Saturday, June 11, 2016

Spontaneous Sister Visit!

Oh my goddd, I had SO MUCH FUN Thursday into Friday! My sister was on vacation, and since we haven't seen each other in a few years, she came down for a visit. Upon checking into the hotel (we stayed in downtown Brooklyn, right off the Fulton mall) the desk clerk looked at us and went, "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you two play rugby!"

...yeah no, we didn't know what prompted that either, but it was greatly amusing to both of us. And we had to wait a while for the room to be ready, so we sat in the bar next door and got a bit tipsy, including free drinks because the bartender loved us, and then we went up, dropped our bags off, and went out thrifting. My sister loved the huge store I brought her to, as I knew she would. We then walked over to the other location that just opened, then went back to our hotel after picking up a few beers at Duane Reade. I did her nails- and did a great job, considering I was tipsy and she kept moving her hands, haha. Her pointers and pinkies had black bird silhouettes on multi-colored strands, with blue french tips, and her middle and ring fingers had black cat faces peeping over the tips, and each cat was looking sideways at the bird next to it. I should just upload pics, but they're on my instagram (@slacquerlacquer). I was pretty proud of them. I'm definitely going to recreate it on my own nails at some point. We went out to Applebee's for dinner (safe choice, as my sister has food issues, so better to go with the devil you know!), went back to the hotel, and passed outttt. The next morning, we tried to go to IHOP for breakfast, but uh, let's just say the customer service was lacking, so we split and decided to skip breakfast in favor of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge instead. WOW, it was beautiful! Way too crowded, but lovely, and great weather for it. The first time I did it, it was in winter, so there weren't nearly as many people. This time, it was borderline insanity.

We took the train uptown to 23rd, did some more thrifting, and I got 2 cute tops. Much easier to shop, now that I've lost weight! We had lunch at a nearby diner and then went back to Grand Central to relax and wait for her train. Tons of fun all around, and we got a whole lot of walking in.

I'm still waiting on my yarn to get here, and it seems like it'll be further delayed as the address was put in wrong- not sure if it was on my end or theirs, but I'm pretty sure I would have noticed it if I had put in 20&1 for my address! Maybe not though, so who knows.

As far as weight loss goes, between the constipation and now my period, nothing has budged, but nothing has been gained either, so I'm not complaining. I usually have a WHOOSH where I lose like 5 pounds after my period, so I'm eagerly anticipating that.

Alright, I'm way behind on my nail blogging, so I need to go take care of that. I'm currently wearing real crushed pearls on my nails- I had some less than ideal freshwater pearl beads left over from a shawl commission, with chips and dull bits and poorly drilled holes, so I crushed them up with a pair of pliers and put them on my rings and thumbs. They were for the Prince nail art challenge I joined, the theme this week being Diamonds and Pearls. Totally in love with my nails right now! 

Saturday, June 4, 2016

PHASE 3 IS ACTIVE. I REPEAT. PHASE 3 IS ACTIVE.

I just bit the bullet and dropped $114.09 on some commercial yarn bases for my shop. Totally reasonably priced yarns, and they're already hanked, so I don't need to wind off a cone before dyeing. I bought two different kinds of sock yarn, some cotton yarn, and some worsted superwash merino. I'm going to start dyeing the prototype skeins this week at some point, although I need to buy some cheapo wool to dye from somewhere first, because I haven't got enough skeins to cover the initial colorways I have in mind. I want to set up at least 5, maybe six different colorways, and they're going to have to be dyed to order for the time being, because I won't have enough stock to have sitting around pre dyed. Also, I need to go to Dick Blick this week at some point and pick up pink dye, black dye (both acid dyes), soda ash, and urea. Maybe in the future I'll feel justified in placing a big ass Dharma Trading order again, and paying a million dollars in shipping, but for the time being, I don't need enough to warrant it. I'm REALLLY, REALLLLLY excited about all this. Really excited. Super duper ally ooper sparkling excited! I feel like I should probably have made commercial yarns an option all along, but you know, hindsight is 20/20 and all that. Phase 3 refers to the third part of my plan to make this production phase possible, so I've been waiting for this day for a few months now.

I went to KMart last night and bought myself some new shorts and bras and shoes. A cute pair of fucking around shoes (slip on sneaker type things for running errands around town) and an absolutely darling pair of heeled leather wedges with black flowers on top. Really comfy, too. I'll be wearing those to the drag queen event I'm going to be playing violin in later this month. I was approached by a gentleman with a guitar as I was busking in the subway last week, and he wants me to be part of a quartet to play some accompaniment music to what I get the impression is a drag queen fashion show of some sort. These sorts of odd opportunities used to crop up all the time when I was more socially active; I should try to get out and about more. I needed to isolate myself completely for a while, but I think it would do me good to remember what it's like to connect with other people again.

I talked to my sister last night on the way to KMart, and walked there and back since it's only 2.2 miles round trip. I got updated on family nonsense, and discovered that she's got vacation time coming up in the beginning of July (right before my birthday!) so I'm TOTALLY going up there. She's all excited because it's a milestone birthday for me, and I'm just like whatever, I'm a late bloomer so calm down, hahaha. Hopefully I'll actually have something to celebrate by then- I'm not big on celebrating things just because the calendar tells me to. I'll definitely be placing another order with my yarn supplier after I get paid for this months work, although I'm hoping to be sold out of my initial run by then so I can do a REALLY BIG order. DOLLA DOLLA BILLZ Y'ALL!!!

As far as weight loss goes, I'm momentarily stalled by the constipation monster :-( BUT. I wish I knew how to make gifs... wait omg I do. Because my arm muscles are becoming visible, and flexing in front of a mirror is one of my new favorite amusements. I'm going to make a gif and send it to my soul sister, aka my fellow shieldmaiden in training, and she's gonna die laughing. My quads are becoming quite defined too, although the downside of that is that my inner thighs look a LOT worse now, since they're mostly covered in fat. And while I love seeing the changes in my body, and watching myself slim down and build muscle, I have to say that FEELING the changes is even better. I feel much stronger, faster, and lighter already. I'm sorry I didn't have the motivation to do this sooner. It's affecting my brain and depression in positive ways too. I'm more motivated in all areas of thinking and doing, these days. Sitting around and being a lazy, excuse ridden fuck is an absolutely miserable way to live. I don't think I'll ever go back to that again.