What If Peace Is A Daily Practice

I got a question I hear a lot: why did the music disappear from Coffee with a Twist? The honest answer is podcast copyright. Using music the wrong way can trigger takedowns, restrictions, or worse, and I’m not willing to risk the content I’ve worked hard to build. So I talk through what changed, what I’d do instead (like a simple original jingle), and why “safe and consistent” beats “flashy and stressful” every time for an independent creator. 

From there, I’m checking in from a quiet morning on my deck with a cup of coffee before work. We get into real-life outdoor living problems like brutal sun, no shade, and patio furniture that gets destroyed even when you try to do everything right. I share how I’m buying pieces slowly, staying picky on purpose, and aiming for timeless home decor choices that won’t feel dated when trends move on. 

We also touch wellness and mental health in the most practical way: moving again. Zumba, walks, and a physical therapy style app are helping me feel better day by day, even when the first week is pure muscle burn. I wrap with a small family reset in Ocean City, Maryland, plus a simple challenge to find 15 minutes of peace, whether that’s a bath, fresh air, or getting your hands in the garden. 

If this kind of honest check-in helps you, subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find us.

Thanks for listening coffee with a twist.

Email me at: coffeewitatwist@gmail.com

Note: I don’t own copyrights to any music you hear in any of my episodes. 

Transcript

Welcome And No More Music

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey guys, welcome back to Coffee with a Twist. You're here with Madame Balloon. Hope you all are having an excellent week. And that you enjoyed your weekend. Um, I had got a question um from someone asking why I don't do the music anymore. And I may have never explained it. I can't remember, but um, if I did, sorry for anyone that's hearing it again. But um I stopped doing the music because it's a lot more to it um with copyrights and stuff, and you gotta make sure you only put a few seconds and i it's it's a whole lot. So um to avoid getting my stuff taken down, um I stopped doing music. Um you know, I you know, I could write my own jingle or something like that, or have certain things, and there's apps and things that you can um put certain things into. It it's it it needs a little more refining and things, but basically, long story short, copyright issues and making sure I'm not using um too many seconds or minutes, etc. So to be safe and to be able to keep my content up, I just stop doing music. I mean, sorry, but um yeah, you know, I want to do things in compliance is bad enough. I'm already like not the true podcaster in the sense I'm not polished and clean, so I don't need anything additional to like get me bumped out, so that long and short of it is why copyright issues um and you know run the potential of getting my whole all my content pulled down or restricted and things to that nature, and I feel like you know it took me a while to build this, so you know, so I do apologize that there's no music. Um, but today you're here in nature. I'm sitting outside on my brand new deck. Um I think I told you guys I got a deck um for my birthday. It they finished it literally like two days before my birthday last year, so um, you know, it's been winter here, so I haven't really been able to like sit on it and enjoy it. Um, but this past week or two I've been able to come out and enjoy. So I'm literally out here this morning drinking a cup of coffee before work. Uh my son is off to school. His bus was a little late today due to traffic and stuff, so um yeah, so I come out here to like just enjoy the nice breeze and the weather and the view and just just sitting here relaxing. Um, we got some sitting chairs because we had nothing on here. Um I'm being very picky to a degree of what furniture I want up here. So, and of course, everything I want costs too much. Um, but uh we're buying it in pieces, so we brought part of the set a part of the set, and um the rest I probably won't get in all honesty until like next year, unless I can find someone that's maybe like having an estate sale or something, or you know, can find it pre-owned or something like that. But um, the main reason why I'm being so picky, my backyard, like right now it's beautiful, it has some shade, but by let's see, this is 8 30-ish, so but by like 10, my backyard is a freaking furnace. It's we get a ton of sunlight. We have no trees in my yard, it's beyond my yard. We have trees, so when the sun is out, it's out, it's strong. And I learned my lesson on my patio downstairs, it off of the basement. Um, we have furniture out there, I wouldn't call it cheapy furniture, but furniture, and the sun, the sun destroyed it, it's faded, the legs are bending, things like that. So we kind of learned our lesson. Like, yeah, okay, we could go and spend$15 to$2,000 on furniture, which is nice, but for our climate in our backyard, um, where we rarely get shade, it's just not sustainable, even with covering it. And let's be real, yes, I have covers and things like that, but you do good for like a little bit covering it, and then you slack off, or oh, I'll come back and cover it, and then it pours down raining, and then you can't cover it because the cover is dripping wet, and so you tend to like least for me, I can't speak for y'all, but for me, so I fell off basically is what I'm getting at. Um, so it could have potentially gone longer. But me being realistic and knowing me, I'm getting furniture that yes, it's nice if you cover it, but if you don't, it doesn't affect anything. So I'm taking my time to buy the right stuff, and I also want to buy the right stuff because at the price point that it's at, I want to make sure it's something that's timeless and something I'm gonna keep for a very long time, probably the life of me being here um at this home, and take it with me, depends where we end up moving to when we re when we retire. So, um, you know, I just want it to be right, you know. There's one of those things to when you're decorating, you know, there's so many fads that happen, and you want to be a part of them, and they look so good, but um when that fad is gone, it's dated, you you know, and it shows very well. So one of the things that I do, we do when we're doing stuff to our house and things like that, is um yes, we like all the nice fad stuff, but our goal for what we do, we try to make things timeless. Um that way, no matter what the fad is, it's still in style, it doesn't look dated, you're not in a few years changing out all the work you did. Because I mean, let's be real, even if you're DYI in it, it's still your time, effort, and money. And even if you're not DYI in it, it's still time, effort, and money. So we try to do things in timeless ways, even with our kitchen. Like, I want it, I want the whole uh appliances, the colors, the mats, the this, the that, the blues, the you know, all that cool stuff, and gold handles, and you know, all of that. But realistically, it it goes away, even though it looks nice. But the fad, so I try not to go with the fad and just go with I don't really want to say traditional because it's not fully traditional, but timeless. So, like my kitchen's a regular black and white kitchen. Thanks, shout out to my uncle Kenny for that because it was funny. I was like, Man, what am I gonna do with my kitchen cabinets? You know, I don't know what color, because you know, it's so many fads out there, and you're like, you want them all. And my uncle's like, just go with the classic kitchen, black and white, and that's what I did, and you know, I jazzed it up, you know. It's not just black and white, I jazzed it up some and like the island I made a little different, and things like that, like played where I could play that would be safe, and you know, always I tell anyone with paint colors, those you can play with and go with a fad because it's paint. Paint's typically inexpensive. You well, I won't say inexpensive like that, but it doesn't cost so much versus build-ins and things like that is more what I'm getting at. You can always change the paint colors, but things that are more permanent, like you know, certain cabinets you put in, things like that, especially if they're not wood and you can't paint over them, things like that. I try to make sure they're timeless. So um doing kind of that same thing out here on the deck, you know, what I get, you know, I at least want the frame and stuff to be pretty traditional, standard, not going with like a a bright color or something, you know what I mean? That over time, you know, it's not really an you know, go with the tr, you know, not traditional, but a timeless frame. The good thing about what I'm getting, even though the cushions, cushions are expensive, the cushions I can play around with a little, um, because you can always replace those, even though they cost, but they're you know, the main thing is the frame, so I may haven't decided, I may play with the cushions a little. Um they you know have like some funky like designs and stuff, so I might do that to kind of make it fun. Um, but like some of them when I'm looking at it, I'm like, ugh, I feel like that will go out of style, you know, you know, so it might be a thing where I make you know pretty tradition, not pretty timeless, but maybe play with some throw pillows or something, I don't know. Um, but we will see, but yeah, so it feels really good to sit out here and just relax and like breathe before work type of thing, but um, but yeah, guys, like I am in a good mood today. I woke up in a good mood. Um I'm just you know happy, you know. I'm happy to be here. Um yeah, just you know, reflecting as you guys know and listen to previous episodes. It's it's been a trying year already, so and a lot of it, you know, I'm still in disbelief to some of it, but um, you know, for some reason you just are meant to keep moving on and moving forward, and that's really the best we can do and just be better than you were yesterday and the day before. Um, I've been getting back and I think also I'm feeling good again, like I'm back into Zumba. I'm able to I've been going daily um twice a week. I'm um doing my walks. Um, I'm doing this app called Hinge, and it's like a PT um app for physical therapy or whatever, but it's like exercising and stretches, so I've been doing it. My insurance offers it, excuse me, guys, and that just like was in my face. Oh gosh. Sorry guys. Um, so I've been doing that, and they have like incentives and stuff to keep you motivated, which I need. Um, so I'm trying to just move every day, and believe it or not, at least for me, um, I feel good, like I I feel good. Oh my god, the first week that I started everything, because I kind of started everything the same week the hinge ab back to Zumba walking every day. Oh my god, my legs, the bottom of my lower stomach was in pain. I was my muscles were on fire. I had to relax. So, um, over last weekend, my husband took us to Ocean City just like a weekend trip, more like a day trip, but we did spend a night just so not driving all day, and it was really nice. So my husband and son never been there. I'm from Maryland, I've been to Ocean City several times, um, but years ago, you know, I probably haven't been in 20 years, so it's like new to all of us, and in a sense, I mean, hasn't changed much, but still. So we walked aboard walk. My son played in the sand and the dinosaur, the playground, and things, and our my favorite part to the whole trip is um my husband and my son and I took the old tiny pictures, and my son did so great, he looks so cute, you know. Oh, it was it was awesome. So um we did that just you know, it's an experience and for the fun of it. So we did that. Um, of course, walked the boardwalk, salt water taffy, popcorn, um, you know, just looked around to pictures and stuff. It was really a good relaxing trip, a needed trip after what we've been through this past like three months. Um, so it was just really relaxing, and you know, we walked around. Yes, of course, by the water it had a nice little breeze. We were good walking down because we were with the breeze, so you know it felt still warm, and uh walking back was was hell because you're walking against the wind. Um so either way, you know, we still had an excellent time. My son enjoyed it so much. Uh, he was on such great behavior, so proud of him. Um yeah, so proud of him. Like he he did he did an amazing job. Um and then we stayed in Virginia Um for the night at the Marriott, and um, it was re that was also a really nice experience. It was like two two getaways in one. It was really nice, and it's actually a place I would want to go back to just to relax. Like it would even be good for like a girl's trip or something, or even a boys' trip, just depends what you want to get into, but nice relaxing. Um, the restaurants right off of the um hotel, and the what reason why that is pretty good is because you can go get your drinks if you want, and you can go back and forth to the hotel and the um restaurant with your drinks, and then also um, you know, the food was good. They have an outdoor area, and you're right on the bay. We had the bayside view, so we had a balcony and stuff. It was really peaceful and nice and relaxing. And the rooms were really big. It was it was it was nice. Um, so it was my you know, we were getting food to go, um, get it, and then you know, we're gonna head back, so it was really nice. They have a playground out there that's fenced in. They have um like adult games as well and stuff out there you can play. So it it was a really good experience. Um, I had this key lime key lime crush drink that was oh so good. Um I forget what Jason had. He told me he had a beer and something else. I can't remember. And um, yeah, the drinks are really good, and you know, able to take them right back over to the hotel, drink it and the stuff there. Because, you know, we've been on the road most of the day and being out on the boardwalk, we were just kind of ready to be like in settled mode. So I was like, let's eat at the hotel. So um, yeah, it the food was good, the environment was nice, the people were nice. It was a really good, relaxing weekend, you know. It wasn't stressful. Um, normally when couples go on vacation, at least I can speak for me and my husband, there we're all you're gonna have some type of bickering. It was none of that, it was just straight awesome. So um it was good, you know. It was like a time where you could just let your hair down, and I'm so grateful to my husband because he planned everything. I planned none of it, so I was just kind of going with the flow, and um, it made a world of difference, probably why we didn't bicker. Um, because he didn't have his controlling wife in his ear, but uh either way, it was a really nice time, and um I'm glad I'm glad we did it. So, you know, especially with this economy right now, it's everything's so expensive and things, but you know, I told you guys before, try to try to find some relaxation. I hope you guys are taking me up on my challenge, taking that bath, relaxing. Um 15 minutes, something, you know, it's important, and you don't realize how important it is until you start doing it. Um you need peace, you need peace, and you need to find what gives you that peace. If um just try to find some type of time, and the more time you put towards it, the more time you want of it, so you will begin to be intentional, at least I feel you would be, but you know, but yeah, I'm gonna end it there because I gotta log into work here in a few. But um, I just wanted to pop one here, say hi to everyone. Like I said, I'm trying to be more intentional of putting content out. Um, sometimes I have big topics, sometimes it's just uh a check-in, and this is that just a check-in, and um summer, well, spring is here, and um, you know, get out in your garden beds and do some gardening, some landscaping and things, that's also very can be very relaxed and peaceful. So, you know, take up gardening, take up, you know, do it small. Even if you buy one of those what arrow gardens, you know, just something that can help give you some peace. But yeah, um that's kind of where we are right now, just trying to decompress from life and um to the best that we can. So yeah, but yeah, I gotta jump off. Um, but yeah, um enjoy the rest of your week. And tomorrow's April Fool's Day. Um yeah, let's start April. It's the what the second quarter starting, so this will be a very blessed second quarter, guys. We we need that, we need that. Um but yeah, I'll be back on to put out more content. It's trying to do like twice a week, guys. I'm really trying, so and you know, thank you guys for sticking with me and still downloading. I I see it happening, so I'm really appreciative of it. Um But yeah, I'll end it there. Thank you for joining Coffee with a Twist, Madam Balou.