CARRY ON!!!

So for whatever reason this week has been really hard for me.  I could sit here and list out the reasons, but I've decided against that.  Instead I'm going to share 3 songs that help me rise above it.  They each have a similar message, but each are sung in a different style with different lyrics.

First is Carry On by Fun.
If you want to read the lyrics click here

The whole song is great- but it is one that the chorus does a nice job summing it up:

If you're lost and alone

Or you're sinking like a stone

Carry on

May your past be the sound

Of your feet upon the ground

Carry on

I love this group because of how genuinely talented they are- though the radio does overplay them a bit.  

Second is Carry On by Olivia Holt- 

yea song has the same name, but is pretty different- hers is a lot more country.  Not bad country- but she does sing with a little big of swing in her voice.

Lyrics once again

This song is sung a lot more like a parent singing to their little one- which makes sense it was used in the movie Bears- so it's hard to just highlight one part that hits me.  

The last is Regina Spektor's 'The Call'

which was used in Prince Caspian

I could go on forever about this song- but I'm not going to today. It may seem out of place here- but it fits in my mind :)

Lyrics

I could link song after song after song- there are so many with the message of just step up and keep going.  

It's late though- I'm probably going to go to bed and see if I can get a few hours of sleep :)

~Nikkie

Late and tired

I think I need to start writing Tuesday and Thursday posts on Saturday- 'cause by the end of the day I'm just DEAD
Night
Nikkie
(real posts begin again tomorrow)

oh and HULLABALOO!! (I will be sharing a link to this for the next 34 days- or until they meet their goal. One of the two)

HULLABALOO!!!

This is a crowd-sourced project that I REALLY want to see become a reality.  click on this link and donate some money!! 

What is it? (This synopsys is cut and pasted from the link above)

"Hullabaloo is the story of Veronica Daring, a brilliant young scientist who returns home from an elite finishing school to find her father--the eccentric inventor Jonathan Daring--missing without a trace! The only clue left behind points Veronica toward Daring Adventures, an abandoned amusement park used by her father to test his fantastical steam-powered inventions. There she discovers a strange girl named Jules, a fellow inventor who agrees to help Veronica in locating her missing father and discovering the secrets of his work.
Together, Veronica and Jules learn that Jonathan Daring has been kidnapped by a mysterious group of influential persons, who seek to use his latest invention for nefarious purposes. These villains are wealthy and influential and neither Veronica nor Jules can stop them openly. But determined to save her father and holding true to the family creed that technology should be used for the good of all, not the greed of some, Veronica assumes the secret identity of “Hullabaloo”, a goggled crusader who uses wits and science to combat evil and oppose the nefarious conspiracy that has taken her father.
But the question remains: what are the villains up to? What do they plan to do with Jonathan Daring’s mysterious new technology? And will Veronica and Jules be able to stop them in time?"

Below is a short clip- clearly it's still in process- but still; pretty exciting I think.

I'm a HUGE fan of steampunk, illustration and animation- so I'm pretty interested in seeing this project get funded and become a reality.  SO if you're interested at all- share his link on facebook, share my blog post or whatever- (sharing the link will be faster for people) but get the word out there.

One of the reasons I want to see this get made (outside of the fact that it is steampunk and an animated feature)  The story's main characters are GIRLS.  Smart girls who have enough gumption to just go after Veronica's missing father on their own.  Even if you don't like steampunk or animations- the world can always use more films with strong female protagonists.

If you look through the IndieGoGo link above to donate you'll get to see the amazing list of artists and voice actors that they have lined up for the job- even if you don't recognize the names; you'll definitely recognize the movies they've been involved in.  I'm not connected with this project at all except I want to see it get made.

Tomorrow I'll update with the frustrations of this week- but tonight I wanted to do a quick post about something that made me happy.  And yea- this is more of an advert then a post; but there really isn't much to say except this looks really cool and sounds interesting.

SO yea- share the link, donate it if you can- get this project circulating!!

The link once again: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hullabaloo-steampunk-animated-film

~Nikkie

Blah

Today was long and awful.  and I don't want to talk about it right now.

I'm going to bed.

Nikkie

Summer Review

I kind of feel like the child who goes to their first day of class and is asked to stand and tell what they did that summer.  All the other students have gone before you and told of their awesome adventures. All I have to say

"I read a lot of books and played in the sprinklers in the yard"

That is essentially how I feel about this summer.

"I unpacked, read my kids a lot of books and played in the sprinklers in the yard"

That was the last 4 months of my life.  Well I guess I did plan a baby shower in there as well- but that's not THAT exciting.  (Ah, who am I kidding- it was a lot of fun)

In any case.  I only accomplished one of my goals.  It was an important one though.  You can check out my Looking forward to fall 2014 semester post on my other blog if you want to hear my elaborations on that.  Basically- I can more fully dedicate myself to my art and schooling this semester thanks to what I accomplished over the summer.

Even though I was AWFUL at blogging this summer I still fully intend to make up the missed days over the next four months. Essentially 2 entries a day- 3 on Saturdays and Sundays.  I'm going to keep a little note book with me from now on to jot down anything that comes to mind that I want to expand on.  I've had a lot of thoughts- but haven't been sitting down to type them up.  This goal is lofty- and I went into all of this alot more on the 9th; but it is important to me.  I'm pretty much repeating myself.  But I will be working towards this goal.

I'm kind of holding off until tomorrow night to make any other goals for the next 4 months.  I need to see how much work my classes will be before I make to many crazy goals.

While the house looks a lot better than it did in the pictures I posted at the beginning of the summer- I'm going to wait until Saturday to post my before/after pictures of the apartment.  Mostly because I want to clean it up- right now it's in need of some picking up, frankly I'm not going to try to clean all 6 rooms in the next 45 minutes.  So yea- Saturday you'll get to see the amazing difference.  My only regret- I wish I'd taken more before pictures.  At the beginning of the summer I genuinely thought I'd only be cleaning and rearranging 2 rooms.  As I got working I kept finding more and more boxes stashed in every room.  So the whole apartment has been re-arranged dramatically (and for the better) this summer.  It has been a lot of work- but totally worth it.

Well; I need to go do something besides babble-type.

~Nikkie

Random recap

Today is the 222nd day of the year.

The number is so perfect you'd almost think I chose this date deliberately to start writing on this blog again.  I didn't.  But it would've been so cool if I had...

ANYWAY- when I first set up this blog I made a huge deal about how I was doing this 365 day challenge and blah blah blah.  (you can read my starry eyed post here: 'Titles, goals and stuff') oh I miss that lass; that girl that thought somehow she would find enough time to blog every day for a year.  It was really quite adorable...

So to re-cap in this blog: (and you can see this by looking at the side of the page) I currently have:
31 for Jan
17 for Feb
15 for March
10 for April
10 for May
03 for June
and
08 for July

94 posts...

And as time goes on I have fewer per month... it's really sad.

Of course I cannot bear (bare?) to just make one naive post about my goals and dreams for a certain time period.  I had to decide to 'Reboot, Rededicate' back in February and start the whole challenge again in March- as the 'right thing (for me) to do'.  Then I felt like I needed to let the world in on my Summer Goals.

What have I learned about myself?

I'm a very ambitious person who sets her sites high, is a decent planner but a horrible follow-threw-er.  Eh; let's be honest- I'm not even very good at planning.  I have the worst habit of spending a lot of time collecting information; and that's really about it.

Ok ok, I'm not really THAT bad.  But if I'm going to keep setting such high goals for myself I need to come up with a way to do them.

ANyway- back on the post count.

So I have 94 published posts. (I have more that are drafts, but honestly they only have a sentence or two on them)  It is day 222.  That means I'm 128 posts behind (ouch).  There are 143 days left to the year.  So theoretically I could actually achieve my goal of 365.

However; does it count as a 365 day goal?

The original idea was to do *something* every day.  I chose a blog because I thought- hey I need to journal more and that would help me handle depression/life/whatever.

So far the only thing I've done every day this year is stress about cleaning and unpacking.  >.>

I think I've babbled most of this out before- sorry I'm being repetitive.

I've decided for myself getting 365 posts to prove to myself I can do it is what I need to do at this point.  I'm not sure if I'm going to have 2+ posts with the same date on them as I catch up OR if I'm going to post date them to earlier in the year and just link them to the day I actually wrote them.  I'm leaning towards the latter- as it would be something like a check list and I could feel like I was making progress filling up boxes.

In OTHER news.  I referred to my list of Summer Goals- so of the 10 goals I made; how am I doing? The Summer ends for me in 2 weeks and I dive back into the craziness of school again.  So might as well do an assessment of where I'm at.

#1- Lose some weight.
I've lost some- about 15lbs total- which is 5lbs a month.  Not bad honestly- not amazing, but hey- I'm a little lighter and hopefully I can keep it up.  (she says as she takes another drink of doctor pepper...)
follow up goal: stop drinking soda

#2- Become a better artist
Have not been good about this one.  Outside of some random sketches and a small painting I did for a friend of mine for her baby.  (which by the way I need to finish soon) I've been a total bum.  SO this one needs some focus over the next 2 weeks.

#3- Get my home clean and keep  it that way
THIS has been the all consuming project this summer.  Most of my posts in May are about this subject- on both this blog and my art blog.  I'm not going to re-cap any of that.  Thankfully my efforts have finally been paying off.  We are all unpacked- with the exception at this moment of about 5 boxes.  I hope on Monday to have the before and after photos taken of the various rooms I was complaining a

bout originally.  I've re-arranged EVERY room, some multiple times, trying to get stuff to fit in a way that was both attractive and functional.  This goal, so far, is the only one I have actually accomplished.  Or will by Monday night to be more accurate.
No comic con for me (was in the original goal) I didn't purchase a table early enough.  SO I'm going to save up for next time and purchase one as soon as they are announced.

#4- Get in the habit of preparing homemade meals
I'm not doing to bad on this goal (if you ignore the past 4 days), and now that our kitchen is nearly set up (and I think we have a kitchen sink now! (more on that later)) I'll be able to do even better- and maybe I'll finish up that meal plan in time for school.

#5- Write in my journal daily.
heh. fail.  Though I've been writing at least every other week- which is something.

#6- Cross stitch and play my Clarinet daily
aw- another of my cute innocent goals.  Has yet to happen.  I do no know where both my cross stitching stuff and my Clarinet are.  I still plan to integrate both into my life for various reasons.  I'll hopefully expound on that later.

#7- be happy
not really sure what to say on this one.  I've still been a drama queen; so this one needs some work

#8- walk or hike with kids daily
been so busy unpacking that we've not done this.  HOWEVER we've started.  (as in 2 days ago) so hopefully this is another thing I can integrate into our lives as time goes on.

#9- Read 20 minutes daily with kids
WHAT WAS I THINKING?? I HAVE A 2 YEAR OLD AND A 4 YEAR OLD!!!! seriously.  we've been reading for 5-10 minutes at a time.  Sometimes as long as 30-40; really depends on their mood (well; and mine) but we've been reading together; that is the important part.

#10- Read by myself 30 minutes each day.
If you count audio books... well I still fail.  But not any where near as bad.

I sound like I'm being down on myself- but honestly I'm glad I've done as well as I have.

The apartment is nearly put away- like within hours of being done- once I get back to work on it.  This will make EVERY part of my life so much better; the blogging, art, exercise, sleep- well you name it; having a clean apartment will help.

This post is long.  But I felt like babbling.  If you read through the whole thing then I assume that means you love me dearly- I cannot think of any other reason one would slog through all these words. :)

Hopefully this will be the first post of many as I get back on track

~Nikkie

PS- yes- I was lazy and re-used a TON of pictures from other posts.  I'll make up for it later