Gifts for College Students

There are the traditional gifts, comforters, posters, a hamper full of laundry and bath products.  Even money and gas cards are great.  With my sister beginning her freshman year of college, I have spend a lot of time thinking about good gifts.  She is the hardest person in the world to buy gifts for.  So here is what I would love if I were going back to school:

Belkin Conserve Power Strip - stops the flow of juice when electronics are not in use or charging.  Plus it looks a lot sleeker than the outdoor orange utility extension cord my dad sent me to college with!

Boon Stash - to keep your desk neat and organized.  You know how I love things to have their place.  This would have been perfect!

Jonathan Adler iPhone Case - because why wouldn't I sneak in a bit of fabulousness?  I wish the phone came with it.  I would take one of those too please.

Skull Candy Earbuds - the best of the best for listening to music and running.  The don't fall out!  Plus the great color would make them easy to spot at the bottom of my bag.

Travel Toiletry Bag - I love this one from ikea because it is huge.  It holds everything.  And again, the bright color is super cheery and makes it a breeze to spot.

Coffee Joilie - this fabulous "bean" promises to keep my coffee hot for up to 5 hours.  It is the little things in life right?  And coffee is very near to the top of my list.  Hot coffee even better.

Hmmm...maybe I should consider grad school, just for some swag.

Spring Cleaning: Lingering Items

I never actually finished my spring cleaning. There are a few items that are lingering that I just cannot figure out what to do with. See, the problem is I am a bit emotionally attached to the remaining items. I need stern direction. Please help!

1. Leftover Wedding Invitations: I have enough to hold another small wedding! Say 35 or so. What do I do with them? Keep them as mementos? Keep a few and trash the rest? What do I do with the few I keep? I already have one complete set of every paper item from our wedding in a box of wedding memories...

2. Old CookingLight Magazines: I love cooking light. Their magazines are great, but I typically grab my recipes online, from my delicious account, or make them up in my head. What should I do with these magazines? Does anybody want them?

3. Pens: If you knew me in college you would understand my obsession with Sharpie markers. Well...lets just say that the obsession has grown and I could outfit a small office with enough supplies for several years. But I don't want to give them up! They are all organizes and stowed away...but taking up space nonetheless. It is a catch 22 for me.

4. Glass Vases: At a quick count I have 18 of all shapes and sizes (plus 4 pitchers and 3 ice buckets which also occasionally hold flowers as well as 8 glass carboys just for decoration). The problem: I don't get flowers all that often, and Mark usually gets me flowers that come in their own vase!

So there you have it. I am stuck. Any creative suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Closet Crusade, Part 3

Almost finished! The rest will be an evolution of placing odds and ends...

Phew...glad that is done! It took longer than I thought, especially because I continued to clutter it throughout the week. What are you motivated to organize these days?

Closet Crusade, Part 2

Hmmm...I think I am suffering from closet lust. The effort to reorganize left me looking for inspiration. I stumbled upon Everyday Minerals and an amazing assortment of dream closets:

This is beyond unbelievable!

I love the mirrored closets and how the closet and bathroom form one luxurious suite.

An office in a closet! This one is WAY more chic than my sad attempt.

Is this a closet or a store?!?

This is more realistic. There is a slim chance I could find a closet this size on Capitol Hill... I love the blue and green!

Love the pink!

...and probably the closets to what my closet will eventually look like

Maybe closet dreaming is a bad idea...

Which one is your favorite?

Do you dream about an uber closet?

Closet Crusade, Part 1

It is that time of year, Spring Cleaning. And my closet was in desperate need of some help. This was the sad state of my closet...

Note here that I had most of the space in both pictures!

Mark's summer clothes were still in boxes under our bed. It is cruel actually, how little space he has been allotted since we moved here in August. So I set out last weekend to organize the items and rectify the space.

Oh yeah, did I mention we also have our "office" in our closet?

My love of clothes and passion for paper and calligraphy = a lot of stuff in a tiny apartment & a dual functioning storage space when storage is limited. I cannot wait to have an office specifically for my paper and calligraphy some day.

Basically every space was being under utilized and in need of some serious reorganization!

The good news? While perusing the internet last weekend, I came across an amazing sale! The Container Store is having a spring sale. Plus, you can get 4% back off ALL online purchases if you shop through Ebates. Shoe boxes and sweater racks have been purchased for my closet. I cannot wait for them to arrive.

The pieces of "furniture" in our closet have been rearranged. We have two of these puppies, one with a hanging rack, one just shelves, both without wheels:

{available at crate and barrel outlet}

What space in your apartment/home could use some serious organization?

Are you going to take advantage of the CS Spring Organization Sale?

Johns Hopkins Weekend

Mark is at his second residency for his MBA, so I am flying solo for the weekend. We are on duty this weekend (because we are intern housing RAs), which means I am laying low around the building.

Those of you who know me understand that this does not mean I will be relaxing much. Being alone at home is a great time to get nitty gritty projects done. Here are my goals for the weekend:

1. Reorganize closet to give Mark more space - I have been dominating it
2. Complete invitations for the Kleeman Baby Shower
3. Brainstorm ideas for said shower, decorations, games, favors, the works!
4. Complete Neal Calligraphy project
5. Begin Kennebunkport Map for Foley wedding
6. Try 3 new recipes
7. Blog - both here and at Calligraphy by Shannon
8. Catch up on other blogs. Let me know if you have cyber reading suggestions!
9. Watch movies (likely in the background of calligraphy projects) that Mark would never watch in a million years! On the list so far: Once, A Philadelphia Story, & Ghosts of Girlfriends Past...because I have a girl crush on Jennifer Garner!

This is good news for you. It means I will likely be blogging about at least a few of these activities. Translation: my blog will not be stagnant for much longer!

In reality, all of this "busyness" is a rouse. The real purpose is to distract myself from missing Mark! We'll see how successful I am...

Online Photo Storage

So...I have become a full blow paparazzi! There is no "it" person or place that I am obsessed with, I just snap my camera every where I go. I am sentimental, so I want to capture everything. Similarly, I never want to let anything go. This leaves me in my current conundrum.

What do I do with my photos?

Burn them to CDs? Keep filling up my iPhoto? Create more albums on facebook? While I continue to do all of these things, I realize that I need to find a place where I can find all of my photos in a time of need...rather than scrounge to locate the place of choice at the time of interest.

Here are my reservations: (feel free to argue why these are stupid!)

Flickr - Not the best venue for printing, album making, etc.

iPhoto - Is there a way to create sub events? Or move old photos out of the main events page? It is getting a bit crowded! Also, this leaves my pictures on my computer without a back up.

Kodak Gallery, Snapfish, Shutterfly...are their perks to one over another? Currently I have photos uploaded to all three as I caught deals

Picasa - I have been underwhelmed.

Other? Is there a solution that I have not yet thought of?

Give me as much feedback as possible, I really want to know! What system works for you? What is your favorite? Help me please!

Mid-Atlantic Meltdown

...er, maybe more appropriately called a freeze? Ice and snow have been blanketing us since last week. I have not been to work since LAST Thursday. Today was the first time I stepped outdoors since MONDAY! I am getting cabin fever here people! Well, my work announced that it is opening on a two hour delay tomorrow - it is bad that I want to go in early?
What have I done with all of this time in my house?

• Recovered my iTunes (computer crashed months ago...and I haven't updated my iPods since then)
• Rejuvenate my calligraphy blog: Calligraphy by Shannon. It is still a work in progress, and I didn't actually add new content, I just updated the look and feel since I finally had time to mess with the html. It might still be ugly for PC users...sorry :-/
• Packed for our ski trip next weekend...well, at least I started to.
• Read a lot of books...more on that coming soon!
• Threw a taco party! I asked all of the interns on our floor to bring ingredients and it was a blast! (for those of you who don't know, we are RA's in an intern housing building...really)

• Watched chick flicks that I had yet to see: Made of Honor, A Good Year, and You, Me, and Dupree
• Prepped my cards (birthday, anniversary, and everything else) through the end of March.
• Went to the gym every day, and still felt cooped up. It is in our building...and the view is the same as our apartment, so it didn't exactly add a change of scenery.

Are you bored yet? Yeah, my "week" off wasn't really that exciting, but I got some much needed items off of my long-term to do list.