Phases.

Hello everyone!

I don't know about all of you, but I am not a consistent person. There are times when I get alllll motivated and excited to start a new routine or venture. The first couple of days or weeks are awesome and go well and then I just.... regress back to my lazy normal routine. Let me give you a few examples:

1. Running: I hate running. Hate it. I find it boring and I can't run very far without feeling like I'm going to die and generally it is not my idea of a good time. I have heard so many times that everyone hates running at first and you just have to suck it up and get into a routine, and eventually the enjoyment will come. Well let me tell you, I have tried. My most recent foray lasted three weeks, where I ran three times a week for about 20 minutes at a time. I did notice some improvement in my endurance, but GOD I hated it. Maybe I just need a running partner for motivation but ugh. I hate running.

2. This blog: Ever since I was little I have kept a journal intermittently. I would get a shiny new one and couldn't wait to fill its pages, but then I would get overwhelmed because I would feel like I needed to write down literally everything that happened to me. So I would write for a couple of weeks and then eventually just forget about it again. Every once in a while I would get inspiration to start again but the cycle would always continue. I guess it has been the same with this blog. This is a cycle that I would very much like to break!

3. Guitar: I have had my guitar for a few years now. She's a beaut, I tell you. My lefty acoustic with gorgeous warm tones. Anyway. I took lessons for quite a few months and learned a lot, but had to stop when I went to live with the man in NC last year. Well.... it kind of fell by the wayside. Every now and again I pick it up but not as often as I should. All of my calluses are gone!

On the brighter side of my failures, there are some things that I have tried and actually stuck with. The biggest ones I can think of now are budgeting and drinking more water. The budgeting was really tough for me at first. I am an emotional and compulsive person (which is why I jump into things headfirst and then give them up!) so I would tend to buy a lot of things just because. I'm not saying I'm perfect now by any means, but I am much much better at saving my money and pinching my pennies when they need pinching. As for the water drinking, it all started a few blood donations ago. My blood was flowing so slowly, it was like molasses! Strangest thing. It was suggested to me that I may be a little dehydrated and that I should drink more water, so I vowed that I would try to drink at least a litre of water per day. While I haven't succeeded every day, I have definitely been consuming more and my last blood donation was smooth like butta. I even find myself craving water now! Crazy stuff.

Gosh, this has been a wall of text hasn't it? Here is a gross bruise picture from three days after my blood donation to break it up a bit.

Mmmm bruisey goodness. Yep, that's my right elbow.
Thanks nurse lady for blowing out my vein!

So, having said all of this, I want to make a new goal for myself. My blood pressure has been scarily high for any 26 year old girl and this is because I do not work out and am in the most terrible shape. Pro tip: just because someone is thin does not mean they are in good condition! Anyway, my goal is to find SOME form of physical activity that I enjoy, because at this rate I will die when I am 40 due to heart attack from high blood pressure and my unfortunate but delicious salt addiction.

What are some things that you have tried and failed at in the past? Or tried and succeeded at with flying colours?

-Allanah

Productive day off!

Helloooo!

Today I had the day off work, yay!

As much as I always feel I am going to be super productive on my days off, it rarely happens. I started off with grand ambitions to clean my entire room today (despite having a heavily bruised elbow... donate blood, folks! Other people need it more than you do!), but that just has not yet happened.

However!

The day has not been completely fruitless. I will write more on this later, but I am going through a huge cleanse of my belongings right now as I will be moving countries in the new year. Today I tackled some random boxes of stuff in our basement. I started with about five boxes and have gotten my "keeps" down to one box! Hooray! In addition, I have cleaned off an entire horizontal surface of my room! A right good start, if I don't say so myself. I may even accomplish one or two more by the end of the day if I'm lucky!

A crappy phone picture of my clean horizontal surface!

This may not seem like a big deal to some, but I have a rather small room with sloped ceilings and very very little storage (it even cuts into my already tiny closet, ugh). So, while I don't have that much stuff, it is very easy for the amount I do have to get all cluttered up.

Anyway. I used to have a night stand, but I got a bigger bed and it no longer fit. For a while I used a wobbly little table but even that barely fit and I got frustrated with it. Now I just use the end of the toy chest my great uncle built for me when I was a baby. I wanted my lamp jacked up a bit for optimum reading light so I piled up my bridal magazines and there you have it!

Speaking of bridal magazines, how do girls who are getting married not go out and buy literally all of them?? They are so addictive and fun to flick through and they leave me all starry eyed. I can't wait to get married, ahhh :)

Hello!

Hi guys!

So, it's been like five months. I wholeheartedly apologize. I have still accumulated massive amounts of polish, but there are a few reasons I just haven't been feeling the blogosphere lately:

1.  For my first engagement party in North Carolina, I got... acrylics. Gasp! One of my own nails had just broken right off and I wanted pretty nails for my engagement party. Everyone is looking at your hands, you know! Anyway, as a result my nails were completely de-stroyed. They've just now grown out all the way but they are still tiny little nubbins!

2. For a few months I was working two jobs, 60+ hours a week. When you have to wake up early to go to work, then get home from work and have to go to bed early so you can get up early and go to work again... well. Not only does time not permit blogging, but that doesn't exactly get the creative juices flowing, either.

3. I feel a little overwhelmed. While I try to keep somewhat current as to my collection, by the time I pick up a colour I feel like there are already a million other swatches of it out there with more beautiful photos than I could ever take. I really need to get over that. Even if it is an older colour, I could perhaps offer up an opinion that hasn't been considered before!

Also, I don't want this blog just to be about nail polish anymore. It was fun to start out that way, but it also became a chore. I want this to be a collection of all the small little facets of my life that amalgamate into one big shiny blog diamond. Of course I will still post nail polish related things, I have accumulated so many by now that I'm going to need a second Helmer!

But I'm also getting married and have a new job and there are lots of little things that catch my fancy and give me ideas and inspiration, and I want to share them with you. And with future me!

Anyway, I just wanted to say that my silence has come from feeling not good enough, but I've had just about enough of that feeling!

There is definitely more to come from me!