back to school must haves

If there was one thing I will miss from school during this year is back to school shopping. The truth is that I just love shopping (like who doesn’t?), but there is something about shopping for school supplies that just makes me feel like I am ready to take on the next year and be productive. I do tend to go overboard, like when I first moved to Florida I think I got every binder that I liked, two pencil cases, about three sets of pens, and the list goes on. And while there are some things that I could probably live without there are some things that are necessary for school survival. With school inching closer day by day and summer coming to an end I have decided to tell you guys about my school must haves.




My first essential for school is something to drink, there is just something so weird about the school’s water fountains that gross me out (probably the fact that last year someone got the stomach flu from drinking from the water fountain at my school), but water is still a necessity. So the next option, the one I prefer, is bringing your own cups and drinks. What I usually bring is either my Olaf tumbler cup that I got at Disney world or a little glass cup that I got at target with either water or iced coffee. This cups are great for any cold drink that you could think of, and look super cute! live in Florida so I need to have cold drinks or I would probably die from heat stroke, plus in my opinion cold drinks are more likely to keep you up than hot ones.

My next must have is a planner. Now, if you have read my top 10 things about me post you probably know I am all about planners and planning and when I mentioned it on that post I wrote a whole paragraph on how great they are and they truly are great. My mind is not a very organized place, I tend to have a million things going on up there, and thus tend to forget little details like deadlines and special projects. Like three years ago I had this huge math project that was assigned on the first day of the quarter but it wasn’t due until one week before the quarter ended. As soon as the project was assigned I started getting ideas of how I wanted to do it, I divided the work between the amount of days I had, I kept mental motes on everything I could do to make it great and get extra credit; but I made one terrible mistake, I didn’t write one thing down. Days went by, I got more assignments, I out my mid into other stuff, and when I finally remembered my math project I only had two days before it was due. I tried to scramble the work together and turned that terrible project in, I knew I had all the potential and ideas to get an A but I ended getting a D and it was all because I forgot about it. If there wasone lesson I learned from that class was to always write down what I really want to get done. If you have ever experienced that situation or you feel like you tend to always have too much going on some days and nothing on others it could be because you need more structure or order on your days, a planner is one way to help you do that. The great thing about planners is that there is a variety of options to choose there are cheap $3 planners and there are expensive $100 planners, there are horizontal layouts and vertical layouts, there are some that have morning day night structures and others that are hourly, basically there is one planner out there that will work just for you. Now, if you are willing to spend between $30-$50 on a planner I suggest Plum Paper Designs, PPD is an etsy store that sells totally customizable planners and you truly get what you pay for.

 

Another must have is a little makeup bag to keep all my essentials. On it I usually keep my EOS lip balm, a lip gloss, hand sanitizer, deodorant, some gum, a couple hair bands, some Midol, and my girl products (if you know what I mean). I used to take the bus during high school, and the bus used to pick me up at about 6:30 so I was typically running out of my house to catch the bus so carrying the “essentials” assured that I would always look somewhat presentable while in school.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My next must have is notebooks and wrapping paper. I have never been someone to pay too much for anything (unless it’s worth it) so when It comes to a place for taking notes for school I usually go to the dollar store and get their notebooks. But I am also someone that will want to use something the cuter or nicer it looks so I am more likely to actually take notes if I like the way my notebooks look. I found that an easy way to make you notebooks look better is if you wrap them with cute wrapping paper. Michaels, target, and even Walmart tend to have some cute paper. Trust me on this one, not only will your notebooks look cute, but they will also be unique, because even if other people decide to wrap theirs, they will probably do it with different paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My last school must have are cute pens and pencils. I bet you have noticed by now but I tend to look for what I think as “cute”, so please excuse my overuse of that word, I don’t mean to over use it but when it comes to school supplies I do go for what looks most appealing. Anyways, going back to pens, markers, and pencils. My favorite place to buy pens and pencils is the target dollar spot, they change their styles frequently and always have the cutest colors, but they to tend to brake easily and they are not the best quality. If you are looking for quality I would go towards sharpie pens or papermate flairs, those are the best in the pen business and their color palettes are huge!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So there you have it, I think I carried all of this during most of my high school and will probably carry those in college too. But now that I’ve told you my must haves why don’t you tell me yours? Let’s talk about it in the comments! Im curious to know. Als stay tuned on Friday for another back to school post, I am so excited about this time of the year. Can you tell? Haha.

Until next time! Pam.

 

 

Top 5: Books

As some of you may know, yesterday was book lover’s day. Personally, I think reading is one of the best hobbies someone could have. Reading stimulates the brain as it works on memory and critical thinking, it exercises the imagination, and is a stress free activity. Another great thing about books is that there are books for everyone. I like fiction, Sci-Fi, and historical novels, my sister likes romantic novels, my aunt likes self-help books, and a friend likes autobiographies. What type of books do you like? Tellme about it in the comments, do you like romances, classics, fiction? There are books for all ages and all tastes, so there truly is no excuse for not reading. I know that there are some of you that want to start reading but don’t know where to start, so I have decided to share with you my top 5 books.

1. Eragon by Christopher Paolini: I may be a little biased towards this novel because it was the first one I ever bought, but I think it is one of the best fantasy novels ever written. Paolini started writing it when he was 15 and not only did he effectively mix our world with fantasy but he also created different languages for the creatures of his book (much like J.R.R. Tolkien). This is the first book in a series called the inheritance cycle that follows the life of a teenager, Eragon, who finds a mysterious egg while hunting. Eragon decides to keep the egg, and it mysteriously hatches and turns out to be a dragon, what he doesn’t know is that the it is being hunted because it is one of the last three dragon eggs remaining. When the novel goes through Eragon’s life and his experiences while becoming the first dragon rider there has been in several centuries.

2. Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling: if there is one book that will go down in history as the book that defined my generation it would be Harry Potter. Not only did they become one of the highest best-selling novels in the world but also some of the best fantasy/fiction movies ever. If you like fantasy, magic, or fiction there is no way to not read this novel. I won’t really describe what this novel is about because the only way to not know who or what Harry Potter is to have lived under a rock for the last 18 years. I will say though the books are 10000 times better than the movies (and the movies are great so…)

3. Their eyes were watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: I bad to read this historical novel almost two years ago for my English class and I immediately fell in love with it, I think I read it in about three days and we had a whole month to read it. This novel takes you through Janie’s life from a kid who finds the feeling of “love” in a tree as she watches some bees all the way to womanhood who understands the true meaning of what she felt in that tree as she becomes independent and takes control of her life instead of letting society take it. Set in central and south Florida (yay Florida!) it defines racism in the 1900’s as it takes the reader a little into the racial uplift program and the Harlem Renaissance (that Hurston herself was part of). If that doesn’t make you want to read it then I should also mention that some of the characters have really cute and funny sounding names like “Tea Cake”.



4. The Face That Demonstrates The Farce Of Evolution by Hank Hanegraaff: as a Christian something that I have struggled with is knowing how to defend my faith, DISCLAIMER: defending my faith does not mean getting into fights with everyone that doesn’t believe into what I believe but it does mean being able to maintain my faith even when people tell me that what I believe is wrong or untrue, sometimes one of my friends would come to me with all this proof of evolution and I wouldn’t have anything to say because even though I know a lot about creation and believe in it I wouldn’t know why what they say is untrue or incorrect. This is where this book has helped me a lot it goes through the most famous claims about evolution and gives actual proof of why it is not accurate. I would strongly recommend this book for every Christian or for anyone interested in the Evolution vs. Creation debate because in today’s society we are constantly bombarded with information on evolutionism but creationism tends to fall behind.

5. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea by Jules Verne: I read this book when I w about eleven or twelve so I probably need to read it again but this classic adventure/Sci-Fi novel made preteen me stay up past her bedtime just reading away trying to get just one more chapter in before going to bed. If there is one thing Verne was a genius at was detail. He could dedicate a whole chapter to describing a scenery and you wouldn’t even notice it was a whole chapter because as you read you can see every detail interlace forming a vivid image of whatever Verne was writing about. This novel is about Captain Nemo and his wonderful submarine the Nautilus from professor Aronnax’s perspective as he along his servant Conseil and Ned the whaler wash into the nautilus and embark on a trip that will take them around the world. The curious thing about this novel is that the way the submarine is described you would think Verne had knowledge about submarines but in 1870 when Verne published the novel submarines where still very primitive compared to what Verne described which would be a submarine like the ones we now have.

There you have it, my top 5 books. This will be the first of a series called “Top 5” where I will write about my favorite things. Don’t worry though they will be published sporadically, I’ll probably post Top 5’ once or twice a month.

Talk to you next time! Pam.

P.S. my next post will be a back to school post, let’s get pumped for school together!