Jersey Shore!

Monday afternoon my Tio Marty and I drove up to Jersey (My Tio Martin’s boss and long time friend has a beach house located on the Jersey Shore). It was about an hour and 15 minute drive outside of the city so it was a fun little road trip in which many tunes were sung, or to put it more adequately, jammed to! We put the song “Empire State of Mind” on repeat on my iPod and seriously jammed out to it at least 6 times! Have I mentioned how much I love this song!? ;) We arrived in “Highlands” a neighborhood located in Monmouth, the northernmost county on the Jersey Shore. I’ve been to this beach house before, but very briefly almost 4 years ago so my memory of it was vague. I don’t know how that is possible after seeing it on Monday. It is fabulous! Once in the gate, there is a narrow driveway uphill that leads you to a very quaint and beautiful home. The entire front of the house is glass windows and French doors that allow you to constantly see the wonderful view of the shore line. Even in the Winter the water and scenery was amazing! The house is rather large with 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, multiple sitting areas/TV rooms, and an awesome deck equipped with an area to barbeque and dine and of course, to top it all off, a hot tub. Talk about a summer beach house! ;) While my Tio watered the plants and did other “house-sitting” duties (his boss is on vacation so he’s been looking after the house) I explored and enjoyed the views. We also did laundry while we were there and watched some movies. It is such a quiet and tranquil place. I can’t quite explain it; just being there makes you more relaxed.

Side Note: If you’re wondering why we went all the way to Jersey to do laundry, there is a nice big washer and dryer at the house, which makes it easy to do large loads, especially bedding. Our apartment building has a laundry facility on the main floor, but considering it is a “community” laundry room, you might have to wait for other tenants to finish their load before you start yours, and the machines aren’t that big. So because of these reasons, every time a trip to Jersey is made, laundry goes too!

I woke up Tuesday with absolutely nothing on my calendar, which again is kind of nice, but is getting kind of awkward also. I am SO not used to having so much time on my hands! Even with small holiday breaks from school/work, I never had more than 3-4 weeks vacation. I have been in NYC for 2 weeks and although I’m enjoying waking up at whatever time I want and doing whatever I want, I am getting a little anxious about finding a job. I know I shouldn’t be. Every single one of you who is reading this and has been in the working world for a while is probably thinking that I am nuts, that I have the REST of my life to work so I should enjoy my time off. To all of you I say this; believe me, I AM enjoying my time off. However, I have always been a go-getter or a motivated individual so although not doing anything super important with my day is nice, it is also making me a little stir crazy. So to “cure” my craziness on Tuesday, I decided to clean/organize. When I arrived here, I didn’t really take the time to put everything in its rightful place (because there wasn’t one yet obviously); I just kind of lived out of my suitcase for a bit, and then eventually just put things wherever I put them for the time being. Considering I am a very organized person who has a “place” for everything, it was starting to drive me nuts. So, I spent all Tuesday afternoon cleaning and organizing the coat and linen closets at the apartment. I consolidated a lot of things and made everything much more organized, which created more space for my things. It not only took up some of my time, it gave me that feeling that I am here to stay. No more grabbing things out of my suitcase, now if I want to pick out an outfit, etc. I must go to “my” closet like any normal person. I was a little skeptical/timid about doing this when I first arrived because I didn’t feel like it was my place to reorganize things around the apartment considering it’s not mine. However, after being here 2 weeks and chatting with my Tio about how things could use some organization (his words, not mine), I took it upon myself to go for it, and I’m glad I did! I feel much better now (I’m a little OCD if you couldn’t tell) and he is grateful things are well-organized.

The other notable thing that happened on Tuesday was a phone call I received from the recruiter who I had a phone interview with last Thursday. She called to follow-up about a formal interview with the hiring manager at her company. I was very excited to receive this call because this is the one interview I had last week that I felt very good about and was more than interested in the opportunities available. I of course agreed to an interview Wednesday afternoon and it went great, so great that they asked me to come back on Thursday for a second round of interviews. Within 2 days I met with 3 VPs of the company and now it’s just a waiting game. I am hoping to hear something by Tuesday/Wednesday. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Thursday after my interview we made another trip out to the beach house in Jersey. We stayed the night and spent a nice relaxing Friday there. Just in case you’re wondering, My Tio’s job is very flexible this time of year. It is the slow season so he doesn’t work 40 hours a week and is able to work from home a lot. Business picks back up in the Spring so you probably won’t be reading about us taking little road trips up to Jersey during the week. It will have to be weekends if anything because he’ll be working more regular hours and I will HOPEFULLY have a job that unfortunately won’t allow me to spend my afternoons relaxing at the beach house. Although if someone knows of a job/company who allows that, please do tell! ;)

We of course got back from Jersey in time to make it the end of Happy Hour, which was fun as always. Afterwards we went to eat dinner with some friends at a really good Chinese restaurant and followed that by going to an Irish pub until the wee hours of the morning. Overall, it was fun night!

Well I’ve spent most of today (Saturday) being lazy so it’s about time I go jump in the shower and get ready for dinner. My Tio’s friends invited us over for dinner tonight so we’re headed to Brooklyn here soon. Should be a good time! I hope you all enjoy the weekend! :)