The audition job.

The difference between LA and New York is this:

L.A. = 1 audition every 2 weeks

New York = 2 auditions every 1 day

We've been here for 3 weeks and this is what I've auditioned for so far:

• Mrs. Warren's Profession (Broadway play)
• Fiddler on the Roof (Nat'l Tour)
• Arvada Center for the Performing Arts (Regional Theater in CO)
• Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (Regional Theater in OH)
• Perfect Harmony (new musical, off-off-Broadway)
• Phantom of the Opera (new musical adaptation, off-off-Broadway)
• NewYork.com Host (web videos)
• Oklahoma (Nat'l Tour)
• Karate Tango (new musical, New York Musical Theater Festival, potential Off-Broadway)
• Jekyll & Hyde (Regional Theater in Westchester)
• Man of La Mancha (Regional Theater in SC)

Not too shabby, eh? Ok, ok, so I haven't booked anything yet, but I figure it'll just take awhile to get the ball rolling, meet the right people and get seen enough times to be recognized.

In the meantime, I'm trying to find some dance classes to take (for a reasonable price - not easy to find!) to improve my mediocre dance skills.

Me =

Every other girl =

Hmmm. I definitely need to remedy that!

Another thing I've noticed is that you see the same people at EVERY audition. I'm not gonna lie, it kinda helps the psyche (i.e. my fragile ego) to know that no one else is booking jobs either.

Auditioning has become almost a full-time job, a daily routine I'm slowly getting used to.

1. Get up early.
2. Take subway to the audition location.
3. Sign up on the "un-official list".
4. Wait.
5. Come back at the appointed sign-in time.
6. Wait.
7. Make sure they either take the un-official list or sign up on the new list.
8. Wait.
9. Do your hair and/or makeup.
10. Wait.
11. Change into your audition dress and heels.
12. Wait.
13. When your name is finally called, give the monitor your headshot and resume (stapled of course).
14. Wait.
15. Get called to wait in a line of 10 people out in the hall.
16. Wait.
17. Walk in the audition room, sing your 16 bars (30 seconds), say "thank you" and leave.

Did I leave anything out? Probably. Did I mention it's a lot of waiting? I did? Oh, sorry.

I've had 3 callbacks already, so that's reassuring, and my goal is to book something by Christmas. Now it's just a numbers game and God's timing. Can't wait to see what's in store!

Buffalo Chicken Salad

Buffalo sauce is my current obsession.

We've had this salad twice in one week, and I could easily make it again, were I not out of lettuce. What is it about spicy food that just tickles my fancy? Jalapenos, Tapatio, red pepper flakes, cayenne... and please tell me you've discovered Sriracha?

About 2 years ago I discovered Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce. Prior to this, I had attempted to make my own buffalo wing sauce from scratch.  

Attempted.

It ended up tasting like a mixture of ketchup and vinegar. Which is pretty much what it was.

Ew.

Never again!

Then I found Frank's. And I'm never going back!

This salad is ridiculously easy to put together. Hence the obsession. I probably shouldn't even put this on a cooking blog.

Oh well! I own this place, and what I say, goes!

So there.

Buffalo Chicken Salad

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Servings: 2

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 chicken breasts, cooked and cut into strips
• Frank's Red Hot Buffalo Sauce, to taste
• mixed greens
• mushrooms, sliced
• 1 avocado, diced
• cherry tomatoes
• 1/2 cup pepper jack cheese, shredded
• Ranch dressing

Divide mixed greens, mushrooms, avocado, tomatoes and cheese onto 2 plates. In separate bowl, mix chicken strips with Frank's Buffalo Sauce using enough sauce to fully coat the chicken. Add chicken to top of salad mixture.

Drizzle Buffalo Sauce and Ranch dressing over salad.

Dig in! Feel free to add your own additions to this salad. I think some kernels of sweet corn or even some black beans could be good on this as well.

I think I'll be making Buffalo Chicken Salad again this week. If only I can get my hands on some lettuce...

The "After" Photos

Now you've seen the "before" photos, it's time for the "after"!! It's amazing how much a place feels so much more like home when you're surrounded by your actual stuff, and not piles and piles of cardboard boxes.

It took over a week to get everything put away and in its place, but we finally finished! And celebrated by going to Times Square and pretending we were tourists. Which we still kind of are. But shhh... don't tell anyone!

Ready for the big reveal??

Ta da! The hallway! Please take note of the bright orange, dirty, extension cord hanging from the expensive coat hook on the left. That's so I can blow dry my hair in the mornings. Bah. Can't wait til the hubby does some hard-wiring and creates an outlet in there.

Left side of the living room. The TV dresser that my hubby made! Fits quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

The right side of the living room. There's no allotted space for a dining area, so we had to put the dining table in the living room. It's nice though, because we have a great view while we're eating dinner!

See? Beautiful! Most NYC apartments look straight out at a brick wall (anyone remember Joey's apartment from "Friends"?), but we are lucky to at least get to see some rooftops!

One of these days, we're going to have to dance across them, like in "Mary Poppins". Think anyone will notice?

I've even got my very own little bird to sing "A Spoonful of Sugar" to! Hello little fella!

Thank goodness for shower curtains... hides the dirty old tiles!

There's not much storage space, but the hubby built that nice little shelf that fits alongside the sink and covers up the toilet handle (looks like a public toilet. ew). So much better now!

I love that comforter. Thanks Mom!

The kitchen!! We had to install 3 deep shelving units in order to have room for all my kitchen supplies. I swear I use everything I own though! I swear!

Once we used up the shelves though... I still didn't have enough room. So we bought a 7' tall bookshelf on craigslist and carted it home on the subway. During rush hour.

I'm not even kidding.

My leetle tiny oven. But the burners work! Ok, 3 out of 4 work.

And the oven knob doesn't have numbers on it, so I have no idea how high I'm turning it up to. But 45-minute brownies took only 20 minutes, so I'm thinking it heats up pretty well.

My favorite pots and dishes, and my cookbooks! And of course, my prized Anthropologie aprons.

I honestly don't know what I'd do without shelving.

*and please note the dirty, bright orange extension cord plugged in to that outlet above the toaster. That's the same one running allllll the way to the bathroom. Yay me.

The "Before" Photos

Ready for some "before" photos of our new apartment? "New" being a completely relative term here. This place is 103 years old!

Considering it's older than my grandmother, I'd say this place has been pretty well maintained. No, there's no outlet in the bathroom (grumble grumble), but I hear that's pretty typical for NYC, so that makes me a feel a little better. And we've already discovered a leak in the bathroom ceiling as well, which, thanks to my handy dandy hubby, has been patched and re-routed to drip into the bathtub.

No harm, no foul, right?

Here is the entrance to our apartment building. The rope was for tying me to the Penske truck so I wouldn't get loose and run into the street.

Speaking of the Penske truck... we parked it illegally for 3 FULL DAYS on a street in New York City and did not get ONE SINGLE parking ticket. I think we deserve a medal.

Or maybe we just deserve a parking ticket. But we're so so so very glad we didn't get one!

Our superintendent actually asked us "so, how'd you like getting those parking tickets?" because he just assumed we'd gotten some! Nope! Thanks God, we owe you one.

This is the hallway when you first enter our apartment. There are 2 closets on the right side which we've dubbed the "His" and "Hers" closets. Mine's bigger of course. And the hubby's has all the tools and luggage. Hehe.

The living room! We have a fire escape just outside that right window - currently there are some empty old pots sitting on it, but I'm hoping to turn it into a little herb garden or something!

Here's the bedroom - I love that it lets in so much light! Makes it very difficult to sleep in when there is sunlight streaming through the curtains at 5:00am, but I kind of like it. Starts the day off right!

Ok, I'm not gonna lie. The bathroom is disgusting. But, the hubby fixed it up pretty nice, so I don't really mind it at all now. It's a bit cramped, but we added a lot of storage, so everything fits snug like a bug in a rug!

I really hope there are no bugs in our rug.

The kitchen!! Definitely "dinky", but I guess in comparison to most NYC apartments, it's pretty large. We even have a full-size fridge!

I did have one casualty though. My industrial-sized, 11" x 17" baking pan had to go. It just wouldn't fit in our small little oven.

I figure one dead kitchen tool out of 100 isn't too bad. And I donated it to my friend Kelsey, so that took care of my good deed for the day, too.

Here's the finished apartment!! Isn't it pretty??

... I really have no idea how people who live in large houses move. We don't even own much stuff and the boxes just seemed to go on and on. So glad we had a couple friends help us move in! Thanks Kelsey and Matt!

Let's just say, it was a VERY long day...

But I conquered the bathroom!

And my hubby conquered the door... with a bit too much gusto. Oops.

We have arrived.

What a slacker I've been - no blog post for almost 2 weeks?? Geez, you'd think I'd moved across the country or something.

... oh, wait a sec.

We've arrived in NYC!!! It's a crazy world over here, lemme just tell ya! I still feel all out-of-sorts and discombobulated. We did manage to fit everything into our tiny little new apartment (complete with a dinky kitchen, so my blog name still stands firm. No worries.), and have finally got almost everything in its place.

I'm going to do a "before and after" post of our little apartment later this week, but here's a quick look at what I've been doing for the last week or so:

On Saturday, June 5th, we drove across the George Washington Bridge (or "GW Bridge" as the locals call it) into Washington Heights, home of our new apartment. "New" being completely figurative. Turns out our apartment is actually 103 years old. With all the original fixtures. Awesome.

This was our first view of the city coming in on the GW Bridge!

Yes, NY pizza is all it's cracked up to be. This place is about 3 blocks from us, but everyone delivers for free, so we just ordered it there and had them deliver (like true New Yorkers, of course). Oh man, it was goooood.

But then again, everything is good after an 8 hour day of hauling boxes up 2 flights of stairs in 80 degree heat with 90% humidity.

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

Nope, we're not Kansas. We're in Pennsylvania! This state is beautiful! And considering we've driven through 9 states so far on our journey, I can honestly say in comparison, Pennsylvania rocks.

New Mexico, not so much.

In fact, if Mexico would like to take it back, that'd be cool.

And as for Kansas, I thought there was supposed to be vegetables and things growing on farms? Nope. Just grass for miles.

And miles.

And miles.

Lots and lots of grass.

Don't get me wrong, it was very nice, green grass. It's just that it would have been nice for them to change it up every 100 miles or so with some corn or something.

Last Monday we started our journey across country, with our trusty Penske truck as our guide. Ok, really our trusty new Droid phones (complete with gps) were our guide, but the Penske truck has been home for the last 5 days and I've become a bit partial to it.

There's just enough room for one 6'4" man, a 5'9" female, a small cooler, 2 overnight bags, a box of food, a laptop case, a purse and a 1998 Road Atlas. It's cozy.

Thanks to my husband for being an expert truck-packer, and to Penske for giving us a 16' truck when we asked for 12' (they were out of 12' trucks, just our luck!), we were able to fit everything in just perfectly!

We had some great friends help us load things up.

And if you've ever moved before, you KNOW good, strong friends are worth their weight in gold!

And after all this food, they just might weigh their weight in gold. Nothing like a breakfast of champions (i.e. Red Vines and donuts) to get things off to a good start!

We cleaned our apartment from top to bottom and soon it was bare and desolate. Goodbye SoCal apartment! We will miss you. And your spaciousness.

Our first night we stayed with our friends Rhi and A.J. in Mesa, AZ. Oh man, they're 2 little boys are cuuuuute! They took us out to dinner to a place called Liberty Market. Red Velvet and Carrot Cake to die for. And their sandwiches and salads were extremely fresh and flavorable. Yum!

These two people are SO much fun! If you get a chance, check out Rhi's photography at Raw Canvas Photography.

The next day we drove through New Mexico, and saw a lot of this.

And some of these.

And one of these. Turns out they're not extinct after all. They're all just living in New Mexico, which, as it turns out, is very similar to being extinct.

We really wanted to stop and see the big Meteor Crater. But they charge $15/adult just to get in! And we only had about 30 minutes to spare. Let's face it, 50¢ per minute just isn't worth it to see a big hole in the ground.

And we looked it up on Google Satellite Map in the parking lot. Hehe. Cheapies!

Tuesday night we stayed with our friends Tex and Cori in Denver, CO. They just moved in to their new house!

What a cute couple! We love these two.

Cori owns her own floral design business and she has amazing taste. She put together all the floral arrangements for our wedding! Check out her website, Cori Cook Floral Design.

Next stop: Kansas City, MO!

There are a LOT of open roads in Kansas, lemme just tell you. And a LOT of open land.

And another thing: there are a LOT of bugs. Well, not anymore. I think we squished them all.

I'm sorry to have to show you this. But I just had to.

It's part of the experience, dahling.

After our stay in Kansas City, we were off to beautiful Chicago! I love Chicago. If we weren't moving to New York, I'd probably try to convince the hubby to just stay here. It's like New York, only smaller and cleaner!

I took the hubby to my favorite deep dish Chicago Pizzeria, Giordano's. It was every bit as good as I remember!

Now we're in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and we love it here. The east coast is so beautiful!

And guess what? We just saw our first road sign for NEW YORK CITY! Here we come!!

Red Vine straws and all.