dancing, of course ;)). It worked out well because Kristy and Chloe hung out with his friends that were at the bar too - Kristy ended up staying out with them until 4am! I feel bad, we didn't go to our friend's table at the club, but this was definitely a better decision.

Anyway, he was just like I remembered him. But better. Literally so so so nice and incredibly fun - I can't believe that it took us this long to meet again! And today Chloe told me that all of his friends kept telling her how nice he was and how he was such a good guy (I would call bullshit on that, but he went to high school with one of my friends from college who said literally the EXACT SAME THING about him).

Obviously he ended up coming back to my apartment and staying the night (sparing some details here :)). I wasn't sure if that was all he was looking for though. I've said this before, but I really don't want something serious right now in my life. So even if he only wanted something for that night, I would be okay with that - I had A LOT of fun.

But yesterday afternoon (he left my place in the morning to go home to Jersey to go to church), he texted me asking how my day was. AND we talked all day today. We both told each other how we don't really like texting, so that's a pretty big deal for both of us.

Soooo yea. He is great. I am so happy with the situation right now - for now I don't want it to get too serious, especially us being so young and just entering the real world. But there is definitely something awesome there between us. I don't want to let this go, at least for the moment. :)

Could I use ANY MORE smileys in this post? :)

<3, Charlotte

Pit and Peak: week of 8.12.13

Soooo much to be happy about this week! Obviously have to do the low point and high point so here it goes:

Pit: The pit of this past week for me was Wednesday. I was EXHAUSTED and at the end of the day, all I wanted was for my mom to pick me up from work, drive me home, do my laundry, and feed me. Of course she cannot do that since my family still lives in Chicago, and I am a real person now so it's time to accept those responsibilities. UGH.

Peak: The peak of my week was definitely LAST NIGHT. My friends and I met up with this boy that I have been talking to that I met my first night out in NYC. I wasn't sure how that would go because I hadn't seen him in over 2 months and I was pretty drunk the first time when we met, so who knows if that was worth pursuing. But it ended up being totally AMAZING and he is SO COOL! I'll write more about it in another post. But ahhhh literally last night was the perfect night :)

An overall GREAT week! Let's hope next week is just as good, or better! (Which it will be since I'm going to start moving into my new apartment!!!)

<3, Charlotte

About a boy

SoOoOo dreamyyyy

Yes, I copied this post title from that movie with Hugh Grant. Yes, this post is about a boy. No, I am not looking to be tied down in a relationship at this point in my life. (See this post for my current thoughts about that)

So why am I writing this post?

I am actually not entirely sure! So I met this guy wayyyy back when at my first work happy hour at the beginning of the summer. Some of you may have read that post, but to fill everyone in, he works in NYC but lives in New Jersey. He went to a college in NYC so he tends to not come back during weekends (actually, he has never been back during a weekend now that I think about it). I can understand that, 4 years of this city would be a lot, everyone is entitled to take a break!

The thing is, I haven't seen him since that happy hour! I am not a big texter - I get frustrated with how long it takes to type stuff out, and I would just prefer to talk to someone in person. So we don't text that much, just a couple times a week to basically check in and see how each other is doing. He is also bad at texting, which for some reason falls under "my type". If a guy is good at texting, I consider that a warning sign.

Save the date for Saturday!

But anyways, it apparently was his birthday last night (which I found out when he let me know that he was in the city for it). But I had just finished up with swim practice and needed to take care of some personal housekeeping stuff, so I couldn't see him.

We just always miss each other on timing, our work schedules don't work well together either! We have also invited each other to various happy hours over the summer, but, not surprisingly, the timing has always been off.


Since I'm not looking for anything serious right now, I am keeping this on the backburner. I don't get upset when things don't work out because I know that when the timing is right, I'll see him again. :) We got along reallyyyy well, there was something there for sure. I need to see him again in person to properly assess.

Supposedly he will actually be in NYC this Saturday and we are going to see each other for a little...we will see if that actually works out!

<3, Charlotte

Yoga, chocolate, and wine anyone?

Yoga + Wine = AMAZING

My friend Kristy had a work event at a yoga studio - they were going to do yoga and sample wine and chocolate. Her bosses both couldn't make it so she invited me to come along. OBVI I wasn't going to say no to that.

It honestly just shows you how crazy your days can be when you enter the real world. I mean, THANK GOODNESS I wore a comfortable dress with leggings to work today or I wouldn't be dressed and ready to do some yoga!

We got there and the yoga was great - I had only done hot yoga before so this was much more enjoyable. And then after we sampled a bunch of chocolate by the company that the yoga instructor's friend had founded. A glass of wine went with each specific chocolate. It was an amazing night. Most relaxing yoga session I had ever been to if I do say so myself!

So yea, that's what I'm home from now. A little tipsy not going to lie. But today was a very, very good day. :)

PS - I may have a new boyyyy!! Updates possibly to come, haven't decided if he's worth writing about yet...

<3, Charlotte

The best work happy hour there ever was

Apparently the company I work for has a happy hour every Friday. And by "happy hour", I mean all drinks are free. As many as you want. All free.

Yesterday's happy hour was obviously my first, and it was at a German beer house in Midtown West. IT WAS AWESOME. One of the other new hire girls I got lunch with the other day, let's call her Kristy, went with me (both of our departments weren't going, but we didn't want to turn down FREE DRINKS). We ended up having suchh a good time! We got to meet a lot of people we had never seen before, and we both got a free liter of beer on top of it.

This is the size of the beer we got. WOWZA

Some of my coworkers all decided to order shots, so that was crazy, when all of a sudden this guy walks up next to me to watch these questionable life choices that were being made. I started to make small talk with him - after all, I was here to meet more coworkers, and he seemed nice. I asked him what department he was working in at the agency and he looked at me and said "oh, no, I don't work here. I actually work at a bank but this looked a lot more fun than the table I was sitting at, so I decided to check it out."

We ended up talking for awhile. He would leave and go back to his work thing and then come back to hang out a little. We surprisingly hit it off really well! When I was leaving, he took down my number and texted me later that night on his way home (bummer, he lives at home in New Jersey, so he didn't stay the night in the city). Not sure what will result from it, but I'm curious to see! (Kristy even noticed how well we got along and talked with me about it later that night)

If this is how a typical work happy hour is, then I cannot WAIT to go to more!

<3, Charlotte

First work week in review

Work is AWESOME! It was kinda a slow day yesterday, so I used the time to complete these tutorial courses that we have to do within the first month of employment. I'm really liking learning everything and am excited for another "slow" day in my department so I can reach out and help other departments and really get my face and name out there!

Also, I've made friends with some girls who are my age and had their first days with me (yes, they saw my whole skirt-debacle). We got lunch yesterday. It is so great to have "work friends"!

An e-card is necessary for this happy hour occasion!

Something incredibly cool is that we have a "work happy hour" tonight. It starts at 5:30 and I think is sponsored by a company we work with. It's at a bar a few blocks away from the office! I just need to stick with 1 beer an hour - my tolerance is SUPER low and I do NOT want to make a fool of myself in front of some pretty important people!

So yea, first work was fabulous. And living in NYC knocks my socks off with how exciting it is. Everyone is always going. I could not have made the better choice!

<3, Charlotte