My Christmas gifts this year

Put simply, I am a college student taking on more than I can handle. (Honestly that is not unusual for college students.) And this year just happened to be the year that I got extremely sick on top of all my finals. So this year for Christmas I found little time to put together anyone’s Christmas gifts. Thanks to ideas found on Pinterest, I found something that would be quick enough, but personal enough that I could make it for everyone I needed to. Personalized dishware! Here’s the inspiration photo from pinterest:

So ya, a plate. Not the greatest of all Christmas gifts, but it’s what I can really afford right now and I figured I could personalize them to make them as meaningful as possible. First I found some round plates for about $2.50 each. Then I had to go to the dollar store for a quick item, when I found these plates. I dug a little bit for the nicer looking plates, but in the end got great plates for my family and all of the gifts I gave this year cost me less than $15! It was great!

So to make:

1. Buy the dishware you wish to use.
2. Plates or mugs would be the most fun.
3. Wash! (Gets any dust or grime off of it)
4. Then write what you wish on them.
5. I went for phrases that I thought would be personal for each person.
6. MOST IMPORTANT STEP!
7. BAKE IN THE OVEN AT 350 DEGREES FOR 30 MINUTES. (Makes the ink permanent)
8. Wrap and give away!

Here’s how my plates turned out. I had a friend with better hand writing than me write the quotes on the plates. I wrote the ones that I came up with. I ended up making 9 plates. I really like how all of them turned out. And I think they were greatly personal in the end.

  

How to Throw a PERFECT 21st Birthday Party

About 3 weeks ago one of my co-workers and very good friends had her 21st birthday party. It was a fantastic night! Everything ran smoothly and no one got alcohol poisoning.  If you have a friend about to turn 21, that didn’t experiment much with alcohol before and likes scavenger hunts, then this is the kind of party to throw! I’ll walk you through how I planned it out and give suggestions on how to tailor it and improve it.

Our birthday girl started the evening at about 7pm. She arrived at the just before 11pm. The plan was for her to take about 30 minutes at each stop. Sometimes she took more time, sometimes she took less. It all depended. Part of the reason for the later start was that some people were still getting off work (college town). But if your friends are ready earlier in the night, start earlier! The last bar she went to was where everyone was supposed to end up. This is our group’s overall favorite bar, one of our friends even works there as the sound guy for the live music. The night of the party there was a live band was playing as the evening’s entertainment, so it was the perfect place to end. For the last bar pick one that most of the group will like to go to. If you pick one that only a small portion likes not a lot of people will show up. Our entire group didn’t show to the last bar, but the majority of the group was there and that is what mattered.

To get this all started there first needs to be a good friend base for your birthday boy or girl. For my party, I called upon a lot of co-workers that are also great friends. It doesn’t matter how many friends you have coming as long as there are enough to cover a good number of bars. I had at least 14 people commit to coming so it was just a matter of deciding how many bars they could, or should cover.

There are a lot of bars in the town I currently live in. But I only wanted to send our birthday girl to the “good ones”, or in other words, the ones our group of friends like. I picked out 1 liquor store, 5 bars and 1 food stop for her. The liquor store was just to be a joke and to jump-start the night. The food stop however was for 2 reasons; 1) so that she would get some food and sober up a bit, 2) so that our friends who are minors could take part also.

Here’s my chicken scratch list of the bars and who volunteered be at each. Then underneath I put the order and times our birthday girl would hopefully go through them. To determine the time to start, begin your list with the last stop. When do you want to reach the last stop? For our group we wanted to see the band which started at 11pm. Thus I wanted to get us all there before it started. I also figured 30 minutes would be a good amount of time to be at each bar. What I didn’t account for is travel time. You might want to consider that in your itinerary. It worked out great for me, I just told her sober driver to be aware of it. But you have to judge that for your group of people.

I found it key to put the liquor store first, you don’t want the birthday boy or girl looking like a total drunk going into the store. Plus you want to get there before it closes. I also found it key  to put the food stop in about in the middle so that she had a chance to sober up before going on in the night.

I can’t help you too much with specific clues, but I made sure to do two things with them. First, make the hardest clues the first clues. The easiest should be near the end. Your birthday boy/girl won’t want to figure out a super hard clue at the end of the night. Second, I made each clue larger than the last. This way the last clue was large enough to read for the drunk girl. This kinds the idea of what my clues looked like:

I felt it necessary to put together a “drunk kit.” Basically it had water, Advil, B-vitamins, some make-up, hair ties, a mini first-aid kit, a headlamp, lip gloss, body mist, deodorant, lotion and mouth wash. Our birthday girl used the kit twice, but more importantly a few other people from our group used it. I remained sober to take care of anyone if needed and I’m glad I did. I did use the first-aid kit on a tiny little cut, but used it nonetheless. This is everything that was in it:

Alright, the next step is a KILLER T-shirt. This is how your birthday boy/girl will remember the night. I got one for my 21st and it was great. Every drink that someone bought me was written on my shirt. The first morning after it might not be so great, but weeks later it is fantastic! My roommate handled the shirt. She drew a little building for each place she had to go (makes the clues a little bit easier) and then a place for each person waiting for her to sign their name and drink. She even left a place for the band to sign. My tip here is to make sure you spell everything correctly. This is what it looked like. Front and Back…

So the things for the party planner to take care of… make your GAME PLAN/ITINERARY, then put together your CLUES and make a T-SHIRT for people to sign.

Then you have to decide what is the best way to tell each person where to be and when. I personally used texting for all of that. Since it was a surprise party I didn’t want our birthday girl getting a hold of any paper invite. Second you have to determine how you are going to get each clue to each person/bar/stop. I did not personally run around with the birthday girl. I was always one step ahead of her so that I could give the clue to the next person, knowing also that they were in place. But then I had to make sure that our birthday girl had a sober ride and a few people traveling with her. For that I used HER roommates. This way they were involved and got to spend a majority of the night with her. It worked out great. But if you have trust worthy friends, give them the clues before hand and just trust they’ll be in their places ready for the birthday boy/girl’s arrival.

In the end the party was a great SUCCESS! I had a lot of fun putting it all together and all our friends enjoyed the reason to hit the town. Here are a few more photos from the night. Two stops at bars and the T-shirt the next morning!

Writing an article, when writing is tough for me

So after all of the work I put into preparing and pulling off Minnesota MUni (mountain unicycling) Weekend, I still have work to complete. Now is the time to complete an article for the On One Wheel unicycle publication. Let me say, this always seems like the hardest part.

So this year I asked a friend for help of where to start and she gave me a great idea. After every weekend or convention she likes to play this game. It is less of a game and more like story telling. We call it “high, low, crush, goal, bane.” We go around and tell exactly that. What was our high point? What was the low point? Did we have a crush (real or platonic) on anyone? Did we have a goal coming in? Or do we have a goal going out? And what was the most irritating part?

I asked 5 adults and 5 “kids” for their perspective. I got answers back from 4 of each. So with 8 responses I set out to write this article.

First I put each person’s high, low, crush, goal and bane on 5 separate index cards. Like so:

Each person’s response on cards

Next I put all the high’s, low’s, crush’s, goal’s and bane’s together and made 2 subgroups by adults or “kids”. Take a Look:

Grouped together

I took one group at a time separated by adults and “kids”. 8 cards total:

One category of responses

Finally I sat down with my modern-day typewriter (my computer) put all of them together in an article-like format:

Modern day typewriter

I had to come up with a opener on my own, but that was just explaining what the personal stories were. Then the closing was the same way, closing up that the weekend was a success.

I’ll post the final version after it has been published.