it's time for new year's resolutions!

I absolutely love making new year's resolutions, although like most people, I'm not the best at the follow through. It's really starting to feel like these are my stock personal goals, and I'm feeling like this just might be the year that I can make some awesome life changes.

First of all, I'd love to blog more often. It might be a little tough, since I'm about to start my very last (!!!) semester of graduate school. I'm going to be doing a practicum (an unpaid internship for school credit) at a local library, plus I'll be taking two other classes. And, last month, I started a new part time job at another library near my house. So, I'll have a lot on my plate, but I really miss blogging. I've never done a great job at updating this blog, but when I was younger, I had an online diary (blogs didn't exist yet!) that I updated daily for several years. In the past, I've set goals to blog every single day, but I just don't think that I can commit to that right now, so I'm going to aim to update 2-3 times a week. I think that this is attainable!

In the past year, I've gained back all of the weight that I had lost on Weight Watchers. I don't really have a problem with my weight: I don't feel bad about it, and I don't believe that you have to weigh two pounds to be healthy or happy. But, I would be happier if I could fit into my favorite clothes, and if I had a few more shopping options. Plus, I've been having problems with my gallbladder, and I am pretty certain that my high-fat diet is to blame. I love fast food, junk food, sweets, and anything deep fried. I am hoping to get back on track this year. To do this, I am going to give up ALL fast food (which is going to be super tough!), cut back on the sweet treats, eat more fruits and veggies, and try to cut back on the massive quantities of food that I've been eating.

As far as doing something creative every day, I'm being pretty loose: in addition to craft projects, I'd also count cooking & baking projects. I have a tendency to laze around when I get home from work and I'd really like to use my time more wisely. I think life would be a lot more fun if I was being productive rather than just, like, watching Boy Meets World for three hours in a row. I mean, I could definitely knit and watch Boy Meets World, too, so it's really a win-win situation!

Planning my outfits in advance might seem like a pretty stupid resolution, but it's really something I need to do. I have waaaaaay too many clothes, plus tons of rad accessories. But I only end up wearing probably 10% of my closet and I never ever ever accessorize. I suck at waking up in the morning, so I end up with about ten minutes to get ready. I'm pretty sick of ponytails and boring clothes! I think that by planning ahead, I'll have a much easier time looking put together.

My final resolution is to be more organized. Honestly, of all of these, this is the one that I am pretty certain I'm gonna fail! I've definitely gotten better, but I'm still pretty far from being truly organized. If you had told the messy 10 year old me that 31 year old me was going to have a messy bedroom, I wouldn't have believed it. I thought that when you turned 18, something changed in your brain and you were an amazing adult who loved to clean, knew how to cook, and had all the knowledge you'd ever need. Unfortunately I was totally wrong. Cleaning sucks. Cooking is pretty boring too, to tell you the truth. I've always felt like the monkey at the end of this clip: 

JENNY HATE CLEAN.

So what about you? Have you made any new year's resolutions? Do you make the same ones every year? Do you hate to clean, too?

So, I went to Portland...

And I did some stuff, and I took some pictures.

I used Wi-Fi on a plane n' drank orange juice n' took webcam pics like a teenage girl.
(And then I watched The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, because you can do that on planes now)

I took some blurry pics.

Quite a few blurry pics, really.

I saw a real, live payphone!

I also saw a majestic waterfall.

Ate some foods.

Bought some things.

Then I flew home.

I also spent tons and tons of time with my homie, went to a comic con, and heard the same four Sailor Moon episodes playing on a constant loop. I had a great time and wish I could have stayed there for a million more days.

The Dream of the 90's...

Tomorrow at this time I'll be in an airplane flying across the country. I am going out to Portland, OR to visit my BFF from high school and I am so super excited. Portland has always been a city I wanted to visit, and now I finally can. Plus, right around my 31st birthday a month ago, I started to get ridiculously nostalgic for my teen years. That's when I booked my ticket. I miss the 90's. I miss my crew of best friends, and always having somewhere to go or something to do. I miss watching TRL, eating 3D Doritos and Hot Pockets, having really stupid adventures that seemed way more awesome. I miss the music, and the movies that all starred Jennifer Love Hewitt or Freddie Prinze, Jr. or Julia Stiles. I know that I won't truly get to relive the 90's, but it'll be awesome to spend time with my friend and buy cute things and see mountains and nature again. And she has adorable kids!

Plus I think I'm going to get a tattoo while I'm there... EEEEEP!

Tattoos

When I was 18 (or possibly 19? It was a long time ago!) I got my first and only tattoo, three stars on my right shoulder. I always intended to get more, but never really got around to it. A few years ago I decided that I definitely wanted a Charley Harper tattoo, probably an owl or a bird. I had the placement all picked out, and had it narrowed down to a few different illustrations, but kept putting it off. 

 The top two illustrations are by Charley Harper. The
bottom left illustration is by Mary Blair and the bottom
right is by Aliki.

So in the past few months I have been thinking a lot more about tattoos, and I think that I'm going to go for it soon. I actually have three that I'd like, but I'm not totally sure on the placement.

The top left illustration I would get on the front of my right shoulder. At the risk of sounding super lame, I like to think of sparrows as my spirit animal. I really love birds and the way sparrows hop hop hop around and are chill little dudes. This picture of the song sparrow has long been something I've wanted, so I really want to try to make it happen. 

I think all the other illustrations would work best on my arm. Not, like, all together, but if I picked one, that's where it would go! I love vintage children's book illustrations, and Mary Blair and Aliki are two of my favorite illustrators. These are just two representative pictures. There are millions of adorable pictures that I totally love. 

Harriet the Spy. If there was ever a book character
to identify with, Harriet M. Welch is my homegirl.

My very favorite book of all time is Harriet the Spy. Harriet is my spirit animal in imaginary child form. She's a little creeper, always getting in trouble, and manages to get everyone super mad at her. In the end, it all turns out ok and she learns some life lessons, etc. When I was a young adult, I totally dressed like Harriet (not on purpose): hoodie, t-shirt, cuffed jeans, black Chucks, black glasses. 

Anyway, that's a whole jumble of words to say that I feel like I need a Harriet the Spy tattoo. The big problem with this is placement. I have no idea where to put this tattoo. Walking around with what is to many people some random lil' girl on my arm or leg seems sort of weird. It's going to take some thought for me to figure it out. I think the picture of her writing in her spy notebook is where it's at.

Anyway, I'm going to work to make a new tattoo a reality. I'm in the process of writing up some goals for the coming year (my 31st birthday is a week away), and this will definitely be included. I'll definitely post pictures when it happens!

Internship news... And a favorite song!

My favorite band at the moment is Tennis, and Origins is my jam!

Yesterday I gave my notice at the Bux, because I have secured two awesome library internships. One is just for the summer, working for the state library on some pretty awesome projects. The other is in a public library, for the rest of my time in grad school, and I'll be working with kids & teens. I am super excited because I will be able to explore to areas of librarianship that I'm really interested in: services to youth and technology. The summer internship is unpaid, but it seemed like an opportunity that was too interesting to pass up. The funny thing is that I have stayed away from applying for internships and library jobs in the past, because I had convinced myself that I wouldn't even get an interview, let alone a job offer... But I ended up getting interviewed for everything I applied for. The interviews all went really well, even! It was a nice confidence boost, and I'm trying to keep it going!

There are a few downsides to leaving my coffee job (like losing awesome health insurance, my stock options, and the major pay-cut I'm taking), but the one that makes me the saddest is leaving behind my little group of bros on the night crew. For a long time, we all worked together just about every night, and I feel really close to those kids! So close, in fact, that I call them my kids, but, y'know, I'm not crazy. I am going to miss working with them, talking in a British accent for hours on end for no good reason.

I'm going to have to cut down on my spending this summer, because my income is going to be cut in half... I'm trying to come up with creative ways to make it fun, but I'm coming up short. Luckily, working in a library, I'll have access to lots of books! I'm taking the summer semester off, so I hope to read a million books, catch up on all the craft projects I haven't been able to complete, and work on my web design and coding skills.

Photo a day April, Day 2: colors

Photo a day April, Day 2: colors, a photo by hello jenny on Flickr.

I used to make and sell plastic headbands for Blythe dolls. It was a lot of fun; I had always wanted to have an Etsy shop, and running one that was popular for awhile was definitely an awesome experience. It could be very stressful sometimes, because for certain sought after headband sets, or some of the unique embellished pieces, people would buy things as soon as I was able to list them in the shop. When I first opened, I had an avalanche of orders; I was not really prepared to make and ship fifty sets of headbands in a very short amount of time. It was exciting, though, and for a while I was able to work from home on something that I loved.

Things slowed down a bit, my dad got sick (and eventually passed away), and I started to have trouble keeping up. I didn't have a lot of time to make new headbands, to take photos, or to write cute descriptions. Once I started graduate school, I decided to put my shop on vacation for awhile, assuming that once I got into the swing of things, it would be easy to start back up again. That was almost a year ago. Sometimes I think about starting up again, because I have a huuuuuuge stockpile of supplies that I don't really have any other use for, and because I love the hustle and bustle of packaging things up cutely and making a million post office trips. I just don't know if it's ever going to happen, though.

This picture has some of my favorite bows, cabochons, and other cute embellishments that I used in my headband making. They were the first thing I thought of when I saw what today's Photo A Day challenge was. I love color, and it was a lot of fun to group these together and dream up different ways that I could use these... Maybe some bow pins and barrettes?

Photo a day April!

Photoadayapril, my reflection., a photo by hello jenny on Flickr.

I am going to try this challenge for the third month in a row, maybe I'll actually follow through this time! Today's challenge was "your reflection".

It's been a busy couple of weeks. I've gone on quite a few internship interviews; I am waiting to hear back on two of them and I've accepted one position for the summer.

I'm off to work for the evening, blergh. I spent the day cleaning and organizing. There is so much to do! In addition to my cleaning tasks, I have a small stack of schoolwork to catch up on. It never ends!