12.26.2013

Christmas season in Queens, personal finance, Seaport memories

This was the scene I drove home to, after picking up all the fixings for a hot pot dinner with my parents. Hot pot is one of those things that I grew up associating with festivities and celebration, and I am always excited for it. Christmas day has such potential for being bittersweet as it wraps up the holiday season, but it was a great one, filled with furniture moving - something my mom loves to do - and random Netflix movies. 

I will be moving home in February as my lease ends and Kev and I continue our apartment search. It will be nice to return the this quiet neighborhood I grew up in. I can do all of the things that there are to do - go to the corner diner, shop the 99 cent stores, get a really inexpensive mani-pedi, take the bus to the mall, walk to the yarn store and the drugstore and the library. 



I took the below picture whilst in the thick of the season, Dec 12th. After a dinner with friends at Mission Cantina, Kev and I stopped at Irving Farm Coffee so that we could wait for our cab in the warmth and look out of its huge windows. By chance an old J.Crew coworker walked by and we said hello via text after the fact as neither of us had the energy nor conviction to enter/exit the shop. It made me miss so much the South Street Seaport store that Sandy closed down. That store and those people were such a support for me when I was lost after the fashion job, and when I slogged through those last, worst months at Bank of America.

2013 will be the first tax year in which I only submit 1 W-2. I think that means stability.




I spent all of my December Saturdays at the LIC Flea & Food's Holiday Market, which was held in a huge warehouse on 46th Ave that had weird industrial lighting and was unable to retain heat. Despite the pitfalls of the space, the market was all the things I wanted it to be: fun, tiring, stressful, busy. To top it off the food vendors there were great, and the place often smelled of buttery pie crust from the offerings of Hand Pie, which sold hand-held servings of chicken pot pie, my favorite. We sold my mom's crocheted baby shoes and sweaters, and I made a couple of random things like bracelets and pocket squares to squeeze on the table. We were successful despite the high entrance fee of $175/day (Brooklyn Flea goes as low at $60 a day), and we moved a lot of stuff that had been piling up at home. The shoppers loved my mom's work, and so many friends (even coworker friends!) stopped by to support us. It was amazing. Even though I spent most of the 9-6 days wearing a puffer and gloves, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.



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