My Seventh Month as a New Yorker

January has never been one of my favorite months — there's the inevitable post-holiday blues, winter seems like it's never going to end and after starting off with a holiday, there's not much to look forward to until Valentine's Day (if that can even be considered a good thing).

Last year I moved to New York (albeit temporarily)  a week into the new year, and it felt wonderful and so very right to ring in this new year in New York again, knowing I am here for good. Thanks to a few decent snowstorms, and despite the bone-chilling cold, I actually spent a lot of time outdoors in January, which went a long way towards quelling any winter blues that were trying to sneak into my life. After a few weeks of Polar Vortex-y cold I did start to wonder if I should just hibernate until spring, but I forced myself outside, where I find it nearly impossible to be grumpy amidst the snowy landscape of the city.

A few more highlights from my snowy January:

We got a "six-inch blizzard" that the Weather Channel dubbed "Hercules" and I walked through Central Park on the way to work, on my lunch break and on the way home; I took advantage of my new membership to the New York Botanical Garden and took a snowy hike through the Thain Family Forest; I walked home through Riverside Park and caught an amazing sunset and I met a lot of new snowy friends.

Trent and I ventured to Long Island City where we mourned the loss of 5Pointz and saw the weird but sort of cool Mike Kelley exhibit at MOMA PS1; I walked on my lunch break to see the ice floes on the Hudson River; On another lunch walk I explored the grounds of Bellevue Hospital and was creeped out by the old Psychiatric Hospital; Mozart stared at me a lot for no reason and I went searching for remaining Banksy works from his October in the city to find that there isn't much left.

Jim and I went to Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens and explored the Unisphere, New York State Pavilion ruins and the New York Panorama at the Queens Museum; I continued to be obsessed with finding unique manhole covers around the city; I walked to a piece of the Berlin Wall on my lunch break and we tried the famous soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown.

I squeezed the last bit out of Midtown on my lunch walks before changing jobs and saw the original Winnie-the-Pooh and friends at the New York Public Library (Piglet kills me); I said goodbye to my daily views of the Chrysler Building; I went to a Clue-themed party dressed as Colonel Mustard and brought pigs-in-a-blanket with a variety of mustard dipping sauces; I spotted a few old, beautiful starry manhole covers in Brooklyn; I was creeped on by a spooky black cat while creeping on the ruins of Admiral's Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and I walked across the Manhattan Bridge and remembered how much I love walking bridges.

I started a new job and took another horrible ID photo; we got an actual blizzard and I wasn't mad about it; I got up early to take a snowy, sunrise walk through Central Park to work on the East Side; I walked by the snowy MET Museum on my lunch break and realized after reading The Goldfinch that I'll never be able to look at the building the same way; I continued my obsession with snowy bridges and smushed some pennies at the Central Park Zoo.

February has already gotten off to a good start, and I'm equally excited for the possibility of more snow (yes, I'm an addict) as I am for the impending spring. Spring is the last season that I haven't experienced fully as a resident of New York and as usual I have a ton of fun things on my to-do list. I finally broke down and ordered a real deal pair of rain boots, so I no longer fear rainy days — in fact I may even be looking forward to them because I love my boots that much. I couldn't have asked for a better beginning to 2014, and I have no reason to believe that the rest of this year won't be just as wonderful.