The Thriftess
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Moving to new blog
Since my interests/hobbies/life stage have kind of shifted over the last couple years, I have moved over to a new blog: thosekrazykids.wordpress.com
I will endeavor to be more regular on there, but.... welllll you know :\
Goodbye Blogger, its been real.
Monday, October 20, 2014
To Fundraise or Not to Fundraise?
Sunday, August 24, 2014
Update Sunday
Friday, August 15, 2014
Bathtub Blues
August update!
Sunday, June 8, 2014
Life is not to be wasted!
Well Thrifties,
Here I am...at a place I knew would come but always "in the future".
My wonderful husband and I have been trying to conceive for 7 months now. We experienced a miscarriage in April and have had no luck since. I know this is not a long amount of time by many standards, but it has helped us to prioritize.
We have always talked about adoption and I believe we are going to start the process. Even before I was married I had thought realistically about my fertility (and possible lack of) and I knew if I was unable to have biological children without procedures, I would be okay. I knew also that I would probably want to adopt regardless. But something has happened over the last month...my urge to adopt has hit me like a ton of bricks. I feel led like never before to a life I thought would be years down the road.
And with that, my husband and I are looking into agencies and other logistics. Financially, I am quite at peace. This is very strange for me because since buying a house we have become quite tight. But I know if God is telling us to do something he will not make it impossible.
Now to make some friends that have a clue about the subject!
Thursday, March 27, 2014
All things yoga (that I know so far)
Dear Thrifties,
I am a terrible blogger. A bad blogger, much like Erin Motz the bad yogi...
Maybe I need some kind of schedule to get me on here but I just hate servitude! (which is created by putting things in a schedule)
C'est la vie! I'm here now with a few fun things to share. First of all thrifties, if you get into yoga, (which you should, its a very thrifty at home exercise) don't become yoga merchandise freaks.
#1 a cheap-ish mat is fine. I had a cheapo $16.99 mat from Winners for about two years and it never wore out. It just got all flattened so I needed to replace it. Whatever you do, do not buy this awful purple lotus mat by Everlast. It was a reasonable price, on sale for $29.99 at HomeSense, by no means the cheapest mat, but it has decent reviews and it is a little thicker which I wanted.
Nay nay, Thrifties, this mat is poop.
Its a sort of memory foam material, which sounds great, but it means that it becomes compacted under your knees very quickly so you feel the floor more than other mats. Also the compacting under your hands and feet make the mat all smooth so you slip a LOT. How it has good reviews on Amazon, I do not know. People who haven't had any other mat before. Just no.
So I hate to admit it, but I just went and purchased another mat. As you can see a little in my picture, the mat I had also scratched really easy, I already rubbed off the print in a few spots. My latest purchase is a mat by Hugger Mugger which is really sticky! Hopefully I don't slide around on this one! This leads me to...
#2 you do not need organic paraben free fair trade vegan mat wash. You need an old spray bottle and some vinegar. I use anywhere from 1-4 vingegar-water ratio to 1-8. Its not really a science for me and I like to know things are clean. Here is my mat cleaning kit:
Note the orange shammy thing
Here is my new mat as well, hanging on my mat drying tool...
This mat was only $19.99 at Winners. I'll let you know how it goes!
#3 You do not need a block (large softcover book), bolster (folded quilt), or strap (jump rope)
#4 You do not need yoga dvd's. This is what youtube is for! My favourites are:
- the 30-Day challenge on the DoYouYoga channel with Erin Motz
- the Yogatic videos with Esther Ekhart.
Both of these ladies do simple, easy to follow, but challenging workouts without a bunch of weird accessories. Just you and your mat. The best part of doing a lot of yoga is that you will soon know enough moves to just dim the lights, play your tunes, and make up your own routine! This is what I do on my extremely lazy days. I try to do 20 minutes every day from start to finish, including the breathing warm up and the lying around at the end (shavasana). So its not much but it definitely is surprising what a difference it makes!