Tuesday, November 5, 2013

A Few of My Favorite Things: Part 1

       I will use this page to showcase some of my random favorite things.  Big or small, useful or silly - there is no criteria for my choices other than I love them!  Today I will share three: my daughter's roots map, our rope mirror, and my SurfSET surfboard. 

"Where My Roots Lie"
       First, the map.  I LOVE THIS!  I originally saw this map on Gilt.com and immediately knew I had to have it for our baby girl's nursery.  My husband is from Michigan, I am from North Carolina, my mother is from South Korea, and the rest of our ancestors are from Europe, so I chose the world map.  The company Children Inspire Design also makes U.S. maps and maps of individual states.  The best part?  They come with heart stickers to place over where your roots lie...

 

Rope Mirror
       My second favorite thing this week is our rope mirror.  Making this was a labor of love!  The first year my husband and I lived together, I bought a large mirror at the thrift store.  For $2, I believe.  Large, plain rectangle with a thin, boring wooden frame.  Not really my style.  Then I saw a photo of a mirror with a thick rope frame and I fell in love.  Because of availability and cost, I used a thin rope bought from the hardware section at the grocery store.  Other supplies included a few clamps and lots and lots of Aveene Original Tacky Glue (my backbone in crafting!).  It took a loooong time because I wanted to be sure the many rows of glued rope were secure before moving on, but when the mirror was done it was all worth it.  It's far from perfect - I like to use the word "rustic" - but much more our style and we love it.  Plus, costs totaled to less than $20.  Bonus! 


 
SurfSET
       The last thing I'll share for now is a fun one - my surfboard!  Living at the beach, I felt like almost all of my friends surfed or at least gave it a go.  I always said I wanted to learn, which was true, but at the end of the day I had to admit... I'm afraid of waves.  A bit of a problem if you want to surf, I'm pretty sure...
 
       Fast forward to last spring.  I enjoy planning my strength training workouts and am always looking for ideas to mix things up.  I was doing research online for surf-style exercises and wasn't finding anything new, and then I saw it.  A new, growing company called SurfSET.  A surfboard sitting on three small air-filled balls, making a completely unstable surface (3 settings) to do a variety of workouts: surf specific, strength, yoga, abs, cardio... whatever-you-can-do-without-falling-off is fair game, in my opinion.  It was everything I've been wanting for such a long time!  SurfSET is to surfing like spinning is to biking.  As close as you can get to the real thing without really doing the real thing.  I immediately became obsessed with trying this board.  Unfortunately, there were no gyms or trainers within a few hours of me, so I begged and pleaded and waited until my wonderful, smart, considerate, supportive husband was on board (pun intended) and ordered my own.  It's a great full-body workout.  Give it a try!    
 
 
      

Thanks for reading!  Until next time :-)

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