Sunday 21 April 2013

Feel Good Sunday

A little collection of happy, funny, positive pictures from my Facebook page to make Monday seem less painful ;)  I may also start posting videos from YouTube.

Starting again this week! Let's see how I feel in 4 weeks time! :D


We sometimes forget this.


Some of my best conversations are with Crazy ;)


Doesn't everybody? xD


Because this was too cute not to post up.

Saturday 20 April 2013

Smash Book

I was in Hobbycraft last week, having a wee browse whilst waiting for my mum to finish at her doctor's appointment.  And that's when it hit me, the Smash Book stand.  O-M-G.  So shiny!  Before I knew it, I had a Smash Book, notepad and little Smash Book stickies in my hands heading towards the cash tills!  I couldn't wait to get home, open it up and be inspired!  Here are a few ideas I found whilst looking through Pinterest!


Gorgeous Front Cover 

 
Another idea for a front cover - Positive critique about yourself :) 

 
Side tags for different pages



 Wish list 


 
Quotes!





Things that make me happy



Source: floria2007.blogspot.com via Michelle on Pinterest 
A Day-In-Your-Life


Source: kimmerbe.wordpress.com via Michelle on Pinterest
Days of the Month


Source: flickr.com via Michelle on Pinterest
And while I was looking at Smash Book ideas, look who popped up - the Pixxie wife :D

 

Friday 19 April 2013

Friday Photos

More PhotoADay pics for your perusal ;)

Day 13 - View From Your Bed - looking up at my window


Day 14 - Water - raindrops on a leaf.


Day 15 - Alone - lonely red berry.


Day 16 - Favourite Colour - purple :) 


Day 17 - Busy - paperwork!


Day 18 - Hello - page from my new Smash Book :D


Day 19 - Button - or 20 ;)


Saturday 13 April 2013

Hexagons!

Inspired by the Hexagon Tutorial on Wild Olive's blog, I decided I'd like to try this out myself.  But what would I use them for?  Whilst looking through ideas on Pinterest, I also found other ideas using the hexagon theme, so here's a quick look at some of my favourites:

Hexagon Flower.



Spruce up an old bag.

 
Made with card, but could use to cover an old book.


How to crochet a granny hexagon!



Source: bing.com via Michelle on Pinterest
Use that pattern to make your own hexagon blanket :)



Or a new bag for the summer.

Hexagon crochet pin cushions, adorable!

 

You could even make a skirt!

 
And my favourite, Lollo the African Flower Hexagon Bear :D

Friday 12 April 2013

Friday Photos

Doing a catch up this week, so apologies in advance for the all the Blog spam!!

Day 6 - Air - Rushing by at the ARRG Home Final bouts :D

Day 7 - Dreamy - my bed, I love my bed

Day 8 - On Your Plate - prawns, om nom nom

Day 9 - Tiny - bird in the sky 

Day 10 - A Place - snowy Hillfoots (yes, it's April, yes, it's still bloody snowing....)

Day 11 - Detail - a pillow....

Day 12 - In The Middle - of doing my Mario bookmark, still :/

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Aaaaaaah! Cramp!!

This is what I yelled as my right calf decided it was going into a painful spasm at training last night!  Owwwie, it was bloody sore.  Luckily, it didn't last too long, but for the rest of the session, I was aware that it was niggling, ready to cramp up on me at any given moment.  Booo :(

I'm pretty sure this happened because, although I have been prone to calf and feet cramps in the past, my legs were doing exercises that they're not used to - backwards skating and a lot of toe stop work.  I'm a little annoyed that the cramp started when we began our toe stop work, it's something I enjoy doing, especially as it seemed to be the only thing I got the hang of straight away when I was at Fresh Meat!
Some of the girls gave me suggestions on what it could be - maybe my toe stops are too high up, maybe my laces are too tight.  But having the brain that I have, I wanted to know why this was happening and if there were any ways I could prevent it from happening again.  So, here we go:


 The Main Causes of Cramp

We'll skip past all the medical reasons (such as diabetes as I'm pretty sure I don't have that) and skip straight to the part that I'm concerned about - exercise.
Common causes include muscle fatigue, low potassium, low magnesium, low sodium, low calcium, lack of vitamin D, dehydration and over-exertion.
So, pretty much all related to the roller derby.

Prevention

- drink six to eight glasses of water a day.  That's a lot of water....especially for someone who drives for a living.
- take deep breaths.  Make sure you are constantly breathing while exercising (really??) to provide enough oxygen for your body.
- eat foods with lots of potassium.  Things like spinach, salmon, avocados, mushrooms....

 (couldn't resist!!)

and bananas.
- sit in the sun.  This will help with the lack of vitamin D.  Because we don't have lives and/or live in Scotland.  Or we could just do the next point -
- drink milk.  Milk contains vitamin D!
- stretch before and after work outs.
- sports drinks during exercise.  These will replace the electrolytes we're sweating out!
- avoid dehydrating drinks such as coffee and tea before exercise.
- increase your muscle's flexibility by stretching regularly.

Seems mostly like common sense.  I'll start drinking more water, maybe eat a banana before training and I'll definitely start stretching out my calves regularly.  I'll also take on board the advice given to me from the girls at training - I'm going to lower my toe stops a little (not too much as I prefer them to be high) and I've found a website that shows you a few different ways to put your laces (North Coast Foot Care), so I'm going to try that out too.  And if you see me walking around on my toes a lot, it's me trying to slap some muscle memory into my calves xD

Monday 8 April 2013

Monday Makes

On Saturday, I had a fun-filled derby day extravaganza!!  Firstly, there was the Auld Reekie Roller Girls (ARRG) home final, which featured two bouts - a team of guest skaters vs their own Cherry Bombers, then on to the final featuring the Skatefast Club vs the Leithal Weapons.  Two of my Fiercies were in the guest skaters line up - Gallus Cooper and Shelby WeeBlock.  So excited for Shelby as this was her first public bout!  So I had to make a sign, right?

 

After all the bouts in Edinburgh, we took a longer than expected journey back to Grangemouth (damn lorry's breaking down on the bypass and no hard shoulder!) to watch the Jakey Bites take on the South Wales Silures.  I love watching merby, the guys seem so fearless when they skate.

For this bout, my Pixxie wife was making her reffing debut :D  So I had to make a sign for this too!

 

The "Deep Fried Pixxie" part looks a little grey, which I was kinda disappointed with, but it was because I put glitter (aka pixxie dust) on it.  Complete with ref stripes and of course pink!

I'd twittered to ask if a ref sign was ok (they are very official!), and ended the conversation realising I should make a Jakey's sign too, haha!  

 

I actually had a lot of fun making these.  Hopefully I get more Saturdays off work to watch some derby!

Saturday 6 April 2013

Bookends

Since moving back in with my parents, I've read a lot of books.  Quite a lot actually.  In fact, I think they might be starting to breed....  I've always kept them on top of an old desk my brother left behind, however, they're starting to take over and every time I move near them, they start to topple.  I've decided I want to get a couple of bookends to solve this problem.  So I went searching.


Source: etsy.com via Michelle on Pinterest
Keeping in line with the sea them for my room.



Gorgeous Sea Horses



Love these anchors. 

 

Lovely sea turtles.


Cute woodland creatures (this may be where I started to get distracted and go off theme...)

Reminds me of The Hungry Caterpillar.


These are too cute.

Source: amazon.com via Michelle on Pinterest
Book bookends. Why not? 

Appealing to my geek side!

Definitely appealing to my geek side! If I had enough money, the sea theme might be completely out the window!