Positive Attempts

“Mm-hmm, well, that’s…very good…for a first try. You know what? I have a ball. (Pulls one from his pocket.) Perhaps you’d like to bounce it?”

Posted on August 25, 2019 by Jessica Robertson

Well, that ended quickly, my blogging that is… Apparently it’s not in my list of things that make me happy.

It’s been two years…and I can still smell the fresh paint. The china had never been used. The sheets had never been slept in. Titanic was called The Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was… uhhhh

Its been two years since my last post. My first post talks about how confused I am with life- and I was at the time- but I’m doing a lot better. My head is more screwed on and I have a somewhat clearer vision for the future. How I’m going to achieve some of these things- I have no idea- but I utilize the Law of Attraction for most parts of my life and really work on manifesting what I want. (Don’t knock it until you whole heartedly try it!) It works like a charm!

So, I’d like to try this again, even if it is just me rambling about god-knows-what and posting excessive pictures of my pets. I think it sounds fun!

Fairy Gardens

Posted on July 9, 2017 by Jessica Robertson

Miniature things make me so happy- and because adults (without children) who still play with doll houses are looked at kind of strangely, I figured out a way to play with miniature things and still be thought of as sensible– Fairy Gardens!

When making a fairy garden, I feel like I’m giving the succulents a little excitement in their lives by decorating their surroundings, considering most succulents originate in arid deserts. Those plants are thanking me by the time I’m done with them…
Here are the two I have made!

Figuring out the layers is probably the hardest part. I did a Google search and came up with this great image from the San Francisco Chronical. Being that I don’t have a lot of activated charcoal lying around (or even know what that is) I skipped that layer and started my terrarium with the small rocks, textural moss, and then potting soil layers.

The fun part was shopping at garden and home improvement stores to find the coolest succulents. Here’s a chart of some succulents that we came across.

I like that there is a category called “strange.”

The most amazing succulent of all was the butt succulent! They are actually known as lithops, or, living stones! I read a giant article about them today and am kind of in love with this species. You can spend a ton of time, like I did, reading about them HERE!

This is my favorite picture of them! It looks like a pot of rainbow butts! (Or brains!)

Finally, its time to pick out the decorations, and to do that, I had to shop at Hobby Lobby (though it pains me to do so) and go to the fairy garden aisle (and dollhouse furniture aisle) to pick out what I wanted in mine. I bought way more decorative items than I ended up using, but it wouldn’t be a trip to Hobby Lobby without spending over $50, now would it!? (I really wanted my fairy gardens to have outhouses in them but both outhouses they had in stock had some sort of flaw with them. And I only provide top-of-the-line accommodations for my gnomes. So I didn’t end up getting any.)

Mini gnome outhouse from Hobby Lobby.

That’s about it! Here is a site that had some ADORABLE figurines for sale that were even categorized by what theme of fairy garden you wanted to make. Enjoy!

Cookie Dough Bites

Posted on July 8, 2017 by Jessica Robertson

One of my greatest joys in life is food- especially desserts- the more decadent and rich, the better! The struggle comes with having PCOS, and having a body that rejects sugar. So, I try to eat clean. (Side Note: I didn’t realize how good I’ve been doing with eating mainly sugar free- until just last week when I made and ate most of a batch of no-bake cookies and got a headache two nights in a row! You’d think I would have learned my lesson the first night when I had to take ibuprofen after eating dessert.)

Anyone can make an unhealthy dessert, so when it comes to naughty-tasting, paleo-friendly, sugar-free dessert- I’m all in! I found this recipe on Paleo Grub’s website and was VERY skeptical being that the only ingredients are almond flour, coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla, salt, and chocolate chips. How could that taste like cookie dough when it is all said and done?!

19814262_10100513854829572_1779774386_o But it did, and here’s my glorious reaction!

Ok, here are a couple modifications that I made to the recipe:

Despite maple sugar being natural, it still effects you in the same way that real sugar does, by spiking your blood sugar. For the maple syrup, I used: Nature’s Hollow Maple Syrup. It’s sweetened with Xylitol and can be purchased on Amazon Prime if you don’t live near a hippie-dippie health food store.
For the “paleo-friendly dark chocolate” I used: Lily’s Sugar Free Dark Chocolate Chips. You can get them cheaper at other locations but the link takes you to them on Amazon.

Lilys-Baking-Chips_WS_LLR

The bites before you dip them in chocolate…

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Here’s the recipe if you haven’t already clicked on the link above. They are absolutely so rich that Jeremy could only eat one…I was able to eat three…just saying…
Let me know what you think!

Paleo Grub’s: Cookie Dough Bites

Yields: 24

For the bites

3 cups almond flour
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup melted organic virgin coconut oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups paleo-friendly dark chocolate, chopped

For the topping

12 ounces paleo-friendly dark chocolate

Instructions

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together almond flour and sea salt.
In a small bowl, whisk together coconut oil, maple syrup, and vanilla. Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients until combined, then stir in chopped chocolate.
Roll batter into 1 1/2-inch balls, place them on lined baking sheet, and set them in fridge for 15 minutes to chill.
Meanwhile, in a medium-sized bowl over a pot of water, melt the chocolate for the topping. Take off heat and let cool slightly.
Remove cookie dough bites from fridge and pour chocolate over each bite to cover. Let cool. Store in fridge.

Lobby Level

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Jessica Robertson

I’ve been spending a lot of time in 2017 discovering the real me. A psychic energy healer (we can go into all that, later) told me that I’m going through something called “Saturn Returns”. Basically, it starts when you’re rounding 30 years of age and keeps going until you are a few years past. It marks the end of your childhood, and the beginning of adulthood, and when we reach it in our 60s, we are to re-emerge as wise sages, think Gandolf the White. Personally, I’m just focused on getting through my 30s “Saturn Returns” without making any brash life decisions that mess up the next 30 years.

Getting back to the purpose of the blog. I’ve been trying to figure out what makes me happy, because the things that used to just aren’t up to par these days. I’m also attempting to figure out if the things that used to make me happy, were in fact done by me because I liked them, or because I felt obligated to be doing them.

I’m literally at a ground zero right now. I feel like I’m starting over. You could ask me how I feel about any aspect of my life: career, house, food, money, exercise, purpose, spirituality, Et. Al., and I would ambiguously tell you that I currently have no opinion on the subject, save for a few things: Jeremy (my husband), Zak (my dog), and my Fiat (my car). Those three things are definite sources of joy for me right now and I’m glad they are in my life, getting me over this hump. (Sadly, the cats we have didn’t even make the cut!) I’m telling you, I’m at Lobby Level right now! So this blog’s purpose is to explore life with a new set of eyes, and record things that actually do make me happy. Hopefully, in the process, I will emerge with a new set of standards- beliefs- if you will, built on experience and not pre-programming.

Going up.