Monthly Archives: October 2014

Sunshine Award

Posted in Admin. by

Award season seems to have arrived again, this time courtesy of Tales from 2L Hell. K, a second-year law student detailing the trials (pun intended) and tribulations of being a law student, has nominated this lil’ blog for the Sunshine Award. Of course, I don’t object (so. many. law. puns.). But I will object if you don’t check out her blog.

Rules

1) Give five facts about yourself.
2) Answer the questions your nominator posed for you.
3) Nominate other bloggers for the award.
4) Give five questions for your nominees to answer.

Five Facts About Mesunshine-award

1) I’m allergic to nature. An allergist once tested me for all sorts of environmental allergies, and the test revealed that I’m basically allergic to every type of grass and tree known to man.
2) I’m perpetually cold. Tiny space heaters are my friend.
3) I wasn’t able to move into my current apartment until seven weeks after my designated move-in date because of construction delays. I ended up staying with a friend (who is the most generous and patient friend you could ask for) during those seven weeks and commuted almost an hour to work every day.
4) I think my favorite color is red. That’s right, I THINK it’s red. I dunno.
5) I love picture frames, especially unique ones. I have oodles of framed photos around my office and my apartment. The more the merrier.

Tales from 2L Hell’s Q&A

1) If you could adopt any one animal (domestic or wild) to keep as a pet, what would you adopt and why?
If we are going to be practical about it, I would say a puppy, because duh. Dogs are furry little people, except they are better than people because they care more about their human than they do about themselves. But if I could somehow have my very own penguin, that would be magical. I love penguins because they waddle, they can’t fly (which is weird because they are a bird), and because lady penguins are total BOSSES (they leave their husbands behind to care for their eggs while they hunt for food!)
2) Pretend that whatever career path you’re on, you never chose. What new career would you choose to have and why?
Either interior decorator or graphic designer. I just love scouring websites and stores for decor, and the funnest part of moving into my own apartment was picking out all sorts of cute and chic home accessories. I also love playing around with Photoshop and creating posters, tweaking photos, and making artsy, collage-y wallpaper for my laptop.
3) What is your favorite childhood movie?
The Aristocats. It is easily the best Disney cartoon movie (Finding Nemo is Disney/Pixar’s best animated movie, in my opinion). At the place I interned at last summer, the interns all shared a workroom, and one day, we decided to play the Aristocats soundtrack while we worked. Yes, we were SO cool.
4) If you could eat one type of food (Mexican, Chinese, etc) for the next 3 years, what cuisine would you choose?
Italian. Man, I love me some pasta.
5) What is one legitimately bad habit would you like to break?
I eat out far too much. I wish I wasn’t so darn lazy and didn’t crave cookies and macarons all the time.

Nominees

Cupid or Cats
Young & Twenty
Daisy Chains & Dreamers
Ah, The Country Life

Questions for the Nominees

1) What are your feelings regarding the book and/or movie “Gone Girl”?
2) What’s something you see other bloggers do that you think is strange, annoying, or dumb?
3) What was the last song you listened to (don’t lie and go listen to a cool or indie/hipster song before you answer this)?
4) If you could only have access to one social media platform, what would it be and why?
5) What’s the nerdiest thing about you (ex: your nerdiest obsession, your nerdiest moment, your nerdiest accessory)?

Time Marches On: Signs That I’m Turning into an Adult

Posted in Musings, Uncategorized by

There are certain moments that pop up every now and then during which I realize, “huh, I think this is a sign that I am no longer a kid.” These are rather unsettling, however, because in my head I’m still a teenager. I try to avoid thinking about the whole “you’re an adult and you’ve got responsibilities like knowing how to change batteries in a smoke detector, and starting a 401k, and getting your own health insurance.”

Anyway, no matter how hard I try to avoid thinking about the fact that teenagers think I’m old enough to now be addressed as “ma’am,” I can’t go a few days without being reminded of my entrance into adulthood.

Here are some of my more recent “I’m not a kid anymore” observations.

  • My mom has a long-standing love of white dinnerware. I recently spent a solid 15 minutes perusing the white dinnerware aisle at Target BY MYSELF before selecting a few items of my own. Yep, I’m turning into my mother.
  • I have to Google acronyms I see online. IIRC? What in the world does that mean?
  • I witnessed people doing some dance called “the Wobble” for the first time ever at a wedding this summer. It confused me.
  • College freshmen look like babies to me.
  • It seems absurd to let a 16-year-old have a driver’s license.
  • I don’t understand how Disney Channel shows are even popular. Back in my day, they were way better than the cheesy crap that is shown now.

Making My Own Shelter

Posted in Musings by

Now that I am completely (ahem, mostly) responsible for taking care of myself and my finances, I find myself in situations that I never even would have imagined a couple of years ago.  These situations stress me out far more than they probably should. They also sometimes result in me making questionable decisions with my money. I guess you could say I’m reluctantly entering adulthood.

For example, on a recent Sunday afternoon, I made an exasperated phone call to my parents while standing in the bedding aisle of a rather shady Walmart (although, let’s be real: there’s no such thing as an “un-shady” Walmart). It had come to my attention that a mattress pad is necessity. Apparently having a mere mattress is not enough. You must cover the supposedly plush rectangle with more plushy stuff and then put your impossible-to-fold fitted sheet on top of this artificial cloud you have created.

My exasperation stemmed from a multitude of things. I hadn’t budgeted for this purchase, I didn’t know which type of mattress pad was the best one, I had already made the mistake of picking the wrong type of sheets from Ikea (lesson learned: do not skimp on sheets. Your skin will regret it) and I didn’t want to make another costly bedding error, and I was shopping by myself.

“I never even thought that I’d have to buy stuff like this,” I said to my dad. “Adulthood is hard.”

“You were sheltered,” my dad said with a chuckle on the other end of the line. “You’ve lived a sheltered life.” He went on to say it’s not a bad thing, that he and my mom were happy to have provided for me all these years, blah, blah, blah.

Now, before you go off thinking that I was some spoiled little princess, let me stop you. I was not entirely spoiled. Among many other restrictions, I never had a car in high school, I never had more than a $10 weekly allowance from the beginning of high school all the way through law school, my brother and I were not allowed to drink sodas except on the weekends, and designer purses were out of the question unless if I saved up my pennies and bought them myself (even then, I wasn’t allowed to have one until after I graduated from high school). #FirstWorldProblems, am I right?

However, my parents never hesitated to provide me with things I needed, like tuition for law school, a new laptop when my current one was on death’s door, a new TV after my current one began making ear-piercing screeching noises every time I turned it on, textbooks for school, gas money, etc. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate that I never really had to worry about those things. I also consider myself fortunate that I no longer have a television that weighs 800 pounds and blasts out my eardrums (do y’all remember how heavy non-flat screen TVs were? Sheesh. What a pain.).

Well, now the cord has finally been cut (ahem, mostly). I now frequently experience sticker shock and extreme annoyance at buying things like allergy medicine, extra hangers for my closet, and shower curtain rods. These things seem frivolous and necessary at the same time.

My brain is stupid when it comes to spending my own money sometimes. Buying a $35 lamp with a stainless steel finish and elegant gray shade? WORTH IT. Buying a $16 “giraffe trinket dish” to put my earrings in? ALSO WORTH IT. Buying three Glade apple cinnamon candles all at once? COMPLETELY WORTH IT.

Buying a broom? NO. THAT’S DUMB. Buying a vacuum? YEAH, RIGHT. Buying a mattress pad? WHO NEEDS IT? I’ll sleep on that spring-filled brick, thank you very much.

Alas, but what makes a house a home is more than just candles that smell like fall and light fixtures that bring a sense of coziness. Things like Swiffer sweepers, shower curtain rods that function properly, and sheets that don’t feel like sandpaper are also needed to make your tiny apartment one that is fit for an adult and not some misfit college freshman.

I have gone from being a sheltered girl to being an adult female who is attempting to furnish and maintain her own shelter. I’m proud of how far I’ve come, even if that mattress pad I spent forever selecting still hasn’t actually made it farther than the living room. Baby steps, y’all. Baby steps.