Update: Apparently I set this to autopost on Jan 5, 2008 — oops. Next week will be on Monday actually 
Over the holidays I spent a few days at my grandmother’s house. She lives in a small town in no-where-ville Texas with absolutely no cell phone/internet/connection to the outside world. My days were spent eating and hanging out with the family, watching movies, ya know the typical holiday stuff. I also happen to be nocturnal, I have tried all sorts of remedies but for some odd reason if I don’t make it to sleep before 11pm them I’m up until 3ish. So to entertain me while everyone slept I read Good Housekeeping and several other magazines. I came across an interesting article (I should have written it down to link to it oops) about 30 ways to improve your life.
I started writing some of the ideas down thinking they would be fun blog topics, then I came up with a fantabulous idea (if I do say so myself). Today marks the first of a year long weekly series of fun things to do to make your Mondays UnMundane. Although I hate the saying "the case of the Mondays" – they do happen to many people.
So each Monday I will post the assignment to make for an UnMundane Monday. Each week’s assignment is inspired by current holiday’s or inspiration from my life – I have actually already planned out all of the weeks for 2009 – go me! My plan also will be to have already done the "assignment" so that I can post about my experience with it so I’ll probably be one week ahead.
UnMundane Monday #1: Schedule A Grown Up Slumber Party
Inspiration: In September of 2007 one of my college roomates got married in a small town and as her bridesmaids we all stayed in a hotel together. This had been the first time that me and my former roomates had all spent the weekend together since we lived together in college. We actually lived in a 4 bedroom 4 bath place. So from that weekend we started a tradition – every 6 weeks or so we have a slumber party at alternating houses. Logistical question – yes a few of the girls are married and no we don’t kick the husbands out of their homes, they usually entertain themselves while the girls go to dinner and whatnot.
Recommendations:
- Use some online event coordinating website to make it easy for everyone. I personally love evite.
- Plan ahead for what you will be doing for the evening/morning – we generally do dinner & movie and then breakfast.
- Air mattresses make for great impromptu sleeping arrangements.
- Remember to take pictures
Stories from my slumber party which just took place this weekend. As I went back to write this I realized I had posted most of this on twitter in the form of pictures
- One of our friends just had a new baby so we started the evening with a quick joint shopping trip to buy some baby gifts so we could mail off a joint package – we set a price limit before hand. We were in an out in no time.
- Celebrity friend: my friend is currently a graphic designer at JC Penney and a new line of T-Shirts had just come out that she designed so we had to go by the mall and see them. Well & take pictures!
- Next stop was dinner – sushi [pic] is our reoccurring theme
- From there we headed back to the house where we started our gift exchange. We all had such busy schedules during December we decided to hold off our holiday gift exchange until January. A fun twist we added to our gift exchange was we had a $5 limit per person. So, needless to say we got to get creative – some gifts homemade others in bargain bins & from dollar store. We had so much fun with this we decided we may carry this over into birthday and other gifting occasions.
- There was also cookie baking – one of the gifts I gave was a package of Chocolate Chip Cookie Mix
- Last stop for the evening was a movie we rented. We originally planned on seeing The Women together in the theater during our last slumber party but plans changed so we ended up watching it at the house this time. I must say I wasn’t really a fan of the movie. Should have checked out it’s 13% rating before hand.
- In the morning the hostess & her husband made us pancakes!
I decided I’m rejoining the flickr world so you can see all the pictures from the evening – here.
So when will be your first (or perhaps next if this is already a tradition) grown up slumber party?
Thursdays are Twenty Something Advice at GenPink. Today’s guest post is written by Lara. Lara blogs at Life: The Ongoing Education.
Like many others of my generation, I spent a great deal of my twenties (thus far) in committed relationships. One in particular. This meant I spent the vast majority of my time with one person and not much time with any others. Of course I had friends, but I didn’t see them often… or talk to them very much… or do anything that would actually indicate a friendship. They were friends from before “the guy,” and – sad as I am to admit it – I took it for granted that they would always be there. I took them for granted.
And then I needed them. Almost exactly one year ago, I entered what would become the darkest of my life so far. The relationships I had been spending the most time and attention on fell apart, and I felt like I was completely alone. And when I thought of the friends I could turn to, I realized that I had totally neglected everyone. The thought of turning to someone I’d ignored and saying, “Hi, I know I haven’t kept in touch for, oh, years, but now that I need something, I was thinking we could get together” – well, that thought was abhorrent to me.
I let my mom and sister talk me into reaching out to my friends, but it wasn’t until after I was hospitalized for my depression (full story here for those interested) that I really accepted the fact that I might need my friends. I called and asked them to visit me, I asked for advice, I asked for support and unconditional love. And you know what? I got it. The friends I had ignored held me up and carried me through the worst storm I’ve ever survived, and the fact that I did survive it, I owe mostly to them.
Now, looking back, I wish that I had given those friendships the attention and respect that they deserved before I was at rock-bottom of my life. I’ve learned never to underestimate the power that friendships hold, and the lifelong importance of having friends close at hand and close to heart.
So you want some advice from me? Some friends are friends forever – hang onto them, appreciate them, value what they bring to your life. Being a twentysomething means dealing with a lot of changes – professionally, personally, geographically. Whatever happens, find a way to keep your friendships healthy and strong. You never know when your friends might save your life.
Previous Twenty Something Advice:
So everyone knows the girl from American Pie that says "this one time at band camp" well I am the girl who says "I found this website …". Literally that sentence comes up in day to day conversation all the time.
So yesterday, I found this website … that is so cool (yes I’m a nerd). It’s called Happy Median and the whole premise is "meet halfway between you and your friends. Save time and distance." You see … one of my dearest friends Tanja (she was my fake roommate in college) is now a big fancy art teacher and she moved 50 miles away *tear*. This weekend we were actually discussing what’s a good halfway point for us to do our girl’s dinners. And what do you know today through geeksugar (*heart*) I found Happy Median. I quickly typed in my city, and Tanja’s and our other friend Olivia and viola I was presented with a fun little map and so many options of meeting places.
You should check it out, because … a) I said b) It’s important to stay in touch with your friends (that’s the topic for Thursdays Twenty Something Advice) c) I like the concept behind their logo.
Blonde nerd signing out of technology Tuesday.
When big things happen in your life you realize how important the people around you are. I am so thankful that I have such great people around me. I have fabulous friends and family. There may be more about this later but for now I just wanted to say thanks.
I am not sure if I saw this idea somewhere or if it just came to me but I wanted to pass along the bridesmaid gift idea that I had. My college roommate got married this weekend and I was her MOH (Maid of Honor) so I was trying to think of something fun/creative to give her as a gift from the bridesmaids.
She is currently living in England so I knew I wanted it to be something small that she could easily take back with her. After thinking of things we did together and things that were small I came up with the idea to get her an iPod. Since I love the ipod shuffle that I won I thought that she would love one as well. When I went to Target to buy it for the I was pleasently surprised by their current Special Edition Pink Shuffle. We paid the same price as we would for the regular shuffle but it also came with a $15 iTunes gift card.
We ended up spending the night before the wedding hanging out in the hotel room listening to millions of songs (I exaggerate a bit) looking for the perfect balance of mushy love songs, silly dancing songs, and college memory songs.
The iPod was a hit and was also great entertainment for us.
People are talkin’