Chemicals vs Oils

First, I am happy to announce today that my rheumatologist says my joints all look good and he gave me permission to try to come off the rasuvo (injectable methotrexate)! I have been wanting to come off of this for a while, being on a cancer drug is scary, no matter how low a dose it is. It is only an experiment to see if I am really going back into remission, hopefully I won't have to go back on it. 

While I rid my body of one chemical, it calls for another; Florida allergy season is upon me. My biggest issue I know is the pollen and orange trees, the bloom and my eyes won't stop itching. 

For the last couple years, I have taken a perscription drug that has worked very well. With being on all the medications I have been on recently, I would like to avoid the extra doses if I can. So, I am trying my essential oils for relief. 

I have made a roller ball of lavender, peppermint and lemon to use and hopefully control my allergies. I am going to put it on my chest and around my head for the next week and see what happens. Hopefully, that will be one less medicine for me to take! 

Living out my daily adventures

Ok, so it is late at night...well, late for me anyway, as I am an early to bed/early to rise person, and I haven't posted in a while, but I had to post.

I have a new evening routine I have gotten into in the last week. I change into my pajamas and brush my teeth. Then I have a small set of exercises I do and use my muscle roller. After this, I put in my new mouth guard (which I am definitely noticing a difference with and am getting more used to) and lay in bed. I send my good night text msg to Mike, get comfortable and then begin my meditation. 

I've started this meditation app in the last week to try to help me cope with the stress and possible anxiety I have been feeling; Stop, Breathe and Think. It is a free app with some upgrades for purchase and, while I am not one to purchase anything on any app, I am thinking about doing it for this one. I am really enjoying the meditations it provides. You first rate how you feel mentally and physically and from there, it picks the meditations that you might most benefit from. 

Today's meditation I chose was Change. It talks about all the changes happening around you and to you every day and how we need to embrace them. It got me thinking about changes and things happening in my life and how, no matter if they seem bad, I have to take those changes and learn from them. Seems like a cheesy deep moment, I know, but I really needed to hear that today. 

In the quiet moments post meditation, my blog tag line came into my head; "every day is an adventure, live it up!" And I thought about how I feel like I haven't been living that mantra lately. Life has gotten me down with all of the drama and monotony that I forgot about living in the moment and really enjoying it. I am going to try to do that more now and in doing so, get back to writing about whatever I want, which is something I have not had a passion for lately. I have no idea what may come out of this, but if nothing else, hopefully some days will end with a mind more at peace. 

Here's to the adventure tomorrow will bring! 

Home Owner Adventures: Adirondack Update

Sanding in the garage 

So I have been working on the Adirondack chairs for a couple weeks now. Last week it had been raining a lot when I came home from school so I was not able to work on them. I decided to bring the pieces of the one chair into the garage to store them and set up a tarp in the dining room for me to start priming the finished pieces on.

The other bolt.....

In the garage I have been finishing sanding the pieces down, first with the coarse and then the fine sand paper to keep it smooth and fix some of the areas that have been worn. Most of the areas have been doing well, but there are these two bolts from the arms that just won't come out!! A friend from work suggested spraying the nuts with WD-40 and after 3 days of wrestling with it, I got one to come off. Still working on the second one.....

Stupid broken screw.....

My other issue has been a broken screw. The head was broken off when I received the chairs and nothing is working to get it to move. I have tried a couple different sets of pliers and tomorrow I am going to try vice grips. I really hope this will work!! If you have any other ideas for me, please do not hesitate to leave a comment below with ideas.

Overall I am very happy with the way the project is going. I have gotten a large amount of the chair done and I am hoping to have the paint purchased this weekend and maybe get one chair finished! Stay Tuned!

Upcoming Adventures: A Taste of St. Augustine

Headed back to my favorite town!

So I was reading the travel section of the paper on Sunday and saw one of my favorite locations being highlighted this week; St. Augustine! This upcoming Saturday, St Augustine's Amphitheater will be home to the 19th Annual Taste of St. Augustine. I was so excited to check it out, so naturally, I googled it.

The first link was Augustine.com's page on the event. It is going to be a 6 hour event, from 11 am until 5 pm and will feature some of the noted restaurants from the area, including The RainTree, San Sebastian Winery and Scarlett O'hara's. There are also discounts available at local attractions for people who attend! See the full link with pictures here.

As I checked Google, I also found a traveler's best friend: Groupon! There is a groupon for the event, getting you discount tickets for groups of 2 or 4 people. Follow this link to the groupon to purchase yours today!

Being a huge fan of St. Augustine, I am super excited to be visiting this outdoor festival on Saturday! Follow my Twitter and Instagram for my adventures there this weekend and let me know if you plan on being there as well!

Home Owner Adventures: The Adirondack Project

New chairs :)

As the outdoors begin growing things and it has gotten less cold outside (yes, I am already acclimated to the weather here!), I have begun venturing outside to make my backyard a fun place to be. My parents have gotten me some lovely patio furniture that I have been working on putting together and will have finished this weekend.

A friend of mine from work who is working on moving has been getting rid of things that will not fit in her new home and gave me a set of lovely Adirondack chairs. As you can see, they need a little TLC. Nothing I can't handle though! Now, as I say that, this is the first time I have done a project like this.

Safety first!

So far, I have wiped the dirt off the chairs and taken one chair apart almost completely.  I have a couple of bolts that seem to be stripped and will have to find new ones. Once the pieces were separated, I began sanding each individual piece to strip the paint and mold. So far, they are coming pretty clean. I did buy new screws for the pieces of wood that will not rust, a type of decking screw.

Top planks sanded

What I have learned so far from this project:

• My elbow can handle only so much sanding a day. 
• Hand Sanders are very difficult to use, especially when the piece of sandpaper keeps coming out from its little tab that is holding it in. 
• Take out more than one bolt to see if they are threaded into the wood or not. Just because it was hard to get one out does not mean that they are threaded.
• It is really hard to find metric bolts

Stay tuned for the finished product over the next couple weeks. 

Break in the Adventure: Fort Myers

I am sitting in the hotel room as Mike works on finishing some homework and thought I would update you on our excursions through Fort Myers! 

So far, we have visited the summer homes of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, which were absolutely gorgeous! We went from there to the Southwest Florida Museum of History, which has a great Civil War exhibit. We at lunch as The Oasis restaurant, a local diner. Food wasn't to bad there and you could tell it was popular with the locals. Saw some manatees in a park after that, which were so great! I just love manatees! We had a chocolate shop on the list next, but we took a pit stop at a brewery I found on twitter, Fort Myers Brewing company, on twitter at @fmbrew. Got a couple good beers there and picked up a gallon growler for later. We then stopped by Norman Love Chocolate and got some truffles, which look and taste amazing!!! They also had a gelato shop, so why not get some of that.

What's next? An evening at Fort Myers Beach! 

For more up to date info on our travels, follow me on twitter! I am @lady_aurora 

Zoot Suit Riots: That Existed?!

Ok, so I am a history dork and proud of it. Since I got cable (for the first time in over 2 years), I have been enjoying my Military History and History channels. I have watched specials on Sherman's March and Spartans and a Civil War POW camp. While I think all of those are really cool, one thing that stood out to me was on a show called "10 Things You Don't Know: Civil Rights".

One of the 10 things on this show was about something called a Zoot Suit. If you do not know what it is, it is a oversized, multi pieced suit that could be pin striped or very vibrant colors. The outfit also usually included a tie, chain from the belt area and an oversized had, sometimes with a feather.  Some people today may even refer to it as a "Pimp Suit".

This suit was popular during the time of World War 2 and was worn by many different types of people. In the Southern California region, it was seen on a lot of different minorities and became associated with them.

None of this was a problem until some of the first soldiers from the war started coming into that area on their military leaves. The WW2 soldiers were from all areas of the United States, including the south, where suits such as this were not very common. This suit, seen on African-Americans and Hispanics, was seen as wrong to these southern soldiers, along with the intermingling of different minorities in clubs and dance halls.

These soldiers decided they needed to take the "problem" into their own hands and thus began the Zoot Suit Riots. Soldiers would find men dressed this way, usually Hispanic men, beat and strip him of his suit and deface or burn it in front of him. This lasted for a few weeks in Southern California but as the news spread, riots began cropping up in other cities across America, including Philadelphia, New York and Detroit.

It was later determined that these riots were not really about the suit so much as more of a racial issue. Why it took them so long to come to that conclusion, I will never understand, seems kind of obvious to me.

Why was I so interested in this random tid bit of history? Only because of one of my other passions; Music! A group called Cherry Poppin' Daddies (yes, that is their name) made a very catchy swing song called Zoot Suit Riot. I love the song and have known it for a very long time, however I had no idea it has such a historical content until I saw that show the other day!

Here's the beginning lyrics of the song:

Who's that whisperin' in the trees?
It's two sailors and they're on leave
Pipes and chains and swingin' hands
Who's your daddy? Yes I am

Fat cat came to play
Now he can't run fast enough
You'd best stay away
When the pushers come to shove

Zoot suit riot

throw back a bottle of beer
Zoot suit riot

Pull a comb through your coal black hair

source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/onehitwonders/zootsuitriotlyrics.html

Seriously, go listen to the song, it is awesome!!! And click on the links in the article to read more information on the historical event and the song.