sickly dedication

I kind of miss the good old days when I was so dedicated to blogging I even did an outfit post when I was sick. Right now I've been wearing the same sweater and pajama pants for two days and I wouldn't put on a dress and pose for pictures if you paid me a hundred dollars. I'm not sure what changed.. I still love blogging but I guess I've gotten so used to it and have a very blasé "eh, nobody will notice if I don't post for a week" sort of attitude that when I'm under the weather I just let it go. But I miss how every single day of my life was documented in 2011 (and most of 2012)... I think I might add "put more effort into my blog" to the long list of resolutions that are mounting for 2014. Although, honestly, as a very scatterbrained, disorganized person I'm pretty pleased with myself for having maintained my blog -- even if it's no longer updated on such a strict schedule -- for almost four years.

I'm definitely under the weather because I actually just wrote (and promptly deleted) this huge long post about diseases, the black death, funneling technology investments into curing all human ailments, and my general frustration with how many illnesses still have no cures or treatments in 2013. When I get sick I can be a little dramatic. I just hate not feeling good -- I know, who doesn't? I just don't handle it well. As much as I kind of hate my body right now (does anyone else ever feel that way, like as if it's totally separate from your brain? I think it's the sick talking again, sorry) I'm going to pamper the heck out of it and hope this goes away by Christmas. Fingers crossed!!

In the mean time I actually did take some pictures of my workspace for the first part of my apartment tour so I'll edit those tomorrow and post them :) The glamourous sick-day outfit posts, however, are probably a thing of the past lol ;)

let me get this straight

A few months ago, Misikko contacted me to ask if I'd like to review their hair straightener, and I jumped at the chance. Before I get into my review, though, I'd like to give a short history about why being offered the chance to use a high quality hair straightener was such a huge deal to me.

I have not quite curly, not quite wavy, very thick, oddly puffy hair. I hate it. So ever since I was old enough to style it myself, I've been wearing it in an updo of some kind. But at the same time, I've always wanted desperately to wear it down. From my pre-teen years to today, I've gone through an endless series of curling irons, hair straighteners, straightening hair brushes, curlers, straightening cremes, thinning hair-cuts and basically anything that might make me love my hair. Here is one of the most embarrassing videos from my youth (I can't even believe I'm sharing this!!) It was the first day of 8th grade, and my mom was using a curling iron to try to tame my extremely puffy hair.

A pretty surly 12 year old, right? It seemed like all the other girls at school, even at 12 years old, had perfect locks while mine were frizzy, puffy and thick enough to hide a small animal. After the failed attempt to subdue the monster on my head, I ended up wearing it back in a ponytail, as usual. Over the years the puffiness has sort of deflated a little bit (thankfully) but I'm still uncomfortable enough with my hair that I rarely wear it down.

Right now I own a conair hair straightener, and while it technically straightens my hair it doesn't seem to smooth it out and help control the volume as much as I'd like. Enter, the Hana 1" ceramic flat iron that Misikko sent to me. I hoped so badly it would finally help me manage my unmanageable hair. The instructions suggested the lowest setting for bleached hair, but I had to put it on a higher setting to get it to work, because my hair is so thick. It worked a lot faster than my conair, and it glided over my hair more smoothly (not as much catching and tugging, which can really hurt!) but the end product seemed pretty much the same. (You can see how my hair looks straightened with the conair straightener in this post.) My hair ended up being pin-straight, but still sort of frizzy and puffy. I like it a lot better than my natural texture, but it's still not like this:

I guess maybe my particular hair texture is just never going to get that straight. I had a friend in high school with tight ringlet curls, and hair straighteners worked fantastic for her! Gliding hot ceramic plates over her tresses turned them perfectly silky straight. So I'd imagine this iron would work a lot better on curly hair or wavy hair, but as for me? If a high-end hair straightener can't get my hair the way I want it, I basically give up, lol!

I will admit though, being unaccustomed to anything fancy, the presentation and packaging was pretty impressive. It comes with a silicon pad to put on your counter so that you don't burn it, along with like 4 different carrying cases and lots of little extras like makeup, an eye mask, a hair towel, sachets and more! It was sort of like a hair product equivalent of hotels leaving a mint on your pillow, haha!

blue heart

dress - trollied dolly

shirt - vintage

shoes - c/o blowfish

tights - c/o we love colors

hair bow - hive & honey

I've been having a hard time coming up with what to write lately because it seems like 99% of my brain is consumed with annoying life-examining thoughts. So bear with me, I'm just going to spill it all out here today...

I'm turning 25 in about 3 weeks and to be totally frank I'm just not happy with where I am. I went through this when I turned 16 too (something about "sweet 16" depressed me.) and I hate it. I want to just go about my daily business and not give any thought to whether or not I'm happy, but I can't. 25 seems too ominous to me, and the number just keeps nagging at me all the time.

It's not so much my actual life that bothers me. Honestly, I like living at home. I know I shouldn't since I'm in my mid-twenties, but I really do. I'm close friends with my parents and my brother, so I feel like I'm living with awesome roommates all the time! Also, I have no problem with being single. It used to bother the heck out of me in high school, but over the last year or so I've really come to get used to it and enjoy it. And after spending over a decade hating my body, I've finally become comfortable in my own skin.

But when I was a teenager, I really thought I'd have it together by 25. Not that I'd be married or have a career, nothing that concrete, I just thought that internally I wouldn't struggle with perpetual embarrassment, extreme sensitivity, social awkwardness and generally feeling like nobody likes me. I've felt that way since I was in elementary school, and I always thought it was something I would outgrow. But I haven't. I'm really uncomfortable with people I don't know *really* well. And even when I feel like I'm good friends with someone, I always have an underlying suspicion that they don't actually like me. (Yeah, my grade school "friends" REALLY messed me up.) And for someone who has an etsy shop and a blog, I'm terrible at communication. Seriously, I'm just so bad at this stuff, it's not even funny. I'm terribly envious of bloggers who seem to absolutely ooze friendliness and charm. For me it's a battle to even say "Love your dress!" in a comment without feeling like a troll. And I really didn't think I'd still be like this at 25.

More importantly, though, I didn't realize how fast life would be going by, and how much I'd want to slow it down. When I was younger I desperately wanted to be an artist. I wanted to be in galleries and museums and travel the world. But lately I've realized that that's not what I want at all. Personal success has become completely unimportant to me. To a lot of people mid-life and quarter-life crises are fueled by some kind of dissatisfaction with how far they've come in life... how much or how little they've accomplished. But mine is fueled by a feeling that everything is fleeting, and I want to hold on tight.

About two weeks ago, we had to take my mom to the ER. I wasn't actually going to talk about it here, but it's definitely contributing to my mental unease and I think it bears mentioning in this post. I had just woken up when my dad knocked on my door to tell me that we had to go. I've only seen my dad cry twice in my entire life -- at his uncle's funeral, and that morning. As soon as I looked at him I just burst into tears. I could tell that he was scared to death. When we arrived at the hospital, they had to take my mom in on a stretcher. I don't know how I kept it together, all that I could think was how much I hoped she was okay. I have never in my whole entire life been more terrified than I was that morning. Never. Ever. Ever. Thankfully everything turned out to be okay, and after spending two weeks resting at home she's back at work now and seems to be back to normal (To protect her privacy, I don't want to say what was wrong, but she's really ok now!) However, the incident made me realize just how important my family is to me, and how fragile our little world really is.

It made me realize that my personal goals are inconsequential when it comes to my bigger picture: I like spending time with my family. I like game night, dinners at the kitchen table debating politics and talking about our cats. I like movie nights and listening to my parents talk about their days at work. I like all of these things a heck of a lot more than I like painting or drawing. What is most important to me now is cherishing the time we all have together and enjoying each day. My dad has spent his whole life being a workaholic, often working on holidays and birthdays since he runs his own business (like I do now). And I don't want that to be me. I don't want to miss my life because I'm busy trying to make a success out of it.

So anyway, this is a really awkward post (sorry!!) but I just had to say something because every day for the last week or two when I've been faced with writing, I freeze. This is all I can think about, and it's driving me crazy so hopefully letting it all out today will help me to move on and actually enjoy my birthday! :)

somewhere there's a someone for everyone

dress - modcloth

sweater - f21

hair bow - f21

sunglasses - fred flare

shoes - my grandmom

So, today is Valentine's Day. I thought it would be a good day to confess a deep, dark embarrassing secret that I've kept hidden from all but a handful of online friends. I am perpetually single. I'm 24 years old and I've never been on a single date in my entire life. It's not that I'm super picky or anything. It just never happened.

In high school none of the guys I was interested in asked me out, so I went through high school dateless. Then right out of high school I started taking online college classes, so there was no real interaction with other humans. Choosing a career as an artist led me to work from home, so no interaction there either. Honestly I don't really even want to meet anyone while I live in my hometown because I'm afraid that I'll get tied down here, and I don't want to live here for another month let alone an entire lifetime. I'm finally moving in the fall, hopefully taking on-campus classes and getting a real live job. I feel like my life is finally going to begin, but at the same time I feel incredibly naive. I'm in my mid-twenties and I am a complete romantic novice. I'm terrified that I'll meet someone wonderful, and they'll be turned off by my inexperience. I don't even know if that's something you spill on a first date... How do you tell someone in their 20's or 30's that your first date with them is actually your first date EVER! It has such a negative connotation, like people will either think my parents kept me incredibly sheltered (which they didn't) or that I have some kind of mental problem (which I don't). It's hard to explain that it's just a series of strange circumstances, a deep-seated fear of being stuck in New Jersey (okay, my hatred for my home state might be a little less than normal) and a poor teenage dating batting average that got me here.

I'll be the first to admit, though, that deep down I do believe I'll find someone someday who is understanding and patient, and who thinks my inexperience is endearing, not off-putting. It might take a while to find them, but I think they're out there. I'm not really a romantic but I do believe that somewhere there's a someone for everyone, and somewhere there's a someone for me :)

roller skating is a pain in the...

When I purchased my roller skates last year, I was lured by their cute girly exterior. The bright, clean white boots sitting daintily upon bubble gum pink rollers seemed like the perfect sport for a lazy weakling like myself. They look like they're made for three year old girls -- roller skating must be a piece of cake!

Um, no. I tried them out for the first time today at the park. I dragged along my brother, Kyle, who was probably very embarrassed to be seen with me in my matching helmet-knee pad-elbow pad-wrist guard get up. And probably even more embarrassed when I gripped onto his wrist and would not let go from the moment I stood up on the skates.

Roller skating is hard!

We made it about halfway through the park (maybe 1/3 a mile? I don't know.. it seemed like 8.) before I decided I wanted to go back. I took dance classes for 13 years, so I thought I was coordinated enough to pull this off. But keeping your balance while shuffling your feet, and trying to avoid falling headfirst onto the sloped pavement is a lot harder than doing a pirouette.

Believe it or not, though, I made it all the way through the park without falling down! By the time we got near the entrance, I was pretty worn out, and collapsed on a bench while my brother called my mom to come pick up my body. I took off my elbow pads and wrist guards, closed my eyes and dreamed of ice cold water and air conditioning.

Kyle got the bright idea to meet our mom closer to the entrance, so I heaved myself up, gripped his wrist and tried once more to skate. Naturally, since I had just removed my wrist and elbow pads, my feet gave out from under me not two feet away from the bench. I fell bum first onto the pavement, and stayed there until my mom came.

I think I have a pretty awesome brother. After all of this, he still said he'd go with me again next week. That is, assuming I'm up and moving again by then.