WENSDOM: Staying connected to campus

(One of my favorite walkways on campus.)

Moving off campus brings on a lot of changes, some pretty obvious like having to budget time for cooking and being respectful to neighbors. Amongst the obvious changes come quite a few I didn't consider namely staying connected to the comforts of my campus. The luxuries of having a postal service nearly a yard away, easy accessible meals, more free time in between classes, and most importantly my friends at an arms reach. I'm a pretty sociable person, so I'd like to think. Last semester I lived in a dorm that housed my core friends while I'd see the bulk of my friends in the dining hall for meals or around campus as I hung out during the day. When I started school last week the first thing I realized was how quickly the distance of my new apartment could drive a wedge into my friendships and social life if I wasn't careful.

In efforts to prevent this I had to create systems that blended the old ways I interacted with my friends with the much needed new. Every day I eat at least one meal in the dining hall, normally lunch. I try to sit with different groups and really spread my time evenly. I visit my old dorm weekly to catch up with the lovely folks I left behind there. I don't hesitate to invite people over to the apartment, nor do I use the distance of my apartment as an excuse as to why I can't participate in something...no matter how tempting. I also have figured out that including my friends as much as possible in my new change helps keep them close. I keep them updated on apartment happenings that are funny or silly through texts and photo messages. Pics of my cat are always crowd favorites. In addition to joining my friends for lunch I initiate grabbing meals out around town and hanging out in other ways off campus.

Even though all these new systems of keeping up with people are great I still reserve some good old traditions. Every Saturday I have make sure to have brunch at noon with friends, I bask in the sun on my friends couch in her dorm when I need to think things over or pass time, I read in the Lit House in between classes, and nothing will ever beat just walking around my beautiful campus talking with someone.

~Turtle

Heading back to school with a bang!

(Our kitchen chalkboard is a crowd favorite. Loved waking up to all these silly notes.)

To kick off the beginning of the fall semester, Phaedra and I threw a back to school party. Marking it the first major bash our little apartment experienced. Despite a few chaotic moments, the night was amazing and whether good or bad it was definitely one to remember. I blame the hard lemonade recipe a friend gave us. I was surprised at how in order the apartment was post party. I think cleaning as the party is in flow keeps the workload for post night much smaller. We had out clearly visible places for our guests to dispose of their trash as they saw fit, that helped tremendously.

(Phaedra and I on our balcony.)

We also put a drink cap on for the night so at one point we weren't having to worry ourselves with constantly cleaning. In addition to the drink cap keeping down on trash it also keep down on things getting to out of hand. Before the party even got started by way of enforcing a cap we encouraged BYOB. You never want to wakeup to find $40 dollars worth of alcohol down the drain in one night.

 (Jacki, me, and Em in my room.)

 (The much missed Mike who's finally returned from studying abroad and Phaedra.)

(What too much fun looks like.)

Since we live off campus now we don't live with a major friend group anymore and with our differing schedules during the week it's hard to see one another so the party was a great place to catch up. We had a good time and most importantly all of our attendees did too.

~Turtle & Bunny!

SATURDAY DIME: Party Planning!

(Our friends Reanna, Brittni, and Jacki at Brittni's 21st party.)

It's official! Phaedra and I are officially living at our apartment full time now. Upon settling in and putting those finish decorating touches in certain rooms, we had to stop and plan one of the most important functions of our apartment...PARTIES! Now, we love themed parties, and our friends really do too...or they at least humor us and go along with it. So, we sat down and comprised a list of ten ideas we hope to execute over the course of the school year.

1. Back to School/Open Apartment: The weekend of every semester is always a lot of fun, so we figured we'd start the year off with an awesome back to school get together. And to show off the new digs to our friends.
2. Halloween Costume Party: I'll take any excuse to be in a costume!
3. Black Dress party: Little black dress parties always seem so sexy and classy. 
4. Murder Mystery: Phaedra is a pro at these and we have a lot of friends who would be way into playing a character all night. 
5. A mustache party: We want to throw a party that is so hipstery it's ridiculous, just for kicks! 
6. Moving drinking game party: Nothing can top sitting around watching an old comedy or bad horror film and drinking along to it. It's so much to yell at the screen together, laugh, and just be merry! 
7. Board game party: Sometimes just staying in popping open wine and playing a board game does the trick.
8. Drinking game party: Basically you take birthday party ice breaker games and add beer. 
9. Arts and crafts party: Who doesn't love sitting around making fabric flowers and friendship bracelets?! 
10. Christmas party: It'll be nice to end the semester with a fun Christmas party!

Can't to start posting as we plan!  

~Turtle 

WENSDOM: Home sick?

With summer coming to a close I know some our readers will be headed to college for the first time! It's going to be an exciting time. Amongst all the excitement is going to be a mixture of overwhelming feelings in every variety. I think one of the biggest feelings freshmen fall victim to is homesickness. I know I did in the worst way. I did the dreaded thing you should never do...I went home for a weekend within the first full month. Looking back on my last two years of college I really wouldn't advise doing that. Stick it out for a full month. College moves pretty fast you'll find, you don't want to get left behind and not being around for it is a huge way to find yourself wading around and lonely. It's when we're lonely feeling that feelings of things like homesickness can prey on us. 

To keep the edge off homesickness I would advise calling home weekly to one or two people, texting your friends from high school regularly. Make Skype dates with people. Even go as far to send family and friends letters and cards and have them send you mail in return. The best thing you can do in that first month is to meet people! Establishing friends will not only impact your feelings of loneliness but can also impact your success. If you find a group of people on your campus you care about, you'll start to care about your school, and you'll start to care about staying at your school and doing what you need to do to stay with them. When meeting people don't get discouraged if you find a lot of misses at first, keep an open mind, and don't put all your eggs in one basket.  

Don't worry though, everyone gets homesick, no matter how well they seem to handle it. Everyone from the most intimidating senior to the shy girl in the back of your class. Everyone powers through it. Good luck and have fun!

~Turtle 

SATURDAY DIME: Apartment TLC

I can't believe it's August already. I also can't believe school starts back up for us in just three weeks. Upon school starting back up Phaedra and I plan to host a nice back to school party for our friends to kick off the year and show off our new digs. It then dawned on us some of those projects we keep saying we're going to do...it's time to do them! So here is a list of all of our short term apartment goals!

1.) Spice up our entry way hall. We have this great big foyer hallway, and we keep meaning to put some sort of table or shelf in the far corner to create a more welcoming feeling. We'd also like to add a runner of some sort on the floor too. To both protect the floor and give it a nice look.

2.) We have a lovely patio big enough to entertain on! Yet it's not very inviting...yet! We're going to add string lights to the balcony and a tapestry of some sort to the corner.   

3.) We both love flowers and plants and love the bohemian look they can give a space. Plus if we grow the right things we'll be able to feed the harvest to the bunnies and my tortoise! We figure we're going to try and line the patio with plants that will be easy for us to maintain.

4.) In our living room we have a great windowsill, but right now it's pretty blah! So we plan to add something that's decorative and possibly functional like a watering can with flowers in it.

5.) We have so much wall space and since painting is out since this is a lease, we've been brainstorming ideas to still have our personal style come through. We're thinking of adding shelves for Sinatra's cat tower and a custom canvas art to this wall. Stay tuned for DIY about this!

6.) This wall is huge and it's a focal point wall! So we're going to add decorative shelves and place knick knacks on them. 

7.) Kitchen's don't need much because you don't want to fill a highly functional space with impractical decorative things especially if the space is small. But we figured we'd put some sort of picture here just to liven the space up a bit. 

8.) This wall is pretty big and pretty plain. We're not exactly sure what we want to go here...but we'll know when we see it! We're thinking something iron or brass since our kitchen's theme is steampunk!

9.) Phaedra also found a stack of old 45's that we've yet to do anything with. We're thinking we'd hang them up on the wall that's right of the TV in some sort of formation.

10.) We still need to add things to our room to tie in our looks so stayed tuned for updates! 

~Turtle & Bunny

SATURDAY DIME: Phaedra's Favorite Foods (and Drinks)

 

Kettle Corn. Yum. There's nothing like the taste of it, salty, sweet, perfect.

 

Blackberries. So sweet. And whenever I make jelly (any kind) I always add blackberries for that extra kick. Plus, they make this beautiful purple-red color.

 Cream of Broccoli Soup. I'm a sucker for any kind of cream of veggie soup, but broccoli has a special place in my heart.

 Pita Chips and Hummus. I recently started to enjoy pita chips with hummus. Where has it been my whole life?

Tiramisu. I'm not a huge fan of cakes and cookies, but Tiramisu is my only exception. Although I rarely see it, when I do I devour it. The textures in it make it wonderful!

Burritos. Ugh. Yes.

 Salmon. I've always been a salmon fan, plus it makes any dish look fancy.

 

Tea. Black teas. Green teas. White teas. Read teas. I love them all. We'll definitely be doing a post of types of tea flavors!

 

Sushi. Real sushi, not the supermarket kind. I'm always in the mood for it, and best part, it can be a snack or a full meal!