Life as a Dare

Making Every Moment Count

7 Spring Break Safety Tips

Spring break is coming up in the States, and I imagine quite a few of you are going to go on a vacation with some friends to celebrate your week of freedom! 

Half of me is really happy that our reading break is earlier in the semester, but the other half of me just really wishes that I got to have it now instead of earlier, especially since I’m hearing about some of the fun plans you guys have for the next few weeks!

Breaks from school are wonderful ways to help your mind recuperate from the stress of school, but it’s important to be smart in how you celebrate your break from college. [Read more…]

Mothers: Please Raise Your Boys to be Men

There’s a trend among how parents are raising sons versus daughters, from my observations.

And it goes like this: Girls are raised to be young women, and boys are raised to always stay mama’s little boy.

Now, I’m not a mother, so I’m not trying to give any advice as to how to raise sons. What I am, though, is a girl who understands the struggle that many of us go through: we’re ready for real life years before guys are. 

I’m writing this post as a response to what I’ve seen so many of my friends go through, and from my own experience in dealing with boys whose mothers in particular have really not prepared them for the real world. This is a reaction to seeing so many boys who have great potential just stagnate at where they were at 15 or 16, because I am sick and tired of seeing such a waste of potential when what we really need in this world is for people to step up and act like adults. 

This isn’t me trying to bash mothers who love their sons, though–quite the opposite. Mothers: you want your sons to marry good, pretty, put-together girls, right? Well, women like that want to marry men, not boys. So this helps you, too. This isn’t just a rant for ranting’s sake.

One important note that I want to make is that this is not to let fathers off of the hook. In my mind, a father’s job is to show a boy HOW to be a man, whereas the mother needs to step back and ALLOW her son to be a man. And from my observations, sometimes moms can have a hard time letting go and letting their boys turn into men.

I feel extremely lucky to have married a man who can actually clean the apartment, cook, and handle finances. But I also think it’s ridiculous that I need to feel lucky about that. So, mothers, here is an open letter to you from the girls who will eventually marry your sons.  [Read more…]

9 Winter Activities for People who Hate the Cold

It is no secret that I hate the cold. As a result, I’ve never really thought of myself as someone who enjoys winter activities.

I’m definitely a summer girl. When it’s around 100 degrees fahrenheit outside I’m as happy as a duck in a mud puddle. I’ll run around and frolic and be happy, but when it drops below freezing I immediately turn into this grumpy, depressed thing that doesn’t even remotely resemble the happy-go-lucky person I am when I’m warm.

As you can imagine, I don’t enjoy most winter activities.

Seriously, this is what I look like when winter comes:  [Read more…]

The Time I was Disappointed by Puppy Therapy.

One of my resolutions this year was to take better care of my mental health. And spend more time with puppies.

So when I heard that my school was offering free pet therapy services, I melted a little.

I am a major dog enthusiast. My father is allergic to dogs, though, and I’ve always resented that a little bit, even though it’s not at all his fault. It’s like resenting the ground for being underfoot. It really doesn’t have any say in the matter. Nonetheless, I do admit to holding a tiny grudge against his allergies for the entirety of my childhood because it meant that I didn’t get to have a fuzzy little puppy to hug and play fetch with growing up. Instead, I got a gecko.

Now, when I say I am a dog enthusiast, I don’t want you to start thinking that I actually know anything about dogs. I just really like watching videos of them try to jump over things or attack their own reflection on youtube. Also, my limited range of knowledge is even further limited to only a few species; namely, corgis and dachshunds.  [Read more…]

9 Ways to Keep your Resolutions

Happy New Year’s! Can you believe it’s 2016 already? I personally love making resolutions on New Year’s, it makes me so excited for the year to come.

Resolutions are funny things. A good family friend of ours posted on Facebook this morning “Happy New Year! Remember what they say about resolutions: they go in one year and out the other.” I thought that was very fitting.

But really, we all make these amazing resolutions every year, and then a month later they’re completely forgotten. I know this–I used to work at a gym. We were always insanely busy the first three weeks, which was always stressful for us lifeguards, but we always just comforted each other by saying “Don’t worry–just two more weeks and they’ll all be gone.” Sad, but true.

I think the problem is that often we make these great resolutions but then completely fail to actually do anything to put them in place. We have all these great ideas but don’t actually DO anything about them. So I wanted to share with you what my resolutions are this year and what I’m going to do to make sure I stick to them!

Let’s go!

[Read more…]

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