Project House Update: The Birds and the Beach

You know how it takes me forever to finish a project? And like even longer to write about it? Well, today's your lucky day because not only did I finally get around to/finish two projects, but I'm going to brag about them now.

The first project was a shadowbox chock full of reminders from our trip to Hawaii in the summer of 2014 (see? It only took me 17 months to get around to it). The second was hanging a dove wall sconce that's probably been sitting in my closet for over three years.

I mentioned it in my list of tips for visiting Turtle Bay Resort, but we really expected to bring home a bag of shells as a souvenir. That was not the case. Every shell we found (minus a small piece of driftwood) is carefully arranged in this shadowbox. Maybe seven shells total.

Since I couldn't get as many shells as I wanted, I filled the void with beach sand. A lot of sand. This was only half of the sand. Dan's called dibs on the other half. Combine my sand, the shells, a great picture Dan took of me on the beach, and a high-quality shadowbox and you have something worthy of the term 'art'.

I say 'high-quality' shadowbox because this was not my first attempt at this project. Originally, I couldn't find a shadowbox I liked, so I bought a cheap one from Michael's and gave it a coat of paint. However, the back of it didn't seal well and I had to make a hanging mechanism because it didn't have a hook. Yeah, there was no way I trusted that on our wall. So, I found a pretty good one from Target and gave it two coats of spray paint. It even has a gasket around the end of the back to keep the sand in. Worth it.

Onto my unique choice in shelving...

Several years ago, I found this plastic dove shelf at the antique's fair. It's tied with my lamp for my favorite thing we've found out there. I didn't know what I would do with it, but it was vintage and birds and it called to me. Unfortunately, it was a gross 1970's color, but that could be easily fixed.

For a long time, I debated what color to paint it. Once I'd painted the sand shadowbox, it hit me that these might group well together so it got a matching coat of white paint. Someday I may change my mind, I could see it in an antique gold. Or a more matte white. Or even a weird painting project where I hand-paint it all the colors it should be, with brown branches and white doves with little orange beaks. If you've got ideas of your own, I've found one on etsy. It's part of a set even!

It was hard to find the right spot for them in the house, but I settled on the entryway. Here's the corner of the entryway before. It felt a little off-balance because only the left wall was decorated.

And now both walls are adorned. It felt a little awkward at first for displaying a picture of myself in a bikini in our entryway, but it's probably less creepy in the entryway than in the guest room.

I'm still styling and arranging things on the dove sconce. Since it's plastic and not even six inches in radius, I don't trust it yet to hold anything fragile or important. It hasn't earned my trust yet. We're still just acquaintances.

Project House Update: Sense of Shelf

In a first step to claim the den for myself, I staged a coup of the built-in shelves. About once a year, I attempt to reorganize and style them. However, in spite of all that effort, they always ended up looking something like this; crammed, cluttered, and Tetrised into place.

After reading Emily Henderson's Styled and Marie Kondo's The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up, it was time to upgrade my shelves to 'vignettes'. So, everything came down, was evaluated, and organized and restyled.

It took several days and several attempts, but I'm really happy with the results. Over time, I developed a handful of rules that kept me on course. Hopefully, these rules will help me keep them nice in the future. My new rules are:

• Keep the space functional 
• Be aware of the shelves goals - Before the reset, this was a drop spot in our house. Have something that's kind of pretty without a home? Just put it on the shelves. A random book you haven't finished? Shelves. Basically anything that needs to be kept out of reach of the cats? Find a spot somewhere high. This turned out to be a recipe for disaster. Now, we've defined their functions and only certain things can be added without consideration. These serve three separate functions: 1) helping the den function as a home office, 2) housing books I love, and 3) displaying our pretty, delicate knick-knacks. Each shelf has at least one group of books and one pretty thing.

• Understand placement for usage - Because the shelves are mounted on the top half of the wall, anything on the top two shelves is out of reach to me without a step-stool. So, the shelves are less functional as you go up. Knowing that, here are some of the functional elements I made sure to keep low.
1. Paper organizers for Dan: it's where he stores receipts, papers to file, and papers to shred. They need to be at arm's reach when he's sitting at his computer. 
2. Cat spot: I left a spot my boys because they grew attached to being tall. And it keeps them out of our hair when we're working. 
3. Candles: They're on a low shelf so I can reach them, but they're on a tall, wide shelf so things don't catch fire. 
4. Record player and records: Because sometimes you just need to listen to hair metal when you're writing. 

• Spread out themes - In the past, I thought it would look/work best if I grouped all of Dan's car stuff together on one shelf. 

Turns out, that approach didn't really work. The shelf was crammed so full that it was impossible to add new items and it didn't show off any of his cool stuff (and some of mine, too). After reading this article, I learned how to spread it out and incorporate it in a manner that's more styled. Now, rather than a single shelf, our books and models live on almost every shelf.

• Be mindful of unintentional accent colors and their placements - Once I began placing and styling things, I became aware of how many white, porcelain knick-knacks I have and how they stood out. White may not seem like an accent color, but when I got going, any white pieces near each other seemed heavy. It was too much. To keep it balanced, only one white piece per shelf and not on adjacent shelves if I could help it. 

• Don't overcrowd - Let's take a look again at the 'Before'. They were filled to the brim. Waaaaaaay too much stuff. Books, knick-knacks, CDs and records, games, and all sorts of other random things. Once we set up the new Ikea shelves in the front room and moved the board games out of the den, it freed up a lot of space. However, we still did some editing.

After removing everything and carefully selecting what would go back on the shelves, I ended up with two big piles of stuff to house elsewhere or to donate.

• Minimize small objects - small objects can make things look cluttered very quickly. Previously, I had placed lots of small objects together and thought it visually equaled one larger object. It didn't. It just looked messy. So, when everything came off the shelves, all the little bits and bobs went into a large ziploc bag and only a few things migrated back onto the shelves. Like a tiny plastic tiger hidden in a Corvette model. 

A few other little tricks I used to style these shelves:

   1. Take all the dust jackets off and store them in a filing cabinet
   2. When in doubt, group things in threes.
   3. Stack similar books together, largest to smallest, and top with a knick-knack.

A lot of these styling tricks and tips bother me for high-use spaces with high-use items (like large illustrated books on coffee tables), but they work well for a curated space like my shelves. We'll see if all of this helps me keep it nice longer than before.

UPDATE: I completely forgot that I did a similar post about shelf styling and organizing in the first month of my blog. You can read it here. It's not good. I won't say this post is that great, but this old one is definitely cringe-worthy.

Goals for 2016

2015 was an odd year. I went into it knowing that it was going to be a big year for us. I could feel it in my bones. I would have guessed promotions and renovations and trips and life overhauls.

And when I first sat down to review my resolutions from last year, my gut instinct was something along the lines of disappointment. There really weren't those in-your-face stand-out moments like I thought there would be. It was kind of an ordinary year.

But once I began writing and really reviewing the past year, I think I misjudged it. 2015 was pretty big, just in small, subtle ways, if that makes any sense. Somehow along the way last year, I became happier with myself than I've ever been before. I feel more like me. I'm not afraid to say what I'm thinking or to be silly or vulnerable or loud or quiet. I don't pick on myself the way I used to. 

I am happy.

I guess you could call that a big year.

Now that I've gotten the philosophical mumbo-jumbo out of the way, let's break down my 2015 specific resolutions:

• Say 'Yes' more. This one was a big win for me. In the moment, it is sooooo easy to say yes to things. Turns out, the harder part is not moping around afterward when you just want to stay in yoga pants and watch a Criminal Minds marathon (I swear ION shows them three times a week now). However, I am a person of my word and if I said I will be there, I will be there. And then I do the thing and have a great time and regret none of it. I say yes to invitations. I say yes to projects at work. I say yes to almost any ridiculous request, deal with the fault-out, and simply call it an adventure (remember this one, it's going to ripple into 2016, there are stories coming people). A
• Be ready for my ten year high school reunion. So, my high school reunion is still pretty fresh in my mind given that it was ten days ago. Given that I am the girl who instantly avoids eye contact and hides when she sees anyone in public (basically doesn't matter how much I like you, unless you are a blood relative, I will hide from you if I see you in a Target), it went about as well as I could have hoped. I'm notorious for over-thinking and over-preparing for anything that could be considered remotely competitive and I tried to channel that energy productively. I designed an outfit that was cute, but not trying too hard. I thought up questions beforehand (my favorite being: How'd you get into that?) And I had a back-up plan of just hanging out with my trivia team if I didn't want to talk to anyone else and that's basically what happened. There were a few people from high school that I would have loved to have caught up with in person, but they couldn't make it, so it was just a lovely evening with a bunch of people I used to know. And with the power of facebook stalking, I know there were a bunch of people in town who just chose not to go, I'm calling this one a win for me. B

 

• Find a way to advance my career. At the beginning of last year, my manager and I sat down and had a conversation about how I was on track for a promotion. While my work load and responsibilities have definitely increased, I still won't know about that promotion for a few months. Here's hoping. B
• Find a doctor. Hahahahaha. Every year. Geez. F
• Eat more fresh food. This one was a weird one to do poorly on, but it got worse, not better. Somewhere along the lines, I just got really busy last year. Between Zumba after work twice a week and trivia and hanging out with friends and all sorts of other stuff, I had one night a week when I could shop and it was the last thing I want to do. Then, there was this weird drama with the grocery store by my house switching owners and becoming terrible and then closing completely. So, my routine for feeding us got really screwed up. It's truly amazing how many nights a week you can survive on pasta and sauce. It's one of my resolutions for this year, but it kind of became more of a mess than it originally was. I had no idea how much of a pain it is to fit grocery shopping into your life when the stores aren't convenient and you just have no good time to go. D
• Attempt a long race (5+ miles). I tried to get a jump on it back in January by training for a four mile race. While I happily completed it, I hurt myself pretty badly. I swore off running for a while and really didn't miss it. I took up Zumba instead and I love it. In the last couple of months, I've started incorporating running back into my life, but solely for fun. I go out in my neighborhood, walk to the other side of the block, and then run home as fast as possible. It's just fun and stress-relief, not so much exercise. C
• Make some more youtube videos. I thought about it. I honestly did. There were times and days I thought about recording and justifying it as 'preserving the moment', but that would have been a lie. It would have been to make a video for video's sake and that didn't feel right. I did enjoy editing the handful of videos I've made, but recording them, at least the ones with me, made me incredibly anxious and I can't even go back and watch them. For now, it isn't worth the headache to me, but that may change in the future. F
• Embrace being a nerd. This one really could have been summed up by my last resolution, to 'be me more' since I am a nerd, but I think this one went pretty well. Feel free to read my Jurassic World premier night or my Star Wars premier stories for evidence to this. My one disappointment was that I didn't make it to any sort of convention. Opportunities arose, but it just didn't work out. I should have pushed harder and made it more of a priority, though. B
• Take another vacation. It was the plan to take a vacation. After we loved Hawaii so much the year before, it was a big priority to me. However, then the shop happened and I had panic attacks over money. I did make Dan promise that we will take a nice, long vacation this year, especially since it will be our five year wedding anniversary. F
• Be me more often. This resolution has been so good for me. It's pretty abstract, but basically I've treated it as: trust your gut, don't over-think things, be true to yourself and don't focus on the potential consequences. Was it probably not a great career move to wear dinosaur t-shirts to work for a week? Yes. Did it let my coworkers get to know me better and was I happy? You betcha. I sing loudly in the car no matter how much traffic I am stuck in. Sometimes I dance in the lab while I'm working on something and am only slightly embarrassed when I get caught. I've tried to become more care-free. I try not to let myself get embarrassed by having fun and being myself. I don't have to act like I have a stick up my ass to be professional. I can high-five someone when I nail something. I just became so sick and tired of trying to wear all these different hats and be all these different people at various stages of the day. Screw that. That ship has sailed. A

If you were to sum it up, I definitely failed more than I passed. However, if you weighted the importance of the resolutions, it ends up looking much better. 

My resolutions for this year are a little more concrete, which is probably a recipe for failure, but let's start the year off optimistic. This could totally be an awesome year, too.

• Find two doctors: general and ob/gyn. Like, seriously though.
• Take a vacation. It will happen. Some place fun and sunny. 
• Be more proactive on home projects. I've learned in 4+ years of home projects that I have three roles: planning/initiating projects, handling the small, annoying things (like hours of edging) to free Dan up to handle the stuff that have simply can't, and motivating him to finish up that painful last 10% of a project. Those are my skills and I will put them to use more often this year. {Sidenote: some things have been set in motion already at the end of last year, but since I haven't blogged about them yet, I think they should qualify for 2016.}
• Blog a new recipe once a month. It was an unspoken goal of mine last year to update my recipe blog at least once a month last year and if I hadn't missed damn April, I would have done it. Argh. I'm going to pull it off this year. I already blogged one for January. Oh yeah, proactive.
• Get a promotion
• Disconnect from technology more. Most days, I'm on my computer for 7+ hours at work. It would probably do my brain and my eyes some good to cut the cord a little more often at home.
• Make grocery shopping a priority/routine. You know, so I can 'eat healthy' and stuff. Actually, it's probably along the lines of 'so I don't have to eat mac and cheese as often'. Maybe I'll just upgrade to fancy schmancy homemade mac and cheese, which would count as a step in the right direction.

It's gonna be a good one guys. Leap years always are.

Star Wars Premiere Preparations

Like I did for Jurassic World, the week leading up to The Force Awakens was full of Star Wars themed outfits. If anything, this post can be classified as a lesson in how to take a piece and form an outfit around it to make it, at minimum, business casual.

On Monday, it started with a Star Wars t-shirt. I've actually worn this outfit to work previously. My black blazer, which is made of a jersey material and was on sale at Target for $10, is the most versatile piece in my wardrobe. Throw it over anything and it's immediately classy and intentional. Add in a nice piece of jewelry and there you go. The Converses take it in a more casual direction, so if you can handle something a little more uncomfortable, swap in some boots or heels.

Tuesday's attempt still needs some tweaking before I wear it again. Think Geek had a Black Friday sale and I got a great deal on this Jedi dress. It's so much fun to wear. The neckline can transform from shoulder covering to Jedi cowl and just about anything in between. I love it, but it proved to be very hard to dress up. My first attempt ended up looking a little Jedi and not enough 'workplace'. It's too cute of a dress for me to give up on making it work appropriate. It'll get there.

Wednesday, another t-shirt with another blazer. It's a great formula. It's not just for hipster tech-moguls. Anyone can pull it off.

Thursday was not Star Wars themed. It was a short week for me as Thursday was my last work day of the year. My tradition is to wear my Christmas sweater to my last day of work. And if you had a Christmas sweater as amazing as mine, it would trump Star Wars week, too.

At least my coworkers are starting to get used to my 'enthusiastic' fashion sense.

Project House Update: Dream Den

Since Dan's shop is basically done now (I should make a note to do an update post on it), he has a space all to himself. Part of me is incredibly happy for him to finally have his dream shop. The other part of me, however, is incredibly jealous that he has his own little utopian hiding spot.

Lately, the jealous part of me has been quite ugly so it became necessary to fight it by planning out my own little hiding spot. I don't know where the idea came from, but I decided that my room would be our den.

The den has been the least touched room in the house. It's basically the only room that hasn't been painted. The terrible built-in desks stay and continue to be barely functional (mine is so low I can barely fit my legs under it).

 
So, I purposed a plan to Dan that would improve the room in two stages. One stage would involve all projects that are independent from the future floor upgrades and the second stage would be everything after. With this in mind, I was able to get him to agree to Stage 1.

The reason we needed to break this room transformation into two parts was because of the floor. Ideally, this room will have a wood floor that flows from the great room, down the hallway, and through the den. Because of the massive area, we want to do it all at once so that it completely matches. And, having lived in this house for four+ years and knowing very well how long it can take for us to get around to a project like that, I can't stand to wait that long to touch the room.

With that in mind, here's the break-down of Stage 1:

• Replace window. This is completely independent of the floor. In early November, Home Depot had a sale on windows so we bought one that matched the others we've already replaced. Expect a post on that soon (or 18 months, you never know).
• Remove the built-in desks. I hate the built-in desks. They are tacky, have basically no storage, and I can physically barely sit at mine because it is so low. They need to go. And they need to go before the floor so we cane floor all the way to the wall.
• Buy and assemble cabinets. To replace the desks and to add storage, we are going to do a row of cabinets. Eventually, they will mount to the wall and house all the random things that now live in plastic tubs and shoe boxes. The idea is to find them now and use them while they just sit on the floor. Once we redo the floor, we will mount the cabinets to the wall, add some legs, and hopefully make them look like a beautiful floating credenzas. I haven't planned this part out fully yet, but hopefully it will be something like this.
• Buy a floating desk. Since the built-in desks will be long gone, we will need a new desk. Dan agreed that we can go from two desks down to one because we only really use this room one at a time anyway. The trouble I've been having is finding a functional 'floating' desk. A desk that looks good from all angles, but is also large enough to store a desktop computer tower. The best match so far is this one from Ikea, but it's a bit plain for my tastes.

Image Source

The floors will be hardwood. The layout will frame the window and the desk in the doorway. It will be light and airy and calm. Above all else, calm and feminine. With a deep chair I can sink into and hide from the world with a good book. 

But that's all a dream right now. Like I said, eventually we'll do the floors and there will be a lot more thought and work put into this room. At minimum, hiding the ceiling fan wiring in the ceiling and giving the walls a coat of paint. If we're feeling fancy, maybe we'll get to my dream french doors and window seat. Who knows at this point?

But in the near future, expect a post on the new window once it is installed and on how I reorganized and restyled the shelves to make them work better for us.

Project House Update: Mirror, Mirror, On the Table...

The trend has continued of phasing out the hand-me-down furniture of our house to pieces we actually want/chose. Again, this one was one of those things that had been sitting on a list and a good sale came along and I couldn't resist.

In our guest room, the guest bed was flanked by two side tables. One of them I found at an antiques shop and gave a coat of paint. The second was one I stole from my parent's when I moved out over eight years ago.

It was beaten up pretty badly (probably from me as a child, but it has looked this way for as long as it was in my care). The veneer was chipped off and it had decades of grim stuck in all the grooves. I had debated many ways for how to fix the top, either with putty or paint or a new top. Like most house projects, though, the longer it sits undone, the less likely it is that it will actually happen.

So, two weeks ago, I was at Target, per usual. And sometimes it annoys me when they have their Christmas decor out in early November, but since their stuff this year is very art deco and glam and I cannot resist. One of the items that struck me was a mirror end table. I took a picture of the label so I could talk Dan into it once I got home. Weirdly,  this end table is not on Target's website. There is a similar one, but the one on the website does not have a drawer, the one in store does and is cheaper. My plan foiled, I decided that I would watch the prices and perhaps force Dan into the store to see it if it went on sale after Christmas.

Once I came across a $25 off of $100 in Home Decor coupon, however, I couldn't wait any longer. I grabbed Dan and we headed back to Target. With the cart filled with items I'd been lusting after to get to over $100, including my table, a gold turtle box that finally came back in stock, and an embroidered pillow, I was as happy as a clam.

While it's a little smaller than I had hoped compared to the height of the bed, it's everything I wanted.

Really leaning into the art deco look, I swapped out my broken dollar-store lotus touch lamp for my naked lady lamp (another fine steal from my mother).

One of the things I really love about this table is I feel like it could work in just about any space. Maybe this is something I think about more as I learn more about home decor, but I now try to look into the future to see how the piece would fit into my house as it evolves over time. To make sure the table could work in the guest room or the master bedroom or the living room. I like the possibility of it being able to shuffle to another room if need be. That seems so simple when it's worded like that, but it can really be a difficult concept for me to grasp if I love something too much.

The biggest challenge now is what do I do with all of the furniture I'm phasing out. It's taken over the guest room and it's not like I have family coming to town for Thanksgiving or anything...

Sounds like we'll be making a big donation run here today or tomorrow. {Sidenote: I asked my mom if she wanted the table back and she couldn't even remember which one I was talking about, so I feel very little guilt for stealing it for so long.}

Project House Update: Chairs from this Millenium

You know what has strangely become a symbol of having your shit together? Having chairs. And look who, by that logic, must finally have her shit together.

I don't know why chairs are such a large portion of my 'adult' equation, but they just are. Maybe it's because chairs are freakin' expensive. And you need so many of them. And they are flat out boring, too. It's just something adults buy.

Up until now, we had been using free chairs. Well, not entirely free I suppose, but a set of six chairs that came with our house. Free with purchase!

They had to have been from the 80's and were beyond hope. Half pleather, half knit, all wheely terribleness. If there had been a way to DIY to greatness, or even not-half-badness, I would have tried.

But, they worked as chairs and we were in no rush, so they lived in our house for over four years with us.

The purchasing of chairs was a snow-ball sort of situation that started several weeks ago. My sister and I went to World Market to hunt for bits and bobs for her place since she just moved. In our shopping, I mentioned to her that I liked one of their chairs, the Verona Side Chair.

My sister is a great resource when it comes to World Market stuff because she used to work there. She knows which products are good and will hold up, which ones are crap, and when the sales will happen. She thought the chairs were good quality and told me that they rarely went on sale, though. Since they are a staple item, they don't get clearanced out, you just have to wait for an all-furniture sale.

About a week later, she sent me a text that World Market was having a sale, so Dan and I headed down to the store. It was pretty easy for me to talk him into it. With the sale and some coupon codes, it ended up being the cheapest option to buy them online and have them delivered to the store.

The turn around was ridiculously quick and he surprised me on his day off by having them all put together by the time I got home from work.

It was dangerous timing because it almost convinced me that we should host Thanksgiving this year. Good thing I have too much sense for that.

So far, they do seem to be cat-proof. The old ones were not. They were probably the opposite as the material turned them into big cat scratch pads.

It feels like a complete set since our dining room table is also from World Market. I am a bit worried that the room is becoming a little matchy-matchy, but I'm always on the look out for a feminine, over-the-top chandelier to counteract the masculine table. It could go farmhouse or industrial very quickly if we aren't careful.

We're starting to reach the point mentally where it's ok to phase out the free furniture and hand-me-downs and start growing our own collection. It's an exciting feeling and there are many more changes on the horizon.

Post 500: What I've Learned about Blogging

Guess what? This is my 500th post. Some bloggers celebrate anniversaries. To me, that date hasn't really been important. What is important is the fact hat in some four years of blogging, I've managed to hit 'Publish' five hundred times.

In the course of those posts, this blog has dramatically shifted in tone. It started as a place where I passive-aggressively whined about how I thought I could make better content than other people on the internet and, ironically, images I stole from other sites. It was about quantity over quality and posting things I thought would get views. Over time, it became less about everyone else and more about me. It became more positive. It became less about writing and more about documenting.

My 500 posts have covered the entire spectrum. There are probably hundreds that you could delete and I would never notice, but there are so many that I am incredibly grateful for. They are the ones that probably mean nothing to anyone else but me, but I'm so glad I took the ten minutes, an hour, sometimes even a day or two, to create.

And there are posts I wish I would delete. There's only ever been one that I actually deleted, because it was too negative and too mean and it wouldn't have accomplished anything. It's been a lesson in 'If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all'. It's been a way of analyzing afterward the type of energy I put out.

Alright, enough with the sappy stuff. Let's get on to all the stuff I've learned about having a blog through 500 posts.

1. Every post should have a picture. Like this one:

It's not great, but it took me 15 minutes and each time I make one of these, I'm getting better at it. 

It's important to include an image for three reasons. One, the all-mighty Pinterest. Two, many blog readers/feeds have a thumb-nail of the first image from the post and it can weirdly be a make-it-or-break-it image. Three, that little 'Recommended Posts' feature at the bottom of posts works much better with images.

Basically, it can be summed up as images draw people to click.

2. Find out what makes you unique.

When I first started, I just copied and regurgitated all the same crap I was already reading on other people's blogs. It was a comfortable starting point, I suppose, but I wasn't contributing anything meaningful to this space. It wasn't until I started blogging about the random things that make me me that I really started to connect with people.

My most popular posts to date are about two subjects: Stitch Fix reviews and my Mara Jade costume. They have one hundred times more hits than any other of my post. Both are popular for one reason: a unique point of view. If you google 'Stitch Fix review', thousands of posts come up. Most bloggers write raving reviews, get referral credit, and start all over. However, I didn't have such great experiences. I'm one of the few blogs that pops up if you google 'Stitch Fix review negative'. I wasn't intentionally being negative as click-bait, I was just being honest to my experience. And it connected with some people who either had similar experiences or wanted the full picture before trying it themselves.

On a different note, my Mara Jade posts make me incredibly happy. Before I made my Mara Jade costume, if you searched the web for costume ideas, only one post came up. Now, two do. And it may not seem like a lot, but I've had at least a half dozen people email me for the 3D prints of the harness buckle so they could make it for their own costumes. That's amazing! There could be other people out there wearing something I designed, thinking, 'How cool am I in this costume.'

3. Stretch yourself.

As weird as this sounds, I like to treat my blog like an odd, little course. I'm the teacher and the student and I try to give myself a structure and assignments to help myself grow. If you're going to put so much time and energy into something, you might as well try to get something out of it in the process.

My blog initially had a very negative tone. I had a lot of emotions and opinions I needed to express them and a blog was a healthier outlet than my new husband. In order to reign it in and force myself to be more optimistic, I started writing 'Fan of Friday' posts to focus myself on the positives of my week. Surely, I could find one thing a week that made me happy. When you frame it like that, it became really easy. Although I don't post 'Fan of Fridays' as often as I used to, I still make notes and drafts of posts about things that make me happy when I find them.

I also have plenty of experience on the other end of it when I've pushed myself too far. Every year, I try Blogmas, where I post every weekday to get me in the holiday mood, trying to force my blog into making me more 'festive'. However, I have yet to successfully complete Blogmas and post every day. It just burns me out by the end of it. I may try again this year, but it is slowly making me see that it may not have the affect I was hoping it would have.
 
On a related note...

4. Understand the line between 'Consistency' and 'Obligation'.

One of the most common tips I come across in 'how to grow an audience' for your blogger in the advice to post consistently.  I guess that's probably important if you're trying to turn your blog and yourself into a brand, but I've always struggled with it. Sometimes, my life has had so much going on that I've been able to post every day or three times a week and schedule posts long into the future. Other times, I got absolutely nothing. At first, early in my blog, when I had nothing, I should have just acknowledged the nothingness and not posted. Instead, I 'filled'. Hence, why I have so many purely deletable posts in the archives. Now, four years later, I understand that writing pointless posts was, in fact, pointless. Maybe if this were my business, having a schedule and handling the obligation to post on regular intervals would be important, but I would much rather write only when there is something to write about.

5. Lastly, don't feel the need to have a point of view.

Most articles I've read about blogging talk about the necessity of having a focus. There are beauty bloggers, fashion bloggers, food bloggers, travel bloggers, etc. It's OK to not have a point. To write just to write. To write about everything. To write about nothing. Over time, maybe your blog will turn into something. Maybe it won't. But if you're only blogging for followers, what are you trying to prove?

For me, this has never been a 'business opportunity'. I never wanted or expected to have thousands of followers and be able to make a reasonable wage off selling ads. There's always the dream it will go viral and it could become that, but I don't act like that's the case anymore. This blog has become a place where I try to express myself. It's a place where I hold myself accountable. It's a safe place to explore who I am, who I was, and who I want to become.

I've never been able to keep a journal this long before, but I hope I manage to keep this one going long into the future. So here's to many more posts to come. Thanks for being a part of it.

Halloween 2015: Nancy Drew

I know I'm behind, as usual. But, time for a post on Halloween!

I've had this costume in the works for almost a year. I don't remember how the idea got planted in my brain, but it stuck pretty good. And it was a straight-forward costume. For me, being a Nancy Drew nut, I went with the original 1930's version, not the revamped 1950's one.

The only items I didn't have for the Prohibition-era look were the hat (available here) and a magnifying glass. The make-up was simple: LOTS of eyeliner and sharp, lined red lips.

The hair became very complicated, though. After two attempts at hot rollers and another failed attempt Hollywood waves, I ended up using a small curling iron to make ringlets and then immediately pinning them to set. It ended up looking like pin curls, which was fairly time period appropriate.

This year was pretty low-key. My friend Bekah had another party. She's so good at them. And every year, she has a photo set-up. Here are some of my favorites.

Dan and I in character

Dan with matching hair

Nancy Drew saving Agent Coulson's hand from the Terrigen crystal

And when Nancy became a bit more like Bonnie from 'Bonnie and Clyde'

It was definitely a fun costume. I highly recommend it.

Six Things I Wish I'd Known about Grad School

Let me be real honest with you: my grad school experience was rough. Like, the-hardest-thing-I've-ever-done rough. Most of that was due to my own naivety. I didn't understand almost anything about it when I started and it threw me for a big old loop. I made the assumption that grad school was very similar to undergrad, which it is 100% not.

{Sidenote: Three things to note: 1) My grad school experience was engineering based. From talking with my friends from other scientific backgrounds, their experiences were fairly similar to mine, but these tips may not translate perfectly to someone pursuing an arts or business degree. Maybe they do, but I have no idea. Let me know in the comments if you have one of those backgrounds how your experience was the same/different. 2) Some of my experiences may have been school-specific. I tried to stay general, but programs do vary. 3) My grad school experience stopped at a master's degree. As tips for entering grad school, my opinions should be valid for however long your schooling goes, but grad school programs do evolve as you go for higher and higher degrees.}

• While the grading is much harder, grades are much nicer. I wish someone had told me that you basically have to be failing a class in grad school to get a 'C'. The rubric goes something like: A - has a very good understanding of the material, B - is trying really hard but missing the mark quite often, C - not getting it at all. At the same time, it is much harder to get an A. Curving grades is not only expected, but required since the average on assignments is typically around 50%. In reflecting on my time in grad school, I can only think of one instance when I got 100% on an assignment/quiz/test and I was absolutely ecstatic. To get 100% in grad school, your work has to be flawless and with anywhere between 2-4 classes and whatever else is on your plate, flawless just ain't gonna happen. What this all boils down to: grades aren't the measurement of success they were in undergrad. I felt like I was failing every day, but my final grades never reflected that. As long as you are showing up and giving it your all, your grades won't be as bad as you think they should be. Hell, after my first semester, I didn't even check my grades anymore. I assumed if I was failing a class, the college would let me know. 
• There are many different ways to earn a degree. My college had three different ways to earn an MS. The first way was the research path. This is the path you would choose if you were interested in continuing on with a PhD. You take a fair amount of coursework, but in addition, you take a semester or two of pure research where you work on (and may even get paid) a project for a professor (your advisor) and write a thesis on it. This is like PhD program 'lite'. The second path involves taking only coursework. This path is great if you already have a job and want to get a degree in tandem. You'll probably only have the time to take one or two courses a semester, so it may take a couple more years to earn your degree. The third way is a combination of the two which involves mainly coursework with a final 'report' for a smaller project you work with a professor. This a great path for people who want to do research, but don't want to continue with a PhD. It's important to fully understand the ways you can earn a degree because often you cannot change your path once you have started. For my college, you couldn't be a teaching assistant, grader, or researcher if you were doing purely coursework. Basically, you can only do the coursework path if you have a source of income outside the university, a fact a friend of mine didn't know and got her royally screwed over late in her degree process. In other words: understand the strings attached to the money the university provides you. {Also, from here on out, my points relate more to the research paths.}
• Choosing the right advisor is just as important as choosing the right school. When I applied for grad school, I truly didn't understand how much of my fate was tied to the professor I would be working with. At my first campus visit, I thought I was considering the school, not that the professors were considering me. Needless to say, I didn't get any research invitations from professors at that first school. While the school name on your diploma will probably have the most effect on your future opportunities, your advisor will affect almost every aspect of your day-to-day grad life. My advisor expected me to spend every minute I wasn't in class or in office hours from 9 to 5 in the lab doing research. I got yelled at for showing up at 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays even though I had a class from 9 to 11. However, I had friends who saw their advisor once every couple of weeks for a status update and that was it. Your advisor is basically your boss and (depending on the school) their power can basically go unchecked. Grad school is not like a traditional work environment. As scary as it sounds, you don't have the same rights as a normal 9 to 5 worker does because you can't just quit. You live with the fear that if you quit, you lose everything you've worked for up until that point. I did not get along with my advisor (more of the story here) so I was forced to power through and finish as quickly as possible. Here are my tips for choosing an advisor:
• The ones who already have tenure are much more laid back. 
• Read reviews for their classes. Often, most professors have the same attitudes about their classes as they do about their labs. 
• Understand their research environment. What's the break down of their lab look like? What type of degrees are their grad students going for? How far along are they? How would you fit into the hierarchy of the lab?
• Talk to their grad students. Do they seem happy? Stressed? Do they have lives outside the lab? Are they required to get papers published every semester?
• If you have grant money, you can basically do whatever you want. Now, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Grant money is basically scholarship money with the contingency that research will be done with it, most of the time, a specific project that earned the grant money. For most people in STEM degrees, the holy grail is the NSF grant. You propose a project and if chosen, you can end up with funding for your entire degree. Courses, living expenses, everything. What this really means: you get to choose your advisor, not the other way around. The biggest hurdle for professors is coming up with the grant money for research. However, if you have your own grant money, you just need to find an advisor who is working on something similar to your project and ask to work with them. It's a win-win for everyone. It's probably the best way to alleviate the stress of your entire degree being in your advisor's hands because it's your money. If you really needed to, you could change advisors, or even schools, and still be okay. Here's a link for the NSF program.
• Grad school is much more stressful than undergrad because it can be your entire life. There's no escaping it. Assuming you are doing some sort of research and aren't a trust-fund baby, it's your job, too. You go to class. You have office hours. You do research. You do homework. You hang out with fellow students. You go to conferences. You write papers. There is no limit to the amount of time and energy it consumes. It's not like undergrad with a nice little to-do list of assignments and when it's complete, you get to go enjoy your life. It's more complex and messy so it's nearly impossible to turn off. Some people embrace that all-encompassing feeling, but it just burned me out. I can't be 'on' all the time. If I don't get recharge time, I simply can't give something 100%.
• The last degree you get is the most important one, so if you didn't into your dream school for your master's, you can try again for your PhD. It's not common, but it's not unheard of, either. Part of the reason I chose my college was a compromise: I would get my master's degree while my boyfriend (now husband) got two years of experience at his job and he would follow me to a different school for my PhD. It was 2009 and the recession was at its peak, so jobs were hard to find. Since he'd had a job lined up since October of the previous year, it made sense to stay and give him time to hunt for a job near whatever school I chose for my PhD. And we would have stuck to that plan if I hadn't burned myself out in my master's program. I guess my point is this: it's not the end of the world if you end up in a master's program that you are not thrilled about. Your master's program doesn't have to be your PhD program. However, it is important to know that it is much harder to get chosen by a professor if they know that you just want to get a master's. Most professors don't want to waste their time with someone they would work with for two years compared to five. I'm not saying you should lie or omit these details, I'm just saying I know a lot of people who did.

Lastly, this is more of advice than a tip, but if you are considering going the grad school route, find resources and educate yourself. In hindsight, my high school really prepared me for my college application and enrollment experience. I cannot say the same thing about my undergrad preparing me for grad school. The best resource I had was my parents, but their experiences were from the 70's so it was a whole different bag of cats. Talk to your older friends, talk to your undergrad advisor, talk to your teaching assistants since they are most likely grad students themselves, talk to professors about what they look for in potential advisees.

This sounds really depressing, but my biggest 'what if's' revolve around the mistakes I made in applying and choosing a grad school program. It doesn't have to happen to you, too.