Know What's Important

I've blogged about half as much as I would have liked to this month but I feel like that's just the nature of April when you're in school. It's that time of year when everything comes to a head and I think this is especially true for college seniors. Instead of feeling like things are slowing down as graduation approaches, my to do list is 3 miles long and growing. 
In an attempt to make that list less overwhelming, I have been asking myself one question over and over, and that's "what's important?" When I say this, I'm not talking about what's important in the moment, but what's important in the grand scheme of life. In all honesty, it's been helping me prioritize and worry less. Of course, I'm still going to study for my finals that start next week (dreading it), but 10 years from now, I really doubt I'll care whether I got an A or B on my Art History exam. I hope instead, when I think about my last few weeks at Fordham, I'll think about the time I spent with friends, walking around campus, and enjoying the city. 

And so, although I'm still living my senior year and am in no way qualified to dish out advice, I'm going to do it anyway: know what's important and don't stress. I'm currently trying to take my own advice. 

Easter Recap

Often, it's equal parts excitement and pressure for me when people visit New York. The city has this larger than life reputation that makes putting together the perfect agenda stressful. Thankfully, I never really feel like this when my family visits. After four years at Fordham, their trips to the city are a breath of fresh air in terms of planning. I happily sit back and let my sister and parents tell me exactly what they want to do, and at most, I'll suggest a restaurant or arrange our activities in logical geographical order. For this reason, and the fact that we hadn't been all together since Christmas, I was super excited when my parents, sister, and grandmother decided to spend Easter weekend with me in New York. 

Easter came and went so fast, but below are just a few highlights I wanted to share from our weekend itinerary. We had the best time together which included amazing food, lots of laughs, and 3 of the 5 boroughs!

1. The Brooklyn Bridge

On Saturday, after brunch at Jane, we cabbed it to Dumbo to explore. We devoured ice cream at the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory before making our way across the bridge into Manhattan. Living in the Bronx, it's always a nice to spend time in Brooklyn, since I don't get the time often and the Brooklyn Bridge on a nice day, although a mob-fest, is incredibly beautiful and picturesque.

2. Eataly

I love everything about Eataly. It's essentially an Italian marketplace with small specialized restaurants. On Easter weekend, we spent Saturday night here, eating dinner at La Pizza and La Pasta and dessert at Pasticceria. The food is amazing of course, and the homemade pasta is absolutely to die for.

[J. Crew Factory Bracelet]

3. Lafayette

Getting a brunch reservation in New York for Easter Weekend can be an absolute nightmare. Luckily, we were able to find one at a favorite restaurant of mine, albeit at an early10:00am. Lafayette is absolutely perfect. The interior is french inspired and absolutely everything on the menu is amazing. I especially love sitting outside when it's warm in the summer. 

4. The Mandarin Oriental

After brunch, we had drinks in the Lobby Lounge of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel. This is definitely worth a visit just to enjoy a few cocktails with an unbelievable view of columbus circle and central park! 

For the rest Easter, we my sister and I took a walk through the village before we all made our way back up to the Bronx for dinner on Arthur Avenue's Enzo's. It's always nice to spend time with my family, especially in the city, and we definitely had the most wonderful weekend. 

Pretty Busy

Oh my goodness, where to start? Basically this is going to be one of those dime a dozen "I've been super busy" posts. Don't leave just yet, though, because there are three things I want to share that will make this post (hopefully) worth your while. Before that, let me first tell you that I absolutely have been super busy. Between classwork, applying for jobs, running Fordham's Campus Activities Board, and trying to have this little thing called a social life, it's been a lot, and at times, super overwhelming. It's also been pretty great though, and I'm really trying hard to make the most of the little time I have left at school. 

Okay, now to the good part. I know there's no way I'm the only one who has been crazy busy lately, so I wanted to share with you a few new finds that are perfect for any life in the fast lane (side note: do people still even say "in the fast lane?")

1. Stay Adorable

My new "I am very busy" pencil case is everything. I just ordered it and it pretty much sums up life right now. I've seen ban.do products around for a while and originally, I obsessed over the "I am very busy" agenda because it was hilarious, but it was sold out literally everywhere! So when I saw this pencil case on the website during a sale I knew that I needed it. Although, I just ordered the pencil case, below are a few other products I'm loving right now. 

[Agenda] Originally why I noticed the brand, but unfortunately sold out. Not to worry though, they're releasing new ones soon, so get excited! 
[Pencil Case] My new fave. So funny and adorable. I think I might actually use it for makeup instead of pencils. 
[Portable Charger] Always super useful and this one is really cute and stylish. 
[Ear Buddies] I love how colorful these headphones are, and given I just lost a pair (oops), I may be making an order soon!

2. Stay Informed

I am so guilty of neglecting to read the news, which is a seriously horrible habit. It really shouldn't be that difficult to replace 10 minutes of watching Netflix with catching up on current events, but it so is for me. Anyway, my sister recently introduced me to Quartz, and I'm in love. Basically, you register on their website and then each day, you receive an email with top headlines and a very short elaboration on each. It's perfect because it only takes a hot second to read in the morning and it makes me feel like a semi respectable and informed citizen. Seriously, you should register. 

3. Stay Pretty

Don't get me wrong, I still love Essie, but I've recently started buying Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri nail polish and it's amazing and so reasonably priced. For some reason I always paint my nails on a super tight timeframe-- which is actually ridiculous. I should just plan better. Also, I'm definitely one of those people who always smudges a nail out of impatience. Anyway, this nail polish lives up to it's name and dries super fast making my life 100 times easier. Below are a few of my favorite shades!

Eggceeding Eggspectations

Hello, April! It's crazy how quickly these past few months have flown by, but I'm 100% ready to 

welcome spring with open arms. I'm especially looking forward to Easter this year because my parents, grandmother and sister are spending the weekend with me in NYC! Our weekend plans include exploring the city and brunching, which of course, I'm all about. 

On Tuesday, in an attempt to get a little festive and celebrate the start of Easter break, my roommates and I decided to plan a fun egg dying night! The evening consisted of 6 different dyes, 24 hard boiled eggs, sequins and lots of wine. We couldn't find any of those cute egg dying children's kits in the Bronx, so we basically went "little house on the prairie" with this one, and made the dyes ourselves. 

Side Note: Did they even have food coloring on the prairie? Questionable. I'll look it up and get back to you. 

Anyway, these instructions were super helpful.

I used gel food coloring with water and vinegar for each color. Mixing blue and red food coloring together created a purple dye that resulted in a really beautiful but unintentional speckle effect on the eggs. In hindsight, I wish we had mixed more colors like this because I love the look so much!  

I'm currently obsessed with light yellow nails for spring! I suggest trying this shade from butter London.

I attempted to add sequins to an egg with a hot glue gun and while it worked, I don't know that it's worth the hassle. I personally concluded that I like the simplicity of only dye. 

Each of our personal favorites!

The beautiful finished products! 

Side Note: I did not strategically place this newspaper, but I can not tell you how ecstatic I am that the cultural section was displayed with "Keeping it Minimal this Spring" as the prominent headline. It just looks perfect. However, I can't say the same about the "Marijuana Leniency" headline in the top left, but I'm over it #CantWinEmAll. 

So as I see it, there are 3 top takeaways from this post: 

1. You're never too old to dye Easter eggs.

2. It's actually a lot more fun with wine.

3. A day that starts with eating rainbow hardboiled eggs cannot be bad.