Blog Posts

Decorate Your Apartment

Decorate your Retreat at Tampa apartment this month by using a couple of the tips we are featuring on our blog this month. We’ve scoured the web for the best advice on decorating your apartment. We hope that you get the chance to add a little color to your apartment before the month is through. Make your apartment pop with painted furniture. You can always make your apartment space pop with a couple of well-placed colorful pieces of furniture. Buy your furniture pre-painted or take a weekend to paint your new bed frame or bookshelf. This is an easy way to add some color to your space without violating any of your apartment community’s rules. Find more information about painting your furniture at Better Homes and Gardens . Put your calendar from 2016 to good use. Popsugar recommends framing and hanging up pictures from old calendars to decorate your apartment. This is an inexpensive and easy way to add a little bit of interest to your walls. Ask your friends for their old calendars if you would like a variety of pictures and styles to hang up on your walls. Real Simple suggests hanging your curtains higher and wider to create the illusion of large windows in your apartment space. If you are a fan of large windows, use this trick to make every window in your apartment home look much bigger. HGTV has a great tip for anyone who wants to make a room look larger than it actually is. Lay a light rug on the ground to expand your space without tearing down the walls. This will make your room seem much more large and inviting. Our last tip comes from The Huffington Post . It’s a simple one — rearrange your furniture. Switching up the look of your apartment space can be as simple as switching up where your coffee table is in relation to your couch. Moving your furniture is an easy way to give your apartment a new feel. What are your apartment decorating tips? Leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading our post!

Start Your Own Book Club

In this post, the Retreat at Tampa Blog is all about reading more! Learn about how to start your own book club by following the advice in our post. We hope that these tips will help you start your book club with neighbors and friends in the Retreat at Tampa community this month. Decide what you want your book club to look like. How many members will be in your book club? What kinds of books will you read? When will you meet? Before you begin to recruit members to your club, decide the parameters of your club. Once people begin to join your club, you can change the rules to fit the needs of the members, but it’s always good to start with a general outline of the kind of book club you want to create. Find a way to communicate with your club. How will the members of your club stay in contact and find out about meetings? Start a Facebook page for your group, have an email list, or send out text notifications each month. You could even call each member each month to remind them about meetings. Come up with discussion questions. Once you’ve picked a book to read, it’s important to come up with a list of thoughtful questions for the group to discuss. You can usually find discussion questions online, or you can have each member of the group bring a question that they would like to discuss. Appoint a discussion leader for each meeting. Your discussion leader will help keep the conversation on track and smooth over any arguments between the members of your group. Have fun! There’s no point in having a book group if you don’t have a little fun while you’re at it. Host a potluck for your book club, bring desserts, and make some time to chit chat with your group. Get to know the members of your book club. We hope you’ve enjoyed our tips! We’ve adapted them from Oprah, ilovelibraries , Penguin , and Real Simple . Let us know about your book club in the comments. Thanks for reading!

New Years Resolutions

This week The Retreat at Tampa Blog is featuring a few tips to help you achieve your New Year’s resolutions. New Year’s resolutions are notorious for not lasting. We hope that these tips help you make and achieve your goals next year. Organize your schedule. It’s important to come up with a schedule to achieve your goals. What will you do to achieve your goals this month? This week? What are you doing today to reach your goal? Write down and refine your goals weekly; check your progress once or twice a month to make sure you’re still on track. Limit your own choices. Plenty of studies have shown that willpower is limited . Keeping your goals and practicing self-discipline is easier when you limit the choices you make each day. Have the same thing for breakfast each morning, or come up with a work “uniform” so that you don’t have to choose a new outfit each day. Limit your own choices so you can save your energy for the choices (and activities) that really matter. Don’t tell anyone about your goals. This might seem counterintuitive, but it really works. TED speaker Derek Sivers says, “The repeated psychology test have proven that telling someone your goal makes it less likely to happen.” You can find out more about Sivers argument by watching his TED talk . Work on one goal at a time. The New York Times has a great article about setting New Year’s resolutions. One of their tips is to “set a single clear goal.” While it can be tempting to try to tackle all of your goals at once, focusing on one goal at a time will make it much easier to focus on your goal and eventually achieve it. Set yourself up for success. New Year’s resolutions get a bad rap, but you’ll only break your goal if you think you will. Think of your success as assured. Work towards your goal relentlessly and let go of your fear of failure. What are your tips for achieving New Year’s resolutions? Leave them in the comments. Thanks for reading!

Hot Chocolate Recipes

In this post, The Retreat at Tampa Blog has a few hot chocolate recipes for you to enjoy. We’ve included a variety of recipes — including a butterbeer hot chocolate recipe and a frozen hot chocolate recipe — and we hope that at least one of our recipes fits your tastes! Mexican Hot Chocolate from Little Spice Jar Mexican hot chocolate is sweet, thick, and just a little bit spicy. If you’re a fan of chili powder, cinnamon powder, cinnamon sticks, and nutmeg, then this is the recipe for you. Little Spice Jar uses whole milk and plenty of bittersweet chocolate to liven up this hot chocolate recipe. Whipped Cream Cubes from The Cake Blog Whipped cream cubes are a great addition to any cup of hot chocolate. This simple recipe is a fun and great treat to make for a casual get-together or a dinner party with guests. Use your favorite cookie cutter to make this delicious treat. Butterbeer (Butterscotch) Hot Chocolate This is the richest hot chocolate we’ve ever tried. If you’re a fan of Harry Potter (or the brand new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them ), make this hot chocolate sometime this month. We love the whipped topping on this hot chocolate — it’s especially creamy and sweet. Frozen Hot Chocolate from A Spicy Perspective Relax with a cup of frozen hot chocolate after a long day out and about. This frozen hot chocolate recipe uses a dash of coffee granules, granulated sugar, dark chocolate, whole milk, vanilla extract, ice, and cocoa powder to make a dinner dessert that we are sure you’ll love. Crockpot Nutella Hot Chocolate from Yummly This is an easy recipe. Crockpot Nutella hot chocolate is no less delicious for using skim milk. Sweetened condensed milk and Nutella really liven up this hot chocolate recipe. This recipe serves eight, so serve it the next time you have your friends over for a movie marathon. What’s your favorite hot chocolate recipe? Leave us a comment with the recipe. Thanks for reading!

Celebrate Thanksgiving

This month The Retreat at Tampa Blog has a few tips to help you celebrate Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is a great time to celebrate food, gratitude, and the people you care about. We hope that our etiquette tips and other tips will help you celebrate Thanksgiving this year. Before Thanksgiving: — Buy a gift for your host Bring a gift to your host to express your thanks to them for hosting dinner. Make sure that your gift is thoughtful and personal. — Start a gratitude journal Remember to express your gratitude before Thanksgiving is through. Keeping a gratitude journal is a great way to remember all the things you have to be grateful for. Also consider writing letters to the people who have helped and inspired you this year as a way to say thanks. Thanksgiving day: — Bring a dish or a dessert Your host will be busy all Thanksgiving day cooking and making dinner. The least you can do is bring a side dish or dessert to help out. Ask your host if they would like your help before you bring a dish to their home. They’ll let you know if they need the help, and they’ll also let you know what they want you to bring to their home. — Say “Thanks!” Thanksgiving is a holiday that’s all about being grateful. Remember to thank your host for making dinner and inviting you into their home. — Arrive on time, and leave in a timely manner No one wants to hold dinner for a late guest. Make sure that you arrive when your host asks you to arrive. Once dinner is over, remember to leave before your presence becomes unwelcome. Your host has probably spent all day making and preparing your meal and will most likely be tired once the meal and the conversation are through. You can find more tips like the ones we’ve just mentioned at Bon Appetit . Do you have any Thanksgiving tips for us? Leave us your best advice in the comments. Thanks for reading!

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month, and The Retreat at Tampa Blog is celebrating with a post all about writing. Each November National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) challenges novice novelists to writing a 50,000 novel in one month. This averages into just about 1,667 words per day. This is marathon writing, with writers spending hours upon hours writing in order to complete a novel in one month. If writing a novel is on your bucket list, then by all means join NaNoWriMo by signing up on their website and participate in the challenge. If writing a novel isn’t quite for you, then read on to find out a little bit more about the benefits of writing in a journal. Writing has been shown to have plenty of benefits. Writing can help you have a more positive attitude , help your wounds heal more quickly, and even help you become a happier and more resilient person . Keeping a journal can improve your life by helping you keep track of your goals, remember what you’re grateful for (perfect for Thanksgiving), and unlock your creativity. Writing a little bit everyday, or even every week, can benefit you immeasurably. Write as often as you have time to write, and write in the medium that makes you feel most comfortable. There all sorts of different ways to write. You can write on a blog, write using a journal writing app, or write using a traditional paper journal. Find the medium that works with your life and schedule. If you are planning on participating in National Novel Writing Month, use the NaNoWriMo website for support and help in writing your 50,000 words. We love the Write In events that NaNoWriMo offers. This is what the official NaNoWriMo website says about these events: “ NaNoWriMo’s Come Write In (CWI) program connects libraries, bookstores, and other neighborhood spaces with their local NaNoWriMo participants (or Wrimos) to build vibrant writing communities. Every November, thousands of writers around the world congregate at Come Write In spaces to pursue their creative dreams and write the first draft of their novel.” If your town doesn’t offer a Write In event, you can participate in one of the virtual Write Ins that NaNoWriMo holds. NaNoWriMo also offers pep talks from famous authors to help encourage writers when the writing gets difficult. One of our favorite pep talks, from Robin McKinley offers this encouragement: “ And may you have an absolutely brilliant time doing it. Writing can be the worst, and often is—but it can also be the best. May you come out of that month knowing what you want to do next, and eager to keep going. ” Happy writing this month! Another great way to participate in National Novel Writing Month is to support writers by reading their work. Pick up a book at your local bookstore or library to read this month. Are you planning on participating in NaNoWriMo or starting a journal this month? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading!