Letter Writer

Cute stationary I've bought in Japan (From the Daiso).

Before I joined the military I honestly can't think of when I wrote a letter. With social media, e-mail, text messaging and so on there was never a need. I mean, most teens probably keep blogs now instead of diaries.
But when I joined I spent three months in Boot Camp. The only contact with the outside world we were allowed to have was letters.
And so it began. I wrote religiously in Boot Camp, to everyone I knew, pretty much. I would write on anything I could find, and during whatever time I could sneak and do so.
Once I graduated and I moved onto Combat training, and from there I went to my first duty station in North Carolina I continued to write. I found I enjoyed it. Taking time out of my day to sit and really think about what I wanted to say to my family, reflect on recent happenings in my life. Granted getting my family to write back only happened occasionally, except for when it came to my Grandparents, and my elderly neighbor whom I've known forever (and then later on my mother-in-law). I would say that I keep in touch with my Grandma, Mother in-law and neighbor now more than I do my parents.
Recently even one of my old friends from high school has even started writing me. We went over five years without talking to each other, in person or online. And now we write several times a month. It's amazing.
My mother in-law, Evelyn, is big int arts and crafts. She makes me cards that are incredible.

 Here is just a sample of some of the cards she's made me, that I still have. They're so nice, and pretty much works of art. She custom makes them all for her friends and family.

It definitely gives me the motivation to keep writing, because to receive these and not use them would be a crime.

Her and I write a lot, and she'll send me post cards from places she's at when her and her husband travel. My Husband never writes, and a lot of family doesn't either, so she's always stoked that I do. It's touching. :)









Well, eventually I started accumulating tons of mail, because what do you do with letters after you've read and replied to them? I'd hate to throw them away. So I went to Micheal's and bought a sweet box that looks like a suit case, and I keep all my handmaid cards, stationary, and received letters in it now. It's gotten quite full. Not sure what I'll do when it fills up. I can't just have boxes and boxes of letters sitting around.
I need to come up with a crafts idea for all these...

Well, sometimes I decide I want to do some mail-art as well. I'll occasionally make my own crappy cards, and decorate the envelopes.

Example of most recent envelope decorating here. This is for one of my friends who adores Attack on Titan as much as I do (If not more).
I've definitely gotten out of the habit of drawing as much as I used to. It takes a lot of time, and patience, and doing and re-doing. I don't feel as if I have any of those things much. But sometimes I create pictures and find myself pleased with them. :)

This is one of those times.

I crack myself up. Quite a bit.

The top part of this envelope was inspired by the cards below that I received in the mail recently. 

I received four cards in the mail from a site called Eggpress as part of their Write_On campaign to bring letter writing back. Unfortunately I discovered the campaign at the end of the month. So I didn't participate in it the whole month. But they still sent me some free stationary. I used two of them already. The pink one had an orange version as well, and the blue one had a green version.
The design is simple and the idea behind the campaign is simple, but simple can go a long way.

I've been adamantly writing letters for almost five years now. I've become closer with people more than I would have through simple social media, or writing e-mails weekly. Those things work well for some, but using Facebook all the time to talk to people you become detached from the fact you haven't seen these people in forever. It doesn't occur to you that you haven't actually talked to them personally.  You've posted a status, they posted a status. You then each commented and liked said status.
But if someone doesn't have that sort of media, do you just write them out of your life? Do you call them more often? Do you keep in touch at all?
I do through my letter writing.
I have times where writing can seem like a chore, but keeping in touch and putting thought into what you're doing does take time, and its easy to just put off for months at a time (And typing is so much faster and gives you less hand cramps than writing).
But I don't think letter writing should become a lost art.
So Write_On internet.
Keep in touch.
:)

Happiness Tracker

A while back I bought this case of Mason Jars from the Commissary. And I've hardly used them. It was a deal, and they had so many, and I couldn't resist. Mainly because I will use them. I promise.

Well, in my life I feel like I have a lot of negativity. Being in the Marine Corps can often make you feel that way. And I feel as if every year all I can focus on is the negative things, it becomes more difficult to remember the good times that happened throughout the year, because the bad days stick with me more vividly.

I saw a post on Pinterest (my #1 way of wasting time) about a Happiness Jar. Essentially when something good happens, or something that brightens you, whether it be an event, moment or conversation, you simply write it down and put it in the jar. At the end of the year you now have a whole jar full of all the good things that happened to you.
I saw this as a great opportunity to focus on the positive things that occur around me. So I set aside a jar, wrote down some positive things that already happened this year.
And....decided I wanted to decorate my jar.
I'm by no means any sort of decorating expert, but do have an abundance of random craft materials I've slowly collected throughout my time in the military. So I figured I could for sure find some stuff to glue onto this jar. 

 And I did.
This is fabric I found a while back at Tokai Heart, the cute ribbon is from the Daiso. I ironed the fabric, and hot glued it on. For the seams I just folded them under and ironed them.
The Ribbon is crocheted, but I don't know what else to call it than "Ribbon". I just glued a piece of it around the jar, and then glued a bow together and stuck it on.

I decided this was cute.

But I wanted to do more.

I have seen a lot of posts about putting glitter inside or on the outside of mason jars, and I agree, they look fabulous. However, all these DIY's call for mod podge, or something similar that I do not own, and I wasn't going to make a special trip to see if maybe I could find it somewhere near where I live.

Sooo....I used clear fingernail polish. (I'm not joking)
I just dumped enough to almost cover the bottom of the jar, and then I indiscriminately dumped a bunch of brown glitter, and some gold glitter in it. I sacrificed a sponge that I had so I could mix it and smear it around the bottom of the jar and up the sides below the cloth.
I also smeared some around the top of the jar above the cloth, but not nearly as much.

 So I sat that under a fan and decided to paint the lid. I just wiped down the outside to remove any dust of dirt, and took some brown acrylic paint, mixed it with a random amount of silver and painted the lid.


So I wanted to add some bling onto my jar, instead of keeping it just the simple design.




 This is a necklace I've had for around 5 years, maybe. I don't wear it anymore because it's reached the point in its lifespan where it turns my skin green if I sweat while wearing it (I also think the toddler who slobbered on it multiple times while babysitting didn't help either. XD). 
So I glued the bling portion just under the bow, and the rest of the chain I decided to glue around the lid, and leave the excess hanging down.
THAT WAS SUCH A PAIN!
Hot glue is not meant for everything, and honestly I forgot I had super glue (which I don't think would have worked well either) and rubber cement (not sure how that would have went)
But I managed to finally glue it on in a way that it stays, and it won't fall off every time I open the jar. Definitely a trail and error process.

Lastly, I wanted to add something to the top of the lid. I was at the point where if I saw something I wanted to glue on, I was considering just sticking it on. I mean, it's a happiness jar, it should contribute to my happiness, right? XD
So I have a ton of colored glass pebbles, (I use them to play a really nerdy game called Three Dragon Ante) and I have a TON of them. So I selected some and just arranged them in a way where the lid was mostly covered, and then I glued them on.

My jar is complete!! (For now~ >:D)

Newbie Painter

Well, look at this, it's almost like I'm a regular updater.
Except we all know I'm not, so I must have scheduled these after saving up posts.
D: I know, it's almost like betrayal.

But, to the topic at hand.
So ages ago (last year) I had a room mate who is in the Army. Which was pretty awesome, considering how sick of Marines I get at times. But she was HUGE into thrift store stuff. And out in town here there are some pretty neat thrift stores. She'd always find the coolest things there. I was always jealous of her skills. It was like she secretly knew when there was going to be awesome stuff there.
Well she came back to the room one day with this picture she had bought.

 She knew I was into art, and crafts. She'd seen some of the things I had worked on. And so she asked if I would paint it for her. She even offered to pay me.
Like woah. I have dabbled in painting. At least I call it dabbling in painting. I just paint things to see how paint works and to learn. And by painting things, I mean nothing huge, because I always lose interest and forget to come back to it (Hence the previous post, that pillow is STILL not done).
Well I said I would, and I wouldn't charge, because I'm no pro. I dabble in everything that I do.

So I had some paints, but I needed more, and I needed to decide on colors, and think of how I was going to do this, because, yes, that is wood I would be painting on.
And I had to look up how flowers look.
I bought some paint from the Daiso (yes, I bought dollar paint, and its amazing). I worked on this for a few days.
Now granted, it took me MONTHS to start working on it. Mainly because I'm a procrastinator, but also because of how nervous I was.
Well it was getting close to Christmas, and during December I was going to Guam for exercise Forager Fury, and after that I was going on leave for a few weeks AND in January my roommate was PCS-ing. (She wasn't my roommate by then, she had moved to another room, but we were still friends)

So I wanted to give her what she had requested, and I figured it had to be before Guam or never.

Well I must say I am super proud of myself. She really liked it. I went with pink flowers because I love Cherry Blossoms and anything that makes me think of them. :D The background is blue shiny paint I got at the Daiso. My biggest issue was figuring out how to paint the background and it not look like a mess. I definitely had a lot of issues, and moments of panic during that time. But the rest of it was just remaining focused and remembering painting techniques I had learned through trail and error.
The way the design was carved in helped a lot, because on top of the shading I did the wood itself enhanced it, and probably covered any mistakes I made.
After I was done painting I had to go back through and carefully clean it all up. I had my moments where I said, "Screw it!" and just gobbed paint on, only to regret it ten minutes later.
Patience is a virtue. and it produces great things.

Pillow chair

So I did this a while back, and technically its still something I'm supposed to be working on.
So about a decade ago (Ugh, I can actually say that now and it be true. I hate it, but I use it all the time because it pleases me at the same time) my Mother gave me this sweet pillow chair. Perfect for lounging and reading. And I use it all the time. However, after so many years of use, and falling asleep on and I've taken it with me everywhere in life, it was starting to look really gross. I was at the point where I'd put it away or put blankets and stuff on it when people came around.
But I have never seen another pillow chair so well done, and perfect. That makes me refuse to give it up.
Being the genius I am, I decided that I could just sew new fabric on it. Why not? People reupholster furniture all the time.
So I went to Tokai Heart and made a wild guess at how much fabric I'd need, also taking into account how I'll probably mess up at some point cutting it, so I should get extra.
I also bought a sweet curved needle (and some finger protection). Lastly I bought iron-on fusing web. Which, I'm sure can easily be skipped, but I think it helped a little bit.

I forgot to take pictures of most of this. I was too excited and just started working on it.
But I laid the fabric over the pillow and traced it so it was close in shape. Cut it out, ironed it flat, and I folded the edges under and ironed those down as well.

And then I began just sewing the fabric on around the edges. It was handy that there is the pieces around the pillow, because it hides my stitches pretty well.
I used the iron-on fusing web to hold the fabric on and keep it in place. I laid it on the edges near where I was going to be sewing and ironed the fabric onto it.





So this piece took forever it felt like. My poor fingers were so sore from pushing the needle through so many times. I kept my stitches small and close together, I don't want it coming off or apart easily. Not until I'm ready to replace it again. 







I haven't done the back yet, saving the biggest chore for last. Especially since it'll be a huge piece, and a weird shape.

 So after taking a break for a week or so, I got around to sewing the arm pieces on.
I'm pretty pleased with myself, because I've never done anything like this before. This was just on a whim of trying to save a favorite pillow.

Hair Clip Crafter

Well, definitely been a minute or two...or weeks, since I've been on here. I could never find what I felt was a good enough reason to post. I've definitely done a lot in the past year, but I don't like just doing angry posts, and sadly most of my time when I have time to write I feel angry.


BUT!
Today is not that sort of day.
I set aside time to do crafts. I spent a month in Korea away from all my things, and spent all my time looking at other people's things on Pinterest.
So the project I decided to so is one I've been wanting to do FOREVER. It's pretty easy, but setting aside the time to do anything is a problem I have.
One day when I was out in Japan, shopping, I came across this:

It's a hair clip that looks like a bow! Genius! Well, I bought it, and I wear it most of the time. And I got to thinking to myself. I can make this...

So I went to a nearby Daiso (100 yen store, they're my favorite places to shop. Way better than $1 stores) and I bought a hair clip. I bought my fabric at the nearby crafts store, Tokai Heart. They have baskets of fabric that's left over, or meant for other projects. But works perfectly for me. :D

Other things I needed: 

Glue gun

scissors

clear nail polish

pins (cuz I'm lazy)

And now I'm ready to start!!

 I folded the fabric in half and laid the clip on it to determine the width I'd need, and I cut it slightly wider than the clip is on both sides. You also need to cut a piece to put over the top of the clip too. 

This fabric was already fraying just from me handling it, so I needed to do something about that. 

I don't have a sewing machine here with me, so I use any shortcuts I can. For fraying fabric clear nail polish works wonders.

I just paint around the edges of all my fabric pieces. It's dark fabric so I don't have to worry about it showing much. Lighter fabric you'd have to be more careful.

Measuring the size of the piece that goes over the top of the clip. If you don't want to add this piece I doubt it makes a difference. I've also seen clips where the bow was on top instead of the sides. Maybe I'll try that one day...

 So above is one of the bow I made. I took my fabric and I folded each side in so they met in the middle in the back. From there it is just a matter of bunching the fabric up so it has the look you want. I went with four folds in mine, makes gluing it easier that way.

Folding the pieces back in this way gives the bow some substance, so it's not thin feeling.

 I cut long strips to wrap around the bow. I folded the pieces slightly to get the width I wanted, and its a nice look. I would have done more folds, but I would have needed wider fabric strips. I played around with it for a bit before deciding on this. After that it's a matter of cutting it the length you need to wrap around the center of the bow. I didn't do mine tightly because I wanted my bow to flare out more.
After that I glued the ends of the strip together. So you have a ring, like below. Then sliding the bow through it is easy.

It's cute!

 So you make two bows in that manner.
Now it's time to clue everything to the clip.
I haven't used a glue gun in years, so I forgot how fast hot glue cools. It's a rush against time!

 I glued the center fabric on first. That was the easy part.

 Next I loaded on the glue to put the bow on. I looks all messy here, but I assure you it's not that bad. XD

Since I did four folds for my bow I was able to take the center crease and that's what I ended up pressing into the hot glue.

 Finished Product!
I'll probably buy a smaller clip next time and make smaller ones. But I have so much hair that for now I have to use larger clips.

Exhausted.

This past week has been a most trying one for me. Even though the month itself had been great leading up to it. Excluding work, course. I always have to exclude work, since it rarely goes as well as I'd like it to. But I've definitely started a very steep downward stumble. I look forward to the moment I hit rock bottom, so I can know for sure it's over and start back up. But if I manage to stop midway and start back up again, I'm okay with that too.

So, my thirty day challenges. It's very difficult to stick to the actual challenge plan. So my rest days are the days I work. So it will take me more than thirty days to do this. But I think the fact I'm doing it is enough. I enjoy these because I can do them anywhere for the most part, and it involves nothing complicated. However, I don't like doing them in my barracks room when my room mate is present. It's weird to me. So I'll go to the gym and do it there later. The biggest issue I have with the challenges is during the squat challenge, I get BORED. That is my downfall in all I do. When I go to the gym, I'll have to stop and leave because I get bored, I'll get bored of a project I'm working on, a book I started reading (not non-fiction, normally it's something I'm reading for education), school, homework, writing and so on. When I get bored of something, nothing can help me continue except sheer willpower, and depending on the day, I'll be low on that. So when I'm doing squats and I get past 80....I start to get REALLY bored now. I'm not looking forward to the last few weeks when I do close to 200+ squats a day.
But I will keep at it. I need to be able to do pull-ups by next year. That's my goal, the one thing I'm going for, after I can do my pull-ups for the PFT, my fitness goals will change to more accurately reflect what I REALLY want. Which is I smaller, toned body. I hate that I can't wear non-form fitting clothes without looking in a mirror or photos and all I see is a fat body underneath. I've never hated a part of myself so much as I hate my arms. I know I'm stronger, I feel it, but I don't see it. So I need to fix that.

I've also wandered astray from some other goals I set myself towards. I know this is normal, especially when things suddenly change and you're adjusting, or stressed. Which I've been experiencing both for some time now. I spend a lot of time feeling dazed and lost, almost as if I'm continuing on half asleep. When I'm at work I'm a different me. I've managed to start creating a self that is what I need to be at work, but its draining to be that person all the time. So I have a different me that I'll be when it's just me, by myself. I often wonder if either one is really me, or just aspects of a single individual. I recall as a teenager wondering about all this, and find it strange that years later I still have similar thoughts. But I was once told that you don't truly know who you are till after 25. And I'm not there yet, so it makes sense.
Life is about self-discovery. The most important things you learn are often about yourself. There are things about you that you may not even know, or be aware of. There are thoughts and decisions you've never had to make that you won't know how you'll be until that exact moment comes upon you.
We all have a thought of how we'd like to be, but how honest that is, is entirely up to debate. I find self-discovery confusing at times, because I have a nack for seeing both sides of things, I find it easy to try and picture myself thinking like another, to better understand them. Or I think a certain way because I'm supposed to, which is all part of being in the military.
I don't think that means I'm not me, I think that all helps make up who I am. But when I look at myself I have issues deciding on things because things that don't affect me, or my life directly, its difficult to have a stance on.

Maybe one day I'll figure it all out, probably won't be this lifetime though.

I have so much I should do, others want me to do, what I want to do, and in the end I tend to do what absolutely needs to get done. I'll never be able to fully have that marine mind-set, but when I put on my cammies I'll have it for that moment. When I'm working on my school work, for a moment, I'm a scholar. And so on, with everything else.

I have so much I want to dedicate myself to, but when it comes push-to-shove I'm exhausted and just bow out. I can't just pick one thing and that be it. I want to do everything, know tons of information, be physically fit, have my dreams come to life in front of me.
But the one thing I truly work towards everyday is to be with my husband again. When that happens maybe something will change inside me. I can't make those kind of predictions. But I need to find balance in my life. This is something I've just realized.

What I seek
is balance.

Dedicated.

Over the past few months I have started changing. Or trying to, physically. I started a gym regiment that for once in my short Marine Corps career I've somewhat managed to stick to. And I'm getting stronger, I can't see the results on myself, but improper dieting will hide a lot from you. And since I don't have a kitchen and most days of the week the chow hall isn't an option for me...I don't have many options.
But I made the decision I want to actually become fit. I want to look fit, feel fit, and be fit. I want my level of struggling to be beyond anything it's been before. I want to be able to hop on the pullup bar and bust out twenty like it's cool.
And I'm going to dedicate myself to that.
This is something I should have done years ago, but I didn't have the mindset for it. I was too unfocused on what needed to be done. I couldn't see the future, and my current path was clouded. Well luckily for me there was a break in the fog and I'm able to get myself on track.
So I'm going to do my best to keep up with this fitness thing, and try not to just stuff myself all the time on my days off. I still love to eat Japanese food and there's no way I'll cut that out, but when I eat meals, I'll try to make them healthier. I've already started incorporating spinach into a lot of what I eat, AND into my shakes I drink after the gym. Small steps, but it feels like a big leap. If only eating healthy wasn't SO EXPENSIVE!
but I digress.
To start out with my current challenge I'm embarking is the 30 day squat challenge. I'm on day three, and my legs and I aren't speaking currently. No joke.
Day 1, which was Sunday, I did 50 squats.
Day 2, 55 squats
Day 3, 60 squats.
Went to the gym to do legs today, couldn't do it. Anything involving the use of my thighs is not do-able currently. Thank the Gods tomorrow is a rest day for the squats. I need it.
Yes, I am still attending the gym on a regular basis. On days I work, since I can't leave the shop during the entire 24 hours I'm going to develop a Shift Workout Plan. That way I can still get some physical activity in during that time. The other days I will go to the gym and follow my workout plan, occasionally throwing in an extra exercise or two just to mix it up.
If anyone wants to know the plan I'm doing just comment and say so, I'll post it, if I don't discuss it in later posts.
This is my everything blog, I want to post so much on here, but I'm too busy doing stuff to do so. Which is a good thing. But it makes the blog dull.
Oh well.
Pull ups are more important.
And oddly enough the fact I'm going to the gym now is motivating, and it makes my peers and my superiors look at me in a different light. I'm not longer a lazy disgruntled complainer. I'm a motivated leader who is trying to improve themselves so I can inspire my juniors to the same. I may never be a good runner, but I won't give up trying.
And neither should anyone else. If you want it, go for it. Find that reason within that makes you want to succeed. We'll all experience failure at one point or another, but what separates us is that we'll pick ourselves up and keep trying.
Because that's what living is about.