The Blogosphere

I have really enjoyed "the blogosphere" for the past five years or so. It's probably the only space on the internet that is genuinely a nice place to be. Now that I'm a full time stay-at-home mom, things can get a little bit lonely. The easiest remedy to that is to pull out the phone or tablet and browse the internet, which is honestly not the best idea. Even though I avoid obvious negativity magnets like Reddit or 4chan, and never ever read the comment sections on YouTube, I still see way too much negativity and it really gets to me! I can't be the only person who gets stressed about this kind of thing. I've done serious clean ups on my Facebook friends list, but it seems like there is always another annoying person sneaking their way back in! 
I feel like the blogging community is much easier to trust, if that is the right word. You can say everything you want to say and post all the family photos you want without worrying about if a 22 year old is going to complain (does anyone have that problem? Those friends you have that complain about everyone else getting married or getting pregnant? They are "totally not jealous" but ... yes, they are.) Maybe this is just a weird rant, but I opened up my Bloglovin feed the other day and checked out a couple blogs I hadn't looked at in a while and it really was refreshing to see the positivity there. It really made me realize that the negativity in the other online communities I've been frequenting is actually stressing me out to the point where I need to take a break. I'm too sensitive sensitive guess! Nothing even happened, nothing specific or anything, but a whole culmination of bad energy just kind of snowballed and I got tired of it. I won't be dramatically removing my Facebook account or anything but I think I will spend some more time reading blogs again. I actually went through my subscription list and almost half of the blogs I used to read are gone completely or abandoned. I leave for a few (okay, 8) months and lose half my reading list!

I want to contribute again as well. I think I've got a few good ideas in the works. We will see!

Back?

I've been gone for a while now! 

My last post was in June of last year, so I've missed out on posting all kinds of updates and things. I think I was just bored with blogs in general. Every time I would scroll through my Bloglovin feed I would see cliche post after cliche post and nothing was inspiring me anymore. I was also getting annoying emails from companies asking to blog about their products for free, which seems super fake and silly.  

I'm at a loss as to what I should blog about. I haven't done much knitting or crochet (except for a cute Halloween granny square blanket!) and I don't really feel like posting recipes or anything. I guess I'll have to think about it. Maybe life updates are all I will do for the time being until I get some creativity flowing.

Things are pretty much the same around here. Ellie has been tearing apart the house, as toddlers do. This winter has been very warm and we haven't had much snow, so yesterday I took Ellie and the Murray to the dog park (which is actually an island). I didn't get many pictures of him since he ran off as soon as I unleashed him. He had a fabulous time and got all muddy! 

Lately

School has been out for almost three weeks now and I'm starting to feel very bored. I've been running about four times a week but this past week I have fallen behind. We had a wedding to go to and my mom came to visit which made me sort of forget about healthy eating and put my running on hold. Not running makes me feel very lazy and tired! I feel like waking up takes forever and most of the day I'm groggy and can't focus on anything until about 4 pm. As a night owl this is pretty normal and I used to just stay up late getting things done, but with a baby who likes to be up at 9 am this doesn't really work anymore.

Even though I have avoided running for the past week I am happy to say that I'll be running my very first official race in a few hours! It's Pride Week here in Buffalo and I'll be doing the Gay 5k run.

This Saturday I'll be going to see drag queens Pandora Boxxx and Violet Chachki. I saw Pandora Boxxx in Anchorage a few years ago and was going to get a picture with her until a creepy middle aged guy tried to talk me into going home with him and his wife. Gross. Hopefully no such thing will ruin my time this year!

Other things I've been up to lately:

Reading: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, by Haruki Murakami

Listening to: Laura Nyro, The First Songs on vinyl.

Watching: Twin Peaks, RuPauls Drag Race, Parks and Recreation, and My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (No, Ellie is not watching it, I am. You read that correctly.)

Wearing: Pastel pink shorts, a black band tee and pink studded converse.

Cooking: Roasted cauliflower and broccoli have been favorites. I did make some killer turkey meatballs the other day too.

Hair: I recently got the "lob" and I love it. I just did a fresh bleach and color too. I've been entertaining the idea of a a more lavender-pink color and I've tried a new brand of dye which I thought would give me that effect. Strangely it ended up the same pink as my previous dye. Whatev!

Shopping: I am still on a mission to have some sort of personal style, which I found is not readily available at any mall. I managed to find a Plato's Closet, which Anchorage also had, and they have great used clothes! I picked up a pair of studded gladiator sandals and a bunch of tops for summer. I have to keep myself from shopping there too often or I'll end up spending too much money!

I'll have to post up some of the photos from the pirate theme wedding we went to this past weekend. Maybe a blogging schedule will make me feel a little less bored now that summer is almost here?

Nail - Rainbow

This was one of those days when I spent soooooo much time doing a design and never managed to get a good picture! My hands were completely dried up no matter how much hand cream or oil I used. I pretty much photoshopped the crap out of these pictures to make my hands look normal. After this design I had to clip off the gel extensions I had on and now I'm giving my real nails some time to grow out a little bit before I try them again. 

My first race is coming up and it's the "Gay 5K" during Pride Week! I may have to try out another rainbow design for race day. 

Polishes Used:

L.A. Colors - Energy Source

Wet N' Wild - Dreamy Poppy

Sinful Colors - Innocent

Revlon - Tangerine

L.A. Colors - Palm Tree

Essie - Butler Please

L.A. Colors - Tropical Breeze

Revlon - Clear

OPI - Natural Base Coat

OPI - Top Coat

Supplies Used:

Vaga Brushes

Martha Stewart Glitter - Lemon Drop

Backyard fun!

Nail - Purple Two Ways

I did a couple of designs with my new lavender polish but I got super lazy and didn't take take many pictures. The first one I like because it looked like a starry night with lavender fading to purple fading to black. The second one I didn't like very much though. Maybe I'll improve on the first design and post it again!