Back in the grove of things

So after a very long hiatus, like a 6 month hiatus, I am back. I fell of the blogging bandwagon for many reasons, the most of which being a lack of time, funny as this was supposed to be all about learning to find the time to do things when you were busy. HAHAHAHAHA that didn't happen. But I have decided to come back and try again. So here I am, we will see how it goes.

Crafts and Decorating for Less

I never realized how expensive decorating could be until I got my own place. Seriously, the price of picture frames, four dollars for a remotely decent frame is absurd. I know most of you are thinking four dollars isn't all that bad, but take that four dollars for a 4x6 frame and multiply that by 20. So now you are paying 80 dollars for picture frames. That's my electric bill. I don't know about you but I find that to be a little ridiculous. Especially for picture frames that aren't the best quality, high quality ones are even more expensive. So after a looking around and not finding picture frames that I liked, I decided to take a different more creative route. I went to Michael's and ACMoore had 4x6 unfinished wooden picture frames for a dollar. Now these frames aren't perfect, they aren't always smooth, and they don't have glass or even plastic, but they are a dollar, and unfinished frames that have glass are two or three dollars more. Not worth it when you are just going to paint the frame. I then go and buy the little bottles of paint, each of them are anywhere between 47 cents and a dollar. The 47 cent ones work just as well as the more expensive ones, but that's up to you, I am a big fan of Apple Barrel and Craft Smart. I also buy some one inch foam brushes. These are generally about 30 cents apiece or you can buy four for a dollar. Depending on the number of frames you are getting and the amount of paint you are getting the four pack is generally the better deal. Then when you get home, sit down and paint. Each frame, again depending on what all you are doing to it, takes about 30-45 minutes, start to finish this includes drying time. You can then use the little dowel rod they give you to help the frame stand up or you can hang them up, and make a pretty photo wall.

Getting Organized and Staying That Way

Getting organized is probably one of the most important things that you can do for yourself to reduce stress and manage your time. And I say that after I just spent 10 minutes looking for the remote in my living room. Apparently just because I can put stuff away in some sort of organized manner, that doesn't mean I can prevent the couch from eating the remote. But I guess that is beside the point. I have learned a lot about getting organized since I started living on my own. I thought I was a hyper organized person when I lived in my 13x15 dorm room and that was basically the only place I needed to clean. My dorm room was almost always clean, just because there was no room for me to be messy. Since moving in with Alan I have learned two things; first: two people make a lot of mess, second: most of the time something will be out of place and you have to deal with this. But I sat down and I thought about it and thought about what works for Alan and I.

1. Start small: Getting organized isn't easy. In fact just because you get organized doesn't mean that you will stay that way, actually most of the time when you get organized something will come along and mess it all up. So the best thing you can do for yourself is start small. You can't go in and be like I am going to organize my whole place today, because depending on how disorganized you are, trying to organize your whole place might be more like trying to melt an eight foot pile of snow by blowing on it. Basically causing more stress than it's worth. Instead what we did was start small. Start in the kitchen or somewhere else where you feel that organizing is going to help you out. I started in the kitchen because with it being organized I can move around quickly and efficiently which leaves me the ability to do other things.
   
2. Keep up with the mess: I think one of the biggest things that I have learned is that you have to keep up with the mess. I know that it is hard to do that with all the other things that we have to do in life, but at the same time if you want to get organized you have to stay on top of it. Once you organize something keep it organized. This means dirty clothes go in the laundry basket. Clean clothes as soon as they are folded get put away. Dirty dishes go in the dishwasher, when the dishwasher is done put the dishes away. It just makes life simple.
   
3. Share the responsibilities: When two people live in a place, two people should clean the place. This seems obvious but it is something I have seen a lot of people struggle with. In all actuality this is something Alan and I still struggle with on a regular basis. But is something that you have to agree to work on. Alan and I have divided some of the basic chores up. He takes out the trash, cleans up his man cave, most of the time he picks up his own clothes (even though that took a while to get him to do that), and does other things I ask him to do. I do the laundry, dust, clean up the kitchen, and clean up the bathroom. Then there are things we both do such as empty/load the dishwasher and vacuum. Other things pop up; there are times when I do his chores and there are times when he does mine. Dividing the work makes life a little easier because when it comes to keeping your place clean it takes team work.
   
4. Have a messy place: Unless you have OCD, or you are just one of those people who are blessed with the ability to be organized all the time, it is not possible to keep everywhere clean all the time. I know that I can't keep everywhere clean all the time, in fact anytime I try to keep everywhere clean all the time I feel like I am losing my mind. So, I decided to allow myself one place where it was okay for me to be messy. This place is my car, and anyone who knows me knows that my car is never ever clean, in fact anytime I do clean out my car I just make it a mess again in a few days. So after cleaning my car over and over again, I decided to make this my one place I was allowed to be messy. This reduced so much stress in my life, and yes I do clean my car but I do it like once a month now. Having a messy place just makes life easier because it allows me to remember that I don't have to be perfectly organized all the time.
   
5. Keep it fun: Yes, I am still talking about cleaning here. Keep cleaning fun. Now I know you are probably sitting here thinking wow she has lost her ever loving mind. But no, I promise I haven't. One of the easiest ways to get organized and to stay that way is to keep it fun. I know there are certain chores that everyone hates. Personally, I loathe vacuuming and folding clothes, so when I vacuum I pull out my ipod, pop it in, and dance around my living room while, this makes vacuuming so much more fun in fact that I am willing to vacuum more often and do it a little more thoroughly. Plus I am getting some cardio in so it's kind of like a two for one special. When I am folding clothes, I put on a movie I love, and I fast forward to my favorite parts. By making this a little more enjoyable it seems to go by faster, and before I know it my clothes are folded and put away and I can then go do something else.
   
6. Don't put it off: Don't put off cleaning. Putting off cleaning your apartment just means that you will have a bigger mess when you get to it later, and then you really won't want to do it. I know that cleaning the kitchen when you are cooking or when you are done cooking sucks something awful but just think about it like this: if you get spaghetti sauce on the counter and you leave it there to dry then you have to work really hard to get it up, but if you grab a paper towel as soon as you spill it and wipe it up, there is no more mess and it took little to no real work. Laundry is the same way. I hate doing laundry as much as the next person, but just because you have three weeks worth of clothes, doesn't mean that you should go three weeks before you do laundry. One week of laundry is bad enough multiply that by three and it's like a nightmare in itself.
   

Getting organized is not something that will happen overnight. Honestly, there are days when I am not organized, but what I have learned is that when I am organized things go a lot smoother. It's not something I do by myself, and it sure isn't something that I am perfect at, but what I have learned about being organized is that when you get there you will want to stay there.

Homemade Chip Dip

I'm one of those people who likes chips, if you know me, you know this is true. I have chips in our apartment all the time, and if I ever run out of chips, which is very rare, I will go to the store behind our apartment. (Yes, I should probably join chip eaters anonymous) Now with these chips I like chip dip, but I find it funny how good chip dip is just as expensive as the chips and you don't get enough to finish the bag of chips, so you either end up with too many chips and not enough dip or, because you buy more dip, too much dip and not enough chips. (To me this is kind of like the 8 hot dog buns 10 hot dogs thing, it's just a vicious cycle) After a while I finally decided to see if I could save some money by making my own chip dip. In an effort to find a recipe I went where most people would go, the internet. I was looking for something that wasn't going to take a whole lot of time or work, and that people had given rave reviews about. I also wanted it to be something that I could make a whole lot of at once and then keep it for when I wanted it. It took some searching, but I finally found something that I was willing to test, I can be a picky eater so anything with tomatoes or mushrooms is out. The first time I was able to try this dip was at our house-warming party, and it was a huge success. Since our house warming party I have continued to make this dip each time with great results.

What you need:

1 cup Sour Cream

¼ cup mayo (I actually use a little less because I don't like to taste it, and DO NOT use miracle whip it will be too sweet)

Minced Onions (dried)

Garlic Powder

Salt

Pepper

Mix the Sour Cream and Mayo together in a bowl. Add Minced Onions, Garlic Powder, Salt, and Pepper to taste.

This recipe is really simple to make and it normally takes me about 10 minutes to make. The only thing that I caution against is adding too much seasoning too quickly. I tend to add a little of each, stir, taste, and then add more if anything is needed. Generally this is cheaper than buying the dip because the only thing I normally have to buy is sour cream.

Storage wise I just put this is a glad-ware container and stick it in the fridge.

Time goes by so quickly

I think one of the biggest things that everyone struggles with when they move out on their own is time management, because let's face it most people didn't take all those time management tips to heart in high school and college. If you are one of those people who did take those tips to heart well then more power to you, and congratulations on being one step ahead of the game. For the rest of us out there, time management is one of those things that different things work for different people. There are a lot of reasons for this, first and most obviously is the fact that everyone is different, secondly some people have more time than others, someone who has all day to do things have different time management needs than those who only have a few hours every day to do things that need to be done. But I think most importantly when thinking about what you want to get accomplished in a day there you might have different ideas on how to do it. So basically, these time management tips are what I have found to work for me; as I go along I might find things that work better or I might find things that don't work nearly as well, but what is most important is that you try and try until you find something that works for you.

1. Write things down: I personally have a planner in my purse that goes everywhere with me, and a calendar on my kitchen wall. I use both of these to tell me when my bills are due, when people are coming over, when I have appointments, when Alan and I get paid. I also try as often as possible to write down Alan and I's work schedule. This is one of the biggest things that has helped me manage my time because it allows me to see when I have free time and when I need to get things together because stuff is fast approaching. Now don't get me wrong there are some flaws to this write it down system, to begin with if you forget to write it down then you might forget to do it. This is part of the reason I have a planner and a calendar, things pop up and if I am out I can still right them down. Then I just sync up my calendar and planner once every couple of days. Another thing to remember if you use this system is to put your calendar where you are going to see it. I my calendar is in the kitchen near the sink, I have to look at it every time I walk out of the kitchen and it's my friendly little reminder that I might have to get something done.
   
2. Remember there are only 24 hours in a day: Now I know most people see this as a bad thing. Because more often than not 24 hours is just not enough, in fact I am pretty sure that if we could add another 10 hours to each day most of us would be happy. But at the same time eventually that would not be enough, so some of the best advice that I can give is to be happy with what you have, and you only have 24 hours. Now what you do with those 24 hours is up to you. I tend to try and break my day down, especially when I was working 10 hours days and traveling an hour one way and an hour back in awful traffic. First remember that sleep is necessary and depending on who you are you might need more than others. I personally need about six to eight hours to be functional, I can function with less but I don't tend to have a very nice disposition with less. Secondly, subtract your time for work and travel to and from work, so for me say I was getting seven hours of sleep and then two hours for travel and then ten hours of work, that right there gets rid of nineteen hours of my day, leaving me with five hours to do whatever else it is that I need to do during the day, this includes cleaning, cooking, eating, relaxing, and anything else that I need to do during the day. I have learned that I like to cook, but a lot of time the simpler the better, but I always give myself 45 minutes for prep, cook, and clean-up . 30-45 minutes for eating (sometimes more or less depending on what I am eating. Then from there I give myself 30 minutes of cleaning up something around the house, this can be dusting the living room, vacuuming, picking up stuff, unloading the dishwasher, etc. As I am currently studying for my GREs I give myself an hour of study time a day, 30 minutes for getting ready in the morning.
   

   So here is the break down:
   

   7 hours of sleep
   

   30 minutes of getting ready in the morning
   

   1 hour travel to work
   

   10 hours of work
   

   1 hour travel from work
   

   45 minutes of cooking
   

   45 minutes of eating
   

   30 minutes of cleaning
   

   1 hour of studying
   

   Total 22.5 hours
   

   This leaves me an hour and a half to do whatever I want to do, when it comes to relaxing, but it also gives me some wiggle room with the schedule, if I want to clean more or study more, or cook something elaborate.
   

3. Do the big things on the weekend: When Alan and I first moved in together we struggled with finding time to do the laundry, grocery shopping, and all the other big chores. What I cannot emphasize the most is do the big things on the weekend, or your days off. This not only gives you time to do it and do it right but you won't feel like you are playing catch-up. Get all the laundry done in one day, and I know for some people this isn't possible, but this was what I meant about some things work for some people and some things don't. This is what works for me, and it has been a BIG help when it comes to time management.
   
4. Make time for yourself: Time management is very dependent on your stress level. The more stressed I get the harder it is for me to manage my time. What I have learned is that I needed to make a little time for myself at least once a week to do something for me. Now this can be anything and it can take any amount of time. Some weeks I work on some sort of craft, some weeks it involves me dancing around the living room, and some weeks I just go for a little drive away from the noise and traffic. Relaxing helps you focus and stay on task. When you can get your wits about you and you can focus and think then you will be more productive. And productivity is the goal of time management.
   
5. Learn to say NO: One of my biggest problems when it came to time management was learning to say NO. I am awful at this, I want to please everyone, and do anything I can to help, but one of the things I had to learn was that sometimes what I need to do is focus on me, and the things that I need to get done because if you over schedule yourself then you will have to either cut corners to get everything done or not do something that you need to do, and neither situation is ideal.
   
6. Plan it out: This is something that I have learned is important to not only time management but also to budgeting (which I will talk about later). Planning what you need to do will make life easier. I plan everything right now. I plan what I need to clean, I plan what Alan and I will be eating during the week, and I plan a bunch of other little things. When I say plan I guess I should explain what I mean. By plan I mean list. Listing will make life easier; it gives you the ability to check things off to see how close to done you are, it helps you remember what you need and what you don't, and it helps you estimate how much time it will take you to do something. Think about it like this, when you go to the grocery store with a list, you get what you need probably a little of what you don't and you get in and out quickly. Thus, saving yourself time and the head ache of forgetting something you need and then having to go back later.
   

Those six things have made my life so much easier since I moved into my own place. And what I have learned is that when the stress level is down things get done more efficiently. Managing my time leaves me time for the more important things in life, such as spending time with friends and family. But just remember relax, do what you can, and don't sweat the small stuff. Being on your own is hard enough as it is, don't make it harder by worrying about what you can't get done right at that moment.

Airbake

One of the things that I've noticed since I moved into my own place is that I am always looking for things to make my life easier. This includes pans, recipes, cleaning products, etc. I figure that I am not the only person in this situation, because who doesn't want life to be a little easier, so every once in a while, when I find something that helps make life easier I will post a little blog about it, giving uses for it and where you can buy it. So here we go.

A month after we moved in Alan and I had a house warming party, something simple, with lots of food and good friends. At this house warming party I received what I now consider to be one of the best inventions ever, and if I could meet whoever invented it I would shake their hand and tell them they are a genius. This lovely little thing is called an Airbake Pan. Basically the Airbake pan is a cookie sheet that comes with two layers, so thicker than your typical cookie sheet, there is a gap between the first and second layer (you can't see this gap you can only feel it). What happens is when you stick the pan in the oven the air gets heated and bakes whatever you are baking much more evenly. Your cookies are golden brown all around not golden on top and brown on the bottom, garlic bread the same thing, basically this pan is one of the greatest things ever. Plus, when you use this pan you actually get to follow the baking times, because I don't know about anyone else, but my oven is slow (this could be because I firmly believe I have one of the first electric ovens ever invented) and it takes an additonal five to ten minutes to bake anything. This pan cuts that back down to maybe an additional minute here or there. I love this pan just because it makes things easier because I mean really who likes burnt garlic bread, or rock hard cookies. Who likes spending an extra five minutes waiting for cookies to finish? I don't have the patience for this nonsense. So this is why I reccomend this pan. Pricewise it is quite reasonable, and you can find it at Target, Wal-Mart, and many other places. What's great is that Airbake doesn't just make cookies sheets, they make many different types of pans, which I haven't been able to try, yet.

How we got to where we are now

I think the most important start of any story is the beginning, it allows for everything else to happen, because it explains how we arrived at the point that we are currently looking at. So here is our beginning.
Once upon a time, like two months ago, my boyfriend, we will call him Alan, and I decided that we wanted to move in together. Alan and I, at the time, had been together for a little under a year, but had known each other for five, and as I had just graduated from college and was living with family for the first time in four years, I knew that this was the right step for us. As we made our decision, we told our families about our plan; his family was very supportive of the situation and encouraged us, my family on the other hand was a little less encouraging, in fact I am pretty sure that if I wasn't 22 years old and a college graduate they would have disowned me. (Now here's where I am going to add my little words of wisdom)
Even though my family was less than encouraging when it came to Alan and I moving in together, and even though I spent a lot of time dealing with them asking me if this was what I was sure I wanted to do, and hearing them tell me that I was doing an unchristian thing (I vaguely remember one of them telling me that I was going to be living in sin). I don't regret telling them that we were moving in together, in fact I almost wish I had told them that we were planning this sooner than I did because I think it would have made life easier for everyone involved. I honestly do believe that it was hard for my parents to hear that I was going to be moving in with my boyfriend, and while my parents are less than perfect, I believe that they want the best for me and I think that my decision to move in with Alan worried them because if something were to happen between us, we might be stuck in a situation where not only would one of us be hurt emotionally but at the same time ruin us financially.

Yet, even though we didn't have the support of my family, we decided to continue on with what we thought was the best next step for our relationship. After a little searching we found an apartment that we loved, it was in an apartment complex in which a couple of our friends lived in, it was close to my job that I will be starting in September, it was close to his school, his family, his work, and in general close to things that make life easier, there is a Wal-Mart down the road, a mall, lots of good take-out and the highway isn't all that far away, and while it may not have been perfect, because nothing ever is, it was the right place for us. With in three weeks of us finding our apartment Alan and I were moving in. When we first moved in we didn't have a whole lot of furniture, most of my furniture was at my mother's house which was over four hours away. In fact the only furniture we had at the time was a love seat two black tables from Wal-Mart, a TV, an air mattress, and a night stand. We lived like that for two weeks. In all honesty it wasn't that bad living with very little, in fact sometimes I miss it, there was a lot less to clean, there was more to vacuum, but less to dust, and wipe and all the other things that I do to keep the place clean.
Since we moved into our own place in the middle of July, Alan and I have made a lot of changes to our place. To begin with we have a lot more furniture, not all of the things that we want but enough for right now, and enough for our 2 bedroom 1 bathroom.

We have had a housewarming party, and that was an adventure in itself, which I will save for another post, and we have learned a lot about each other along the way, again something for another post. But what I will say as I finally wrap up our beginning, moving in with someone is an adventure in itself, it is a challenge that teaches you a lot about yourself, about what you are willing to change and about what you won't change. From the start it teaches you how much of someone you can handle and how much time you need to yourself. It teaches you that the most important thing is to listen and to compromise, and to write things down. But most importantly it teaches you that yes growing up can suck (BILLS SUCK) but at the same time growing up leads to the ability to come home to a hug from someone you love. So yes, I grew up for this.