Purps’ Adventure Begins

So I did it, guys. I went and I made a new blog. There is a part of me that’s really excited about this and a part of me that’s scared to death and a part of me that’s just wants coffee and left-over french toast from Saturday. But that’s a very small part.

Anyway, after my last post I decided to do the big girl thing and push forward. And by decided I mean my husband asked if he should buy the domain and I agreed and it was all downhill from there… in a good way. As in a ball rolling down hill gains momentum. I feel like this is a saying that has been miss used over the years. I guess it refers to a slippery slope descending into some ominous pit of some kind, but that’s not the image it invokes for me at all. I hear it and I think. “Cool! Downhill, I don’t have to the gas.” And now I’ve gone completely off topic, moving on!

So my wonderful husband was kind enough to help me put wordpress on my blog and I set upon trying to find a theme that suited me and that I could turn purple. We’re working on it. I have a theme that’s not so bad, I just have to tweek it a little. Anyway, coffeewithpurps.com is a thing now and I’m super excited to get started with it. My plan right now is to write on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the Starbucks until I feel brave enough to try and find a new coffee house. It sounds pretty scary, especially trying to navigate Pittsburgh in rush hour, but I think maybe I could learn to do it. We shall see.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “But Purps, what about this blog here? What will happen to it?” Honestly, I haven’t decided. It seems silly to have two blogs, especially if one is meant to be my career, but on the other hand, this is a much looser blog without the guidelines I’ve put on the other blog. I feel like I will not be coming back here, but I can’t say that for sure.

So, I guess this is goodbye for now. At least in the forum. I will be at Coffee with Purps every Tuesday and Thursday for the foreseeable future and I hope you will join me there. You have been a great readership and I am so thankful to have all of your support these past six months. Thanks for everything! I hope to see you in the new place! It all starts February 17th!

Purps is Going on an Adventure

This morning I am sitting in my usual Starbucks, but not in my usual corner. Someone else is in that corner and it’s probably their usual corner too, so I’m trying something new. You probably don’t know about my usual corner or my usual Starbucks because I haven’t told you about them yet. But, seeing as they are kind of important to my coming adventure, I suppose I ought to. Here goes.

My husband works across from an outdoor shopping area. On days when I need the car for something I ride with him to work and then take the car over to the Starbucks in the middle of said shopping area. I’ve discovered that trying to leave the city at 8am is just as hard as trying to get into it. So I wait it out an hour and then go wherever I need to go. In the past I’ve spent my time here in the right side corner (while facing the counter), drinking my mocha and journaling. I’ve discovered that I can get the most amazing blue berry muffins here, heated. They heat muffins! I was quite excited about this.

Now you’re probably wondering what this particular Starbucks and its muffins has to do with me going on an adventure. Well, we still have a little more set-up to go, so hold on. I’ve been blogging since I was a freshman in colleges I was on my old blog for 4 whole years before starting this one. I have enjoyed blogging much more than I ever thought I would and as I have been struggling with the question of what to do with my life, a friend at church said to me, “Have you figured out how to make money off your blog yet?” I kind of laughed it off at the time as being one of his silly suggestions, but then it occurred to me… people do that. This is a thing that people do for a living and make money off of. And I don’t need to make a lot of money off it, I don’t need to get rich or be famous or anything. I’d just like to contribute a little to our house hold income, have some money I can say is mine to spend on gifts and things.

So I started looking into it towards the beginning of the year and it sounds a little scary, mostly because I don’t know what I’m doing and they use big buzz words and such in all the articles. But my best friend started her own “professional” blog and if she can do it, I can do it. I am the Roxas to her Sora, after all. And my husband tells me he can set up my blog in his sleep. That is his job, after all. He works on websites for a living. So it starts to look a little bit less scary.

Here is where we come to the coffee shop. I had a revelation last night that since I love coming to the coffee shop after dropping Logan off I could make it part of my routine. I go to work with Logan on blogging days and get coffee and a muffin and blog about whatever is in my head that morning. It would help keep me motivated and accountable and get me out of bed at a reasonable hour so I can get actual things done. And having the car regularly might inspire me to do things like get to the library, finally, and be a productive member of society. It would also solve my yoga problem, going out and getting coffee and food in me and then going home to work out and start the rest of my day. I think this new routine could be really good for me.

So this is my adventure. I am moving forward to a “big girl blog” as my Twirly put it. I’m going to be a professional blogger, and actually start doing something with myself. After much feedback on Facebook I have been assured that Coffee with Purps is an acceptable name for a blog written while drinking coffee. So this week I’m going to buy the domain name and hopefully, with my husband’s help, we can get that moving. I’m not sure when I’ll be moving over completely, but I hope you’ll all check me out at my new place when it’s up. It’s been a pleasure writing for you. Wish me luck!

Purps’ Yoga Confessions

At the beginning of the year I was so excited about this 30 days of yoga thing. I was pumped and ready to spend a whole month starting my days in my yoga pants on my yoga mat doing all sorts of cool yoga-y things. And for the first fifteen days it was great! I only missed two days because there wasn’t enough free time together to do the video and even on those days I had done something active to make up for it. I was doing really well!

Then day 20 hit and suddenly my motivation dropped. I didn’t want to do yoga first thing in the morning. I told myself I’d have coffee first and then do yoga and I’d feel better. But once you sit down in the comfy chair the chances of getting up again are pretty slim. I would stare at my yoga mat from under my nice warm blanket and think “I should do that.” and then return to whatever I was doing. I could blame the sock that I’ve been working on for like a week and a half now, or Kingdom Hearts, or the novel I finally picked up again, but really it’s my own laziness that was my downfall. I only did maybe 24 days, probably. I failed the 30 days of yoga challenge.

But why, is the question. Why did I fail when I had been doing so well? I even solved my mat slipping problem, I was on a really good roll. I think the answer is, I lost focus on what it was really about. I started the 30 days of  yoga with the intention of praising God with my body, of serving his temple by keeping it healthy and exploring what amazing things he made me to do. He designed the human body in a way that allows yoga to be possible and effective and that’s really cool. And somewhere around day 20 I forgot about that. All I could see was a 30 minute video in front of me and how sleepy I was still and how light headed I got coming up to mountain pose from forward fold and thinking “I really need some coffee.” I thought I could switch the yoga coffee order, but you really can’t. You can’t take away that incentive to get through the video. I would like to blame the length of the videos. I would like to say, “If they had been a little shorter I could have gotten through them all” but that’s not true. There is no reason I couldn’t do 30 full minutes of yoga in the morning other than my own short comings.

So where do I go from here? What has become of my yoga practice. I’ve considered going back and picking up all the videos that I missed, but I’ve got this thing about continuity. I’ve thought about going back and starting over, going through the videos again, maybe on an every-other-day schedule. I suspect I may have gotten burned out doing it every day, a sort of yoga overload. Maybe it’s a thing I’ll do. Maybe I’ll find a new yoga series to follow. It would be nice to be able to pick videos based on how much time I have in the morning. I only got through part of some videos because I only had the time my husband was in the shower to do them before I had to get ready for church or what have you. I don’t want to give up on yoga completely, though. I want to find a routine that is going to stick with me. I find I enjoy it, once I’m in it, but sometimes that takes a little while. And the lightheaded thing is an issue. It’s not a good time trying to focus on the breath when every time you straighten up your head spins. Somehow I’ll figure it out.

Congratulations to all those who actually finished the 30 Days of Yoga challenge! I’m proud of you for not wimping out like me. I’d love to hear how your experiences went and what you did to keep motivated. If you’ve got any advice or suggestions for my future practices I’d love to hear that too! Thanks for reading along with me and happy yogaing!

Purps is Lethargic

I am lethargic. As a side note, that is a rather fun word, lethargic. Lethargy isn’t quite as fun, but technically the same word. Weird, right? I think it’s because it’s got a different rhythm to it. Also, how often do you use the word lethargy? You don’t say “I have lethargy,” that’s not right. You’re lethargic, he’s lethargic, we’re lethargic, it’s really the more popular word. Anyway, if you can’t tell by now this is another ramble.

I’m very sleepy, but I shouldn’t be because I got lots of sleep last night and I think I only woke up once around four. I’ve been doing that a lot recently, waking up around four in the morning. I don’t know why. I mean, I never really sleep through the whole night, so that’s nothing new. I don’t remember the last time I got an actual full nights sleep. I could probably blame the funny noises my furnace is still making. It hasn’t gotten better and the maintenance guy still hasn’t come even though my husband put in a request like two weeks ago. I need to remind him to call them. We’ll see if I remember to remind him, though if he reads this he’ll be reminded and my job will be done.

I could also blame the siren that goes off somewhere near by in the middle of the night that is really loud and obnoxious because we’re really close to it. I know it serves a purpose but does it have to be so loud? Really? I should be used to it, I went to high school right next to a fire station, but that was like four whole years ago, so now I’m unused to it. On top of that we had this weird ice crackling noise outside our window last night. Not sure what it was, exactly, but it sounded like a tapping or a cracking or something but it was constant. It was really strange, but it seems to have stopped now so I guess it’s okay.

It’s dark today. That might be another reason for my lethargy. Oh! There, I used lethargy instead of lethargic! That’s exciting. Anyway, winter can do that to you, you know. The lack of vitamin D or whatever the sun gives you that you miss out on in the winter cause it’s farther away. Yeah, that. It’s also super cloudy today and despite getting up like half an hour earlier than usual, it is still really dark today. I really should start getting up earlier. It won’t help, of course, our living room windows face west, I think, and then there’s the hill so we only get really good sunlight in here around like 2 or 3 for a little while and then it ducks behind the hill and is gone forever. Or until the next day, which ever.

But at least there’s snow out there. That’s nice. I mean, on the hill side and the lawn and stuff. Not so much when it’s on the roads. We had to leave early yesterday from my in-laws because the snow wasn’t going to stop. Though it did for a little and then turned into rain. Not sure if it was entirely necessary for us to leave early, looking back, but it was better safe than sorry.

I think I’ll work on my novel today. At least read through the new part. I’ve been working through the bar fight and I need to go back and fix typos and such. It occurred to me that there should be some large barrels in the tavern. What tavern doesn’t have large barrels? Seriously. So that’s a thing, probably more Kingdom Hearts, which I might rant about later this week, because it’s a thing. And technically I’m done with the 30 days of Yoga… but not really. I guess I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow.

Purps in The Tale of Bronwyn

I was never one of those girls who had a dream wedding planned by the time they were fourteen. Of course I’d thought about wanting to get married, but it was always the married part that I thought about, not the wedding itself. It wasn’t until  I met Logan that I started thinking about my own wedding, what I wanted it to be like, and what I wanted to wear. That probably sounds like super cheesy as I confess that the summer Logan and I started hanging out was the summer I started watching “Say Yes to the Dress” with my mom.

From the summer of 2012 to the fall of 2013 I thought a lot about wedding dresses. I watched a lot of “Say Yes to the Dress,” looked at the David’s Bridal website on many an afternoon and browsed Pintrest with the best of them. I had to make a secret board for wedding dresses specifically once I got engaged so my future husband wouldn’t peek and know what to expect. Not that he would have thought to do that, but you never know. I didn’t have a clue what I wanted for most of the wedding, but I did look at several dress designers’ websites to see who I liked. That’s how I found Maggie Sottero.

I don’t know anything about Maggie herself, other than the fact that she names all of her dresses. As my friends already know, I like to name things, a lot. I’ve named bags and phones and computers and hats and all sorts of other random things. Most recently I named the tree outside my window. So I was naturally drawn to a designer who gives her dresses names. I picked out several that I really liked and dubbed them my idea finds while knowing that whatever I got was probably not going to live up to them. I mean, sure, I would probably find a dress that I loved, but the chances of finding an all lace gown with cap sleeves and a keyhole back like I wanted: like next to none. I would probably find one with cap sleeves, maybe some lace on it, but probably not with the keyhole and not in our price range if it was. I didn’t want my dad taking out a loan to pay for my wedding dress.

Mary’s Bridal is this cute little purple building downtown. It’s where I got my prom dress senior year, where they spent three weeks taking it in because it was two sizes two big when I found it and I was the littlest thing imaginable. It was the first place to look for a wedding dress: close by and familiar. I felt I owed them at least a look since they did sell me my first most expensive dress. I honestly thought I would be getting a dress at David’s since that’s where you get dresses that aren’t super expensive, apparently. I had a dress that I liked and I knew it would be reasonably prices. But what’s the fun of dress shopping if you don’t go more than one place? So, I grabbed my maid of honor, my sister and my mom and off we went to Mary’s.

A very sweet, very tall girl, took us back into a big changing room and asked what I wanted in a dress. I gave her my list and she told me it was probably going to be expensive. I was ready for that. She also told me they didn’t carry anything more than $2,000 so that made me feel a little better. The bridal shows always have people buying dresses for like 4/5,000 on the lower end, which is ridiculous. So, our girls scurries off, finds four dresses that sort of fit what I want and she lines them up. I’m eyeing third one in the bag, thinking it might look promising, but I start with the first one to build up to it if it is the one. The first one is pretty plain looking, but all lace. I didn’t see the sash or the keyhole back until she pulled it out and said. “Alright, here’s Bronwyn.”

My heart stopped and I stared at her. “No,” I said. “Bronwyn? By-”

“Maggie Sottero,” she reads from the card.

My eyes are wide. I didn’t expect to find a designer dress, not my designer dress in a little shop in Beaver Falls. I had checked, even. I hadn’t seen Maggie listed in any store outside of Pittsburgh and I knew we probably wouldn’t go to Pittsburgh for a dress. But there she was: Bronwyn, one of three dresses on my list of dream dresses and the one I liked the most. Bronwyn, in person, waiting for me to slip her on.

Our girl helped me pull on the pale gold slip and then work my way into the lace outer dress. Once it was all clamped to show how she would look on me once the dress was all fitted she pulls the sash out and ties it around me waste. My face was one big grin and I could hardly contain my happy wiggle. This was it. This was my dress! I tried on the rest of them, just for good measure, really. I had been looking at that third dress, after all. The second one was too shiny, the third too heavy and the fourth too plain. I wanted back in Bronwyn. So they put me back in her and scrunched up my hair with a birdcage veil and there was no going back. She was the one for me.

My first time wearing Bronwyn with Twirly and Erin to confirm she was the one.

I didn’t get her that day, of course. I still wanted to see that dress at David’s Bridal and I couldn’t just pick the first dress I had tried on, even though I knew she was the one. So we went to David’s with all the sisters, both moms and Courtney and tried on more dresses. There was one there that my girls liked, but it was heavy, rough and I couldn’t lift my arms in it. It did show off my collar bones but it was also more expensive than Bronwyn and it just wasn’t her. So back to Mary’s with the whole gang, or as much of the gang as I could bring and tried her on again. She was still perfect. We ordered her in late November.

She’s pretty fabulous from the back.

I had to wait until March to see her again. It was time for the fittings to begin. We went in late, after graduation and all the craziness of wedding showers and planning details and projects I didn’t get fitted until probably late May/early June and I almost passed out during the fitting. This is why we eat before we go to fittings. I went to my final fitting on my own just to make sure she fit me right and everything. She fit like a glove. By then it was almost July and I was so tired of wedding planning I just wanted to get it over with. The big fitting room is in the basement at the back of the shop and while walking back out through to the front my eye fell on a dress in the row of bridal samples lining the wall. I stopped. Oh no, was I having dress envy? Did I like this dress better than my own? So close to my wedding? I had to look at it. I pulled it out a little, just to see what the front was like and there was the tag: Bronwyn by Maggie Sottero. I still loved her after all.

Check out her lace.

Keyhole back and bustled.

My bow was a little floppy by the end of it, but she still looks good!

A Purple Wedding Introduction

So, for a long time I’ve been wanting to talk about my wedding. I know what you’re thinking: “But Purps, you talk about your wedding ALL the TIME!” This is true. I really like talking about my wedding. I do so whenever I get the chance, as I’m sure a lot of newlyweds tend to do. Or at least newlywed women. I feel like guys have few compulsions to share about what flowers were used or where they got their tux. Anyway, the thing about weddings is when you’re in them they’re overwhelming and you have no time to blog about it and when it’s over you’re so exhausted you don’t want to even think about it for a couple weeks. So I’ve been wanting to blog about my wedding for six months and equally not wanting to blog about it at the same time. I think, however, that I’ve finally come to a place where I am ready to blog about my wedding experience.

The next thing is, it would take forever to blog about it all at once. As anyone who has ever been closely involved in a wedding knows, it is a lot of work over too much time, culminating in a day packed with too much stimulation for one person to handle all at once, but you get a cool spouse out of the deal so it’s worth it. So, yeah, I’ve decided to break it up into little chunks, as usual, and give it to you over the next like week or so. If you get sick of it and want to wander off, that’s cool. I don’t blame you. Just be sure to come back when the coast is clear.

Since I moved to a new site, those of you who are new haven’t heard my engagement story yet. I discovered about three weeks before my wedding that I still really like to tell it. But of course after like the fourth month of being engaged no one asks about it anymore. All your friends and family have heard it and have moved on, even if you still think it’s the greatest thing. And I do still think it’s the greatest thing. So I’m going to share it with you and you can feel free to skip it if you’ve heard this one before.

When my husband and I were first dating he told me about his great-great grandmothers ring. Why? Because we went to Geneva and if you’re in a relationship at Geneva you have a 80% chance of getting engaged before the end of senior year or shortly there after. So with all the engagements around us, rings were just a natural topic to pop up. I really like vintage things and I may have mentioned the thought that an heirloom ring would be ideal. So when he said that he, or rather his mom, had such a ring, I knew it would one day be mine. That sounds so devious in print, but it’s true. I really hoped that he would propose with that ring someday, you know, a few years from then.

Anyway, time progresses as it does and after we hit the one year mark and had been talking about getting married maybe the following summer and trying to calculate how long we wanted our engagement to be (I already had a date picked out so it was just a matter of setting the proposal at a reasonable distance from said date) I was starting to get impatient. I knew October was the most reasonable time to get engaged for a short-ish engagement and a pretty fall setting, which I thought would be so romantic, but was soooo far away. I really wanted to see the ring and it’s so hard to wait when you know it’s coming. We were getting married the following summer so we might as well have been engaged. Also, my husband is not a very good liar. And I unwittingly put him in a position to keep information from me, which tipped me off that he had taken the ring to get sized and may have picked it up. I also learned what I call errands he calls chores.

It was the beginning of August and the summer was coming slowly to a close and my family was going up to the family cabin for the weekend, bringing boyfriends along for the first time ever. The cabin was a big part of my childhood summers. My cousins and I would spend hours playing on the big rocks out in the woods past Oak Lane. I thought this would be a great place to propose, but Logan wouldn’t think of it. It has no sentimental value to him. So we go up and hang out and take our “101 Questions to Ask Before Getting Engaged” book out to the high point in Oak Lane to sit and talk and swat at bugs. I was using a fortune cookie fortune as a book marker that said something along the lines of “you will soon receive a great prize.” I’d gotten it a week or so before and thought it might be accurate, for once. Logan commented on how it would have been a good time to propose, jokingly, I thought, and told me lots of wonderful things about how thankful he was about our relationship and how God and grown us together and how much he loved me and I almost thought he was going to ask me right then and there, except I knew he didn’t have a ring on him. I would have noticed, right?

So we went back and enjoyed the rest of our weekend and on Sunday as we’re cleaning up he says to me, “When we get back, why don’t we go to the park and do some more devotions, since it’s such a nice day.” And I’m thinking, Sure! Why not? It’s lovely out, we can sit on the patio and read our book before going to evening service. And then he starts fidgeting. My husband is an introvert and we had just had a conversation about how extended social interaction drains his energy and he’d just spent a whole weekend with my family, which he was still getting used to and had to be on his best behavior for. So when he answered my inquiry about his discomfort with “it’s been a long weekend” I believed him. Until he said, “Let’s go to Buttermilk Falls.”

For those of you who didn’t go to Geneva or grow up in Beaver County, Buttermilk Falls is a little nature park a few miles up the road from the college. It’s not very big but it’s got a nice waterfall and a pool at the bottom you can swim in and a trail to walk around and it’s quite lovely. In a conversation with my sister about where I’d like to be proposed to I had told her that Buttermilk Falls would be a good spot, or McConnell’s Mill; a bigger nature park with lots of trails and a much bigger river. She hadn’t told Logan, and I knew she wouldn’t, but of course there was that suspicion. But no, we’d been saying we wanted to go to the Falls all summer and it was such a nice day and it was closer to the friends we were meeting up with before church. Everything about it made sense from a not-being-proposed-to standpoint but of course my brain was screaming “IT’S HAPPENING!”

So I tried not to think about it all the way home, pretending to sleep on my then boyfriend’s shoulder. When we got home and my sister was ready to jump in the shower my mom put in that “Maybe Bekah should go first.” I hadn’t even thought about showering. What was I going to wear? Would it give away that I knew if I dressed up a little? But I didn’t know. Not for sure. Would I look dumb dressing up to not get proposed to? I decided on jeans and a nice shirt that he hadn’t seen before, but I’d had forever, as a compromise. And I texted my best friend because I had to tell somebody even it if it wasn’t actually happening.

So I took the fastest shower I’ve ever taken in my life and we drive out to Buttermilk Falls where everyone is out getting engagement pictures and swimming with their babies. He fumbled in the car and comes around with a square-ishness in his pocket. Not terribly obvious, but I’m looking for it. We find a nice little spot under a train bridge and sit on a convenient rock. I get the book out, but I’m not interested in the book. He’s talking about much the same stuff he had the day before and how he’s really enjoyed this past year and is looking forward to the year ahead and I’m not really listening because he’s fumbling with his pocket. His hand is in his pocket. He gives up and says “Oh, and uh, there was something I wanted to ask you.” And for a moment I think there was really something he forgot to ask and wonder what it could be when he’s supposed to be… ooooh. As he says my name and I say yes, and he says “Would you” and I say yes, and he asks me to marry him and I keep saying yes over and over as he opens the box and I see the ring for the first time.

This is it! Isn’t it beautiful?

I learned afterward that he had planned to propose that Saturday when we went out to Oak Lane, but had left the ring in his dashboard compartment, having been late meeting us and then switching cars, he didn’t realize it was still there until we were half an hour out. He did, however, take advantage of me sleeping in that Saturday to ask my parents permission to marry me. I still think it’s funny that his back up plan turned out to be one of my ideal scenarios.

So there you have it; our engagement story. I hope you’ve enjoyed it for all it’s long-winded rambliness. You can be sure there’s more long rambly weddingy stories to come.

Purps is on a Hunt

When I was a wee little thing my dad made me a hat. You heard me right. My dad made me a hat. Crocheted it, specifically; with pink yarn and put a little bunny iron-on on it. It was very cute and I wore it up through sixth grade. It’s still in my parents house somewhere, I’m convinced, I just don’t know where. Anyway, yeah, my dad crochets, and he taught my sister and I how to do the simplest stitch when we were kids. He taught Erin how to granny square, but I couldn’t figure it out. Short attention span and all that. We enjoyed it for a while and Erin was always better at it than I was so I gave up crocheting scarves that were always kind of wonky shaped anyway.

When I got to college my sister and I started knitting. Our aunt taught her while they were camping and she came home and taught me. Again, we made scarves, mostly. I liked it a lot since the stitches were much harder to add or lose stitches accidentally; though you could miss a stitch and that would ruin your whole day. Anyway, I made scarves for all my friends that year and got sick of it. I couldn’t read a pattern or remember which was purl and which was knit, so I couldn’t really do anything else. So I stopped just before going to Geneva.

You all know what happened at Geneva. I’m very fond of saying it, though, so I’ll tell you again. I met this really cool guy there and we started going out and then I met his family. His family is also really cool and they do all the crafty things. After spending a lot of time with them I was inspired to try again, though I didn’t actually have time for that until after Logan and I were married. I picked up crocheting as a thing to do on my way to my best friends wedding up in Boston. A ten hour car ride calls for something to keep your hands busy. I made like two pot cloths. I can’t honestly remember if they were supposed to be pot holders or wash clothes, so I call them pot cloths and call it even. I also tried to make a hat but I was very confused on how that worked. I figured it out on the way home, but it was too dark by that point to see what I was doing. Sad day.

So, over the past six months I’ve been getting into knitting as well as crocheting again. My sister-in-law showed me this amazing site with all the patterns on it. I can find loads of free ones to try out for just about anything I want to make. The only sad part is the app kind of sucks. Like a lot. But if I find a pattern on my computer and add it to my library I can get it on my phone so that’s nice I guess. Anyway, I apparently didn’t learn from my initial scarf making experience freshman year. I decided I was going to make all my friends wrist warmers. I even got some of them to their respective owners. Unfortunately, wrist warmers, while much quicker to make than scarves, are twice as tedious. You have to make two of them for everyone so you’re doing the same thing twice per gift. It gets old really fast. I finished one in every house color which was enough for three friends and then Christmas hit and all that came with it and I didn’t finish the rest.

Needless to say, I haven’t been doing much since then. Now you might be wondering what all this has to do with the title. I shall tell you! I am on the hunt for a project. That’s it. Pretty exciting huh? Yeah, I’m looking for something to make, specifically with the yarn I got for my birthday. I’ve been making things intended as gifts and now I want to make something for just me so I don’t have to worry about if it looks funny or ever gets done. I have a bad habit of starting things and not finishing them. I’m thinking a hat, because I really like hats. I have a gray and purple yarn that says hat to me, though the wrapper says “Afghans, scarves, or apparel.” I do what I want! So I’m looking for a fun hat pattern that’s new and maybe a little challenging. I’d really like to try cables, but I’m a little afraid of cables. I suspect they require more than two needles and the only size in which I have more than two is 4s. And fours are rather small.

I will probably end up crocheting, though I’d like to try some new knitting-y things. I like crocheting cause it’s easier to do fancy things, I think. Not that I’ve tried fancy knitting things, but I feel like the fancy crocheting things are less intimidating. Mostly you just use one hook for a start. Nothing scary like using three or five needles at a time to keep everything in place. But, maybe someday I’ll give it a try. For now, I’m on a hunt for a new crafty adventure. Wish me luck!

Purps is Half Way There

Today is day 15 of my 30 days of yoga. That means I am half way done! And I’m not sure how I feel about that, honestly. It’s getting pretty rough. Motivation is always a struggle with me and days when I don’t have time in the morning are especially hard to get myself on the mat. That being said, I’ve missed two days out of 15, but I decided I’d keep up with the videos as they come out, rather than back peddling and being a few videos behind. I have a thing about that, it tends to bother me. Anyway, I feel like 2 out of 15 isn’t so bad and if I can keep from missing any more I’ll be good.

So, yoga is hard. I know that I was expecting things to get harder as I went on, but yoga can be very tough sometimes and I was struggling this morning. I also hadn’t had coffee yet, which may have been part of the problem, but still. Half moon pose is really rough and I’m a little surprised by that since I tend to be really good with balancey type things. Tree pose is probably my favorite. That might actually have something to do with The Little Prince but, whatever, I enjoy it. Half moon pose, however, not so much. Maybe it’s the weird bendy bits, or the fact that I’m on a mat on carpet and they don’t get along super well, or the fact that I’m trying to practice between the TV and the coffee table and there isn’t room for me to fall without falling on something, but I was struggling. And now my legs are like “WHAT DID YOU DO?” and I’m like “Sorry, it’s good for you, get over it.”

Up till today I’ve been doing really well, though. The video lengths vary from 16 to 30 minutes or so and I have to admit, I like the shorter ones better. They’re less intimidating. I’ve learned that I enjoy cobra pose more than upward facing dog, but upward facing dog comes more naturally. There’s just something weird about only coming up half way, I guess, but it feels so good on my back. I’ve enjoyed putting on my yoga pants every day. They are really lovely things and I should invest in more of them. I like having something to do every morning, a set place to go. Sometimes, though, I need some coffee first to get me going.

The challenges that I’ve found consist of time and space. Before we had a coffee table I would practice in the middle of the living room in front of the TV. I had all the space I needed on all sides and enough space between me and the screen that my dad wouldn’t yell at me for sitting too close if he were somehow to walk in. We have a coffee table now. It’s in my yoga spot. I’ve tried laying out my mat vertically to the TV rather than horizontally and off to the side where there is enough space, but our TV is angled towards the couch so it’s a little weird from the other side and I’m not lined up with the video so I feel all out of sync, it just isn’t right. So I moved the coffee table over as far as I could and try to make the best of the space I have.

Problem number 2. Mat + carpet = sliding. Sliding all over the place. Why my mat wants to be under the coffee table is beyond me, but that’s where it seems to want to be. Every morning I straighten it out, make sure there’s space between all the things and somehow by the end I’m laying half under the table with my head nearly touching the couch. As I said before, this is also an issue with balancey type moves. My foundation is soft and squishy and not good for grounding into for stability. Unfortunately, unless I want to try practicing in our sliver of a kitchen or the bathroom, there is no alternative to the carpet.

Problem number three, time. On your average week day this is not an issue. I have been very good about getting up and yogaing in the mornings. However, your weird week day or weekend day is a different story. If Logan and I are hanging out for a Saturday, not so much a problem. I just hop on the mat when he hops in the shower and we’re good. The problem comes when we’re leaving at a certain time for something or on Sundays. If we have to get ready, we have a tendency to stay in bed as long as possible and get ready in the hour before we have to leave. We’re a little better with afternoon stuff, but considering we hardly ever get to sleep in together we like to make the most of it when we can. Sundays I sometimes think I’ll get up and do it in the morning before we go to church. Sometimes I do, sometimes I decide I like sleep and yoga can wait until we get home. So here’s the problem with coming home to do yoga. If we go out, we tend to stay out until bedtime. It’s really hard to convince yourself to do yoga when it’s time for bed.

So those have been my struggles. I find I tend to enjoy the practice once I get into it, it’s just getting into it that’s the hard part. But, I’m learning new things and I’m working my body, which is good since I don’t have a lot of space for doing other things. I’ve been considering joining a gym for the “getting out of the apartment” appeal and the variety of exercise possibilities, but I feel like if it’s a choice between staying home and doing yoga or driving to a gym to work out in front of other people, I’m probably going to go with the yoga. But, we’ll see.

Purps Rambles On

As has been the way with me for as far back as early high school or before, I have a tendency to write things out. This is how I deal with life, with joy and tragedy and sorry and anger and hurt. You name it and I can write it out. I gush when something pleases me, I lament when there is disappointment and sorrow, I am a writer and when I feel, I write. So, I figured the best way to transition from my grieving writing back to my everyday writing is to do another ten minute ramble. Here we go.

First I don’t like the term moving on. You know? I don’t know what it is but it sounds abandon-y to me. I prefer the term moving forward for some reason. It’s the same thing, really, but it sounds less drop it and go and more one foot in front of the other, I guess. That probably makes no sense to anyone but me, but there it is. I am moving forward with my life, but I’m not moving on. Or getting on. I suppose getting on sounds even worse.

My furnace is quiet, for now. That’s probably because it’s not running right now. It’s been making this rattling sort of noise when it’s on and I am rather concerned about it. It’s been doing it since they changed the air filter and I’m wondering if something’s just loose, but you never know. It could be something awful that’s going to blow us up. My husband is not quite that concerned, but I might turn it off and just bundle up until it’s fixed. We’ll see.

I have made very little progress on my puzzle and I think I might have to get back to it soon. But, of course, things have been piled up on it now because it’s on the coffee table so when we need the space I just throw a cloth doily thing over it and we use it anyway. It will all have to be moved, but that’s okay, cause most of it is dishes and they should be washed. We’ve been kind of bad about dishes, but considering the week we’ve had, it’s understandable, I think. We’ll do them tonight, probably and then play Super Smash Bros. because we just got it and a new controller and we are very excited about it.

We’re having chicken pot pie tonight and I am rather excited for that. I really like chicken pot pie, especially the one that we make, mostly because my husband makes it. I like him a lot and I especially like his cooking. We’re putting in a request for the furnace to be looked at now. I’m glad. It’s weird, the furnace can regulate the temperature, but the air conditioning just keeps cooling until it’s like 50 degrees in here unless we shut it off at night. Which kind of takes the fun out of having central cooling. Not that that’s a problem right now.

I guess I should take down the Christmas tree. Maybe I’ll make Logan help me with that. Well, I’ll probably make Logan help me with that. I don’t know if I could do the dismantling bit by myself. But I can take down all the ornaments. It’s just a little sad to do so, I guess. But it is half way through January, so I really should take it down. I’m surprised my husband hasn’t said anything about it. He’s not a very Christmasy person. But then again, I guess we’ve been kind of busy these past few weeks to take things down.

Well, that’s time. I should probably shower now before the maintenance guy comes to look at our furnace. I’d like to be not in my pajamas, at least. That doesn’t look very good, now does it? Anyway, I hope you all have a lovely day and have enjoyed this little stroll through my brain.

Purps is Finding Comfort

As we go through the grieving process I have been rediscovering how God has a way of giving you what you need. Yesterday I cried my way through a post about grief and was blessed with incredible support from friends and family alike. I would like to thank each and every one of you who commented on my Facebook or liked my post, it was so encouraging to know that so many people are praying for me and my family.

With that being said, I have a confession. I really didn’t want to do my yoga video yesterday. I got up early because I wasn’t sleeping anyway, I worked out my emotions on the page and after that much grieving I was exhausted already. I knew I needed to do the video and shower and get on with my day, but it seemed like more effort than I wanted to give. But I did it. I got down on my mat, turned on the TV and God blessed me again with Yoga for Healing and Meditation. I know, I know, sounds pretty corny, right? And I know that the healing in the title isn’t meant for grief specifically or anything, but it helped. The video was slow and easy with lots of stretching and comfortable positions that were easy on my sore abs and legs from ice skating and Day 6, and gave me a chance to breath through my tears. I left the mat calm and assured that God was with me and was offering me comfort in a way I hadn’t expected.

My next comfort came in the form of a Twirly who Skyped with me for the rest of the afternoon. Even 200-some miles away, she was there to keep me company while my husband was at work, help me process what was happening and how I was feeling and just talk with me about life. It was good to have someone to talk to during the day, about everything. It’s too exhausting to grieve constantly and the distraction was nice.

My greatest comfort, though, has been my husband. I know he would have taken the day off work to be with me yesterday if I had asked him to. He has been devoted to taking care of me since we got the call. Today he is making me pancakes, because he knows they’re one of my favorite breakfast foods, even though we didn’t get up till like 11. He also ran out and got milk so we could make said pancakes. Last night we sat and cried together on the couch. I don’t know if it was as cathartic for him as it was for me, but I think it’s nice to have someone to grieve with. We talked about Aunt Lynn and how she’d touched our lives and found comfort in little things, like salvation and short suffering. It helps to know that we will see her again someday, even if it won’t be in this life.

The service is on Tuesday with viewings on Monday. We have three more hard days before we can begin shifting into our new lives. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to move on until we’ve said goodbye; even though I know life won’t stop just because we’re in mourning, it can wait until Wednesday. As we continue to grieve I am confident that the Lord will continue to provide comfort, in people and in little blessings.