I wish I could keep you this small FOREVER!

It's completely unreal to me that 18 years has passed since I carried you around like a favorite doll. You have and always will be my most precious baby doll. I didn't think that there could have been any gift as awesome as becoming a big sister to Shadman ... but when you were born you proved me wrong. I loved you from first sight, and you have always been mine.

And you have always been loved. No one could deny you. No one could resist you. You were the happiest baby, and you could make just about the toughest person become a softy from the start.

When I look at what you were, and the person you have become now ... I can't find words to capture just how proud I am of you. I could never have expected the distance you would go from where you started. All I could think about was how small and precious you were. How much I wanted to protect you from everything bad in the world. How I never wanted you to know pain the way that I did growing up.

Because how could I ever let anything happen to someone so precious.

You have always been my best friend, my confidant, my strength, my hope. Age could never and will never change that.

So now that you are an adult, I leave you with this:

Stay safe.

Be happy.

Follow your dreams.

Never give up.

You are beautiful, don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

Be the trailblazer.

Listen to your gut.

And now that you have a permit, please don't crash any cars.

Work In Progress (WIP) Wednesday

Just showing off some of the things I'm working on, both for Etsy and myself/Tazy.

Infinity Scarf with bright purple yarn for Tazy.

Currently working on

The weather has opened a can of whoop-ass on me, and so I'm not feeling particularly photogenic. I will, however, share a picture of what I'm currently working on for my Etsy shop.

Already I've failed

So remember how I said I was going to post a pic every day?

Yea ... clearly fell off the planet after I said that.

But probably also because I looked like this all weekend:

Can we say dry skin and eczema?

Btw, I took this pic while watching Once Upon A Time :-) 

Starting Over

The first month of the year has already passed, and I've done poorly on my New Year's Resolution of being Primal again. I have been sick, and cranky, and unable to sleep all this first month. I really let myself go, and I'm starting to look like a mess:

Those dark circles are not bags from not sleeping though ... no, that would be the heinous eczema I've developed around my eyes. My face has not looked this bad since I came back from Europe and looked like a raccoon [once again, because of severe eczema]. I'm kinda ashamed I let this happen. NO amount of Vaseline has helped. I'm hoping that getting back to my diet will help relieve this really painful eczema ... because I can't blink without cringing from the skin cracking.

The one thing I have been doing is lots of reading. I just finished Finding Ultra by Rich Roll. Though I am not vegan, and have no plans to become vegan, I did really enjoy reading the portion of the book about his life and how he went about changing it. I just wish he had gone the extra step and explained how eating any animal products completely wrecked his training ... not because I'm a Primal toting jerk, but because it would legitimize his arguments even more. The book definitely got me thinking about health and questioning the information out there about what is healthy or not. That's not to say that I wasn't thinking about these issues before, but this may be the first vegan point-of-view I've read.

I've also been reading Quiet by Susan Cain. I am really enjoying this book. Some people might call it Introvert Propaganda Against Extroverts, but I feel like it's an astute study of how personalities can clash in an overly Extrovert society. I mean, you can't deny that we're a country of "natural" cheerleaders and go-getters. From what I've read so far, it has definitely made me think about taking a vow to treat people much more differently at work based on my personality and the personalities around me.

I've also been listening/watching a lot of Ted Talks. The one about blogging was really interesting, and I was thinking that Mena Trott's idea to take a picture a day to chronicle her life is a great idea. I can't promise that I'll succeed, but I will try to take a picture a day. 

Over the next couple of months I hope to be able to share some of the projects I am working on for my Etsy shop. As of now I only have baby bro and sis as my models. :-P Hopefully I learn to knit and crochet faster so I can show more items.

This has probably been my longest entry, and the day has only started! Here's to trying to be a better blogger :-)