Winter essentials
Happy Halloween
My favorite holiday, Halloween, is right around the corner! I figured I would share some of my, and my friend’s, costumes through our college years…
Gatsby and Daisy
Grey’s Anatomy: Meredith and Derek
Risky Business and Dr. Grey
The Mad Hatter and Minnie Mouse
Sailor and Flapper (feat: Barbie and glow sticks)
Cheshire Cat and Mad Hatter (feat: my cat as as ballerina)
Bunny and Minnie Mouse
Mr. and Mrs. Smith
Mr. and Mrs. Incredible
Flash, Elasta Girl, Mr. Incredible and Ninja Turtle
Country Girl and Sailor
Fairy and Zombie
Zombies
Happy Halloween Y’all! I hope everyone has a wonderful time this year 🙂
Study Tips!
TIP 1: Go to class!!
I made the mistake of missing more class than I should have my freshman year. I thought to myself “well I’m tired today so if I just study at home and read the lecture slides, I’ll be fine.” How wrong I was!! Going to class is the #1 way to help you succeed. I’m not saying that missing 3-4 classes will make you fail, I’m just saying don’t skip unless you really have to!
TIP 2: Turn off your cell phone in class
I honestly texted in class a lot until last year. I never really made the connection that texting in class is the same as not even going! When you get to class just put your phone on do not disturb and listen to the professor. If you need to check your phone once or twice, that is fine. Just try your best to put it away and really focus on what the professor is saying!
TIP 3: Plan ahead
If you haven’t already, go to the store and buy a planner or a calendar! I have 2 calendars, a planner, and my phone; no joke. If you plan ahead, you are able to write your essay and get it edited, be able to hangout with your friends, study for the upcoming exam and most importantly sleep! When you know what you have to do, and you do it before the due date, then you can stay on top of your semester. Biggest take home from this tip is DO NOT PROCRASTINATE!
TIP 4: Don’t go out and party every night
I know this is a fun thing to do when you are in Greek life, a freshman or 21.. but its not going to help you ace your next exam! Stay away from “Thirsty Thursday” or “Margarita Monday.” You’re probably asking right now “how are you supposed to have fun in college?” The answer is, party on Friday or Saturday but then get your life together and focus on school! You go to college to get the degree, not the alcohol.
TIP 5: Try not to get too stressed out about your future
I am kind of a hypocrite for writing this tip because I am so stressed out everyday about what I’m going to do when I graduate! However, everyone always says have an idea of what you want to do and set a goal for the future. Reach for that goal but don’t freak out if you change your mind! I have changed my major 3 times in college (biochemistry, bioengineering and finally accounting). What I found to be most helpful in deciding was taking a class and really enjoying it and then talking to my professor. She gave me a lot of advice and really encouraged me to switch. If you are unsure about what you want to do, don’t stress, just go talk to an advisor or professor and ask why they picked their profession!
TIP 6: Get to know your professors
The best way to do this is to go to their office hours and ask them a question about the class or the homework. I don’t recommend going up to them on the first day and introducing yourself because they have so many people do that on the first day! The best way to get to know your teacher is by talking with them one-on-one in their office.
TIP 7 (final tip): Just try to do your best with balancing school and life
Don’t make yourself sick from worrying about grades, don’t hastily pick a major because you feel like you have too and do have fun! College is a time in your life where you really learn how to be on your own and manage your own life. It is a fun and challenging time; so do your best to make good decisions and enjoy it!! You only get your undergrad once 🙂
How I study for exams and stay organized:
1. I take notes on the slides in class and on what the professor says. I tend to write down mostly what the professor says because they mention things that aren’t usually on the slides!
2. I try and come home and type up the day’s notes, but with 4 classes and homework it is difficult to do! I find myself going through the notes the weekend before the exam and typing up all of them.
3. Most of my professors, and books, have “learning objectives” that I will go through and make sure I know.
4. When I’m finished typing, I print them out and put them into a binder along with my homework assignments. I got the idea to use clear sleeves from another blogger (Mackenzie Kendall) and I love doing it! When your notes are in clear sleeves you don’t have to worry about the pages tearing out or having to punch holes.
5. I make a crib sheet full of notes from the chapter, homework, slides and my class notes! Most of my teachers will allow the use of a note sheet on exams but even when they don’t allow it, I still make the sheet for quick study references!
These tips and techniques have been working for me so far, so I hope they will help the rest of you!! If you have any other suggestions, add a comment (I would love to know how everyone else aces their exams)! Good luck this semester!! Thank you for reading my blog!
Home Sweet Home
I recently put together my gallery wall! I didn’t have enough frames and didn’t want to put a lot of holes in the wall so I decided to use my colorful Washi Tape to put them up! I also picked up a New York City canvas to add some color to my walls!
To stay organized, I put up the months in the semester and write all of my exams on it! In years past I have added homework assignments too, but it always seems to get too cluttered; so I just did exams this year. These large calendars are so helpful when trying to plan out your week and month.
I am a coffee addict! So, my Nespresso machine (on sale right now) is my favorite thing ever (thank you to my mom for this)! In a matter of minutes you can have a perfect Italian cappuccino in your hands. I recommend of these machines to anyone who loves lattes but doesn’t like to spend $5 for one at Starbucks!
Since my boot collection was growing too big, I got a shoe rack to put them on. My everyday shoes go on the shoe rack and the rest of them are in a shoe organizer on the back of my door. I also color coordinated my closet this year! I didn’t have room for all of my sweatshirts so I put them in organizer drawers under my bed, for when winter rolls around.
This year, I am lucky enough to have my kitty baby living with me! Since she lives with me, I have to keep her litterbox in my room. To hide the box, I put it into a corner and got a tension rod to hang drapes. I decided to purchase a plug in oil warmer to mask the smell of kitty litter and it makes my house smell good. I also repurposed an old trash can to be a cat food holder! I am going to decorate it later this year so it looks cute.
I find it fun to organize my room and wanted to share a little of it with everyone. My house this year is so cute and cozy and I am excited for the year to unfold! Thank you for reading my blog!
Lush Cosmetics Review!
This past weekend, I visited my first Lush store! When you first walk into the store you are greeted by a wonderful aroma of different scents and smiling faces of employees ready to help you decide on products. The specific store I went to closed at 7pm and I ran up to the door right at 7 and was bummed to see they were closed. However, the supervisor saw me and let me in even though they were closing! I didn’t get to spend a lot of time picking stuff out so I just picked up a couple bath bombs, shower gel and samples of shampoo and conditioner.
I am so happy with the two scents I picked out! The white one is Sakura and the blue one is Avobath. They both smell absolutely amazing and I’m excited to use them in the near future!
For shower gel, I decided to go with Its Raining Men. This shower gel is perfect for my skin because it has been really dry, ever since I got home from Florida. When I use this, my skin feels nourished and smells amazing!
I also received two samples for shampoo and conditioner since I couldn’t decide. I really love the Daddy-O Shampoo and will definitely purchase a bottle of it next time I go to Lush! It is a purple based shampoo so it really helps blonde hair stay rich and not turn brassy. I have tried other purple shampoos and they all smell bad so I was really excited to find purple shampoo that smells wonderful! While I love the shampoo, I’m not too crazy about the American Cream Conditioner. It smells really good but it is a thiner conditioner that just didn’t work for my hair type.
In all, my experience in the Lush store and the products has been very good! I will definitely be visiting them again in the near future to purchase some more cosmetics! Thanks for checking out my blog!
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Summer in Florida
As many of you already know, I got the opportunity to spend my summer in Pensacola, FL with my boyfriend (now fiancé)! Exactly 2 months and 10 days ago, I arrived in this beautiful southern town. It was extremely humid and I couldn’t breath when I first got here. However, I adjusted very quickly and now I love the humidity and heat!
Since Daniel is a pilot, we had many dinner conversations revolving planes and flight regulations while he was in Introductory Flight Screening (IFS). I have definitely learned a lot more about planes that I ever would have known! He also informed me of the weather conditions each day (storm front, Cumulonimbus, cold front, VFR and IFR flight conditions)! Once IFS was complete, and he obtained his pilots license, we got the chance to go to Disney World!
We spent 4 days there and hit every single park! Our favorite rides included the Rock and Roll Roller Coaster, Space Mountain, The Yeti ride in Animal Kingdom, Astro Blasters and Hollywood Tower of Terror. This was the most unforgettable trip because we got engaged! In front of Cinderella’s Castle, Daniel got down on one knee and asked me “will you spend forever and always with me?” Luckily, he had asked one of the Disney photographers to take our picture so we have a picture of the wonderful moment. Our trip to Disney was so much fun and we both still have the Disney-blues!
For the Fourth of July, my mom and brother got the chance to come visit! Some other family friends came to visit us and we had a great day at the beach! At the end of the night we sat on the deck and had a view of about five different firework shows all over Pensacola.
Another one of our adventures included one of my best friends, Katie, coming down to visit and going to see the Blue Angles Show on Pensacola Beach (picture credit to Google). I had never seen a Blue Angles show and was completely in awe. The F-18 hornets all fly in formation and do unbelievable stunts. We were swimming in the water and they flew right over our heads! If you have never seen the Blue Angles, I highly recommend it.
One weekend, we headed to Foley, AL to check out some outlets! These outlets are home to about 120 different outlet stores. We only had a couple hours to spend so we tried to just walk around the entire mall and only go into a few stores. It was basically retail heaven there! After that, we went and spent 3 hours registering for our wedding. I couldn’t believe how much time it took to pick out everything; deciding on a shower curtain was the biggest dilemma lol. Once we were completely exhausted, we decided to go play a game of mini golf! Surprisingly, after 3 years we still had never played mini golf together. It was such a fun little outing – and I got a hole in 1!
Our last trip was to Destin, FL. Destin is a big spring break place for kids who go to school in the south and I understand why. The water was pure blue and beautiful! The water wasn’t as warm as it is in Pensacola but it was crystal clear. We went to Henderson State Park and highly recommend it, if anyone gets the chance to go there! While we were there, we ate a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co and got pictures in Forest’s shoes. Our drive home was very interesting because it poured rain the entire time and there was also a lot of debris on the road due to the high speed winds. However, we made it home safely!
In our last week, we realized we hadn’t visited the National Naval Aviation Museum. So we went to base after Daniel got off work and walked around for an hour. The museum was amazing! There were so many planes from all eras and so much history. It is definitely a place to go if you love planes or history! On my last day we visited my favorite little snowball place, Dave’s Authentic Snowballs, and picked up some snowballs. In Washington we call them snow cones but down here they call them snowballs which I found amusing. They are probably the closest to snow Florida ever gets!
Now, I’m sitting at the airport (due to some mechanical failures I have a 4 hour layover). Reflecting on my summer makes me realize how truly blessed I am. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to explore the world and have gotten to spend time with my fiancé. I won’t be able to see Daniel until Christmas time, but at least I have this amazing summer to remember!
Thank you for checking out my blog!
Megan Elizabeth 
