Category Archives: Stretch Film Wrap

Organization

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As I start my third week staying at home I have resorted to all of the responsibilities I was trying to avoid the first two weeks. I did a little cleaning here and there, but I mostly left the hard chores until now. I could continue to put them off, but I really don’t think I should rewatch the same Netflix series for the third time in a row. I decided the bathroom would be my next adventure. There are so many cabinets and drawers filled with clutter and junk and things I even forgot I had.

My main goal is get everything off the sink countertop. I do not like the look of a messy countertop and it is so hard to keep everything clean when I have to move fifteen little bottles of products off the counter just to wipe it down with a damp rag. I much prefer to have things stored in the drawers below the sink for easy access and so the top of the sink stays nice and fresh. Maybe I could even put one little fake plant there to really make it fresh. Of course I would keep my soap dispenser, but I really think everything else is going to have to find another home.

One thing I have considered building is a little shelf area next to the sink. This would allow cute little mason jars to hold everyday items like toothbrushes and cotton balls. While I am thinking about hanging things on the wall I realize I have no decor in my bathroom at all. It really could afford to atleast have a few pictures or something here. Just recently I switched to a light blue and cream shower curtain. I could stay with this theme and add some blues and creams into the mix.

One thing I really need to organize is all of my jewelry just sitting in clumps and tangling. The way I have my jewelry makes it almost impossible to just easily pick something out and put it on. First I have to dig through all the intertwined chains to pick something, then I have to sit there and try to untangle it loose. Most of the time I end up just giving up and finding something else. My temporary solution for this is candy boxes. I do have to spend time taking all of the jewelry apart. But when it is taken apart all I have to do is sort them individually into candy boxes. The candy trays keep them seperate and safe from entanglement! I have even found some beautiful boxes so I think this could become my permanent solution.

Gifts for Minor Holidays

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Mother’s Day got me to thinking about inexpensive little gifts you can get for your mother on that specific holiday and even the things you could pick up for your dad on Father’s Day, another holiday that comes not long after Mother’s Day. While these two holidays don’t necessarily mean you must get something for your parents, it’s one of those things that shows you were thinking about them and went out of your way to pick up a gift for them.

Sometimes it can be hard to hone in on a specific item that you think your mom or dad has been needing for awhile, something that’s very particular to their tastes and hobbies. These are the gifts that, in my opinion, are better off left to bigger holidays and birthdays.

Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, however, are two days where you can afford to pick up a more generic, unintentional gift just to show you care.

So, check out a few of our quick, easy ideas for these two holidays to let your parents know you’re thinking about them but didn’t break the bank for them (because that’s the last thing they want from their kids).

Candy.

If anything, a few candy boxes is a way to tell your parents that it’s alright to have a little extra sugar since they deserve a break from the everyday grind. The best part is that you can pick up their favorite candy boxes in just about any store that sells packaged goods. They’re cheap, easy to get, and you usually should have an idea what candies your parents would be fine with eating.

Sandals/hats.

I always find that these items go perfectly with Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, simply because these two holidays pretty much kick off the great summer weather everyone has been waiting for. And even better, you can’t really screw up a pair of sandals or a ball cap so long as you’re in the general ballpark of your parents’ feet size and head size (but hats aren’t as much a problem with snapbacks being one size fits all).

Gift cards.

Last but not least, a gift card or two allows your parents to go out on a date together when they can afford the time. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount of money.

Just try to think of what a typical meal would cost for two at whatever restaurant you happened to get them a gift card for. So long as it mostly covers the bill, it’s a great way to tell your parents to get out of the house and spend an evening together.

Memorial Day

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Early summer marks a time of the year when some important holidays fall on the calendar. While most of us may start to think of Memorial Day when I say this, I’m talking about two equivalent holidays that are some of the most celebrated throughout the summer only behind Memorial Day and the 4th of July: those days would be Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

As a kid, I never quite understood why moms and dads everywhere got their own specific holiday to have celebrated for them, yet there was nothing along the lines of son’s day or daughter’s day. Or just a children’s day in general. I always, always thought it was unfair that my parents had dedicated days for them on top of their birthdays.

That’s because I was naive and never really noticed how geared towards kids Halloween, Christma, and Easter are. I was a selfish little kid for thinking my parents didn’t deserve their own holiday.

As I grew older, I started realizing what the days meant for them, and for our family in general, it almost always meant spending the day doing whatever my mom or dad wanted and eating the food they loved most. Sometimes we’d buy them some little gifts, but for the most part it was more about being there for them and spending time with them (as that’s one of the best gifts a parent can think of from their children).

Now that I’m older and live alone in a different state from my parents, though, it won’t be as easy to make it home twice within a month’s span to celebrate both holidays with my parents. So things have become a little more challenging, especially when my partner’s parents live in the same city as us, so we’ll probably be spending time with them at their place.

Luckily, though, my parents don’t care too much about it and realize that we all have our limitations as adults now with separate lives. That’s why I’m planning on getting a few things for my mom and dad, wrapping it all up in a few cardboard boxes, and having them shipped to their home as gifts for their respective days. I don’t think there’s anything my parents would mind about some gifts in cardboard boxes, so I’m all about doing something as a gesture to show them I still care and I just can’t be there.

No matter what happens, though, I’ve learned to see the holidays for what they are. Parents put up with so much stuff throughout the year that they deserve to have at least a single day each year where everyone else tends to them. (And I say this in full confidence knowing I’ll enjoy the heck out of my Father’s Days in the future when I have kids.)

What to Do with Your Collection of Cardboard Over Time

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Over the past 10 months, I’ve accumulated quite the collection of large cardboard boxes. The funny thing is, I thought we had all the furniture and other amenities we needed upon moving in.

Yet here we are with multiple large boxes from random things as time has gone on. It just goes to show how you never really realize how much you add to your home on a yearly basis. Things just sort of add up over time and you never actually think you’re adding much to your place.

TV.

We had to have a new television for the basement (i.e., our hang out spot) when we moved in. While I opted to get a cheaper and smaller TV since it wouldn’t be our primary one, the box it came in actually has taken up quite a bit of space the past half year. While I’ve been keeping it behind our couch, I finally pulled it out recently to recycle it. It felt good to get that out of the basement!

Dartboard.

Ahhh, the true entertainment of the basement. We enjoy playing darts, especially steel tip. Well, we mounted a dartboard and cabinet in our basement after receiving it as a Christmas gift. Guess where its box ended up? Yep, right there in the basement alongside the other TV box that we had neglected to recycle. Just as we made sure to recycle our TV box, though, we did the same with the dartboard’s housing box.

Fire pit.

Well, it’s not an actual fire pit that we built from scratch (otherwise it wouldn’t have its own box). For Easter we just received a nice little porch fire pit with its own basin and dome cage on top of it. It’ll be the perfect addition to summer evenings with friends and family. It’s quite a large box itself, and since we haven’t been able to get it out to assemble it yet, the box itself likely will hang around our place for another month or so before I decide to get it along to the recycling center.

Ultimately, we’ve come into possession of quite a bit of cardboard boxes since we moved in last June. I’m just glad we’ve done our part in recycling all the material over time (even if it’s been sitting around in our place, making a mess all the while waiting to be recycled). Heck, we even used one of the cardboard boxes as our cardboard recycling container. O the irony.

Music as a Lifestyle

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Ever since I moved into my new apartment in the city, music has become a larger part of my life in ways I never would have expected. I now have access to so much more live music without ever having to drive long distances, and even when I do have to drive to another city, I welcome it so much more since it’s something different than seeing live shows in my home city.

Music isn’t just a hobby of mine. That’s what I think sets it apart from some of my other interests. I don’t ever refer to music as a hobby since it’s so much bigger than that. It’s more of a lifestyle, a way of being, in my eyes. And I don’t try to make it sound like I’m some sort of music snob, because I don’t look at my preferred music as the best or as someone else’s as uncouth. I just make music such a big part of my life. I try to listen to something new each and every day and to even explore a new album in its entirety every two weeks or so.

So, it probably comes as no surprise that I’m pretty big on collecting vinyl records of only my favorite albums in their full glory. I enjoy sitting down and really getting into a full album, not just putting it on for ambient music or for just a few tracks. To me, collecting vinyls is so much more than that.

I’m quite lucky to have come into possession of a classic record player, thanks to my girlfriend’s dad. He had the entire audio setup and even came with a few cardboard boxes full of old vinyls from the 70s and 80s. So, getting us started on collecting those was all it took for us to go out and grab more of our own favorites.

I’ll be honest, it was exciting to dig through those cardboard boxes in hopes of finding a few classic gems that we love. While we didn’t keep everything, it gave us enough to start off with around 30 or 40 albums. Since then, we’ve added at least 10, and I figure we’ll add about 10 more each and every year at that clip.

Vinyls have fortified my love for music and I don’t foresee my interest and lifestyle changing anytime soon, because the more I discover and enjoy, the more I find myself craving more and more.