03.27.22 • My Fluctuating Weight • Be More Active •

For the last 5 or so years, I’ve been hovering around 115 pounds – which is within the range I should be in. Within the last 2 years, I found myself at times nearing the 120 mark – which, without proper diet and exercise, is starting to push outside the boundaries of my range. I’ve been fluctuating in that margin for years, and it just started feeling normal. Today, I stepped on the scale for the first time in a few weeks, and I weighed 109.8, which is the lowest I have weighed since the tail-end of high school when I hit 110 pounds for the first time! That took me by total shock.

Wanna know my secret? I’ll let you in – do absolutely nothing. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true – I don’t mean to brag, but I have done yoga twice within the past two-and-a-half weeks… One of those times was even for 45 minutes! Woooow.

Of course, I’m joking. I do need to be more active – and there are a lot of activities that I want to do; like yoga. I do enjoy it, it’s just so difficult to convince myself to start! I also mentioned my dream of balance boards last week, and I want to rollerblade and rollerskate and go for walks and to the trampoline park… And there’s a place in the city that offers circus training, like trapeze and hoops and other aerial arts – and that’s been something I’ve been interested in trying for years!

I haven’t been very active lately, and I need to be. I canceled my gym membership earlier this year because I kept neglecting to go. The thing, though, is that I’ve realized that going to the gym or doing conventional workouts just isn’t something that works for me. It doesn’t captivate me or keep me engaged, and I’m more likely to be active if I can do the fun active things that do intrigue me! So, that’s the plan – to find a way to incorporate those types of things more regularly into my life. Circumstantially, now would be an excellent time to start considering my discovery of the new number on the scale, becoming more active now would provide me with an opportunity to finally lose the love handles that just love to hang on, but I’m also worried about taking on too much at once. Between working on my blog and seeking employment and taking steps toward fixing my sleep schedule, (a subject I will go in-depth in at a later date,) I have found myself with a lot of goals to tackle and I’m worried that adding any more goals will be too ambitious right now and will result in me becoming overwhelmed and killing all the progress I’ve been making. Maybe if I just found a way to convince myself to incorporate yoga into my daily routine… Or maybe just a couple of times a week, just to start… We’ll see how it goes. If you have any suggestions on how I can maintain motivation for just that for now, I’m all ears!

03.28.22 • Breakfast & Poor Eating Habits • Up Way Too Late • Responding to Negativity •

My boyfriend is adorable. I never eat breakfast as my body totally rejects food in the morning, and my boyfriend recently saw this as a cause for concern. Last night, he randomly asked if I liked scrambled eggs – to which I said yes. This morning, he insisted on making me a small breakfast, worried about the consequences of my eating habits. He made scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese and placed tomatoes and raspberries on the side in very small portions. I felt bad when I was unable to finish it – but it is very difficult for my body to be receptive to food first thing in the morning. It was very sweet of him, and I wish I could have finished the plate.

I do have pretty poor eating habits. I will often forget to eat, especially if my mind is consumed by a bunch of tasks – for example, when I’m spending all day every day working on my website. … For example. I’m also a very picky eater, a fact about myself that I’m not proud of, and countless textures bother me. To give you an idea of how particular the nerves on my tongue are, I love tomatoes, but I can’t handle them on a burger because the way textures of the foods feel together bother me so much that I can’t get it down. Oftentimes, right in the middle of meals – even meals that I particularly love, I will have one wrong bite, and I won’t be able to swallow. Sometimes, I gag or vomit, and often, my appetite winds up ruined. It is incredibly frustrating.

I have no routine with food consumption, and often when planning out my day, I forget to block out time to eat. It doesn’t occur to me that I will have to. I dislike cooking, as I don’t have the patience for it, and often I wait until I’m so hungry that I will eat whatever is available right now, and often those food items aren’t what you would typically categorize as being healthy.

I have poor eating habits, and it is on my self-improvement to-do list, but like I said yesterday – baby steps. There are times when I get into the practice of eating regularly and consuming healthy foods, but I often fall out of the practice before it forms a habit enough for me to effortlessly keep. I have the firewall of ADHD barricading my path, so these kinds of things are extra challenging for me than they should typically be. I will always have the stuff to work on to improve myself, and I will always be motivated to improve, but I do have to be careful about the number of goals I take on at any one time. I have been known to be too ambitious and it always fails. I also tend to pick the goals that seem the most captivating at the moment, so this one often gets pushed back… Another one of my goals is practicing discipline and being careful with what I prioritize. Again, baby steps…

As per usual, I had a difficult time falling asleep last night, and for the second night in a row, I found myself unable to settle and I wound up getting out of bed. It has made for an over-tired Danika today who finds everything just a little bit too funny… Last night, I did write for my blog, though. Like, a main blog post, not anything like one of these. I’m excited to begin releasing those again soon!

It’s probably very apparent to you by now how excited I’ve been about my blog, and that excitement provoked me to decide to spend ten dollars on boosting my post last week on Facebook and Instagram, in hopes of reaching new people. I figured I would give myself a bit of a leg-up, considering how much effort I’ve been putting into this website as of late, and how elated I am to share the content within it. Yesterday, a Negative Nelly left a comment on the boosted Facebook post, and now, I get to share a not-my-proudest-moment story with you! The comment he left said something about my post being spam, and something about it being narcissistic and egotistical of me to promote it. I deleted the comment, and I told myself to let it be, and I put my phone away. … Then, I took my phone back out, and I messaged him.

I know. Yikes.

I believe endlessly in the good of people, and I thought that if I messaged him and explained that it was not spam and explained my reasons for boosting it, he would share compassion and understanding. I was kind in my message – it’s not like I went off on an angry rant – but I did message him, and I was naively hopeful about it. Spoiler alert: his response wasn’t what I had hoped for. It ended with him suggesting to me that I should consult an adultier adult for lessons about manners and ettequite.

He doubled down, and I should have left it there. I should have… but instead, I replied. Perhaps, just maybe, I was just a little sassier with my reply.

Maybe.

Maybe I also ended my reply with some links to other posts from my website that I suggested for him.

Maybe.

Again, not my proudest moment, but I promise that’s the last bit of effort I will put into it. I couldn’t suppress my instinct to say something. I’ll be better the next time I find myself in a situation like this. Learn and grow…

I was a little sassier in my last response, but I was not rude, naggy, or anything of the sort. If you’ve been reading my blog since the beginning, you know that I value maintaining my integrity and that I care to represent myself as the best version of myself as often as I can, but that doesn’t mean that every once in a while, it can come with just a sprinkle of sass. I’ll probably regret engaging, but I wished for reasonability and satisfactory resolve. C’est la vie.

03.30.22 • Applying for Jobs • Advice for Cat Owners •

Well, I handed out my resume to several places today. Now, we wait… Not all of the jobs I applied for are within the same field, but they all do have three things in common:

1. I am interested in and excited about the idea of being in all of them.
2. I am nervous about getting hired for all of them.
3. I question how qualified I am for each of them, compared to the other applicants.

In some ways, I put myself out there, but in others, I applied for roles with duties that I would be comfortable with and proud of. I guess we’ll see what happens next… It’s unsettling when the future is so unclear! I have felt particularly vulnerable and anxious lately because of it. I hope my next chapter is a rewarding one, and I hope that today was a first step in carving a beautiful path for myself. I hope I can look back on these last couple of weeks and feel grateful for the choices I’ve made. I hope I’m amazed by where it leads me.

One of the best decisions I’ve made as a cat owner is such a simple thing that I can’t believe took five or six years to consider. I bought poop bags – you know, the ones dog owners carry with them when taking their dog out for a walk – and I keep them beside my litter box.

I’m the type of person who, when it comes to maintenance-involved or routine-based tasks, is far more likely to complete those tasks the fewer steps there are involved. Having tiny, daily-cat-waste-sized bags that are designed to be thrown away and take up little to no space right next to the litter box has made all the difference in the world for me. It feels far less wasteful than using a comparatively giant grocery bag every day, and keeping the tiny roll of bags right next to where I need to use them just adds an element of convenience I wouldn’t be willing to give up now.

I got four rolls for a dollar or two at a Dollar Store months ago, and I’m just at the halfway point now. I didn’t expect to like this idea so much that I would be boasting about it on my blog, but damn. If you’re a cat owner and you haven’t considered this practice, I highly recommend giving it a chance. The level of efficiency and convenience has made such an un-fun job so easy to convince myself to do. World of difference, seriously.

03.31.22 • Car Troubles •

No one told you life was gonna be this way…

👏👏👏👏

If you were here when I wrote, I Wrote Off Four Cars In Three Years, you know I have terrible, terrible luck when it comes to vehicles. When I wrote that post, I was daily driving a Kia Forte – a car that was good to me for the first while, but a car I grew to detest by the end of our relationship. Earlier this year, I finally got out of that car, and I got myself a car that I actually, truly love.

Except… The thing is…

Well, a lot of things. I’ve had a time.

My New Car

I love it – I do. I love it so much. It is a fun-colored bubble that goes super zoomy, and that’s all I ever really wanted! I love it, but BOY has it been testing me. I thought for sure that I finally got out of the everlasting hump of having cars with ongoing problems, yet here we are.

My power steering pump and my brakes need to be fixed. How did I find that out? Well, one day, when I was driving, I couldn’t steer, and I couldn’t brake. Turns out – those are very important aspects to have in your car. I’ve known about these issues for a few months now, and at one point, I thought we fixed the problem with the brakes, but that turned out to be too good to be true. I also have to fill my power steering fluid every couple of drives in order to steer my car.

Fixing it got put on hold because parts were out for a while, it’s going to be expensive, (and then I lost my job...) and I still have my Kia to attend to.

My Kia

The plan was to fix the minor issues I knew it had and then sell it. One of those problems, we found out recently, was that the brake pads were worn down to nearly ceasing to exist. Today, my boyfriend and I went out to get brake pads, and my boyfriend installed them, and then he discovered… My head gasket is blown.

That throws a wrench into my plan.

I wanted to at least sell it for what is remaining on what I owe for my Mitsubishi, and I was hoping to sell it for enough to have an extra bit of cash in my pocket, but that’s looking super unlikely now.

When I first got my Mitsubishi, and I was looking forward to selling my car, I even said out loud that I was excited about finally having a car I got to sell for a reasonable price.

Sigh.

I just want a normal car life.

04.02.22 • April Fools • Balance Board!!! •

I can’t believe it never occurred to me yesterday that it was April Fools! That’s such a magical day of the year.

She’s probably not going to be happy about me telling this story, but I did play a fantastic April Fools prank one year. My sister is dramatically afraid of the sound of balloons popping, so one year, I decided to fill her room to the brim with balloons.

At the time, she was sixteen or seventeen years old and spend most of her time at her boyfriend’s house. I got her boyfriend on board to keep her there for a full weekend – nothing she would have ever found suspicious – and I reached out to a bunch of her and my friends to help me blow up hundreds of balloons over the course of the weekend. We didn’t have a pump and we had to blow up each balloon manually, and I can’t tell you how raw my lips and fingers were by the end of it! I think it was worth it. Here’s her reaction:

My boyfriend has been talking a lot lately about wanting to do some woodworking/carpentry, so I thought nothing of it when I walked into the garage this morning and found him working on building something. At first, I thought it was a shelf and while he worked, I complimented it, for it looked beautiful.

He quietly kept working away and I played around on my phone and hung out with him. Then the garage seemed to get quiet so I looked up and saw him staring at me; I couldn’t figure out why… Then I looked at his feet and I saw what he had made.

He made me a balance board!!!

He calls it “version one,” stating that he believes there is room for improvement, which sounds an awful lot like there is a big future of balance boards in store for me, which I certainly am not going to complain about!

I’m so happy – I’m so excited. It’s so great. I’ve seen a bunch of different-sized cylinders underneath the board before, and honestly, after trying mine, I can’t imagine how much more challenging the larger circumferenced cylinders must be!

I can not tell you how much fun it is. After not even two minutes of using it, I had to take off my sweater because of how warm I was getting. Though it doesn’t look like it, you get a fear struck in your heart on this thing when it feels like it’s about to take off on you. It is challenging and addicting and I am elated. I can’t wait to find out how good I can get! It is everything I’ve ever dreamed of, I can’t believe how much fun it is. I also can’t believe how poor my balance is, but hey… baby steps!

I highly recommend giving balance boards a try. It is big fun, and it is challenging both physically and mentally. I’ve found myself getting off for a break when I started to tremble after feeling anxious about falling, and within seconds of being off of it, I want to jump back on! Honestly, it’s almost immediate. I find myself excited to try all over again and to see how much longer I can stay on the board, or how many times I can rock back and forth…

I’ve put together a little video of some of my first-day progress (featuring: my boyfriend’s dogs):

I recommend watching with the sound on!

I can’t believe I have a balance board! What an awesome way to end the week. I’m so happy. I’m so grateful to have someone that cares so much about me!

Until next week, friends!

Now *I* want a balance board! Share on X
While you’re here, why don’t you stay a while and take a look around? Perhaps you would like to read a deeper post about my life, or maybe you’d like to dive into a more complicated subject that will inspire you to ponder, or just maybe – you fancy a fictional read. Whatever your poison, I’m sure you’ll find something for you here, there’s lots to explore!