etsy shop reopening

Hello hello!  It's only been a year and a half since my last post...  Obviously there are many new things to say, but the main thing is that I'm reopening my etsy shop!  I'm dipping my toes into the water by renewing a couple of items from long ago.  5 years ago, to be exact.  Time is so strange.  These pictures were taken in a house I no longer live in, before I had a baby or any concrete plans of becoming pregnant.  Now I have a three and a half year old kid bouncing around the house!  And yet it feels to me that I only took these pictures a few months ago.

To sum it up with a quote from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, "Everything is different, but the same... things are more moderner than before... bigger, and yet smaller... it's computers..."

Plaid Pink A-Line Skirt - Extra Small

Beautiful 1960s Pleated Mauve Midi Skirt - Extra Small

These two skirts aren't exactly in season for anyone in the northern hemisphere, but I had to start somewhere easy, and renewing the items I still have is as easy as it gets!  If you are a very small size and live on the bottom half of the world, you're in luck!  I pondered these skirts in a blog post way back when.  I was smaller than I am now, and they were still too tight on my body... yet I considered keeping them.  I'll just say that comfort rates much higher on my list of priorities these days, so there's no point in keeping them.

This shop reopening is sparked by the fact that Audrey will be starting preschool two days a week in the fall.  I'm so looking forward to some time to myself, and I plan to start adding new items to the shop!!  

If you're one of my readers from the good old days, please leave a comment and let me know what you're up to!  I've missed you all.

we meet again...

Well, this is awkward.  I did that thing again: that thing where I abandon my blog for about a year...  Oops!  There seems to be a pattern: one year off, one year on, always beginning in autumn.  Maybe I just need to accept that there will be breaks -- it happens to the best of us. Sometimes I just get burnt out on having a public blog (no matter how small the audience) and need to hibernate for a while.

So what have I been up to?  Last time I posted, Audrey had turned one and was just beginning to walk.  Now we're counting down the days until her second birthday, and she does so much more than that.  I don't even know where to begin, but I guess I could start with the fact that she basically speaks in complete sentences now.  She is a charming little toddler!  She sings, dances, climbs everything in sight, and is extremely lovable (and mischievous).

As for myself, I was extremely depressed last winter.  Finally, in February of this year, I saw a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with social anxiety and a mood disorder... I began taking medication which has been AMAZING.  Things improved so, so much.  Honestly, social anxiety and mood swings have been a part of my life for over a decade.  But I always found a way to cope, until I had Audrey.  I'm not sure if I ever let it show, but I had extreme Postpartum Depression.  This went undiagnosed for over a year.  I constantly tried to rationalize what I was feeling as "normal mom stuff," but now any time I look at one of those lists of PPD symptoms, I can't even believe that I had myself and everyone else fooled.  Anyway, all that is to say that things were rough for a while, but they got better.  Like everyone in the world, I am a work in progress.

What else?  I've made a couple of real-life mom friends that I see fairly regularly for play dates.  I'm an admin for a fairly large group of moms on Facebook, which takes up a lot of my time.  We can call it "volunteer" work, but mostly it's just fun and incredibly fulfilling to be a part of something so big.  I've also found a really soft spot in my heart for helping people, and have begun setting up fundraisers for members of our group when they hit tough times.  It feels amazing to help people.  (Hey, who knew?!) I've also been doing yoga on a semi-regular basis for most of this year.  I really love it, and hope to be a little more consistent with my practice.

So now I'm just enjoying the amazing fall weather and our little family.  I'll throw some current pictures in here to entertain you... and hopefully be back soon with more to say!

mixed feelings

Here are some skirts I bought specifically to go into my Etsy shop, but which might never make it in. I thought they were too tight at the waist, but then I took pictures (intended for the item listings) and realized they're REALLY cute anyway, and now I'm trying to figure out if I'm willing to compromise comfort for style. It's a real conundrum. They will probably make their way into the shop in a few months, when I realize I'm not willing to be uncomfortable for more than 15 minutes. That's my prediction.


And here is an interesting blog post* on "bloggers with perfect, beautiful, craftsy lives" that make people feel jealous and insecure... or something. A part of me thinks it's a waste of ranting, because I know that blogs are a place for people to present themselves as they wish, and obviously most of us don't have perfect lives. We have insecurities, we have messes, we have problems - we just don't want to share them all of the time. Having control over a blog means you can ignore the bad stuff and show off the good stuff.


Another part of me understands that jealousy sentiment, though. There are times when I've fallen into that pit of browsing through seemingly-perfect pictures and lives and feeling like I will never be as talented or praised as others. And that's why I don't share everything on my blog all of the time. There are probably hundreds of pictures on my computer that I intended to blog about, but in the end just felt too inferior to post. And that's not cool.

I started this blog as a place to share some of my creativity (and also because I had recently quit my full time job and blogging was a fun, time-consuming activity). Over time, instead of just sharing things I would have done anyway, I think I started creating content specifically for the blog. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's just not what I intended to do, and I don't like the way things have been going.


I haven't been posting outfit photos as often, because I no longer feel the need. There was a time when I enjoyed the feedback and compliments, but I think I'm at a point in my life where I don't need that outside encouragement: I'm content to wear whatever and not show it off. [That's no guarantee I won't do more in the future, but it's how I feel at the moment.] On the flipside, I've been disappointed to discover that outfit posts garner the most comments. There are a few friendly, faithful readers who will comment on just about anything - and it means a lot to me! - but it can feel like an insult when I've taken the time to think out a blog post on some other topic that I find interesting and only get a handful of comments. What upsets me most is how upset I get over this petty stuff. It's really made me rethink my motives for blogging: why do I even keep this up?

This is in no way a warning that I'm about to delete my blog, or something to make readers feel guilty or other bloggers feel like I'm insulting them. I just thought it would be an interesting discussion to have. Do you ever feel this way about blogging?

*I can't believe that some of the bloggers they listed were people I interact with online... Girls, I guess you should take it as a compliment that your blogs are pretty enough to make it into such a piece!