I guess I got bored & I started to imagine... "Wouldn't it be cool if I could hoop more often?" I need to skip a lot of details but my life literally took a turn in a whole other direction. Plus, I've been considering a gym membership because I feel like I need a place to blow some steam. I used to hoop-it-up daily in my backyard all the time, over a year ago, before I moved to the beach... You would think I would be hooping it up @ the beach but I used to go more before actually moving here; oh you silly Irony. I did have a public park across the street but it was hard for me to concentrate & just focus on hooping because obvious reason: Public Park. I could copy & paste the whole Shy-Hooping-Syndrome threads to explain why but I won't. But I will say I miss working out my muscles & I hate lifting weights.

Anyway... I know, randomness. This really nice lady from NonRadioMusic, Derin, invited me to her little gathering (previous journal entry), & I got to hoop with some really nice people. It got me thinking...

Living in Miami Beach didn't turn out to be what I was hoping to get out of it. Yeah... I had a really nice public park across the street but it just got weird for me to focus on practicing a trick while people were watching you smack yourself in the face with a hula-hoop every now & then. & the one time I thought I was about to bond with this lady, her baby started playing with my minis & he smacked himself on the lip with the hoop & started crying bloody murder. *yikes* That really sucked. I'm not saying hooping @ the park wasn't cool, its just that hooping has been more of a private thing for me for some reason. I just want to forget everything around me & space out, jamming to the tunes blasting in my ear thru my headphones. *hint-hint* I got some blue-tooth bad-boys on the way via snail-mail courtesy of Planting Seeds testimonial contest. Yee-aah!

It's a whole different story when you're purposefully encouraging the people around you to hoop because you want them to feel how fun it is & ignore the shy-feeling part. Plus I get a kick out of people bringing spinning life into the hoops I've made. "Ooh... I love the colors."

I guess since I've been a shy person, the fact that I was invited to a place with the intention to demonstrate hooping has done wonders for my self-esteem. I was in a controlled environment. Now.. that still doesn't explain why I missed all the hooping opportunities that have constantly been present there for me to participate in... such as: All Star Circus; Kayti-Bunny workshops & this DangerFun sidehow stuff... all what could have been wonderful hooping memories, but for some reason, since I've always been kind of an introvert person, I thought I might feel out of place. So why bother risking doing something the complete opposite right? Wrong. Its soul true... its better to regret something you did, than something you didn't do.

Now... to my next point... the day that Derin invited me to The Garden, that's when she pointed across the street & showed me this awesome gym. The Iron Flower. It was everything that I always wanted, or like to do already, packaged into this wonderful design. Considering that I was considering joining a gym, this gym found me. Love @ first sight.

If it's true that the universe sends you answers to the questions you've been asking, this is proof for me. I could have easily ignored it, but not this time. THE IRON FLOWER!

On the drop of the dime, I feel like I literally made a 180 degree turn & I'm literally starting right back @ the "beginning." Why? Because I'm moving back into the same house I grew up in, or was born into... However you wanna look at it. I never thought that would happen. I've had a mix of awful & amazing times there & now I'm back for Round Two.

I'm not living there yet, but I'm already paying the rent. & guess to who: my Grandmother. I'm helping her out, & she's helping me out. Amazing. I'm already *drooling* over the idea of installing laminated wood floors there. It's a cozy one-bedroom house. My mom, dad & brother & my baby sister once lived there all together all at once, but now it's just gonna be me.

My brother & sister live next door with my grandmother. Yeah... long story but the point is I decided it was time to make a different life decision & I did it. It was between, "should I stay... or should I go?" If I stayed, nothing was going to change. But if I left... different means just that. & I NEED something different in my life right now.

Here's another tidbit for you. I've been hit by a car... twice, exactly one year apart, while riding my bike to work. There's no other way to say it except that it fuct me up the first time, & the 2nd time was not any better. I had a lot of pain in my shoulders, knees & back & I might have written about this before but I'll mention it again, hooping really helped me regain full range of motion of my body & then some. So yea for hooping! My sister used to worry about me because no matter what I did, lets just say I've been pretty accident prone peson but I know how to deal. I tell my sister, "Don't worry baby; I'm made out of steel!

To many words for one post. To Be Continued... I'm about to jump into a fantasy & make it a reality, & I'm looking forward to it!

WhirlWind whisks away... By the way, my name is Jasmine, & I'm an Iron Flower.
- xoxo

We'll get more into "quality decision making" later.