I’m Back!

 

Well hello there!

I am back after an embarrassingly long “hiatus” that was really not a hiatus at all but 6+ months in the trenches of LIFE on the most intense level!  But I am so thrilled to be back at Maison Sheik with some very exciting life news and a recap on what I have been up to!

 

Studies:

Image via Ace Interior Design

When we last connected, I was just beginning my studies at Parson’s, and have since completed a number of in depth projects, including a complete redesign of the Parson’s Lobby into a restaurant and cafe space, a bedroom for a 10 year old girl with a passion for math, and my personal favorite, a Louis XV inspired pool house in Miami! I can’t wait to show you some of the work that I put together on these! I can’t tell you how much my technical expertise or vision have improved, and I am so excited to embark on this journey further this year. It has been the most rewarding and fulfilling discovery of my life so far! Speaking of decorating:

 

We Moved to Brooklyn!

After 10 years in Greenwich Village (yes, a full decade!) we made the move to Boerum Hill. It’s been incredible. We sleep with the windows open when it’s warm, and we see trees from every window of our (much more expansive) place. We have a working fireplace and 2 floors and basically, to a New Yorker, that sounds like fiction, but it’s true. We absolutely adore it here. I can’t wait to share pictures as we continue to finish decorating!

 

Work: 

After probably the most intense year of grinding it out, bending over backward like I was a gymnast in cirque du soleil, and what amounted to a full fledged political campaign (the trifecta according to tech) I earned a very hard fought for promotion at work in November. So now I can breathe again. It feels good. Especially because I worked intensely through some of the sickest and hardest months of my life when i should have probably been staying home nursing a gatorade, which leads to my next piece of news.

 

Baby!

My husband and I are expecting a baby girl in 2 weeks you guys! (Also, is there anything better than fat baby feet? I couldn’t resist the image above) Anyway, we can’t really believe it either. Going through this experience has made me realize just how miraculous the perpetuation of life is on this planet. We cannot wait to meet her and see her face. But first, a little recap of how the pregnancy has gone so far….

Memorial Day weekend, our friends Hilary and Allen invited us up to their family friend’s place, a summer camp in the Northeast Kingdom, Vermont. We decided to drive up the Thursday prior to the weekend’s kickoff so as to avoid the traffic leaving New York City. An idea which was, of course, shared by approximately 8 MM other people. Anticipating that this was the case, we picked up cold cut sandwiches at the Bedford Cheese shop on Irving place before hitting the road. I didn’t make it past Westchester before my vision turned blurry and I broke into a cold sweat. In other words, I became rapidly and deathly ill. And so we made a detour at a particularly lovely gas station in Larchmont as I proceeded to get more and more ill. Our husbands deliberated outside as to whether my husband and I should uber it back to the city and call it a day. Meanwhile, Hilary cornered me outside the bathroom.

“Dude, do you think maybe you’re pregnant?”

“Absolutely not,” I replied. After “trying” for 3 months, we had lost steam and decided to enjoy our lives instead (our resilience knows no bounds). Which amounted to us living it up, going out, sleeping little and generally having a ball for the month preceding. In other words, there was no way my body was a hospitable temple for anything other than late night falafel.

An hour later we were back on the road and I promptly fell asleep in my husband’s lap, and 5 hours after that we arrived at a freezing and rainy summer camp. The rest of the weekend brought sunshine, boat rides, feasts overlooking the lake, plenty of raw cheese and other indulgences, and an overall marvelous time. But when we returned to the city, Hilary’s words returned to me, and so I decided to take a test and just put the issue to rest.

Reader, it was positive.

From there started 18 weeks of the most brutal illness I have ever encountered. Every day was a fight to survive. But I did. And after that, I felt amazing. And inexplicably, she continued to grow.

And here we are, in the final stretch, excited, terrified, but ready to dislodge this baby from my rib cage ;-). I started my leave from work December 22nd, and after hosting my in laws for Christmas and getting a number of things in order home wise, I am rededicating myself to my loves, one of which is this beautiful blog.

So, those are the broad strokes, with A LOT to share in between.  Needless to say, I am thrilled to be back and sharing this journey with all of you! Thank you for reading!

xoxoxo

Miss Sheiky