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Take two, please!

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I try hard to not be one of those people who seems to always be having “The Worst Day Ever”.

But some days just need a redo button.

I watched “About Time” this weekend, a movie about a family in which all the males can time travel – but only within their own lifetime – and in it, the father said that he learned to use his time traveling for good. At the end of each day, especially on bad days, he would travel back.. and relive that day, but this time taking the time to stop and appreciate the little bits of beauty that can be found anywhere.

Of course, the moral of the story in the end, was to learn to pause and appreciate those beauties the first time around, so you never had to relive any days.

But I’d really like to be able to time travel back to today. I already know how the day ends, so I wish I could go back and even though it was a bad day – this time, I would tell myself to breathe. I would let the knot in my stomach and chest subside, just knowing that the world does not – in fact – end tonight. And to not waste any good there might have been during the day because I was too busy stressing out over everything on my plate. I would also maybe manage my time a little better and know not to schedule

But, I cannot time travel and I cannot redo today better, so instead I will drink wine whiskey and curl up with my kitten, who is currently hiding under the blankets next to me for reasons I have yet to figure out.

Sunday Sketch #1

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So, the Bestie and I have decided to start this new thing to inspire each other to be creative – each Sunday, we give each other an idea. Her, something to write about. Me, something to draw. This week, our ideas for each other just so happened to be related to each other – I told her to write about January, she told me to draw big, fat snowflakes.

This is the result (a few days late).

It’s not a masterpiece, it was an experiment and just something to get me drawing again. It needs something else in the composition, but I’m leaving it go for now and just passing it off as a fun sketch…. that I couldn’t resist the urge to color real quick.

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Snowflakes © konfusedfae 2014

Resolutions.

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So far into the new year, I have been terrible at keeping my not-officially-resolutions resolutions.

That whole getting into shape thing and being healthier was severely thwarted by me being super sick for over a week. I am finally feeling mostly better, but still have a lingering cough. Regardless, I am going to try and get back to working out tomorrow anyway – here’s hoping I can breathe long enough to get a good workout in. In lieu of being able to be physically active, I thought I could eat healthy – well, that was also thwarted last night when I tried to make a healthy smoothie and the blender wouldn’t work. So I tried to pop healthy popcorn in the microwave, and either it or the microwave decided to catch on fire (I was in the bathroom peeing – I returned to smoke pouring out of all sides of the microwave). So, I had a banana for a post-dinner snack. Boring, but healthy. And the apartment did not burn down.

The creativity side of my not-officially-resolutions resolutions has also not been going so well. I did get a new Etsy order, so I worked on that, but again – being sick not only wiped me out physically but also mentally. I haven’t been capable of doing much but staring at a TV or a book.

Aaand as you can guess, the whole “I want to do more!” resolution was also totally shot down by my being sick. Whatever I had, it was brutal and so I didn’t want to subject anyone else to my germs. I’ve pretty much spent every week night and weekend on the couch so far in 2014. Boo.

But it’s a new week! I haven’t failed. Yet.

I am going to try and make Sunday my official creative days – so keep an eye out for future Sunday postings of drawings. I can’t promise masterpieces every Sunday, but I can definitely do sketches at least once a week. And hopefully, in time, that can become a more frequent activity throughout the week. Like it used to be.

I’m not giving up yet, 2014!

Caturday.

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I am still incredibly sick and so have not the state of mind to come up with an interest post.

All I did the entire day was re-watch all 10 hours of the first season of Game of Thrones (and cried at least once each episode). These are the things you can get away with while being sick and it helps to not feel guilty, because you’re too tired to do much else but lay on the couch.

So in lieu of an actual post, I’m going to steal a new tradition from a friend and fellow blogger:

Caturday! Where I will feature a photo or video of Ghost for your pleasure. Aren’t you excited?

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Ghost, watching the Game of Thrones marathon with me today. She must have been cold,
because she burrowed into this blanket and made herself a little bundle.

January 9th.

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It seems The Boy and I are destined to feel like crap together on this date, January 9th.

We are both home from work with the flu. But it’s better than being in the hospital after a car accident, like three years ago.

We can never seem to be celebrating us being alive and well together on this anniversary as we’d always like to. But at least we are here and together.

Even if it’s in PJ’s, with fevers and coughs and lots of blankets and tea.

New Year, New Resolutions

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I have been avoiding making any sort of resolutions this year.

I just think that, from my track record, I set myself up for failure when I make resolutions. So I didn’t want to make any this year, I just wanted to go with the flow. But then I find myself subconsciously making efforts to change things. And realized I was making resolutions, even if I wasn’t admitting it to myself. So in the light of that, I put together a short, general list of things I’d like to accomplish this year:

1) Feel better about myself. This is a big one for me. I’m getting married sometime in the next year or so, I want to be happy with myself on my wedding. I don’t have a number in mind, or a shape, I just want to feel better. I will be trying to eat healthier and working out to give myself more natural energy, but it’s mostly a mental thing of learning to be happy with myself. That being said, the lowest number I ever weighed was 130. That’s not horribly skinny, especially for someone of my lack-of-height at 5’3.5″. In fact, at the time, I wasn’t even happy with that. It’s only after I look back on pictures of that time that I realize I was as small as I was. I’m not going to obsess over that number, but it would be nice if – through the course of things – I could reach that again.

2) Be more creative. This applies to both my personal and professional life. I am fortunate enough to do what I love for a living, but I want to be more creative in my own personal time. I want to do art for the sake of doing art, play my piano and violin more often, sing again without being afraid the neighbors can hear me, write more stories and lose myself in them.

3) Do more. This is a very general goal, I realize, but it what it means is exactly that – I want to do more. Travel. Leave the house. Go for walks, look at the stars, have adventures. I enjoy a lazy weekend as much, if not more, than the average person but I am beginning to realize how much I’m missing out on by spending every weekend in doors, relaxing. I want to take extracurricular activities and make friends to do these things with.

In light of these, I brought out my 100 Things to Do Before I Die list and dusted it off. I completed the 7 items I was missing and I am ready to start chasing those goals, as well. Some of them I have already completed in the time since writing that list. I got a strange sense of satisfaction when writing the list that there were thing I would have put on there, a few years back, but that I’ve already done. I’ve been to Ireland, a goal of mine since I was a child. I went to Stonehenge. I’ve swam with stingrays in the Caribbean, I also went snorkeling over the coral reef. I’ve taken a train ride across half the country. I’ve taken multiple road trips  by myself. I’ve been to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. I’ve gotten tattoos, I’ve danced in the rain, I’ve had my design work published. It was a bit of a morale boost, when reading this list and realizing that I was already living my life as though I was checking off those goals.

It’s time to get back to that. It’s time to be happier with the now.

2013 was a great year for meeting milestones. 2014 will be the year of adventures.

Not Over the Rainbow.

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Due to the recommendation of my best friend, who knows my reading taste exceptionally well, I was introduced to the author Rainbow Rowell.

And I’m a little bit in love. With her writing. And her brain. And definitely her books.

I read Fangirl first and the essence of it was like reading about my life. I never wrote fanfiction for other peoples creations, but my aforementioned best friend and I had a whole world of our creation that we would write spin off stories for. We sort of wrote fanfiction for our own.. fiction… as our own fans. But the feeling is the same, in fanfiction. The idea of loving something so much that you want to be in that world always and that those characters take up more thought, and mean more to you, than most people in real life.

It was so great to see that in a book. Although I was well aware of the fanfiction community my whole life, it was fantastic to see it properly represented in a popular novel from a popular author. It also made me love Rainbow Rowell, because you can’t write like that and get it right without being a true fangirl yourself.

I promptly read her other two books, Eleanor & Park and Attachments, in the following week. They are also fantastic. Although Fangirl remains my favorite, the best thing about all of her books are how real the characters are. They have romance, but they have real life problems and real life romance. It’s awkward, it’s messy, there’s miscommunication and self-doubt. The characters are even real life figures – described as having too large foreheads, receding hairlines, oversized hips and the occasional stomach roll. And yet, they’re beautiful in their spirit. You love them for their honesty, for them loving those imperfections in the other characters and therefore making you love them as well. It doesn’t matter if the lead male is described as having a beer belly and being “big”. You love him anyway and you root for him. He doesn’t need the chiseled abs of your typical romance novel (which I am also guilty of reading). People fall in love, not just those deemed beautiful by social standards.

Her books are so much more than just the romance, but Rainbow Rowell makes me want to read more novels with romance like this. Real romance, not somewhere over the rainbow, but right here in our real world. With real people. Real, adorable people.

Plus, I finished each of her books in a day so you can’t beat a fast, quality read like that.