Doing What I Want

Well, I found out last night that the Spring Back Your Body Challenge is actually coming to an end here soon.  For some reason, I thought it was for 12 weeks or something.  That's what happens when I am indecisive about jumping on a bandwagon. Maybe it was just 4 weeks.

This challenge is over for me regardless.  I genuinely enjoy being active.  I love to work out.  I love pushing my body to its limits, building muscle and endurance.  But I don't like being competitive when it comes to my body image.  I don't like feeling under pressure when it comes to working out, like I have deadlines and expectations to meet. 

When I was a kid, growing up, my father would always complain that I would only do what I wanted to.  I didn't do things I didn't want to.  There has to be some sort of personal investment, gain, enjoyment, or I wasn't having it!  Well, Daddy, NOTHING HAS CHANGED!

For about 9 days, my life was: 5am wake up, workout, 6-7:15 gym workout.  Walk at least 2-3 miles at some point in the afternoon with my Little Darling and Kiki.  Eat bland ass, low cal shit all day that left me HANGRY. And grumpily sit around all day because I was exhausted from working out, early rising, late nights, lack of food, and allergies.

Yea... No. In my Whitney Houston voice, "Aww, Hell-to-the-Naw!"

So last night, it all hit me.  Everything became overwhelming and I found myself praying, while on the toilet.  Yes, I am at peace in the bathroom, so that's when I pray, read, and check Instagram.  What can I say?  I'm a Busy Mama!!  Anyway, I prayed for guidance.  Although I saw noticeable changes physically in this past week, I was not feeling every happy.  And when I looked at my life, I realized that I am overwhelmed, stressed, exhausted, and irritable.  I had so little to show for how hard I was working.

Well, I think my prayer was answered in those quiet moments. I have been working hard, but only in one aspect of my life.  I have never been good with balance and creating serenity in the midst of chaos.  I have never been good at throwing a big change in the middle of my routine either.  Getting up before the sun for 2 hours of working out straight off the bat each day and trying to happily function was No Bueno!

My apartment looks like a chaotic, frantic war zone.  Nothing makes sense, as though a bomb exploded and threw everything all over.  I've got equally large piles of clean, dirty, and "to iron" clothes.  I have no clean dishes.  Yea. None.  You wanna eat?  Locate dish, wash, proceed.  In the process of trying to find time to be creative, I have turned our dining room into an explosion of the cluster-fuck variety with seventy-eleven craft happenings.......that just aren't really happening.  We don't eat there.  Hell, I haven't cooked anyway!  We have eaten out so much in the past week, which yes, completely undoes all my efforts in the gym.  But I am hot and tired by nightfall and I don't care anymore.

So today, after really praying about it, I chose to do ONLY things that I want to do and things that make me happy.

I woke up super early, 5am, still. But rather than working out, I took some time to pray and sketch.  I sipped some tea until I was awake enough to get some work done on projects that were hidden under mess.  Then, I woke up my Little Darling and we did some gardening.

 The Hubs and I try to grow our food as much as possible in the summer.  This year, we even tried our hand at making our own planter box, which is cheaper than buying a bunch of pots.

 We have spinach, broccoli, loads of strawberries and tomatoes, sweet peppers, parsley, cilantro, basil, kale and I got some cucumbers last night.

It's true... I shouldn't take pictures of myself, first thing in the morning...with no make up... before the sun is fully shining.  But, what the hell, right?  The gate is for squirrels and birds because we live near a tree and they chomp on our produce all summer!

Since we are not "For Serious" gardeners, so we bought gardening toys.  And they happen to work excellently!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Barbie Princess helped me to plant these cucumbers this morning!  And they are safe for my Little Darling to use as well.

After gardening, we had breakfast and started homeschool lessons.  I worked on cleaning.  I'm shocked at how much more energy I have, when I start an early morning with things that bring me peace of mind rather than a work out.

Then, we took a break and went to the local bakery.  We are friends with everyone who works there.  I am not sure if that's necessarily a good thing, but it is what it is.  They know us and we spend time talking, whenever we go, which I am afraid to admit is usually daily.  Without feeling bad about myself, I ate a giant cookie!  I couldn't eat the second one.  A week with hardly any sweets made that one cookie hard to handle, but I wanted it and I enjoyed it.

And then we just walked around, checking out what new nature has been sprouting in this late spring season.  I cannot wrap my head around the fact that May is quickly approaching and we can barely break the 50s in the mornings here.  The evenings are far more pleasant in temperature, but I am extremely grateful for the SUN and the NATURE regardless of the temp.

I love being outside.  I love witnessing the miracles of spring.  I mean, everything wilts, loses it's leaves, and freezes over each year.  It's a miracle to me that every spring we can be reassured that all this beauty returns.  I can't bring myself to ever take it for granted.

I love the leaves that are just now coming in on the trees...

 

I love the leaves on this tree below...  They are just now coming in and they are so small. The leaves actually are larger than my head!  I haven't noticed them in time to see them sprout in the past.  I just assumed that they showed up, large and in charge, at the beginning of each spring.  I'm reminded that everything starts somewhere, as something small.  And that with time and nourishment, it can grow into something wonderful and magnificent.

 

 

I love the baby pine cones that are coming in.  For some reason, each spring I find a new reason to be amazed.  I have never noticed baby pinecones before.

 The flowers...  The unusual, tree flowers.  I love the ones that can only be enjoyed for some time before they all wilt away and we're left with nothing but leaves the most.  These flowers are beautiful here.

And lastly, I am excited to see the Evergreen trees rejuvenating and sprouting new leaves as well.  Simply beautiful!  Green is my favorite color!

I haven't given up on my fitness goals, but I have given up on being hard on myself.  The world is such a judgmental place.  The very least we can do is Love Ourselves.  I am still an active person, but I am not focusing on weight loss for the moment.  I am focusing on establishing a routine that keeps me happy, my family's needs for my attention well met, and allows for me to have the things I WANT::  Prayer, Peace, Art, Nature, Love. 

Happy Wednesday to you!

Lost & Found

I have been impossibly lazy today...  I mean, there has to be a special sort of crime offense related to how lazy I have been.  I wish I could chuck it up to not getting to bed on time last night, but I have insomnia.  I am a functioning insomniac.  I wish I could chuck it up to the episode of craptastic weather we've had here.  Actually, that's what I am going with!!  I have a sinus headache and my whole face, ears, nose, and throat are all throbbing.  Not even to the same beat.  Just random pulses.  Because of this, I have spent most of the day in bed, only getting up to hug my Little Darling, check on her, and feed her. 

I have had a busy weekend.  We were blessed with some lovely weather this weekend.  Can I just take a small moment to acknowledge something about myself?  I realize that, when I am getting into a new project, I HYPER FOCUS!  I mean, I don't want to eat, drink, sleep.  I don't want anyone to talk to me, so I am extremely bitchy for no reason other than to deter people from wanting to come around.  I am like a rabid squirrel, all cute and minding my own nutty/craft business until someone tries to pet me, and then my razor sharp, disease ridden teeth come out and I go cray-cray.

Fortunately, The Hubs adores me, even in my "crazy artist" mode that I go into.  There really is someone for everyone, I tell ya!  He risked his life to break me away from my latest projects and made me go for a walk. We walked for about 2 hours, pushing Kiki in a stroller, as our Little Darling ran around, picking flowers.

It was fun, and honestly, my brain needed the break.

These are some of our findings on our impromptu nature walk.  I found this scrapbook paper in my huge pile of papers.  Thousands of sheets, to be honest.  This is my favorite set.  I can't seem to bring myself to make anything out this cardstock, so it's usually just featured as the background in photos.  I would never say that I hoard things, but I know that I am the hardest core of hardcore paper collectors.  I *heart* Paper.

These flowers and branches we found were everything this weekend!  Such beauty!  I love the beginning of spring.  I seem to forget, every single year, that all this beauty and nature exists.  Do you ever feel that way?  I think I forgot about all of this especially this year because our winter was extra long! 

Sorry about the over-exposure in the photos.  As I have mentioned so many times, I live in a cave, with terrible lighting.  However, I am really excited to announce that I have PHOTO EQUIPMENT!  WOOT WOOT!!!!  I have been waiting to buy lights, backdrops, a tripod, and photo editing equipment for YEARS!  And now, I have........ Such a scary realization!  However, my true anxiety and apprehension lies in trying to figure out how to work everything!  I am a "tech-tard", so if you hear a wild, waling sound in your city, just know that it's me, BumbleBri, screaming out of frustration.

This weekend didn't just bring loads of photography equipment, I also got CLOTH NAPKINS!

The quick story behind the cloth napkins:  My friend *S* and I were shooting the shit one afternoon and we both agreed that we are too poor to be throwing money away in the form of paper towels.  So we talked about buying kitchen towels and rags in place of drying our hands and cleaning with paper towels.  Then, *S* tells me of her plan to buy cloth napkins, which I honestly had never thought of.  So I took her glorious idea and used a $50 gift card to Bed Bath and Beyond that I won at a real estate event hosted by some other friends last year.  I managed to score 50 cloth napkins and still have enough money on the gift card to pay the taxes and shipping + handling. 

SCORE! Ker-CHING! 

Yea, I did a cheer and a series of old school dances from the '90s (running man, sprinkler, cabbage patch)  I also have a stack of 20 spring colored napkins (pink, lime, sky blue, bright yellow) in addition to the autumn colored ones.  I love warm, autumn colors, but I know my Little Darling loves *All Pink Everything*.

If you are a mama on a budget, this is the BEST investment.  Nothing bothers me more than literally throwing away money!  If anyone is ever interested, I might (MIGHT!) post a tutorial on how to make your own cloth napkins.  It's reasonably easy and before I remembered the gift card, I planned to just sew my own stash.  Hoo-ray for saving money AND the environment  😉

... So yes, I am well aware of the fact that it has been a while since I have posted about projects.  I have been working on so many different things!  But, for today, I will show something that I lost a long time ago.

About 3 years ago, I worked on what might have been the ugliest crochet project I planned on giving away. 

Uhm, needless to say, I changed my mind about giving this to anyone because it's ugly.

So I am taking this apart, what's left of it, and combining the yarn from this project with a huge bag of miscellaneous yarn scraps and making this

Simple granny hexagons.  I don't think I will have enough scraps to turn this into a blanket, but I can certainly make my very first pillow cover.  I am so nervous about it.  I have no clue about how to turn this into a pillow cover, but I suspect by this time next week, I will have figured it out!

This is what I have so far...  So let's see what happens in the next week or two.  Who knows, making pillow covers might be my next obsession.  As if I need yet ANOTHER ONE!  Ha!

Happy Tuesday to you!!!

100 POSTS!

Yay!!!  Today is my 100th post! If I were cool, I might have planned this out better...  If I were cool, I might have something special to report or some amazing project to show.  If I were cool, I might have gotten together a giveaway...  Uhm, but I'm not.  Ha!  We all know I am not.

I actually just wanted to stop here to document one of my favorite recipes... and then I noticed that this will be my 100th post.  I LOVE FOOD!  I love to cook and bake and EAT, so I guess it seems fitting that this milestone would be captured and remembered by food :-)  I am not complaining about that one bit!

Today is rainy day number two in my city.  I am not complaining about that either.  For me, as a mom, I am not able to just sleep the day away, like I used to do when I was younger and single.  But the same concept applies, while we are home on spring break.  Rainy Day = Do Nothing Day.  I am letting my Little Darling and her buddy in crime, "Kiki" do their thing today, as I catch up on domestic responsibilities.  I thought I was caught up at one point...

Next thing I know, I look up, and HOLY MOLY!  I realized the load in the dryer had been in there since... how long?  Who knows, but the dryer full of towels, socks, and undies was almost empty.  That means, we have run out of clean things and have been using what's in the dryer so much that we have used an entire load without my ever having bothered to fold it!  So yes, laundry is so going to happen today.  I also have other things to do... Boring things.  Housework, to me, is so mundane!  I love having it done though.  I think better with a clean an organized space.  I just don't want to be the one to clean or organize! Why can't there be some trading system?  I love to cook, and in exchange for cleaning services, I will meal prep for a family.  Bam!  Problem solved.  Mystery Family is well-fed for a week, and my apartment is cleaned for the week.  I wish!!

Yesterday, was a play date.  That really translates into "Children, occupy yourselves with play while the moms gab for a few hours".  I loved it!!!  My friend *S* is literally one of the coolest, most intelligent, and hilarious people I know.  She's so laid back and down-to-earth. She and her family are truly a joy to have around, and so easy to spend time with. No make up, No dress up, No fuss, No concealing the hot mess you might truly be, and No judgment.  I love, live for, and CRAVE those sorts of relationships!!!

In honor of my getting to spend time with *S*, I made an apple cake...  I mentioned before that I love to bake :-)

This apple cake comes from a recipe that I found somewhere years ago.  I wanted to make it, but I didn't bother until about 6 months ago.  Since then, I have changed so much about the recipe to make it taste the way I want.  So, because of that, I will post how *I* make the cake, rather than the original recipe.  If you want to know about that original recipe, leave a comment or contact me, and I will give it to you.  So, without further babbling, here's my recipe for APPLE CAKE!

Ingredients
3 medium Granny Smith apples (I imagine you can just use for your favorite apple.  This is mine.)
2 tablespoons cinnamon (If this seems like a lot, use less.  Cinnamon is good for you!)
1/2 cup Original Bisquick mix
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon melted butter/margarine
2 eggs

(Optional) Streusel Topping
1/2 cup Original Bisquick Mix
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts and pecans
1/4 cup wheat germ
2 tablespoons margarine

Prepare the batter:

1. Preheat the oven to 350° Farenheit
2. Peel and cut your apples

I slice my apples nice and thin after they're peeled.  I don't like apple chunks in my desserts.

3. Sprinkle the apples with the cinnamon and stir with a spoon to evenly coat the apples.  Set the apples to the side.

 



4. Mix the Bisqick, sugar, heavy cream, melted butter, and eggs in a bowl with a fork or whisk until completely blended.  It should be similar to the consistency of cake batter, but a little less thick.

 

5. Prepare your pie dish. I used a 10 inch pie dish. And yep, I am poor, so no fancy shmancy prep here.  I used BUTTER, baby!  Smeared that pie dish with good, old margarine :-)

 

Make the Streusel (Optional)

 

 



Mix all the ingredients together.  I do not like large chunks of walnuts, so I chop mine down further.

 

Is it me, or do the walnuts appear to be in the shape of a heart?  Ha :-)  That's how much I love baking!!

After you have everything in a bowl, use a pastry cutter or a fork to further break down and combine the ingredients for the streusel.

Put It All Together:

1. Place a layer of apples on the bottom of the greased pie pan.

It doesn't have to be a perfect layer.  Over-lapping is fine. 

2. Pour the batter over these apples and then place the rest of the apples into the batter.  You will have much more apples than batter, and that's perfectly fine.

This way, the apples won't all be on the bottom, which makes it difficult to get a nice, clean slice of cake.  The batter won't all be on the bottom, which makes this pastry too "cakey" and the batter turns brown during the long bake period.  So: Layer of apples, pour batter, add the rest of the apples.  Perfect combo.

3. Cover with the (optional) streusel topping

 

4  Bake at 350° Fahrenheit for 45 minutes.  Let it cool, and enjoy!!

 

It will look like this.  Sorry, no cute food play pictures with this one!  I was in the middle of having talks with friends when I noticed... that the cake was gone!  Ha!!! 

Everyone really enjoys this apple cake.  Either that, or I have VERY GOOD FRIENDS!  I am sure it's the latter, but that doesn't mean the first statement is any less true.  So this is for all the friends who have asked for the recipe :-)

Have fun with this and GOOD LUCK!

 

Searching for Signs of Spring

Wow!  It has been quite a few weeks since I have made a post.  It's not that I haven't been working on projects.  I have.  It's not that I haven't wanted to post.  I have.  I haven't exactly been lazy.  Or have I?  Maybe it's all of this and none of it at the same time, you know?

Last Monday, I did my usual:  Breakfast with Blog Reading.  And it seemed like all I read was blog after blog of all these women who were somehow unsatisfied.  These talented, creative, intelligent, beautiful women were unapologetically opening their hearts and blogging about some sort of dissatisfaction or longing they were currently experiencing.  I thought to myself:  Here's your shot!  Get on the bandwagon and do the same thing, girl!  Own your feelings! ... Well, clearly that shit didn't happen!  I am never comfortable with communicating my feelings.  I typically just come across as bored, annoyed, or angry.  Sometimes it's an eclectic and frightening mix of all three.  Before I know it, I am apologizing, arguing, and defending myself.  You know, since my feelings aren't valid, and all.

Where is all this coming from?  Well, a couple things have happened...

One, I had my 31st birthday.  No, I don't think 31 is old.  No, I don't feel old.  It's not one of those things.  I just had this long list of things to accomplish by the time I was 30.  Clearly, NONE of those things have happened...  And I knew that from the beginning of the year.  And I was OK with it, up until about three weeks before my birthday.  Then, I fell into a fit of depression.  I stopped doing anything and everything, except for the absolute bare minimum.  My birthday was two weeks ago, and I am just now coming back into my normal state of mind.

Believe it or not, my barely-there dad really pulled me out of my funk last week, when he took me birthday shopping.  My dad has never taken me birthday shopping.  Ever. For years, he actually would always (pretend to) forget my birthday.  It never bothered me, and if he hadn't made an effort for this year, it wouldn't have bothered me either.  He insisted, however.

While we were out shopping, my dad was his usual completely crazy self, cracking jokes, having small breaks from reality, and passing on random bits of wisdom about the craziest shit that only MY DAD would say.... hermaphrodites... leggings aren't pants... how he, at 51, would make the best damn security guard and JC Penny (which was robbed as we pulled into the mall-- we witnessed the action) would not have been a victim of thievery... how he has special skills to detect when someone is an innocent, old man, and when they are a perp...  and my personal favorite:  how single moms dig his work uniform and find him sexy. Yes, "That's just gross, Daddy" was my response to that last one! Ha!

Anyway, I just needed to feel important and noticed for ONE SMALL MOMENT!  I am not saying that I am ignored and treated badly, but it makes such a big difference when someone insists on spoiling you. When they take time out of their day to do something sweet for you and it's all about you, only.  I kind of felt like a kid again.  With no thoughts and no worries. It reminds me of this time, when I was 5 or 6 in Berlin, Germany.  I had ridden my bike all over the military base all day long because that was the first day I learned to ride without my training wheels. Well, I was happy and proud of myself, but my muscles were so tired.  For some reason, my mom wasn't around, and I was really upset about the pain.  My dad carried me and my bike home and then took me out for ice cream, just so I would "feel better".  Such a small gesture.  So many years ago.  And thinking of it still warms my heart.

So now that I feel a "revived" so to speak, I have some plans for things I just want to get done...  No timeline!  But I am very eager to get to work, however.

I also learned something today, while walking through my neighborhood with my Little Darling:  You have to search for happiness.  When you find yourself in a rut or a dark spot, you have to seek out the light.  I have been really bummed out about this never-ending pattern of freezing cold winter storms we seem to be unable to escape. Yesterday was nice, but my brain and body didn't comprehend the change in weather, and I stayed indoors all day. But today, I went out on a mission to find spring and a little inspiration while I was out. 

This is what I found :-)

A nest, surrounded by budding branches.

 



 

Spring has finally found my city!

 

My Little Darling insisted that I take a picture of the buds she found, insisting they'd grow into berries.

 



 

Finally!  Some green on these branches!

 

These impossibly beautiful flowers that seemed to have popped up overnight!

 



 

I found everything I needed today.  All the happiness the world could possibly offer.

 And she's right here :-)