This is the End

So here it is. My last post of the year. As a whole I'd say 2014 was a dang good year, in fact, I'd go as far as to say it's been one of my best years on this planet. This year I got to spread my wings and finally see the world. I got to meet my bestest friend face to face and spend 3 unforgettable weeks together touring Europe. My business continued to grow and I sold more art than any other year and doubled my revenue from last years numbers. One thing that also happened this year that is very important and that I'm very proud of is that I truly started to love myself and my body. For years I've struggled with insecurities (the majority of my anxiety stems from being insecure and worrying about how I'm perceived by others). But this year with a lot of encouragement from positivity blogs on Tumblr  and some very dear friends I finally was able to see myself clearly. I may not be perfect (and honestly, who is?) but I'm a smokin' hot babe and I'm proud of my body and the way I look. For the longest time if I were to see or meet a girl who I felt was prettier than me I would get so down on myself and feel inferior to them. But now I'm able to see a cutie and be like, "Wow she's pretty but I'm pretty too. We can be pretty together!" Just this simple thing has helped me so much. The media and the fashion industry have such a limited view on what beauty is and it's pretty messed up. Beauty comes in all shades and sizes! I wish I could go back and hug my past self sometimes and tell her how lovely and perfect she is exactly the way she is.

So yeah, many good things happened in 2014 and it makes me hopeful for things to come in 2015. Already, my life is starting to change. My job at the retirement community recently became full time so that's going to be an adjustment. I got kind of used to only working part time and having the rest of my time free to work on my crafts. But I knew that that was only temporary until I could find a full time position. Now I'll have to work on my time management skills and find time to make art after work. Ideally, I'd like to get one hoop done a week but we'll see how it goes.

My dad plans on retiring sometime next year or possibly early 2016 so I'll most likely be living with them until then to help take care of my mom. By living at home another year I'll be able to save more money that I would like to put towards my first home in 2016. I've tried living with roommates but it's just not for me and I don't have any plans to move out of state in the near future so I'd like to buy a condo. My original life plan was to move in with my future life partner but since I'm starting to realize that that may not ever happen for me, it's time for me to start planning for my own future and how I'm going to take care of myself. I don't want anything large, just a cute 2 bedroom condo with a small yard big enough for a pug or two. And it'll be so great to be able to decorate and paint the place how I want to and not have to ask anyone for permission. So I just need to make it one more year and not let my parents drive me completely insane.

What I'm most excited about in 2015, though, is getting to travel more. In just 4 weeks I'll be leaving for Thailand and getting to see Asia for the first time. Then in October I plan on visiting London for a week to celebrate Melissa's 23rd birthday. Originally, we weren't going to see each other again until summer 2016 but since I'm only visiting Thailand for a week and get 2 weeks of vacation time from work, I might as well use that time to get to see my favorite human on her birthday. We only got to see London for 2 days this past spring and that just wasn't enough time so it'll be awesome to have a full week to explore.

Alright, well, I wish all of you a very happy and healthy New Year and I'd also like to thank you for reading this blog and supporting me. It truly means a lot! Mwah!

Duchess Gummybuns
9 inches
*SOLD*

Your friend,
Courtney

Time Capsule 2014

Me in 2k14

So it's already been a whole year since the last time I did a Time Capsule post. This year feels like it went by faster than any other year, well, ever. Maybe because so many good things happened in 2014. Of course this year has had it's low points (that's part of the whole human experience) but as a whole it's been a fantastic year.

Now let's get into what Ms. Doom was into in the year 2014!

My Life in 2014:
Favorite Films I saw in the theatre: What If, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Pride, The Wind Rises
 What I was listening to: Phoenix, Taylor Swift, Vampire Weekend, Florence + the Machine, the Frozen soundtrack
What I was reading: A Song of Ice and Fire (books 3-5), Harry Potter 1-7, Before I Go to Sleep, Gone Girl, Pride and Prejudice, All Men are Jerks (until proven otherwise)
Shows I was watching: Game of Thrones, The X-files, Orange is the New Black, Adventure Time, Parade's End, Girls, The Big Bang Theory
Trends I was into: peter pan collars, rompers, wing eyeliner, high waisted shorts, jellies
Trends I hated: acid wash denim, pointy finger nails, 90s grunge fashion
What I was driving: Buick Regal
Who I was crushing on: Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Kit Harington, Daniel Radcliffe, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau
Games I was playing: Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Hyrule Warriors, Ocarina of Time, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask
Best Friends: Melissa, Rosalynn, Michelle , Ashley, Heather
Favorite Restaurant: Tea Lite Noodle Café
What I was looking forward to: My Disneyland trip and my trip to Thailand!
What I was most proud of: travelling all over Europe with my bff, being featured on the 100 Creatives List in the New Times, drawing again, and selling lots of art!
Dream Pets: tea cup piggy
Favorite color(s): mustard yellow, hot pink, turquoise, moss green
Most Used Words: omg!, bb, wowzers, bananas, so cute!
Favorite Food: Veggie Eggrolls on rice noodles with veggies and Hoisen sauce (yum!)
Pet Peeve: misogyny
People I admired: Melissa Winning, Chelsea Bloxsom, Kelly Anne-Boylan, ALB, Lauren Crow

All About New Year's Eve

HAPPY 2014, MAH BABIES!

I'm really really stoked about this year. I have all kinds of positive feels for this year. I think good things are going to happen, which is rare for me but I dunno, I just feel it in my bones that this year is going to be awesome.

But before I start fangirling 2014, let's wrap up 2013 first. So my New Year's Eve was pretty good. Not great, but still good. I met up with my friend Ashley for dinner at Pita Jungle and I must say for a place called Pita Jungle their pitas kind of (really) suck. All of their other dishes are great but c'mon guys, let's work on making the pita bread edible. My jaw seriously hurt after choking down one pita.

Me and Ashley

Anyway, we finished eating around 8:30pm which was still super early but we had nothing else to do so we walked down to Crescent Ballroom. They didn't open up the actual ballroom until about 9:45ish so there was a lot of standing, eye rolling at creeper guys attempting to talk to us, and evaluating other folks outfits. When they finally let us in to the ballroom there was an opening band that's music wasn't very memorable for me (sorry, guys) but soon after a DJ came out and everyone started dancing. The first hour of dancing was pretty good but then it got SUPER crowded and kind of nutzo. It was just a wall of bodies in there and everyone had spilt their drinks EVERYWHERE so the floor was wet and sticky and we kept stepping on empty cups. I kind of don't get why they let people drink on the dance floor. You should have to drink your drink in the bar and when you've finished it THEN you can come out onto the dance floor. But that's just me.



I saw this dude who I was very briefly interested in but later rejected and he saw me too so that was kind of awkward. He kept dancing nearby wherever we were too so that made me feel a bit weird but at least he didn't say anything. I hate that. After midnight people got really crazy and were like shoving each other and we thought we were going to die. Ashley managed to plow her way through the sea of sweaty drunken bodies but I wasn't aggressive/strong enough to navigate my way through so I got separated from her for about 3 minutes and it was TERRIFYING. I kept thinking, "SHE LOST FRODO!!!" And I don't have a cell phone so that made it extra scary since I couldn't just text her. But Ashley had the good sense to wait for me outside so I wasn't lost for too long. When I found her I said, "Don't you lose him, Samwise Gamgee." and got no response u__u

After things had calmed down a bit we went back inside and danced a bit more but decided to leave at about 1:30am. By the time we got home it was a bit after 2am and I was friggin' exhausted but still didn't fall asleep until around 4am. Although I didn't work until 2pm the following day I awoke around 8:30am and couldn't fall back asleep. My work day was easy though since it was a holiday and it's usually pretty quiet on holidays. One of the residents at my work even brought me a whole plate of food! It was a FEAST!

I got out of work around 8pm and made a beeline for my friend Heather's house so we could watch episode one of Sherlock Series 3. I don't know if it was due to our lack of sleep (she had only gotten 2 hours of sleep that day) but we found the episode to be all over the place and hard to follow. Sherlock is our favorite show and we'd been waiting to see this episode for 2 agonizing years so we were pretty bummed that things didn't go the way we'd hoped they would. I don't want to spoil the episode for those who haven't seen it but I'll just say I hope the next two episodes will be better.

Alright, I guess that's all for now but I wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year!!

xoxo,

Courtney

National Lampoon's European Vacation

So I haven't written in a while (been working a lot and ya know, hanging out and stuff) but I have pretty big news so here I am.

Today I officially applied for my PASSPORT! AAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! My squees today could probably be heard in OUTER SPACE.

Having never been out of the country this is extremely huge for me. Like, life-changing huge.

Luckily my skin was having a moment of clarity so I zipped up to Costco and got my picture taken. If you ever need a passport photo, I'd highly recommend going to Costco. They took a great picture and it only cost $4.99. Also, you can enjoy a nice slice of pizza for $1.99 while you wait ;)

So anyway, today I went to the Municipal Court to apply for my passport and was prepared to have to wait all morning but was in and out in about 5 minutes! It was awesome! Even got told I was "gorgeous" by the security guy, haha.

Next month I'm going to buy my plane ticket so that'll be HUGE. I'm kind of nervous about the flight but hopefully my excitement will overpower my nerves. I've never been in a plane longer than 6 hours and I think I'll be flying for like 13 hours that day (total travel time was estimated at 17 hours- yikes!)

I'm so ready to start getting stamps in my passport. I'll be getting 4 on this trip so that's a good start. Ideally, I'd like to start going on one big trip a year. I think that's a pretty reasonable goal. Here's a few destinations on my list:

*Hawaii
*New Zealand
*Bora Bora
*Canada
*Peru
*Japan
*Southern Europe (Italy, Greece, Spain)
*Thailand
*Iceland

Man, I can't believe I have only 3 1/2 months to go. It's so nutzo! I've been talking about finally visiting Europe for about 2 years and it's almost here. I think this is going to be a trip of a lifetime. 2014 is going to be one hell of a year. I think 30 is actually going to turn out to be a great time in my life. Maybe I'll finally find a boyfriend too (gotta stay positive!)

I'm ready!

I'll post images of my latest work (been super busy--drawing again too!) in my next post.

Good day, my lovelies!