My early room decorating days

On my social media newsfeed over the past few days I have been seeing a lot of posts from my friends who had moved their sons and daughters to their new university digs.

It made me think back (way back) to my university years – particularly my first year when I moved into residence at Mount Saint Vincent University, where I had studied Public Relations before changing direction two years later to journalism.

I kid you not, I went to university with a trunk load of stuffed animals.

I was 18 years old but felt the need to bring along teddy bears and my collection of stuffed pink flamingos with me to decorate my dorm room. Bizarre.

I was actually very much into flamingos back then. (Imagine my delight when my husband and son visited the Moncton Zoo last month and there were real flamingos there! I didn’t want to leave.)

In addition to the flamingos I had this green and white comforter that back then I thought was lovely but in hindsight was quite ugly.

At least my stuffed animal collection provided a distraction from the other décor in my room.

I see some of the girls now setting up their rooms and their rooms are so pretty and unique and hip and I think to myself, “Really Tina? Stuffed animals?”

Back in those days, things at the Mount were quite strict as far as the residences went. The Sisters of Charity were very involved with the university. One of the rules was that we were not allowed to have any males in the female residences, unless it was our dad.

I don’t even think brothers were allowed.

I can remember many times being in my room on the seventh floor of Assisi Hall when an announcement would come over the loud speaker, “Attention 7th floor. Attention 7th floor. There is a man coming to your floor! There is a man coming to your floor!”

Sometimes we’d spring to the hall outside the elevator with our cameras and take photos of this rogue man whenever he would step off of the elevator. Whether it was a maintenance worker or a dad, they always seemed to get a chuckle out of that.

Other times the girls would bring empty suitcases down the stairwell and pretend they were full and ask if their boyfriend, or any friend who was a male, could help them carry their “heavy” luggage to their room.

I did that once so I could show a chum from high school my room. I was so scared of getting caught that I’m pretty sure I give him a 45-second tour of the room before saying, “You’ve got to get out of here!”

And so, you can just imagine my shock and surprise when I learned that now not only can guys be in the residences at MSVU, but some of the bathrooms are co-ed.

My how times have changed. Things have also changed in our household.

My older son Jacob who has been lobster fishing with his dad since graduating from high school is returning to school and will be studying Radio and Television Journalism at the NSCC’s Ivany campus in Dartmouth.

He was on a waiting list for two months and we only got the word last Wednesday that he was in. It didn’t leave a lot of time for apartment hunting, although we had been scouring the Kijiji site for months. He needed something pet friendly for his dog and close to the campus, because of his dog.

I always imagined when my kids went looking for a residence outside of our house that I would be tagging along. But he went apartment viewing last Friday and not only we were short staffed due to a staff vacation, but it was a production day, so I could only share in the experience via texts and phone calls.

At one point of the process it occurred to me, that he was living my dream. He was in, so to speak, an episode of House Hunters, one of my favourite HGTV shows. I texted him to tell him how jealous I was.

Of course I’ve helped him out by buying things for his apartment – kitchen stuff, bedsheets, towels, etc.

Oddly, he didn’t ask for a collection of stuffed animals.

After all, that was so 1987.

Kristy Herron’s column was not available at our press deadline.