Tag: 2021

Five pics Friday: Fall and stuff

Photo by Madison Inouye on Pexels.com

This week was the epitome of early fall here in Maryland. The leaves are changing, the weather was warm, cool and crisp all at the same time, and the evenings are coming earlier and earlier every day.

While fall is awesome for weather purposes, it definitely lets you know that we are properly in the fourth quarter of the year. Winter is waiting in the wings and all of the holiday prep is about to get started in full force.

But in the meantime, I am enjoying my morning walks for coffee and my afternoons with fresh air and open windows.

Here are my five pics from my week.

From top to bottom:

1. Sometimes mail is a good thing I ordered some fun stuff from Etsy, and can’t wait to try it out!

2. The cold, rainy, wind advisory weather on Tuesday was perfect for a dimly lit bar and a glass of Tempranillo.

3. I bought a couple of accessories from Avon recently and these are two pieces that I really love. A simple dainty knot bangle and a sparkly ring. Great pieces to throw on with any outfit! And they were on clearance, so it’s a double win for me!

4. I snatched this cozy number up from Columbia. It will be the perfect addition to my fall wardrobe. The weather dropped while I was out so I wound up wearing it before I even got it home. I am proud of myself because I also bought gifts for my niece and nephew and I am NEVERRRR this early with my holiday shopping. Ever!

5. Sometimes the best pics are out of focus, amiright?

How was your week this week? Did you do anything fall-ish?

justamarylandgirl3 Comments

Quick Micropost

That look when your to-do list is long af but you know you’re gonna be aight.

Y’all, I have so many things to do, but all I wanna do is drink iced coffee and watch indie movies. Being an adult is THE WORST! LOL. I mean…have y’all done your taxes?? Sigh…lol…

Please tell me I’m not alone! Anybody else be out here ignoring the real world like that actually works? Or just me? Lol.

I hate feeling like I should have everything together and just dont. I guess this is a different kind of imposter syndrome. Let me find my notebook and start writing my list. I have some work to do today so that I can enjoy my weekend. 

Happy Thursday, y’all! ✌
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#todolist #adulting #procrastination #thursdayvibes #overwhelmed #planyourwork #getworkdone #goalsetter #goaldigger #goalgetting #airbnblife #sunshinestate #kissimee #indiemovies #tubi #marylandgirl #impostersyndrome #wanderer  #myinstadiary #microblogger #microinflluencer #discoverunder1k

justamarylandgirl

Life Around the Airbnb (Fredlandia)

I feel like I should be doing better at keeping you updated on the haps with my Airbnb life, so I’m going to just start posting more frequently about the normal day to day things that happen around here.  Sometimes I feel like if nothing significant happens, then it’s not worth writing about, and quite honestly, I am realizing that’s not quite how blogging works.  I find I’m really intrigued by the journal entry type of blog posts just as much as the posts about a specific topic. 

So with that said, I’ll craft my first “Life Around the Airbnb” post and let you know what’s going on in my Airbnb life.

So here goes…

Today we are about two weeks away from checking out of this home, and here’s what we’ve been up to this week.

We are currently renting a nice two-story townhouse style condominium in a modern development in Frederick.  We positively love the home, and we love the area so much, but we absolutely do not love the neighbors.  More on that later. 

We initially rented the home for a month, but we decided to extend another month because we really felt like there was more to do and see here in Frederick. Due to the pandemic combined with the cold March weather, we were limited with how much exploring we could do, and there is so much in this area to explore.  In addition, I had a few appointments in the Maryland area that required me to stay fairly local for a couple weeks.  So, despite the neighbors that we don’t care for, we decided to stay put for another month because we love the home and the area.

A majority of this week was devoted to looking forward.

One thing about starting each rental at an Airbnb when you’re of no fixed address—it isn’t long before you have to start thinking about where you will go the following month.  So we like to get going with that search pretty soon after we move into a home.  While being able to hop around is quite freeing, the research involved in selecting your next home can be quite daunting.  And here are a few reasons why:

Price considerations – As you can expect, we have a monthly budget for our rentals.  We wanted to keep the price at or below what we’d spend on a rental or monthly mortgage payment if we stayed in one fixed location.  What we’ve discovered is, while there are a lot of great rentals that would be wonderful for a weekend trip or a family vacation, they aren’t feasible for monthly stays when you multiply out the daily rate by 30 days and then add fees.  We just are not paying $6,000 a month for an Airbnb.  Just not doing it.  So that whittles down our prospective homes quite a bit, and makes us negotiate wants versus needs.  Though there are monthly discounts (more on that later), once you add in fees and such, the prices can still rise quite high.

Monthly inventory – There are a lot of homes that are available for a weekend or for a week or two, but the inventory of monthly rentals is definitely significantly smaller than the inventory of homes that you may find when you’re researching places for that weekend girls retreat or the family beach trip. Sometimes we have looked in certain cities and the inventory for a monthly rental for our dates is less than 5 homes.

Our criteria – Anyone renting or buying anything has a set list of criteria, which includes your non-negotiables as well as the things you’re willing to be a little more flexible on.  Sometimes our options significantly decrease just by filtering out ones with no kitchen. For a space to be our home for a month, there are definitely things that are important to us.  We have learned that we operate best when a home has two bedrooms and two bathrooms at the very least (no adorably chic tiny homes for us!).  For one reason, we both work full time from home, and we both have meetings and make calls. Many times our meetings and calls are at the same time, so another bedroom or a designated office with a door is crucial.  And the bathroom…well…lol…I’m sure no explanation is needed for this one.  We rented a home with one bathroom, and it worked fine, but our preference is two if possible.

Seasonal aspects – Some areas are more popular based on the season, so working around the price hikes for certain areas can be tricky.  Yes it sounds awesome to be at the beach for a month, but guess what…you will definitely pay a premium price for a monthly stay at a beach during beach season.  And who really wants to be there in off-season?  Well…some may, but…the point usually is to enjoy the weather and the water, and to do that, you will pay higher prices.  And same is true for mountains during ski season.  So navigating those nuances can add to the trickiness of selecting a home.  You may want to be somewhere in off-season, but if it’s 10 below and you only do outdoor dining, or if the area is shut down because it’s non-peak, is it really a place you want to be?

Working the Airbnb system – The great thing about monthly rentals on Airbnb is that there is typically a discount for longer stays.  We have found that in some circumstances, extending our stay by a few days can decrease the price by a few hundred dollars.  So even if we don’t need the extra days, we may reserve them just to get the cheaper price.  But figuring out which homes that applies to, and what the right length of time needed for the best price, this can be time consuming and somewhat frustrating.

Because picking our next spot can be sort of challenging, we typically start working on that within a week of moving into a new space.  This week we searched, whittled down, selected, and reserved our next home. Can’t wait to tell you about that! 

So now that that’s done, we feel like we can breathe a bit and enjoy the remainder of our time in our current space.

And that’s what’s been happening around the Airbnb this week.

Have any questions about airbnb life or what we’ve been up to while in Frederick, Maryland, comment below or send me a message at justamarylandgirl@gmail.com! Also follow me on IG at justa_mdgirl!

justamarylandgirl

Kindness Matters. Always.

I woke up this morning with a buzz in my ear…and here it is.

Kindness. Matters.

Once more.

Kindness. Matters.

You may have seen on my social media, on my etsy shop and on my blog that I call myself a kindness advocate.  Let me explain a little.  Judging comes very easy to me.  Always has.  Expectations and opinions flow through my veins.  It is only through some serious growth, and a few hard lessons, that I realized that I’m not always right and kindness truly matters. 

Giving the benefit of the doubt matters. 

Understanding that everyone is different matters. 

Realizing that everyone’s circumstances are different, their backgrounds are different, their response mechanisms are different, their support systems are different…and that all of that matters.

It took me well into my 30s before I realized that how I think, how I react, and what I do is not always right.  That was a hard pill to swallow.  Lol.  I realized I’m not always the smartest person in the room and that I’m definitely not always right.  I don’t always have the answers, and there are other ways of doing and thinking that are better than the way I do it.

I realized that you really have to hear where a person comes from and how they got to where they are in life before you can really understand their position, their mentality, and their actions. 

Maybe you would have done things differently if faced with the same set of circumstances, but maybe not.  I had to really examine how many times I’ve made a bad decision, one that others in my exact situation wouldn’t have made, and how I had to learn from the mistake to truly appreciate just how bad of a decision it was.  Most of the time, the decisions were things I could recover from.  But some did change my life in more permanent ways. But should I be judged or should someone be mean to me because I chose a wrong path or because I made a decision they wouldn’t have made? I don’t think so.

But every interaction may not afford you the opportunity for a deep dive into people’s lives so that you can understand exactly how they got to that street corner, or wound up in a financial bind, or whatever.  It may only be seconds of time out of your life that your path crosses with someone.  And that’s when you have to decide.  Would I rather spend these seconds judging, being mean, ignoring, or getting riled up?  Or would I rather realize this is a human being that got here by means of which I do not know, and that this person could use a couple of dollars, a sweater, a drink, a meal, a smile, or at the very least, for someone to not add to the weight on their shoulders by being mean to them?

My choice is compassion.  Or rather, the choice I hope I make each time is compassion.  Kindness.  Generosity.  I’m working each day to train myself to make that choice, and to advocate for people to consider compassion as their choice.  It’s not always easy, and it doesn’t come naturally all the time.  But that’s what I am working towards each day.  Kindness always.  Even when it’s really, really, really hard.

Through my apparel, I try to emphasize positivity and good vibes.  I try to always smile, and I try to see the good in every person I interact with either in person or on social media.  I’m not always successful, trust me.  But it is something I actively strive for each day.

These days we are all coping with unprecedented stress. We are in a situation we may not see again in our lifetime. We are all figuring it out and we are all trying our best. And we all deserve a little kindness.

Do you have a personal attribute that you are working on? What made you realize it was time to work on that particular quality? What do you do to motivate yourself to work on it? Do you have any tips?

justamarylandgirl

DIY Mockups for My Business

From the “spring gone get whatever body I give it” files…

Happy Wednesday!

What’s the weather where you are? Yesterday in Maryland was hot and today is going to be even hotter! So ummm…about all that chocolate I’ve been eating lately…

I experimented a little more with taking pics for my tshirt mockups yesterday. And though I wasn’t spring-ready, I still knotted that shirt up and struck a pose…because who gone check me??

Do you use mockups for your tshirt brand? I do love the convenience of the etsy mockups, however I’ve noticed that there are very few that have people of color as models. And I feel as though my brand is too diverse for one model type. And hello…I’m black and I want black representation for my products.

So…what’s a girl to do? I pulled out my tripod and got to work! Because sometimes you just gotta do it yourself, amiright?? I think I got a few good shots. Can’t wait to share them!

Here’s a little sneak peek of my mock-ups in action.

I still have some work to do to perfect the pics and poses. I need to work on being conscious of light, shadows, and backgrounds. And I definitely need to work on facial expressions lol. But it’s been fun doing this and I feel like every time I try it, I get a little better. And even though this is the free method of acquiring mockups, and that’s hella dope, the best takeaway is that I have pics that I feel represent me and my brand without spending hours on etsy. And I just love that!

#diymockups #pocmodels #diversitymatters #repesentationmatters #minoritybusinessowner #etsyowner #etsygrammer #dropshipper #diyphotoshoot #smallbusiness #entrepreneurlife #blackblogger #blackentrepreneurs #marylandgirl #blacketsyshop #loveyourbody #tshirtbrand #shopifyseller

justamarylandgirl