commuter-ing

i still have posts about new york. technically, i still have posts about our fourth of july trip to boston... since i never did any. it seems kind of lame to put them up since i'm back home again, but they are just lurking half written in my posts folder and i think it would drive me crazy to delete them. so here we go.

martha is almost on the river in west chelsea. the commute wasn't too bad though. one block to the train, 5 stops to times square, transfer, 2 stops to 28th, and then walk 4 avenues. when i left in the morning i would hum to martha to martha to eat like a pig... strange? yes. and now i can't remember the words to the real rhyme. i usually read my scriptures on the way down and a novel on the way back. i finished a few books on my phone this way, and the strangest was dracula. kind of twisted. and super strange reading about men eating flies and sucking blood while you're riding the subway with some sketchy people...

the daily journey:

start in harlem - hop on the train - grab a seat - times square transfer - emerge from the subway - martha greeted me everyday. so thoughful, right? - a pretty church - chelsea school. cue to plug my nose because ten steps later it always smelled like sour milk - the highline... getting closer - a sliver of the building - hooray! made it! - the entrance.

poster giveaway!

this is my really talented friend from high school, rachael. she paints, knits, photographs and makes jewelry. today, she is giving away three of my prints. all you have to do is head on over to her blog and leave a comment.

keeping it close to home

we're back from new york! more updates on that later. things have been craaaaaaaaazy around here.
let's blame these two kids.

they got engaged last week and they are so perfect for each other. yay for lara and bryce! and we love to make weddings as insane as possible around here. i got married the week after jess got home from her mission. jess got married the weekend before jenny reported to the mtc for her mission. and now, jenny is coming home from argentina on the eleventh, lara is getting married on the fourteenth, and jeff is leaving on the nineteenth. that's what my parents get for having seven kids in ten years :)

bryce is great. he is super nice, funny, and fits into the criteria of living within 15 minutes of my parents house. see?

it's really amazing. and bonus points for angie since she grew up around the corner and we played american girls together when we were little. it must be something in the lindon/pg water...

moment of glory

yesterday, my face was on martha's blog. that's all.

studio tour

unfortunately, i'm not allowed to take any pictures of the studio space. there are new products and future magazine layouts everywhere and they don't really want premature internet debuts.

fortunately, an article came out today about working at martha. with photos! hooray!

and now, i will be your official tour guide.

the office takes up one and half floors of the starrett lehigh building in west chelsea. each floor is an entire city block. it's huge. and there are hundreds and hundreds of windows. everything is white, white, white. i have personally seen people walking around with white paint cans touching things up. they keep it pristine.

this is the only two story part of the offices. they have lunch vendors here, and there are usually lots of products set up for test displays.

this would be your typical row. i sit on such a row. the second seat in, on the left. on the verrrrry east side of the building. it's a hike in the mornings from the elevators.

this is gael towey's office. she's the chief creative officer/director/head honcho. it's only a couple rows down from where i sit. she's really nice. all the directors/editors/department heads have cool glass offices.

kevin sharkey's office. sort of amazing in person. the books! look at them!

a test kitchen. there are three total. i will severely miss the test kitchens and my close proximity to where they put the extra food.

the roof. it's the perfect spot to eat lunch. there are also three photo studios, the prop studio, the crafts room... loads of things. it's a really big place and it's pretty easy to wander. i really love this place.

by the time you read this, i will be in a sugar coma.

yesterday was one of those really great days. i'm close to finishing a lot of projects at work. i finally introduced mike to bottino, the place where most of my daily $20 stipend is going (sidenote: ang and i found a copycat of their delicious watermelon-strawberry lemonade and she posted the recipe here) mike and i hung out on the pier after work until we met up with klane and ang for some fire-cooked pizza at ovest. we walked the highline twice in one day (it's prettiest at sunset). and then. then we partook of a fabulous joke called a donut sandwich.

things quickly got out of control once we started ordering. first, they take a doughnut and slice it like a bagel. next, they have you pick 3 kinds of ice cream to stuff inside. 3?!?! we burst out laughing. each step after that we lost it again. now we add icing? bahahahaha. and as many toppings as we want? bahahahaha. we could barely stop laughing to tell them what to do next. there has to be some six year old kid in the back running the whole show, who else would have thought of this?

ang and i split one while the boys each got their own heart-attack inducing version. this is our masterpiece: cheescake, red velvet cake batter, and some other ridiculous flavor of ice cream topped with chocolate icing, rainbow sprinkles, crushed oreos, and mini m&ms for a nice touch of crunch.

mike's creation.

and then we ate it. we sat outside in bright green lawn chairs and stuffed our faces, much to the pleasure/surprise/disgust of everyone walking by.