Inside a Grad Student's Bag

School started this week, so I decided to organize the bag* I bought last summer before my first year of grad school. I put it through a lot last year, but it has held up really, really well. Since I was emptying everything out anyways, I thought it would be fun to take a look at what's in my bag for this first week of my second year of grad school. I *might* do this at the end of the semester, too - as long as the contents aren't too embarrassing. My bag is always full of junk by the end of every semester, so we'll see.

In the zippered exterior pocket, I keep my keys and a flash drive along with a few snacks. Today, it happened to be a bag of raw almonds, a larabar, and some baby carrots. My arms are long enough that I can reach the contents of this pocket whether I'm wearing the bag off one shoulder or cross-body, and it's nice to have these specific things within constant reach.

 

The two end pockets are very straightforward: My Nalgene bottle and my cell phone.

Under the flap, there are 4 main pockets, 2 zippered and 2 pouch-like.

In the upper right zippered pocket, I keep replacement lead and erasers for my mechanical pencils, a deck of cards, and a headband. In the lower right pouch pocket, I have a variety of pens, pencils, highlighters, and markers as well as sticky flags and a small notebook that I use to track daily assignments.

In the upper left zippered pocket, I stow a set of earbuds, EOS lip balm (love those things! The mint is my fav), a baggy of advil, and yet another flash drive. In the lower left pouch pocket, I keep a package of Orbit peppermint gum (best gum ever!), a black notebook for jotting down random stuff, another small notebook for brainstorming topic ideas for papers, and a small bottle of hand sanitizer.

Inside the main compartment, there is a padded section where I keep my laptop when I need to have it and a narrower pocket in the front that I usually don't use.

When it's not holding my computer, the padded pocket usually has some empty manila envelopes, lyrics I've written that my brother has put music to, and whatever pieces of mail I just picked up from my parents or want on hand for easy reference.

The main compartment of my bag holds my tutoring and volunteer work notebook, my class notebooks and folders, my wallet, and, because I don't have any book reading assigned for my classes yet, my Nook with the awesome Jonathan Adler cover I bought for it, Intellectuals and Society by Thomas Sowell (a book I just started reading), and Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey (a book I'm almost done reading). Not pictured because I was using it to take these pictures: my camera, which is usually in one of the elastic side pockets inside the main compartment.

It'll be interesting to see what this bag looks like come December 6th. I'd be willing to bet money it has at least one empty Hot Tamales box - my go-to study snack during finals every semester.

*Here's the current model of my bag. It's on sale for $67, which I consider an absolute steal! I paid full price ($90) for my version of it, by far the most I've ever spent on any bag, and it has been worth far more than every penny. I'm crazy about the current one, though. The color scheme and monogram are so awesome!

Bedroom Changes

I recently made two changes in my bedroom. Unfortunately, I forgot to get before pictures, but here are the afters!

The first change I made brought more organization to my scarf collection. I was given a couple scarves for Christmas and I also recently purchased a couple more. My once stuffed-full scarf drawer had been overflowing for a few weeks so I knew it was time to reorganize them. My bedroom has two closets, a large walk-in one and a random, very small one. So I decided to move all my clothes into the large closet and use the little one for scarf storage:

I still have some knit scarves in my drawer, but all the flow-ier scarves are now hung in my closet. I used a chrome tension rod from Target along with doubled-up plastic shower curtains rings to hang the scarves. I didn't put much thought into the order in which they're hanging, but I generally put the winter-weight scarves on the left and the summer-weight scarves on the right...though the thickness of my summer-weight scarves does vary quite a bit!

My summer-weight scarves.

My winter-weight scarves.

Here's the second change I made:

I've been meaning for a very long time to set up a little jewelry station on top of my two (stacked) bedside tables and I finally got around to doing it last week.

The great thing about this organization project is that I merely used things I already had. The white tray I got on sale from Target last year for only $5! The multi-colored dish is a present my sister brought for me when she went to India back in Fall of 2001. The other items are from a variety of places, including Target, Marshall's, World Market, and Ann Taylor Loft.

I purchased this ring holder a number of weeks ago from Amazon for $8. It's definitely worth it to have my rings so easily accessible.

  

 This dish came from World Market a couple of years ago and I use it to hold some of my more frequently worn bracelets.

So these are the two little changes I made. So far, I love them! My jewelry and my scarves are so much easier to access that I actually do put things away more often than I used to. Hooray!

(Linking up to Thrifty Decor Chick's closet link party.)

It's the Small Things

People often say that it's the small things that make life utterly wonderful or utterly unbearable. Well, this is a very small thing but it makes a positive difference in my morning routine.

I got the idea for the cup & mason jar from Pinterest, only I put flat little cotton pads in mine. I've had it set up like this ever since I moved to my current apartment and the system works really well. The mason jar is one I got from my mom and the cup that rests inside the rim is a $0.50 find from Goodwill.

The clock is a very recent addition (found at Target for around $6!). I was having a hard time keeping track of the time when I get ready for work/school/life in the mornings, so I bought this clock to help me stay on time. I love its shiny finish & the roman numerals.

Harmony & (A)cord in the Dining Room

I may have mentioned before that my apartment's dining room is really, really small. So small, in fact, that my roommate and I decided to skip a table & chairs and just get stools to eat at the kitchen peninsula. So for the past several months, the only thing in our dining room has been some boxes waiting to be put away and the cords for our internet modem and router.

The cords were quite annoying and looked really messy because the one phone jack in our apartment is halfway up our dining room wall. Definitely a reminder of the day when phones were mounted to the wall and you could just follow the coil cord to find whoever it was that was talking on the phone! Anyways, thanks to a recent IKEA trip, I was able to make our messy cord situation not so messy, all while adding some additional shelf space to our apartment!

This was my first time building something from IKEA entirely by myself. It was exciting! I started by laying out all my pieces and from there the entire process was incredibly smooth.

The final screw! Almost done and I decided to take a break to mess around with depth of field.

Assembling this bookcase was super quick & easy! It took me less than an hour to assemble it and if I hadn't been sidetracked by texting friends, it would have taken even less time. Overall, I'm happy with how the bookcase turned out; it could be better in some places - those IKEA peeps are certainly no perfectionists - but it looks decent and is sturdy enough to hold what we need it to (the instructions said each shelf can hold up to 25lbs).

All done and already looking much better...but it's missing something.

There it is! Does my heart good to see those shelves actually being put to use.

Kitchen Mini-Makeover Mood Board

The hubs and I have decided to give our kitchen/dining area a face lift! We have lived in the same apartment for almost 3 years now, but have never really attempted to make it feel like a home. Neither of us really likes it here (there aren't many - scratch that - any amenities) and I think we've both felt that we would be moving soon....yet here it is several years later and we are still here :)

This year we discussed various options - buying a house or condo, renting a nicer place, moving to a different city - but all of these would come with increased expenses. So to keep costs as low as possible while we are paying off our student loans, we have decided to stay put for awhile longer. BUT! And this is the exciting part for me - we have also decided to stop living with our mishmash of college furniture and the odd hand-me-down! Basically we are re-evaluating everything we own room by room. Purging, reorganizing and streamlining to make our place really feel like it's our own. Before we purchase anything new for the kitchen/dining area, I have agreed to fulfill the following tasks:

1. Find a storage spot for our 5 gallon water bottles when not in use

2. Find a place for our reusable grocery bags

3. Throw away one of the cheap bookshelves we bought from Wal-Mart (there is still another one in there for now)

4. Move a small wooden bookshelf to the hallway and use it to store books rather than dry goods

5. Move my sewing supplies to another room

6. Find a spot for my kitchenaid stand mixer

7. Sell our current table and chairs

All but two of these tasks have been completed! So I made up a mood board of what I would like to purchase for this room:

Kitchen make... by ashtonia

Cost breakdown:

Ikea Jokkmokk table and 4 chairs: $129

Ikea Expedit bookcase: $129

Crate and Barrel Harper rug (30"x 50"): $30

Lampshade: I would like to budget $25 for this purchase

(The art and plates are there to show the color palette of what we already own and see daily in the room)

Total: $313

The hubs has 3 paintings that are primarily yellow and red that are hanging in the kitchen and our dishes are the peacock and navy blue colors you see in the mood board. I have been having trouble figuring out how to make these different colors work cohesively, but I think that rug may be just the trick! I love the shade of blue, yellow and red in the rug and I think it will help tie the room together.

The smaller ikea table would replace the large round table we are using now, which I hope will make the room seem bigger.

The bookshelf cubbies would serve as an open pantry and storage for some of our appliances. One large bookcase will look much cleaner than the three mismatched ones we are using now :)

I'm sure this make over will be a slow process, but I will post pictures once the transformation begins!

Closet Organization

For her birthday my mom has requested a closet makeover. I am excited to help her organize and purge this space! Both she and my dad lead very busy lives, so having an organized closet will help them feel less stressed, I'm sure :)

Here are some of my thoughts:

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Their walk-in closet's back wall is mostly unusable due to a large window, so it's almost better to think of it as his and hers walls. I like this idea (we would take out that lower third rung, so there would be only two rungs for hanging clothes). With or without the wire storage racks on the bottom.

image

I also like this idea for dad's side - those shelves might provide enough storage that he could do away with his dresser (or at least free up some of the space in the over-flowing drawers). It depends on how much he is willing to purge/put in storage bins in the attic ;)

This hanger for storing my mom's scarves

This hanger for my dad's belts

This hanger for my dad's numerous ties (hopefully we will only need one - it holds 40!)

My mom also worries about protecting clothing and less frequently used items from becoming dusty.

I like these linen drop-front boxes for visibility and ease of access (I like the pricetag less, I will research more to get a better deal if they decide they like this).

I also like these much more economical boxes for storing purses. At a mere $5 each, this would be a clean and dust free solution :) I would make little tags for each box so mom could easily tell what is inside.

For my parent's nicer and rarely worn shoes, I would splurge on these $9 clear shoe storage boxes. Love the drop front - this would be incredibly easy to access!

Genius storage solutions

I love this cabinet for displaying pretty shoes. It would feel so luxe to pick out a pair to wear :)

I also love this idea for storing shoes that aren't eye candy - I plan to find a storage ottoman and add pockets around the edge to duplicate this. Let the search begin!

pictures found on pinterest, my new addiction :)

Satchels from Urban Outfitters

As a piano teacher, I often find myself hauling quite a bit of material with me from lesson to lesson. I decided to use some of my birthday money to find a stylish bag that could easily fit several binders and music books along with plenty of pockets for pens, theory games and other assorted tools of the trade.

These were a few of the bags I was deciding between:

This is the Colorblock Satchel from Urban Outfitters.

Pros: Roomy pockets, faux leather bottom and sides

Cons: Over $70 with tax, and a little smaller than I would like.

This is the Cooperative Linen Carry-All satchel from Urban Outfitters.

Pros: roomy with lots of pockets.

Cons: over $60 with tax.

This is the Canvas Bucket Bag from Urban Outfitters.

Pros: Sleek, plenty of pockets, and a sturdy faux leather bottom. Also less expensive than the other two bags.

Cons: Material could stain easily.

In the end I decided to go with the Canvas Bucket Bag :)

I've been so happy with it so far! I think it looks much more stylish than the free (and quickly falling apart) totebag I was using.

All the pockets have helped me become much more organized as well.

A Deranged Bookcase

For too many months, my bookcase in our apartment has looked like this:

It was a complete mess. The boxes that formerly housed my DVDs had empty spaces where discs that should have been in them were instead strewn elsewhere throughout the bookcase. Notebooks and textbooks were shoved in wherever they would fit. The picture of my family was turned sideways and the bottom shelf was a heap of Christmas lights and a broken printer. Other random things were piled on either side of the bookcase.

I hated that it was so messy but I had never taken the time to re-arrange it. The recent addition of three new decor pieces, however, gave me the motivation I needed to re-organize the shelves and make it more functional.

The ampersand and hourglass are both recent purchases on steep discount from Kohl's. I don't know why, but I'm obsessed with ampersands! I think they're so beautiful, and I love the combination of graceful curves and straight lines. An hourglass is something I've wanted for a very long time, so when I was these two items on sale, I simply had to purchase them. The brown glazed bud vase was a gift from my sister and brother-in-law; it's a one-of-a-kind piece and I love it! It's very pretty, the picture doesn't do it justice.

In re-arranging the bookcase, my goal was to combine beauty and function, and this was the result:

Well, at least on the top two shelves of the bookcase. I'm fairly happy with how this portion of the reorganizing came out. All of my hardback and most treasured books are on the top shelf while the second shelf houses some of my books from last semester along with some just-for-pleasure books, as well as all my "religious" books, an album, and two recipe books. And the top of the bookcase is much more neat and organized now - the DVDs and puzzles belong to my roommates and the basket holds my flute along with extra yarn and needles. Here's how the whole bookcase looks:

I am not very pleased with the new arrangement. I think the bookcase looked more balanced when the white boxes and magazine holders were up higher and grouped together. Unfortunately, once I got to this point and realized that I wasn't happy with how it turned out, I was too tired of shuffling things around to go back and undo it. Additionally, since I added two new magazine holders, there is no way to fit all of the white things on one shelf. At some point in the future (preferably before the semester ends!), I will re-arrange everything with a hopefully more balanced outcome.

An Organized Drawer

In January, A Bowl Full of Lemons hosted a time of getting organized. My sister encouraged me to participate, and an organized desk junk drawer was the result! Here's the after pic (I forgot to take a before):

I picked up the silverware organizer at my local Goodwill for $0.50 and it works great for organizing all my markers/highlighters, pens, and pencils. The top section holds all my "sticky things" (yes, that's a technical term) and there's just enough room along the side to hold other random odds & ends. The plastic case in the front holds correspondence materials such as address labels and stamps.