neither looking forward nor looking back

It's been a grip!

First things first: I finished another dolly dressup video.  Here it is.


My dad is out of the hospital now. He was there for 12 days, most of which were spent on a ventilator in the CV ICU. Despite a rough transition home and some hard days and nights, he's on the road to recovery. He isn't able to speak above a whisper yet due to the ventilator messing up his throat, even though he's been off it for a few weeks now.

I'm grateful he's home and doing well. But I can't wait for this period of time in my life to be over. I'm so glad it's September. It won't feel like autumn where I live for another month, at least, but I am looking forward to it being autumn just to feel like this summer is in the past. I want to feel adjusted and like I have the mental room and physical energy for other things.

Yeah, it's been a rough time. But I have to end on a positive note. When I journal, I dump out all the negative things first, then finish off an entry with a list of positive things, no matter how small and inconsequential they may be in comparison to the negative things. It helps to remember things aren't all bad. My therapist has asked me to keep a journal of positive things, and I'm like, "I'm way ahead of you. I already do this."

• my cat was being super cute yesterday
• clean bedsheets!
• fresh haircut/bleach = fresh pink
• crocheted a deer hat while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, and man, it was pleasant!! I wanna do it again! Maybe even today!
• visited with my friend and his wife
• don't make fun of me, but... the only celeb I remotely care about dropped the name of his Snapchat and has been blessing me with ridiculous selfies and videos!!! 

It really, truly is the small things in life.

fences

This has been one of the most difficult summers of my life. If you have positive vibes to spare, please send them my way. My dad has been in the hospital for four days and will likely be there for several more, as he had some major heart surgery. I'm sorry I don't have happy news to report, anything fun to share, or anything else really going on... I really wish I did.

As you know, I don't like to post bummer stuff here. That's just what's up.

My Blythes have been packed away in my closet since late May (I started out June by painting my bedroom). I just unpacked them again today. I dressed Mallow, but left my other girls naked.

It's so instinctive for me to dress Mallow in light colors and pastels, but since none of my dolls were wearing anything at all, all of the clothes and shoes I have for them were available to pick from, and I decided to try and do something different. I ended up using this brown and blue checkered dress, blue tights, a navy tutu as a petticoat, brown CoolCat boots, and this new deer-eared headband by dinosaurparties which I got in a trade.

To see the outfit come together was rewarding, and to try something new for Mallow was, too. It's super hot out, not really time for tights or fur-trimmed boots or anything autumnal, but who cares?

That is it! I just wanted to post at least once while it's still July.

paint it pink™

So, dealing with health issues is only one thing I've been up to. For the past two weeks or so, my room has been torn up in various ways, as I've been painting it pink. (Duh!) My room has been green for at least ten years, and I've been planning to paint it pink for 2+ years; I've had paint samples I got back in 2014 sitting in my room all this time.

Last week, I was at Home Depot five out of seven days, picking up samples and finally gallons of paint, and new outlet covers, as mine had been essentially painted to the wall. I was painting patches on the wall and wasn't satisfied with any shade; I was having a hell of a time getting the pink to be light enough. I was moving all my furniture in stages, gathering up tons of stuff in bags (my dolls are all each individually wrapped and in my closet), spackling nail holes, taping, and finally painting.

I chose a very pale pink that was technically under the "red-toned whites" section.

The above picture is off my phone and I took it while in the process last week, so it's weird and grainy and not completely color-accurate, especially since that was only one coat deep. The green was gnarly to cover up, I don't mind saying. It literally took three coats to not be able to see green through it. It also took many days of revisiting, as I did my room two walls at a time.

In the midst of all this, I was going to doctor's appointments and getting bad news and immediately dealing with it. I was sleeping away from home half the time so I wouldn't be inhaling paint fumes all night. So coming home to my room being not so much the sanctuary it typically is, all my stuff packed away or otherwise inaccessible, has really contributed to my sense of stress. I really didn't know I was going to be dealing with health stuff or I might not have started the project.

Painting my room was, in the first place, something I was finally doing for myself, something in the vein of self-care. A change, something else I could put focus and energy towards (e.g., substitute obsessive thoughts about bad things with obsessive thoughts about painting) -- something to make me happy. The process hasn't been super smooth, but now that I'm rounding the bend with my progress and have the actual painting part totally done, I'm really looking forward to getting my room back to being functional and tidy. I think that will actually help my mental state a lot.

It's time for me to tackle the cluster of furniture, move stuff back where it's supposed to be, get rid of things I think I can part with, and ponder about more small changes to my space.

Currently I'm also repainting my bedside bookcase, and I still need to spray paint my mirror, but I haven't been able to make myself get back to Home Depot just yet.