Blog Posts

Capitalizing on Storage Space at Windsong Place Apartments

Windsong Place Apartments brings a lot of amenities to the table, including walk-in closets in our apartments. We also offer additional storage units for our residents, so storage is very doable here. However, we all know there comes a time when downsizing our stuff makes sense. So today we have some tips about just how to do that to make more room for the things you love in your Williamsville, NY apartment. Mindset While you may not want to join the minimalist lifestyle, there are some key elements that can be beneficial for anyone to adopt. One of those ideas is that living with less simplifies your life and helps you to focus on the things that are truly important. Our attention gets pulled many different ways, and minimalism seeks to reduce that amount. One way to reduce the mental stress is to reduce clutter in our lives. Many minimalists believe their life is less stressful and more free to do the things they’ve wanted to. So take a page from the minimalist book and take full advantage of the storage and living space Windsong Place Apartments offers. Practical Applications Use the STEP (Store, Throw away, Eliminate, Put away) method for sorting through your belongs as you tackle reducing what is in your apartment. Store away. This is where our storage units are helpful. Store things here that you want to keep but only use periodically. Throw away. If it’s ruined, if it has missing parts, or if it’s broken, toss it. Eliminate. Give the item a new home with a friend who can use it. Or donate it to a second-hand store or a shelter. Put away. For everything else, create a home for it and put it there. Going Forward Maintain your progress. Hold yourself accountable by choosing a day or series of days in which you’ll work to minimize and organize the clutter and excess in your life. Give yourself a timeline for when you want to be finished with your initial purge of stuff you don’t need or love. If you work better by having someone else hold you accountable, ask a friend for help going through your things and have them follow up with you when you’re on your own later. What are your best tips for organizing and downsizing? Let us know in the comments so everyone in our apartment community can benefit. We hope you take a weekend (or two) in September to do some downsizing. We appreciate the good care you take of your apartment!

Better Breakfast Month at Windsong Place

Welcome back to the Windsong Place Apartments Blog! Today we want to celebrate a unique month-long holiday everyone can get on board with Better Breakfast Month! Breakfast often goes forgotten or rushed, or even packed with excess sugar. Today we want to help you start your days off right. Try these four recipes and get inspired for treating yourself to a month of better breakfasts here in Williamsville, NY! Broiled Grapefruit with Honey and Bananas If you never thought you could transform that bitter grapefruit into something amazing, then this is the recipe to prove you wrong. Just a little bit of cinnamon and honey, plus bananas, to take plain grapefruit to a whole new level of healthy breakfasts. You might not go back to plain grapefruit ever again. Italian Baked Eggs With just a five-minute prep time and ten-minute cook time, this recipe will have you never skipping breakfast again. It’s super easy, too: all you have to do is throw marinara sauce into a small dish (the author uses two 10-ounce ramekins), top with eggs, milk, cheese, and salt and pepper to taste. Then bake and help yourself! We love the suggestion of dipping bread in it, too. Healthy Pineapple Smoothie with Banana With only five ingredients, you can make a healthy, vegan smoothie recipe that anyone is sure to love. Just use fresh cut pineapple, banana, carrots, orange juice, and water for a smoothie that looks like sunshine! The sweet and tangy flavors of orange, pineapple, and banana balance out the healthier carrot taste, so it’s a good way to drink something healthy yet tasty for breakfast. Avocado Toast with Pomegranate Salsa This toast looks like a party you won’t regret making some time for. Make the flavorful pomegranate salsa with pomegranate arils (which you can buy alone or get from a pomegranate), mint, parsley, balsamic vinegar, orange zest and orange juice, diced jalapeno, minced shallot, and a bit of sea salt. Once that’s mixed and your avocado spread is prepared, you can put it all together and top with some crumbly and tasty goat cheese. Of course, if you’re not a fan of avocados or even the idea of a pomegranate salsa, check out these 10 delicious reasons (toast alternatives) to break up with avocado toast . What are your favorite breakfasts, healthy or not? What are your favorite hacks for making a good morning meal? Share with the rest of us in our apartment community so we can try them out. Thanks for reading. Enjoy!

Playground Etiquette at Windsong Place Apartments

We know our residents here at Windsong Place Apartments appreciate the amenities we provide, and we are happy we are able to add amenities that bring a whole, new well-rounded meaning to apartment living here in Williamsville, NY. Those amenities include our kids activity zone playground and toddler playground. Read today’s blog to remind yourself and any little ones you’re bringing to the playground of important tips for staying safe. Watch your kids. You don’t have to be watching your kid like a hawk to ensure their safety. It’s probably a bit too unrealistic to expect that of yourself, or to even be able to constantly prevent any bad thing from happening to a child you’re caring for. But stay aware of the situation and be ready to respond and intervene when necessary. Socialize with other adults if you get bored or, better yet, help your child play. It can be a great bonding opportunity. Be prepared. Know your child and what they need, and know what accidents you should prepare for so you can be confident that you’re ready to handle any mishaps that occur. Keep packed a bag of emergency supplies and a trash bag for incidents, and any snacks you or your child love and water for refueling. Encourage positive behaviors. Just as accidents are common in play areas, so too are tiffs among children. Teach your kids to share playground equipment, to patiently wait their turn, and to respect others. A lot of this will obviously be taught elsewhere, but it’s always important to remind kids too. Encouraging healthy habits empowers children to act responsibly and deescalates possibly tense situations. Spending time at the playground is all about the fun! Take time to engage with your child; immerse yourself in an imaginative game, push the swing, help your child be adventurous, take some cute pictures to share. Thanks for being an awesome member of our community

Keeping Your Cool When Temperatures Soar in WNY

At Windsong Place Apartments, we believe that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is one of the best ways to create a happy lifestyle. Taking care of yourself in the summer heat is an important part of staying healthy. This week, we hope you follow these suggestions for keeping your cool when Western New York temperatures soar and you must be out and about in Williamsville this month. Hydrate Drinking lots of water has many benefits for your health, but one large reason to hydrate during the summer is so you can cool down. Filling your body with cooling fluids is a great way to reduce your body temperature and keep it cool. Your body has an internal temperature gauge that triggers body functions like sweating. Sweating uses water, so it’s important to keep that tank filled up so your body can cool itself down! Ice your pulses. Greatist encourages you to “ pamper your pulses ” if you need to cool down fast. Invest in a few ice packs if you get hot easily and apply them to your pulse areas to decrease your body temperature and relax the heart rate quickly. Change your sheets. Having your sleep area clean, fresh, and ready for a cool night is important, especially if your body tends to heat up easily! Change your thicker flannel sheets for those that help wick away sweat. Cooler sheets like linen, organic cotton, or even bamboo sheets can help you stay cool because they are breathable and soft. Wear a Hat. Keeping the sun’s rays away will reduce your chance of getting a sunburn (which translates into being overheated). Make sure you wear sunscreen too. Hit the Pool What better way to cool off than by soaking yourself with water? Spending a day at the pool on a sweltering day is a good way to stave off the heat. Head on over to our saltwater pool, just one of the amenities we provide for members of our apartment community. Make sure you prepare for a day at the pool by packing sunscreen, the right clothes, and an emergency first-aid kid (just in case). Do you have good ways to beat the heat? We’d love to hear about it, so leave us a comment below! Thanks for taking the time to read our blog!

Start a Book Club in July

In this edition, the Windsong Place Apartment Homes Blog has a few tips to help you start your own book club. It’s a great way to spend time with friends, enjoy good food, and discuss books you may not have read otherwise. Gather your friends, choose a date, and start your own book club here in Williamsville, NY this month. Create & Organize The most important thing to keep in mind when you’re starting your book club is when and where you will be holding your meetings. Have each member of your book club vote on the best time and day to meet each month. Google Forms are a great way to create a survey to help you determine just when you should be meeting. Your Windsong Place apartment is perfect for smaller groups. For a larger group, schedule our clubhouse to meet in. Stay organized by establishing an email list, a Facebook page, or other means of announcing books and meetings. Choose Books Also, remember to consult the members of your group when choosing which book to read. We think that having your friends nominate books and vote on what to read is an awesome way to choose which books to read each month. Make sure your books are short enough for group members to finish and meaty enough to talk about for at least twenty minutes. For fun, rate your book each month and see how it fares. Keep track on a Google Sheet that everyone can access. Add Food Food is an integral part of many book groups. It is a social activity after all. Organize a signup sheet for food, because talking about books and eating certainly go together. Remember to include both savory, sweet, and healthy options when it comes to eats. Bookish , Penguin , and Real Simple have some great ideas to help you start your club; however, if setting up a book club doesn’t appeal to you, there’s another option. Join the Village Book Club , it meets at the Williamsville Branch of the Buffalo & Erie County Public Library on Thursday evenings. We hope you enjoyed our post this time. Visit us again to read about some books you may want to read this summer.

Summer-Themed Books to Read in July

At Windsong Place Apartments, we’re excited that we have so many amenities for members of our apartment community to enjoy. This month, we want to invite you to check out our DVD Lending Library for any movies based on books you may have read. We have a nice selection of DVDs for you to enjoy. In today’s post, we’re sharing some summer-themed books you may want to read this month (with reviews from Goodreads ). We hope you are enjoying the summer here in Williamsville! Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene “Minutes before the train pulled into the station in Jenkinsville, Arkansas, Patty Bergen knew something exciting was going to happen. But she never could have imagined that her summer would be so memorable. German prisoners of war have arrived to make their new home in the prison camp in Jenkinsville. To the rest of her town, these prisoners are only Nazis. But to Patty, a young Jewish girl with a turbulent home life, one boy, in particular, becomes an unlikely friend.” Twelve Angry Men by Reginald Rose “A blistering character study and an examination of the American melting pot and the judicial system that keeps it in check, Twelve Angry Men holds at its core a deeply patriotic faith in the U.S. legal system. The play centers on Juror Eight, who is at first the sole holdout in an 11-1 guilty vote. Eight sets his sights not on proving the other jurors wrong but rather on getting them to look at the situation in a clear-eyed way not affected by their personal prejudices or biases. Reginald Rose deliberately and carefully peels away the layers of artifice from the men and allows a fuller picture to form of them—and of America, at its best and worst.” Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter “The story begins in 1962. On a rocky patch of the sun-drenched Italian coastline, a young innkeeper, chest-deep in daydreams, looks out over the incandescent waters of the Ligurian Sea and spies an apparition: a tall, thin woman, a vision in white, approaching him on a boat. She is an actress, he soon learns, an American starlet, and she is dying.” We couldn’t do a summer-themed reading list and not include A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which is set in New York. It’s a poignant coming of age story focusing on a second-generation Irish-American girl and her family set in the early 1900s, but its message spans the century. We hope you enjoy one of these summer-themed books this month! For additional titles to read, check out our post from last summer featuring summer reading ideas . We hope you enjoy reading a book! Thanks for stopping by the blog.