I wrote this blog over a week ago and completely forgot to publish it... oops.

Since I have a tendency to be a cheapskate, I have purchased Finish This Book, Mess, and the original Wreck This Journal - all by Keri Smith. And since it takes me multiple times to learn from my mistakes, I bought them all through Half.com, again.

Finish This Book arrived in pretty good shape. However, Mess and Wreck This Journal had already been started by their previous owners. It's becoming clear that most of the sellers on Half.com either don't check the products when writing the condition descriptions or else they don't give a flying flip that the book isn't as pristine as they describe it. Oh well, the books are still fairly inexpensive... Also would like to note that Mess has a series of pages that repeat themselves. I flipped through one at a bookstore and saw that it was not a printing quirk on purpose, the new book certainly doesn't have repetitive pages- it has different ones as it should. But it doesn't look like I'll be missing out on much. The twin pages look like they'll actually be fun to do multiple times.

I've been wanting gesso for a stupid long time but the sticker shock has never grown old. I recently found various recipes to make a diy version...so I chose the simplest one and went to town with it. The less than superb condition books are giving me a good canvas to start with and experiment with my diy gesso.


It's taken me at least 3 layers to cover up the various markings that originally embellished the books. But at least now it will all be MY work in those books and not some random snowflake who decided to part ways with these little, therapeutic gems!

Epiphany

I believe things happen for a reason. However, since my mom relapsed…and then died, I had a hard time finding reasons in most everything that’s happened since. When I had my wreck, most everyone kept assuring me “Everything happens for a reason.” Just constantly throughout each day whenever the wreck would come up “Everything happens for a reason.” And of course, I’d agree but give the examples of recent years and how I’m just waiting for those reasons to unfold.

It has finally struck me. In this particular event, I think I’ve had my “Aha! Moment,” my epiphany in uncovering the reason- A new appreciation of life.

Right before the wreck, when my car broke down on one of those days where I was certainly on the verge of quitting but couldn’t because I just acquired a new bill to repay for my transportation for that day. The shop kept my car longer than expected and the total bill nearly caused me to have a breakdown. It all came back to blaming work (which yes, I think it’s safe to say that my employer has been the root to all of my problems since I’ve been there). With the (premature) news of the store closing, I wanted to stick it out to the end but it was beyond the point of even being worth doing so.

I had the car back for a week… I was up the Monday night into Tuesday morning, sitting on my bed, updating Facebook that I was considering not going back to work at all. I just didn’t know if I was going to call out, call up and let them know I quit, or just be a no call-no show. But then the math got the best of me. If I stayed and worked two more days, I would have compensated the remainder of what my repair bill had cost and my bank account would be a little bit more padded than before the car had to see “the doctor.”

I went into work Tuesday morning. I felt uneasy getting on the interstate at the usual spot since traffic around the mall can be terrifying for me. I went out of the way to get on at an exit that’s usually less crowded and “safer.” Everything was fine and dandy until the car in front of me came to a dead stop and the rest is history.

The aftermath of all of that definitely ranks up there as being one of the lowest points of my life. Certainly not the lowest, but up there, right under the parents/cancer (and ultimately the death of one parent from cancer) points.

Waiting for my court date, which only concerned the ticket I was issued for “crashing my car” was eating me alive. Ok, everything dealing with the wreck (I won’t even touch on my “new car” chaos) was eating me alive. Although I think I figured out why I, the one who can never fall asleep, am having an easier time falling asleep at night. I think I’ve worn myself down during the past couple of months.

My morning at court finally came. The judge was nice and generous to the two defendants before me but when it came my time, he made me work hard. No, he made me fight hard to prove my point and my innocence. BTW: It’s illegal to STOP on the interstate for no reason…it’s quite dangerous and endangers people, just sayin’… Personally I don’t think he was really giving his full attention to what I was saying but that’s another story.

For the record, I was found Not Guilty, as it should be.

After all of that, I finally felt free. I feel like I can get on with my life and not have all of this weighing me down. Worst case scenerio though, I would have been offered to take a driver class in exchange for removing the points from my record, ticket and court fees. Still, that’s extra stress that I did not want to deal with.

My future with work was still up in the air. I had a plan to quit. I was actually getting quite comfortable with my plan. Then suddenly, one of my major work-stress factors went away. But I was still ready to put my plan into action (my plan being: just quit the next time I really felt like it). Again, my plan could come into play at anytime. But then something else happened. The day finally came! We received the news of WHEN we are closing.

It’s horrible for the employees who really need the job. My prayers are that they find BETTER jobs due to this closure. I hope everyone finds a job they LOVE to do. I hope they find a job that gives them the TIME to spend with their loved ones. I hope they find jobs that PAY them what they deserve, if not better. I hope they are abundantly BLESSED in their future pursuits.

Now getting to the actual reason why I’m posting this. The reason is appreciation for my life and to actually LIVE it!

I fear and hate going outside of my comfort zone. Like when I had my wreck, I feared dealing with the chaos of traffic near the mall so I decided to take the comfortable way of getting to the interstate and look at how that all ended up.

All of the money I spent, prior to the wreck, having the car repaired… I have a horrible relationship with money at times. I love it! I love to save! I can be a tight-wad. I fear and dread of letting go of my money. I obsessed over losing money, especially to repairs I’ve had to have on my car because of all the effort and trash I’ve put up with at work…down the drain. I think the reasoning is that I need to just let go. Once the money has been spent, it’s gone. However, it can come back. It may seem infuriating at times to lose the money but it is a renewable resource.

Then there's time. I'm usually early to work since I allot for plenty of time. I know there's usually plenty of time if need be. On the other hand, I'm really greedy with time. I always try to get out the door and into the car on my way home as soon as I can whenever I leave work. I just want to get home and far away from anything related to my job. But in general, I'm great at both utilizing and wasting time. Post-wreck I find myself taking the long way home that doesn't involve the interstate...it may take an average of 15 minutes longer (on a good day :| ) but it's a lot less stressful. And during that commute, I remind myself that it's better to be safe and not worry about the time it takes to get home than to stress out over taking the route that's designed to get me there quicker.
Unless it's an emergency, don't stress over time.

The stress of just waiting for the court hearing to unfold and the freedom of the ruling… I let everything hold me back but the feeling of freedom from that is indescribable. Again, this is where a lot of the appreciation for life comes from. From December until the morning of court, I pretty much felt like a complete prisoner mentally. I worry over every little thing to begin with but this was beyond torture.

And realizing all of this has helped me to realize the other smaller reasonings as well.  Things do happen for a reason.

I received both The Pocket Scavenger and This Is Not A Book by Keri Smith in the mail today. I ordered them from Half.com so they weren't guaranteed to be in pristine condition. Though I flipped through them and other than a little fold crease on the cover of one, they looked like they were in great shape. I went ahead and left positive feedback for the sellers. Everything was fine and dandy. Then I started to read the first bit of information in The Pocket Scavenger. I got to page xvi and noticed that it skipped to xxiii. Then I opened it wide open and noticed that it looks like only one actual page has been ripped out but clearly more than that have.

Also, the last page(s) was (were) ripped out as well. :( Booooo.

Oh well, I'll probably just write it off and consider it as a quirk since the Keri Smith books are all about the imperfections and getting your creative on anyway. Guess the next time I go to a book store, I'll look at a new one and see what all I'm really missing. Oy.

Things thankfully have gotten better since my last update. I finally got my "new" car back a couple of weeks ago. However, it still has the main problem...it operates fine, it just has that dreaded "Service Engine Soon" light. In the meantime it should be ok. It's incredibly to have transportation again instead of having to rely on someone to take you to work or grocery shopping (and public transportation around here is greatly lacking). Enough about that.

Recently I discovered a book by Keri Smith (who created Wreck This Journal, which everyone seems to be into right now) called How To Be An Explorer Of The World. It certainly piqued my interest. On our most recent trip to a book store, Honey Bunny purchased it, yayness! We're going on a trip to West Virginia this upcoming weekend to celebrate our one year anniversary (wha hoo, go us!). This book is totes coming along for the journey!

I was inspired to bust out the markers and do some work in one of my journals.

I think instead of writing in the actual Explorer book, I'm going to bring along a couple of new Composition books so we both can partake in ~exploring~ in our individual ways. Plus I can't bring myself to write in the printed book, eak! At least not yet. I think it'd be fun for us to have our own books, especially using them each time we take a trip somewhere. Or heck, even just everyday life as the book is intended. Idk, I have all of these vivid daydreams on going on adventures in new places. The book is intended to help you see the beauty and uniqueness of even mundane things you do or come across every day of your life. I need to wake up those creative forces!

And to continue on this topic, I've been getting into art journaling lately. It seems like such an obvious habit but it never really occurred to me until I stumbled upon some videos on Youtube focusing on it and sharing ideas. The pathetic thing is that I used to do this back in junior high and high school but got out of the habit when I went off to college. Yeah, I fell like I lost a lot of creativity or had to put it on the back burner when I was going through college. I'm still struggling to unleash it. However, it's slowly coming back (yay!).

This month hasn't been so great for me. I had my car back for a week and then ended up wrecking it on my way home from work (I was going to quit and not go into work that day but figured if I could work a few more days to recoup what I spent on car repairs...). I was on the interstate, traffic was flowing and I wasn't even up to the speed limit (before I get accused of speeding!), but the car in front of me came to a sudden stop. Completely destroyed my old Deville (Emerald Jazz). That alone tore me up. I was going to get my mom's car fixed and running but felt like I needed something in a rush for the purpose of work (...this is my constant mistake). I purchased another car which seemed to check out ok and well. After I bought it from (from a guy on Craigslist...I know. But I also know my Cadillacs and this guy did pretty good at covering up even computer issues), it's all gone even further downhill from there. I had it one day, Dec. 6th, and it's been with a mechanic ever since. This whole car situation has been a nightmare.

I'm definitely not in a Christmas mood this year. I didn't even celebrate it last year because I got sick from some customers at work (the poor kids shouldn't have even been out shopping in the condition they were in but of course...then the parents let them destroy the entire children shoe department). Which that was probably for the best since it was the first year without my mom. And this year, it still doesn't seem right. It's been rough not having a car and worrying about getting to work. Luckily I was able to get some of the main gifts for my loved ones thanks to online shopping. But I still have a lot more Christmas shopping to do with no indication I'll be able to do it anytime soon.

I briefly had my hopes up a bit because our system at work which allows us to put in our time off requests allowed me to request my birthday (Dec 26) off. We usually have a blackout period from Thanksgiving to New Year's that won't allow us to request off. However my boss wouldn't grant it (doesn't surprise me) since it is a major retail day...*sigh* but it would've been great to have had it, or even the day after it, off.

I'm really hoping and praying that things will get better soon. I made a video with a brief update of some of this but it was just too Debbie Downer/

I did start the process of getting rid of the red hair. I started out bleaching the underneath part where it was the darkest. I mixed the bleach (30 vol developer) and left it on for an hour. Then I mixed up a bleach rinse of 20 vol developer with the powder, clarifying shampoo, and a little bit of water (forgot the ratios) and put that on with the bleach still on there. I left it all on for an additional 30 minutes. It left my hair bright orange (like UT Vols orange...yay?). I used the Ion Repair Solutions after washing it. It was super shiny and silky *shrugs*. My hair usually looks and feels better after a good bleaching, haha. That was about a week ago. Last night I decided to bleach it again but I only left the bleach on for about 30 minutes since it looked like it was platinum (the bleach I use is blue in color). I rinsed a strand just to make sure...but of course the strand I chose ended up being the only platinum strand. Everything else is still orange but not extremely. Actually it's a nice golden blonde in a lot of lighting but it still has that orange ting at certain angles. Again, this was all the darkest portion of my hair that was still a deep burgundy which I bleached. So I have hope for the rest of my hair. I just need to get to get some more developer since I'm out of the one I normally use.

I was going to do a lot of Christmas nail art this year but just haven't felt like it with everything else going on. Hopefully I'll have some positive updates soon.

This week has been really stressful but I'm finally forcing myself to blog in hopes of maybe feeling a little bit better. I had car problems coming back home from an icky day at work Sunday, and while it was being loaded onto the tow truck, something else happened to it that has caused it to be in the shop for 6 straight days now. Fortunately a family friend is available and offered me a ride to and from work tomorrow. But I've been stressing out massively about work and having to miss it. I hate my job but it's still my job for the time-being and I work my tail off to do what needs to be done and then some, as well as all the other junk that gets thrown at me. And with Black Friday being less than a week a way...ugh. Normally I would enjoy my time stuck at home but again, stressing over work. Every day there was a slight chance that I could get my car back but at the end of each day was disappointment. Every morning I had to call in explaining that I still don't have a way to work but if/when I get my car back, I'd call and let them know I'm on my way. That didn't happen. Every time the phone rang, I'd get my hopes up but still, no car. I'm still on edge even though tomorrow is Sunday and the mechanic is closed. I guess my nerves won't calm down until I have my car back. Although I have tried to force myself to channel my creative energy into being productive. I had a little bit of success but not as much as I would normally have had if, well, there wasn't the unsettled feelings at hand.

Since the last blog update, the Hon-Bun took me on a nice little Gatlinburg trip. He took me to the arts and crafts loop in the Pigeon Forge area. We met several neat and inspiring people. It was fun getting to spend more time with him and getting our creative wheels spinning (more than usual). I reeeally want to go back soon!

Also, in the last blog I mentioned that I would update about my hair. It's still red...but a blah!red. I miss my blonde and I'm somewhat in the process of going back. I've started using a clarifying shampoo and I'll probably try a vinegar rinse to see if that does anything. I want to strip as much of the color out before turning to a bleach-type method. I made a video from when I was about to touch up the red the last time. I also mention the mixture/ratio of what I used to get my red color.

And here's a pic from visiting the Hollywood Wax Musuem during our Gatlinburg trip which shows what my hair looked like 2 weeks after I touched it up (I think it still looked pretty good, the color was still really vibrant).

(That's right! Moi with the King of Pop, Michael Jackson! It's ok to be jelly.)

Red Headed Step-Child

"Red-Headed Step Child" is what a few of us at work are called...so hey, might as well go with it!

I'll post the extensive video below of my dye haul.

Anywho, I started with one of the boxes of de la Ritz  ColorEazy dye  in 3RV Medium Auburn from the Dollar Tree, just to experiment because I felt like being daring. ...but not too daring because I just used it for mainly the under layer.

During the process of dying it. I used snack-sized ziplock baggies to separate and hold the sections being dyed.

Mmm, so ~*sessy*~

One box contains 1.4 fl.oz. of the color cream and 1.4 fl. oz. of the developer. This was barely enough to cover the sections that I dyed, which was about a total of 1/4 of my hair. I forgot how long it said to leave on the dye but I think I left it on about 20 minutes longer than I was supposed to. *shrugs*

The result!

The color came out pretty good! It wasn't as vibrant red but what I dyed was darker hair. As for the texture, my hair didn't feel much different than it did before (I have thick, coarse hair). But it still wasn't quite the shade of red that I wanted so the next day I decided to go to Target (aaand see the 2nd video below). There I bought Revlon Colorsilk in 48 Burgundy. I was also hoping to find some sulfate-free shampoo but no luck so I bought some low-sulfate shampoo and conditioner. I used 2 boxes, with quite a little bit left over (which was great, even though I had an extra box just in case). Btw, there's 2 fl. oz. of color and 2 fl. oz. of developer in the Revlon Colorsilk, just fyi. The color turned out great! But it still wasn't what I wanted, which was expected. But this is what it looked like after 2 washings.

The blonde wants to break through and be freed! 

Breaking Blonde.

I've since fixed and enhanced the color to more of what I really want but I don't have any pics for now. I'm going to try to get that together in my next post. :)