Happy Holidays!

So it's been a couple months since my last post... I had a feeling I'd be bad at this whole blogging regularly thing! Regardless, just a quick post to wish everyone a happy holidays and a wonderful new year! I am home visiting family now but am heading back to my apartment tomorrow to work the next few days. After the new year I'll have a few days off and will try to drop in and update this blog-- there's a new addition to my family!

Woof!

I'm so used to saying "woof!" to mean something negative, like "woof, that test went well" but thisss time, it means "woof! I might be getting a doggie of my own soon"!

I don't want to say too much yet because it still might fall through, but I mayyy be adopting a small dog from a woman near my hometown. The original owner of these 4 cute doggies passed away and a woman who was caring for them is trying to find them good homes. One is left, and she just might be my buddy. We have to wait and see if my parent's dog will accept her first, but if all goes well at that meeting, I may be taking her home with me in a little over a week. I have mixed feelings-- I want a dog so badly to love here in my apartment (it gets lonely living with a roommate and no animals) but I don't want my dog at home to feel like I am replacing her. Lame, I know. If this works out, though, I will be thrilled to have one of my very own to love and care for.

The idea of getting a dog, however, carries it's own concerns-- what do I name her!? She already comes with a name, but I'm not sure I like it enough to keep it. It's very hard to find a girl's name that isn't wimpy and princess-y. The second thing is that even though I won't have to pay to actually adopt this dog, I will need to get it a vet checkup andddd buy all of the things that dogs need (leash, harness, collar, food, bowls, toys, crate, etc). It adds up! Thankfully I was paid yesterday and am going to try to save some of the money so I will be able to afford those items come next week, if I need to.

Because I've been thinking about buying all of these things, I've been looking for websites that have good deals on pet supplies. If anyone has any links to places you like to go, please share! I'm taking suggestions!

Life

I am very bad at following through. I promised a post over a week ago on this blog, yet I don't see one! Life gets in the way. I'm not complaining, honestly, I'm glad that I'm busy with life here and forget to post... it means I have things to do around here and I'm not as bored as I thought I might be.

Work is going great! It's kind of crazy being a real nurse on the floor, but I'm adjusting well and I LOVE going to work each day. Even if I do get tired and some days drag and my feet want to fall off, I still love going because I worked for this. I earned it. I'm bummed that next week I am back in the classroom and not on the floor, but it's all part of orientation.

I am surprised that it was easier than I thought to find a couple of girls that I already consider pretty good friends. Both are new nurses like me and one of them actually is moving to the same apartment complex I live in! My own roommate just moved in for good the other day too and so it's been nice to have someone else here.

I'm still adjusting to being in an area that has considerably less to do than where I am from, but at the same time I'm finding that between working, sleeping, and relaxing, I don't really mind! I am so so glad it's finally fall, my favorite season, and this area is the perfect place to be when the weather changes!

I am going to TRY to come back with a couple posts this week, one about fall here and another about future travel plans. In the meantime, my friend from home is coming up to see me for the night and I can't wait to see her and catch up. I've been missing my family and friends from home so it's nice that she's bringing a piece of it to me =)

Oops

So this blogging thing is harder than I thought... I always forget about it and then POOF it's a week later, two weeks later, etc. and I realize I haven't posted. When I realize I haven't posted, I don't have anything particularly interesting to share, so I choose not to post at all. It's a vicious cycle... I promise I will post something with substance tomorrow, since I have the day off.

Work, Nails, Eat

My first week of work was a very big change from sitting in my apartment all day, waking up at 10, and generally doing nothing! It's so nice to be working full time, even if it does require waking up before the sun rises. Although I have started work, I have a long orientation process so I haven't actually started my 12 hour shifts on the floor yet. That will come soon!

The one thing that stresses me out about starting a real full-time job is that I don't know how all this scheduling works (what's earned time?!?!) and how to decide what benefits I want-- healthcare, retirement, etc. I'm only in my 20s! I do have sessions to help explain those things this week, though, so hopefully I'll feel a little more educated! Because of medications I take, I need to set myself up with a primary care here, but I can't do that until I sign up for health insurance and it takes effect, in about a month. A new doctor, a new dentist, a new license... real life is more paperwork and phone calls than I expected!

Speaking of "new"s... I went to a nail salon near my apartment Saturday to get a pedicure with one of the girls I've met in the past couple of weeks. I'm going to try to save my money and make smart decisions with it, but I'm pretty sure that a pedicure every two or three weeks is going to be one of my splurges-- it's just too relaxing and wonderful! Anyway, we went to this new place, and they were terrible! My nails smudged even two hours after leaving the salon... they were still tacky and got ruined. Oh well, now I know I won't be going back there... luckily there are a few other places nearby to check out! The important things in life =)

I added a page to this blog called "Fitness". There have been so many times I've said I was going to change my lifestyle and it all got thrown out the window when I got busy, lazy, or just didn't do it. Now that I'm living on my own, working and don't have classes to study for, etc, and can buy and prepare my own foods, I've decided it's really the perfect time to make good choices and change myself for the better. It's not so much that I want to lose a ton of weight to be skinny, but just I want to get in shape and feel good about myself. Right now all that's there is a weight loss ticker (I do want to lose about 20 pounds!) but I plan on adding exercise info and other related things as I go, to track my progress.

Here's to a great second week of work!

... I'll love ya, TOMORROW!

*Please note that the title is from my favorite musical ever, Annie*

Tomorrow I start my first full-time, bona fide professional career. I will log my first hours as an RN, even if it means I'll be sitting in a general orientation from 8-5 and not doing anything nurse-like. That's fine with me, because after that I'm pretty sure I'm going to be tumbling head first into everything nurse related. I'm SO excited! I know most people are pissed that summer vacation is coming to an end, but I've been waiting all summer to start this job. I simply need to keep a positive mindset and try to learn as much as I can!

Today, in preparation for real-life, I went grocery shopping with an actual list of items to buy to make specific meals. I picked a handful of recipes that I've found through blogs and Pinterest, and decided to make 4 or 5 of them this week. Tonight, I actually made two of them and froze a third for cooking later in the week. I'll devote another post to what I cooked and how they turned out-- delicious!

I'm going to try to make it an early night... if 10:30 counts as early... because my alarm is set for 6:15 tomorrow morning. First time that's happened in a LONG while, it's definitely going to be an adjustment.

Wish me luck!

Green?

More like brown.

This, my friends, is a spinach and blueberry smoothie. I've seen all these recipes recently about making "green machine" smoothies by adding spinach to them. This morning I woke up and realized I have so many things in my fridge that are going to go bad if I don't start using them, spinach and blueberries being two of those things (the problems with living alone...). I looked online and found this recipe that claimed you can't even taste the spinach in it, so I decided to try it out.

Spinach Blueberry Smoothie

• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries (I used fresh, because that's what I had)
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 cup fresh spinach 
• 1/4 cup fruit juice (it was weird to me that they don't specify which type of fruit juice, but since all I had in my fridge was Orange Strawberry Pineapple, that's what I chose =\ )
• 2-4 ice cubes

As you can see, the first thing I noticed was that it doesn't look green and pretty like the pictures on the recipe websites claim. More like brown sludge. Hmmm. The taste is actually not so bad. Not something I think is delicious, but not terrible. However, the recipe-writer lied when she said you can't taste the spinach. That's about all I can taste. That and a hint of blueberry mixed in. The fruit juice really doesn't matter, I guess, because I couldn't find that at ALL. 

I'm glad I tried it. It's not something I would probably make just because, but if I had things I needed to use up, I'd consider it. I also like that it's pretty good for you-- I always feel so accomplished when I make something that's actually healthy (usually because I spend the rest of the day sitting around... oops).

Now I just need to get motivated to start going out and buying items for pre-planned meals, and actually making said meals so that I will have things to bring for lunches and dinners when I start work... in two days! I won't need that stuff right away, because at first I'll be doing orientation and classroom, but once I'm on the unit for 12 hour shifts I will want some good meals to eat!

Ouch!

Since I don't have money yet to join a gym or take classes around here yet, I wanted to do exercise at home. Over the summer I had been looking at the "30 day challenge" online-- basically doing the "Ab Ripper X" workout from P90X every day for a month. The reviews said it was very challenging the first few days but after that you'd get used to it, etc. so I thought I'd test it out.

OUCH!

I did it yesterday morning, with some pauses in between and cutting a couple of sets short because I'jm definitely not in prime shape and need to work my way up. Anyways, I woke up this morning and my hip flexors are SO SORE. They are incredibly tight! Sitting is no issue but when I stand up or walk around and they get stretched, it's some serious pain. I feel like such a baby but it's hurting me to stretch my legs out. So clearly I didn't do day number two today... I'm thinking of trying it again tomorrow but I guess that'll depend on how my legs feel in the morning.

Maybe I'll have to find some different exercise? Maybe I didn't stretch enough after? Does anyone have any advice?!?

Domestic

Okay so maybe this isn't so domestic, but it's definitely delicious! I have had a blender at school the past couple of years but it always had to be put away, so it was easy to forget it was there. Now, our apartment has a lot of counter space so I can permanently put my blender (and my George Forman!) in one area and see them all the time. This morning, I wanted some kind of blended smoothie so I looked up a couple of ideas, and then put together this one.

Chocolat-y Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie

• 1 packet Carnation Instant Breakfast- chocolate flavor
• 1/2 medium banana (eat the other half while you prepare everything!)
• 1 tablespoon creamy peanut butter
• 1 cup skim milk
• a few ice cubes (mine were star-shaped, thanks to Ikea!)

Throw it all in and press blend! Easy as pie, and I thought it was pretty delicious. Doesn't even taste like breakfast, nevermind something that's relatively healthy.

I've decided that since I'm going to experimenting in the kitchen, now that I'm an "adult" and need to make my own meals, I'm going to share some of the ones that turn out well on this blog. Soooo I'm adding a new label, entitled "Yum". If you want to see the recipes/meals I've tried, you can click on that and they'll all be in one place. If you didn't notice yet, I already have a label called "DIY" with some of the projects and things I've worked on this summer. Hopefully once I'm working I'll still be able to do crafty things and add to it!

Sneak Peak

I am officially living on my own. My family left yesterday, my new roommate (who, by the way, is super nice) left this morning (she's not moving in for good for a couple of weeks), and I am here... laying in my bed watching HGTV and avoiding the mess of boxes and things that need to be unpacked, organized and put away. Oops!

Even though I have moved in, there is still SO much work to be done. The kitchen is the only room that's really unpacked, and things still need to be organized in there. My room is chaos, and the living room doesn't have real furniture in it until my roommate moves back. The amount of stuff I need to unpack is crazy... good thing I have all week to do it before I need to think about starting work!

My room is a huge work-in-progress, so pictures won't be shared for a while. But for now....

I love the peacock feather! It's hanging above my bed. I got it from Christmas Tree Shoppes for a great price and I think it's so original and matches the colors I have in my room perfectly. The lamp and shade is from Ikea, as is the mirror. I could spend ALL day wandering around Ikea, it's such a cool store!

My plan for this week is to explore the areas around my new home and see what kind of interesting things or places I can find. I also want to take a look at the gyms around here to see which one is best for me (my only requirement is spinning classes, but a pool would be nice too... swimming is such good exercise and I would love to get into that). I can't sign up for a few weeks (no paycheck means no money!) but I want to at least see what's available. Until then, I'm planning on using the hiking trails near my apartment and the small fitness center (aka elliptical) that's in the building.

The one thing I need to solve ASAP is my internet connection. Right now I'm mooching off someone else's internet (yayyy for no passwords!) because the router in our apartment keeps disconnecting and needs to be reset every half hour or so. My dad had the router hanging around our house because it
"didn't work with his compuer" which probably means it doesn't work well in general. I think I'm going to have to pull out that credit card and spend the money on a decent router. I've been trying very hard not to use plastic for things (I have balances I seriously need to pay off once I have a steady income) but internet is definitely a necessity for me, especially because for the next couple of weeks I am here by myself. Can anyone say boring?

Bulletin Board DIY

Since I'm putting off packing up any more of my things, I've decided to post another DIY that I've done this summer. This one is a bulletin board, and it was actually for my younger sister's room, although it matches my decorations perfectly and I would love to have it! I made one for myself with a different color scheme, but it didn't come out as nicely =(.

Things we used:

• Bulletin board: You could use any size or use an unframed piece of corkboard, this is just what my sister chose. We did go out and buy it specifically for this purpose but it would have been even better if we'd had one laying around to up-cycle!
• Fabric: We purchased this turquoise and purple floral fabric from the clearance section at Joann's Fabrics. It was $6 for a yard, which is what we purchased (there was a little left over), and it's gorgeous! Very shiny and silky feeling, too.
• Spray Adhesive: I had Elmer's spray adhesive, which is what we used. It worked pretty well but was very sticky when I got it on my hands! It went through in some spaces and because the fabric was thin, when it dried it left some darkened spots. It wasn't a big deal for this print because it blended it, but with a solid fabric it would be more noticeable.
• Scissors
• Ribbon for a border (if you want)
• Upholstery tacks/thumbtacks for a border (if you want)

 The process was pretty simple... we laid out the fabric over the board so we could decide where to cut. You want to leave a couple inches on either side of the board so that you can fold the fabric over to the back. Once you've cut it, take the spray adhesive and spray small sections (we split the board into imaginary quarters) and lay the fabric down as you go. Remember to make sure you spread the fabric out with your hands as you go and push out any bubbles. When we got to the edges, we sprayed small sections and did the same thing (making sure it was laying flat and that we got any bubbles out of the edge between the corkboard and the frame itself). After gluing the surface, we flipped it over and did the same thing with the back-- we weren't as careful to make it look pretty because that will be against the wall! Tuck and glue the corners as you go so they're pulled nice and tight.

After that, you're technically done! My sister chose to add a white ribbon around the sides and secure with small black upholstery tacks, just for decoration.

I love how it turned out! These are the colors my sister wanted to incorporate into her newly painted teenage room and when we hung it up I think it pulled things together really well.

The One About Packing

I've never felt like more of a hoarder than I do when I actually have to clean and organize in order to pack. This time around, it's especially overwhelming because for the first time ever, I need to pack everything. When I was in college, I still had my half of the bedroom, my closet, etc. to store my other things in-- stuff that I wasn't getting rid of, but didn't really want. This time, though, I'm moving out for real, and my sister is taking over the rest of the bedroom. Since I'm going to live somewhere "permanently" it makes sense that I should be taking all of my things, including boxes of photos, cards, mementos... everything. It just seems so weird to be taking these items out of my childhood home, to put them into a new closet.

It's also been funny because as I go through all my things, I have noticed that I really do tend to keep a LOT of papers. For example, I found the card my parents gave me when I graduated from elementary school. Elementary school! That was about 12 years ago! Its the little things like that that I don't necessarily need to have with me, but aren't willing to part with. So this time, it's all gotta get packed up and moved.

I also find it extremely hard to stay focused on cleaning things out and putting things in boxes when I look around me and all there is is STUFF. Its SO overwhelming-- I better be settling into this place for a while because I don't want to do this again! I feel like I'm never going to be finished... but I need to be by tomorrow night. Insert nervous face here.

Today I also hugged my two best friends for the last time in a while. One is a friend from high school, and the other my college roommate. I am certain that they'll both be up to visit me, and I'll definitely be home every so often, but its still so weird to be moving away, especially from my roommate. Usually, when I'm moving, it means it's into college and I get to be with her! I'm pretty sure my new soon-to-be roommate and I are going to get along well, but it sure will be hard to replace Roommate (my nickname for her for 4 years... original huh?).

Less than 48 hours and counting.

Nerves

In four days, I will be leaving home and moving into my first apartment (not including college housing, that's so different). In three days, I (and my dad!) will be packing up all of my furniture, items, etc. into a Uhaul so it's ready to go. I've been so excited all summer about starting my job, living like an adult, having the paycheck of an RN and everything else-- but now that it's days/weeks away (I move in a few days but don't start work for a couple weeks) I am getting nervous. Don't get me wrong, I am still SUPER excited, but now nerves are kicking in a little...

"That's a lot of bills to organize/pay."
"Do I have everything I need to make the move?"
"What if I get sick and want my mom? I know I'm an adult but I still want someone to take care of me when I'm not feeling well."
"I'm going to miss my dog!"

Just a few of the things running through my head. Not to mention I still have a LOT of organizing/cleaning/packing to do before Thursday. Busy busy!

Do you have any tips/tricks for making a move easier? Any advice about being out on "your own" for the first time? I'd love to hear!

Dresser Re-Vamp

Since last summer I have been interested in renovating furniture to make it look fresh and new. I'd saved images of ones I found online that I liked, tutorials I thought would be helpful... but never had an item to do anything with.

This summer has been all about finding furniture and other necessary items for my soon-to-be (less than a week!) new apartment. I already had most of my bedroom furniture from renting houses in college, but was missing the perfect dresser. I had been hoping to find a long dresser that I could use as a surface in my room (since I will have two closets in my room I didn't need specific numbers of drawers). When I found the perfect dresser on Craigslist (I've been using this site a lot this summer, it's so great!) I jumped at the opportunity to buy it and make it mine.

I apologize for not having more photos of the dresser in-progress... I didn't think I would be making a blog post of it! However, it was pretty simple to do. After looking at a lot of tutorials online, I went to work on it... cleaned it off really good, two coats of grey primer, and two coats of black acrylic latex paint. I was debating whether or not to sand it but my grandfather the handyman told me that it wasn't necessary. Also, the top of the dresser was laminate so sanding may have done more harm than good. After all the painting, I sprayed the top of the dresser with a polycrylic spray, since I wanted the top to be more permanent as I will be putting a lot of items on it and don't want it to get scratched or peel easily.

I also spray painted the hardware silver, after giving them good cleaning overnight in water and vinegar. I was originally planning on buying new hardware but after seeing the cost to replace them all (and the extra work in filling the current holes and drilling new ones) I stuck with the old hardware. Looking at it now, I'm happy I did.

I love this dresser now! The before dresser wasn't even in bad shape, it just wasn't my style. Now, this "new" dresser will match the other furniture in my room and I can feel proud of it because I did it myself!

Pinterest Fail

I probably shouldn't post this as my first DIY project on here, but since I tried it out today I'll share. This is one of those times when something you see on Pinterest doesn't exactly pan out how you imagine.

This is the original post:

Cool, right? And all she had to do was make some crayon shavings and iron it onto a canvas!

Real life:

First of all, it took me over an hour to create shavings of only FIVE crayons. I am not a very patient person so this was frustrating... I just wanted to see the outcome! 

 As you can see, the outcome leaves a lot to be desired. Since in the original picture/tutorial, the colors came out jewel-toned, I thought I would try to do the same thing on a black canvas (the left one in the above picture) rather than white. When that came out looking like you know what, I decided to take the leftover crayon meltings from the wax paper and iron it onto a white canvas. That turned out better than the black one, but overall they were big disappointments.

I thought that if they came out well I could use them as art in my bathroom, but that's definitely not the plan now... and I couldn't even spraypaint over the canvases to use again because the crayon made the surface uneven. In the trash they went =(

Have you ever tried something from Pinterest that turned out to be a big failure?

Why hello there!

After following certain blogs for a long time, I've decided that one of the best ways for me to document my life from this point forward is to have a blog of my own. I've started certain other "posting projects" in the past, but they never get anywhere. Who knows if this even will! I'm going to do this for myself, more than for anybody else, but if I find some followers along the way who like what I'm posting about, then even better!

So about me... I am a young, single (for now!) twenty-something, right out of college, new graduate nurse who is soon to be settling into my first "real life" apartment, with a roommate I've never met, two hours from my family, and starting a brand new job-- I'm excited, but nervous as you can imagine! I live in the northeast US and will be moving within that region but still will not know a single person when I start out!

This past summer, since I've been enjoying my time as a college graduate and preparing for life in the real world, I have had a lot of time on my hands to do none other than browse Pinterest. In my searches, I found that I really do enjoy DIY projects, crafting etc... and I probably think I'm better at it than I actually am. I am really hoping to continue being "artsy-fartsy" once I start working in a couple weeks. I will have a brand new apartment to decorate so I have every excuse to make art, decorations, etc! My first few posts will probably be a review of some of the projects I have taken on this summer. =)

Like I said, I am soon to be a new RN on an inpatient unit at a hospital, and you will most likely read a lot about my experiences starting out in my career-- the good, the bad, the sad, and the disgusting. As well, you can expect to read a lot about my dreams and hopes for my future-- I tend to get ahead of myself when thinking about my future husband, wedding, children... what girl doesn't?!?!

So I hope that this blog, my little private space, becomes something I am proud of and that at least a few people will find interesting to read. Here goes nuthin'!