 Good morning, my beautiful internet friends. Welcome back. Yesterday I released a video talking about how uncomfortable I was going to the amputee coalition conference. As amazing of an experience as it was, I realized I was very uncomfortable with the part of my identity that is now an amputee, and I'm still making peace with that. And I thought, you know what? That is something that I am well in the process of making peace with. It's gonna take a moment. We're not gonna get that done today or tomorrow or probably this year. So why don't we talk about some other things that I am? Because I think it's easy to get fixated on one thing that we're struggling with. At least I find it easy to get fixated on one thing that I'm struggling with and like that becomes my whole world or my whole life or everything that I'm looking at. But you know what? The fact that I'm an amputee is one aspect of my life, but there are lots of other things that I am. So welcome to I'm an... That was actually a perfect way to start that. What I was meaning to say is, welcome to I'm an amputee, but I'm also, and literally one of the things I was going to tell you is very clumsy. And as I did that, I literally knocked over my glass of water. So demonstration will be included in this video. Without further ado, let's dive in. I am an amputee, but I'm also a bronze medalist in a jujitsu competition here in Colorado. A few years ago, I competed and I won in the women's division. I got my bronze medal. Ta-da! That's pretty cool. Actually, I was really, really proud of that. I trained for many months for that. I used to fight in mixed martial arts fighting, like UFC fighting. That's what I did for two years. And part of that was jujitsu training and I freaking loved it. It's like a part of my soul. I had to stop the MMA side of things because health in my body, but I continued on with the jujitsu aspect of things. And up until actually about a year and half, two years ago now, I was doing jujitsu at least a couple times a week. And I have my blue belt, which I'm super proud of. And I cannot wait to get back to it as soon as my little leg will allow me to. Because you know what? You don't need two feet to choke people out in jujitsu. Most of you guys know this already, but I'm an artist. I wasn't always, though. I doodle a lot when I was a kid. Like that's something that my mom would tell you about me, but I'd stopped drawing for a long time. And then actually when I stopped being able to fight when that was like taken away from me, I needed something to fill my time. And I picked up a pencil. These are some of my drawings. Actually, a book was recommended to me. It was called Drawing from the Right Side of Your Brain. And I read that and it like unlocked things for me. And I started drawing. I also paint from time to time. I haven't done either one of those things in many months and I'd really like to. Though I'm an artist, I am not a musician. I have no musical talent at all. I tried. My dad's really good, though. I'm a sister, a great one. And my brother isn't here to tell you otherwise. My brother still lives in Colorado. I see him not very often, but as often as I can. He's one of my best friends. He's a really cool dude. And I'm really proud to be his sister. We were both homeschooled. It probably made us a little bit closer once we got over the hating each other because we were around each other all the time. So I was actually homeschooled all the way from kindergarten through the time that I turned 16. Then I was put in a charter school. That charter school was basically just so that I could start taking college classes. And by the time I graduated high school, I almost had my associates degree. So that's cool. I like to sometimes make jokes about the fact that because I have a key eye malformation, which is where my brain is too big and is like being compressed at the back of my skull, my brain is just so big. And that's why, you know, I graduated with my associates degree and I'm just so smart. But by the fact that wasn't even a fully formed joke, I think we can all agree that maybe that's not actually what's going on here. I was about to tell you what I majored and minored in in college, but I literally don't remember if I had a minor. It was apparently very important to me. I did major in leadership communication, which I think is ranked one of the least usable degrees in the entire world. However, I loved it. I really enjoyed it. It's all about people and how people work together and how people think and communicate. And I like that stuff. I love dancing. I am terrible at it. I have no dancing skills at all, but I freaking love it. As soon as I have a leg, I will be dancing and you'll probably have to suffer through seeing it. I, when I was in high school, I actually used to go to swing dancing at the weight board, the FW. Like it makes me sound super old and I like it every Sunday. And I got okay at it. It was just so much fun and I can't wait to do it again. I feel like I might have revealed this to you guys during live stream. I'm a water the rings nerd. Like when I was growing up, I learned to sew and sewed myself capes and I grew up in the forest. So like I ran around the forest with a cape pretending I was Aragorn, because we all know Aragorn's the coolest character. And yeah, maybe I printed out an Elvish dictionary and learned the language, but whatever. We don't have to talk about that. However, because I love that movie so much, that like the movie trilogy, the books were really good, but frankly, I was like way more into the movies. Because of that, I made a fan website about it. And because of that, I learned HTML and CSS and Photoshop. And I have actually gotten jobs because of the fact that I was a water the rings fangirl. Being a nerd works out sometimes. I like to think of myself as a very loyal friend. However, if you know me in real life, you'll know that I am truly horrible at responding to messages. Like if you get FaceTime with me, I am all there. I'm like in this conversation with you. But if you text me, there is like a 50% chance that I'm not going to get back to you unless it's important, unless like you're having a hard time or unless it's like important. I'm really not good at responding to things. I'm working on that. Like I'm actually trying to work on that in my life. Been trying to work on that for like 18 years. I used to do CrossFit. Purple is the best color. That's not an opinion. It's a fact. That's not even me talking. It's just the reality of the situation. Purple is the best end of story. I think this is pretty clear if you've watched any of my other videos, but I love coffee. I freaking love coffee. I went up to my parents' house over the weekend. They were gone, so we were watching it. And I got up early with puppy dogs and made myself some espresso. Those are the moments that I just love. I just love. There's something about the process of making any type of coffee or espresso and then sitting down and sipping it and like the smells and just all of it. It's just amazing. When it comes to music, I like a lot of different things, but my favorites will probably always be Lincoln Park and then NF, knee debris, Matt Carney and a lot of other stuff underneath that. One of the most relaxing things in the world to me is to go driving. Like aimlessly just go drive, turn on some good music or podcast and just zone out. There's something about being in a car, driving alone that feels really safe to me and I like it. Aside from that, one of my favorite things to do to relax, which is probably not a productive or healthy thing to do, but I really love finding a good show. Probably like most of you guys watching and just binge watching the thing, laying on the couch with my heating pad and eating some kettle corn for hours. Watching the show for hours, not eating kettle corn for hours. Though I'd be fine with that too, frankly. Bonus round. That legit was not a great idea. I'm just going to dangle this tidbit and see if anyone's interested. I got married twice. Did I get divorced? No. Am I married to two people currently? No. I did get married to Brian twice. My amazing husband. Side note, my identity as a wife is a huge portion of my identity and something I'm crazy proud of. Really love to have Brian on this channel more so maybe we can all work on convincing him that he's really awesome and great on camera. But anyways, us getting married twice had nothing to do with how we were doing as a couple. We were doing great. Our second wedding happened two years after our first wedding and to anyone involved. I won't go into details that would expose you. That's all I'll say. Here are pictures from both of our weddings. The second one was my favorite and that's all I'll say about that. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Though I have tried to shake this with every ounce of me, I cannot stop believing that people are generally worth fighting for and decent. Though I and all of us have evidence to the contrary, I do trust people and I like them frankly. I like people. I like you guys. I do believe in God that used to be a much larger part of my identity than it presently is. I tried to shake it for a long time. I tried to deny the existence or my belief in any kind of higher being but I really couldn't do it because I've had too many experiences that I would be happy to share someday. They are personal experiences for me that are very real and I wouldn't ever try to convert you based on them but I do believe that there is a God and I'm still trying to figure out what exactly that means to me. I love deep conversations. Like people say don't talk about religion or politics with family or friends. I love it. Like please please talk to me about those things. I am someone who if you put me at a party you'll eventually find me sitting down with a complete stranger like talking about their their deepest feelings or how they really feel about God and the universe and how that plays into our current political structure and I just I'm not super smart about any of that stuff. I don't really know a lot about any of it but I love hearing what other people think. I really like hearing other people's points of view and something that I really strongly believe in though I've absolutely messed this up in my own life is listening to people, listening to different points of view, and keeping an open mind without getting angry. I think it's easy to see especially if you turn on the news nowadays that people get really angry over everything. People get really angry, people disagree with them. I think that's kind of sad to see because I think people are better than that so if you disagree with me on a topic I love that. I really like hearing that. I listen to a lot of YouTube channels that I actively disagree with like one of my favorites is Mr. Atheist. I'm definitely not an atheist. I'm nowhere near it but I love hearing his point of view on things. It expands my mind and it makes me think and I think we could all benefit from hearing different points of view as long as no one gets like personal with their attacks and remains decent, disagree away. I love it. Last but not least I am addicted to getting pets. I have a whole video about that. I do take pride in the fact that I am a great pet mom. I always want to be a better one but Brad and I really really love our animals and they bring us such joy and such life. We don't actually ever want human children. We would consider adopting or fostering to adopt one day. We don't really want kids of our own. We're good with our with our fur babies and just continuing to grow our pack but we're like literally at capacity right now. There's no way we could have more animals in the house we presently live in so if you're out there if you're a wealthy benefactor and you happen to have like 10 acres of land somewhere with a I mean it can be a small house I don't care. You want to go ahead and like PayPal that to me so that I can have my pack of eight dogs, rescue dogs. That's like my dream. One day I will have eight. I don't know why but that just seems like a good number to me. Just let me know. Just hit me up. You can find my information wherever. It's like a wealthy benefactor is out there and wants to gift us some land so we can keep growing our puppy army. I'll be waiting. Just kidding. That's it for me guys. If you have any questions I would love to hear them. This was a little bit of a different kind of video but I hope that you enjoyed it. I think it's important to remember that we're more than the things that we're struggling with. I'll just repeat that in first person. I think it's important for me to remember that I am more than what I am struggling with because sometimes life gets a little bit much and yeah the difficult things require focus and attention and energy but there are other cool things in our life too. Like yeah I'm an amputee but also I'm a lot of other things that I'm proud of. Thanks for listening guys. A huge thank you to all of my patrons over on Patreon. You guys make these videos possible. You help out sincerely more than you know. I know I say that in every video but I really really mean it. And thank you to you watching this video right now for spending a few minutes of our day here with me. You could be doing so many other things but you spent it with me and I truly appreciate that. I love you guys. I'm thinking of you and I will see you in the next video. Bye.