Story Of My Life

50 Things About Me 

Hello Lovelies :) I'm Jordan Nicole. I thought that since my blog is still relatively new I would do a post to introduce myself a bit. What better than the 50 things about me tag? :) Here are 50 things about me that are equal parts interesting and embarrassing! 

1. I always say I was born and raised in Texas but I was actually born in San Jose, CA. My parents moved us back to TX when I was 11 months old so I figure its not a huge lie. It is my dream to get back to California after I graduate. 

2. My family is so large that I don't know all of my cousins. 

3. When I was little I would watch soap operas with my mother and I didn't realize that it wasn't real. When my favorite character died I cried so much. Years later I saw the actress on another show and had the epiphany that only her character had died, not her.

4. I own a ton of TV series box sets. My collection includes (but isn't limited to)  Friends, Sex and the City, Will & Grace, Gilmore Girls, Full House, and That 70s Show. 

5. I just got a white 2013 Ford Escape. Her name is Ainsley. 

6. I do not like avocados. This includes guacamole.

7. My childhood dogs are still alive. Sweetie is 17 and Mickey is 15. 

8. I am obsessed with the Kennedy family. Not just JFK & Jackie. All of them. I have multiple books to prove it. 

9. I am rubbish with money. 

10. I do not like soda. The only one I will drink is root beer, and I love it. 

11. I'm a Sagittarius. It is a fire sign. 

12. I had three exchange students from age 8 to 11. One from Switzerland and two from The Republic of Georgia. 

13. It has to be cold for me to sleep. 

14. There is never a bad time for Vogue. I am addicted to magazines and am subscribed to about 10. 

15. My longest relationship lasted one year to the day. I have not had one again since high school.

16. I hate talking on the phone. I rarely answer calls. 

17. I make a playlist for every situation. If I am feeling an emotion, there will be a playlist about it. 

18. History is my favorite subject. I could watch documentaries on the History channel all day.

19. I have never and will never smoke. 

20. I either don't need to pee at all or am about to pee my pants. There is no in-between. 

21. I am obsessed with all things British, including the royal family. I should have been born in England. Sometimes my inner monologue even has a British accent.

22. I love shoes. I am not a heel girl though. Keds are my favorite. 

23. I am always down for adventure but I can't handle spontaneity. 

24. I don't eat red meat. I don't eat pork either. Chicken is where its at. 

25. I love Youtuber's. My British ones are my favorite. 

26. Baking makes my life happier. 

27. I wear the same jewelry every day. It is all from James Avery. 

28. The quote, "I am in love with place I've never been and people I've never met." is probably the most accurate description of my life. 

29. When I was little and saw people on TV that had cancer lose their hair I didn't know it was because they were doing chemotherapy. I thought that if your hair was falling out you had cancer. This was a major concern in my life for years. 

30. I adore candles. I have one lit at all times in my apartment. 

31. I have always wanted to get a tattoo but I overthink things to much to ever get one. 

32. Take a look in my closet. You will find floral, stripes, floral, polka dots, floral and more floral. 

33. My favorite colors are navy, mint and coral. 

34. Disney. Life begins and ends with Disney. 

35. My first job was at the Saltlick. 

36. I hate asian food. 

37. I love Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy, Grace Kelly and Elizabeth Taylor. Such classy ladies.

38. My family and I used to go to Mexico once a year, for six years. It is one of my favorite places.

39. I have a belly button ring. I got it when I was 18. 

40. Coffee. That's all. 

41. I am a goody goody. I can't do anything illegal, including speeding and illegally downloading music or movies. 

42. I really love college football, UT is of course my favorite team. I love baseball too. The Astros are my team and I'm not ashamed to admit it :)

43. I went to Las Vegas, NV for my 21st birthday with my Mama and some other family. I fell in love with it and think about going back multiple times in a week. 

44. I secretly love ramen noodles. I don't only eat them because I'm a poor college kid. I actually went through a phase when I was little where it was the only thing I'd eat. This was between the cereal and mac & cheese phases. 

45. Taylor Swift is a huge inspiration in my life. 

46. I overuse hand sanitizer. I blame my cousin Ellie for having a huge pump bottle in the living room. I now have my very own bottle in the living room in my apartment. 

47. I am very family oriented. My older sister Samantha is my best friend, she is two years older than me and is severely handicapped. 

48. I love reading. I can read a whole book in a day. I have; many times.

49. My favorite thing to wear is a dress. I enjoy nothing more than spinning around in a new one. I do not think this makes me a child. 

50. I have a rainbow unicorn pillow pet. His name is Henry and he has been in my life for three years. I take him with me on any overnight trip. 

There they are! 50 things about me. I tried to keep them short & sweet :) I hope you enjoyed getting to know me a little bit better. 

      

Anywhere In Texas

A Day in ATX 

Yesterday I was given the lovely gift of a day with an alarming amount of emptiness. In my opinion, a morning when you wake up and have nothing planned for the entire day can easily lead to the best day you've ever had. Don't get me wrong, it can easily lead to being in bed all day, whether that means sleeping or binge watching that new show you found (or lets be honest, binge watching that show you've seen every episode of at least 3 times) on Netflix as well. Now this can be a wonderful day if you are in need of some mental rebooting time but isn't what I would consider the best day of my life (and now that song is permanently in my mind, yay!). What I love so dearly about an open day is the endless possibility that goes along with it. You can turn it into something amazing because you have nothing holding you back, no time limits, no restraints. This is what I got to experience and it was simply lovely. 

Wednesday I started my day early enough to be able to do a multitude of things but not so early that I felt like death getting out of bed. My roommate Tyler woke me up when he left for work at about 8:45 and, after asking him to turn on the Keurig, I proceeded to finish watching my episode of House from the previous night before getting out of bed. My best friend Clay had spent the night on the couch and was watching movie trailers when I came out to make some coffee. We both had clear schedules until about 7 o'clock and I had done some light research of things to do in Austin (you've never really seen all of the city you live in after all) that would keep us out in the fresh air and sunshine. This led me to wear my brand new top from the Kendall & Kylie line at Pacsun (I'll link it below if you wanna see it or their line). It is backless and I, as I do all backless things, adore it. We got ready and were out the door at about 10:15 heading to our first destination, the Austin Zoo.     

Now to anyone else my age this destination would have seemed quite trite I suppose, but I Jordan Nicole in my 21st year had never been to a zoo before. This made my level of excitement resemble that of a three year old seeing Frozen for the first time. Then again, I was about as excited to see Frozen as that three year old so the conclusion must be that I am indeed a toddler. I am perfectly happy with this fact :) Clay thought we should attempt to go to the San Antonio Zoo for my first time but we simply couldn't get all the way back to Austin in time for his 8 PM rehearsal and see the whole zoo so we decided on the Austin one. I was fine with this seeing as I was just excited to be going at all. After driving about 30 minutes from my apartment and down some back, narrow and curvy roads we made it to the zoo. I had just had a garage sale with my Mama the previous weekend so I had a baggie full of about $27 worth of quarters and another $30 in one dollar bills. We decided this would be the day to use them! So we paid the $8 each in one dollar bills and bought our $2 bag of animal food with some quarters. The zoo worker handed us a map, we headed outside and we started my first ever zoo experience. Spoiler alert: IT WAS AMAZING!  

  The first animals I saw weren't particularly interesting but they were animals in a real life zoo so I was completely satisfied with the chickens and peacocks that were roaming around lose within the whole area. The male peacocks were glorious and just reminded me how sad it is that male animals in nature are typically more esthetically pleasing than the females. Oh well, guess that's why we have make-up ;) Clay was the most excited to see the big cats so we headed there first. We passed the bear cage on the way but it was sadly empty (This put a damper on my idea to make a pic-stitch with "Lions and Tigers and Bears, oh my!" which was just dream crushing). The tigers were out though and so was a lion. They were all so wonderful! I love cats and it is so cute how much big cats act like domestic house cats. We walked around and looked at all of the animals. We made our way to the monkeys before we left and they were so much fun! A lot of the animals had just gotten food while we were there so we got to watch them eat and we even got to feed some of the goats, sheep, deer and llamas :) Its so interesting how they all eat in such different ways! I had a new experience where I got to see animals, learn things, and spend time in the sun. If you are in ATX and that sounds like a good time to you, I would definitely recommend going :)

Now it had gotten to be about 1:30 and I was starving so we decided to go to Chuy's, one of our favorite restaurants in Austin. We usually like to go to the one with an outdoor area that is close to the apartment but since we were further south at the zoo we went to the one on William Cannon and ate inside. This actually turned out to be a good thing in the long run, I'm sure, because we both had pink checks at the end of the day and the time indoors was probably good for our skin! I adore their tortillas, which come with the tortilla soup that I always order (it's my favorite from a restaurant, but homemade is always better!) and I love to dip them in queso and their famous creamy jalepeno sauce. We had a great time in the air conditioning and as we walked out Clay commented on the state of my vehicle. Now I recently got a new car, its a white 2013 Ford Escape, and I had visited my parents the weekend before. The oak levels in Yoakum had been off the charts which left my car looking a little worse for the ware, bright neon yellow everywhere! I needed gas anyways and the gas station across the street had a car wash as well so I headed that way. This ended up not mattering though because Clay decided he wanted to hand wash my car since the weather was so pretty. We headed to Brodie and a car wash where during the course of washing my car and spending tons of my quarters Clay managed to complement soak my front half. After I calmed myself down we had a big laugh about it but I still secretly think he did it on purpose, that or he just has no hand eye coordination ;) My roommate Tyler had gotten out of class and called us to see when we wanted to meet up at our next destination when we had gotten to the car wash so we told him we were headed to Zilker Botanical Gardens next and said we'd see him there around 3:30. 

I hadn't been to the Zilker Botanical Gardens since I was about 7 years old and my family took portraits there (insert absolutely humiliating shot of me at age six). 

The matching outfits really just bring the whole thing together, my lack of hair and teeth help too :) 

We beat Tyler there but decided to get out and walk around without him. The second we got out of the car I knew this was going to be one of my new favorite places in Austin. It is gorgeous and so serene. If you want to get to be in nature and outdoors but not have to be in a loud and crowded environment this is the place for you! I took so many amazing pictures (as my phone was dying and I wanted to cry). Tyler joined us after a bit and we walked around the whole area. It was so nice to just be together outside. I would tell anyone who is in Austin and wants to have a nice afternoon outside to head to the Botanical Gardens. It is only $2 for Austin residents and $3 for visitors, that's such a great deal! :)

Isn't he just so cool? ;)

Roomie love :)

We got so hot that we wanted to head over to our favorite snow cone place in Austin, Sno Beach. It is conveniently located just down from Zilker Park so we braved the traffic and headed that way. It was delicious and we had a nice time together. Clay & I wanted to go mini golfing next but Tyler had a rehearsal to get to so we went our separate ways from there. ***My phone was dying at this point so I left it in the car to charge and took the pictures of our snow cones with Tyler's phone. I should have sent them to myself right then but I didn't.. So now I have no access to them :P***

With Tyler forging the path we bravely took on the challenge of taking a left across four heavily populated lanes. The only reason I made it out is because I had Tyler's help and I was grateful because it made us get to Peter Pan Mini Golf in only a few minutes. I had only been once before this, a year earlier, and was really looking forward to it. I found that I am not naturally gifted in hitting the ball far distances but I am really good at putting! It was nice to be good at something at least. We had such a nice time and got to have more sun time, but we were drained after doing one side so we decided not to purchase the other side too but if you are interested they have two complete 18 hole sides and they are both so fun! Its only an additional $3 to get both sides which is typically worth it. It's great for all ages, we saw some grandparents with their six year old granddaughter there and they were having a wonderful time! You can even bring your own alcohol so thats cool :) 

We left mini golfing and went to get some food because after a full day in the sun we were hungry again. We picked up Chipotle and ate it out by the pool. Even after a full day outdoors we just wanted more fresh air! It was such a great day and when I laid down that night I was proud of what I had turned my empty day into. If only all empty days could end up this good. On the other hand, can't they? :) Go out there and take the endless possibilities with you! 

Some of the website I looked at for things to do in ATX

 http://365thingsaustin.com/2011/05/02/25-best-things-to-do-in-austin-texas/

http://www.austintop50.com/p/top-50-things-to-do-in-austin-this.html

http://www.tourtexas.com/content.cfm?id=124

Links for things we did

Kendall & Kylie Pacsun line: http://www.pacsun.com/content/kendall-kylie.html

Austin Zoo: http://www.austinzoo.org

Chuy's: http://www.chuys.com/#/home

Zilker Botanical Gardens: http://www.zilkergarden.org

Sno Beach: http://snobeachatx.com

Peter Pan Mini Golf: http://peterpanminigolf.com

A Change Would Do You Good

Ten Tips For A Fresh Start 




All of us go through a point in time where all we really need is to start over. It varies from moving to a city where no one knows your name to getting a haircut. No matter where you are on the spectrum we have all been there. You are not alone! Sometimes the hardest thing about starting over is actually starting. Where do you begin? How soon will you feel different? Here are some tips on where to start and things that can lead you to the new beginning you are looking for.

1. Hair cut/color: The first things I always want to do when I need a change is to go to my nearest hair salon and cut my hair. This has always been a pattern in my life. You can track many of the major changes I've gone through by seeing when I changed my hair. Sometimes its because I just broke up with someone and needed to cleanse myself of the bad energy that was there in the end. Other times I just needed to make a personal change, to be seen and to see myself differently. The quickest way to do that is with a physical change so its visible. I will admit that there have been times I regretted my decision to cut my hair but whether I got bangs, cut off eight inches, or went blond I achieved what I was aiming to. I changed.

2. New wardrobe: This is another thing you can change physically that will help you feel different on the inside as well. A new wardrobe can be life changing, it gives you control over how others perceive you in a world that you don't have much control over. If changing your style seems like a scary or daunting task, and you are baffled on where to start, then I would recommend choosing a celebrity or a person in your life whose style inspires you. I am not recommending just completely stealing the way someone dresses, after all that isn't reinventing yourself, that’s just being someone else. You have to make it your own look. Just take pieces or elements of a look you admire and go from there.

3. Spring clean: A great way to feel like you have a clean slate is to actually clean the environment around you. Go through all of your clothes and things. Donate the items you haven't used in the last two months, the odds are you aren't going to ever use them if you haven't used them in that time anyways. Actually clean as well. Sweep, mop, dust, and vacuum. Clean the restroom. The kitchen. Make everything around you spotless and organized and you will suddenly have cleared your mind, so you can start fresh. You won't have to worry about all the chores you should be doing while you are out at the park with your dog. Instead, you can be in the moment.

4. Wake up early: Start your day. Don't sleep until two because you can and then feel groggy because you slept too much. Find a routine, a schedule where you go to bed (instead of watching Netflix all night) so that you can get up in the morning. It doesn't have to be at 6 in the morning but 8 or 9 is early enough that you can still buy breakfast at What-A-Burger after you've taken the full amount of time you need to start the day, ya know? It's always a bummer when you wake up and all you want is a honey butter chicken biscuit and you look at the clock and its 1045. Breakfast stops being served at 11 and there is no way you're going to make it. Get up at an hour where if you wanted breakfast out, you could get it! Waking up early, having time for some coffee, a bit of TV or reading and being able to take your time while you get ready will do wonders for your day. Not having to be rushed makes your day start on a positive note and be much more relaxed.

5. Vacation: This doesn't have to be a big to-do or anything; it could be as simple as going to visit a family member over the weekend. Just get yourself out of your everyday environment and routine, shake things up! This will get your mind off of the things you don’t want to take with you on your journey to a new you. Plus you can just relax and feel rejuvenated when you return.

6. Do something good for others: Volunteer your time. There is nothing that can make you feel happier, if you're down, than making someone else feel good. Give a little, or give a lot and you'll be amazed at how good it can make your day. Seeing someone else smile because you were willing to take the time to help him or her is an amazing gift to give.

7. Evaluate who should be in your life: You know that friend everyone has? That toxic one that just pulls and pulls and pulls your positive energy out of you and gives nothing back? We all have them and for an unknown reason most of us are willing to love them more than we love ourselves. These are the people we should be taking out of our life and instead most of us cater to them. You should always be surrounded by as much love and support as you put out there. And you don't want to be putting the negative energy that this friend makes you have into the world. There is already enough coming from them, why should you let them cause you to contribute. You want to put positive energy into the universe so that someone else can be influenced to be happy and so that you don't get the negativity later on down the road when karma comes into play.

8. Change your diet: I am certainly not trying to sell a diet plan or even "lifestyle change" like everyone else out there on the Internet. I am not overly into healthy eating, there are plenty of days when I have something that is bad for me but there are also so many days where I eat something green, or some fruit with my meal and it makes me feel so much lighter. Maybe you could at least try to balance the bad and good moments. My mother always told me while I was growing up "everything in moderation" and I really feel like this is a great motto for everything in your life. Don't over do it. Anything can be bad for your life if you have too much of it. At the same time don't under do it. This could be just as bad for you in the long run. Find a happy medium and this will really help you feel better physically. You’ll also just feel more fulfilled because you are getting the things you crave, but you're also balancing it with the things you need.

9. Get active/out doors: Did you know that if you would just step outside and let the sun hit your face when you first get up that your whole mood for the day will be better? Now this is all due to the chemistry in your brain and the different hormones it can produce, take a basic psychology course and you can learn the same thing. Your brain actually has a light sensor that tells it to produce serotonin, which will make you happier. Your eyes also tell your brain to make less melatonin when the sun hits them, which will make you less tired. The sun is a wonderful thing, as is nature and I feel like we should all be spending more time there. Most of my best days are spent outdoors. Now the active part can be taken as mildly or extremely as you'd like to take it. I think that getting outside and just walking all day is really all you need. Or go to a museum and walk around. The point is to stay off the couch. I mean if you need to go to the store then that can count! You are walking around right? That is more active than sitting at home and watching TV right? There ya go. Now if that doesn't feel like enough for you then maybe you could get some friends together and find a local dance place to take some classes a few times a week/month. That is a fun and social way to get moving. Or if you are more motivated by being alone then start to train for a 5k, remember that tip about helping other people? Sign up for a 5k for an organization you really believe in and start to train for it. This gives you a time limit but not an extreme goal. I'm not telling you to train for a marathon, this could be an eventual goal, but don't think tomorrow you need to run 26.2 miles. That isn't the way it works. There are so many options for being active you can join a gym, maybe find one that offers free classes like yoga or spinning. The group factor could be a great thing to get you started and keep you motivated. If you want to be outdoors while you are active go hiking, swim, go paddle boarding (you'll be using so many more muscles than you think you will), find a tennis court near by and drag some friends out for doubles, even your running can be outside. There are endless options for this step but the combination of moving around and getting that sun on your face will do wonders for your happiness.

10. Just breathe: Things always change in time. Even if you feel like where you are in your life right now isn’t where you want to be, things will always keep moving forward, there is no pause button. Breathe and work calmly toward the fresh start you are craving. Stress and anxiety about wanting things to be different will only add to your disappointment with the way things are. Positivity is key, and just staying calm will help you keep it.

These tips can all be ignored, all followed, or somewhere in-between. I am in no way an expert on starting over or on you. Everyone is different and certainly not everyone needs these tips but coming from personal experience I have found myself in this position more than once in my twenty-one years and a little guidance is always welcome. Even if you aren’t looking for a complete reinvention it is still fun to change things up every once and a while. Life is a constant experience of change. It moves forward and we just try to keep up the best we can. Sometimes we get caught up and left behind and when that happens we are always given the gift of a new day and new opportunities. That’s what’s so wonderful about time, if you let it, it can make everything better.

Anything Could Happen

My First Apartment 

So that moment. That moment when you are handed a key and suddenly you have a place that is all your own. Not everyone has had that moment yet but everyone will, at some point in there lives, experience this for the first time. I have had the great pleasure of experiencing this feeling a few months ago when, after countless calls and paperwork, I was handed the key to my first apartment. I could feel the importance of the moment as it happened which I have found is something I can rarely do. I tend to not notice important moments until they have passed. This is a quality I am continuously trying to improve on but that day at our apartment leasing office I had no trouble at all.

And now a little back story on my living arrangements since leaving home to explain why, at 21, this is my first experience with my own apartment. My freshman year of college I lived in a dorm with one of my best friends, she found a different roommate for her living situation sophomore year so I was left contemplating getting an apartment on my own or finding someone to room with. My closest cousin Ellie called my Mama around this time and told her she was not ready for me to be living on my own so she wanted me to come live with her and her family. A few weeks later I moved into their second bedroom at their home in Kyle, Tx. I lived with Ellie, her husband Corey and their children Ryan and Landyn for all of my sophomore year and fall of my junior year. They were wonderful and I was so grateful that my parents and I didn't have to worry about paying for my living arrangement. So I have been away from my parents for almost three years now, but it wasn't until my high school friend Tyler (who also attends The University of Texas) called me during the fall of my junior year and asked where I was living in the spring that the idea of actually living on my own really became a feasible option.

It all happened pretty quickly after Tyler called me at the beginning of October. He told me he wanted to look into the Hyde Park area and from there I simply Googled apartments in that area and we ended up moving into the first complex that came up in my research. We called and were told there was no available apartments for us in the spring, but the lady in the office was so sweet and told Ty about a one bedroom that's tenant was being evicted. She said there were no guarantees until after the trial but we filled out our paperwork and put down a deposit in preparation. December 5th was the date of the trial and that evening Ty got the call that the apartment was ours. They told us the move in date would be December 19th and that was the moment we officially had our first apartment. Our situation was far from ordinary in that most of the process happened very quickly and without trouble. Neither of us had ever even seen the apartment before the day we moved in and we got lucky that it was all nice and worked for us. I wouldn't recommend doing it the way we did but while all of the planning was happening we were juggling with my out of town schedule and our shared rehearsal schedule for a Christmas musical we were both taking part in. We were extremely lucky and blessed that it all fell into place so perfectly. I still think that it was meant to be.

Having my own apartment has been a wonderful experience. There are so many things I didn't foresee when we made the decision but it has been a lovely adventure. From the process of moving in to the daily requirements of cooking it has been full of new things to learn. Moving on its own is an extensive process that takes loads of planning and organization. Now moving into your first apartment can take even more because you are going from a place where you don't have any furniture into a place where you will need couches, a coffee table, a tv stand, a dining room table, kitchen items, even a shower curtain. If you are like me and have a huge family it is likely that you can get most, if not all, of these things from family members. My cousin Ellie was getting her in-laws old living room set so she was kind enough to give us all of her living room set. That took care of so much of what we needed. My mother had been collecting kitchen thing for me since I was in high school so we were set in that department. The thing we hadn't thought of in any way was the bathroom. We had this realization the first night in the apartment when none of us could take a shower. I guess I had always assumed apartments came with things like a shower curtain. We didn't even have towels! So at about one in the morning, after rehearsal, we had to make a Walmart run. It wasn't cheap either. Warning: apparently boys will grab any food that sounds good when you take them with you to the grocery store, for anyone living with one for the first time!

We have been living in the apartment for about five months now and are still settling in. It has felt like home for a while but we are still finding things we need to buy and adding to it as we go. There really isn't any way to move in with everything you will need, you have to just learn as you go. We are in a one bedroom that is 540 sq. ft and have found out that while we love each other we really need our own bedrooms. This is just something we had to learn from experience. So we will be picking up and moving four apartments down into a two bedroom in July. We are super excited for the transition!

This is our dining room area, we didn't have that table when we moved it, it is actually the only furniture that my parents had to buy for the move. We love it though and its a perfect size for an apartment. Of course we have a little longhorn decor to show our school spirit! 

This is the table again. When we moved in we didn't know that we would have so many windows and so much natural light so we hadn't brought curtains. This is another things I didn't realize it wouldn't come with, or at the pole was. I assumed that there would be curtain rods already installed but unfortunately that was yet another purchase we had to make. It really adds up after a while. Luckily my Mama had those curtains that matched the living room wonderfully. 

The space as a whole. We have to keep our trashcan in there because the pantry isn't quite big enough to fit it. This can be inconvenient when you want to be lazy but it is fine usually :) 

The bathroom is actually one of the largest spaces in the apartment. It is massive. That is our lovely shower curtain, the only one we could agree on when we went on our Walmart run that first night. I still love it and think its so cute. 

The counter is a decent size, not so small that I get annoyed on a daily basis but when my girlfriends are over and we are all trying to do hair and makeup it can get cramped very easily. There will be a double vanity in the new apartment and I am thrilled to have it! The toilet and shower will also have a separate door from the rest of the bathroom. Yay for no more having to wait to get ready!

I try to keep it as neat as I can but sometimes after Tyler washes his face or wets his hair he leaves a massive mess with the water. I has discussed this topic with my cousin and she says her husband does the same thing, so yet another warning when moving in with a man, they will leave messes on the bathroom counter :P I just make sure to wipe it up quickly because if I don't I will forget and set my phone in all the water. This has happened multiple times and never fails to make me aggravated, I'd much rather clean it up and not have to feel the negative energy! 

Our closet was one of the main worries we had before we moved in as we hadn't seen it and two people sharing one closet could have easily become a disaster. We were the luckiest when it came to this because when we got in there we found that the closet was massive! It is actually might be bigger than any I've ever had. Between the closet and bathroom you have half of our apartment! :) So we have plenty of room in here for all of our stuff. 

It can get a bit cluttered at times though, seeing as two people are using it and we both have a good amount of things. In the two bedroom we will both had a walk in closet that is actually (and I am not exaggerating this) double the size of our current one. The closets actually have two separate doors they are so massive. I have told my best girlfriends one of them could come live in my closet it's so big! What more could a girl ask for?? :) 

This is the living room. The dining, living, and kitchen areas are all just in one space and not really separated and I love this element. It makes the apartment feel much larger than it really is and lets you easily interact with guests when you have them over. Those built in book shelves we an awesome feature for storage but we have each hit some part of our body on there, so have our friends. Alcohol consumption doesn't help with this either! You can kind of see the big screen my parents (well I just took it from my room at home so they aren't really missing it) donated to the cause in the corner, I didn't really get a better picture of it and I'm not sure why :P It makes for wonderful movie nights and is always a wow factor when people visit for the first time :) 

Those are the couches Ellie was kind enough to give us, and the coffee table. They are so comfy and the back cushions can pull off so they are also really big, which is great when we need to sleep on them. I actually will sleep on them when I don't even have to because they are so comfy and the big screen is better for a late night movie!

We added those book cases back there a few month after moving in because we felt with that couch turned at an angle that we were losing some space back there. I think its a cute little addition back there to keep decorative things on. We also got that rug because Tyler insisted. He wanted a really large one that would take up the entire living room floor but I didn't want a rug at all so we compromised and got a smaller one. I actually will admit is comes in handy and really pulls the whole room together. 

That lamp was an extremely necessary purchase and I don't know how we were living in that apartment before we had it. There isn't any overhead lighting in the living room so it is so dark in there! I still don't even understand why a builder would not put a light in there, I mean what were they thinking? But the lamp helps a lot! 

This is my side of our bedroom. People always comment on how tiny our room is but its just as big as my dorm room was and that didn't have the living area we do. It feels plenty big :) 

My walls are still bare, but not because I don't have anything to hang on them, just because I am to lazy to actually hang any of it! At this point I think I'll just wait till I have my own room at the new place to even bother. I did finally put up my Taylor Swift calendar in March though, so I think I deserve some credit for that! ;)

My dresser top that has to double as a night stand since there just isn't any room for one. Again, like the bathroom, I try to keep it clean and organized but sometimes on a bad week it can get really out of hand. This is it all pretty though. I had all my Taylor Swift perfumes right under the calendar, how adorable! :) 

There's the closet door and Tyler's dresser on the opposite wall. That tv is the one from my room at Ellie's and the New York skyline poster is Tyler's. It is his dream to move there, mine too, but I want to live in Los Angles first :) 

Tyler's side over there is as clean as I could get it :) And again, there's a rug in our bedroom because Tyler insisted. I don't like this one as much because it slips around on the floor I almost fall on it all of the time. Tyler has his side all done up though, so he's doing better than me. Those curtains over the balcony door we had to purchase but it was so worth it to keep out the sun in the morning. 

Here he is in all of his glory, Mr. Tyler Michael Cullen! We have been friends since I was fifteen years old and known each other even before that. I am so lucky to have him there for me and so lucky that I can forever refer to him as my college roommate. I love him very much and love that we can just be ourselves through good days and bad. 

That's just a little story about my first apartment and a little tour as well :) The apartment's info is linked below if you're looking for a place in the Hyde Park area. I really enjoy living here and all of the people who work here are so sweet. 

http://www.rainiermanagement.com

http://www.rainiermanagement.com/oak_park_apartments.htm