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 

TASTE TEST: Blood orange sweet tea!

Maybe I'm still on a high from True Blood's latest episode or something, but tonight my dad and I experimented with our usual tea recipe and added some flavor to the mix! We blended sun tea with fruit juice and stumbled upon and awesome way to sweeten tea give it a great flavor. All you need is your favorite flavor of sun tea (we like to use good old Twinings either a breakfast tea or an afternoon tea) and blood orange juice. 

Fill the glass about two thirds of the way with tea and then fill the rest with blood orange juice (red orange works too). I may take this experiment in taste one step further and add some rum or vodka to this and really spice things up! Anyways, all that's left to do is  squeeze some lemon in and stir it all up and then enjoy!

~Turtle

K-Drama & Me

Over the past few months, I have gained a recent obsession over K-Dramas, or Korean-Dramas. I'm a huge anime fan, and I've poked around the Japanese drama circuit, but it was all too cheesy for me. I didn't even know K-Dramas were a thing until my Korean friend, Ji showed it to me. It blew my mind.

The first K-Drama I saw was called 49 Days, it was probably one of the most amazing television shows I've ever seen and I think it's because the show masters the craft of keeping my attention. The plot lines are so different, and there is always this cool supernatural twist. Other Dramas I've seen include S-Scandal, City Hunter and I'm currently watching Queen Seon Duk which is blowing my mind.

Watching the dramas really inspires me for when I create crocheted plushies, or when I make anything. The use of vibrant colors and child-like storytelling in a dark setting has been something that's always interested me.
 You really should check it out if you have never tried it. It's a great way to pass the time and an important method of cross cultural communication. Plus, the characters are so easy to get attached to and each series is only 20 episodes long.

I like being able to transport myself to another world that I'm not familiar with. The worlds inside of K-dramas are something that I'm not used to at all, and that makes each episode and refreshing because it's entertainment from a completely different world.


~ Bunny

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

FANCY FRIDAY: Usher uniforms remix!

Phaedra and I both work as ushers for our school's theater. Probably one of the greatest part time jobs I've ever had. I mean it's simple, we get to see awesome events for free, and the hours are ridiculously flexible. We ended up working a lot last year and so washing the usual usher uniform would be hard to do in the dorm if we had to work back to back so we had to get creative with what we wore. Here are three looks we like to do to mix it up! 

Look one is very simple. A nice pair of black slacks, an off white canvas belt, and a simple white sweater. Pretty basic and pretty standard. 

Adding a colored hairpiece like a floral bow or headband and swapping the black flats out with a pair of grey oxfords is the perfect way to chic up the look and add your personal style.

Look two is great if your boss is like yours is like ours and they allow for some serious deviation from the more traditional conservative look. Here we've paired an awesome patterned black and white mini skirt with a cream colored top. A great bow in the hair again brings in that personal style. 

Our final look is for the more professional usher or a really fancy event like the musical festival that was just in town. Adding a blazer to most outfits tends to give the outfit a very nice professional look that isn't over the top. Sticking a flower in your hair again adds that personal touch. So whether you're a theater usher like us or need a strict uniform there are still plenty of ways your personal style can come through.  

~Turtle & Bunny

  

THURSDIY: Upcycled Memory Box

Have any scraps of wrapping paper never used? Empty shoeboxes? What about cut up pieces of origami paper? Colorful newspaper? This project is for you. We'll be upcycling all of these items to create a memory box for anything you want!

This project is great for creative, colorful storage ideas and is a fun way to pass the time while watching the Olympics or one of your favorite films.

 Supplies

Shoebox (old or new)
Scraps of wrapping/origami paper

ModPodge

Scissors

Paintbrush
Newspaper

Clear Tape

Packaging Tape (optional)

Business Cars, String (optional)

 Step One: Cut the newspaper into four different sections, it really helps if you cut using the folds (sizing is the most appropriate).

 Step Two: Size the newspaper for the shoebox you're using and with modpodge, carefully brush on the glue and place the newspaper inside of the shoebox so that the edges are tight. Continue to add newspaper until all of the sides are covered.

If you want a more glossy, durable inside, after lining the inside of the shoebox, carefully pull long strips of packaging tape to cover the inside of the box. Don't worry about the tape showing on the outside because we'll be covering it up!

NOTE: This step is optional.

 Step Three: Adding the scraps of origami/wrapping paper. Starting with the lid, cover the sides of the shoebox first, make sure the strips you are using are long enough to wrap around the lip of the box and tape (or mod podge) the strips around the box.

NOTE: When covering the body of the box, you'll want to use the same method. Make long enough strips so that the paper can comfortably go around the lip of the box and on the bottom of the box. Be sure to keep the paper tight so that the box will be able to close.

 Step Four: Cover the top lid of the box with one large strip, make sure to pull tight to make a glossy, simple look.

 Step Five: Refer to Step Three in order to cover the body of the box.

For the box in the picture, I decided to create triangles on the side of the box to give it a different look from the lid. I ended up really liking the results!

The Finished Project. This is a fun and easy DIY that gives a little fun to your small storage collection. Ideally, this would be perfect for small yarn storage, letters, or small books, photographs and news articles, but of course you can put in whatever you'd like!

WENSDOM: Me, myself, and I!

Today I was talking with one of my friends and she shared with me her feelings on being single. At first she sounded as though she was treating the situation like it was a problem. This mentality always puzzles me. Why do us young women talk about being single like it's a medical problem that can fixed after applying a certain amount of steps to our lives? Being single, while can be lonely at times, is not a medical condition, I assure you. It's not a problem at all, or at least shouldn't be viewed as such. As people, not just young women, we need to be able to be alone in order to be with someone else. It's when we're alone that we learn who we are. It's when we grow, change, and come to understand what we want and need from other people. We can't let the constraints of societal concepts of quote on quote "needing someone" hinder us from enjoying life no matter what our relationship status is. This summer was the first summer since my senior year of school in which I was single for the entire time. Not even one of those weird flings that lasts a few weeks, nothing...and I LOVED every minute of it. I needed it, I think. 

I really got to thinking and you know I think the best piece of advice I ever got from someone on being single, is when my mom told me times are different now. Women aren't expected to get married right out of high school, they can go to college, start and have careers, move to a different country, change their perspective, and just revel in their freedom for as long as they choose. We really shouldn't sell ourselves short when it comes to that department. Love will find us and love will be so kind to us when it does, if we just live our lives. We can't wish the days away. We need to focus our energy while single not on finding the next relationship, but on bettering ourselves. Pick up hobbies, learn and really devote to mastering a trade, make new friends, change up the pace, and most importantly be happy for other people because it'll be hard watching as we get further into our twenties our friends getting married before us and starting families but we'll have to be happy for them. Also, don't put a timeframe on when you want certain things in your life like a marriage and a family, you'll find you really can't control that. It may happen sooner than you expected or later than you expected, but believe me it'll happen when it's supposed to. I also wouldn't look at that as settling down, I'd look at that as stating yet another journey only this time with someone else.

So ladies promise yourself to not be too hard on yourselves, to not fall victim to needing a relationship, and to allow yourself to enjoy being single. Get to knowing yourself and get to loving yourself! And for the nights that are really lonely tune into the wonderful show of True Blood there's a guy for everyone! I'm team Bill, while Phaedra's team Eric, and our friend Maddie who came to visit, she's team Jason!       

~Turtle