Animal Crossing Interlude No. 2: Orchard Neighborhood Houses

In today’s post, we are going to tour the last three houses in my Orchard Neighborhood. In the front of the neighborhood are, from left to right, houses for Jacques, Julia, and Flora. I can’t remember if I mentioned this in the previous post, but it was a little bit of a challenge to fit all of the houses into this open island space. Because of this, I didn’t have much room for yards or outside decor on the houses. This was a little bit of a bummer to me, as I wanted to do cute, little fenced yards for each house because I love how charming that can be. Since I didn’t have room for this, I gave each house a little patio that I tried to decorate according to each villager’s personality.

Jacques: At the front of the Orchard Neighborhood, the house on the farthest left side, next to the beach, belongs to Jacques. Jacques is a smug bird villager with a dark blue, bright lime green, and yellow-orange color scheme. This is the outside of his house, which I ended up changing quite a bit. The exterior is the same style, but it used to have dark paneling, a dark green roof, and a blue door. I changed out the siding for a lighter color, as Jacques’s house is right in front of Static’s. I didn’t want two dark houses right together. I was never wild about the green roof, so I switched it for blue, and I kept the blue door. I gave Jacques a “cool” sofa, some fun lava lamps, and a microphone on his patio because he is always singing!

Welcome to Jacque’s house! This is what you see as you come in the door. His house originally had concrete walls, steel flooring, a surveillance camera, a laptop computer, the starry garland, an exit sign, a DJ turntable, a synthesizer, a diner neon clock, a diner counter, a diner mini table, and a diner neon sign. Overall, his natural decor was very “diner” and very “warehouse”. I think it was intended to represent an edgy, musician sort of aesthetic, but I wasn’t a fan. His house wasn’t welcoming, and it did not seem very “house-like” or comfortable.

Here is an overhead view showing more or less the entire house. Jacques is smug and kind of sophisticated, in an urban way. At least, that’s how he always strikes me. I used the city wallpaper as an accent wall and dark brick on the rest of the walls. I have had this “wacky” flooring in my storage for a long time, and I always wanted to use it in my own house. I never could figure out how to do it. It’s a hard flooring to use because of the colors and the pattern. It’s pretty bold, even in ACNH world. I felt like it was just right for Jacques, and I based my other choices more or less around this flooring.

I picked the “cool” sofa design with a bright green color to match the flooring and Jacques’s color scheme. I gave him a small ironwood bed with neutral bedding, as well as a retro stereo, a bright green-yellow lava lamp, a small kitchen, and a fireplace for a cozy feeling to the house. I put a TV above the sofa and decided to add a bit of extra “elegance” with a console table and bonsai tree behind the sofa. Jacques’s house was my last redesign on the island, and it turned out to be my favorite!

Julia: Julia is Jacques’s next-door neighbor. She is a snooty ostrich villager with a peacock-themed appearance that uses blues and greens as the dominant color scheme. Julia is my only snooty villager. I find this is a personality type I can only take in small doses. With that said, I actually like Julia. She has an interesting and fun character design, and she seems sweet underneath her natural snootiness. She’s more like that snooty best friend who makes you laugh with their antics than someone who is actively trying to be mean.

I didn’t change much on the exterior of Julia’s house. The house’s style, siding, and roof are all the same. I gave Julia a little patio with a simple garden table and chairs set. I added a different wreath, and changed the door design and color.

Hello, Julia! May I come into your house and make myself at home?

I ended up straying pretty far from the house’s original design in my redo. Julia’s house originally had green moulded panel walls and the simple blue flooring. She had the rattan bed, rattan towel basket, rattan low table, rattan vanity, rattan stool, rattan end table, and rattan bed. (Clearly, Julia is a fan of the rattan!) She also had the long bathtub, the bathroom towel rack, the black wooden deck rug, a bathrobe hanging on the wall, and a portable record player. In the end, I tried to capture the main feeling of Julia’s original house design, but I feel like I did not preserve much of her style. Sorry about that, Julia!

To me, Julia’s original house design was all about a relaxing, spa-like experience in a fancy bathroom, as well as hitting her blue and green color scheme pretty hard. Because there was so much white in the design, it felt cold and uncomfortable to me. I decided to warm up the interior with wood tones in an antique bed, some simple night stands, wooden flooring, and some wooden screens to delineate the bathroom. I wanted Julia to have her relaxing spa bathroom, even if it had to be tiny. So I screened off part of the room just for that. She still has a cute tub, as well as her vanity and a rattan stool. I added a shower over the tub, as well as some plants in the bathroom area. I paid homage to her original green and white walls by giving her the green floral accent wall and white brick walls in the rest of the house. I softened things up a bit by adding peach stripes rugs (which always look pink to me) across the back of the room for the bedroom and the bathroom. Julia also has a tiny kitchen and fridge, as well as a cute little eating area.

Flora: Flora’s house is the last house in the Orchard Neighborhood, but certainly not the least! She is Julia’s next-door neighbor, and her house is directly in front of Shep’s house, next to the river. Flora is a peppy ostrich villager with a pink flamingo design. She is one of two peppy villagers who live on my island, and I adore her. She is so cute and enthusiastic about life and cheerful. I love her little sayings, as well as her crazy sartorial choices! Flora is definitely a villager who can NEVER LEAVE. (*insert ominous music …*)

I did not change Flora’s house shape, but I changed up the exterior a bit. She originally had a pink clay exterior, white wooden roof, and pink iron grill door. I flipped the color scheme by giving the house a white clay exterior and pink roof. I gave her a black door for a pop of contrast, and I added a little patio on the side. Because Flora seems so cheerful and playful, I gave her a donut-themed director’s chair and a fun pink tent. The bridge in front of Flora’s house connects across the river to the Plaza Neighborhood.

Welcome to Flora’s house! Come in and make yourself at home, because you finally have a place to sit.

I say this because Flora’s original house design was pretty much “open meadow with pond” and very little furniture. Her house had the meadow vista wallpaper on every wall, oasis flooring (which is basically sand with a little pond in the middle), a wild log bench, a log bench, a sleeping bag, a campfire, a portable radio, and Mr. and Mrs. Flamingo.

I only have one interior picture of Flora’s house because it is probably the most visually simple of the redesigns. I changed the interior drastically so that it looks more like a house and not a swampy meadow. I kept the log bench, but brightened it up with a white color scheme. I kept a water-themed accent wall and added light pink walls for the rest of the house. I gave Flora simple white board flooring, and I stuck with the green and blue color themes by using the blue Persian rug on the floor. I gave her a small, simple bed with brightly colored, fun bedding, and I carried the bedding colors to the other side of the house with some fun director’s chairs. I added a cute lily pad table to continue the water theme, and I let Flora keep her portable radio. Finally, I gave Flora a HUGE tub to replace the pond she previously had in the middle of her floor. I finished things out with a tiny kitchen and fridge and one of the flamingoes.

The Wrap-Up:

I’m not sure how to end things other than to say, “That’s it for the Orchard Neighborhood! I hope you enjoyed your tour!” As I said in my previous post, I had a lot of fun with these redos. The fun thing about ACNH is that you can run around and basically do whatever you want. Yes, there are limits in terms of camera angles and spacing, and so on. But there are few limits to the creativity and simple, mindless fun of this game. I think that’s what drew me to it in such a huge way: That it is mindless, happy fun. I need that in my life!

I want to show a tour of the houses in my other neighborhood, too. So, I will probably tackle that in a future post — hopefully in the near future!

Animal Crossing Interlude No. 1: Orchard Neighborhood Houses

So. Here I am, bopping around in my “life” blog once again. Well … Not “bopping”, exactly. More like slinking or slumping in with my twin companions of Shame and Depression. Are things better in my life since the last post? Nope. Not even a little bit. But, are they worse? Also Nope. And that is a good thing.

I’m tired of talking about things that feel “wrong” in my life. Basically, I feel like there is so much “wrong” at the moment that it is difficult for me to see past that and find anything that is “right”. You know what I mean? Yeah. I may not be explaining it well, but if you have felt this, you will know exactly what I mean. Anyhow, I don’t want to talk about depression or sadness or “wrong” stuff today. So I decided to post a little interlude of something that I obsess over and that always seems to bring a smile to my face. Yes! That’s right! It’s Animal Crossing: New Horizons time here! Is this game still popular with the masses? Um … I have no idea. Is it still popular with me? HELLZ YEAH it is!

I just did a quick search of this blog, and it looks like I have not done any Animal Crossing-related posts. How can this be? I started playing this game after watching my daughter play it and build her island for a number of months. There is something about this quirky, charming little game that drew me right in. The characters are super cute, and I love that you can run around aimlessly with only some loose “goals” in mind. It’s a very low-stress sort of game, which definitely appeals to me, given the demands of daily “adulting”.

Some Island History:

So, to give a quick overview of my island, this is my Town Hall/Plaza area. That’s my little character, posing for the camera. I have since changed my appearance: new hair color, new glasses, different clothing. But you get the idea. I started playing this game around Mother’s Day, either in 2020 or 2021. I can’t remember the year for sure, as time has completely blurred for me since the Pandemic and work-from-home. I started out with a different avatar in the game. My account initially was an offshoot of my daughter’s account, which worked fine for a while. Once the DLC update for the Paradise Planning “work” island came available, I had to figure out how to separate my island and account from my daughter’s without losing all of my island data. It was not an easy task, y’all. There was a very lengthy phone call with Nintendo customer support on which they brought in several different representatives. But (!!) at the end of the day, they were able to help me separate out my island so I did not lose any data and so I could play the DLC. Success!! My island currently has two player “residents”, which my daughter and I laughingly call “Drunk Girl” (my current avatar, so-named because I tend to run into things) and “Ghost Girl” (my previous avatar), along with two player houses.

My island is called “Esperanza”. Obviously, my island residents have changed here and there since I first started. My current, and probably ride-or-die, residents are Static, Shep (who you can see in the above photo, listening to KK), Jacques, Julia, Flora, Wendy, Hugh, June, Drago, and Flurry. As I said, these folks are not all originals. I think Wendy and Hugh may be the closest to “OG” residents, as they were among the first I invited to my island. I went through a lot of experimenting to find a villager balance I enjoy. I originally had two “jock” villagers, but I realized it is a personality type I don’t like. I had a different “snooty” villager, who had a super cute design, but who actively annoyed me with her personality. I also had a couple of “normal” villagers along the way that I found annoying. When I look at my current cast of characters, I feel pretty happy with the balance of personalities and individual characters. I genuinely like interacting with each of them, and there are only one or two I would (maybe) consider allowing to move away. I have completed my Critterpedia with my current avatar, as well as completing the Museum collections for bugs, fish, and fossils, and I did a whole island “re-do” last May, which was a huge project!

The Orchard Neighborhood

Part of the DLC is that, at a certain point (after you’ve designed 30 vacation houses), you get the ability to redesign your villagers’ houses on your own island. For this post, I want to share some of those redesigns, focusing on one of the two neighborhoods on my island, the Orchard Neighborhood. You can see a small overview of that neighborhood in the above photo. Static, Shep, Jacques, Julia, and Flora all live in the Orchard Neighborhood. Static and Shep are next-door neighbors with houses on the back row of the neighborhood, closest to the orchard. This post is going to focus on their houses.

Static: Static’s house is at the far left side (beach side) at the back of the neighborhood. Static is a grumpy purple squirrel villager with a yellow zigzag marking that looks like lightning. He’s the only grumpy on my island. This is the outside of his house (note my festively fun Halloween costume — ha, ha!). I changed this up a little bit, as Static’s house originally had dark siding all around, a yellow door, and the purple roof. I decided to put some yellow roses around his house to keep with the color theme. Since Static seems like a music lover to me, I added a guitar, a comfy chair (for his “old bones”), and a little table to his patio.

Welcome to Static’s new home! You can see my cute, little purple buddy right there, showing off his new digs. I tried to stick with purples and yellows as a basic color scheme, and I wanted to give him a sort of “hipster” vibe with different patterns on the light fixtures, some plants, and framed album covers on the walls.

Here is a view-from-above shot of the interior. Static’s house originally had all concrete walls, dark skull-print flooring, the high-end stereo, the rattan bed, a rattan chair and table, the rock guitar, a DIY workbench, and one of the iron wall lamps. I was able to use a lot of Static’s original belongings in the new design. I kept the stereo, the bed, and the workbench. I also kept the iron wall lamp and added a couple of extras on the back wall. I gave him a new wood floor so I could bring some color into the design with the purple Persian rug, and I added two sets of drawers on either side of the bed, as well as a tiny kitchen area with a fridge, and some fun hanging lights. The rattan table was too big to keep, so I replaced it with the small cafe table and two box stools. You will see this cute little table and stools combo happening in pretty much every villager redesign, because it packs a lot of visual punch while taking up a small amount of space!

Shep: Static’s next-door neighbor is Shep. He is a dog villager with a smug personality, and he has a brown color scheme. I think he is modeled after a sheepdog, hence the name “Shep”. I changed up Shep’s exterior quite a bit. His house originally had more of a “tropical” or “island” look to it, with light tan/pink siding and darker brown accents and a light straw roof. I always think of Shep as being kind of “earthy” or “outdoorsy” because of his color scheme and also because of his original house design. I tried to keep that theme going with the new look, and I included a log chair, a brick oven, and a little tray with a drink on his patio. Shep’s patio faces the river, and I like to think of him sitting there and enjoying a drink as he watches life go by!

Come on in and put your feet up! This is what you see when you go into Shep’s house. I changed this up quite a bit from the original design, which had the log cabin walls, wooden knot flooring, a retro stereo, the wood burning stove, a shower booth, the log bed, log decorative shelves, a pot rack, a magnetic knife rack, the ironwood DIY workbench, a mini fridge, the gas range, a deer decoration, an old-fashioned alarm clock, and the red Kilim style carpet.

Here is an overview, so you can see pretty much the whole house. I was able to keep the log bed, although I changed the color scheme, the deer head decor, and the shower booth. But I replaced pretty much everything else! I tried to keep the “cabin” feeling with a wooden accent wall and some plain light blue walls on the rest of the room. I replaced the wood stove with a fireplace and the retro stereo with an upright speaker. I replaced his gas stove with the open framework kitchen. I used this in most of my redesigns because it gives a stove and sink in one item. I added a red fridge for a pop of color, and I replaced his red Kilim style carpet with a blue one. I wanted some additional pops of yellows to balance out the blues and the red, so I added a yellow sofa and yellow box stools with his new cafe table. I kept his original deer head decoration and added two more, but I changed the color to black, and I put a TV above the fireplace, as well as framed album covers and a food-themed poster (of the sea creatures, from my museum) in the kitchen area. Although you can’t see it very well, I changed out the wooden knot flooring for the gold iron parquet flooring to give just a little design around the edges of the room.

The Wrap-Up:

That concludes today’s neighborhood tour on Esperanza! Each of my island neighborhoods has five houses, and each of them are staggered with two houses in the back and three in the front. So, there are three houses left to go for Orchard.

I put off redesigning the villager houses for a long time. After playing the game for a while with the villager houses in their original appearances, it was hard for me to wrap my brain around how I would change them. I have a habit of falling into a rut where my brain is like: “No. You can’t change this. You have to leave all this stuff in here but can only move it around.” It’s silly and it’s totally my own hang-up or my own mental block. Anyhow, I’m glad I finally decided to redo all of the houses. It was a fun last step in my overall island redo!

What about you guys? Do any of you play Animal Crossing: New Horizons? Are you obsessed with this game like I am? Do you have any favorite characters in the game? I would love to hear all about it!

The Sunday Blues

I have the Sunday Blues today. I knew, the moment I opened my eyes this morning, that it was going to be a rough day. You know that feeling when you just know you are being watched? That itchy-scratchy feeling you get at the base of your skull that tingles all the way down to the base of your spine? Yeah. I had that this morning, except it wasn’t a person covertly watching me. It was Depression, sitting at the end of my bed and whispering, “Hello, Old Friend.”

It was not a great way to wake up. I actually woke up around 8:30 this morning, but I could not get out of bed. I ended up lying there for another hour and a half, just talking myself into getting up and getting on with the day. I ran through my usual litany: “Come on. We can do this.”; “Take a deep breath and just do it, Girl!”; “You are brave. You are strong. You can face Life.” And so on and so on. None of it worked. I just stayed there, under the covers and feeling the weight of Everything settle on top of me like a soft, fluffy weighted blanket from H-E-Double-Toothpicks.

Eventually, I managed to talk myself into getting out of bed. I talked myself into walking across the room and into the bathroom. I talked myself into brushing my teeth and getting dressed. I didn’t manage brushing my hair. It is currently a knotted, bushy, bird nest mess, which I wore out in public because hubby ordered food and I was the one who had to go inside to retrieve the order. Somewhere in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, I hear my mother screaming in frustration and angst.

Anyhow … I managed to have breakfast. I got a little dose of sunshine when we drove to pick up the food. I had some coffee, which was good. I petted my dogs and gave the cat a hug (even though she did not enjoy it). I am now sitting in my upstairs office, which, as of last week, is a completely work-free zone (more on that to come in a later post). Things feel … marginally better. At the very least, I think I will be able to make it through the day without actually breaking into tears. I can feel the tears there, just under the surface. But I think I will be able to hold it together.

Depression is like that. It can sneak up on you when you least expect it. Or, maybe that’s not true for everyone. It’s true for me. But I often struggle with it on Sundays because, of course, Monday, inevitably, follows right on the heels of every single Sunday. Monday means the end of my weekend, the end of freedom, and being faced with piles of work I know I can’t possibly complete. Monday means heading back into the never-ending, dead-end cycle of feeling inadequate in so many ways. It also means heading back into a series of no-freedom days. The thing is, it’s not the end of the world, and I know this. It’s just that sometimes (a lot of times) … it’s A Lot. Like … really A LOT.

I don’t want to sacrifice my last weekend day on the altar of my work struggles. This time of year is always brutal because everyone is rushing toward the end of the fourth quarter, and everyone is trying to get projects done or at least started. Everyone wants everything right NOW, and there is only so much of me and my colleagues to go around. I’m so tired and burned out. And I’m tired of feeling tired and burned out. I’m tired of feeling inadequate, and I’m just kind of tired of dealing with everyone’s shit.

I’m not sure what the answer is for all of this. I’m not even sure if there is an answer to all of this. I’m not sure if I’m even looking for an answer, or if I am just sitting here, nattering away about the thoughts that are scrambling around and around in my brain, like so many cracked-up hamsters on squeaky wheels. I think the only thing to do at this point is to soldier through all of it and remind myself it will probably get better. If nothing else, our holiday break is coming soon, so that’s something to look forward to. And I don’t have to travel this holiday season, which is a good thing.

I need to remind myself that I am enough and that whatever I can do and accomplish in a day is enough. Even if others think it is not, I need to remind myself that it is. I’m only one person, and I can only do so much. And that is okay. So … let’s take a deep breath and stand up straight and face Monday head-on with a whispered, “It’s okay. We can do this.”

A Productive Day …

I am having a productive day today. And yesterday was a good day, too, in terms of “getting things done”. It sounds like a tiny thing, when I type it out loud. “Today is a productive day.” Or “I’m getting things done today.” It almost sounds like nothing at all. I mean, loads of people get tons of stuff done each and every day. I’m sure they’re out there: People who are organized and have all their life-shizzle together and have a checklist for their day and actually check off things from that list as the day progresses.

I am not one of them. I feel like our society (or culture or whatever you might want to call it) values those people. They are the “go-getters”. They are the entrepreneurs. They are the people we all look up to and admire. I wish I was one of them. I used to be organized and together and all of that stuff, but it wasn’t really ME. It was a way that I coped with my own anxiety and nervousness. It was a masquerade, of sorts. Everyone around me thought it was real. On some level, I even thought it was real. But, once Life and Depression caught up to me, I realized this is not me.

Basically, I am a mess. Depression has made me forgetful and disorganized. I don’t write things down or make lists like I used to. I have all the best intentions, but I don’t seem to get things done like I used to. It makes my poor, long-suffering husband crazy. He was used to overcompensating, super-organized me. I don’t think he knows quite what to make of the squidgy mess of a person I am now.

So … this is all a lot of background to lead into my productive couple of (so far!) days. When COVID roared into our lives and our state told everyone to stay at home, I thought, “Okay! This is the perfect time to get some things done!” We are nearly a year in our house here in Illinois, and we still haven’t finished hanging pictures or arranging things in all the rooms or clearing out the bits we no longer need. My office space, in particular, was a huge mess, with things tossed crazily onto shelves and nothing put away. This was mostly because I never took the time to find places for all the things.

I went into stay-at-home at the end of March feeling a little bit eager and excited about the possibility that I would get some of my “home” stuff done. And from the end of March to the end of April, I managed to accomplish … basically nothing. I did get my closet done, because the installers were considered “essential” in our state and were able to keep the appointment to install the shelving and drawers. If not for that, my closet would still be a mess. But that’s a post for another time. The closet happened at the end of April.

From the end of April to now, nearly the end of May, I have, once again, accomplished … NOTHING. Seriously!! Every night, I went to bed telling myself, “Tomorrow, I’m going to …” You can fill in the blank with whatever household task comes to mind. And every morning, I got up feeling stressed and anxious and depressed and completely unmotivated. After each day spent binging British crime shows on Amazon Britbox, I would go to bed feeling horrible and useless. Depression sucks, you guys. It gets you coming and going, and it makes you feel like an ass both ways.

But no more!! At least, not for now. Because yesterday and today, I tackled the shelves in my office. They started out much like the above, only imagine less books and more clutter and dust. It wasn’t pretty. Just looking at them made me want to cry and run off somewhere to hide. I’d been doing more than my fair share of that since we finished moving into the house, so I told myself to suck it up. Start from the beginning, I told myself. Take it one step at a time.

Because that’s the way of any task, isn’t it? No matter how overwhelming it might seem or how unpleasant, if you start at the beginning and take things one step at a time, you will eventually make progress. It feels so much easier breaking things down into smaller bits. Before you realize it, you’ve done all the bits and the entire task is accomplished.

Yesterday, I started at the top of one side of the shelves and worked my way down. I gathered up all the little decorative doo-dads I have collected over time. There are a LOT of them! I love them, but they are horrible dust catchers. I found display cases to corral all my miniatures and fiddly toys and small anime figures. These are awesome, by the way. I love having these display cases. I dusted everything. I put up racks to display my dragons. You guys know I have a thing for dragons, right? I’ve mentioned that a time or two in here. I shifted things from shelf to shelf so that they made visual sense to me.

Today, I dusted some more. I brought books from the library downstairs to store up here on the shelves. I’ve decided to put my manga in here, instead of taking up library space for them. I took out the things that don’t need to be in here any longer. I arranged all the books and looked for book ends to prop them up. I found a decorative basket to hide away my power strip. Because power strips are ugly, aren’t they? I put up my fun little stained glass signs. I untangled my wind chimes and hung them in the windows.

It’s not done. Not yet. I know I have one more box of books in the basement that need to come in here. I need to find a couple more book ends. I still have a few small pictures to hang up here and there. I know things will have to shift around to find the “best” spots. There is always a lot of fiddling and finessing to do before shelves are settled and done.

But that’s okay. I am on the way and nearly done. I had a productive day — two days in a row! And you know what? It feels pretty darn great.

The Nor’Easter

According to our forecasters, there is a Nor’Easter rolling through my hood today. I know just when it arrived, because I heard it come knocking at 4 AM. One moment, I was lying in bed, peacefully asleep — or as peacefully asleep as I could be with a massive allergy attack stuffing up my nose and making it hard for me to breathe. The next moment, almost before I realized what was happening, I was wide awake and wondering who had let a metro train into my bedroom. I’ve lived here for about 15 years, and I’ve lived through this type of wind a few times. Even though I know what to expect, I’ve come to realize you really can’t know exactly what to expect.

We are lucky this time. I think it’s important to say that, because so many places have been hit with much worse. We have wind and more wind and then some wind. We don’t have snow. We don’t have high tides or flooding.  Trees are falling, and our power is flickering on and off. School is canceled for the day. Shingles are spinning and tumbling through the air, as are branches and a lot of trash. It’s terrible and an inconvenience and even a little bit scary. But our lives aren’t in danger. We aren’t likely to lose our home or have to evacuate. So we are lucky.

The Nor’Easter isn’t like any other kind of wind I’ve experienced. It arrives in a howling, mad rush. But once it’s here, it settles in for a visit, like an old and rather stinky uncle you feel compelled to host, all the while wondering when, exactly, he is going to decide to leave. It brings a lot of baggage, too: old shingles, recycling bins and trash cans, coats and scarves, and all kinds of things from far away. All of them pushed along on the power of this wind. The Nor’Easter gusts and blusters. It seems to stop, luring you out as you watch all the trees still and the dead leaves flutter to the ground. As soon as you step foot outside, that wind is after you, almost like it was biding its time and waiting for you to stick your head outside your door. It teases and tugs at your hair. It pulls at your sweater and jeans. It pushes you along for a while and then stops you in your tracks. It runs away with your umbrella.

There is a part of me — a small, wild, slightly crazy child who lives deep inside of me — that likes this wind. I like to hear it prowl around my house, rattling the windows and pushing at the door, searching out the cracks and nooks and crannies where it might be able to push its way into my home. Once inside, I’m sure it would eat all my snacks, tease my dogs, and leave the whole place in a mess. It has purpose, and this wind can’t be contained or stopped. I try to appreciate it for the amazing force it is, even as I wince and hope the shingles flying about on my lawn didn’t come from my roof. I am safe and warm inside my house, so I have the freedom to do this. I don’t have to worry about my home or my life, which means I am able to sit with a cup of tea and ponder over how small I am in the face of the world around me.

This morning, I got up at 4 AM. I went downstairs and found two anxious dogs. I let them outside, where they stood for the longest time, sniffing — just sniffing — at all the things riding on this wind. And then, we went inside and curled up on the sofa together. A little pack of three, listening to the wolves howl outside.

Hard Lessons

We had a bit of a hard lesson at our house over the weekend. I don’t like the hard lessons in life. Those are the ones I can’t shelter my daughter from — the ones she has to learn and suffer through on her own. The hard lessons make me feel like a failure as a parent, as if I am adrift and floundering aimlessly. I try to be an anchor for my daughter, something solid in the midst of the world’s uncertainty and storms, something she can cling to, if she chooses. Floundering doesn’t feel so great in the face of knowing this is what I want to be for my daughter.

My daughter is in eighth grade this year, and it was her first time trying out for Middle School District Band. She practiced for months. She worked hard for this. But her audition didn’t go well. There were a lot of reasons for this: she was having problems with her flute the night before the audition, so we had to switch instruments; she had to go into the warm-up area alone, and she kind of freaked out at all the people playing around her; she was sick with a virus, and not feeling her best; she got nervous and scared; she was competing against over 50 other flute players, so competition for her instrument is high and difficult. Lots of reasons for a bad audition. Considering everything, she placed well in the flute rankings, but not high enough to make the band.

It was disappointing. I know my daughter was disappointed and sad. I felt disappointed and sad. It was a difficult day, all around.

But here’s where the “hard lesson” happens. Sometimes, life doesn’t go the way we want. I can point to so many times in my life when things didn’t go the way I wanted or hoped. Thousands and thousands of times. A whole pile of instances in which I felt like a failure … in which I felt like the biggest loser in the history of ever. Even in this instance, I felt like a failure because I couldn’t make all of this right for my daughter. I couldn’t take away her hurt. I tried. I hugged her close and told her how much I loved her. I told her how proud of her I was.

I hope, when she looks back on that day, she will remember those things, instead of the feeling that she failed at something she so wanted to do. Not succeeding isn’t the same thing as failing. Not succeeding means you went in there; you faced down your demons and your fears; you were brave; you tried your best; and, for whatever reason, things didn’t work out this time. If you don’t try at all … To me, that is failure. As long as you try, you have already succeeded.

I know this was cold comfort to my daughter in that moment. But I hope she will take these thoughts away with her, that she will file them away somewhere in her memory so she can turn them over in her mind and think on them later. I hope she will keep on trying and trying and trying, for all the things in her life that she wants. I hope she won’t let the fear of “failing” stop her. Because my daughter is amazing. And brave. And fierce. I hope she will continue being all of those things.

Because she isn’t a failure, even when she doesn’t succeed. And neither am I. I guess we both need to keep learning those hard lessons.

The Saga of the Hair

Quite some time ago, I decided to dye my hair black. “Don’t dye your hair black,” people said to me. Or, “Black? What? Are you SURE you want to do that?” Sometimes, they would stare at me in horror — you know, with that expression folks reserve for extremely nutty people they think might be teetering on the very edge of sanity. But, I paid them no mind. I was sure. I’m a natural blonde — platinum in my little kid years, and then getting increasingly darker until I entered my second twenties as a sort of dark, ashy blonde liberally mixed with gray. I always wanted black hair. Always. I never would have admitted this to my mom when I was a child. I never would have dared to speak my secret desire out loud as a teenager. It’s a long story, but such things just weren’t done. Besides, no one would have taken me seriously. They would have told me I was wrong, and that I didn’t really want to do that. I’m not sure why, but people are always telling me stuff like this. So I have learned over the years to guard my dreams closely. Even the small ones.

Anyhow, when I hit my second twenties and felt increasingly unhappy with my drab hair color (not to mention those grays!), I decided I would just take the plunge. I would go black with my hair. I was nervous, so I started going with darker and darker browns. I did this over the course of a year or so. It was never good enough, so I finally worked up my courage and told my stylist that I wanted to dye my hair black. Like, black with blue undertones … the blackest black. Luckily, my stylist was totally on board with this. She said, “Sure. You still have great skin. You can totally pull it off.” I love her. She never fails to make me feel better about myself.

And so, I ended up with super-duper-blackest-of-the-black hair. And I LOVED it. I had no regrets whatsoever. I still have no regrets over it. I loved having black hair. I have incredibly pale skin — like, so pale that I’m almost invisible. I loved the contrast of my dark hair against my pale skin. It made me feel so good about myself, and it truly was a dream come true.

Like most dreams, it faded a little once it became reality. I can’t say I will never go back to black hair, because I really did adore it. After almost a year, I decided I wanted to try another of my “hair dreams”: blue hair. I started out small, with some bright blue streaks underneath my hair, so that it only showed when I pulled my hair back. I loved it and found myself constantly pulling my hair back so the world could see my blues. Emboldened, I moved forward to doing streaks of blue highlights in my black. I loved this as well, and, eventually, I told my stylist I was ready to go full-on blue with my hair.

It was a long process. Black dye doesn’t really fade or wash out, so we had to bleach my hair down as light as we could without damaging it. I didn’t much care what color of blue, although I wanted to stay a bit dark. My stylist picked out a gorgeous, bright, bold, electric blue. It. Was. Glorious. I’ve worn this color for a while. I am pretty good about taking care of my hair color, so it doesn’t fade out very quickly. My stylist redid this electric blue a couple of times. The last time, I have to admit I wasn’t thrilled with the result. For some reason, my beautiful electric blue came out so dark that it looked purple. It eventually faded out to a more blue color, but it was darker than I liked. And it had lost that “electric” brightness, which was my favorite thing about this color.

This got me to thinking. I started looking around at different shades of blue. I looked at images online. I looked at the beauty supply store each time I went to browse nail polish. Not that I would ever try dying my hair at home. I am sure that would be a disaster. So many women are able to do a beautiful job dying their hair at home, but I am not one of them. I would probably end up making all my hair fall out or something.  But I wanted to see the different colors and tones of blues. I knew I wasn’t in love with my super dark blue any longer, but I wasn’t ready to give up on my blue-haired dream.

Eventually, I decided I wanted to go with a  lighter blue — something between a gray-blue and a light, almost baby blue. There was a cyan blue that I loved, but my stylist told me it would look super neon. So that color was out. I don’t want neon hair. I’m not sure of many things, but I am certain of this. I have to admit I’m a little bit nervous about going lighter. My hair is fine, which means it never looks thick. I worry that the lighter color will make it look like I’m going bald or something. Going bald, like, for real, is a fear of mine — thanks so much for that, PCOS. In reality, my hair is in good shape. I have decent growth, and it looks decently full on my head. Still, the fear is there. My stylist feels like the lighter color will be a great idea, though. And I trust her.

Here’s the problem: My dark blue hasn’t faded. At all. I have plenty of growth at my roots, so that color is light enough to take the lighter blue. But the bulk of my hair is still a deep, dark, electric blue that looks purple in some lights and black in others. This is the curse of taking really good care of my dye job. Yes, it lasts for a long time. But, if you get tired of it and want something new … Well, it lasts for a long time.

I don’t feel good about bleaching out my already dyed hair. Luckily, my stylist said the same thing, even before I could voice my concerns. I love that about her. She never hesitates to tell me she won’t do something that will damage my hair. So … She sent me home from my appointment yesterday with instructions to try and fade my super dark blue.

I went to Safeway and purchased Suave shampoo. Basically, any shampoo loaded with sulfates is a no-no on colored hair. And I washed my hair with Suave and hot water. Over and over and over and over and over. And then, I washed it some more. I’m not kidding when I say I washed my hair all afternoon yesterday. I probably washed it 35 or 40 times. I washed it until I was completely sick of washing it, and the water coming off of it was running, more or less, clear. I figured that was enough for one day, particularly since my scalp felt all itchy and dry. Plus, I had to go to my daughter’s band concert.

Today, I got up and took a good look at my hair in the daylight. It’s faded out quite a bit, but it still is darker than I would like. So I mixed up some Head & Shoulders, Dawn dish soap, and lemon juice (for the vitamin C). I put this on my hair and let it sit for 45 minutes. I rinsed it out in hot water, watching yet more blue dye spin down the shower drain. And I mean SCADS of blue dye. I can’t believe there was this much dye in my hair. It was a river of blue. I had enough of my concoction left over to do one more application. And, again, I ended up with a river of blue dye down the drain.

My new appointment is tomorrow. I’m still not sure if my hair is light enough for the new dye. But … I’m done. I just don’t want to wash my hair any more. I slathered it and my scalp in coconut oil — both for the conditioning my poor scalp needs and because coconut oil apparently also fades hair color. And I’m letting it sit for a while. Oh … how I have suffered for beauty. And now, when someone says to me that they have to stay in and wash their hair, I know exactly what they mean!

The Downhill Week

Monday brought a whole host of little annoyances into my life. Too much traffic, a crummy sense of direction, running horribly late for an appointment. A bout of clumsiness that led to several dropped objects throughout the day. Oh, and a clogged toilet. Still, I made it through the day with my sanity mostly intact. It’s just one day, I told myself. Tomorrow will be better.

Tuesday brought dog barf on the floor first thing in the morning. Most of a day wasted waiting around for a repair man. A still-clogged toilet, in spite of my best efforts to make it otherwise. And a needless trip across town to a flute lesson that had, unbeknownst to me, been cancelled that afternoon. I’ve had better days, I told myself. Even so, it’s just one more day. Granted, I felt like I was on a bit of a losing streak for the week. But I reminded myself that it was a very small losing streak. Surely … surely Wednesday would be better. If nothing else, we would be halfway through the week. That’s a good thing, right?

I had high hopes for Wednesday. Hump day. Halfway through the week. If nothing else, I figured I would be on the downhill slide and one day closer to putting this hellish week behind me. I woke up that morning feeling rather positive. My husband managed to unclog the toilet Tuesday evening after he came home from work. I had big plans to scrub that downstairs bathroom from top to bottom. It felt good, just knowing that room would be nice and clean after all the toilet drama.

All of this positivity lasted until around noon, when I discovered we had no water. No. Water. None. Zippo. Zilch. Not even a little, itty-bitty trickle out of the faucets. Of course, I had started both the dishwasher and the washing machine. We had water when I started them. About five minutes later — just enough time for both appliances to get into their first cycles — the water was gone.  Okay, I thought. So Wednesday isn’t going to be my day, either. There’s nothing for it but to put my head down and just get through it. Because, Thursday was just around the bend. Surely, my  little losing streak would end by then.

Today was Thursday. Against my better judgment, I got out of bed and ready for the day. I went to a favorite place for breakfast and browsed in a few stores. I went to Sally’s Beauty Supply and used my coupon. It was nice. I hazard to say I was in a pretty good mood when I pointed my car toward home.

As soon as I arrived home, both of my dogs greeted me at the front door. They were all toothy smiles and wagging tails. This isn’t unusual. They always greet me at the door, and they are always happy to see me. Today, they had something special to show me. They both ran to a spot in the living room, halfway between the recliner and Fae’s crate. And there, I found a half-full jar of peanut butter. This had been a completely full jar of peanut butter just this morning. The label was chewed off. The lid was gone. Obviously, at least one of my dogs (Boy Dog, I suspect) had a really great time while I was away from home today.

I think he regrets his choices. I know it must have seemed like a great idea at the time, but half a jar of peanut butter has a way of coming back to haunt a pup, no matter how cute and fuzzy he might be. Two Gas-X, one Pepcid, and four rounds of barf later, he seems to be feeling quite a bit better. And the vet said I didn’t even need to bring him in. This is good. It’s all good.

As for me … Tomorrow is Friday. I think I’m just going to stay in bed, hidden safely away under my covers.

Weekly Nail Wrap-Up

I’m so happy it’s Friday at last. This has felt like the longest week ever. I spent most of yesterday in bed, feeling weak and crummy and sick. I even went to the urgent care clinic near my house, which is a huge deal for me. I have a really bad case of “white coat phobia”, so it takes a lot to get me to go to the doctor. But I just felt so, so horrible. I was dizzy, couldn’t keep food down, had horrible muscle spasms in my legs and feet, hadn’t slept well for several days (and not at all the night before), and felt too weak even to stand or sit up for any length of time. It turns out I was really dehydrated, according to my crazy blood pressure readings, but the doctor couldn’t find any real cause for it. I’ve been taking Prednisone for the last six days or so, due to a massive allergy attack I had in mid-October. Now, I’m wondering if the Prednisone could have caused my issues. It’s the only thing that’s really different in my life at the moment. Very weird. And unpleasant. For now, I’m taking it easy and hydrating, hydrating, hydrating.

I’m continuing on with my push to get all my “new” (to me)  polishes worn and stored away, which means there are going to be a few weeks where I’m trying to wear seven or eight polishes in a week. I don’t expect I will continue this madness for forever, as life tends to get busy. But I do love doing my nails. It brings me a feeling of peace and happiness. Lately, that has been something I really need in my life.

This is Fingerpaints, “Surreal Sunset”. It now lives in my not-gonna-keep-it pile, sadly. I loved the idea of this polish. I loved the way it looked in the bottle. I wanted to love it on my nails. It’s a really pretty, warm sort of color. But I hated it on me. Hated it. This makes me a sad panda, but what can you do? Needless to say, I wore this color for about a hot minute before I had to get it off of my nails.

 

Next, I moved on to Zoya, “Binx”. This is a polish from the 2014 Bubbly Collection. I love the finishes on these polishes. I wasn’t really into Zoya until a year or so ago, so I wouldn’t have been one to purposefully purchase this entire collection. I seldom purchase whole collections, no matter the brand. But, by purchasing a polish here and there, I think I might have managed to gather up almost all the Bubbly polishes. I just love, love, love them. Given that it was a Summer collection, this wouldn’t seem to be a great choice to wear in the Fall. Not that I cared. I wanted to wear it, no matter what. Once I had it on my nails, I realized the purple is muted and a bit dusty. It actually felt like a Fall color to me, which was a nice surprise.

This is OPI, “Yoga-ta Get This Blue!”. Um … yes. Yes, you do. This is another older OPI that I ran across while visiting my parents’ small Texas town. I love this polish so, so much. It is inky and gorgeous and moody. But there is a beautiful blue shimmer way down inside. I could not get enough of this one on my nails, and I probably would have left it on for several days if I hadn’t been in “wear everything!” mode.

This is China Glaze, “Flying Dragon” as the base color, OPI, “I Cannoli Wear OPI” for the flowers, and Essie, “Getting Groovy” for the centers. I’m still really new to the whole nail art thing, but I decided to give some fun little dot flowers a try. Overall, I was happy with how these turned out. It’s a cute and playful design, and it was fun to wear for a day or so.

“Flying Dragon” is not a new-to-me polish. It’s one of the oldest polishes in my collection, but it’s making an appearance in here because I was making swatches for a post about my favorite China Glaze polishes. I decided to swatch this one last and leave it on my nails. I love “Flying Dragon”. It’s such an amazingly gorgeous polish. But it chips quickly on me. I usually can only get about a day of wear out of it. Even so, the color is worth it.

I decided to try something totally different and new for my next manicure. This is my first gradient. I used OPI, “Black Cherry Chutney” (the dark color) with Essie “Getting Groovy”. For my first try, I’m pretty happy with how this turned out. I think I need to blend the colors out a bit more, so I will try that the next time. Initially, I wanted to do this manicure with a green and gold, but those colors didn’t work out as well.  I think this color combination would be fun for the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays.

“Black Cherry Chutney” is a gorgeous, gorgeous polish. It’s another older OPI that I found while visiting my parents in Texas. I love how deep and rich the color is. And I love how it straddles the line between red and purple. It’s got a beautiful shimmer deep inside, which makes the polish look satiny and soft.

“Getting Groovy” is from the most recent Essie Winter Collection. I love gold polishes, in general, so I was immediately intrigued by this one when I saw the collection reviews and swatches online. Essie is not my favorite brand, but this polish is fantastic. It goes on so smoothly with two easy coats. And I love the soft finish of it.

This is Zoya, “Jesy”. This is another from the Bubbly Collection. I saw it sitting in my to-be-worn stack and thought, “Hey, that’ll work. I love the finish, and it’s orange. That’s a good Fall color.” And, it is a good Fall color. Unfortunately, I did a crummy job of applying this. I got impatient and tried to make my coats too thick, so it never dried. I wore this for about two hours before I got tired of the dents on my nails and had to take it off. Still, it’s a gorgeous polish. I’m thinking it might be too sheer to wear on its own. Next time, I may try putting it over another orange, if I can find one to match the color tone.

Next, I wore China Glaze, “Heroine Chic”. This is from the Fall 2016 Rebel Collection. I really liked that collection a lot, and this was one of the polishes that I wanted the most. It’s a mid to deep gunmetal gray with red glitter/sparkle. I thought this was such an unusual and beautiful combination of colors.

Sadly, I felt pretty disappointed when I wore this one. It felt thick, gritty, and bumpy on my nails. And I felt like the red glitters didn’t show up much at all in the polish. I wasn’t feeling my best when I did this manicure, so I’m hoping it was me and not the polish. I’ll definitely try wearing this one again because I really want to love it.

Finally, there is China Glaze, “Blue Sparrow”. This is another fairly old China Glaze polish, but I only just got around to purchasing it. I had “Heroine Chic” on my nails for about half a day when the package containing this polish arrived in my mail box. The moment I saw this one, I was like, “Hello! You need to be on my nails. NOW!!” So, yeah … It went on my nails right away.

I love this polish. LOOOOVE it. It’s very similar in finish to “Flying Dragon”. It goes onto the nail a tad bit gritty, dries nearly immediately, and is matte and dark. But then, you hit it with a top coat and BOOM!! Gorgeous, brilliant, bright, blue sparkliness! It’s sorcery, I tell you. Sorcery!

 

Learning to be Kind

Yesterday, I took my daughter to her flute lesson. It’s a once-a-week pilgrimage which we make (now that we’ve “fallen back”) in the pitch darkness of an early evening that feels like the dead of night. She takes lessons at a local music store. It’s a large store — one of the best in the area — and the teachers are wonderful. Her teacher, in particular, is lovely, extremely experienced, and supportive. But the building housing this store is old and a bit run-down. It has terrible parking. It has a minuscule waiting area consisting of three uncomfortable chairs and a hard wooden bench. Typically, all of the available seating is covered in parental bums, so you have to kind of squeeze in wherever you can. This is often not easy.

Last night, the waiting area was mostly full when a woman and her child came for their lesson. The child went back to her practice room, and the mom squeezed into the one teeny, available chair left in the waiting room. She was trying to work on something. She had a binder and was attempting to take notes, but it was pretty rough going for her. She barely had room to sit, much less open a binder and do actual, meaningful work. There was nothing to do about it, as the space was full at the time she sat down. But, as the minutes ticked by, lessons ended. Children and parents left. Finally, it was just the two of us left in the waiting area. I was sitting on the more spacious but terribly uncomfortable bench, and this other mom was still squished into her tiny chair, struggling to balance all of her work on one knee. I’m ashamed to admit it took me a few minutes to notice her predicament, as I had my nose firmly buried in my Kindle. I’m an introvert, and this is how we typically deal with stressful public situations: by pretending we are somewhere (anywhere!) else.

Once I realized the waiting area had become completely silent, I looked up and saw this woman across the way. “Excuse me,” I said, “Would you like to switch places with me? You might have more room to do your work.”

It was weird. She looked at me as if I had suddenly grown two heads. But it wasn’t a mean expression or a bad expression. It was just that she was surprised. “Would that be all right with you?” she asked.

I smiled and moved over to her side of the space so that she could take my place on the bench. “Of course,” I told her. “It’s all right. No reason for you to struggle when there is more than enough room over here. We’re all in this life together. We should help each other out whenever we can.”

This also seemed to surprise her, and she commented that she wished more people felt that way. Her daughter finished before mine, and, as they left, she smiled at me — a beautiful, genuine smile — and told me she hoped I had a lovely evening.

Here’s the thing. It was such a small encounter. It was almost nothing at all. It took little effort for me to move my seat. But it made me so happy that I could help out another person, even in a tiny way. And that got me to thinking …

When I was younger, I thought that, maybe, I wanted to be rich. Or famous. I thought I wanted to be “somebody”. I wanted to be special. I wanted to be successful and talented and just … Well, All The Things. Now, though, I realize all I want to do is to learn how to move through my life with kindness in my heart and love for my fellow man. We are all in this life together. I want to try my hardest to have compassion and understanding, to see what others see or feel what they feel. In many instances, it is impossible for me to truly, truly understand these things. But isn’t trying worth the effort? Isn’t trying to meet someone halfway the important part? I don’t know the answers to these questions, not for certain, but my heart tells me this is the right path for me. It sounds simple and easy to say it. And yet, it’s a hard thing to do. I’m not sitting here trying to say that I’m a great (or even a good) person just because I switched seats with a stranger. There are a lot of days when I feel angry. I feel hurt. I feel misunderstood. I want to strike back at the people who judge me and make me feel hated. I have rage inside of me, and I have to struggle with those bad parts of myself. I have to tell myself, every day, that I am going to be kind. Most days, I fail. Miserably.

In the end of it all, I know I won’t be famous. Or special. Or … Well, Any Of The Things. But, if someone thinks of me and says to themselves, “She was kind”, I think that will be enough. I think that will mean I have lived my life well.