Anita’s Life Update #7: I cut my hair, made DIY dog toilet and saw a turtle

1. How is Piki?
He is still improving. It is a slow process, but I can say for sure that he keeps on getting better. And I hope this will continue. I bought him tens ems device on Amazon in a hope that it will help him regain his muscle, stimulate nerves and relax. I use aloe vera gel as a conductive gel, so I don’t have to shave his hair to place electrodes on his skin. I think it does help him a bit. I also bought him a swimming pool. You can see on pictures he is fully prepared to jump in. As if. I was afraid he is going to pierce the pool with his claws and panic without a swimming jacket, because he isn’t a fan of water. But we realised I am overdressing him, lol. His shoes fell off, and he didn’t pierce the pool. And my partner’s mother put him in a pool without a swimming jacket, when I was on vacation, and he was not complaining, at least not more than with the jacket. So now we are doing hydrotherapy outside without any extra gear. 😀

We are still using a homemade carpet treadmill every day (look at my previous “life update” for pictures). Plus range of motion exercises every morning and walking around the house in afternoons. He is not ready to go for a walk outside of the yard yet, but I hope that when I will write the next update, we will already go for short walks. (For those of you who don’t know, he had a herniated disc in November 2021 and this is our long recovery journey – but he is so worth every bit of effort).

2. As I still have to empty Piki’s bladder, and the prices of training pads kept increasing in the last few months, I was like “Nope, I am not buying those anymore”. And I found a solution. I bought a bit more than a square meter of artificial grass in a building supplies store. I cut it into 6 pieces, so I got 6 artificial grass training pads now. And I took a shoe mat that was already in the house (note to self: replace it, when you see them in stores in autumn). I bought the grass for 5€. (10 cheapest training pads were costing me 3,20€ already). I am so happy with this DIY dog toilet. It looks so much better than training pads. Imagine yellow urine on white training pads vs. artificial grass looking green when it’s clean and still looking green when there’s urine on it. Our balcony got its dignity back. Plus, I can wash artificial grass when it is dirty and use it again. Way more eco-friendly. And I don’t have to put training pads on the shopping list any more.

3. I can use the money I save for coconut milk to make myself kefir. Okay, from dog urine to kefir, I am not sure if that was the best bridge. Haha. But yes, I started making water kefir and coconut kefir. I found a guy on the internet who was giving away his extra milk kefir grains and water kefir grains, and I started growing them myself. Now I also give my extras away for free, feels so good.
I got used to the taste of water kefir pretty fast, so I don’t even put any fruit into it to make it taste better as some people do. I like it as it is and I kind of crave it once per day or per two days. And I tried making coconut kefir from milk kefir grains and it works! I buy coconut milk in can from Spar Budget (not an ad, sharing it as useful information), as it has a nice coconut taste (which is kind of obvious, but to my own surprise it isn’t – I once bought another brand of coconut milk, and it almost has no taste of coconut). The coconut kefir is kind of like coconut yogurt, but way more tasty than those few I tried from the shop. I love it for breakfast. And sometimes I put it into soups, sauces or make a dressing with garlic for baked zucchini or salad.

I also started fermenting vegetables. My best friend from childhood always brings me the best gifts for birthday and this year she bought me glasses for fermenting veggies. So far, I fermented one glass of basil and one glass of carrots + tomatoes + bell peppers. Fermented carrots are so freaking delicious. The taste was sour, but not so sour as with pickled vegetables. It was the perfect sour taste. And even more delicious, when you think it’s super healthy!

And in the autumn I will start experimenting with sourdough.

4. Herbs. I’m making lavender vinegar. I got the idea for this in one magazine, recommending it to those who cannot stand the smell of alcohol vinegar. In case you don’t know, alcohol vinegar is popular as eco-friendly cleaning products. I can stand the smell, but I would still much rather smell the lavender.

I also made basil hydrolat. In a very do-it-yourself style. I heard it is good for hair growth, so I am now putting it on my partner’s head, haha. I told him, I love him any way, with or without hair, but it is a fun experiment for me and he gets head massage almost everyday now, so we are both happy. It’s also against dandruff and for nice skin, so I am using it myself as well.

The house smelled so freaking good when I was making this hydrolat, omg. I have a real distiller for essential oils is on my wish list now.

5. I cut my hair in June. It was actually the second time this year that I cut my hair. Nobody noticed the first time. But now, the second time I got a lot of praise. And I love it as well. Haircut and the praise.
I cut my hair, because I was dreaming that I shaved my head. And when I woke up during the night, I loved the idea of shaving my head. But in the morning I was not so sure about the shave any more, but I was still excited about changing my hair-do. And so I took the scissors. My childhood best friend came the next day for a visit and she cut a few hairs that I missed on the back of my head.

6. I am pleased with my summer. I was going for walks with interesting and fun people, enjoyed some art and culture, went to few concerts… I also went to Pag, Croatia, with my partner. For 8th time! It was the first time that we saw turtles there, didn’t even know there’s their habitat.

7. I signed up for The Sacred Depths. A coaching school from Joanna Lindenbaum. I wanted to attend for years, but never had enough money to join. This year it happened, that I had enough money for the first instalment on the last day, before the price went up. So I joined. Woohoo. And I am very glad I did. It is what I expected and more. Will probably speak more about it sooner or later. I will most probably go for certification. So far I didn’t care much about certifications, because certification is not necessarily a proof of a skilled practitioner. And we know there is abundance of coaches out there who make a coaching school and start certifying people. But here I feel like a certification would really mean something to me, because I know Joanna is all about quality and depth.

8. I created a free journaling challenge for you (and almost completely forgot to talk about it as my mind is already on the next things that I am creating). Go sign up, if you want to receive short examples from my life with journaling prompts that will make you love your life (even more).

9. I started learning about Audacity (audio editing software). I downloaded it years ago, as I planned to make a podcast and use it to record and edit meditations, but as I had no previous experience, everything I did was so time-consuming, I sooner or later gave up. Hope this time I will stay committed to learn long enough to have satisfying outcomes with recording and editing… So that I will actually start producing podcasts, meditations, hypnosis and audio courses, not just thinking about it and dipping toes in what feels like cold water.

10. I started preparing for course about ACOA and adult children of immature parents, but then stepped back a bit, but it is still a priority, just not in a time frame I intended at first.

11. Oh, and I created an option for you to work with me on a pay what you can basis (you can use it up to four times), if you are not ready for 4 month package yet (by the way, prices are going up in September, so I recommend you to sign up now, if you want to lock in current pricing.

12. A classmate from design school recommended to take ayurveda dosha test and so I am now here and there reading about ayurveda a bit. Which so far resulted in buying some spices, which now make my cacaos and curcumma lattes even tastier.

13. I binged the first season of Industry on HBO. And now I enjoy watching one new episode per week. How old school.