Insta-life

I see a lot of things & feel the need to immediately share them (or later-gram them) on instagram. Here's a few I want to share with you! Follow me at Rosamapose.

Halloween. I am Sookie.

Post-Sandy in Astoria.

UES

Dreaming for Christmas.

Wafels & Dinges, my Sunday tradition.

Coney Island love.

VIP at Irving Plaza on Tuesday!

That beautiful building turned BLUE!

Sleepwear Essentials

** I have been trying to get this post up for nearly a week, and was finally able to get to the café near my house for some Internet access! Yay!**

Since I spent the better part of three straight days in pajamas & comfy clothes around my apartment last week, I wanted to share a few of my favorite picks from around the web. When you're stuck inside that long, the last thing you want is to feel like a slob (especially when you can't stop eating homemade oreos!).

I like my PJ's to have clean lines (no overly baggy pieces, because I frequently end up cooking when I'm stuck inside) & soft, cozy materials. I'm also partial to my Uniqlo thermals, which are actually a men's XS-and super cheap! They're easy to throw on & layer when you have to leave the house. 

A cozy, neutral throw is essential to feeling comfy during a storm, & you can never go wrong with a sweet smelling candle to take your mind off your surroundings (like those same apartment walls...for three days). A silky romper can help you feel put together when you finally head to bed.

Romper, Journelle | Piped Pajamas Set, Shopbop | Jersey Separates, ASOS

Waffle Shirt & Pants, Bloomingdale's | Mohair Throw, Serena & Lily

French Terry Hooded Tunic, Shopbop | Diptyque Candle, Nordstrom

I'm hopeful this week will have a sense of normalcy to it, and on Friday I get to head down to DC to spend some time with my family, my mom & sister will be there the entire weekend!

xx

The Sandy Story, Part 2

I wanted to get an update out to everyone, especially while the last few days are still fresh on my mind (and I apologize for the short novel I'm about to subject you to). On Tuesday morning, I posted about the immediate effects of the storm on myself & my apartment. Since then, I have seen my neighborhood & made it into Manhattan (I am currently writing this from the office, as my Internet will be out at home for an unknown length of time). If you want to read about Sandy from the perspective of someone who had to evacuate, you can read my friend Jessica's story here.

After the storm initially passed on Monday (where we lost a tree in my yard, our awning, and temporarily our cable/Internet), Tuesday rolled around very quietly. Once I ventured outside, I discovered why: the power line we had watched go down during the storm and many others were laying in the street, along with a few trees & various branches. This meant they closed off some of the blocks around me and our usual loud traffic was unable to pass.

Tuesday morning, I took my camera and headed off in the direction of Astoria Park, a few blocks down the street from me. On the way, I passed more downed trees than I could begin to count. When the storm was on top of us, I assumed our tree went down because it was old & dead, and our awning came off because it was poorly attached-but Sandy was much more powerful than I had thought, and I really saw her wrath later in the day. Nearly all of the trees I came across were completely uprooted, and many pulled entire chunks of sidewalk or other trees up with them.

Once I found out I had to return to work on Wednesday, I headed to the grocery store with my roommate. After heading a few blocks up my street (also the direction of my subway station) we realized we had to navigate police & caution tape like they were an obstacle course, taking extra care not to step on the cables and wires that littered the street. Nearly all of my street, a main road in Astoria, is shut down east of the subway due to these wires-and this morning I discovered there are now police guarding large sections, meaning I had to walk two blocks down to get around the damage and to the train. A few blocks up my street, just off to the side, a huge and very much alive tree came down on two cars and blocked off two buildings. Branches and small trees litter every sidewalk. Several telephone poles are teetering precariously.

By Wednesday, I couldn't take being stuck inside any longer-especially without much of a connection to the outside world (cell service has been spotty, too). I attempted to head into work via limited bus service in my neighborhood, but traffic was gridlocked everywhere, possibly the worst trying to get out of Queens via the Queensborough Bridge which was naturally where my bus was headed. We made it about a mile of the six it takes to get to my office before most people got off and walked. I was going to have to transfer at the bridge anyways, so I hopped of the bus & headed for the plaza.

Once I got close, I realized there were mass amounts of people walking the pathway of the bridge as opposed to getting on a bus. Eyeballing the traffic told me that I'd get over the bridge faster by joining them. All told, it took me 3 hours to get the six miles from my apartment to my office just south of Times Square, and five of those were walked. My body has been howling in disagreement since as I was wearing flat boots with little support for my already injured hip & back. I'll spare you the rest of the drama once I arrived, but I did have a car take me home in a little under an hour at the end of the day. Luckily, my subway line is operating enough today for me to get in and out of the city safely and quickly.

Here's a few photos of what I saw & experienced in the last few days:

The front of my apartment/house. The window right above where the awning was is to my bedroom. 

Walking towards the park, I came across this house. The tree hit the top corner and then fell in the yard.

Walking to the store, we came across this HUGE tree that crushed one car, seen, and another up under the top branches on the other side of the street. It also completely blocked in two attached houses. You can also see how it decimated the sidewalk it was rooted in.

That same tree took out this power line, and snapped a telephone pole across the street-visible in the two photos below. 

What my street looks like right now. As you can see, every few blocks are blocked off from traffic, with an open block or two in between. By this morning, they had police monitoring the worst sections so people don't walk over wires (there are loose ones everywhere). The pole leaning in down the middle was weighted down by the fallen tree from before.

Same telephone pole as above, from closer to the tree.

Huge piles of branches litter the streets & sidewalks.

Walking over the Queensborough Bridge yesterday around 9:30am, with hundreds of others.

My thoughts are with everyone still recovering, & all the places that will never be the same, & as always with my city.

xx

Aftermath & Recovery, Part 1

This post is going to be a little dull and depressing, but hey, it's what's going on in my life right now.

I spent the last 2.5 days stuck in my apartment, with the worst of the storm hitting us around 8pm last night. We'd been listening to wind whip around for several hours, although we never had pouring rains. Our lights started flickering during my cookie baking adventures, but we seemed to be doing okay. About halfway through cookie baking, I heard a loud noise and looked out the window. The (already dead but still standing) tree right outside my kitchen window had fallen over in a huge gust of wind. At the same time, my roommate yelled from the front of our apartment.

The metal awning that had been attached maybe a foot below my bedroom window/above our front door had completely blown down in the same gust. As I was calling our super, our downstairs neighbor knocked & the awning blew up against our front gate-as evidenced below. 

We got everything secure and thankfully made it through without much other damage, although we lost cable & Internet for a while and had several more bouts of flickering lights. A power line also snapped about half a block up after glowing bright orange and sparking for several minutes.

Thankfully, this was the most excitement we had to deal with although I have many friends who were evacuated or dealt with flooding in their neighborhoods. I ventured out today and saw that a lot of trees around us not just splintered but were completely uprooted, several on top of houses or blocking entire streets. NYC isn't made to hold up under weather like this. I still can't get out of Queens, or even really my neighborhood, but life is slowly continuing.

xx

Homemade Oreos (+ a serious dose of cabin fever)

I got a little lazy yesterday after finding out I wouldn't be at work today (or, likely, tomorrow-thanks Sandy). I have a terrible case of cabin fever, and you'd think I'd be used to it after dealing with winter storms consistently throughout my childhood. Weirdly enough, I think living through four floods in Iowa since 1993 has made me oddly calm about everything going on right now, and I feel more annoyed at being shut in than anything else. Mostly I've been watching FAR too much TV & eating pretty much everything in my kitchen. 

I've made kale chips (twice), pasta, apple cinnamon pancakes for breakfast...next on my list? A favorite of mine-homemade oreos. I stumbled across the recipe when reading a blog earlier this summer & traced it to Smitten Kitchen, a fantastic site for everything delicious. Since we still have power, I'm about to go take advantage of it & whip these up...they're super easy and immensely popular with my roomies & friends. 

*photos & recipe via Smitten Kitchen

Homemade Oreos
Adapted from Retro Desserts, Wayne Brachman

Let’s talk about the sugar for a minute, shall we? This is a sweet cookie. A good, sweet cookie. Yet, if you think of an actual Oreos, the wafers are fairly un-sweet and actually on the slightly salty side, which contrasts with the super-sweetness of the filling bringing harmony, happiness, yada yada. If you want your cookie closer to that original, you can take out a full half-cup of the sugar. If you want to make the cookie by itself (as I did a while back for ice cream sandwiches), go ahead and use the full amount.

Makes 25 to 30 sandwich cookies

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups (155 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (45 grams, but cocoa weights can vary greatly) unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups (200 to 300 grams) sugar [see recipe note]
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks or 140 grams) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick or 55 grams) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup (50 grams) vegetable shortening
2 cups (240 grams) sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons (10 ml) vanilla extract

1. Set two racks in the middle of the oven. Preheat to 375°F.
2. In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.
3. Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough. Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.
4. To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy.
5. To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip, pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie. Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies have been sandwiched with cream. Dunk generously in a large glass of milk.

The above photo is from an earlier batch of mine...they didn't last long! I need a yummy dessert for this storm since I already finished all my ice cream.

I hope everyone on the East Coast is holding up alright! Thoughts are with all of you. 

xx