First Post of 2014 to honor 2013... Makes sense, right?

Hello to 2014!

I've had a very sad realization... I posted a total of 3-4 times in the entire course of 2013.... Whoa.

So, I've actually implemented a calendar event to remind me to (try) and blog at least once a week. Granted, I may not get to it EVERY week, but this may help me to post more often... I hope.

Nothing like starting off 2014 with a review of things that happened in 2013, right? Especially since I didn't blog about them. Okay, let's have one thing from each month....maybe... Be prepared for a few... A LOT of pictures. :)

January - Started my "One A Day" Calendar Journal. Made it one whole year and kept it up. There was a time there when I hadn't filled in anything for about 2-3 months. I went back and filled in what I could by looking at posts on Facebook, going through my text messages and calendar and finding anything that I could. There are maybe 2-3 days out of the 365 that I wasn't able to find anything for. I'd say that's pretty good... Still have it going, 3 days strong for 2014!

February - Hm... Nothing monumental happened during February that I can remember. Travis and I celebrated Valentine's Day, of course. I got him The Complete Star Wars Saga on blu ray, so he was pretty excited about that. He bought me Open Heart earrings to match my necklace and then a new charm for my bracelet. ^_^

March - Started lia sophia. Jen had been hinting since Christmas 2012 that she wanted me to start up with lia sophia. Great incentives, work my own schedule, etc. So I started up...

One of my latest pictures of my collection thus far... October, for Halloween.

April - This was the month that I ended up getting a few inquiries about MelJean Designs, but most of them ended up falling through, mostly due to my part. I had one guy ask for a t-shirt design, but when I emailed the designs to him, I never heard anything back. Granted the designs here kind of weak.... At the same time, he really already had someone doing his designing.... I wasn't really sure why he asked me in. Another was the chance to take some photos for a wedding reception, but then it was cancelled because the wedding photographer became available. That is one I'm okay with canceling. I would have done the same thing if I were the bride. I'd only want one photographer handling both events, even if they're a few weeks or months apart. Sami asked me for a logo for her Looms of Love project she was helping with and Britney asked me for a logo for her Etsy shop, Maybe Baby World. I've been dropping the ball on those. Part of me thinks that I'm losing my drive for graphic design since I haven't been consistently designing... :( I just need to make time and work up that drive again. And soon.

May -

June - Changed full-time jobs. I went from Wal-Mart to Capital One. It was a pay increase, steady 40-hours a week with the same hours, and 10 hour days. Also, it came with monthly bonuses, $500 sign-up bonus, paid time off, and holiday pay. Couldn't really pass that one up considering my next promotion for Wal-Mart would have been 2 years out and a lateral move anyway... Yea, good choice. Never thought I would work in a call center, but it happened. I don't mind it... I know I don't want to do it for the rest of my life, but it's great for right now.

July - I had the privilege of taking Alex and Margaret's engagement photos over the summer. July was the last session we had. They were so natural as a couple and comfortable in front of the camera. It was the best photo shoot experience that I've had. It helped that I knew them and we were friends, but they made it really enjoyable... Sort of helped me realize that I do like taking pictures more than I probably had realized in the past. Here are just a few of my favorites...

August - If I remember correctly, I had quite a few parties for lia sophia this month, so that turned August into a busy month for me. Between my two jobs (Capital One and Aero), my lia parties and the design work that I was going, it was jam-packed. It was nice though... kept me moving and earn money so that was nice too, but exhausting all at the same time.

September - Callie and Nick's Wedding. Travis and I drove down for a few days, of course making a pit stop at the Lake House. Travis loved it there. It's just so relaxing. Planning on going back sometime this summer. Got to spend time with Grandpa Bob. Then, we made our way to Olive Branch and it was all hustle and bustle from there until we left. Running between the hotel, Callie and Nick's place, and the wedding location. Rehearsal, nails... We had her bachelorette party the night before.... The wedding day was chaos, but in the end it all came together.

Travis playing with Mika at the Lake House.

Mom, Hope, & I at the wedding.

October - Halloween was the main focus of the month. Travis put together a great costume to go with our themed party - Alice In Wonderland. I was the Queen of Hearts and Travis was a Playing Card, but not from the cartoon. His inspiration was more from the live action movie that had armored cards. There was also another big event - Alex and Margaret's Wedding! It was beautiful and amazing to be there. Travis was a groomsman so I tried to match the wedding colors a little. I think it worked. ;) They are moving away in a couple of weeks so this was one of the last time we got to spend time with them.

Posing for the camera in our costumes

Too matchy-matchy?

Mr. & Mrs. Wollman

Such a beautiful bride!

And I caught the bouquet! This was her actual bouquet!

November - I'd say this is the month that I either discovered new likes or ended up re-discovering some old ones. First, this year was when Wizard of Oz started putting out their 75th Anniversary Collector's Edition of everything... Back in August, I bought the Mattel Pink Label Barbies of Dorothy, Glinda, and The Wicked Witch of the West. I started to see Wizard of Oz merchandise EVERYWHERE. Christmas ornaments, calendars, books, games, etc. Luckily, Travis made that his theme for my Christmas gifts this year... so I have the ornaments, a calendar (thanks to Mom), the behind-the-scenes book (that I actually found at 50% off and had an extra coupon on top of that), and The Collector's Edition of Monopoly and Oz Fluxx. So, I now have a whole shelf for my Wizard of Oz/WICKED collection. Also, it was WICKED's 10th Year Anniversary.... so yea. On November 5th, Twilight Forever was released. I have NOT picked it up yet... I wanted to wait until after Christmas because I hate having to admit if a gift is a duplicate one... (Which ended up happening with the Wizard of Oz book... Mom actually bought me two because the label on it said "1 or 4" so she thought there were 4 different versions to collect. I felt horrible.) Over the year, my Twilight doll collection expanded... Now, I'm only missing 5 of 14. There are more books that I'm looking into getting, such as the illustrated novels of New Moon and the combined one of Twilight. (The original illustrated novels of the first book was split into two, but now they have it into one book! Yes, I need it.) There are a couple of Hallmark ornaments that I'd like to get.... more calendars... Yes, I am addicted. I know this.

All my pretties!

$40 + 50% off + 20% coupon + Barnes & Noble Membership = $14.40

The ornaments... at Lowe's of all places.

Wizard of Oz Pinball Machine... in the Empire Mall!

The yellow dot is where my picture fits into the mosaic!

My Twilight doll collection minus Carlisle and my Breaking Dawn Part 1 Hallmark ornament.

December - There was lots of traveling this month. I took a trip down to see Grandpa in the hospital. It was a little last minute because we weren't sure on a time frame. I feel very thankful that I was able to make it down there at all. It was more than worth it.

Holding Grandpa's hand

Then, Travis and I went to Iowa for Christmas with Mom, Randy, and Hope. We even got to see Charlie for a little while too. It was a nice four days away from home and time well-spent with family.

"I can't even feel that."

Dog pile!

Charlie and Hope chatting about Vines at lunch.

My "big" little brother!

Aw, Hope's cuddling with Maggie. 

75th Anniversary Edition of Wizard of Oz Monopoly that Travis got me for Christmas. It's awesome!

Hope, Mom, and me at HuHot for lunch with Travis (taking the picture)

Then, we traveled to Huron (actually in January, but it was for a late Christmas) to spend a weekend with Travis' family. ^_^

Fresh & Clean

Today has been a day of cleaning and reorganizing. In the past few weeks, I've become a little messy and lost, figuratively and literally. Time to get back to normal.....

First, I started cleaning up the kitchen. Got rid of food that we weren't eating (or shouldn't be) and washed the dishes and counters. Now, I'll be able to do some baking and cooking later. Cupcakes to be made for tomorrow and a few salads that I can make up for the upcoming work week.

Then, I moved into the livingroom, getting all my lia sophia stuff sorted out from the other things just lingering around. Finally made room for my iMac to sit alone on my desk and put my MacBook Pro/Acer screen set-up off to the side so it's still accessible, but not in the way.

Now, I have the bedrooms and bathrooms left. Taking a bit of a break for my back. I haven't had an all-day-marathon cleaning in a while. I'm really going to like having 3 days off a week, that's for sure.

Short and sweet entry. Looking to do more of this, again...




Stay Tuned!

Waaaay too long....

Sooooo, a LOT has happened in the... 6-7 months since I've posted last.

January, right? Hm... Well, I'll try to remember as far back as possible. HA

Okay... I guess the biggest change is my recent job change. I no longer work at Wal*Mart and haven't since June 14th. A week and a half later, I started at Capital One. :) No dine details needed, but it's an overall better decision for me and my life. I will say this, after training, I will be going to four 10-hour days. I can't wait to have 3 days off a week!

A few other smaller changes... I'm selling lia sophia jewelry now. That's been since the end of March. It's been going pretty well so far! ^_^ When I started, there was a program in placed called "Excellent Beginnings" and consisted of different levels of accomplishment to be rewarded with jewelry premiums that can be used for supplementing my jewelry display. :) I made it all the way through all 3 levels! ^_^ $1500 per segment lead me to earning $200 in premium. That's a total of $600 in free jewelry! YES! Which reminds me that I need to make that post in Facebook, on my lia sophia page. Anyway, I'm averaging between 2-3 shows a month, but that's only because it's summer. I plan on grabbing up a couple more as fall rolls around. Soooo, if anyone reading this would like to hear what this is all about and/or plan a party, you should let me know! ^_^

Then, we can move on to my third job... Aero. Haven't hardly worked there in about a month... Actually, I haven't worked there in a month. Not since I started at Capital One. Mostly my fault, I did't fix my availability. :( Now it's fixed though... and I've only had one day scheduled. *sigh* Hopefully, more hours will become available....

Hm... I've taken a few more photo shoots for MelJean Designs. An engagement session as well as a wedding! ^_^ Beautiful pictures! It's hard to narrow down the choices! It's actually taken me a while to get to editing them because....

I bought a new iMac! That's right! An actual desktop version instead of my laptop-conversion kind. LOL I've been settling into it rather nicely. Also trying to keep it nice and clean - internally. Still have a few things to transfer over and what not, but it's awesome nonetheless. ^_^

Travis and I are still going strong. :D We celebrated our 3 year anniversary on June 30... sort of. That weekend was the same weekend of the Clark Wedding that I shot. We tried staying in a hotel and it turned out horrible. Not romantic at all. :( We're going to try for a "redo" later on down the road. Hopefully.

*sigh*... What else? Been catching up on just a few TV shows on Netflix.... Like, Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, How I Met Your Mother, Drop Dead Diva... Yea, I have some time. Or did. Time is definitely filled up now... Or, more overlapped, rather. I tend to have Netflix playing in the background while I'm doing other things... I think I have a multi-tasked problem.... As in, I have to have more than one thing going on at one time otherwise I don't feel like I'm doing enough. Weird?



Stay Tuned!

Motivation, ahoy!

Thankfully, I've been found with motivation and creativeness again. Yes, I will admit I felt that I had lost it. So glad to still have it.

Life is going well in other aspects too. Work is still going. I've been working every other day for the last week.

Travis and I celebrated our 30 month anniversary last month. For some reason, I kept saying it was our 18 month. Completely just left out a year. Not sure why. Lol

Tonight, we are sitting at home. I'm watching the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Well, I am watching them and working on my brochure. Travis is working on his walk cycle for a contest ending on the 30th, which is our next anniversary. :)

I suppose I will keep this short and sweet. Thank you all for reading!



Stay Tuned!

Hoping...

You know that feeling you get when you've gotten too much sleep and you just end up going back to sleep?

Yea... that's kind of how it's been all day for me. We went to bed relatively early... around midnight. It was a great night of sleep... that lasted until about 9-9:30. A sufficient amount of sleep, really. However, it took more will power than I care to admit to actually, physically get myself out of bed. Why? No idea. And I've felt like I could fall back asleep so easily at any moment. No motivation, no will to do anything, nothing.

Just really annoyed. I have so much that I could be doing, but my mind won't see reason. I'm hoping that the little trip to Iowa next weekend will be a nice relief. Hoping...

Catch Up Post!

It was a kind of full weekend... so here's the 3 pictures and thanks that I missed.

Day 2: What You Wore Today

Day 3: Clouds

Day 4: Something Green

Day 5: From A High Angle

Day 6: From A Low Angle

Day 7: Fruit

Day 8: A Bad Habit

Day 9: Someone You Love

November 2: Today, I am thankful for Travis. He balances me. He's encouraging and strong. For the last 2+ years of my life, he's been one of the best parts of it and has helped me to grow as a person. I love him.

November 3: My friends are my reason for thanks today. Old and new, they all are family to me. Great memories and good times ahead. 

November 4: I am so thankful to have a roof over my head. When I think of all those who aren't sure where they will lay their head from night to night, it makes me really appreciate where I live.

November 5: I am thankful for tea. Nice, hot tea. It's been helping to break up the congestion in my head, and now in my chest.

November 6: My jobs. They provide the income that I need to survive. The people I work with are awesome and I am very grateful to have a full time position, as well as part time position at two completely different types of places.

November 7: My family is awesome. Immediate family, extended family, and all the ones in-between. I know that they are there for me, even if I don't have constant contact with them.

November 8: I am extremely thankful for the talents I've developed over the years. My artistic abilities are always growing and I can't wait to see where they're going to take me!

November 9: Days off. Period.

Halloween & Other Spooky Things

So.... I've finally gotten it all put together!

Victorian Bride

First I was calling it a "Goth Bride", but the further I got into it and getting each of the accessories, it turned Victorian and I love it!

That's the biggest news as of late.... Other than that, I've been pretty busy. Staying caught up on edits, working at WalMart and Aero, and still trying to have a life. 

This weekend is one that I'll get quite a bit done. I only work at WalMart tomorrow and Saturday from 7 to 4 and then I have Sunday off. Going to use the time to get some things straightened out at home, edit some pictures, finish up some signs, and clean up my computer. Sadly, Travis is gone the whole weekend. He's at Nanocon all weekend. Great time for him. It's been a while since he had a weekend off. Still sad that he can't go to the Annual Halloween Party at Jess & Tiller's this year... 

Anyway..... I probably should get going, but I'll leave with a couple of things. 

First, I've started up a 30 Day Photo Challenge.

Day 1: Self-Portrait

Thought it was a good month to do it since November has 30 days. Also, I figured I'll blog my thanks each day. Even if it ends up being just the photo challenge and my thanks that I post, I'll try posting every day this month. So...

November 1: I am thankful for my mother. Simply put, without her I would not be here. Literally. Thank you, Mom. For everything.