Continuing the Tour

Well this is the longest apartment "tour" ever.  I shared pictures of my kitchen and my living room in previous posts, and now I'm finally getting around to sharing some pictures of the rest of my apartment.

When you first walk into my apartment, you see my living room on the right.

Straight ahead, you see my coat closet.  One of the things I love most about my apartment is all of the storage!  Having a coat closet is pretty luxurious, in my opinion.

To the left, there's a door into another closet - this one is a walk-in!  Talk about luxurious.  There's also a door into my bedroom from this closet.

If you continue down the entry hall, my bedroom door is on the left, and the bathroom door is on the right.  Also, straight ahead you'll see one of my favorite gifts ever - it's a picture my best friend took at a concert we went to together which she had framed for me.  I absolutely love it.

That's the door to my bathroom.

Here's the bathroom.

It was actually the first room in my apartment that I decorated - it seemed a lot more manageable and less daunting than the other rooms because it was much smaller.

I bought 10 picture frames from a dollar store and had some pictures printed out in black and white to put in the frames.  I love this because it was very cheap, and it's also easy to switch around if I want to.  I can swap out the pictures easily, and I just have them leaning on that ledge, so they're easy to move around, too.

That ledge goes all the way around my bathroom, so I continued the frames around the room.  I have one black and white print from Etsy among my own photographs.  I got the mat and frame from Hobby Lobby, so that was very affordable, too.

The photos I chose are a mix of places I've visited and concerts I've been to, so they all have a special meaning to me and are fun to look at throughout the day.

Leaving the bathroom, you'll see my linen closet in the hall.  I absolutely love having a linen closest to hold towels, sheets, some cleaning supplies, and extra toiletries.  I'm spoiled with all of this storage!

Past the linen closet, you can see my front door.  The doorknob in the right of this picture leads into that walk-in closet I showed above.

There's nothing very exciting about the decor in my bedroom, so I'll just highlight a few things in there.  This is the door from my bedroom into the walk-in closet.

And here's my other bedroom closet.  I told you - spoiled with storage!  It's nice, but at the same time I know I've accumulated a TON of stuff since I moved into this apartment - out of sight, out of mind, right?

This is the view from my bedroom window.  I love it!  I could have cut the curtain rod down a little bit, but since I don't spend a ton of time in my bedroom, I didn't worry about it.  It looks pretty silly in this picture, though!

One of my favorite things that I've done in my bedroom is my jewelry storage system.  (I know, I'm a dork.) I have an earring holder, a jewelry box, and I hung a tie rack to store my necklaces.

I used to keep all of my necklaces in my jewelry box, but it was so hard to see them all and I just ended up wearing the same things over and over again.  This way I can easily see all of them and quickly pick out what I want to wear.  It also prevents them from getting tangled!  The tie rack was about $10 at Wal-Mart, but I did recently see an idea for making your own necklace holder using wood trim and upholstery tacks, which I think would look nicer.  One day I'll try that out!

I love my earring holder for the same reason - I can easily see all of my options at once and pick out what I want to wear.  My parents got that earring holder for me as a present a few years ago, but it could be a fun DIY project, as well.  And now it's a lot easier to find other things like rings, bracelets, and watches in my jewelry box since I don't have earrings or necklaces in there!

The dresser that my jewelry box and earring holder are sitting on was actually left here by the previous tenant.  It's missing two drawers, but the previous tenant had the clever idea of painting the wood where the drawers should be and using that space as a shoe storage area.  Works for me!

Well there you have it - the rest of my apartment tour, with some cheap decorating tips and storage solutions thrown in.

I've got 2 finals in the coming week, and then I'll be finished with this semester.  Only one semester left to go - I can't hardly believe it.  It's scary and exciting at the same time.  I can't believe it's already December!  Along with my studying, I need to get my Christmas decorations up ASAP :)

Song of the day:

"Trouble Ahead" by Little Hurricane.  This entire album, Homewrecker, is really great.

Jotting it Down, Rocking it Out

One thing that is absolutely crucial for me in trying to balance a busy schedule with eating well and exercising regularly is planning.  I'm a Type A kind of person, and I love organization.  (Nerd alert.)  As a kid, I used to spend entire days organizing my sister's room, just because I couldn't stand her clutter (she grew out of that and is very organized now, though).  My love of to-do lists goes hand-in-hand with my love of organization.

Classic picture of my sister dressing up in a crazy outfit (an old dance costume of mine, actually), probably around the age when I would organize her room.  Really, I just wanted an excuse to post this.  

I have a "master" to-do list on my computer, but I also keep pads of paper everywhere (in my kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, purse) so that I can jot something down right when I think of it.  I've found that incorporating healthy to-do list items into my master to-do list really keeps me on track.  This includes planning ahead for a lot of things like what recipes I want to make, when I can go to the grocery store, what I need to buy at the store, a general idea of my meals during the week (depending on how much time I'll have for prep), when I can exercise, and what kinds of workouts I want to do.

This is me, around 10 years old maybe?  Already an organizing fiend.  When I was really young I wanted to be a maid when I grew up.

I realize all that planning might seem a little extreme, but it's what works for me and it really helps me to balance my stress level while keeping me on track.  I'm sure everyone has their own system - you just have to figure out what's best for you.  I personally find that writing things down and/or having them on my computer keeps me sane because once they're out of my head and written down, I don't constantly obsess over all of the things that I need to do and remember.  And it feels good to cross things off, too!

When I have to wake up early, I like to have a lot of food prepped the night before.  This usually includes breakfast, lunch, and snacks.  As I've mentioned before, breakfast cookies are a great way to have breakfast ready and waiting first thing in the morning.

I recently made a breakfast cookie with 1/3 cup old-fashioned oats, 1/2 scoop Sun Warrior vanilla protein powder, a spoonful of natural peanut butter, a splash of almond milk, a glob (technical term) of unsweetened applesauce, some slivered almonds, some dried blueberries and dried cranberries, and cinnamon.

I mixed all of those ingredients together, flattened out the mixture, and put it in the fridge overnight.

And in the morning it was ready to be eaten - super quick breakfast, and very filling.

This morning I enjoyed the breakfast cookie above, which contained 1/3 cup old-fashioned oats, 1/2 scoop Sun Warrior vanilla protein powder, a spoonful of natural peanut butter, a glob of unsweetened applesauce, a splash of almond milk, 1 T ground flax seed, some raisins, some slivered almonds, and cinnamon, topped with sliced strawberries.  Corny flower design optional :)

After class I did a repeat of Tuesday's workout - 7 minute warm-up on the elliptical, a strength-training plan and an incline interval treadmill workout, followed by stretching.  During my workout, a nice lady came up to me and said that she had seen me "rocking out those push-ups" and asked how many I could do - totally made my day :)  I was struggling with those push-ups, too, but that comment made them all worth it.

Tuesday was my first time trying the assisted pull-up machine, and it was a beast!  I've been intimidated by pull-ups ever since 4th or 5th grade when we had to do those Presidential fitness tests (remember them?) and there was no way I could even do one pull-up.  Although I'm heavily dependent on the machine to get me to the top, it felt good to go through the motion of a pull-up, and boy could I feel it yesterday in my chest, shoulders, upper back, and arms - although I was sore, it's a great feeling to know that I've challenged my muscles in a new way.

I'm off to dominate some more of my to-do list.  Have a great night everyone!

Reader question:  Are you a to-do list fan?  Do you plan out any of your meals and workouts, or just go with the flow?


Song of the day:

"Oh No" by Girl Talk.  One of my fellow interns last summer (hi Morgan!) told me that Girl Talk is the best music to work out to, and she wasn't kidding - it seriously gives me way more energy than I would have otherwise.  I still like to listen to my customized workout playlist, too, but now I always put Girl Talk on when I get on the treadmill.  It gives me the motivation I need to push through and is especially great for sprints.  Case in point - today I really wanted to decrease the speed on the treadmill and then I heard the lyrics "don't stop get it get it" repeating over and over - how perfect is that?  It pushed me to go just a little further than I thought I could, which was awesome.

And here's the best thing - you can download Girl Talk's latest album, All Day, in its entirety, for FREE on Girl Talk's website.  How cool is that?  And if you go to the home page, he has more free music and "pay what you want" music.  Also, Gregg Gillis (the artist's real name) went to Case - where I go to school now - so that's pretty sweet.