Oh Dang.

Hey! Hi! You know, its crazy, but I was journaling Monday and Tuesday about some new things and I though for a second, while I was writing, that maybe I should be writing this stuff on my blog. I quickly dismissed the idea and covered it with, "you have been journaling just fine on your own on paper, so why would you suddenly want to blog again?" Good question, so I continued in my paper journal. BUT then, I got a little kick in the teeth, a good jab that comes when the nudge of an idea is not quite enough to spring me into action.  You guys know. Well, I wouldn't say the kick came right away, there was more a gentle tug on my heart strings from a few long distant friends. The tugging lead to the realization and the realization was like a full on kick. My teeth are fine though. In case you were wondering.

Sooooo, What? What's up? I am totally out of the loop.

The first Universal Law governing everything in the entire universe (duh) and our entire perceived reality is The Law of Mentalism. The Law of Mentalism essentially states that all human reality is mental, and that our entire universe is one big, huge, infinite intelligence and that all of our brains, rather than creating unique thought, are simply channeling signals like the little am/fm radios sitting on the shelves of your garages. We can tune in to different channels and play whatever tunes suit our moods, ideals, and perceptions, but we should be mindful of what we broadcast since our minds have the power to influence and create our reality. Your environment is your thinking objectified.

For the past few months I have been turning my dial to stations I didn't even know were transmitting before. I have been letting stations play, sometimes a few simultaneously, through my receiver for extended periods of time to see what their purposes are and if there is overlap in the transmissions. Its been a little like trying on different lenses and filters and seeing how they cut through the glare and fogs of my reality.  In more concrete terms, I have been taking a shit ton of classes, reading an even broader shit ton of books and talking to a shit ton of people. I have been meditating and finding new parts of myself (and everyone technically).  I have been doing breath-work and have found a way to use my voice and breath to raise my awareness to higher vibrations and dimensions. I have kept dream journals and received messages from my higher self. I have charted the movements of the moon and kept a keen eye on the planetary shifts and aspects, recording any influences that may be accorded to them. In case you were wondering, Yes, I stepped into to the deep end, but I have never felt more at peace and grounded in my entire life. Apparently, the deep end is where its at for me.

So that explains where I have been. Here, but there too. I know that many people have mixed feelings about all of this type of thing. Its fine. I shrug my shoulders at that. Lots and lots of people are feeling the veil slip a bit though. Peering through that nagging feeling that things are not quite as they seem. My advice: READ. Read then measure. There are is so much information that can be found that will resonate for you. FIND IT. The more you find the more you begin to trust yourself. Till eventually the polarity will shift and it will be no longer a search to validate your truth, but an outpouring of it. The evidence is incontrovertible.

For the next 7 weeks I am studying the 7 universal laws, one for each week, and journaling, sometimes here and sometimes on paper, how they are active and effecting my reality. I mentioned the first above. If you wanted, you could research them for yourself and journal as well along with me. Pay attention to how you may deflect the laws, or how you unconsciously manipulate them. Pay attention to the thoughts that come and remember that you have the power to change the station if you wish. Consider that power before you follow an impulse to spread any poison in this space.

Thank you for missing me, those of you that did. I miss you too.

Hold tight. Let go.

I have been reading tarot cards lately.  I have been fantasizing about opening an oddities shop where I sell crystals and candles and bells and bones and other witchy knick-knacks. In the back room, through the wood beaded veil, I’ll have a table draped with printed silk and I will read palms and do tarot readings. I will ask for your birthday, time and location and tell you your moon and sun signs, rising sign, and where the planets appear in your houses.  Then I will tell you what that all means. The information will hit home with you and you will leave with a greater sense of purpose, an understanding of your place in the universe, and the grace and ease that comes with the confidence that everything is exactly as it should be.  Ideally, my shop will be in the floor level of an old house that my family lives in. As customers come in a bell will ring, but when no one comes in, I will just be at home with my family. The shop will be open most times, unless I am not home (and after 7 pm). I will drink tea and invite groups of friends and philosophers to come over to tea. Perhaps it will be a central meeting place for a book club.  There will be an area for meditation and yoga. I will also have lots of plants growing in a beautiful window wall.  Kilim rugs and other woven textiles will line the floors and walls. My personal collection of oddities, carved book holders, brass crabs, bundles of dried sage, will fill shelves and deep windowsills. Vintage chairs and tables will be situated randomly. A basket overflowing with brightly woven Mexico blankets will casually ask all who enter to bundle up and stay a while.  I will play music. Whatever is tickling my feet to bump around at the moment.  And there will be books everywhere. For sale, rent or trade. I will try to read all of them and organize them in a way that makes sense to me so that when someone comes in looking for something they might be turned on to something in a different subject, but maybe leaning in their direction of interest. And of course I will be able to find exactly what they are looking for when they come in asking, “I just want to know what types of things I can eat and do to balance my internal organ function with the changing seasons.”  I will direct them to a practical guide on Eastern Medicine, or some such, and send them home with a little bag of herb tea to sip while they read in a sunny window, my acupuncturist’s phone number, and a big warm smile.   This shop will be profitable, but really just enough to pay the bills and fund more finding and collecting to keep it freshly stocked.  People will come, more and more, all by word of mouth.  It will be aesthetically pleasing and interesting. Visitors will see something new each time they come in.   I may even sell vintage clothing. Leather boots and purses will line the wall in one room and above it will be a line of easily wearable day dresses and sweaters.  Wallpaper. Beautiful wallpaper.  A beautiful little space that I can live a simple life in.

There is an old brick house up for rent on the main street. When I look at it, it fuels my fantasy.  Big front porch. Shed in the back.  Zoned commercial and residential. . . I don’t want to lose my house. I love my house. I love all the things in it and the way it’s set up and all of the memories that are built in.  Just thinking of it being stripped from us brings tears to my eyes. I see my son’s face looking at me and asking fearfully,” Mom, can coyotes break our windows and get into our house?” I assure him that our house was built strong by daddy, with lots of love and protection. Our windows are thick and strong and no bad things can reach us in here. He feels satisfied and safe and confident as he settles into sleep. I don’t want to lose that. Please don’t take it away. The fantasy eases my mind, a temporary distraction, some glimmer of an alternate reality that can feel equally safe and warm and loving.  I don’t want to lose my house.

I feel like I have been living in a dream state. Or waking from one. Every time I clean my toilet I am aware that I may not be cleaning this toilet by the end of this year. I may be cleaning a different one. One that someone else I don’t know has been shitting in for years. There might even be some of their piss under the tile that I can smell but can never reach to clean. And I am thankful for my familiar shitty toilet.  How could I have ever loathed this task? I am aware that ownership is a construct of the ego. That you can’t really OWN anything. All that is really mine is my body and my soul. I guess that is even up for discussion these days. Anything else can be stripped away. It’s safer to not form attachments. But how can you not?  I have not mastered love without attachment.  I want to keep the things I love near to me. Every stick of this house has been touched with my family’s love. Our family can love new sticks of new houses, but I don’t want to start over. I don’t want the fantasy. I just want to enjoy the reality of my current life a little longer. Please. The future is uncertain. I don’t want to think about it. I want to fantasize about an alternate universe where we all live in a charming little brick house and I tell fortunes and sell oddities and vintage things. Other people’s memories. Not mine. I will hold on to mine. A little longer.  As long as I can.  

I feel the wheel turning. Puts lots of shit into perspective. What a silly girl I have been. Oh well. . . Whats for lunch? 

Still Crazy, after all these years

So a few weeks have past. I am practicing non judgment now so it's no big thing.  Moving on.

I left off in a precarious sort of humbled state in my last post about weaving. The end of that story was going to be eloquently written and convey my personal lesson and all of that, but I am pretty much out of that mode right now. Long story short, I went back and read all of the boring introduction stuff that I had skipped in the weaving book and found this great statement that pretty much changed my whole outlook. I gave the book back to my teacher so I can't quote it, but I'll paraphrase.

When a Navajo girl weaves her first piece on the loom she dedicates herself to weaving just stripes. This gives her muscles memory, teaches her about her loom and helps her to develop her personal weaving style without having to worry about the more technical aspects. The Navajo people enjoy the process of weaving and look forward to all of the pieces they will eventually weave in their life. They can take the time to weave their first piece in just stripes.

When I read this I felt very comforted. I decided to strip the old loom I had found at the thrift store and re warp it. With the help of my teacher, I was ready to begin weaving some stripes. I figured that if I was going to DO this thing, a little patience and step by step progress would serve me well. Over the next couple weeks I weaved stripes and found the peace I experienced while weaving my first piece. I am still working on it now actually. I will photograph it when I am finished. I love it though. I love the process.

Image details can be found on my Tumblr

In other news, I am still reading like a maniac. I finished a few more books on esoteric topics, spirituality, stuff like that. As Serene said in a previous comment, I am really searching right now and have actually been finding the answers I  have been looking for. Those answers have been less in the text though and more in my heart.  Everything I am reading has been leading me to a deeper awareness inside of me.  I was having a hard time trusting myself for a little while though. I admit, for a minute I thought I might be going crazy. I started a desperate attempt at seeking validation externally again in a more private way and got crickets at every request.  It made me begin to doubt the very thing I rely on to guide me through this life! My internal compass, my truth detector, my bullshit meter, all of my instruments would have had to be re-calibrated but I wouldn't have the faintest idea of what code I would recalibrate them to? My personal code has served me so well my whole life. My invisible energetic team. . .  whatever that feeling is when I know something is right and something is wrong. . .  How could that be off?  I was in a crisis for a minute or two. My doubt in myself actually made me SICK to the point that my HEAD EXPLODED. Literally. The pressure built up so much that I ruptured my ear drums. Blood and pus were dripping out, it was effing sick, let me tell you. A few doctors appointments, acupuncture and a therapy session later, it dawned on me that the reason I was getting NO external validation was because I am not supposed to get validation externally anymore. It was time to trust myself. FOR REALS. Silence from others was not proof that I was wrong about the way I see things. I am not crazy. As soon as I began to accept this I got better.

So that was my last three weeks. If you have been reading my blog for any length of time (and those of you that are actually still here obviously have or else you wouldn't waste your time on this shit. Thank you) you will realize that I have been on the verge of this for a while now. I got started blogging again because I thought I was ready, but I guess I just had this final hurdle to clear. Now that that's, I am pretty sure, over I can get back to it. I still feel like this blog is an important element in my life. Trust me, I weighed the pros and cons again during my little break and I just can't get around it. I am here. Again.

Incremental Progress

The salvaged original work left unfinished on the loom.

About a year and a half ago I found an old loom at my local thrift store with an unfinished tapestry woven onto it. The warps (the strings that run vertically on the loom that provide a matrix on which to weave through) were made of wool but were very old and weak, yellowed and broken. The unfinished tapestry had thick, hand spun lengths of different colors of wool, twine, and wood layered upon each other to create a rich and rough piece of work. The spun wool had bits of vegetation and the hair of other animals interlocked in its fibers. The whole thing slumped against the wall among the wicker baskets, mismatched coffee mugs and tupperware that had been separated from their lids. The tools that accompanied the loom, carved from matching dark cherry wood, had additional lengths of wool wrapped around them. It was apparent to me that this weaver didn't feel like they were finished. They had  more work to do here, but for a reason I will never know, they abandoned their weaving. I speculated there in the store while my heart raced as I carried my new find to the register. 'THIS IS INCREDIBLE,' my heart sang. $12. I paid $12 for this treasure that would bring about a change in my life that I could never have anticipated as I gleefully threw a hot $20 down. 

This loom with it's unfinished work stood as a found piece of art work, decorating my house for the next year. People would visit and we would speculate on when and where it was woven, what happened to the weaver and what I intended to do with it. "Are you going to weave on this loom?" The inevitable question kept coming up. My silent answer was always something like, I would love to but would that disrespect the original weaver or ruin the beauty of the found piece? What if I am not good enough and I weave a piece of shit, then not only will I have dismantled something beautiful, I will have wasted and proven a secret desire I have to be a disaster. I carried some self doubt. 

Last spring, while I was in the process of disintegrating my vintage business and the blog here and all the middle man tasks I had been busying myself with for the previous year, I had this very compelling drive to MAKE something. Stop finding things others have made and selling them for a profit, MAKE something of your own and realize that the profit you gain is the cathartic act of creation. The peace that comes from the process. In order to begin making, I had some doubts to overcome. The well of ideas was overflowing but the cap of insecurity kept me from beginning for fear that I would expose myself to myself as a failure. I felt like I needed guidance. I needed tutelage, a teacher that would walk with me in those first steps and show me the slow but sure way to proceed. By August I finally asked the universe for a teacher. While I believe that asking for help is a huge important first step I am also well aware that help comes to those that help themselves, so I grabbed a community college schedule of classes and browsed the subjects. 

Ceramics? No. Painting? Hell no. What was I looking for? Come on come on, I knew it was there somewhere. Then, there in the community education section for the satellite campus in my town was a weaving class. The energy in my body about gave me a heart attack. THAT was what I was looking for! A Passionate Response! I wanted to feel my heart beat out of my chest and lose my breath with anticipation! The month waiting for the class to start was torture. At one point it was cancelled but the woman teaching it agreed to teach me in her home since she was happy to have at least one interested person. It was the first time she had offered her lessons through the college since she just felt like she needed to broaden her search for students. I was an eager and thankful pupil. 

She started me on a simple frame loom, essentially a frame with small brass nails hammered along the top and bottom on which the warp was strung. Her lesson was basic. String the yarn onto a weaving needle and weave in and out, alternating as you add layer upon layer. Basic weaving.  She said, "Experiment! Try different patterns, change colors!" By my third row I already felt it. The rhythm. The doing. The making. One row at a time. Incremental progress. Each layer builds upon the next and eventually a fabric is created. A flimsy string locked together with more flimsy strings within the boundaries of a defined matrix, created a square of strength. The pattern though was up to my imagination. I could create almost anything I wanted within the frame of my matrix. All I had to do was envision the goal and move forward with patience, focus, forgiveness, the willingness to unweave and make right any missed steps, and the drive to complete the process and see it to the end. Consistency in tension and pressure matter. Finding my own rhythm and staying in it matters. Breaking when I become fatigued matters. All of these lessons seemed to effortlessly download into my system. I would take deep breaths and hear the word YES. This is right. This is what I have been needing and looking for. 

My first finished piece.  

When I brought my first finished piece into class the next week, my teacher could hardly contain herself. "This Is amazing! Superb! I just can't believe it!" She asked if I had any previous experience weaving. No. She explained that the feathering I had created in my angles was very desirable and difficult to do and that she wanted me to come to her Navajo weaving class to show them how I did it. This made me feel UNCOMFORTABLE. For one thing, I felt immediately my ego filling up with hot air, a feeling I am very conscious of and actually DESPISE in myself. Additionally, I don't really know HOW I did it. I just did it. When I was figuring it all out I was in the zone. It just happened. I felt awkward taking credit for that, but then my ego stepped in, "Oh sure! It was easy! I would love to come to the Navaho class and show them how I did it!" chest puffed out jaw jutted, hands in loose fists on my hips. 

At that point the pressure was on. I had to make another equally amazing piece. SCREW THAT! It had to be better than the one before it! More technical, incorporating complicated interlocking techniques and an even cooler pattern! I took a book home and skipped to the good parts because I didn't need the introduction, I was a freaking natural.  Let's effing do this thing!

This time the weaving was long and tedious. It was frustrating and ugly to me. Nothing seemed to be going right. I kept making mistakes and resented going back to fix them. I had wanted to make it as symmetrical as the last one but miscounted the warps for my brown sections and inadvertently created a mess. As I got nearer to completion I just gave up on the pattern all together and filled the center with half hearted lines. I disdained the finished product. 

 My ego driven piece. 

Before I even arrived at the Navajo class I was a humbled lump. The other attendees were all expecting this special girl to come waltzing in, their eyes filled with the promises my teacher had made about my brilliance. I muttered a weak and shy hello to each of them before pulling out my two pieces. As they looked at them I watched as they quickly grabbed the first piece and maybe without even realizing it, covered the second with it. One of them said specifically, disregarding #2 all together, "This is a beautiful sample." Ok. Thank you. My interaction was them was meek and controlled. 

This is getting long. I will resume with the second half of this story later.  Thank you for reading. 

Read, Weave, Run, Write

Aside from the day to day family household things, I spend all of my waking moments doing one of these four activities. It sounds rather boring actually if I put it that way. And if you take these things at face value it would be pretty boring. The great thing is, I believe that there is a spectrum for the way we can perceive life- at one end, you see everything for exactly what it appears to be, face value, and at the other end you understand that everything you can see with your eyes is merely a shadow of what the thing really is. A reflection. I have spent time sitting in a reality where there is nothing beyond the visible real. Its fine. There are nice things about that type of living. I am far more interested in sitting in the other end of the spectrum though. I love to imagine that what we see (and measure with all of our external sensors) is only half of our true reality. That visible reality is very well documented through science. What if every object, activity, and physical sense you have is mirrored by, in equal proportion, an unseen reality.

1) Read
It was important for me to give a summery of the seasons in my last post so that I could use them as a reference point for where I am right now. I spent the summer in the world of the physical real, but about a month ago, I full on stepped into to other side, just to see what I could see. I have been reading like crazy. Reading books that entertain alternative points of view. After I physically read the words, I read the meaning of them against my inner voice (We all have an inner voice right? Im not talking about monkey chatter in your brain but a clam, grounded, inner voice? I might have two actually, but I am pretty sure I am not schizophrenic) to see what I really think about what I just read. I talked to people about my findings and my new (new to me) ideas to read what they thought of it all (hmmm, mixed reviews). I am continuing to read more. Here are some books that have sent me reeling so far:

Indigo Adults, by Kabir Jaffe and Ritama Davidson: You know how I said I went to that Chakras class two Fridays ago? Well at the end of class I was talking to the teacher for a while and I told her some things. CRAZY things that I have not really ever talked about with any one outside of my safe circle. She did not seem surprised by my crazy shit. Instead she smiled at me and told me to look up Indigo people. She was very nonchalant about it. "Just look it up on the internet or get a book about being an indigo and see if anything makes sense to you. Call me when you are ready to know more," she said.  If anything I have ever said has resonated with you, maybe check this one out. If you feel like you are supposed to be doing something more, or if you suspect that there is a much larger plan in play, or if you just feel strange and different and maybe a little bit off from the majority of people around you, investigate this for yourself.

The Secret History of the World, by Mark Booth: I am nearing the end of this one. If you found the above book interesting, this one is like a handbook for the imaginatively aroused. Blowing my effing mind.

The Secret Life of Plants, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird: So my husband goes into Vitamin World to get some fish oil or something and and the guy behind the counter acts stunned and says "Whoa! I was just thinking about you! That was so random!" Then he launches into this whole conversation about how our energies move at a much higher and faster frequency than our bodies and that if we are sensitive enough we can have experiences where we can sense things blablablabla . . .  and on and on and then he brings up this book and says that back in the 70's, this guy hooked lie detector machines up to plants and say that they responded to very specific phenomenon that lead the guy to do all these studies and find that plants communicate with each other and this that and the next thing . . . my husband was like, "ok dude. cool. can I buy this fish oil?" But he came home and told me about it since I am in to that kind of thing, and I bought it and read part of it and freaked out. This book was maybe the catalyst for my new abstract, looking glass state of mind.

Boy, this is already getting long. How about I talk about the weaving tomorrow. or later today. I need to get some food. Oh, and I responded to your comments in the comments section that you left them in. I will continue to do so , but please know that I am not like sitting here EXPECTING you to comment. If you want to chat that's great but I will not be upset if you just want to read and be entertained or bored or whatever you are doing here. I would LOVE to hear your thoughts but I hope you just do what feels compelling for you. And I just looked up the word compelling because I wanted to be sure my heart chose that word correctly and it did, but I want you to comment only if your heart feels compelled to do so, not out of some other perceived obligation. ok.

cross the bridge

Yesterday when I was checking my blog settings and clearing my dash and other internet spaces I was reminded of a blog I started a couple of years ago called 5ifty2. I didn't include a link but the premise of it was that there are 52 weeks in a year and 52 playing cards in a deck, coincidentally, and that I had at least 52 people in my life that I needed to communicate with so by writing their names on the face of each card and drawing a card a week, I could eventually reconnect and or finalize or provide closure to a number of loose end relationships that were weighing on my conscience. The plan failed after about 3 weeks. Some chapters are best left closed. This whole concept and memory flashed through my head quicker than it took you to read the word "Yesterday" in this blog post but it seems that it was not an accident that I was reminded of this concept of 52.

Each morning that I run I always break to do walking lunges across a bridge on our property. I have only just begun to be able to complete the entire length without stopping. I have never counted my steps before but for some reason today I did. As my steps grew harder my counting grew louder and more pronounced to help remind me that I could do it one step at a time, until I reached the end at 52. 52!  I smiled to myself. How coincidental! But my mind couldn't let it go. I went along running and thinking about this coincidence.

"52 lunges across the bridge, 52 weeks in the year, 52 playing cards, 4 suits in a deck, 4 seasons in a year, 4 symbols.  If I was to lay a card on each week I would give each suit a season, laying the aces on each equinox and solstice. What suit would I give each season? Well, obviously spring would be hearts, summer clubs, fall spades, and winter diamonds. Whoa. Why do I say obviously?"  . . .  and the conversation continued in my head as ran:

Well lets start with winter and diamonds. What does winter represent to me? A time of the mind, introversion, a drawing in, snow flakes, crystals, a mind like a diamond, the third eye, the star on my christmas tree, cold, purity, first day of the year, one, singularity, thinking. . .

Winter leads to spring and hearts. Hearts in spring= New buds on trees, rejoicing, new life, cell division at conception, love birds, joining, waking up, transition, change, preparation . . .

Clubs in the summer = clubs are like feet or paws, hiking, activity, physical activity and matters of the body, behaving like animals, being outside, swimming, camping, laughing, fruits and veggies, more raw foods, gardening, resting of the mind, a more physical existence . . .

And finally spades in the fall = leaves fall like spades, harvest, call a spade a spade, reaping what was sown, grieving the end of summer's bounty and the death and drawing in of nature, spades are upside down hearts, swords, the opposite of spring, a time to take inventory, move inward, digging in, collect your bounty. . .

This free association thinking lead me to myself. My body. . .  My body is like the earth. I have seas of water, soil growing new tissue, an atmosphere that renews and cleanses itself, my cells perform a form of photosynthesis, and I have seasons. Last spring, the time of the heart, I was sad. Lonely. I longed for more human connections. I felt the need and urges to ground myself after a long, intense winter of the mind. As I moved into summer I essentially shut my mind off and lived fully in my body. I ran and played and drank lots of beer and sang and laughed, behaved like an animal doing just whatever I felt like, grazing as I wished, storing up vitamin D in my skin, muscles on my bones, joy in my heart, and fat in my brain (as I didn't call on it to work much). As the fall approached I felt the shift. The dog days of summer were over. The time of the club and foot had ended. The leaves are now falling in spades and I am feeling a wealth of abundance from my harvest. I feel sharp. and ready to dig deeper.


I began replying to comments in the comment stream of my last post and will continue to communicate in the comments with you on an individual basis, though I have given myself very strict parameters related to my computer time in order to maintain a nice balance and to avoid burnout. Please know that I see you. Interaction and conversation are a huge part of what I am doing here so I absolutely welcome your insights.

All images can be traced back to their source through my tumbler.

Head Change

What am I doing? No, seriously. My head is asking me "What do you think you are doing?" Well, head, I am going to begin writing, And I will write here in this space that I have written in so many times. This place that allows me freedom. I need to write here.

So, I went to this color theory / chakra opening class last Friday and sure as shit, my throat chakra is all closed up. All the running and lunges and squats I have been doing the past couple months have grounded me very successfully (not to mention the incredible boost they have given my bootie) and my first three chakras are W I D E open, however the trade off of running in exchange for yoga and meditation have left me feeling a little imbalanced. Time to straighten up. I have to write again. I have to communicate. Not just verbally. I have to communicate with you. A lot has happened in the past few months. Some things I can list in pretty concrete terms, but the intangible ones have had a much stronger impact on me and these are the things I have to ruminate on here occasionally so that I can make them feel more concrete.

Briefly, quitting the blog was hard for me. But I had to do it. I had to see it through till I didn't even think about it any more. I had to create distance so that I could see what precise elements were not working for me. Though this post may seem . . . however it may seem TO YOU, it may as well be a first post on a brand new blog. This IS actually a first post on a brand new blog. I just didn't change the title or the layout or get a new address or anything like that, so it might look like the old blog, carrying all its old history, memory and baggage, but in reality it has reinvented itself, just as I have reinvented myself. Granted, I do look a little different now. I changed my hair (it is short and red) and I may also change my header here, but really, from the outside, not much seems different. My content however has shifted. If this seems interesting to you, great. I look forward to reconnecting with you. In the mean time, hi. It feels good to be back typing again.

Christina

Vrrroooom. crash and burn.

Hi! I have been out of town for about a week, and actually tomorrow is my son's last day of school for the summer, so I am not sure how much I will be online this summer really. I sold a few more collections over the past week, I think there are only like two or three left so I am going to ship those final items out tomorrow, along with anything else that might sell today (*wink* *wink* last chance, make an offer) then the etsy shop will be empty and potentially closed for a while, or until I am in desperate need of money in the sometime future (who knows what the future holds). I have a whole bunch of fun family plans this summer, playing at the lake, camping, hiking, biking, stuff like that.  I also plan to establish stronger relationships with my local friends, do some DIY projects that have been sitting on the back burner for a while, and drink some beers on my hammock. Not that any of this is super important or anything, but I guess what I am basically saying is that I will be out for a while. I don't really even think I'll be back to this space in any real way again. I have LOVED blogging, for what it was, over the past year and a half or so and have learned and grown so much from it. I have met some really incredible people, seen some amazing things, and enjoyed some great opportunities. I have been fundamentally changed by this blogging experience. For the better. I have never felt more confident, at peace and accepting of myself than I do right now. I really think that the blogging community helped to grow that in me. Meeting people I feel a kinship with through words is a very powerful thing.

I was going to just end this right there, but you know what, I think I am just going to go all out and throw all of the shit I think about blogging out there. Why not right. It's the end and all. Of course, I'll throw in a little disclaimer since I only know Myself and my own experience and understand that it is likely wildly different from anyone else's and I would never want to pretend that I know someone else's story anyway, SO this is a summary of my blogging experience:

Ahem: When I started blogging I was a very insecure girl. I had just broken up with a girlfriend that basically told me I was a terrible person (who I disagreed with at the time but still felt like shit about) and didn't really have any other friends. I live in a small town and had a huge gate around my heart for various reasons and thought that a good way to fill my time and make money would be to blog, sell vintage and try to make friends on the internet. I was nervous about clothes. I liked strange things and felt like a weirdo when I wore what I liked in real life. When I posted pictures of myself on the internet at places like chictopia and Weardrobe, people seemed very supportive and made me feel less strange. eventually I got some followers on my blog. I could not believe that ANYONE was interested in my shit let alone people in New York or HOLY SHIT!! AUSTRALIA, CANADA, GREAT BRITAIN!! WHOA! I checked my analytics program daily and freaked and gasped at every new reader in every new country.

By January 2010 I was being offered free stuff from people and companies!! People were being so nice to me! I was commenting back on just about every comment I got, following back, favoriting back and blogging daily to keep up momentum (on the blog, Chictopia and Weardrobe). I was staying up till past midnight and up at 5:00 am reading blogs to keep up and return the niceness. I couldn't believe that so many people liked me. I had never been popular AT ALL. I was in fact covered with acne, mousy and a bit plumper and totally uncomfortable my whole life until about the middle of 2009 when I was finally treated for Hypothyroidism and magically thinned out, cleared up and came into my own. All of this attention was unbelievable and completely addictive. At 30 years old, a mother and a wife, living in a little western Nevada town, I was being called chic by awesome people all over the world. I started paying close attention the the numbers. My ego started to get stronger for the first time. My mood started to be affected by how many comments I got on a given post. If I got less one day or fewer votes on an outfit on chictopia I analyzed everything and tried to see what I had done wrong. My findings : shorter skirts, pretty hair, hats, higher shoes, over the knee socks and cool prints got better ratings. Also awesome makeup and a great sense of humor helped. I began to cater to blogworld. I lost myself for a little while.

Then I started getting sick. I was losing sleep thinking about my blog, my outfits, people I had failed to comment back to, my reputation. I was totally self obsessed. A rift began to grow between my family and me. I am not sure when all of this was taking place. I want to say December - like May or June of last year. I tried to scale back.  I felt like a bitch for getting attention but not returning it. The summer brought some pretty major personal problems for me. I was dealing with some heavy things family wise, that put all of the blogging into perspective. I started focusing less on commenting and stopped checking my numbers so much. I stopped reading other blogs except for the ones that were linked to people I actually knew or felt a kinship with. I began to REALLY enjoy blogging in a whole new way. I had less pressure I was putting on myself. I stopped associating my self worth with the attention I was receiving. (Please note, when I began blogging, my personal self worth resembled a ritz cracker. Blogging and attention inflated that cracker to Guinness Book of World Record proportions. It felt great, at first, but I saw the danger in letting my self worth be related to a freaking computer, and clothes, and words.)  I finally began to allow some separation and feeling my worth away from all the blog stuff. I knew the blog couldn't have any power over the way I thought about myself because if it could make me feel good it could also make me feel bad.

In the end of November I had an epiphany. I tried to blog about it, but I don't really think blogging was the best forum for all of that. It was more of a personal discovery and I thought that if I shared it with people reading my blog that maybe it would help others. I thought maybe I had a purpose and a reason for throwing all of my thoughts out into oblivion. . .  and maybe I did. I just typed right out of my heart. I had been doing that anyway all along, but I think I was a little bit more guarded before. Ever since then it has all been different for me. For a while I thought that maybe I had a responsibility to blog and share my thoughts, but I realize that was just residual ego left over from being the oldest child in a family of four. "Be a good example" "Be a role model." "Lead by example."  All the things I was raised hearing. That is just ridiculous. I don't need to feel that responsibility. That feels so . . .  egotistical that I even thought that. I guess I waiver between feeling like I am just fine on my own in my simple little life, to feeling like I have a responsibility to be a part of the larger world, to do something bigger, but through BLOGGING? Really? That is the way I will reach and influence people for the better?  A part of me says yes. maybe. But why?

I tired to do more in my local community but it feels a little like starting at square one. A part of me is lazy. and quiet. and introverted. and a total homebody. OK a huge majority of me. I guess we all want to feel important. We all want to be heard. Like those little Who's in Horton hears a Who or whatever that shit is:  WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE! WE ARE HERE!! But if I get to the meat and bones of that, it just feels silly to me. I feel silly. The more distance I get from blogging, the more at peace I feel on my own, the more time I have with the people in my direct life and the more my mind can just be present and see what is right in front of me.

This is just how I feel. I may be a weird bird but whatever. Maybe I am just totally normal and boring and just not very extraordinary . That is totally fine. I shouldn't need people to tell me what I am.  And people telling me things is what got me to this point so maybe I do need that, but I don't want to need that. So VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM . . . there goes my dive bomb. . . crash and burn.  I am sure anyone reading this is not totally surprised.  Please just know that I am fully aware that your reasons and experiences for blogging are probably completely different from mine. I don't judge anyone based on my own shit.  I just thought I would give one last blabla bla. There. I am done. :)

Thank you for reading my thoughts these past months and for leaving your comments. It's had a profound effect on me. :)

Closet Progress

I am ALMOST done with my new closet room!! I picked out paint last Saturday (Martha Stewart brand colors Flagstone and Zinc, but color matched for Behr paint in a flat finish) and while my husband taped everything off, my son and I painted all the low stuff, including a little desk I had in my old closet. We were finished panting by Sunday night.

All day Monday I moved my things from my old closet. There was a whole shit load of purging going on. LOTS and LOTS of trash bags full of stuff that didn't make the cut. It felt really good.

By Monday night it looked like this! The rug is a woven wool I had in another room, the chairs I picked up for $20 for the set at my local thrift store a couple of months ago, the baskets I found for $15 a piece at a local bead store and the little wicker table (as well as some woven wall hangings, not shown) I just found at another local thrift store for a few dollars!  Including the paint, this DIY closet has cost me just over $200!  I still have a ways to go, brainstorming on DIY light fixtures to hang from the 18' ceilings (Thinking of multi colored paper lanterns but I'll need to rig something due to the length of cord I will need), a solution for displaying / storing all of my belts and hats (better than nails in the wall), and the task of hanging my random found woven wall pieces and inspiration board. Also, I am creating an outdoor space on the deck through the French doors! I will be hanging a hammock and I have an outdoor rug, a huge wicker armchair and a bistro table and chairs I have been stashing away! I may also create a little space for outdoor yoga or something. I feel like finally all the stuff I have been squirreling away is coming to good use!  Its all very exciting!

Do you have any suggestions for hanging belts and hats?  I have well over 20 of each. After purging. Hmmm. May need to release more into the wild. We will see. I'll take more photos with my good camera once it is all done!

{EDIT: By the way!! I am not going to add anything else to my etsy shop and I am giving the lots that are still available just one more week to sell. Then that is the end of that. So, If you wanted something, get it before next week, and If you would like to make an offer on a lot (though the items are already at $10 a piece) just convo me in etsy and lets make a deal. I would love to see it sell, but if it doesn't it doesn't. Oh well. New plans. I really appreciate the support you have given me already and am so thankful that so much of it has sold already. It's been a good run. So, Thank You. } 

inspiration board

Random things that are giving me inspiration for my new dressing room. Images found by google searching "powder gray" "rust gray" "rust" "upcycled" or "circuit board boxers".