Packing Tips: (Over)Packing for One Week in a Small Duffel Bag

Almost two weeks ago, my youth pastor texted me and asked if I could be a last-minute chaperone for the youth group's annual trip to a Christ In Youth conference. Obviously, I was thrilled and said I'd go. I was then informed that we were only allowed to bring one small duffel bag and one back pack each due to limited space in the van. I'm not going to lie, I was a little worried. I'm an over-packer. Like, I normally take an extra outfit for each day I'll be gone. And when I went on the same trip last year as a student, I took a huge suitcase, so I knew it was going to be a bit of a struggle for me to not only limit what I take, but also to get it to fit into a small duffel bag. I wanted to try and put as little as possible in my backpack because I needed room in that for stuff like my laptop. So after I gathered everything I needed to pack, I decided to go ahead and use the smallest duffel bag I could find in my house because I'm always up for a good challenge. And I was able to fit even more in the bag than I had planned. Here's how I did it:

1. I gathered everything I needed to pack- clothes (8 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of jeans, 6 camis, 8 t-shirts, 1 tank top, and 1 dress) and toiletries (hairbrush, hair ties, headband, toothbrush, full size toothpaste, razor, full size shaving cream, q-tips, tweezers, medications, deodorant, wrinkle release spray, lotion, body spray, and travel size shampoo, conditioner, and body wash). It's always easier to pack when you have everything you need to pack laid out in front of you. This will help you visualize how to best fit everything and will make it less likely that you'll forget something.
2. I put all my toiletries in a zippered pouch. It took a minute to carefully put them in there so they fit, but they all did.
3. I took the pair of jeans and laid them across the bottom of the duffel bag, folded how they are in the picture. They took of virtually no space when I put them in the bag like this, so I thought it would be the smartest way to pack them.
4. I took my toiletry bag and laid it on the left side of the bag with the zippered side facing the inside of the duffel bag. You always want to put the heaviest and largest stuff at the bottom. This makes it easier to squeeze smaller items in around it later.
5. I took my 3 pairs of jean shorts, rolled them, and placed them in the bag next to my toiletry bag. I repeated this step with the rest of my shorts and placed them on top of the jean shorts. When this step was finished, the shorts were at the same height as the toiletry bag.
6. I rolled all my shirts, camis, and tank top and put them side by side on top of the toiletry bag and shorts.
7. I then rolled my dress and put it on top of my shirts, along the back of the duffel bag.
8. After this, I still had a good amount of extra space I hadn't planned for on the top of the bag, so I was also able to fit my bathing suit, my hair straightener (inside of it's case), and 6 washcloths (I did this after I took the picture).
9. For those of you who may be wondering, I put all my socks, underwear, and bras in the zippered pouch built into the side of the bag.

I still over packed a little because I only needed to take enough stuff for 5 days and nights since we left Monday and came back Saturday, but I didn't over pack as much as I normally do. Plus, over packing makes me feel a little extra secure because I always have something extra to wear if I spill or rip something or one of my sisters "forgets" a certain shirt and has to borrow one of mine. When it was all said and done, everything fit and the bag zipped shut without a single problem.

Embarrassing Moments From My Freshman Year: Part 1

I'm a very awkward and strange person, and something that comes along with that is a lot of embarrassing moments. Like, A LOT of embarrassing moments. So, I thought I would start to compile some of my most embarrassing moments from my freshman year of college. Since there are so many, I'm going to break them up into multiple posts and only write about one or two each time. Hopefully, they'll provide you with a good laugh.

Towards the beginning of the year, I used to do this thing where I would randomly run up behind my friends and jump on their backs, forcing them to give me a piggy-back ride. Well, one day when we were leaving dinner, I slowed down to let my group of friends I was with get a little ahead of me. Then, I ran up behind one of them and tried to jump on her back, but it didn't quite work this time. One problem was that we were walking up a slight incline, so I hadn't accounted for the extra height I was going to need to jump. Also, I was unaware of the fact that my friend had her hands in her jacket pockets and was unable to support me once I jumped onto her back. Needless to say, I fell to the ground and it was just my luck that there were about 30 people outside to watch the whole incident.

Since we're on the topic of me falling, I have another embarrassing incident that shows just how graceful I am. The last day of classes before spring break, we had group meetings with our professor for our video production class. When I was finished with my group's meeting, I went to meet my other friends that were in that class down the hall in the Mac lab so we could leave for break. Of course, I had to make an entrance, especially since I was so excited that it was spring break. I ran into the room and hopped up on one of the wheeled desk chairs. I don't know why I thought my idea would work and that I would just be standing on the chair, because as soon as I got up on the chair, it twisted, throwing me off of it and sending my body hurling towards the desk in front of me and then onto the floor. Thankfully, I wasn't injured and was able to just laugh it off. Needless to say, I'm not exactly the most graceful of people.

Nutella Popsicles

I decided to check something off of my summer bucket list yesterday and made some popsicles. But not just any plain old popsicles - Nutella popsicles. They taste like a fudge pop, only better because they're made with Nutella. Plus, they're super easy to make. Here's how:
1. Mix 1 cup of milk with 1/3 cup of Nutella. You have to mix it for a few minutes until the Nutella completely mixes with the milk so you don't have random chunks of Nutella. It should look like chocolate milk when you're done.
2. Pour the mix into a popsicle mold. You should have enough of the liquid mix to fill a 4-slot popsicle mold.
3. Put the mold in the freezer and a few hours later, you'll have some delicious Nutella popsicles.

My Favorite Things

I decided to post a random list of things I like so my readers can get to know me a little better. Some of the things are more serious than others, but hopefully you'll enjoy getting to see a different glimpse into my life and the things that make me who I am. So, here's 59 of my favorite things:

1.      Writing
2.      Music- Ed Sheeran, One Direction, Emblem3, Hot Chelle Rae, Ellie Goulding, Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Karmin, and rap that was popular in the early 2000s
3.      Roller coasters
4.      The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song
5.      Wayfarer sunglasses
6.      Banjo Sundays at church
7.      Making people laugh
8.      Blue raspberry flavored everything
9.      Pretty Little Liars
10.   Chocolate chip cookies
11.   Photography
12.   Bubbles
13.   Ellen DeGeneres
14.   Chipotle
15.   Making weird facial expressions at people
16.   Vans shoes
17.   Softball
18.    Movies- The Outsiders, Dead Poets Society, Toy Story 1-3, 21 Jump Street, Oliver and Company, The Year Without A Santa Claus, High School Musical 1-3, Monsters Inc., Annie (the original)
19.   Zotz (pretty much the best candy ever)
20.   Anything written by Edgar Allen Poe
21.   Fanny packs
22.   Sidewalk chalk
23.   Sauce and Texas toast from Raising Cane’s
24.   Unicorns
25.   Birthday cake ice cream
26.   Talking
27.   Making videos
28.   Lemonade
29.   V-necks
30.   Pull n’ peel Twizzlers
31.   Christmas
32.   Coloring books
33.   Strange cat shirts
34.   Mountain Dew Voltage
35.   Fireworks
36.   Typewriters
37.   Driving alone at night while blaring music
38.   Card games
39.   Snuggies
40.   Brushing my teeth (excessively… it’s kind of a problem)
41.   Manatees
42.   Telling stories
43.   Click-y pens
44.   Whistling
45.   Social media
46.   Getting weird looks from people
47.   Math (except for calculus)
48.   Scaring people
49.   Crafts
50.   That moment of relief and triumph I get right after killing a spider
51.   Puns
52.   Planning/running events
53.   Baking
54. Rob Lowe
55.   Climbing into small spaces
56.   Reese’s Cups
57.   Hula hooping
58. My friends and family (cliché, but true)
59.   Doing strange things

Why I Strongly Dislike My Grandmother

I strongly dislike my grandmother. I really, really, strongly dislike my grandmother. I could never hate her because she is my grandmother and she did give birth to the person (no matter how terrible of a person he is) that is half responsible for my existence, but I dislike her. A lot.
When I was really young, like five, my parents got divorced. I only visited my dad and his side of the family until I was about eight. It came to a point where it was kind of like that whole family just dropped off the face of the earth one day. I didn’t really mind though. My dad and I never had the greatest relationship, mostly due to his heavy addiction to drugs and alcohol, but this isn’t about him. It’s about my grandmother. My loving, kind, caring, sweet grandma. Oh, wait. She’s none of those things. After my dad stopped coming around, I at least thought my grandparents would still visit my sisters and I. I mean, they always seemed so loving and nice. I was wrong. But that’s still not the thing that I’m really upset about.
Last weekend, my sister went down with my grandma on my mom’s side to our family’s camper. My grandparents from my dad’s side happen to have a camper in the same campground, but are never down there when we are, so we’ve never had an interaction with them. Until last weekend. My sister was on the golf cart and came face-to-face with our grandparents for the first time in over ten years. Someone pointed out to them that my sister was their granddaughter, and my grandma said that she needed to leave because she didn’t “associate with those people”. I’m sorry, what? Your own granddaughter, who you haven’t seen in ten years, and you refuse to talk to her? It may just be me, but I think that’s a little ridiculous. What infuriates me is that she made it sound like we had somehow wronged her. That when we were young children, at the ages of five and eight, we had done something to make her despise us. And she couldn’t even refer to us as her family, who share the same blood, but as “those people”. Like “those people who I can't even refer to by name because the thought of saying and accepting that they are my granddaughters may make me physically ill”. We were kids that got stuck in the middle of an ugly divorce, and somehow, we have to suffer? We have to be blamed for things we can’t be held responsible for because we had no decision in the matter? We're the ones who had to grow up without our dad and grandparents because they decided they didn't want us anymore, but somehow that's our fault and we should feel bad for you? I never thought it was possible for someone to hate their own grandchildren, but I guess you learn something new every day.  

The Butterfly Incident

I felt like sharing a random story from my childhood and decided to go with one so traumatic, it is now referred to (really only by me) as "The Butterfly Incident".
I’ve always had this really strange fear of butterflies, and I don’t really know why I’m afraid of them, but they just really creep me out and always have. I think my fear stems from an incident in my childhood. When I was in kindergarten, my class took a field trip to the Franklin Park Conservatory, where there’s a huge walk-through butterfly exhibit. My classmates and I were all casually enjoying the exhibit and having a grand old time. Until, all of a sudden, a butterfly landed on the girl next to me and, for some strange reason that I am still unaware of, I started FREAKING OUT. I was hysterically crying and refusing to walk any further into the butterfly death-trap. I think that I may have thought that the butterfly was attacking my classmate or something and was going to move on to me once it killed her. Since I was so stricken with fear that I was unable to move, my mother was forced to pick me up and carry me out of the exhibit (and still frequently refers to the situation). Needless to say, this was a very memorable event for both of us. To this day, I am still terribly afraid of butterflies and I still am not quite sure why.