Blog Posts

Unlock Your Creativity Through Poetry

Welcome back to the 501 on First Blog where we are going to take a look at releasing creativity through writing poetry. If you never thought you could write a poem, put that thought to rest starting now. With simple instruction, you’ll be writing poetry before you know it. We have two poem forms to show you, the Windspark poem and the “What if…I might” form. Windspark The first form, the Windspark poem consists of five lines, each with a required format, and the first line you don’t even have to write, it is “I dreamed.” Line 1: I dreamed Line 2: I was _____________ (fill in the blank with a one-line subject) Line 3: Where/Location (keep this line brief) Line 4: Show action (an ing verb, plus a few more words to describe the action) Line 5: An adverb (use ONE word that ends in ly I dreamed I was the river Seine Beneath bridges Flowing through the heart of Paris Endlessly “What if” and “I might” Our second poem form is a seven-line fill-in-the-blank format with “What if” and “I might” forming three two-line stanzas (with a blank line between each stanza), with the seventh line asking a question. All you have to do is fill in the blanks. Your topic can be thoughtful, serious, silly, adventurous, or whimsical — you decide. No rhyming is required unless you want to add it. This is the outline for the poem with an example following. What if . . . I might Poem Outline Line 1: What if ______________________________________________________ Line 2: I might ______________________________________________________ Line 3: What if ______________________________________________________ Line 4: I might ______________________________________________________ Line 5: What if ______________________________________________________ Line 6: I might ______________________________________________________ Line 7: Ask a question. What if . . . I might . . . Poem Examples Desert Jasmine What if walked away into the desert unprepared? I might get extremely thirsty and dehydrated. What if I began to hallucinate? I might think I am walking toward an evergreen oasis. What if my hallucination was actually really, really there? I might quench my thirst with a mimosa while sitting next to the scent of jasmine on the breeze. Why doesn’t everyone walk into the desert unprepared? We hope you have time to write some poems this month. What about Rochester, MN inspires you? Make it the topic of a poem. Thanks for being a part of our apartment community.

Plan a Picnic in May

Summertime is the perfect time of year for a picnic in the park. Take some time soon to carve out an evening at a local Rochester, MN area park and enjoy eating alfresco. Today the 501 on First Blog has some tips on what to eat for a picnic for members of our apartment community. A picnic can be as simple as picking up a loaf of French bread, a package of sliced cheese, a cluster of grapes, and your favorite beverage at the grocery store on your way home — no utensils needed. There is something rather fun and freeing about ripping chunks of bread directly off the loaf, after all. For something a little more proper, check out these themed picnic ideas. Austen Inspired Go all out and indulge in a Jane Austen-inspired picnic, complete with a tablecloth and tea service. If the idea intrigues you, you’re not alone. Read how Anika Mehta pulled it off: How to Have a Regency Tea Party Picnic , in her blog, Hello Giggles . Bite from the Past is the perfect place to find suitable picnic food for your outing. Teddy Bear Picnic For the younger crowd, bringing along a teddy bear makes the picnic! Keep the food simple with cheese, crackers, and bite-size pieces of fruit or vegetables. Lemonade adds a nice touch to this picnic. Be sure to include dessert, berries and cream, come to mind! For more inspiration, check out Pizzazzerie’s Teddy Bear Picnic Party ideas. Italian — A Taste of the Mediterranean What’s more Italian than pasta? Build your picnic around a pasta salad, be sure to bring along some freshly grated Parmesan to sprinkle on top. Add some olives —definitely Italian with many varieties to choose from — a cheese board , and a meat board. We suggest using cured meats such as prosciutto, speck, and salami. A nice loaf of ciabatta or focaccia bread adds a hearty touch to your Italian picnic. End with the classic, cannoli , for dessert — pastry and cheese never tasted so good. Bon appetit! What is your favorite food to take on a picnic? Where do you like to go for a picnic? Please share in the comments so we can all enjoy new foods and places to visit.

Celebrating National Scrabble Day

April 13th is National Scrabble Day, so get together with a bunch of friends and hold a Scrabble tournament your apartment or in the Community Room at 501 on First. Today in our post, we will give you a rundown on the game and some tips for playing too, but first the basics. You can read the full History of Scrabble here, but in a nutshell, ”Alfred Mosher Butts, an out-of-work architect from Poughkeepsie, New York, decided to invent a board game. Analyzing games, he found they fell into three categories: number games, such as dice and bingo; move games, such as chess and checkers; and word games, such as anagrams. Attempting to create a game that would use both chance and skill, Butts combined features of anagrams and the crossword puzzle.” Scrabble is played by two to four players on a square board; using lettered tiles, players create words crossword-puzzle style. The Scrabble board is marked with premium squares where point values are doubled and tripled. A dictionary is chosen beforehand to arbitrate challenges to words spelled. Some Interesting Facts About Scrabble: The game was initially called LEXIKO,and later on the name was changed to CRISS CROSS WORDS. In 1948 the name was changed to SCRABBLE, which is a real word that means “to grope frantically.” Over one-hundred million sets of Scrabble have been sold worldwide. Between one and two million are sold in the United States alone. The official dictionary allows over 120,000 words that may be used in playing Scrabble.. Scrabble is found in one of every three American homes. Scrabble is available in various formats, including Junior, Standard, Deluxe, Travel, Spanish, and French editions. Every year, a National SCRABBLE® Championship is held in a major US city. In addition, the National SCRABBLE® Association sanctions over 180 tournaments and more than 200 clubs in the US and Canada. There is a Tabletop Gaming Meetup in Rochester, MN with 772 members, check it out, and maybe plan an evening playing Scrabble or another board game. When was the last time you played Scrabble? If you’ve never played, challenge someone to a game soon!

Celebrating March Holidays at 501 on First

Along with springtime, March brings celebrations in its wake. St. Patrick’s Day, Johnny Appleseed Day, and Pi Day are all observed in March, and we’ve got some recipes to help you celebrate at your apartment here at 501 on First in Rochester, MN. So break out your green, shamrocks, try one of these apple-based dessert and pie recipes, and don’t forget to celebrate the first day of spring! We have some ideas to get your imagination going. Johnny Appleseed Day — Choose the day you want to celebrate, March 11th or September 26th. It’s a toss-up according to those who care — some call for celebration on his birthday, September 26th, and some on his alleged death date, March 11th. Whichever day you celebrate, raise a glass of cider in his honor. John Chapman was the real-life Johnny Appleseed who lived in the American midwest. He was an eccentric frontier man who made it his life’s work to establish orchards throughout the area. Nova, Ohio is home to a 176-year-old apple tree, the last known to be planted by Johnny Appleseed himself. It grows tart green apples, which are now used for applesauce and baking in addition to cider making. And, because we’ve been talking about apples, we’ll also share this link to more than four dozen apple pie recipes . Pi Day — The talk of apple pie recipes brings up another March celebration, Pi Day , which happens on 3.14 (March 14th). To help you celebrate, we’ve got some pie recipes that are perfectly suitable for celebrating the day. Let the pi/pie puns begin. In fact, we’ll get it started with a riddle. Who was the roundest knight at King Arthur’s table? Sir Cumference. He ate too much pi. Pizza Pie : this recipe features step-by-step directions and pictures so you can create the perfect pizza. Top with pepperoni in the pi symbol, and you’ll be ready for a pi party. Triple Berry Pie is a favorite for many. The blogger of this recipe says this pie is perfect for any time you crave a fruity pie, whether it’s a holiday dedicated to pie or not! It has less sugar than most berry pies, she says, so it’s not overly sweet. If you love the sweet, tart taste of berries in a flaky, buttery crust, you’re in for a treat once you make this pie! To be extra fancy, make a lattice top following the directions from this tutorial: How to Make a Lattice Top for a Pie Crust . St. Patrick’s Day — Celebrated all over the world on March 17th, St. Patrick’s Day is observed in the United States with parades, green fountains, wearin’ of the green, eating Irish foods, and drinking green beer. We’ve rounded up some excellent Irish food recipes for you to try, plus we checked in with Yelp to suggest some local places to get a pint in the Rochester, MN area . Irish Soda Bread , a recipe direct from the Society for the Preservation of Irish Soda Bread, is the real deal, and this website has a multitude of other Irish dishes to try . Whichever holidays you celebrate this spring, we’d love to hear about it. Please feel free to share your favorite March holiday traditions in the comment section!

Throw an Anti-Valentine's Day Party!

If you’re not a fan of all the fuss and lovey-dovey-ness of Valentine’s Day then this post is for you! The 501 on First Blog is sharing some ideas for throwing an awesome Anti-Valentine’s Day party at your apartment here in Rochester, MN. Read on to get a few ideas. Invitations Spread the word about your anti-Valentine’s Day party to all of your close friends with one of these tasteful invitations from Zazzle or make your own! Music Every party needs music. We stumbled upon this Anti-Valentine’s Playlist on Bustle that would be perfect for any anti-Valentine’s party! Check it out to get some ideas to make your own! Decorations Cut up some flowers or display some dead ones in a vase to set the mood. Cut out some broken hearts from construction paper and hang them up around your apartment. Get a heart-shaped pinata to smash or make your own Broken Heart Valentine’s Day Pinata . You can even order some personalized candy hearts from Necco with mean or sarcastic sayings on them instead of the cutesy ones. You can also get a fitting anti-Valentine’s Day banner from Etsy or just make your own. Food A party is never complete without food, even an anti-Valentine’s Day party. Here are a few recipe ideas. Impaled Heart Cupcakes On a list of hilarious anti-Valentine’s day treats from Wonder How To , these cupcakes were number two on the list. You will need homemade or store-bought chocolate cupcakes and frosting, store-bought chocolate hearts, and some small cocktail swords or sword-shaped toothpicks . Conversation Heart Cookies Sugar cookies transform into conversation heart with this recipe from Cupcake Diaries . Make the messages on your cookies say things like “love stinks” or “call me never” to fit with the theme of your party. ‘Shot Through The Heart’ Meatball Skewers Form heart-shaped meatballs and stab toothpicks through them to get your point across and add to the theme of your party. Ingredients needed include the following: ground lamb or ground turkey, Italian seasoned breadcrumbs, parsley, Italian seasoning, egg, onion, garlic, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. We hope you got a few ideas from this post to help you throw the best Anti-Valentine’s Day party yet. Feel free to share any additional ideas with us in the comments. Thanks for reading and have a great month!

Games to Play With Friends at Your Rochester Apartment

Escape from post-holiday letdown in January by inviting friends over to your apartment here in Rochester, MN for a game night. We’ve rounded up a variety of games that are perfect for a game night at your apartment which take little or no equipment, yet provide hours of fun. Play one of these group games from today’s 501 on First Blog over your next unplanned weekend in January. Spoons Spoons is an interactive, quick, and competitive game. The goal of the game is to get four cards of a kind using face cards. Each player holds four cards in their hand, passing one card they want to discard to the player on their left. When a player gets four of a kind, they grab a spoon that is laid out in the center of the table. Everyone can then grab a spoon, regardless of their hand. There will be one less spoon than there are people playing. Whoever is too slow and doesn’t get a spoon is out. The game continues until there’s one winner. Two Truths and a Lie This is a classic game that’s great for a new or old group of friends. For this game, each person comes up with two truths and a lie about something that has happened to them or something about themselves. You’ll then go around the room and people will take turns sharing their two truths and a lie. Players will guess which information is true and which is the lie. You can just play this as an activity or you can tally points and the winner will be the one who guesses the most correct. Mafia For this game, you’ll need a deck of cards or pieces of paper that have character names written on them. There are many variations of this game , but essentially each player will be given a roll throughout the game. There will be at least two mafia members, two detectives, a doctor, and townspeople or “the Innocents”. A moderator will lead the game. It’s a fun and suspenseful game that requires some good detective skills. Likes and Dislikes This is a good get-to-know-you game. For Likes and Dislikes, each player will get an index card and a pen. You’ll then write down five things you like and five things you don’t like on the card. The reader will then read what is written on the index cards. Everyone then guesses who wrote it. If you know the other players in the group very well, try only doing two or maybe three “likes and dislikes” to make it more challenging. What’s your favorite group game? Share it with us in the comments below!