family – Rosie Culture

The Hookup On: Plant Nite!

I am obsessed with all these sipping and crafting nights that are popping up recently. Plant Nite was such a fun time! Basically, you are given the materials to create an adorable succulent arrangement while being able to sip on some drinks and socialize. You can check out the one I attended in Central New Jersey at their Facebook page.

The night starts with a cute little oath about keeping dirt out of our drinks and not saying the word moist (yuck!), then you are given step by step instructions on how to make the perfect terrarium for your succulents and how to care for them!

I went with my mom, but this could be a great night with any family member, friends, or significant other! You can check out pictures on their Instagram page here. Anyone would enjoy this, my mom isn’t the most social person (and I have inherited that trait), but we got along so well with the instructor and our table. My mom even took pictures like a true blogger!

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I’m super happy with my final product, it’s currently sitting on the windowsill in my office. I’ve been wanting to do a Plant Nite for a while now and was so glad to attend this one, the crowd and the drinks were great! This was seriously my ideal night out and I can’t wait to go to another one.

I received a ticket to this event in exchange for an honest review, all opinions are mine.

Have you ever done a Plant Nite? Let me know in the comments!

PostGrad

When Life Gets Busy

I love change in the sense that I don’t like to stay in the same place for too long and am always looking to move forward. I hate change in the sense where things I like and got comfortable with can’t stay that way.

Sometimes, life gets busy and we have less time for each other. Whether it’s friends, family, or significant others. And you want to support people through those busy times, but only if you feel supported in return. Otherwise it gets lonely, otherwise you feel like you’re heaving in effort but getting left in the dust.

Busy seasons are an adjustment. Sometimes they last forever, sometimes it’s just for a couple of weeks. And you have to take that change and roll with it and hope that you can either assimilate or that it will go back to normal soon.

When others get busy and when you get busy, it gets lonely. There’s a lot of pressure on both sides to either be supportive or get everything done that you need to. You might lose people along the way and that’s okay. Not everyone is meant to be in your life forever, not everyone can handle the stress that comes with busy schedules and making time.

When life gets busy it’s not just one aspect, it’s the whole thing. It’s your thoughts running a mile a minute, it’s your work demand, it’s your friends and family and significant other not having time for you. It’s a heavy lift that not all of us are cut out for.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lattefarsan/

PostGrad

You NEED To Be Selfish

It was when I had gotten screwed over in a relationship for the I-don’t-know-how-many-th time that I finally decided to make a change. Whether it was a different guy hurting me or hurting myself by going back to the same guy over and over again, at the end of the day I was hurting.

And that’s when I stopped caring about being selfish.

How many times can someone tell you they’re not going to do something again, then do it again? How many times will you believe them?

You so often care about other people’s feelings, but forget about yourself. And how is that even possible? To forget about the feelings of the actual entity that you are. It seems impossible, but we often allow ourselves to get hurt to save others.

It’s time to save yourself.

Being sad, being broken, being mistreated really isn’t just another part of life. It isn’t something you have to accept. You don’t have to accept anything other than what makes you happy. But we accept the sad, broken, mistreatment because we aren’t thinking of ourselves the way we should be.

Go out and get your happiness. Stomp a few hearts on the way, cut off some friendships, delete the phone numbers and unfollow them on Twitter. If they’re not helping you get where you need to go, they are unnecessary. If you’re being held back, it’s time to start being selfish.

It’s rough, it’s not always the nicest thing to do to the people you love. But how do you expect to take care of them when you can’t take care of yourself? A little selfishness goes a long way.

Photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/maximilianmann/

PostGrad

How Stress Affects Me

We all get stressed in different ways about different things. This can come as a challenge when you are constantly interacting with different people. We have friends, family, relationships, and coworkers who all get stressed about different things and in different ways. Yet, we still have to figure out how to deal with it.

When I get stressed, I kind of shut down. In light stress situations, I used to be able to make lists and do things that cheered my up before everything got too heavy. But when time isn’t on your side, it’s relatively easy to let things get too heavy.

I’ve never been one to communicate well verbally, even in happy situations. But when I’m stressed, I can barely communicate at all because my brain is chatting to itself constantly. I just don’t take the time to talk to anyone and a lot of my friendships and relationships get impacted by this. I don’t know how to push aside the overthinking to make room for other conversations, whether they are about what I’m stressed about or not.

The challenge to understand how others stress is difficult. Of course we all have our own problems and of course we all want to help our loved ones when they have problems. But how do we juggle it all? It seems possible to some people, but extremely impossible for me.

Leave me a comment about how stress affects you or how you deal with it!

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sodaniechea/

PostGrad

Love Yourself This Valentine’s Day

A lot of us have bitter feelings towards Valentine’s Day. For most of my life, I didn’t. Even when I didn’t have a boyfriend I still liked the hearts and fluff of the holiday. One year I was bitter and all it did was make me more miserable of a person than I already was.

Because in the end, it’s just a day. But if you want to look closely at it, it’s a day to remind ourselves to love. If you don’t have a significant other to express that love to – it’s okay! You can love your friends, you can love your family, and you can love yourself.

In my single years I’d buy presents for me also very single friends just to see them cheer up a little. And my mom would send me a little gift card to show her love. But I often neglected to look at the holiday as a time to give a gift to myself to show my love.

Self love is so hard. And to think about it all the time is just an exhausting competition with your inevitable self hate. But if you’re going to pick yourself apart all the time, at least use Valentine’s Day as the one day you’re not going to do that.

Whether you’re single or in a relationship or in between, love yourself this Valentine’s Day. Put on some lipstick or throw on an extra nice shirt for work. Tell yourself that you look good – because you do! Buy yourself a nice dinner or get yourself a little gift. That one present for yourself that you’ve been putting off for so long.

It’s a day of love, there’s no need to resent it. You have love all around you and all up in you – so express it!

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/barnimages/

PostGrad

I’m Obsessed With Change

A lot of people are scared of changing. They are scared of the unknown and they are scared of their loved ones changing. Because when people change, you don’t always change with them.

But I actually love change. For four years of my life I was the same person, dating the same guy. I went into college and refused to change and it didn’t benefit me at all. It wasn’t until that relationship ended that I realized change just means growth and we all need to grow.

So I make big changes. I took a new job, moved out, planned trips.

But you can’t always make big changes. So I made small changes, too. I cut my hair, I picked up a new work out routine, and learned new hobbies.

And while a lot of people would be afraid to do all of these things, these are the things that keep me going. I get so bored by staying in the same place and doing the same things.

Sometimes I think my need for change makes me restless and can impact my relationships. Because if I get bored of my hair every month, what makes me want to stay with the same person every month? And if I get bored of the state I live in, how can I keep a job for more than a year? And if I feel my personality changing every couple of months, how can I hold on to my friends?

I don’t want to suppress the change, but I also don’t want to lose everything I love because I’m bored of things. So I work at the things I love and change them ever so slightly to keep them interesting. Eventually, I’ll be able to make the big changes. But for now, I love what I have and I keep them as fun as possible.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/auspices/

PostGrad

How I’m Working On Mindfulness

I started doing yoga so I’m probably 10x more annoying than I was before. I’ve been seriously talking about my chi, my throat chakra, and mindfulness like all week.

Basically all that talk has come from me being more aware. I was fully aware of how stressed I was, what health problems I was having, and how I was feeling. But I had no clue how to fix any of it. I just felt stuck in this constant state of anxiety.

Then my yoga instructor described a situation to us. She said that she is often tailgated in traffic because she’s a slow driver. She made it so that now when this happens, there is a moment between the action and her reaction where she takes the time to stay calm. I don’t think many of us take a moment between the action and the reaction, we just ignite as soon as something happens.

I am working on being mindful. Because we so often go throughout our day and never think about why we are doing the things we do. Why did I get up for work this morning? Why did I eat so much crap after dinner? Why did I skip the gym? Why am I so tired? Why do I feel happy?

When you put reasoning and time into the way your feeling, it can help you to understand yourself better and to put more meaning into the activities in your life that seem mundane. So, I am trying to work on my mindfulness.

photo by: https://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewphotography/