My Week(s) in Instagram: 2/22/15

February 22, 2015Leigh Anne Zinsmeister Leave a comment

New York City remains much the same: Cold, snowy, repeat. I’ve always heard that February is the absolute worst when it comes to winter, and now I can 100 percent verify that! This past week featured record-low temperatures: Walking to work on Thursday morning, the windchill was negative 14. So needless to say, this summer girl is over it.

It’s not all bad around here, though: My friend Nicole is stopping by this week on her way to a conference in Syracuse, and in two weeks I’ll be back in what I jokingly refer to as my homeland – Cleveland! I know, not the best place to go in the dead of winter, but it’s shaping up to be a pretty rad girls weekend with my mom, sister, aunt and cousin!

Here’s what I’ve been up to in the meantime:

What a contrast between a couple of days, right?! I’ve learned that even when it’s still SO COLD, having the sunshine out can make all the difference in attitude.

I continue to believe that i have the best roommate in the world. When I slept until noon on a snowy day last week, I woke up to fresh crepes and about 8,000 different kinds of jam. Other awesome things Becca has done recently: unclogged our shower drain and picked up groceries for me so I didn’t have to go out in the snow. This makes me sound like a lazy slug, but I’m learning to embrace it 😉

Another bitterly cold yet sunshine-y day. The science just doesn’t quite work in this girl’s mind.

My Valentine’s Day shaped up in exactly the way I predicted it would! Becca and I ventured to Williamsburg for brunch before settling in during a snowstorm with junk food and Netflix – my true loves.

Well it’s no secret how much I love Saturday Night Live. So it only made sense that I ventured to 30 Rock during the #SNL40 anniversary celebration last week with my friends Emmie and Kelli! Alas, we did not spot any celebrities. It all worked out OK the next day, when we camped out to watch the special and eat breakfast foods. ALSO: I gave up alcohol for Lent, so that beer was one of my last adult beverages for the next six weeks.

I’m a big fan of the “treat yo self” philosophy, so when this Kate Spade bracelet went on sale recently, I knew I had to have it. I bought the matching earrings last year and I was so excited to complete the set without breaking the bank!

I don’t usually include my throwbacks in these posts, but seriously, how adorable were my brother and I in the early ’90s?! I’m seriously wishing I still had that sweater – it looks so warm and cozy!

Another weekend, another snowstorm. Yesterday involved a lot of decorating, cleaning, online shopping, baking, and Pitch Perfect-watching. My sister made those wine and coffee cards and we finally got around to hanging them in the kitchen! Thanks Ally!

How are you dealing with the bitter cold this winter? Or are you one of the luckier ones?

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

February 14, 2015Leigh Anne Zinsmeister 2 Comments

This day isn’t just about romantic love (as we all know, I’m perfectly happy to have nothing to do with that right now).

Today, I’m celebrating my love of…

My roommate
Brooklyn
Brunch (red-velvet pancakes and mimosas in particular)
Netflix (Valentine’s Day episodes of Friends, anyone?)
Napping
Social media
Texting
Beer (let’s just be honest)

Basically, I’m making today about ME – more because it’s a Saturday than anything else, really. But since it is February 14 – why not make today about the things I love?

What are you up to this Valentine’s Day?

My week(s) in Instagrams: 2/8/15

February 8, 2015Leigh Anne Zinsmeister 4 Comments

My Instagram page lately has been about as active as this blog – which is to say, not at all. Part of it stems from my recent social-media cleanse – my instinct is no longer to photograph and share everything, which is great! But a big part of my absence stems from the fact that New York City in the winter is just about as awful as I expected it to be. It’s not pretty like it is in the spring, summer and fall. It’s slushy, it’s gray, the ground is one giant thin sheet of ice. It’s also so cold that if I do catch a glimpse of beauty, I don’t want to take off my gloves to snap a shot with my phone.

Life is rough, I know.

I do have a few recent snaps to share with y’all, though! And hopefully soon it’ll warm up and the snow will melt and life will return to its normal glory. One can hope.

After the recent non-blizzard, I was so excited to finally be able to go outside again that I took a lunchtime stroll through the village once I was back at work. The snow hadn’t yet melted (it still hasn’t), and not many people had trekked through and ruined its beauty quite yet.

A new coffee shop just opened in my neighborhood, so on Friday I set up shop there (a nice excuse to get out of the apartment) and worked through some church admin stuff. The best part? My friend Emmie lives in the building just across the street, so my ability to stalk has greatly increased. (Don’t worry, Emmie knows I was there!)

Finally: Just because it’s cold outside, doesn’t mean I have to go without one of my favorite treats! I can always count on my church friends to go out for ice cream with me, no matter the weather. It’s the perfect snack after a day of services or a night of meetings!

What have you all been up to?!

Follow me on Instagram here.

The blizzard that wasn’t

January 30, 2015Leigh Anne Zinsmeister 7 Comments

If you were on the Internet at all in the first part of this week, you probably heard of a little something called winter storm Juno. AKA my worst nightmare, or so I thought.

When news broke on Sunday that we in NYC would be hit with our first blizzard of the season, people were anxious. The words historic and biggest ever and three feet of snow were being tossed around, and not just by 20-somethings at my church – by meteorologists and newscasters and the mayor. Everyone headed to the grocery stores, which had become war zones. Or so I heard. My friends and I went out for ice cream.

By the time I got to work Monday morning, the snow was already coming down, despite the fact that the blizzard wasn’t supposed to hit until that night. Oh, boy. I made arrangements with my boss so I could leave in time to get back to Brooklyn before sunset, and take my laptop with me to work from home – at that point I expected to be housebound for days. By lunchtime, my roommate was texting me from Arizona – her return flight, originally scheduled to get in late Tuesday, had already been cancelled and she was rebooked for Wednesday, hopefully. So I’d be riding out the storm of the century on my own.

By mid-afternoon, the wind had picked up and the snow was sticking.

So we were right on schedule for three feet of snow. I left the office, hit up the bank for cash (it had closed early, along with basically every other business, but the ATMs were still open), schlepped home and settled in for what I expected would be the long haul. News broke that the trains were shutting down – the first time in over 100 years such an act had been prompted by snow alone. I cooked basically all of my food, dug out the super strong flashlight, fielded a phone call from my nervous father, and went to bed with my alarm set for 7:30, a solid 90 minutes later than I normally sleep. When the alarm blared, I rolled over and opened my curtain, expecting to be buried.

Instead, I saw… not much more than had been there the day before. I grabbed my phone and opened Twitter (thank goodness my cleanse was over, right?!) to a stream of articles with titles like “NYC completely overreacts” and “How the city’s unnecessary shutdown will negatively impact the economy.” Fun stuff. Lucky for me (and basically everyone else), the trains were still down and so I got to stay in my pajamas all day and work from my couch. My roommate returned the next day and life has returned to normal, although the grocery stores remain unstocked.

Although, it’s snowing today. Here we go again..

Were you impacted by Juno?

A social-media cleanse

January 25, 2015Leigh Anne Zinsmeister 6 Comments

For the past three weeks, I have been social-media free.

Well, let me amend that. For the past three weeks, I have been social-media free, with the exception of the social-media-ing required for my job. Which is a lot. But I digress.

For the past three weeks, I have been without my personal Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Swarm, Snapchat and Pinterest accounts. I logged myself out on my personal and work computers, deleted the apps on my phone to prevent mindless browsing. Now that the cleanse is coming to an end tonight, I wanted to take the time to reflect on and share my experiences as a social-media addict giving up her vice.

Pinterest-ing at a coffee shop in 2012

Why fast social media?

This adventure was part of my new year’s non-resolution to spend less time on my phone, but officially spurred by my church’s 21 days of fasting and prayer. On a personal level, I had a few goals. I wanted to be more intentional about the information I was consuming- rather than mindlessly clicking on links, I wanted to encourage friends to send things directly to me (via text or email) that I might find interesting, and that might spur conversations. I wanted to spend more time reading, cooking, sleeping. And I wanted to know if it was even possible to go 21 days without knowing what everyone I’ve ever crossed paths with was up to that very second.

Cuddling with my nephew Jak in 2014, Twitter open on my phone next to me.

The good

Right off the bat – the first morning of the cleanse – I noticed an obvious change: Rather than scrambling to rush out the door at 7:15, I was ready to roll by 6:55. I never realized how much of my morning time was devoted to mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and responding to overnight Facebook messages! (The curse of living on the east coast while your friends are in Arizona is that there are a lot of overnight messages). As the days wore on, I added an extra 20 minutes of sleep to my daily routine, and can still take my time getting ready without being late for work.

I’ve also had more time for reading, especially on my lunch breaks. I have a habit of heading to coffee shops with a book but instead using my phone to Tweet the whole hour. Without that as an option, a lot more reading gets done, and my eyes stay off a screen for an hour in the middle of the workday – a huge plus. I’m also reading more before bed, instead of roaming through Pinterest.

Overall, I’ve noticed I’m a lot more present in my day-to-day activities. When I meet up with friends, there’s no need to check into the restaurant online while we walk to the table. There’s no immediate Instagramming the meal while the food itself gets cold. And there’s no ‘OMG MUST tweet that hilarious thing you just said!’ (Actually, I’ve still caught myself saying that. But the phone stays in the purse!)

The bad

This should come as a shock to no one, but when you’re a twenty-something and you’re not on social media, you miss things. I’ve been lucky enough to have friends fill me in when somebody got a puppy, and other life-changing events, but it’s not the same getting that info secondhand and after the fact.

I’ve been up-to-date on current events thanks to my job, but I also never realized how much we rely on social media to get our news. Oh, did you hear about such-and-such? It’s on so-and-so’s Twitter. We even get tweets and Instagrams embedded into our news stories! It’s actually impossible to avoid social media altogether. I was easy on myself as far as that goes – it’s not like I could avoid the whole of the Internet for three weeks – but seriously, social media is everywhere. I felt a little twinge of guilt every time I read a story on CNN only to stumble upon a Facebook post.

Instagram-ing at a restaurant in 2013. But look how pretty those drinks are!

Going forward

Obviously, I’d like to keep the above good things going without all of the downsides, so I’m laying out some goals to adhere to now that the end of the cleanse is here:

No social media in the mornings or right before bed. I’m going to keep my notifications off on my phone and not open the apps until I’m settled in at work, at least. Likewise, I’m going to continue putting my phone in Do Not Disturb mode by 10 p.m. at the latest.
Keep my phone in my purse when I’m around people. This was part of my new year’s goal anyway, before the cleanse was in the picture. I’ve been good about it, and I want to keep it up.
Put less pressure on myself. I always feel like I need to Instagram things the moment they’re happening, to check in at restaurants the second we walk through the door. Seriously, no one cares besides me.

Overall: I’m deeming this cleanse a success! It’s not something I’ll be doing again anytime soon, but hopefully I can stick to a limited amount of social media each day.

Have you ever gone without social media? Would you?

A Life of Genuine Delight

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Author: Leigh Anne Zinsmeister