Doing what you love

Today, I wanted to talk about doing things you truly enjoy doing.  I have found that I enjoy playing music and jujitsu (in case you don's know what that is its a martial art). Now, I know that those are like apples and oranges in comparison but, I love them both dearly. I get great joy out of both of these activities.  I also find that jiujitsu is a great outlet for me, plus it's a killer workout!


I play the viola, a very dainty instrument.  Well, not as dainty as a violin, but still pretty dainty!

(This is Alexandria, my viola. Yes, she has a name)
 

Playing brings me great joy and a challenge, which I love me a good old challenge!  I have preformed with an orchestra, strings ensemble, and by myself of coarse.  But fiddling around with my two friends and brother (some pun intended :D), who play piano, violin and cello, is by far my favorite.  I've taken lessons for about 3 1/2  with a lovely teacher, who is much more than just a teacher to me.  I would say she is a mentor or even a friend, a person I can simply talk to.  Like I said in the intro, my love for playing the viola is just as strong as my love for the martial art jiujitsu, which seems to be a bit odd.  I like to consider them to be like yin and yang, they bring a balance of dainty and manly?

Jiujitsu is a martial art; however, it falls under the grappling category, which means there is no striking ( punching, kicking, etc.)  Wrestling, also falls under the category of grappling.  It's a very hands on sport and most of the time you're rolling around with sweaty, stinky men.  Few girls do jiujitsu, which is funny because girls tend to be much better at it than guys.  In Japaneses, jujitsu can roughly be translated to "gentle" or "gentle hands". The sport is not so much about strength, although that does play a large role. I have learned a lot about myself from taking jiujitsu. Not only that I can push myself significantly more than I ever believed I could also I'm a lot stronger than I think.  I have never been one for sports. I did dance for five years but was never really good at it. After getting my first stripe this month I feel on top of the world, but I realize I still have a very long way to go in my knowledge of this spectacular martial art.  

                                                     (This is my belt and new gym bag!)

I truly believe doing things you love plays a huge role in life. Not only does it make you happy it feeds your soul and brightens your days.  I recommend having a sport you love doing or just loving to workout. Its been proven that exercising puts you in a better mood and energizes you, helps you sleep, and there are many more health benefits to working out.  Having a hobby is wonderful, too! It gives you something to do and excel at no matter if it's drawing, learning to play an instrument, building model planes, or cooking! It challenges you to do your best and always to do better than your best. Looking at my two loves, you can see plainly that they have nothing in common. But I think that's what makes them so great together. Bringing balance to life is so vital.  Not only should you be balanced in work, school, friends, and hobbies, but also with God. He should be in the middle of your everything, He's the One bringing balance into your life.  So as I go, I would like to leave with this quote about trying new things, so maybe you will start up a new hobby or sport that you will get joy out of.

"I never loose, I either win or I learn."

Keep trying and never give up great things don't come easily.

Annaliese~

Perfect in my imperfections

Today's post is going to be a little different than the ones in the past, but I hope you enjoy it just as much.

Over the past few weeks I'v been feeling a bit, oh how should I say it, I guess more confident in myself and that is thanks to some new ideas I have come across.  The first is accepting that I'm not perfect and I shouldn't kill myself striving for the unattainable.  The second is being okay with failure.  As I was browsing through Pinterest, I found this quote:

 "What if I fall? Oh but my darling what if you fly!" -Erin Harson.

 I think this is one of the best quotes I have ever read! How true is this, that so many times we have gone to do something but shied away because we were afraid to fail. What does it matter if we fail? It really isn't failure until we give up. Think about Thomas Edison for a moment, he tried and tried again to invent the light bulb but failed again and again however he pushed on. So why can't we push on and keep trying.  Accepting ourselves not as perfect creatures but beautiful ones God has made.  If we stop trying to figure everything out, let go, and let God guide our lives we will be so much more fulfilled.  I believe that if we all live in the moment and let God work out his plan in our lives we will be able to enjoy what we have right now more than if we try to plan our live out by ourselves. I challenge you this week to stop worrying, stop trying to be perfect, and just let God do what he does best. I also challenge you to pray this week and ask God to help you know what to do with your life and understand that his plan takes time. And don't forget to ask for patients to wait on him.

Now by no means am I fully doing what I'm saying but I'm trying to be happy with my imperfection and know that this is what I'm supposed to be doing and this is where God wants me to be right now. One Bible verse that I have found that has really helped me is 2 Corinthians 12:9 which says "But he said to me, "my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore i will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me." How great is that bible verse! What an encouragement to know that God will do great things with your weaknesses and imperfection. I encourage you this week to dig a little deeper into your bible and learn a little more about your Father who is up above.

I love y'all so much and hope that this post was an encouragement to you. It was really a great post for me to write and get my thoughts down. Hope to see you soon!

~Annaliese

Hello!!!!

             This post is going to be a bit of everything.  Over the past year or so I have been trying out homemade shampoo and boy has it been a journey! Talk about some bad hair weeks, not just days! I think I would have to say I have tried it all, everything from herbal hair rinses to Castile Soap.  So far, only one thing has worked out for me as well as "normal shampoo".  But first before I tell you what did work, let me enlighten you on some of my hair horror stories.  My first homemade shampoo was made out of coconut milk, Castile Soap and I also added some essential oils.  This shampoo worked great...for about two weeks and then it made my hair limp and oily feeling.  I think it was the fat of the coconut milk that made my hair feel dirty.  The next one I tried added honey to the same base.  It was very interesting and smelled weird.  After both of those, my hair was left oily and with dandruff, not a good combo.  Researching to see why my hair turned into a nasty mess, I figured out that the Castile Soap had messed up my hair's PH.  So it was off to find something that would help with that.  Next up was washing my hair with mud!  Well, French Green Clay that is.  This worked fine, but left my hair stuck together and feeling greasy. After some more research, I started using dried herbs to clean my hair.  They worked about as well as the clay did, but left my hair with little herbs sprinkled throughout and it was a pain rinsing out the herbs from my hair.  One other down side to the herbs was it made my bathroom smell like an Indian restaurant.  After several months of trial and error, I was ready to switch back to my store bought shampoo, which I really didn't want to do, but my hair needed help.  Among other reasons behind me wanting to switch back to store bought shampoo was the endless comments from my mom and brother asking if I had taken a shower yet.    One day I was getting ready for a wedding and told my self that I was going to make up my own recipe and see how it worked and boy did it do the trick!  I had my big bottle of Castle Soap and a mason jar.  So I did what any DIYer would do, I mixed myself up some shampoo added some essential oils and washed my hair to a nice clean state that I hadn't seen in months!  After I washed my hair, I rinsed it in diluted apple cider vinegar.  Not only has my hair been clean, but I also got rid of my dandruff and my hair it super soft!  The recipe for my shampoo is super easy!

All you need is

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3-6 tablespoons Castile Soap (Depending on how oily your hair is, the oilier your hair the more you will need. My hair tends to be on the oily side to I use about 4-5 tablespoons, but I eyeball it so I don't know the exacted amount.)
• Essential oils ( I use lavender, rosemary and or tea tree)

I mix it all together it a squeeze bottle and keep in my shower. I usually put three to four drops of lavender and rosemary or three to four drops rosemary and tea tree.  It will last me about two week in the shower before I run out and need to make more.  After I wash my hair I do a apple cider vinegar rinse

• Apple cider vinegar 
• water

I don't have any measurement on this. I just take another squeeze bottle and fill it about 3/4 of the way full with water then fill the rest with ACV mix and then rinse.


The ACV is what keeps your hair soft and silky. It also will get ride of dandruff.

Love Anna

D.I.Y sugar scrub!

Hello everyone,

       Anna here with a new post.  I wanted to do something really fun so a D.I.Y came to mind and then it reminded me of the first time I did a beauty D.I.Y. which was a scrub.  This will only take five minuets. Yes that's all! I call this one sugar cookie sugar scrub, because it smells like sugar cookies!  
  
What you will need:

• 1 cup of sugar (white, brown, coconut what ever you have on hand)
• 3/4 of a cup coconut oil
• vanilla two or three drops
• as well as a bowl and a spoon to mix with

All you need to do is pour the sugar  in the bow with the coconut oil and mix.  What I find works best is to smoosh the sugar into the coconut oil and then mix.  Then mix in the vanilla.  I put mine in a mason jar but any container will work (glass is best).  Just make sure that water will stay out of it if you put it in your shower.  

Later on I will be posting more D.I.Y.s.  Hopefully soon I will share with you my homemade shampoo! 

HI my name’s Anna

                I’m a 15 year old homeschooler.  I’ve been homeschooled my whole life and I love it.   This blog is my first blog ever!  I really love writing and I thought it would be fun to do a blog.  This blog is going to be about lots of stuff like beauty, D.I.Y., cooking and a little bit about my life as a homeschooler and so much  more.  I will try to get a post-up every week, but you know life happens so it might be less but hey it could be more.   I really don’t know what to write being my first post and all.  I have a brother, a mom, dad and dog and my brother has a cat.  I love my dog so much.  She is 3 years old and as cute as she can be.  Some people might not call her cute but beauty is in the eye of the be holder.  By the way she is a German Shepherd.  Some call her scary but she’s a big teddy bear.

                I just recently found out about the world of beauty on YouTube and fell in love.  I had just moved and didn’t have a lot of friends besides my best friend that didn’t move with me. L  So I started watching YouTube videos.  It was nice to watch other girls just talk and see what they liked and what they did.  It was a way for me to almost have girl talk but only one person was talking.  So it was kind of weird.  I started to get more and more into makeup, hair and D.I.Y beauty.  First I made a sugar scrub and it just exploded from there.    My mom was diagnosed with pre cancer and we made a big life style changes in the way we ate and lived our life.  No more processed food and we limited the refined sugar we eat.  It amazed us how much bad stuff was in food, even food that was said to be good for you.  We eat lots of fruits and veggies now.  When that happened i started to get more in to natural beauty because there are so many chemicals in beauty products these days.  I hope to do my next post soon!

Love,

     ~Anna