making my life beautiful with a few trips to homegoods

A dream my whole life has been to be a professional closet organizer and decorator. My Pinterest account has more pins in my house board than any other. During the summer each day it became more and more obvious that I was not going to have to buy new a new comforter or decoration for a room at school. Deciding to stay home at my parents house was the option that made most sense. And I like my parents so why would I want to move out after living away in Philadelphia for four years?

To make living at home a bit easier and getting some alone time outside of the house and away from my office I have made weekly trips to Homegoods, TJ Maxx and Goodwill to pick up cute little house things to spruce up my room. My room is actually huge. Like obnoxiously big. It is the third floor of our house, it was a Sweet Sixteen present from my parents so I could have my own apartment. I have my big master bedroom, a guest room, full bath and an awkward loft space that I made into an office.

It always starts with one purchase and an entire room gets redesigned. My guest room got a whole new life when I moved home from college and it became the room that everything from college went into. It made me so anxious whenever I looked into it because you literally could not walk in the door. For graduation I got presents that came in cute boxes and I wanted to find a way to show them off. One trip to Target and I came back with a blue lamp that matched my Philadelphia bedroom theme. I had so many decorations from that room that did not match my Paris themed bedroom so I decided to use my beach blue themed decor in the new guest room. The room color was already perfect for my vision. After spending a few nights moving furniture and pulling my back out everything was in its place.

Below are some pictures of the finished room. The room renovation was very inexpensive because I already had the furniture, it just needed some little decor to update the room.

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This bookshelf has to be my favorite part of the room. I had all of these magazines that i have collected over the years and after hours of organizing them it makes the bookshelf so pretty! I finally have a spot for everything!  The boxes just add cute touches and I can show them off for others to see. A Tiffany box is so much more than just a box!

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This piece of furniture has been in my family since before I was born. It was lugged around from house to house by my parents and became mine when I was born in my baby room. It was originally little girl pink and decided to paint it grey to match the theme.

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PS After looking for curtains for forever I found these for $10 at The Christmas Tree Store. Never thought I would be so excited about curtains!

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The comforter was from college that I got for $10 at Goodwill. The pillow was from Target in the clearance section for $7 along with the grey Jersey cotton sheets underneath also from Target. I am not allowed in Target anymore because I also got the lamp there as well when it was on clearance. If you don’t go to Target clearance section first, you are doing it wrong!

I think the space just looks so clean and finished and I love when guests come to stay because the room is so pretty and welcoming.

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Currently now redesigning the bathroom because I went to Homegoods and fell in love with a grey floor carpet and I decided the whole room needed to be redone. Covered in grey paint at the moment from painting this morning. More pictures will be posted when it is all finished!

the one thing in my life that knows exactly what I want

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Okay new show obsession! The last two weeks I have been binge watching Ally McBeal on Netflix and addicted is not a strong enough word for it. It is so nice to find a show that makes me laugh but also has a strong female character that has some real world problems that we all face. If you need a show, five seasons is not enough of Ally!

# no new friends

At college you are constantly surrounded by people. Let me clarify, you are constantly surrounded by people your own age. Now in this post grad world I am still surrounded by people. I walk to work so in the morning I can walk past dozens of people but we will never interact. I work in an office but my coworkers are parents and besides the normal office chit chat the relationship is limited. I talk on the phone all day and have people coming in and out of my door to talk to me about a problem they want me to fix. But once they leave, that relationship is also over. I have a fake smile on my face all day putting on this cheery happy persona because half of the time I do not know what I am doing or want to be home on the couch watching dumb reality tv and not at my desk.

I come home to a big house that I share with my parents. For a 22 year old I get along with my parents very well but some days the conversation is limited. I go up to my room that consists of the whole third floor, besides my bedroom there is the guest room which has my tv in it and an office and my own bathroom. That is a lot of space for one person. I started giving myself projects to keep me busy during my free time after work or on my days off. If I am going to spend hours watching Netflix I better do something proactive at the same time, right? To date: I have painted a 2 rooms, redesigned a guest room on the second floor, painted another room and brought in new furniture for a new beach themed library. Even our basement is being cleaned out and purged this summer. My current project is our old storage room turned office. From taking down a wall, installing carpet, purging and decorating. I clearly have too much time on my hands!

A lesson I have learned since being on my own again is that I am okay with being alone. There are a lot of challenges of making new friends and creating a new friend group. I have a handful of people in my life now who I consider to be good friends but distance is an issue. All of our lives are consumed with work and their own lives. It is time for me to find a new hobby besides cleaning, decorating and organizing my house from top to bottom.

I think it is time for me to make an ad on Craigslist: Looking for friend.

wait, what week is it?

The first two weeks of working are said to be the most difficult. It is when you need to drag your butt out of bed and put on a cute outfit and look presentable to the world. Just a few months ago arriving five minutes late to a class, showing up in leggings or that “cute” sloppy bun look that is far from cute was kind of acceptable in college. Now being just a little late to work gives me this fear that I will be fired on the spot. For my job, if I am not there, the office does not officially open. No pressure there!

My second month of working is coming to an end. Somethings I have figured out and others I still need to learn. Making an outfit the night before and going to bed at a reasonable hour is a good thing. Hitting the snooze alarm is a big NO and I cannot go to bed with watching just one episode of Netflix before bed, just one episode does not exist. There is a lot at work that I don’t know yet, I hope I will eventually get down that all leases go to so and so and only some maintenance issues on properties go to this other person. As much as I do not know I am really good at pretending I know what I am doing. Especially when I get phone calls, people are yelling at me and I have 10 people in my office with opportunities (we call problems opportunities in this office because it makes it sound better). I have been told that I am really good at my job lately and little comments just make my day. In school you learn your value by the grades you get but in the working world, a “grade” is not given out that routinely so often you walk around unaware of how you are doing.

This whole working thing is getting easier and waking up in the morning is not that big of a struggle as it was the first week. I have about 50 more years of working so I guess I have to kiss my youth and care free days goodbye now!