Step counts and crafts

I know that step counts alone don't determine your ability to gain or lose weight, but it is nice to hit those goals every now and again.  Of course, if you also eat two donuts for breakfast, Wendy's for lunch, and ? for dinner, obviously the step count means nothing, but that's how it goes sometimes.  Do I always eat two donuts for breakfast? Of course not. Do I always hit my step count? Most definitely not anymore.  I used too, once upon a time.  Then I lowered it.  And still, I don't hit it.  But, do I hit my 150 minutes of activity/week? Yes.  So, at least I still have that going for me!  All that will change soon though, my step count will be going back up to 12,000, and my workout activity minutes will be doubling again.   Sometimes you just have to take it easy and wait it out, without letting it get to you.  Although, I probably could give up the donuts in the meantime!
So tomorrow is the first day of August.  I feel like it's been July forever, but also, I mean, really, August already?!  Not that I have anything against August, except that it means back to school season picks up and soon enough it's actually time to go back.  In fact, I had a dream the other day that I went back and met one of my new classes for the year, and they were terrible! None of them wanted to follow the rules, sit in their assigned seats, or participate in class at all.  Ok, that's not crazy out of the ordinary, but generally speaking, for the first few weeks of school even the seniors are a least a little bit well behaved.  Usually, the freshman are the unruly ones and that dies down pretty quickly too if you get a handle on it fast enough.  Perhaps it's because I'm not going back in September, but rather after Thanksgiving break, which is making it worse.  They're going to spend their first quarter with a substitute, and then I have to come in and take over, resetting everything, even if the sub did follow the entire 3-inch binder of plans I left him/her at the end of the year.  I haven't heard yet who my sub is, so that's all up in the air, but I'm really hoping it's someone who at least wants to be a teacher, or has some experience, and not just someone who is looking to kill some time.  Generally speaking, subs who want to be teachers are more likely to follow the plans and enforce the rules, whereas those who are just looking to kill time are more likely to be friends with the class.  Really though, I probably shouldn't worry about that at all, since it's not my problem until November, and I really can't do much about it!
Enough about school though.  Today I had to remake a craft from earlier this month because Ryan and I decided that it looked too much like a scene from Blair Witch Project the way it was.  Before, it was five crocheted dolls hung on crossed sticks, hanging from the ceiling.  So we agreed that maybe it would look better as a round hanging, instead of crossed sticks.  Which meant I needed to go get hoops to decorate.  That part was easy enough though.  I just got floral hoops from Michael's, threw some paint and glitter on them, and sprayed them with Mod Podge acrylic sealer.  Hopefully, that prevents the glitter from falling off because no one wants to be constantly sprinkled in glitter!  I haven't transferred the dolls over yet, but the hoops look awesome.  They're supposed to resemble a galaxy and I think they really do.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say I really nailed the galaxy paint look.  Go me!  I can't wait to see what it looks like when everything is attached and it is rehung.  As long as it doesn't look like the Blair Witch anymore though, I'm good with that.

See.  So cool!  

Beer Bouquet

Have you ever had that someone in your life who you've known for their whole life, but just can't figure out what to get him/her for a gift anyways?  Recently I came upon this problem as I tried to figure out the perfect gift for my cousin who turned 30 this July.  I know what he likes and doesn't like, but I just couldn't figure out a gift that would be good enough for a thirtieth.  After a while, I decided that it couldn't be something bought, it would have to be made.  And I know that one of his favorite things in life is beer, of any variety.  Eventually I settled on making a beer bouquet.  Which is exactly what it sounds like.  Now, I could go into detail about how I made it, but honestly, it was a hard thing to put together and it would be hard for someone to recreate by following a bunch of steps.  Rather, I recommend taking the general idea from the pictures provided and running with it on your own.  Of course if you're extremely interested in the process, you can let me know and I'll come back with an update.  Or, if you really want one, but don't have the skills to make one, you can let me know and I'll be happy to make you one for a reasonable price! Until then, here are the pictures, good luck!

Seashell Wind Chime

Craft 1: Seashell wind chime.  Perhaps you know from a few years back that I created a simple summer centerpiece by painting a bunch of seashells and putting them in a square vase/jar.  Well, I've used this centerpiece for the past few years and I felt like the shells weren't working to their full potential, so I decided to repurpose them into something new.  I came up with the brilliant idea of a wind chime, and I have to say that it came out pretty good.  It was a basic project.  I got a wooden letter G from Michael's, drilled four holes in the bottom and one on the top for a hanger.  Then I took 12 shells of varying sizes and drilled holes in those.  Pro tip: when drilling through a shell, use a masonry bit, not a wood drill bit, it will break the wood ones.  Anyways, so after the holes were drilled, I attached one shell laying flat to the G.  This shell was the base for the rest of the chime.  I attached the smaller shells, two to a line, on the four ends of the base shell.  I also attached a larger shell to the middle, as sort of a buffer, and added two shells to the bottom of that as well.  All in all, it came out looking real cute, and it sounds pretty when the wind blows, so it's a win all over.  For the sake of the craft, I'm including these pictures here.

Materials: drill, drill bits, letter of your choice, shells, fishing line, and a pencil to mark your drill spots.

Drill spots marked

Holes drilled

Ready to be attached

Final product!

Wake up, wake up, wake up, it's the first of the month

And I swear in 10 seconds I'm going to go make my math posters, which is what I came up here to do.  But first, an update! Nothing to do with running, since I haven't done any of that all week. I have either a) a cold or b) allergies, but whatever it is, it's preventing me from running properly, because my lungs/nose are all clogged up.  Apparently every time I long run now, I'm going to have to take a week off due to clogged airways.  It's really going to make my training so much better.  I guess it could help with lung capacity, so that's something to think about.  Since I have no running info for you, I thought I'd share my Halloween instead.  If you're super pumped to hear about how exciting it was, I hate to let you down, because it wasn't anything fancy.  We handed out candy for two hours on our front porch listening to Halloween tunes.  It was fun, but it wasn't a wild party.  I did upgrade my skeleton costume from last year.  This year I added skeleton feet shoes and a mask.  At first I was just going to go mask-less and face paint free, but then I found a plain white masquerade mask in our Halloween bins.  Since I had it, I figured I might as well add to it and make it a full on skull mask.  All in all, I think it came out fantastic.  It was super easy to make too.  I cut out a top half of a skull, taped that to the top of the eye holes, and then cut out a lower half.  It was a little tricky to get the teeth and the mandible right, but I managed to pull it off.  I taped that part to the bottom of the eye holes, colored in some excess areas black, and added some cracks.  Boom. Instant mask.  The top and bottom probably should have been glued on, but I was in a time crunch since I decided this super last minute, at 4 p.m. yesterday.  Aside from that, today we raked up all the leaves in the yard, filled seven lawn waste bags, and died a little bit because the trees still look like they have the majority of their leaves.  Then I went to Michael's on my way to the grocery store and found out that Fall decor was 80% off.  I bought a few items because I realized that our house is lacking in the Thanksgiving aspect of decorations.  We have tons of Halloween and Christmas, but for the month of November, we're really boring.  So I bought some things to make a wreath.  That's basically it for this weeks exciting adventures.  One more thing, I can't remember if I shared this already or not, on Tuesday Title Boxing Saugus was looking for a new design for their blank chalkboard wall, so I went over and drew a boxing Mickey.  It came out real nice, considering it was the first time I ever really worked with chalk, especially on a large scale.  Alright, that really is all for now, check out the pictures to see the mask, wreath, and boxing Mickey!

Full costume - all hand-painted!

Fall wreath

Hit it Hard