Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Tell me about it Tuesday!

I’m linking up with the Helene, Emily, and Kathleen for their new weekly link-up: Tell me about it Tuesday! TMAT is our chance to vent and honestly who doesn’t need that?! I know I do after the day I had yesterday! This can be a story, an idea, new craft, fashions, design, photos of your dog (guilty) etc, etc! 

The rules:
1. Follow the 3 hosts HeleneEmily and Kathleen
2. Copy the button and link back to the hosts
3. Please check out at least 2 other link ups!

My tell me about it moment-

Yesterday I was at the State of Iowa NSA (Nursing Student Association) Convention all day from 6:45am until 5pm at the old Veteran’s Memorial Auditorium which is now the ‘Community Choice Community Credit Union Convention Center’. No one could think of a shorter name? Anyway it was bitter sweet for me because they converted the old auditorium into the MASSIVE convention center and I remember attending state wrestling in Vets my first year as a wrestling cheerleader before we were allowed to travel. My mom drove my friend and I out just to watch for a bit and shop. Ahh the memories. 

Vets then during state wresting and now the top part serves as a banquet hall. 

Anyway, so at convention each school is allowed to bring as many members as they like and are allotted a certain number of delegates based on their schools attendance and membership. We are also encouraged to create resolutions that may help improve the health care field. As delegates, it is our job to make sure these resolutions are up to the highest standard at the state level and challenge not only each other but ask the author questions to make sure we all understand the resolution before voting on whether to pass the resolution to the house to be considered to nationals. 

Being my first year at convention, my teachers had encouraged me to observe but made sure my classmates and I were prepared if we had something to contribute. Parliamentary procedure is tricky my friends and let me tell you some of the other colleges had no idea what they were doing and 

~Marissa

Monday, October 29, 2012

Five for Five

1. Don’t buy anything I don’t need this week.  FAIL. 
2. Cut back on my sugar intake. I did pretty good at cutting back my sugar, until I went to Ames for the weekend and tailgated. 
3. Cut Carver’s hair. Just did that today. I’m still not good at it. 
4. CLEAN my apartment. Fail. 
5. Get my oil changed and low tired checked out. CHECK! 

New goals for the week:
1. Clean my apartment
2. Take Carver for at least two long walks this week
3. Work on my many projects BEFORE they are due. NO PROCRASTINATING! 
4. Take my laptop to the Apple store to see what is wrong with the battery. 
5. Take at least one photo everyday. I’m loving my photography class so I want to keep improving my skills. 

I’ll be spending my day in Hy-Vee Hall in Downtown Des Moines at the NSA conference with my entire nursing program and nursing students from all over the state. Should be a very educational day! Have a great Monday!

~Marissa

Friday, October 26, 2012

High Five for Friday!

I’m linking up with Lauren for my FAVORITE day of the week. FRIDAY FRIDAY! 
After classes I get to catch up on Grey’s, Vampire Diaries and Glee (it wasn’t on this week though) and just relax!  I accomplished a lot with my crafts this week and posted a lot on here so I’m going to give myself a high five since Carver won’t. 

Here’s the recap:

1. I was a crafting fool this week!
I made this!
And this (same post)
2. I have HOMEWORK to take photos of my favorite things!
Photography class is going great! Carver is a great model!
3. I voted!
I voted for the 2nd time in my life and
voted early for the 1st time in my life. 
4. It’s almost Halloween!
Someone does NOT love his costume. 
5.  Boy do I love thirty one and any excuse to use my bags. I did a lot of reorganizing (not shown in this old photo) with some new bags and had tons of fun!
My collection in August. I’ll update the photo next week. 
I know what I’m getting for Christmas from my mom and I am so excited! I don’t know specifics but let’s just say my bag collection is going to get much bigger. :) We are obsessed with bags and since my mom became a bag consultant our problem has only gotten worse. BUT I am SO organized. 

I think I’m going to pack a little bag and take my dog to the park. Enjoy your Friday and the rest of your weekend if I don’t blog until Sunday or Monday. 

~Marissa

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Everything in it’s place…except the rest of the apartment

For those of you that don’t know, I live with my boyfriend Sean and roommate Sophie who is a few years younger than me (although sometimes it feels like decades). S & S do their best to keep up with my crafts and go along with my projects but mostly just stay out of my way. Sean says it’s safer that way. He just makes sure I turn off the glue gun, cap the E6000 and turns off the scentsy because craft night usually involves wine and I go big. He’s a keeper. 

I have been working for quite some time to get my apartment just how I want it and lately I have made some great headway so here’s an update from the move-in post. **I’m showing you the organized portions of my apartment, there are other parts that are decorated but covered in Sean’s clothes, Sohpie’s bathroom things or the beds aren’t made and I didn’t want to mess with it to take a picture**

My Halloween display. I didn’t get too into halloween because we don’t have too much room to store stuff and I’d rather spend money on year-round decorations. I filled my hurricanes with glitter balls and battery candles found at Michael’s and found a free printable online. Plus Sean’s niece makes everything cuter! 

My bathroom display I finished yesterday! I think the tray gives the bathroom a touch of class! Plus something  besides black, everyone keeps telling me I have too much black in the apartment so I’m working on finding some more color for it. 
My new corner bookcase from LTD Commodities. It took forever to build and the instructions were pretty hard to follow (one piece may be backwards) but I really like it. Lots of glass pieces from Hobby Lobby and some cool looking soup cans to bring in some color. Got to love the Clearance section! We still need some artwork from the wall but I think we’re going to make something. 

Our big family wall. It’s mostly Sean’s niece Ari but we have photos of family and friends up there too.  We don’t have a hallway to make a gallery so this was as close as I could get. 

Out little kitchen table display. Yes those are surround sound speakers, we we hook our iPods up to it when we have friend over and are playing games and have something different on the TV. The candy jar is usually empty. Having Reese’s pumpkins is a tradition in Sean’s family that I’m upholding but that jar is the devil. 

My clearance bookshelf from Target. We had been looking for one of these for a while in case we ever want to move to electronics down from the TV nook, so I was excited to find this for $40! I just LOVE the red, black and grey on this bookshelf. I think it all pulled together really well. And of course, more Ari. 

Those are my favorite spaces in the apartment. I’m working on a few other surfaces that have nothing on them but I don’t want to clutter the space of finish the whole space because then I’m sure Sean will tell me we have to move…I guess that’s some hidden fear of being an Army kid. :)

You may now return to your regularly scheduled Thursday!

~Marissa

It’s OK Thursday

Stealing another post idea from Ricci. I love how she has assigned blog days. It gives me goals throughout the week and frankly, I need as much structure in my life as I can get. This one comes from Amber and Neely.
It’s OK…

To need a come to Jesus talk multiple times a week because I’m freaking out about nursing school

To worry that at least 12 of my classmates aren’t continuing on and the school isn’t even making even spots for us all to register

To panic about whether you made the right life choice

To try to figure out how you can make a living as a blogger, photographer, or anything else that doesn’t involve nursing school

To just need your mom 

To wish your boyfriend could be your sugar daddy. Stupid student loans are preventing that. 

To put off grooming your dog because you know as soon as you do it will be 40 and he will freeze and you’re using him as leverage against mother nature to keep the weather nice. Sorry Carver you’re staying shaggy until Mama N makes is cold on her own. 

To be jealous Sean got to go to Mankato…I want to see new places!

To enjoy having the whole bed just to share with Carver

To not feel bad I dropped microbiology, that classes would have ruined my semester. 

To love my photography class and our assignments to photograph something “creative”. So easy. 

To wish I could stay home and craft all day. PLEASE?

I’m OK with my mom staying home all day

That’s all I have. I’m okay with all of that. Have a an OK Thursday!

~Marissa

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Dollar Tree Tray and More!

I love a good dollar store project. It gives me the warm and fuzzies knowing I turned something that costed me pocket change into home decor. I am a poor college student so I am all about dollar store crafts. I spotted my latest project on Pinterst but I did not pin it! :( Fail on my part. Luckily I’m a genius...and this a project even a 5 year old could figure out, minus the E6000. 

The steps are so simple. It’s going to blow your mind. 
1. Go to your local Dollar Tree and pick up two metal-like trays from the kitchen section (they also have a rectangle and oval shape) and one candlestick from their ‘craft' section. 
2. Pull out your handy-dandy E-6000 if you have it. No? I bought mine at Hobby Lobby for $3.50 but it’s also available at Wal-Mart. I just avoid Wal-Mart whenever possible….they’re always super packed in the Des Moines area and I can’t handle the hostility, I have enough on my own. 

3. Apply a thin line of E6000 to the bottom of the candlestick and place on the top of one tray, ensuring it is close to center but it doesn’t have to be perfect because no one can really see how centered it will truly me.
**Try to apply your glue towards to center of your candle stick so excess E600 does not leak out where it will be seen and look less than perfect.** 
***Use a toothpick to remove any excess E6000, NOT your finger! ***

4. Wait 30 minutes or so until your candle stick can no longer be moved on the tray before moving on. It was quite warm in my apartment thanks to the surge in Iowa weather (80 in October!) and we had multiple fans going so I’m sure it set faster than it might in someone else’s house. 

5. Next I applied more E6000 to the top the candlestick and placed the second tray on top. I got really OCD at this point and used two kabob skewers to ensure the sides were even and lined up. 

 6. Next I sat and readjusted this thing like 87 times before I got up and waked away. I had to or I would have ruined the whole darn thing. But now you just have to let it set up. It will be stuck pretty quickly but it takes 24 hours to be permanent.

So I worked on this while I waited:
I just wish I had a better place for those appliances! 
I used E6000 to glue a pickle jar to one of these beautiful black glass candle sticks I got at Hobby Lobby for 50% off.  I spray painted the lid black after scrubbing the smell out of it for several days and glued a drawer pull to the lid. I added some lemon drops from the Dollar Store to it and some ribbon for decoration. We don’t go through pickles very fast here so the other two will have two wait. After making my hurricanes, I have become obsessed with thrifty craft projects to decorate the apartment with.  


Back to the tray-
I put it in our master bath right next to our shower to help give the bathroom more of the ‘spa feel on a budge’ I’m going for.

Of course as soon as I had the candlestick glued to the tray, my roommate Sophie suggested spray painting the trays a fun color. I don’t know if I would have painted it red since I already have so much read in there and black or grey seems boring so we’ll just keep it plain for now and maybe I’ll make a fun one for my mom’s bathroom.

I could spend hours and hundreds of dollars adding little touches. It’s my favorite part! The red glass pieces are from Hobby Lobby and the clear glass pieces I got from Dollar Tree today.




Thanks for looking! I’m so glad I had time to finally do this project! 

~Marissa


What I am Loving and OHP!

Happy Wednesday! I’m linking up with Jamie at This Kind of Love for What I’m Loving and Michelle a The Vintage Apple for OHP.

I am loving that my Beesh Callie will be in Ames this weekend but sad I don’t get to go see her. :(

I am loving my new photography class. My assignment for the week: take a photo of something creative. Done.

I am loving that is is already Wednesday! Hurry up weekend!

I am loving that I can almost see a break from classes coming up! Only a few more weeks! I can make it!


And NOW….for OHP! Yay!

I’m usually addicting to pinning wedding things even though I’m not engaged (like most women) but lately I’ve been pinning home decor and crafts…have no fear and back to my roots and working the wedding pins back in! I mean, It’ll happen eventually! 

All my friends are so different, they HAVE to have their own photo!
Have been wanting to do this in my grandma’s handwriting

So much fun!
Adorable, this would be great with Sean’s niece. 

Really want to make TONS of these for Christmas gifts!

OBAMA!

BEST ENGAGEMENT STORY EVER.
I LOVE reading two twenty one and a good giveaway! 




Have a PIN-tastic Wednesday!

~Marissa


Monday, October 22, 2012

Five for Five

I’m linking up with Ricci to make five goals each Monday and then the following Monday I’ll see how I did on those and make 5 new ones!

1. Don’t buy anything I don’t need this week. I need to cut back on the nice decorations for a while and focus on recycling some of my crafts and making cheap projects for a while. I’m really feeling the restrictions of a college budget right now.

2. Cut back on my sugar intake. I really like my dentist and his hygienist is my cousin’s beautiful fiancé who I love seeing, but I am really tired of visiting them to have cavities filled. The sugar has got to go.

3. Cut Carver’s hair. That boy is shaggy right now and the groomer is expensive and his favorite is back home in Camanche. Apparently dogs here in the Des Moines area get ‘pampered’ and go to spas or go to Petsmart where the groomers have a history of cutting off ears. Those are my only options? I’ll do it myself then. I have a grooming kit for him and Sean wants to go to Mankato for a week so I told him he could if he helped me tackle the Carver project.
He’s a hot mess right now. 
4. CLEAN my apartment. It must be done. Not just straighten it. It needs to be ripped apart and put back together and since Sean will be gone, this weekend will be the perfect time to tackle this project!

5. Get my oil changed and low tired checked out. Since the oil incident, my parents have been on my back about getting my car looked at and the tired fixed. Has to be done before something breaks and my budget goes with it.

I hope I get them all accomplished! Have a great Monday!

~Marissa

Friday, October 19, 2012

High Five for Friday!

I survived another week! Cheers to that! Too bad I have to work this weekend. 

I’m linking up with Lauren for HFF.

Here’s the recap:

Look! My dream house is in my neighborhood! I won’t have to move far!

I built this! 
He does not like mashed potatoes...
I made this for my nursing prof who is sick
This arrived! I have toilet paper on the bottom & towels on the top 
He’s so dashing! I used his photo for one of my classes. :)
 Happy Friday!

~Marissa



Wednesday, October 17, 2012

What I am Loving Wednesday!

I LOVE finding new theme days! They give me guidelines and goals to meet for the week. Otherwise I would probably just write about how much nursing school sucks. Because it really does.

Today I decided to start linking up with Jamie on Wednesdays for What I am Loving Wednesdays! This means I'll either do a double post or two posts on Wednesdays. I like this idea!

Here's what I am loving on this dreary, rainy day in Iowa-

I AM LOVING that I just finished that organic test. I don't know how I did because it was incredibly hard but I love that I am done with it and no longer have to worry.

I AM LOVING that I don't have to work tonight and get to catch up on homework, read ahead in my microbiology book, and do some extra studying. This in unheard of in nursing school!

I AM LOVING that my baby brother turned 17 yesterday and didn't call to whine about not getting a present. I'm sure he got plenty from other people!

I AM LOVING that there is no NSA meeting tonight and I truly have the entire night to do whatever I want

I AM LOVING that it is chilly enough to wear my North Face jackets, I missed them so much! I am one of those weirdos that actually enjoys Iowa weather, snow and all.

I AM  LOVING that Carver is finally accepting his Halloween costume and acting normal when I put it on him. He used to act like a statue and refuse to move when it was on. Resistance is useless little one!

I AM LOVING that Christmas is coming soon, I have already started buying for everyone! It's so much easier to make a list, stick to it and shop the sales!

I AM LOVING having a break between my two classes to blog!

Have a GREAT Wednesday!

~Marissa

Oh How Pinteresting!!!

It’s my favorite blog-day of the week! I love pinterest so of course I love any day where I get to check out other people’s pins! I will NEVER catch up to Katelyn’s Pinterst masterpiece but I still keep trying! I’m linking up with Michelle at The Vintage Apple for OHP.

BabyRabies.com
In the process of making this

LOL!

Hilarious! Funny Site!

Such a cute shower idea!

Hahaha Couldn't agree more!

Sophie and I are making these for the apt too!

Want!
Such a neat idea and cool looking!
I seriously LOVE OHP so much! I love sharing!!!

~Marissa