10 Essentials

Inspired by a blog series by one of my favorite stores CB2.  
Side Note: Their blog is pretty cool even if you don't like the store.

1. My (feline) girls.  They provide me with a constant source of laughter and love and make my apartment feel like home after even the longest days.


2.  Real Girl Friends.  Growing up, I didn't have a lot of female friends.  Since then, I have been blessed to live in a number of different cities and have had the pleasure of making honest-to-god, can't-live-without-them, do-anything-for-one-another girl friends.  I never knew the power of positive female friendship until college because so many female relationships are built on backstabbing and power struggles and even since then I've been burned more than once.  But I literally could not make it without my ladies.  There is something to be said for friends who will fly across the country at a moments notice to cheer you up after a bad breakup, who know the exact moment when you really need to hear a 3-year-old's voice, who will drive across town to provide soup when you're sick... 


3.  A stack of to-be-read books.  (Or these days, 90+ books to-be-read on my Kindle).  You never know where you'll find the next great adventure.


4.  Some sort of outdoor space.  I need fresh air almost every day.  I wrote many a paper on my porch in the winter in Nashville and slept with the windows open in November in Minnesota.


5.  My family.  Needs no explanation.  We're all a little quirky, but it works for us.


6.  Chapstick.  

Note: I am obviously not putting these in numerical order because let's be real, my family ranks way above books and chapstick ranks way below my family.

Ok... Again.

6.  Chapstick.  There is nothing worse than knowing your lips need hydration.  Like last week while attending a meeting and not being able to find my chapstick in the bottomless-pit-that-is-my-purse no matter how hard I tried to look quietly.  It was awful.


7.  Caffeine.  This one should really be up at the top.  I have a caffeine problem.  I have been known to consume 3 Cokes and 2 cups of coffee from 7:00am-2:00pm.  Sheesh.  It's the only way I get anything done.


8.  A project to be working on.  I'm always in the middle of something.  Right now, I'm purging years worth of magazines by creating my own person, hard-copy version on Pinterist (which I don't use... so no comment there).  When I moved in here, I spent a month picking out the perfect paint color for my living room and I'm still not sure I found it.  When I'm not redecorating, I'm crafting.  When not crafting, I'm writing.  When not writing, I'm rearranging... You get the picture.


9.  My cell phone.  I once left it at a then-boyfriend's house and had to go without for an entire day.  It was awful.  Honestly, I am obsessive about checking that I have it on me after that day.  Even if my current phone is a piece of crap.  It's my own personal nightmare to go without my phone for an entire weekend.


10.  My own bathroom.  I grew up in a house with 3 (sometimes 4) women and one bathroom.  I then went to college and used communal bathrooms and had roommates.  I never had a problem with modesty or personal space.  Until I lived alone.  I would rather share my bedroom than my bathroom.  In fact, if I ever get married I plan to custom build my house just so there are two master baths.  Get your hands off my toothpaste and your dirty feet out of my bathtub...


If I got 11 essentials, I'd add pizza.  But I don't.  So I won't.