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.
It has been a few days since the horrific and catastrophic events that took place during the early morning hours of Sunday, June 12th. As most of the world knows by now, a deranged (as how could he be anything but..) gunman walked coolly into a very popular and busy gay nightclub and opened fire – killing 49 people and leaving 53 others injured. 5 of those injured are reported to still be in critical condition today and the world waits to see if the death toll rises.
The gunman, whom I refused to name – we all know it now and I refuse to provide any more memorial to him than what the media has already allowed – reportedly laughed while he was shooting in addition to being ‘calm and collected’ while speaking with various negotiators through out the ensuing 3 hour stand-off.
As details emerge these past few days reports include that the gunman had visited the club regularly and that he has also scouted out Walt Disney World parks as a potential target. Now, the information pertaining to the parks hits rather close to home with me as they are areas that I regularly visit, and indeed was on Disney property that weekend. Worse yet, to hear that the information was being provided to authorities from the gunman’s wife means that this event quite possibly COULD have been avoided if only she had told authorities sooner. Thankfully, at least, Disney has a rather strong and vigilant security presence, both in their own personal security force (which does include trained K-9 units) as well as uniformed Sheriff’s County Deputies that work the parks as off-duty details. Disney security was, notable, even more prevalent and dutiful Sunday morning and I suspect moving forward will continue to be.
Regardless, however, innocent people lost their lives for what amounts only to one person’s misguided, wicked and arguably unbalanced beliefs. Whether they were truly religion based or solely the thought processed of someone who was truly unbalanced I doubt we will ever know. But yet again, a senseless tragedy has occurred taking with it not only the lives of those lost, but the safety and well-being of their families and the trust and innocence of our nation, which still repeatedly attempts to heal itself.
This event will also polarize our nation, sending it into a spiral of debate, rhetoric and division. I’ll be addressing some of my viewpoints on those things in other upcoming posts because I have remained silent and feel the need, after this which happened so close to home (indeed, I have many friend who thankfully were NOT in the club that night, but could have been).
But here, in this space and in this time while you read this, I wish to honor those who are no longer with us. I want to show those within the LGBTQ community as well as the families directly affected that you are not alone. We voice your anguish and carry your sorrow. We stand with you, your families and your loved ones in this loss, as with all things. As we stand together, than inequality and terrorism can not, WILL not win.
We are #OneVoice, We are #OnePeople, We are #OnePulse.
With the piqued interest I’ve had of late to up my game with the professional gothiness, I’ve rediscovered that make up is, indeed, a drug.
I go out to get a few thing to start freshening up my look and lo and behold I’m watching Jeffree Star tutorials (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) and running to Ulta every weekend to try out new Nyx lippies and various other things that I feel I now need including Jeffree’s own Velour Liquid Lipstick and his newly released Beauty Killer palette.
I’m honestly trying to find time to work on new looks and perfect my technique. Particularly with my eyeliner.
I’m learning all about fall out. Learning all this stuff I thought I knew in high school and had no clue about.
I’m learning different brands, and who is best for what. I’m learning what things work best for me.
Yes, I’m going to be 40 soon, and I’m enjoying a second sort of teenagedom. 🙂
I’ve bitten the bullet and enrolled in Weight Watchers. Yes, I’m on a ‘diet’ as it were. Now, mind you, I don’t generally like to pay for such things. I totally understand the mentality that if you pay for something, you’re more apt with follow through because otherwise you’re wasting money. I felt the same way about gym memberships, yet here I am with one to the local Y and I’m finding that having an alternative on those muggy, disgusting and oppressively hot Florida days is a blessing.
But a diet plan? Eh. I have acquaintances that are selling Plexus now, or Shakeology and I get those too. I’m sure that they work for people and am glad that they have found success. But I also know what my weakness is, and that’s sugar. I love cake, cupcakes, candies and chocolates FAR too much to give them up and I have to learn how to control my cravings for them.
My mouth waters just looking at this….
Which is one of the things I LIKE about Weight Watchers. Yes, you can eat everything I just mentioned, but you also eat it KNOWING that you are using more of the points from your daily allowance and it truly does make me think twice, even just within a few days, of whether or not I want that package of Twinkies. (Today, I said yes and I’m NOT going to beat myself up over it!)
Not to mention, through a benefit with my insurance provider, I qualified for 6 months free with no obligation AND a reduced rate afterwards. I’ll take that. What I like as well is that I can eat as much fruit as I want and THAT will certainly help with the sweet cravings heading into summer here. There are advantages to living in Florida – lots of readily available fresh fruit.
This also goes back to the rambling post I made last night about my Reboot. I have to do something. Running is still causing me issues, though I am rediscovering my love of P90X and weight training while I work on cross-training which is also essential towards great running results.
Today happens to be a ‘cheat’ day as I’m am FAR too stressed out and starving. I’m still tracking what I eat as it will be a good benchmark and I’m just in my first week of using this program. What I am finding is that it’s MUCH harder to avoid snacking at work than it is at home so it’s the mid-day work lull I have to watch out for. I’m about a week in, technically I started last Friday. but we’ll see if there are any immediate results.
I may go over what the program entails and how I’m doing on it moving forward, but those are posts for a different time.
Between this, being a LOT more active and my new-found desire to play with make-up, I can only imagine what I will look like in a months time. Certainly something to look forward to!
Chrysalis Creation 