Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Healthiness

I recently attended a self defense class with some of my coworker friends. As if I didn’t feel cocky enough before, I’m super confident in my ass kicking abilities now! Or at least I WAS...more on that in a sec. You spend two hours with an instructor who teaches you all about how to hit and kick different ways, where to hit (I always knew that throat punch threat was viable!), and how to get out of certain situations. You even get to practice hitting people (who are holding targets, of course. I’m not sure why everyone wanted to take a crack at me.... 🙄). So by the end, you’re totally pumped and ready to drop the first person who enters your proverbial bubble. I even texted Philip and said, “You better be ready to fight when I get home!” 😂. I was 1000% sure I was going to be able to throw him off of me using the arm thrust, hip buck technique. Turns out, without the threat of actual harm, and therefore, gobs of adrenaline, I don’t have superhuman strength. I couldn’t throw him off without resorting to head butting or biting. I’m not above either of those but I decided to play nice. I’m not completely discouraged because in the event of an actual emergency I believe I would fight much harder (and way unfair). The instructor suggested carrying a weapon and I’m considering some options. I should take after my grandma and carry “the kitchen sink” for a purse. That thing would’ve knocked someone out. I could just swing it around like a lasso, like something in a movie. I never did know what she carried in that thing to make it so heavy but if you ever needed something, she definitely had whatever it was. Need some gum? Yep, she had it. A tissue? Sure thing. How about a hair brush? Uh huh. Can of hairspray? It’s likely. A small child? I wouldnt rule it out. See? That’s why we called it the kitchen sink, as in everything but the...  

Anyway, if you’ve never taken a self defense class I highly recommend it. It’s empowering to know that if you were ever in a bad situation, you could maybe help keep yourself safe. 

How about this weather?! Today was great, even if my yard is a mud slick. We took advantage of the warm temps and went for a bike ride. However, there was a pretty strong northbound wind and when on a bike: wind is not your friend. The ride down was a bit rough but coming back was a breeze. Not literally though..with the wind at your back there is no breeze and it gets pretty hot. The bike trail has a bike rack in an unusual spot. There’s a trash can but no bench anywhere close so I suppose you can park your bike and sit on the ground? Anyway, there’s a bike in the rack and I’m not sure who it belongs to but I think they’ve been missing it for a while now. They didn’t lock it up so I hope it doesn’t get stolen 😜.  

This had been laying in a patch of weeds for quite some time before some funny person decided to give it a home in a proper spot. I really don’t know whose it is or who did this but I appreciate their humor 🙃. 

I’m participating in a 30 day Ab Challenge with some peeps at the gym. We’re on day 8 and already feeling some results in core tightness. There are 6 of us doing it together. I’m not sure why knowing other people are suffering too makes it easier to get through it, but it does! I’ve included the challenge below, if anyone would like to join in! 😊 I know most of you have probably seen my video on FB of me doing the paper challenge but if you haven’t seen mine or someone else’s, google it and give it a try too! 😂

Sansa got some exercise today, too. This is her sitting by her “necklace” that she wears when we go for a W-A-L-K. You can’t say that word out loud unless you want to incite a riot. She just decides sometimes that it’s “time” and sits there and waits. Doesn’t matter if it’s raining or snowing, or is 1000 degrees out. She’s so unreasonable 🙄🙄. 

She was a muddy mess when we got back today and getting a bucket bath (or any kind of bath for that matter) is not her favorite thing to do. I had her chained out outside while trying to wipe her dirty stomach and she started rolling in the wet, yucky grass 🙄🙄. I’m pretty sure she picked the spot she did because a rabbit was sitting there when we went out this morning. Why she wants to smell like rabbit, I don’t know. I bet it’s so she can insert herself into their habitat unnoticed. You all know how much she likes hunting rabbit. That may be a brilliant plan and I ruined it with a bucket of Dawn soapy water 🤷🏻‍♀️. Oh well. She’ll have to settle for the toy rabbits we got her. It took her a few minutes to catch on to pulling them out of the carrot holes and not just trying to rip the carrot to pieces. I’m having her practice..garden season is almost here!! 😂😂

Sansa says, “Mom, turn out the light! 😂.”  Good night everyone! 

Hobby Happenings

Happy Pot Hole Season! We got a flier in the mail today for National Tire & Battery and they’re offering $10 off a regular price alignment service, if anyone is interested🤷🏻‍♀️. If they were smart, they wouldn’t offer discounts on those services this time of year because people will inevitably be forced to get them done anyway. It’s like during Thanksgiving week when stores have a sale on Stove Top and pumpkin puree. People are already emptying the shelves of that stuff anyway. If you’re smart, you put your pumpkin on sale in July or August, no one is thinking about pumpkin spice lattes then! 

Anyway, I know it’s a weird day and time for a post but I missed last week because I had the dreaded stomach flu and spent three days on the couch, doing nothing, and that, for me, is almost as bad as being sick. Almost. If you haven’t gotten it, carry around a can of lysol and spray everyone and everything you come into contact with. I promise you don’t want it.

I have an update on my last post. I made the mermaid craft with my nieces and we worked on mermaids for all of 90 minutes. Haleigh, the oldest, was a little skeptical about making mermaids. She was like, “I don’t really like mermaids,” when I told her what we were doing so I thought she would was just going to go to her room, as per her usual pre-teen routine. She surprised me and stayed to help her sister and baby brother make theirs. Kate was my target audience, and as was expected, she was all about making mermaids. She was hell bent on getting to use the hot glue gun and I held her off for the majority of the time because it’s a high temp one, but she eventually made her way over and just kind of butted her little self in and took over. I made her promise she would be SUPER careful and she was. Hot glue gets stringy when you pull it away and she laughed and remarked that they were “stuck-together maids.” 😂When she drew the faces on she made all of her dolls have O shaped mouths and she said they’re all saying “Ohhh,” (like you would while watching fireworks 😯) . That kid makes me laugh! After making six dolls, she decided she needed a seventh one and that it needed braided hair. Yeah, ok, Kate, no problem, I’ll just bust that right out for you 🙄. I was already doing the hair cutting and gluing, tail tracing and cutting, and helping with the washi tape dresses. Haleigh was a big help and even though she’s sometimes too cool for the crafts we do, I love spending the time doing them with her and all the kids 💗. This, obviously, was not something Coen was interested in doing though lol. Link wanted to make one so Haleigh asked him to choose the tape and hair and fin colors and put his together for him. And just when I thought we were done with the mermaid making business, they needed hair bows! So then I was onto hair bow drawing. Kate did an impressive copy of my design but struggled with cutting it out since it was so small. To top it all off, she then decided they needed magnets to hang on the fridge, because of course they did. And all of this is why it took 90 mins to create eleven mermaid clothespin dolls. I love their creativity!

My other Hobby Happening is also a Passion for Repurpose project. I have several wine corks that I cut in half for a trivet project I started a while back but I ended up not liking it. You may not know this but cutting wine corks evenly isn’t all that easy and so my trivet was not level. This would not have affected it’s performance but I think you all know me well enough by now to know that a crooked trivet could not live in my house. So I dismantled it and now I have cork halves sitting in my craft, crying because they don’t have a meaning in life. It’s a very sad thing. I had to help them. I found this (similar) project on Pinterest and recreated it:

Wine Cork Pendant Necklaces

I still had to cut pieces off, which were not even..and it drove me crazy..until I got the idea to sand them, and that worked pretty well. I covered the front in washi tape and sealed it with Mod Podge and then screwed in an eye bolt. The necklace strings came from the Wish app. I think they turned out nicely. 

I also worked on a couple other necklaces with some new materials I got. I made the wire wrapped purple gemstone compass from an idea I saw on the Wish app. That app is funny because it asks you if you would like to include a link when you take a screenshot of their product, presumably to send to someone. No thanks, I’m just going to borrow your idea😏. 

The lighting in my house totally sucks. 

I recently got some lava rocks so I’m trying to incorporate them into my necklace designs. That’s what the three down the middle are.  They are absorbent so essential oils go on them nicely. I’m waiting for colored ones to come and then I’ll really have some fun designing!😁😁🤪

It is February now so I wanted to include a quick update about my goals for this year, but the nightly Sansa sign-off goes hand in hand with it. Remember how I said I needed to make attainable goals, like remembering to open the vertical blinds so they don’t get murdered? Well I’m about 0 for 10 with that one. Luckily, my schedule has changed a bit so Philip will now be responsible for that because this is what happened the last time I was the last to leave:

😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

She was SO EXCITED when I got home. She came running and sat amidst her mess, wagging her butt uncontrollably, as if she was proud of her work. Like, “Look, mom, this blind slat was a danger but I SAVED you from it!” There were also pieces by her bed in the living room so she had more than one go round with it.  The worst part is that I’m one of THOSE parents who gave her positive reinforcement by taking pics instead of telling her she was a bad girl. That wouldn’t have done any good after the fact anyway but it seems better than letting her sit and smile at me! You can even see her tail is a blur from all the wagging. She’s lucky I love her! She’s been a character this week. I found a pair of Uggs on sale for $46 last week (total score!) and they came in the mail the other day (I know you think Uggs are ugly and I don’t care. I love them) so I asked Philip to take a pic of them on my feet to send to Marsha Margarita (she makes up middle names for everyone so I’ve decided this is hers). Well, as you can see, someone wouldn’t stay out of the way and the resulting pic is pretty hilarious. It’s as if she intentionally tried to upstage me. She wins, I guess. 

That’s all for now! Stay tuned for a yoga update soon 😉. Good night!!