1. My new library cabinet. Two hours before the eBay auction ended, I put in a max bid for $300 and snapped my laptop shut to avoid temptation of over-bidding. Out of 18 bids, mine was the highest, and I snagged it for $225 which is nothing short of completely ridiculous. I could easily turn around and sell this for $500. It took $160 to get it here; I hired two hipster guys off of Craigslist who would have been even cheaper if they didn’t get stuck in traffic. They drove from Brooklyn to Long Island, loaded it up and dropped it off at our apartment. I’m slowly filling the 60 drawers up. (Well, 57. Three of the drawers are still full of the Dewey decimal system cards.) We went to pick it up ourselves, but it didn’t fit in the car. It is way bigger than I realized when I was bidding; five feet tall and three feet wide. We’ll be filling the drawers for years to come.

2. Realizing I know my chocolate chip cookie recipe by heart. I made cookies from scratch this weekend with minimal measuring and entirely from memory. I didn’t get to take photos before they got hoovered.

3. Throwing a party and having lots of people come. My house was filled with new friends this weekend, and older ones, too. We discovered an application called Remote that lets guests request songs in my iTunes library from their iPhones. It made for a cool mix of music all night.

Some of my photos from the party are below. Normally I’m not a “post tons of photos of my friends” kind of blogger, but flipping through I realized that everyone I had photos of are “internety people” (they started a Twitter hashtag for our party, which is so nerdy and fun), so I figured it was fair game. I didn’t get everyone, though! I quit taking pictures early in the night and someone grabbed my camera for part of it, but there are people missing from the photos. If you have links to them, send them to me!

We had people sleeping on our air mattresses and couch. Having overnight guests is a tiny bit stressful (mostly because of the dogs), but I have a religious-like devotion to hosting houseguests. I think it is very important to open one’s home up and share your space with friends in the intimate, overnight-stay sense, even if it disrupts your schedule a bit, and to do it well. The reward is making close friends with people, because you really bond when everyone is sitting around drinking coffee and eating pancakes in their PJs.

PS – Dave, you left your underwear here. Phase one is complete!