I have moved several times over the years. The first two moves happened when I was 12. My parents split up and I moved half of my stuff to my dad’s new rented house, and then a few months later when my mom sold her house, I moved the other half of my stuff to her new rented house.
Recently (in September, after the easiest person to help move left for school) my dad moved from the city to a small island in the Puget Sound. Where it’s nowhere near as remote as Nim’s Island (comment if you remember that movie), it is still very different than city life. For Thanksgiving break this week (a week off from school! Yay!) I am home and living with my dad in the building we called out cabin when I was growing up. Now it’s apparently the house.
Now I wouldn’t necessarily say I’m confident without makeup (or with makeup), but I’m working on it. I don’t wear makeup often. Occasionally, I decide that I want to put on lipstick or fill in my brows, but it is very occasional. And yet, 4 years ago I wouldn’t be caught dead without makeup. In fact, I even was late for school a few times because I either convinced my parents to turn around or I turned around myself to go back home to put on makeup (sorry mom).
There are many reasons I don’t wear makeup. The main reason is that I’m just lazy. Well, I guess it’s not necessarily being lazy, more selective energy usage. Another reason is that it’s not on my countertop in the bathroom anymore. Although I can’t really say this attributed, as my makeup was on my counter at home and I didn’t use it. Continue reading “How to be confident without makeup”
I have a confession to make… (maybe I should start all my posts this way?) I have been a procrastinator since, well, probably since I was 3 years old. I have always liked doing my own thing, in my own time. For example: with homework. If it’s an assignment I am interested in, you can consider it done. However, if it’s not, I will drag my feet until literally the last minute. (I once had an auditory presentation to do in honors biology about ethics and I totally winged it. I thought about it for about 5 minutes the night before. BUT I got an A.) Even if the project is something fun (like blogging), I will procrastinate for forever. I am still trying to figure out the why, but for now, the most important thing is the how – how do I get on with my life and beat procrastination.
February through August 2016 was a whirlwind of self-help books, trash bags, and trips to the GoodWill. I had heard a lot about minimalism on YouTube (the ever growing new Google), read a few books (most notably The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up), and threw myself into minimalism. I’m sure my dad thought I was crazy. I was at a point in my life where I needed a change, so I decided to get rid of almost everything. When I say almost everything, I mean almost everything. Sure, I kept a few things that, by the words of Marie Kondo, ‘sparked joy’, but those things that I kept were few and far between.
The largest areas of decluttering were my bathroom and my wardrobe. So many bottles of lotions and body washes were thrown in the trash, along with my multitude of impulse-buy makeup palettes. With my wardrobe, I really wanted the 10-item wardrobe (that I read about in Lessons Learned from Madame Chic), so skirts, shirts, and even jeans went into the boxes and boxes that I donated to GoodWill. Now, this was a mistake, as I wear jeans almost exclusively at my jobs. I got down to 2 pairs of jeans, about 10 shirts (not including my work shirts), 1 pair of leggings, 7 pairs of underwear, and 5 pairs of socks. You can imagine, I was doing laundry several times a week. Now, this wardrobe did make it easy to move to college, however, it was not at all practical for my lifestyle.
I learned my first mistake with the 10-item wardrobe around then, when I wanted to explore my personal style and leave behind the style I had in high school: I was trying to be someone I was not. Yes, a chic life of all monochrome colors and only 10 items in the closet is great for some people, but it was not practical for me, and it did not spark joy in me every time I went to get dressed. Continue reading “I failed at minimalism?”
Okay. So I’ve been absent on this blog for a few months. Spring semester of school was very busy. I kept telling myself that I would work on my blog, and I never got around to it. Mostly because I was afraid to post something that wasn’t perfect, and the fear of imperfection stopped me from even trying to work on my blog. Continue reading “I have a confession to make… About Perfectionism”
I have been living in a relatively large co-ed college dorm now for about 5 months now. I live on the third floor, so many of these tips might be different if you are on the floor with the laundry room. For example, you could walk into the hall to see if the machines are empty or not. Continue reading “Laundry Tips for College Dorms”
With November almost over and the December holidays approaching fast, it’s sometimes hard to focus on school, especially when you’re faced with the larger tasks, such as studying for finals or finishing that lab report. Staying motivated is the key to doing well in school, especially at the end of the semester. If you get a bad grade this late in the semester, it’s really unlikely that you’ll be able to fix it. Continue reading “Staying Motivated at the End of the Semester”
Are you going to take 8am classes? Do you want to figure out my secrets on surviving these dark o’clock classes? Read on!
You’re probably tired of hearing this one, but sleep is your friend. I’ve grown up a lot this year, from a nap-hating child to a young woman who sleeps 8 hours a night and tries to nap as often as possible. I still have no clue why elementary schools have nap time when the students don’t want it, but higher education doesn’t when the students need it. There are numerous findings of the benefits of sleep. Continue reading “Surviving 8am Classes”