People are Strange when you're a Stranger

HELLO OCTOBER! Mama missed you so!

ERMAHGERD! Has Mama been BUSY! I've now been at my new job 7 weeks and am feeling a lot more confident. Instead of having to ask for help 800 billion billion times a day, I'm down to maybe just 800 billion. Everyone is still pretty cool and I've been getting a lot of compliments from customers too which is reassuring. I've also been making more friends at workies too. A gal, Nikki, who works in my department is super cool and we've been hanging out almost every weekend. It's great to have someone to go thrifting with again now that I don't have my Nathan around anymore. It's a bummer that we don't get to chit chat very much at work (we keep getting busted for chatting with each other more than we do with customers--oopsies!) It's not OUR fault that the customers don't want to talk about Harry Potter and video games...

In addition to being busy as a Japanese beaver at my day job, I've been working into the wee hours of the night on custom orders from people on Etsy. Everybody's been asking for Pokemon commissions so that's all I've been doing with my free time lately. Here's some of my recent works I've been doing for some super cool ladies:

I have one more customer order to complete then I have to start building up my inventory for the holidays. The holidays can be a scary time for anyone with a small craft business. Last year I made 2 dozen felt brooches in about 5 weeks. Boy, it was intense! But it feels good to create something that people enjoy and actually want to wear and display in their homes. In case you're interested, here's some of the bands that I've been listening to lately while I craft:

*Foster the People
*Two Door Cinema Club
*Phoenix
*Empire of the Sun
*Miike Snow
*Florence + the Machine
*Dragonette
*Black Keyes
*Metric
*MGMT 
*Band of Horses

I'm so happy that Pandora Radio came into my life. For the past 10 odd years I've been stuck in a musical time warp. I didn't listen to anything past the 1980s. But then my dear dear Ashley told me about Pandora and it changed my crotchety views about contemporary music. Not being into indie music was really the only thing that was keeping me from being a full-blown hipster too so that was another reason why I was trying to distance myself  from it. I guess some things can't be helped and I should just accept myself as I am...

My name is Courtney Price and I'm a hipster! GAAAAAAHHH!

Hey, it's not like I can really help that I like cool things (that you've probably never heard of) :P

If you haven't listened to it yet, I'd highly recommend Foster the People's album "Torches". I've been listening to it nonstop for almost 2 months. It's one of those rare albums where EVERY song is gold. Mark Foster has such a unique voice and I love his quirky songwriting. GET THIS ALBUM!

In other news, I recently got new glasses that I'm really excited about. Here's a peek!

I've been wanting cat eye glasses all my life and I finally found some on my favorite online optical store www.zennioptical.com. This website is seriously the berries. They have hundreds of frame designs and all you have to do is enter in your prescription information. You can even upload a picture of yourself to get an idea of how the frames will look on you. It's the best. I'm so glad Nathan told me about this site. ^__^

In other news, I almost have my Halloween costume ready to go. Anyone who knows me well knows that Halloween is my favorite time of year. I exploit any opportunity to dress up; I live for costume parties. This year I've decided to go as...wait for it...

BELLATRIX LESTRANGE!

I'm soooooo psyched about this costume. Originally, I was going to only cosplay as Bellatrix for my upcoming trip to Harry Potter World in February but then I thought, "If I'm going to spend lotsa money on this costume I might as well get the most out of it!" So I'm going to be wearing this costume to Nikki's Harry Potter themed Halloween party and to workies (my manager was totally pumped that I was being Bellatrix and insisted I wear my costume to work). So far I have the dress and the wig so all I need now is a killer pair of boots and her bird skull choker. EEK! So excited!

I'm also super excited to be getting my first true taste of fall. Being born and raised in Arizona, I've never really gotten to experience all four seasons. We pretty much only had two: summer and winter. Nothing in between. All the trees in my neighborhood have turned red, yellow, and orange and they're so beautiful. It's amazing how excited a gal can get over a red tree. Here's some pics I took yesterday after work:

So yeah, things have been going pretty well for little orphan Courtney Annie these days. The only thing missing is "the boyfriend". I've been trying to be a good feminist and be happy on my own but as the seasons change and the nights get colder a gal becomes more aware of the lack of romance in her life. I've been on my own for quite sometime now and for the most part, I've consistently held onto hope that there IS someone out there for me. But after waiting and waiting in vain, I don't know...My hope has begun to waiver a bit. I can't even remember the last time I sparked with anyone. I've had my share of crushes over the past few years but have yet to make another strong connection. It's a little disheartening to tell the truth. And I can't fake my feelings. I could never be with someone who I wasn't crazy about. I want the real deal and that person continues to allude me. Everyone keeps telling me different things too. Half of my friends tell me that he'll come into my life when I least expect it and the other half say that the reason I haven't found him is that I'm not "putting myself out there". If I "put myself out there" doesn't kind of mean I'm expecting to meet someone? Everyday I see so many couples and I can't help but wonder where they met since it's been such a struggle for me. Where does an introverted, artsy girl find her match? I honestly don't know. And don't tell me the internet. I've tried that. All of my experience with internet dating have been negative ones so I don't think he's there. And I'm the kind of person who has to meet someone and feel their energy to decide if I'm interested in them or not. 

Sigh...

I guess all I can do is keep living my life and try to be a little bit more social. For the past fews years I've been trying to do more things that are generally out of my comfort zone and during this experiment I've met a lot of people who I otherwise never would have met. I don't want to change who I am just to be in a relationship though. No sir. Changing yourself for someone else is always a recipe for disaster. It's taken a long time but I've accepted who I am and I like myself, flaws and all. It would be nice to find a man who accepts me as I am too and who wouldn't want me to change a thing. I hope I find him sooner than later...

Well, wish me luck! I need all I can get!

XOXO!

All aboard the Sleepy Train

I don't know why I'm blogging instead of just going to bed but when I noticed that it's been almost a month since my last post I figured I couldn't leave the two people who read this in suspense any longer.

The last month has been pretty pretty pretty hectic. I've had two exams (one went well and one didn't), two portfolio reviews, and several meltdowns. I was hoping that I would've gotten slightly better at managing my time by now but it hasn't happened yet. I feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday.

Good thing I'm going on one in two weeks ;) My pop and I are going to Disneyland for the weekend in a fortnight (I love that word). I'm really looking forward to it since I've never been there during the Halloween season (my favorite holiday btw). And I'm hoping it'll still be warm enough to go swimming because I just bought a new polka dot bikini top for $4.48 at Target. YUSS!

But even my vacation is causing me stress because I need to get all of my homework done before I leave. GAH!

Work is still going OK. I was actually able to help some people this morning and managed not to botch anything too badly. The teacher ladies that come in still scare the bejesus out of me though. Most are nice but some are super scary and mean. I noticed today that my voice changes when I'm at work too. I guess it's my "professional" voice which is higher and more little girlish than my regular speaking voice. I guess I subconsciously make my voice higher in an attempt for people to have mercy and not scream at me. Who could possibly be mean to the bespeckled black-haired pixie with the little girl voice? *this is what I'm thinking*

They've been scheduling me for more hours than I'd like this past week and that's made it difficult for me to get my homework done. Some dude got let go recently so I've been having to pick up the slack since there's really only two of us who can work weekends now. I hope they hire someone else soon before I fall too far behind in my schoolwork. I'm also feeling guilty for not having enough time to spend on my comics as well. For the past three semesters I've been doing 2 new comics a week and now I'm only doing one. And I just finished a storyline yesterday that I wrote over the summer and have yet to write any new material. Everytime I finish a story I get this overwhelming fear that I'll never write anything good again or anything at all. Period. I always manage to (knock on wood...errr...uhhh...plastic?) eventually but right now I've got nothin'.

Hopefully I'll have some time to think on the car ride to Calilfornia but I'll probably just end up thinking/daydreaming about boys. Aye carumba!

Ok, well, the Tuck-In Express is right on time.

Later Gators!

Back to School Part II

Today was like a bonus first day of school since it was my first day in my other two classes. It was a pretty good day except that having all afternoon classes isn't turning out to be as awesome as I imagined. Sure, it's cool to not have to be up at 8am everyday but it sucks getting home super late and then not having time to arse around before bed. And I did wind up getting that job which seems like it's going to be a morning job so I have to get used to being up at 8am on the weekends anyway. Aiya! It'll be nice to have extra money but at the same time I got so used to having my weekends free to work on comics. Now I'm going to have to try to get my comics done during the week. I guess this will be a long overdue lesson in time management.

Back to today though...so I had Drawing IV then my anthropology class "Women in other Cultures". I've had the same professor for drawing for the past two semesters so I'm pretty used to her and luckily she thinks I'm charming. She can be a little bit tough but it forces me to work harder. My drawing has really improved since she's been my teacher even though I complain constantly about how nit-picky she is. A couple of my buds are in that class as well so it's good to see familiar faces. I was worried about my anthropology class since I haven't taken a non-art related class in quite some time but it seems like it's going to be pretty cool. There's like, 150 people in that class and only about 6 of them are dudes. You'd think that more dudes would want to learn about babes in other cultures but whatevs.

Anywho, I start my new job on Friday and I'm kind of nervous. I always get nervous trying new things. But since the training period is only 2 1/2 days I figure it must be a pretty easy job. It better be considering they're only paying me peanuts. It fits well with my schedule though and the store is only about 2 minutes away from my house. I've had the hardest time trying to find a job too so beggars can't really be choosers. The manager said they'd hire me as "seasonal" and if things "work out" that they'd keep me permanently. I'm not too worried about being fired mostly due to my general awesomeness and knowhow. I just hope the people who I'm going to be working with are nice. I hate working with creeps. Well, I'll report back post first day of work. :)