A week in the Hamptons

After a week in the Hamptons with 4 kids, I'm preparing to go back to the city tomorrow morning.  It's amazing to think about how two completely different places are only a two hour Jitney ride apart. My lives in the two places are also completely different. In Quogue, I am responsible for four kids 24/7, and in the city I am responsible only for myself. Pretty soon the worlds will collide, when the family I'm working for moves back to the city to begin school.

Driving over to the beach in the topless Jeep wrangler.

Quogue itself is absolutely beautiful. It's like a model town, complete with a miniature library, post office, and a market! The town is very green with large trees and lots of grass...very refreshing after being in the city for a week. The beach is wonderful as well, and most days the high has been in the 80s with low humidity.  Other than some rain at the beginning of the week, the weather has been delightful.

The beautiful beach.

Quogue Field Club

Lovely family pool and hot tub.

Being a nanny for four kids is far more work than I expected. I was thinking about the situation, and I realized that most parents start with one child, and learn as they go along.  I did not have this option. With this job, I "inherited" four children all at once, at the age of 23.  It is lots of responsibility, and at times challenging. This week, I've gone to bed around 10 pm every night, absolutely exhausted. The kids are great though, and I'm quickly learning how to be very domestic. When I have my own children, I should be exceptionally prepared. 

I'm so lucky to have Alex, the family's current nanny here in Quogue as well. She has been here all week, thank goodness! Throughout the week she taught me the kids' favorite recipes, showed me how the family operates, and shared her words of wisdom about the job. We have become great friends as well, and have had lots of fun talking and getting to know each other when the kids were occupied. 

What a Week!

Karen Olivo and me after our masterclass.

After spending a week in a musical theatre workshop, I am more excited than ever to be here. From 10-6 every day the past week, I studied acting, musical theatre and auditioning with some very successful artists here in New York. It was so refreshing to meet wonderful, professional artists who are also wonderful people! I was amazed at how kind and humble my instructors were, despite their impressive resumes.

My friend Kayla and me with one of our favorite instructors, Jody Langel.

Additional highlights from the week included seeing a Fringe Show in the East Village, seeing one of the final performances of South Pacific at Lincoln Center, and catching up with friends from Carolina.

Will and I found the dessert truck in the East Village!

I think I'm going to like it here.

Yesterday and today, we finally finished unpacking and decorating my room! Everything has a specific place, and I really love my cozy little quarters! I have decided the key to making a small room work is planning ahead.  After measuring my room in June, I spent hours drawing floor plan after floor plan until I came up with the one that best utilized 8x12 feet of space. Knowing where each piece of furniture would go made moving in significantly easier, and surprisingly the room seems bigger with my furniture in it than it did when it was empty!

The floor plan that I brought from home.

Bookcase etc.

My pink and green bed.

My dresser.

  

Now that the room is all set up, and the apartment is clean, the parents and I have been able to enjoy the city. We strolled around the neighborhood yesterday, and bought some beautiful roses. $8 for two dozen roses was such a steal! We decided roses were the only thing in New York that are cheaper than North Carolina. Last night we saw "Next to Normal," which was absolutely fantastic, and this morning we attended 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church for the first time. I am so excited to go back, and learn more about what seems like a great church! After lunch at the Central Park Boathouse, we came back to the apartment for a few adjustments, including installing the new air-conditioner. We had been putting off this task, after the epic fail on Thursday, but it is now installed and the apartment feels cooler than ever. Yay for Frigidaire! 


I am so happy with my new home, and the weeks ahead in my favorite city! 

Starting to feel like an Upper East Sider...

Friday was another productive day filled with more New York discoveries:

1. There is now a Target in Manhattan.  One of the top five things I was going to miss about North Carolina has followed me to the city. Thank goodness. Now we just need Chic-fil-a.

2. At the three-story Bed, Bath and Beyond at 60th and 1st, they have a doorman to carry your bags out of the store and hail a cab for you. They also have a cart lift. Both were exciting!

3. There is now a Shake Shack on the Upper East Side.  The line was 40 people out the door at 9pm.

4. Bed Risers are a beautiful thing. My clothes fit in my apartment now, thanks to the nifty risers we purchased!

5. My neighborhood is so dog friendly! There are cafes (ie: Fetch) that are dog-themed, and dogs walk in stores with their owners all the time. Some stores even have "Canine Carts."

Dad hanging pictures!

The apartment is coming together nicely, and my room should be finished today! The parents and I had a busy and exhausting day as we continued to move and unpack, but it was not without fun and laughter.  We had a delicious dinner with friends at Bella Cucina!

At dinner, William insisted
on diced tomatoes in his pasta.
The waitress brought him his
very own tomato to dice himself. :)

So much fun with two of my favorites!

It's up to you, New York New York

Dad parking the truck on Lexington Avenue.

The past 36 hours have truly been a whirlwind. After a fun dinner with friends on the Upper West Side on Wednesday night, and a wonderful breakfast with my UNC Ballet teacher on Thursday, the moving began. My parents arrived with the Penske around 10 on Thursday. Seeing my sweet dad parallel park the truck on Lexington Ave, while a grouchy business owner yelled at us for blocking his store with our truck, was a reminder of what awesome parents I have. 

Lonny, one of the movers, looked like
Raymond Felton

After some serious cleaning of the baseboards and windowsill in my room, and the installation of a powerful air-conditioner in the living room, the movers arrived. The movers and my family carried everything from the truck up to my second floor apartment; I could not have been happier to only live on the second floor instead of the fifth or sixth!

Dad is so handy!

The entire day was spent unpacking, assembling furniture, and settling into my new home. A friend came over late last night to help out, and while we were taking cardboard and packing supplies up to the garbage room on the 8th floor (Yes, in my building we dispose of trash upstairs...I don't understand yet), there was an accident with the the living room air-conditioner. Thank goodness it was in a window over a small alleyway where nobody walks, and no one was hurt. The air-conditioner was hurt though, or destroyed rather, so finding a new one in New York at the end of the summer season is our first goal for this morning.

This is the AC cord.
The other pieces lie in the alleyway below.

About 1am, B.and I decided it was time for ice cream.

I am about two-thirds finished with the unpacking as of now, and my body feels like I've taken at least four BodyPump classes at the gym. I'm looking forward to finishing all of the moving today so I can relax and rest up over the weekend!

NYC... Just got here this morning!

After a smooth flight, and two hellacious hours of navigating the subway from JFK to the Upper East Side, I'm here in Manhattan. The apartment looks great except for my empty room. That will all change tomorrow though when the truck arrives!

For now, here are some pictures of my apartment!

our kitchen

our living room

My 8x12 room...cozy.

"So I crammed my life in a U-Haul to find my part of it all"

The title of this post, my first post, comes from the song "A Way Back to Then" from Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell's musical, [title of show]. I thought it was only fitting, as I just closed the back of the moving truck, and am getting ready to sit down for my last family dinner in North Carolina.

I took my first trip to New York when I was fifteen, and I vividly remember deeming it the best place in the world; I told my parents that I would, without a doubt, live there when I grew up.  Thought I may or may not be "grown up" now, I'm heading to the Big Apple, and I could not be more excited.

Let me explain a bit about the title of my Blog. My name is not Marcy, so I'm sure a lot of you are somewhat confused. My senior year of college, I played a girl named "Marcy" in a musical, which took place in New York City. Marcy was quite different from me, and so my housemates decided it was the perfect name for my alter ego.  What started as an occasional joke soon became a nickname, and so I thought it was an appropriate alias for my New York Blog.

Today, Dad, Brother and I loaded up the Penske (we actually are driving a Penske, not a U-Haul as the title of this post would imply), and tomorrow the journey will begin.

Don't worry, I was only pretending to drive the truck. 

Dad and I packing the truck in the lovely North Carolina humidity.

Brother and I tried to sneak our puppy in the truck, but decided she was happier in the South.