After a bit of a hiatus, I have started repainting dolls again for offer in my Etsy shop! This one has been done for a bit, but life is finally allowing me to post her. For some reason, I really love working on freckled dolls, and they also seem to be pretty quick sellers for me which tells me that others like them as well!
I have another work in progress (WIP) that Ishould be finishing up soon and hope to get her photo’d this weekend for posting.
Thanks and enjoy!
So over the weekend I had what could have been a potential set back with my helix piercing – it wasn’t responding well to the 20 gauge jewelry we used at all and was trying to heal by swelling around and over it. This is something that does occur regularly in some individuals, and given my metal sensitivities and the sheer fact that my physiology should probably be studied by science its not necessarily unexpected.
I went into my lovely and beautiful piercer, April, to have her assess and provide a plan of action. We decided to install a larger gauge labret bar with a flat back to allow room for swelling and assist my cartilage with draining properly. There was almost instantaneous relief and results and two days later I’m already seeing a significant decrease in swelling, redness, and an increase in drainage and a return to what my natural ear looks like.
Wanted to get some immediate thoughts about the process of putting in a larger gauge bar out there for others in case you’re in a similar situation!
Reposting from my other blog – Professional Goth (for all things gothy, professional goth, and finding my way in a professional world!)
Did a quick little video last night that got finalized today for everyone to see! Got to review some products that I have wanted to try out (and still search for the ever elusive and highly recommended Tarte Shape Tape Concealer!) as well as some thoughts on things I’m trying to accomplish and get organized. So much going on in my head to get out. Thank you for following along and please remember to subscribe to my YouTube channel to get updates on new videos and view new content!
I had an interesting experience yesterday at work, and I blogged about it on my sister site that I started this weekend (total coincedence!) but going to cross-post it here as well for anyone interested. Please make sure to subscribe and feel free to leave comments if the desire strikes.
I have been watching a TON of makeup tutorials lately and it got me thinking – I have a lot to say. Usually thoughts will creep into my head and I’ll think to myself that it would be wonderful to put that into the world and share it, but I don’t always have the time, as I’d like, to sit down and write out a post about it . Worse, I’ll get the thought, and not be in a place where I can take advantage of stopping to write it down and post it. Enter the idea to start vlogging – or video logging – even here on my WordPress Blog. Would be easy enough to upload a vlog, and then come back here at the end of the day to share it as a post.
I’v considered SnapChat – and I do have a SnapChat account because though I’ve posted nothing, there are people I enjoy following for purely entertainment reasons and I’ve found some fun contests to be a part of. (I’m still waiting to win on said contests, but you get nothing if you don’t try!) The issue with SnapChat is you only get a few seconds, and there are topics that I certainly need more than a few minutes to converse about!
I would kinda like to try, as an ‘older’ woman, to recreate some of the make up tutorials I loved to watch. I’d also like to do some first impression vlogs about any number of products, and some social observation as well.
So I start to research, as I’m want to do, what I would need to use equipment wise for a good looking, solid blog. Holy OMG…$700 for a camera? Maybe eventually, but for now I think I’m going to see what I can finagle with my cell phone, a tripod, and some decent lighting. Maybe that can be part of the vlog too – how to build one.
If your interested, and would be curious what a 39 year old mother, full time office worker, recovering goth, nail obsessed, newly reinvigorated make up maven and general all around outspoken crafty sort of woman has to say, then let me know!
I realized this morning that I hadn’t blogged in a while and when I logged in to see where my last blog left me, I saw that it was 6/30/16! Bad blogger for not being more consistent. I really do need to work on that. Perhaps that’s a post in and of itself.
July was filled with quite a bit of insight, upheaval and dealing with travel (for my other half – not for me unfortunately) and in dealing with all of it life just sort of caught up to me. That being said, with kindergarten fast approaching for my littlest one, I suspect that August will be just as busy, albeit with more opportunity to take a few moments of my days and post something that will hopefully be worth while to read. I’m still figuring out this whole ‘blogging’ thing after all.
I need to get back to making my dolls and refreshing the stock in my etsy shop. I love to work on them, but they do consume quite a bit of time – particularly if I’ve opted to reroot their hair and I have a tendency to just sit down and work, work, work once an idea hits me. I’ve been seeing a LOT of Suicide Squad Harley Quinn’s of late and that makes me happy. Some great ones have been created and I have to say the attention to detail amazes me.
Then there is the bracelets, which I also have been loving to make because they are quick, easy and something I can work on while watching TV at night. Been bouncing around the idea of trying to create some matching earrings for them to – but need to source some solid and affordable posts as I am HORRIBLY sensitive to anything plated and wish not to sell something I can’t also wear. I find it important that even if no one inquires, I wear my own creations daily. If you won’t wear your own stuff, then why would you think someone else would want to as well?!
I’ve also been batting the idea around to add some vlogs to my posts. I’ve been hell bent on relearning how best to apply make up and I’ve yet to see one from someone my age – which though I don’t look nearly close to what people would think 39 looks like, there are some base differences to how I can apply make up to say a twenty-something with fresh skin. I’ve also been wanting to post opinions of products and what I find works for me – in an effort to help out those in the ‘older’ set. If there is an interest in that, please let me know in the comments!
Racing is something I need to get back into as well once the weather is more conducive to running outside. I find running on the treadmill to be difficult at best since I can’t train in intervals nearly as easily (why for has the health and fitness industry not created a treadmill in which you can program timed intervals?! Get on that engineering/programming types!) I’ve been doing well on Weight Watchers and have managed through their program and walking 10000 steps a day approximately to loose a total of 12 lbs in about as many weeks so it’s a good, solid and manageable progression. Only 27 more to go!
There really has been a lot going on, and a ton that I want to start discussing more openly regarding my point of view on things. I just need to organize and start working on them. Stay tuned for more!
Soon I’ll be relaxingly taking in my 39th birthday. This is the dreaded year that everyone complains they will no longer be ‘young’ and that the equally dreaded 40’s looms on the horizon. To me, personally, it will be yet another day – like so many others I’ve been experiencing. Cleaning, maybe working on some of my beloved dolls or bracelets, and just general day-to-day things that I find myself working on. Its just another day, and one that is no different than the day before or the day after save I’ve marked time I’ve spent on this Earth drawing breath. It doesn’t change who I am, who I’ve become or who I’m going to be. I will still be mom, and partner, and sister, and cousin and coworker and friend. Nothing shall change with the passing of the day.
I am reminded, again, of what it means to grow up – to be responsible, to act a certain way and with a certain expectation of maturity and wisdom. To be professional and serious and all those things we associate with a certain number of years passed around the sun. I still balk at it, I’ve found. It’s an odd sort of Peter Pan like mentality where I want to be ME yet rail against the desire to ‘be my age’ and progress professionally. After all, I’m almost 40 (gasp) and I still enjoy loud music with screeching guitar solos, dressing in all black and going to Disney regularly to escape the realistic gloom that hangs over most people it seems anymore.
So what does that mean for me?
To be honest I can’t rightly say and I think that, with anything in life, that’s the jist of it. Each day brings new endeavors, new opportunities, new learning experiences. Age is a number, which I would have to say that actress Olivia de Havilland would have to agree with. It’s what you make of your age that is ultimately important; who you are at your core. I am a good many things, some wondrous, some wicked, some sad and some inspiring. I know I encompass more than I even am aware of.
What I hope, as a new day dawns soon on a new chapter in my chronological cycle, is that my children can be proud to say that I’m their mother. That my partner can look upon me with love, affection and pride for the woman they love, that my parents can be glad to call me their child and that my coworkers can speak kind of the person I am and the worker I happen to be. Beyond that though, what I hope for and still strive (and at times struggle) to obtain is a peace within myself that I am exactly who I’m supposed to be, where I’m supposed to be and content with whom that person happens to be.
The Greek definition of Happiness is “the joy you feel striving towards your potential.” May this new year provide me more opportunities to recognize that journey and realize the potential that is, ultimately, simply me.
