Love – Take a Step Back

So I think this one goes more towards us girls. We deny it all the time, but we do overreact sometimes. Sometimes. Maybe a little more than sometimes.

If you’re anything like me, you will fight to the death until someone is able to see things from your point of view. For me, I just want to make him understand! However, this can cause little issues to escalate into huge arguments that are really about nothing significant.

I for sure get pretty fired up pretty quick. I’ve got a mean, fast temper. And I’m stubborn. Blame it on the red hair.

How many arguments with your love have you had that you look back on and are like, wow that was dumb…

Matt and I once got in a full on yelling (crying on my part) fight about politics. After an hour of that we each apologized and admitted that neither one of us new a damn thing about politics and had no clue what we were even talking about. Then I laughed through my tears until my abs hurt, haha.

If you are able to recognize when an argument is stupid and pointless, that’s awesome. A really good first step.

What you want to be able to do is catch it before it happens. Not get upset in the first place. Hahaha, yeah right. Let’s face it, we’re women, it’s what we do. And seriously, how boring would life be if we never got fired up? Pretty boring I think. But maybe that’s just because I like fire. I’m a passionate person, so pretty much everything turns into a death match with me.

HOWEVER, if you can teach yourself to realize what’s going on in the midst of an argument, you’ll be able to end it that much quicker and get back to being a happy, cute couple.

Try to recognize the point that a fight gets out of hand. As soon as you realize that whatever it is, really isn’t worth fighting over, back off. Literally. In the middle of it, just stop. Think for a second. Realize that all it takes to potentially ruin a good relationship, is a really bad fight. Things are said that you don’t mean. People get cold and ruthless when they’re arguing and a lot of the time you can risk cutting a little too deep.

So if you can just pull yourself back, think: is this really worth this huge fight? Does this stupid argument really matter that much?

Take a step back. See it for what it is. A ridiculous fight over nothing. And just say, “hey, this is ridiculous. Can you believe we’re getting this pissed off over something this stupid? I love you and I’m sorry, let’s just forget about it, ok?”

And honestly, you and your partner are not going to have the exact same opinion on every single solitary subject matter. That would be weird and boring. And you’d be that weird, boring, identical couple that everyone thinks is odd. You don’t want that.

You’re going to have different ideas. You’re going to butt heads once in a while. You know the whole cheesy “you complete me” line? Well it kinda holds true. Where one of you are single minded, the other gives you variety. As a couple you can see different views of every picture.

When things get out of hand, take a step back. Think about whether it’s worth the anger, and the crying, and whatever else accompanies your quarrels.

Here’s the best part, girls. When you’re in the middle of yelling and crying at your man, NOTHING screws with their head more than just turning it off and suddenly being all better now. They’ll think it’s some kind of trap the first few times 😉

Origami Owl Independent Designer, Amanda Kerns

My sister has joined this awesome business where she helps people create beautiful customized jewelry. The lockets are gorgeous! Be sure to check out her Facebook site!

Love – Think

One of the biggest problems in many relationships is not thinking. Until it’s too late and the ship has sailed.

What you think and how you feel isn’t necessarily wrong, but if its something your partner may not be crazy about then you should really think about the wording and how its going to sound to them when you say it.

For example, lets say you’re a guy and you haven’t seen your girlfriend in a week or so due to things neither one of you could control (class, appointments, travel, work, etc). Finally on Saturday, you’re both free.

Let’s say you just got online to play video games with the guys.Your girl texts you and asks if she can come over. And yes fellas, I get it, you pay for that subscription, you can’t just stop in mid game, stats are at stake, blah blah blah, whatever. I get it. Its your thing. HOWEVER, it’s all about the delivery.

Instead of saying, “no, come over later, I’m playing video games”, which IS the truth, you can tell the truth in a different way. Say, “hey honey, I JUST told the guys I’d play for a bit. Can you give me an hour? and then I’d love to spend the rest of the day with you.”

Yes, she will probably bummed. BUT, had you went with the first option, she’d be pissed.

Today’s lesson, its not the content. It’s the delivery. It’s all in the words and how you say them.

So before you open you’re mouth and say exactly word for word what you’re thinking. Stop and THINK about what your thinking about (haha play on words!) and try to imagine how that might sound to the other person. Chances are, you can revise your first draft and turn it into something more acceptable, with less severe consequences.

Don’t think this doesn’t apply to you too ladies. I’ve definitely put my foot in my mouth many times.

DIY Jewelry Hanging Doohicky

Yes, Jewelry Hanging Doohicky.

I literally sat here for 10 minutes trying to come up with a different name for it and my mind just blanked.

Anyways, this was great. Super easy and CHEAP and quick.

The supplies:

97 cent curtain rod from Walmart

 

A main color and subcolor spray paint. (couple bucks each)

 

Decorative Shower Curtain Hooks (about $1 or so)

The first thing I did was spray paint the whole curtain rod with the metallic gold paint.

Then I taped off the design. Had I actually thought this through I would have used yarn or ribbon or painters tape of some kind. I was ill-prepared so I used paper that I had to cut into very thin strips and tape around the curtain rod. Yeah… It was tedious. But hey, it worked!

Tape it off!

Then spray over your rod again, this time with the main color. In my case, it was gloss black.

Spray it again!

Let it dry for about 10 minutes or so. You don’t want to wait too long or else you’ll risk peeling the paint when you remove the tape.

 

Voila!

Perdy right??

Next I mounted it on the wall in my bathroom. (The curtain rods I bought had mounting hardware included). Then I hung the shower curtain hooks:

 

Sorry for the crappy pictures. My camera got sand in the lens during vacation and is jammed, and my phone doesn’t take the best pictures…

Now I was ready for the jewelry!

 

There you have it! Took no time at all!

 

Just a Quick Storage Tidbit

This is going to be a super short, quick post, but:

MASON JARS ARE AWESOME. Seriously, you can use them for SO much. They are excellent for storage of cotton balls, Qtips, bobby pins, etc

Store your cotton balls! Much classier looking than a big plastic bag with Kroger stamped across it 🙂

Mason jars are also great decoration. I found several things I’m going to try on pinterest, hand scrubbed and hot chocolate mixes… and if you package these DIY gifts up in a mason jar you get that cute rustic country look too!

I went on vacation with Matt and his family this winter to Panama City Beach. I saved some sand and shells and kept them in this mason jar for some bathroom decor:

I know the writing on the Jar kinda sucks. It looked different before the paint dried, but oh well 🙂

Also, the flowers and vase? I have 2 sets of those in my bathroom. Super cute. Walmart! The vases were like $3 each and the sets of flowers were 94 cents each. AWESOME AND CHEAP!

Quick and Easy Closet Organizing

So, it seems like no matter how clean the rest of my apartment it, my closet it ALWAYS trashed. And if I do manage to get it straightened up, it gets destroyed in no time.

I don’t know about you, but it seems like the source of most of the mess is usually the stuff that gets rummaged through, like scarves, hats, belts, etc.

So super easy, scarves are all in one place:

 

Easy squeezy. Took like 2 minutes to round up all my scarves and loop them through themselves.

As for belts:

 

That’s right, those are paper clips. In all the apartments I’ve lived in they all have had pretty decent sized closets, but the instead of having a rod to hang stuff on, it’s always been these wire framed white metal shelf thingys…. sorry… terrible description. But you can kind of see what I mean from the pictures. Anywho, a little box of cheap paper clips, clip right onto the shelving, and hang the belt buckles from them.

Cheap and easy, PERFECT for a poor college kid like moi.

 

The other great thing about this, is if you put the belts and scarves side by side, they kind of create a curtain to block whatever mess you have behind them! Not that I have a mess or anything….

Fairy Dream Jar

So this is an idea I got from Pinterest. By the way, I LOVE Pinterest! Seriously, I could spend hours on there… and I do…

But anyways, my niece’s birthday was coming up and I wanted to do something special. Those kids have EVERYTHING so I couldn’t think of what to buy that would mean something so I wanted to do something she’d remember.

On Pinterest someone had posted glow-in-the-dark mason jars. They were super cute! The poster had simply dotted the inside of a plain smooth mason jar with glow in the dark paint. It. looked. magical!

My niece just turned 6 and she is SUPER into fairies. Obsessed with Tinkerbell. SO I thought it’d be cute to do something along those lines. So for her birthday she got her very own dream fairy.

I found several different colors of glow-in-the-dark paint and spent FOREVER putting a bajillion dots on the inside of the jar with a small paint brush. Then as you can see I decorated it up a bit.

I included a note from her fairy, explaining the dream jar and how it worked. Long story short, she had her very own fairy who looked after her. She would keep her magic jar on her window sill where all day long it would absorb sunlight. Before she went to bed each night, she would write on a piece of “dream paper” what she wanted to dream about that night. When she turns out the lights, the fairy dream jar glows in the dark, showing that her fairy is working her magic and helping her have good dreams.

 

This was also great, because it helps her practice her writing!

And of course I had to come up with a cool name for her fairy. After much pondering and debating my mother helped me settle on Starlight.

Easy DIY gift for a little girl!