Summertime!

Summertime! If you haven't started wearing shorts and flip-flops already, here are a few tips to get you ready for summer!

For dry, cracked feet:
Wal-Mart has what is called a callous remover. It looks like a miniature cheese grater, a bit scary, but it is incredible! I love this because it lasts longer than a pumice stone. I typically just use the black side, but if your feet are really bad, then the silver side will help get your feet back to beautiful!
You can also use a sugar and olive oil scrub. Get a teaspoon or tablespoon of olive oil, and mix with about 1/4 cup of sugar, scrub on your feet, then rinse your feet off with soap and water.
You can also do some overnight pampering by "slapping" lotion onto your feet. What I mean by "slapping" is not actually rubbing the lotion in. Just slap a bunch of lotion on your feet, I do a very thick layer of lotion, then pull some socks on and go to sleep!

Exfoliating your legs and arms:
Use the same olive oil and sugar scrub, add some lavender oil or lemon juice if you want! Scrub this all over your body in the shower, and then wash as usual. Then use some firming lotion all over (Mary Kay has some amazing firming lotion that I am in love with! Check it out here.)

Hands and nails:
You can exfoliate your hands using the same sugar scrub. For nails you can use a nail buffing block (just a couple dollars at Wal-Mart) to smooth your nails out, then paint them if you wish!

There you have it! Just a few tips to get you ready for summer! Happy Summer!

Mosquito Bites

If you are anything at all like me, you can go outside to check your mail and end up with fifteen mosquito bites. Mosquitoes LOVE me, unfortunately! I am an absolute baby when it comes to mosquito bites! As soon as I get a bite, I want to itch it, and lay on the floor and throw a tantrum. I want to just yell at the mosquito bite to stop itching, and I just can't do anything. I am probably the biggest baby when it comes to mosquito bites! So with all this experience with mosquito bites, I have decided to share my best solutions for helping them not itch. 

The first thing I always do is try to wash the area where I was bit. Taking a shower, or just gently rubbing my arm or leg with a washcloth. If that does not help, then my absolute favorite thing to do is dab a TINY bit of toothpaste onto the bite. In the picture you can see how much I used. Its not a lot, just dab a little bit onto the bite, and let it dry. In the morning, or later in the day, you can clean the toothpaste off. I do not know exactly why this helps, but I think that the minty part of the toothpaste cools the bite, making it itch less. This is just my theory of course! But it definitely helps within just minutes!

The other things that are helpful are dabbing lavender oil, or tea tree oil onto the bite. Tea tree oil has about the same effect as toothpaste, its just a cooling sensation that helps the bite not itch as much. 

The last thing you can try is an anti-itch cream, or making a paste from baking soda and apple cider vinegar. There are a lot of ways to relieve itching, my favorite is simply toothpaste. I used google to see what other ways there are to relieve itching and it was surprising! Some people suggested using mud, witch hazel, calamine lotion, salt water (like ocean water, or a warm salt water mixture), ice packs (this would not work for me because I get so many bites all over my body!), rubbing a wet asprin pill over the bite, using deodorant, making a paste from water and tums, there are a lot more ways than I would ever think of to relieve itching!

Sore Throat Remedies

Well I have a sore throat...again. I am thankful to say that this time, it is not strep! I am extra-prone to getting strep throat for some reason I do not understand. So I am very grateful that I do not have strep. Still though, sore throats are just icky. No one likes them, and especially with me, they seem to take forever to go away! I am going to share my best sore throat remedies with you!

While it is tempting to go to extremes with either hot teas and soups, or ice cold drinks and popsicles, that can actually irritate your throat more. So stick to warm-ish teas and soups, or cooler drinks. 

Lets pretend you have a sore throat, so the first thing you do when you wake up should be to gargle warm salt water. After you eat some breakfast (a bowl of cereal, grits, or oatmeal for some ideas), swallow a teaspoon of honey. This will coat your throat for a little while, giving you some relief. If you want even more relief, take one or two ibuprophen. ONLY if you can't rest that day. For example, if you go to work with a sore throat, you might take ibuprophen. But if you can rest up at home, wait a few days because your body does its best fighting of infections without other medicines intervening. I always try to avoid taking ibuprophen, but, sore throats are caused by inflammation. The last time I went to the doctor for my throat (which almost ended up being mono, aren't I special??) he told me this, and said to take ibuprophen because it will help with the inflammation. This ended up being a "duh" moment for me, realizing that "duh" sore throats are obviously your throat swelling up so of course an anti-inflammitory medicine would help "DUH!!" So, I recommend taking this if you have a sore throat. It actually is better than taking cough medicines in my opinion. 

So now it is lunchtime, make yourself a cup of chamomile tea, but use honey, not sugar. Honey will give you more relief than sugar, and it won't interfere with your immune system the way sugar will. Have some chicken soup, homemade if you can, but if not go for Ramen or chicken noodle soup. I try to always have at least one container of homemade soup in my freezer at all times. When I get sick, I just pull this out, and heat it up. 

Make sure you are drinking plenty of water, and other clear liquids (like apple juice). If you have strep, DO NOT drink citrus juices like lemon and orange. They are acidic, and if you can stand the pain of swallowing orange or lemon juice, it will hurt your throat more than it will help. Believe me, I know. If you just have a regular sore throat, the lemon will help, and orange juice has vitamin C that will give your immune system a boost. 

As it gets later in the day, make yourself a cup of lemon, honey and cinnamon tea. Use a half a teaspoon of lemon juice, just a sprinkle or two of cinnamon and a teaspoon of honey. Drink this to soothe your throat, and the cinnamon has natural antibiotics to help kill the infection in your throat (note to self, this also kills E. coli!)

As you are getting ready for bed, gargle again with salt water or you can use mouthwash to gargle. Take another teaspoon of honey, and pop half a cough drop in your mouth to soothe your throat as you sleep. You can set a bowl of steamy water in your room while you sleep too. Sometimes sore throats can be caused by dry air. Especially in the winter. During the winter, I have a bowl of water in my room every night. If you don't think you will be able to fall asleep or sleep well, take another ibuprophen or two. Make sure you don't take too many though!

My advice, avoid sore throats at all costs!! But if you have one, rest up, get extra sleep, and drink plenty of clear liquids, especially water!! 

Iced Tea

I have heard many a college student state that they do not have a good recipe for iced tea. I am going to share my recipe for all those people who cannot find a good recipe!

3 regular size tea bags*

1 2 quart pot

Water

1/3 cup sugar**

1/2 Gallon pitcher***

Using cold water (I have tried making tea with hot water and it doesn't taste as good, so make sure you use cold water), fill your pot as full as you can without overfilling it. Remove paper from the teabags (take the paper tag thingy off too, or your tea will taste like paper!), and place in water. Bring water to boil, and turn heat to low. Let simmer for 30-40 minutes (depending on how strong you like your tea, I usually do about 40 minutes). 

Put sugar in pitcher, remove tea bags from water and throw away. Pour tea over sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. If necessary, add cold water until the pitcher is full (sometimes I have enough tea, and other times I need to add a little bit of water). 

It is a little time-consuming, considering the other ways I have heard people make tea usually just take ten or fifteen minutes, but this is the best recipe that I have ever used. Its really easy to get this boiling, then study for a little bit, or watch an episode of Pretty Little Liars ;) or some other show! 

Because I enjoy tea, I usually make several pitchers at once. I also take this with me when I go to class or work, so I found that rather than using regular ice cubes and watering my tea down, I have an ice cube tray designated for making "tea cubes". Simply fill the ice cube tray with tea rather than water, and pop into your tea when you are heading out the door, or anytime! The sugar in the tea does make the cubes slightly sticky, so if you don't want the stickiness, then use unsweet tea to make your tea cubes (if you like sweet tea, maybe add a little more sugar into your tea, and use unsweet cubes). 

Its a really simple, easy-to-change recipe! Play around with it, everyone is different!

*I prefer Lipton, I grew up drinking Lipton, so its just my preference. Use whatever you prefer though!

**I do not like my tea very sweet. If you like sweet tea, you might try 1/2 cup sugar.

***If you have a gallon pitcher, simply double the sugar and use six tea bags, there is no need to double the water.

Toasted Granola

This is my grandmother's recipe. It is time consuming, but SO worth it!

7 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey*
1/2 stick butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
1 teaspoon of salt (optional)
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup raisins or dried cranberries

Oven: 325
Serving Size: 1/2 cup**

If you are using almonds, lay those on a pan and let them toast lightly while you measure out the rest of the ingredients. It only takes 2-3 minutes to toast them, so watch them carefully so they don't burn!

Put the oats in a bowl, and in a small saucepan stir and heat (do NOT boil!) the water with brown sugar and salt until they dissolve. Add oil, honey and butter. Continue heating until the butter is melted, but do not let it boil. Remove from heat and add vanilla flavoring. Pour the mixture over the oats, and mix until the liquid is absorbed.

Bake the mixture until lightly toasted, stirring every 4-5 minutes pressing out lumps as they form. It takes about 45 minutes to an hour to toast the granola, stirring every 4-5 minutes. It is a pain, I will admit that! But this granola is really good, and healthy. Once the mixture is lightly toasted, turn off the oven, and make sure all the lumps are pressed out.

When the granola is dry and no longer hot, add the raisins and almonds. Store in an air-tight container. I keep my container stored in the freezer, but it will also keep in your cabinet (I am not sure how long it will stay fresh, so keep an eye on it if you don't freeze this!)

I enjoy this for breakfast with rice milk, or regular milk. My grandparents eat this almost every morning, and they eat a banana with it. Enjoy!

*measure the oil first, so the honey will just slide right out of the measuring cup!
**It doesn't look like much, but 1/2 cup is really filling!

Sleeping Healthy

I just found this website this morning that tells you when you should go to sleep. Because we sleep in cycles, so for example for me, I should go to sleep at 10, or 11:30 since I get up at 7. Not getting in bed at 10 or 11:30, but actually asleep. If you wake up during a cycle, you feel groggy and tired, but if you sleep through a cycle, then you feel more rested. I am going to try this out tonight!

Here is the link, I think this is definitely something worth looking into! Especially if you are constantly tired. If you have insomnia, like me, I will post soon about how to beat insomnia!

Mary Kay

I am selling MaryKay now! Just send me an e-mail if you would be interested in buying anything! I will have more information later!

Live Life Now!

Here are two great blog posts from chegg. Chegg sells books, and they also have a blog that I read sometimes. They are on facebook. Here are two posts from them that I LOVE!

Take Back Your 20's:
http://blog.chegg.com/2013/02/12/9-ways-to-take-back-your-20s/

Things to Stop Doing in Your 20's:
http://blog.chegg.com/2013/04/02/19-things-to-stop-doing-in-your-20s/

Yoga

I never really looked much into yoga until recently. It just wasn't my thing. But suddenly I was seeing yoga everywhere, yoga is supposed to help if you are stressed or have migraines (I have both), and yoga is in 27 Dresses, and the Wedding Planner (I kind of want Judy Greer to be my best friend, she's awesome!) and there is free yoga at school. Yoga was just everywhere. So I figured I would give it a try.

I did not feel comfortable going to a yoga class at school. Plus, the classes and my schedule did not like each other. I looked online, and found some yoga videos on youtube. Esther Ekhart is the yoga teacher. The video is titled "Yoga for Beginners" and I really enjoyed this. She has several videos, I usually just do the first and second video. If I have time, I will do the third. But these are really great videos if you have NO idea what you are doing, like me! Esther is very easy to understand, she shows you how to do everything, and its definitely relaxing!

I also mix a little physical therapy stretches in with this yoga. I do a little stretching before, and some neck stretches afterwards. I try to do yoga three times a week. I am not quite in the routine of doing yoga every week, but I am getting there! Once or twice a week I will add some crunches into the mix!

Yoga, I can say from experience, is helpful if you are stressed, or get migraines a lot. I know that there are many more things yoga is helpful for. If you are tense, or have tight muscles and need to stretch your body out a bit, yoga is perfect. It is exercise, stretching, and good for your respiratory system. So check some yoga out! Get involved in a class near you, and do it your way, if you want to get comfortable in your own home first, then do that! If you want to jump right into a class, go right ahead!

Macaroni and Cheese for One

I hate leftovers. I usually eat them, but I just hate having leftover food in my refrigerator, I am one person, if I need a meal, I cook something fresh, it just makes my life simpler. I like macaroni and cheese (with chicken nuggets!), but making a whole box just drove me crazy. So I measured everything out to figure out how to make only a half a box at a time! This recipe is using the Kraft brand macaroni and cheese 7.25 oz box.

1/2 cup of noodles*
1/8 cup or 2 1/2 tablespoons cheesy powder**
2 TBSP butter
1/8 cup milk

Boil the noodles, and drain them. Melt the butter in the noodles, add milk and cheesy powder, stir well.

So there you have it! Simple, yet easy! I love macaroni with chicken nuggets. I cook anywhere from four to eight nuggets (depending on how hungry I am) in the microwave for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Happy eating!

*There is a little more than 1 cup of noodles per box, so make sure that this 1/2 cup of noodles is a little overflowing.
**The powder is a little less than 1/4 cup, so if you use the 1/8 cup then make sure its not quite full.

Teatime

Celestial Seasonings has the most amazing tea! Its called Tension Tamer, it has a blend of ginger, chamomile, peppermint and lemon. I think those sound like a really weird mix, but this tea is incredibly good! It does tend to be a bit strong though, so I don't let it steep as long as I would for other teas. I also don't use sugar, I use a bit of honey in this!

Aside from Tension Tamer, Celestial Seasonings has some really incredible tea mixtures. They have a sleepytime mix with vitamin c, zinc, elderberry and echinancea. Also a sore throat tea with chamomile, spearmint, licorice root, slippery elm bark (which sounds absolutely awful! It is good for your throat though!), lemongrass and ginger.

You can get coupons on their website if you have the ability to print coupons. They also send out coupons every few weeks in the Sunday paper if you get that. Their teas are definitely worth buying!

Acne

Since I started working at Penn Station my face has been more greasy than usual, which means I've had more zits than usual. I usually don't even have a problem with zits, but lately I've had a lot on my forehead. I searched on google for zit home remedies, and found this one, which I just tried:

2 teaspoons salt

1/4 cup of warm water

Dissolve the salt in the warm water, and using a cotton ball, soak it in the water. Squeeze the cotton ball so its still wet, but not dripping (you don't want it to be really dry). Place the cotton ball over the area where you have zits, and hold it there for 3-6 minutes. I held it there for four minutes, but you can hold it up to six minutes. Remove the cotton ball, and dry your forehead, or wherever the zit was off. I noticed an almost immediate difference. I had a zit appear just today, and so it was all moist and gross. But after doing this, the zit looked more dry, and like it had been there for a few days. You can do this as everyday, or even twice a day. Just be careful because the salt will dry your skin, as well as the zits out. You don't want your skin to become too dry. 

If you have a lot of zits, this might take a while to do since a cotton ball isn't very big. You can try stretching the cotton ball out over a bigger area, or using both your hands to hold cotton balls on your face at the same time. You could even just do the areas that are the worst, or do one or two spots a day, switching spots everyday that you do this. 

This is just a really cheap, and mostly easy way to get rid of zits. Salt costs only 40 cents for a LOT of it. I use salt for a lot of stuff!

Buttons

I am trying to get more into this blogging thing, and I am currently learning about buttons. If you would like me to add your button onto my blog, just post a link where I can get one in the comments and I will add your button. I guess that's how all this works! 

Thanks!

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 softened sticks of butter
1/2 cup sugar*
1/2 cup packed brown sugar*
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
1 cups nuts (optional)

Oven: 375

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl**. In a separate bowl, combine sugars, and butter. Beat well. Add eggs and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture, add chocolate chips and nuts. Drop in teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake 9-11 minutes until golden and let cool. I like my cookies with milk, Taylor does not. Its up to you!

*The original recipe calls for 3/4 a cup of both sugars, but I found this to be extremely sweet. Even 1/2 a cup is very sweet. Feel free to add more sugar if you like! Keep in mind I do not eat a lot of sugar, so if you like sugar you might want to add more.
**The reason we combine flour, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl is to thoroughly mix the baking soda, and salt into the flour so you don't have nasty chunks of baking soda in the cookies.

Keeping Healthy

Between the soda ban in New York, the CDC declaring an obesity epidemic (over 35% of American's are obese), your doctor telling you that you have high blood pressure, diabetes, ect, and then on top of all that, you have advertisements where the women are impossibly thin, its difficult not to at least want to watch what you're eating. I disagree with being obsessed with your weight. If you are healthy, it is wise to stay healthy, if you have a medical problem (regardless of how big or small it is), its good to keep an eye on what you are consuming. 

But how do you know what you are really eating? I worked at McDonald's for over two years, so let me inform you as an insider. Nothing you can eat there is good for you. In my two years working at McDonald's I did a LOT of menu scrutiny. The menu is on the back of the tray covers by the way, and you can also ask an employee for a calorie chart if you want. Here's the thing, a lot of people ordered sandwiches without cheese, but one slice of cheese from any sandwich on the menu has only 20 calories. If you get a quarter pounder without cheese, you're only dropping 40 calories off a sandwich that is over 500 calories. It really doesn't make that big of a difference. 

One of the managers was trying to be healthy, she ate a salad everyday for lunch. The only salad worth eating to be healthy is a side salad, WITHOUT dressing, it is  20 calories. Just take a minute and think about this: all the other large salads START at 250 calories with GRILLED chicken. Switch the grilled chicken for crispy chicken (which is more popular than grilled), and you're adding 150 calories. Add one package of croutons, 50 calories. Drizzle a package of ranch dressing on top, adding another 170 calories. What started out as a healthy, 230 calorie lunch, ends up being over 600 calories. You can eat an Angus burger for that! You can eat two McDouble's and a small french fry for that, and still have calories left over. My point is, food is deceptive. 

So how do we know what we're eating? You have to faithfully keep up with what you eat, and not just the calorie content. If you have medical problem (that sounds awful in words, I just mean anything small like high blood pressure, diabetes, ect.) then you can look up the problem on mayoclinic.com, click on Health Information, and Diseases and Conditions. They are listed alphabetically. They typically will list foods that will help, and if they list a vitamin (such as vitamin C), you can go to Vitamins and Supplements and look up that vitamin, and they will list foods that you can eat to get that vitamin naturally. Then you know what foods will help, and hurt your problem. If you don't have a problem, that great! The most common problems tend to be high blood pressure, diabetes, and arthritis, so you could simply look those up, and eat foods to help prevent those conditions.

The other option you can use is myfitnesspal.com. This is a free website that I use occasionally. I don't have time to use it on a daily basis, but if you have internet on your phone, I would encourage you to try to keep up with it. You will notice a difference in how you eat if you are keeping up with what you eat. The main purpose I use my fitness pal for is to check calorie/fat content of meals. For example, my most typical breakfast is two maple sausage links, and a bagel with cream cheese, the calorie content of this is about 400 calories. If I have fruit, sometimes I'll eat fruit with it. 

I do not think that it is healthy to be obsessed with your health/weight. I do, however, think that it is important to be careful of what we put into our bodies. Believe me, I eat ice cream, I LOVE cheese, and I have potato chips and pudding in my cabinet (and a chocolate cake mix!), but its having the self control to eat these in moderation that is important. I will have a post soon about tips for eating healthy when you are gone constantly like I am. I will also be posting more recipes on here, because cooking at home is a great way to be sure that what you are eating has the least amount of preservatives as possible! Happy eating! =)

Keeping Up With the News

Whether you're in college, or going to be, keeping up with what is happening in colleges across the United States is important. Knowing what the government is doing with tuition, administration rates, even whether or not Harvard had a "nap room" (they do by the way!)
I have two resources that I use to keep up with college news. I don't read EVERY article, but it is good to read what interests you, and things that relate to you (for example, tuition rates). The first one is a newspaper that the library has called The Chronicle. I would think that most college libraries would have a copy of this, I personally prefer reading from paper, rather than a computer screen! If your library does not have this option, the website is: The Chronicle.
The second place I use to keep up with college news is USA Today College. They tend to have more articles written by students, where The Chronicle has more college news related articles. Both are interesting, and good places to at least skim over every so often so you know whats going on! The USA Today website is: USA Today College.

On a different note, keeping up with the weather is also something smart to do. Plus, you'll know if it is going to rain, so you know whether to wear rain boots or not! You don't want to be the person with soggy shoes! weather.com is the website that I use on a regular basis. I use the hourly forecast because I prefer it over the other options. Use whatever you prefer. However, if there is bad weather in your area do not rely on this website. No, no, no. Haha, log onto your local weather website, or turn your TV on. I use weather.com simply to know the temperature, and rain/snow/storm updates. If I hear the tornado siren going off, I turn the TV on. I will be posting sometime later on about weather safety tips.

Spring = bugs

Its almost springtime, which means BUGS! What I want to do is share with you the non-obvious ways to get rid of bugs! The obvious being bug sprays, and traps. I do not have any kids, but if you have kids, using chemicals might not be something you want to do. So here are some other options for getting rid of bugs.

Ants
Ants do not like lavender. My apartment has a horrible ant problem during the spring and summer months, and they are mostly in my bathroom. What they find so interesting in my bathroom I have no idea. I am just grateful they aren't in my kitchen. I spray lavender oil all over my carpets about once a week, sometimes more if I feel it is necessary. I have a 12oz spray bottle that I put 10 drops of lavender oil in, and fill the rest of the way with water. Lavender oil can be found at any organic or health food store in your area, or also online. I also use raid ant traps, one taped to the wall above the shower in the bathroom, one underneath my bed, one in the kitchen, and one in the living room by the window. Between these two things, the ants usually stay away. Since the bathroom is such a problem area for me, occasionally I will use some chemical spray in the bathroom, but lavender oil is what I use on a regular basis. Ants also do not like bay leaves. Growing up, mom always had bay leaves laying around the house, and that seemed to keep the ants away as far as I can tell.

Fleas
Fleas also do not like lavender. In my attempt to get rid of ants, I am also driving fleas away! (Lice are another thing that do not like lavender, so hopefully they stay far, far away from me!) I have outdoor carpet on my porch, which is also open, and there are a lot of stray cats in my neighborhood that come up on the porch. In the summer there are LOTS of fleas! So gross. I am a bug hater! One night last summer I was about to go crazy with the flea problem I had. I was so sick of fleas being all over my apartment, and I hadn't had a chance to go to the store. So I got on google. I found that if you have a really bad problem, like I did, get a pan of soapy water (lots of soap, because the soap traps the fleas so they can't jump back out of the water), and leave it in front of some kind of heat and/or, light. A heater, the TV, a nightlight. Fleas are attracted to heat and light, so they will jump into the pan of water that is underneath that heat and light. Then they will be trapped! This worked wonders for me. The other thing I did was sprinkle salt all over my carpets. Google said to vacuum a day or so after you salted the carpet. I don't, I just leave it (mostly because I don't own a vacuum!) But either way, the salt dries out any flea eggs that are in the carpet, keeping them away.

Mosquitoes/Moths
I have a fly strip outside my door in the summer because there are so many moths on my porch. Lavender, again is helpful. Bay leaves I have heard are something else moths don't like, I recently bought some so I will be trying this out. For mosquitoes, citronella (an essential oil that is also found in health food stores) works very well. I'm sure you have seen citronella candles in the outdoor section at the grocery store. Try a mixture of lavender and citronella, and maybe even lay a few bay leaves around your door.

So to summarize what I just said, between lavender, salt, citronella and bay leaves, you can keep your house relatively bug free without using chemicals. You can even take it one step further, and use lavender scented laundry soap, and dryer sheets. I am also going to buy a lavender plant next time I go to Wal-Mart, because I like the way lavender smells!
Happy de-bugging! =)

$10 off at JCPenney

This weekend (March 8-10th) you can get $10 off a purchase of $25 or more at JC Penney if you use either of these promo codes: SHOP4YOU (serial number: 0096577382), or 4SPRING (when asked for the serial number enter: 0096577385). Get some free stuff!
JC Penney has amazing clearance, sometimes they even have cute shirts for three or four dollars! Check out their home and bedroom section too, I have found some amazing things in their clearance home and bedroom!

My favorite way to shop online is to sort the clearance by price low to high, set a price limit for myself (be reasonable, often for tank tops, its just five or six dollars, shirts are no more than 12, jeans are 20 if they are in the clearance section. Set a limit you know you can go with!) and then go through, right click on each item that looks interesting to you. When looking for items, look at the name of the item (so you know what it is), and the style. Don't worry much about the colors that are available until you go through your tabs a second time. After you have reached the part of the page where the items are going over your price limit, go through the tabs you have pulled up, and be picky. Do they have your size? The color you want? Is it in stock? Doing this easily narrows down the items you have that you are considering buying. Then you can go through and decide what you need vs. want, and what you can afford to buy!
Make sure you know what size you wear. Online shopping is NOT the time to experiment. If you aren't sure, don't buy it.

Good luck, and happy shopping!

Self-Injury Awareness Day

Today is Self-Injury Awareness Day. Here is a link to one of my favorite organizations ever, To Write Love On Her Arms, http://www.twloha.com/facts. TWLOHA is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people who struggle with depression, addiction, self injury and suicide. They have a blog, and they are also on facebook.
Be nice to the people around you, you never know what they are going through.

Have a great day people! =)

Hair and Make-Up Tutorials

Being in college, and often short on time to get ready in the mornings, I am constantly looking out for new ways to do my hair that are super easy. Yesterday I was looking at messy buns. I can make some videos for you all if you want, I won't unless someone requests them. (Keep in mind my webcam camera isn't the greatest. I don't mind making videos, but I can't guarantee that they will be great!) I was tired of the way I was pulling my hair back, and wanted something new. The two best people I have found on youtube are  "LetsMakeitUp1". She is very easy to understand, easy to follow, and she gets right to the point.

The other girl I have found is "iheartmakeup92". She doesn't get straight to the point, so it takes a little more time. But she has some really good make-up videos, and also her messy bun video was the best one I was able to find yesterday.
Also, here is a bunch of tutorials for how to braid your hair, TUTORIALS, there are a bunch of different ways to braid your hair on this one, that's why I like it so much!

I went to visit my family about a week ago for my sisters wedding, you can probably find pictures on her blog! Anyways, mom gave me a camera, which I still need to get some batteries for. I plan on going to Walmart after I pay my rent this week. Once I get some batteries, I want to post about my favorite make-up stuffs! Hopefully I can get that done soon! I am super happy to have a camera! =)

Apologies

Hey, I apologize for the pages that say they're still under construction. I've been super busy with school, and then my sister is getting married in two days. So I haven't had time to try to figure out how to change that. I don't consider myself very smart with computers! My boyfriend, Taylor, is a computer nerd, and proud of it! I always just ask him for help. Anyways, I just wanted to apologize, and I will fix that soon!

Tuna, Tuna, and More Tuna!

Alrighty, I have had a lot of trouble coming up with meals that I enjoy, that don't get old really fast. I am NOT a fish person. I don't like seafood at all. But for something different every now and then, I like to make some tuna up. This is the recipe that I make:

2 5oz cans of Tuna (drained)
4 tablespoons sweet relish
2 boiled eggs (optional)
grapes (optional)
4 tablespoons sour cream
pepper (optional)

I need to get a better camera. But this should at
least give you  an idea of what it looks like!

First, drain the tuna, and use a spoon to mash out the bigger chunks. Add the sour cream, and mix it well. I like my tuna salad to be a little soupier than I think most people would like it. So feel free to add more/less sour cream to your liking! The same goes with relish. I like the relish because it kind of masks the flavor of the tuna, so feel free to change the amount of relish!
The only reason I use sour cream is because I hate mayonnaise. I really just hate everything about it, the look, the way it feels, the way it smells, the texture, the flavor, and its not really that great for you either. Ugh...anyways use mayonnaise if you like it, but sour cream is just another option!
Add the eggs in. Again, I like a lot of egg in mine (if I add it. I don't always put eggs in,) so change the recipe around =) If I have eggs, sometimes I add a teeny bit of pepper. You don't want much.
If you wanted to change the recipe around a little, leave out the relish and maybe even the eggs, and use grapes instead. I personally prefer the relish and eggs to the grapes, but that's just me =)

This makes a lot of tuna. I have a small jelly jar that I use to keep the tuna from running around in my backpack before I eat it. I don't fill it up all the way, and I usually have some cheese and crackers and maybe some grapes or some kind of fruit. Dill triscuits are the best! If you haven't had them, you should definitely try them! They're a little salty, but they are really amazing with tuna.
You can also make a tuna salad sandwich. I think English muffins are best for tuna sandwiches because they're spongier, so the tuna salad doesn't soak into them as fast. Swiss or mozzarella cheese, and some lettuce and it'll be an amazing sandwich!

I will be posting more recipes, and I'm working on a post about easy to make snacks!

On the Art of Picking A Professor

Just a few days ago I was in a meeting with my wonderful adviser, Meg. She said that I can start enrolling in classes starting in April. That got me thinking about what classes I was going to take, and what professors I needed to do some research on.

The best website I have ever found is www.ratemyprofessor.com It has information based on what school you are from, and also by professor. Its easiest if you find your school, and then search for your professor through your school. If you search just for your professor, you could end up with several professors from different schools with the same name. 

The reason I like this website so much is because of my (awful) World Religion teacher that I had during the summer semester of 2012. I was looking forward to taking World Religion, it sounds interesting right? Everyone I have told this story to always says, "World Religion sounds interesting!" It was NOT interesting. It was more of a "lets see how many different languages I can teach you to understand in three months" class. All of the content of the exams was definitions of words in other languages. In other words: "what does this word mean?" I felt like I was in a foreign language class. I did not learn anything about other religions. I still couldn't tell you what I learned from that class. 

But then there is my COMM 201, and COMM 305 professors. They were both VERY engaged in the lectures, helpful in the exams, willing to stop the lecture in order to answer my questions. The exams consisted of relatively easy material. I had to study, but I felt that the studying I did was enough for the content of the exams. I didn't feel like I was studying things that didn't need to be studied. My COMM 201 professor, Mary, is my adviser now also. She is so awesome! =)

My point is, there is going to be an awful professor sometime in your college life. But if you can avoid them, it will make your life easier, and college more enjoyable. So use this website, and make your own decisions. This Spring semester (2013) is the first time I have used www.ratemyprofessor.com. I picked my Sociology professor through this website, and he is INCREDIBLE! I love him to death! I also picked my Biology professor. Here is where it gets hard. My biology professor had a medium rating. I went ahead and took him because I needed to take biology, and his ratings weren't too terribly bad. The first day of class he said so many things that made me think, "My gosh this guy is a jerk." But after going to class several times, I realized that he really does care about his students. He comes across as a jerk because he is tired of people who don't care about college, and because he is very straightforward. I know I am that way sometimes. I tend to come across as a rude person, when I really am not! Use your discretion in deciding whether to take a professor or not. Sometimes, you won't have a choice. Other than this website, ask around. People in your school are gonna know at least one or two professors to take or not take. Make friends, and get their opinion also. There are so many options, but always try to make a well-informed decision about your professors!

Here I Am!

Well here I am! Taylor (my wonderful boyfriend), and my older sister Helen (who also has a blog (blueeyedbeauty.blogspot.com) encouraged me to start a blog. I want to thank Helen for helping me create this blog! I don't have a lot of free time, because I am in college, and work two jobs, but I will definitely blog when I had free time. I will mostly blog about things that I have learned to save money on, things I am learning through college, and living on my own. Feel free to comment and I will get back with you as soon as I can!