Future Seer.

Not much going on, my in-laws are visiting for a fishing trip and traveling the New England states (There was a mention of going to Canada?). So this is just going to be a discussion post.
I like taking time and looking back and comparing it to where I am now. Ten years ago when I imagined my life as a 25 year old it was nothing like how my life actually is now.
But honestly I think the majority of that change as to do with my decision to join the military. Which was something I never considered doing. I was raised with the thoughts of: "When I graduate high school I'm going to college, I will get degrees in things and then get a job."
My biggest challenge was the realization that I had no idea what I actually wanted to do as a career. Even as a teenager I knew my limits and what I was capable of, as well as how hard a job might be success-wise.
I wanted to be an astronaut, a psychologist, political leader, teacher, geneticist and so on.
I knew I was going to be none of those things over the next few years because:
Astronaut school is hard, and I'm probably not smart enough to get in.
Psychology is great, but being an actual psychologist would not be where I ended up, I'd most likely need to use my degree in another field, and I don't think I'm smart enough for a doctorate anyways.
I could never be a political leader because I don't care about ALL politics.
I couldn't become a teacher because everyone is doing that, and teaching degrees are only good for the state you get them in. I don't know what state I'm going to live in when I'm an adult. I need to be able to work anywhere in the country.
And genetics was once again a smart thing.
I'm not dumb, by any means. I am definitely above average (I've been tested multiple times for special programs), but if I'm not interested in learning it, or comprehend all of it I have issues.
Most degrees and jobs require a lot of, essentially, useless classes.
(#1 reason I won't get a degree in Meteorology even though that's been my job for years now)
But if I have to take a million math classes, or science classes I'm not interested in I won't learn it. I enjoyed chemistry, but I struggled a lot in all my chemistry classes. I couldn't imagine struggling in a class I don't care about. 
And we're talking about my thoughts as a 15 year old.
So now as a 25 year old, official adult, new civilian, I look towards the future and think, "Where will I be in ten years?"
It's good to ask these questions, to have long-term life goals. I hated them in school because I had no clue.
To this day I have no clue.

I wonder if anyone does.

And now that I'm married and living with my spouse I don't look at my future as just mine anymore. It's "our" future. Everything about his life will affect mine in one way or another.
Where he gets stationed, how long he stays in, promotions...
His life might affect my life more than my life decisions affect it.
So really at this point my life consists of just preparing for worst case scenarios, and praying none of them ever occur.
But there are things that I'm pretty sure will happen between now and ten years.
I will have my master's degree in (hopefully) library science. If not then I will have my BA in Social science and have done some sort of other degree. Because I will use every penny of my Post 9/11 GI Bill. Every Penny. 
I will have children. This is highly likely. Kids are something I've always imagined having in my late twenties. I just don't know how that will end up. I think having kids is scary. Sure, it's a magical process of creating a human life and some women take to it like ducks on water. I feel deep in my soul I will probably not be lucky enough to be one of those women. I think of having children and all I can think of is everything that could go wrong.
Though it could be because I'm not ready to have kids yet. My husband is not ready to have kids yet. If we have one, then that's fine, it was meant to be. But we are not mentally prepared to go out of our way to make a baby yet. So maybe my fears associated with that will change as I grow.

 In ten years, if my husband has stayed in the service till then he would have been in for 17 years! That means we're a skip and a hop from him retiring. Which is crazy for someone who is 35 to be thinking about. But that's only if the military doesn't try and change that before then. Either way, that's 17 years of service, we'll be looking at where we want to permanently settle to live out our lives. Deciding on whether we want to design and build our own house or buy one and remodel the crap out of it! That's some exciting stuff to think about.

Either way, I look forward to seeing where I end up in ten years, and looking back on my thoughts from now and chuckling at them the same way I do at my thoughts as a 15 year old.

I don't dread getting older. I think I've come to embrace the thought of it. I look at my in-laws and my parents and their lives have only gotten better with age. And they're not even old! So I guess my idea of being "old" might have become older than most's. And I'm okay with that. I plan on being around and doing things for a long time with my spouse.

Until then I'm just chilling in the uncertainty of the present, trying to figure out what dinner is going to be, and if my enrollment for school will work out okay.
But here is what I could look like as an old lady: I sort of look like my grandma. Which is awesome, because she is an amazing woman.

Busy bee.

Well, it's August now. The month of my birthday and wedding anniversary. So I'm pretty excited for all that. But I'll save it for another post.

 My DMO (Distribution Management Office) shipment arrived. I think I mentioned it before(?). But it came a few days early, so I was extremely pleased. So of course I immediately started unpacking everything and trying to find places for it.




<<<That's my 34 packages. They wrapped everything. Even my seabags and bookshelves.

Nothing was broken or damaged!! Yay!! Super happy!

As I was unpacking I came across a little package that was just labeled as "Pin"
I was very confused, so I opened it.

I felt 'something' in my heart, just a bit when I unwrapped it's many folds and it was my corporal chevron.
All that wrapping, and such care for a "Pin". I was a bit touched.

That rank was something I carried for half my time in the service. At one point it meant  a lot to me.
But so much occurred that everything I wanted to do sort of always just fell apart. I don't think I was a bad NCO, and I know I was far from being 'the greatest'. But I actually took pride in the fact I was a Corporal. I wish it would have meant more to the rest of the Corps. They only want to you be an NCO when it's convenient. Otherwise it's preferred you just be a friend, or a good follower.
*Ahem*
Not even going to get into trying to express my thoughts on all of that.
We'll just leave it at the sense of how I might miss certain things about my previous lifestyle, and I did not leave the service without a number of regrets. (Many of which I lose sleep over)
But I've decided not to focus on that anymore, and to just look towards a better future!

So onward!

Our basement is now a complete disaster. Though I bet children would have a ton of fun playing in it.
And this is not even it's final form. I'm pretty sure you can barely see that door in the back now. There is more boxes and paper, and more to come, I'm sure.
I don't want to just throw away everything. The paper is in perfect condition still, and the boxes are pristine. I have no idea what to do with them though! If I had kids they'd be the luckiest ever because they'd be getting some sweet box forts or something. But for now I'm gonna fold them all up and try to save them. Never know when you'll need some huge boxes.


On top of all the unpacking I've been enjoying my time in the kitchen too. So has my husband. Though our bank account reflects the inner pain of how sometimes enjoying good food can be pricey. our grocery bill might be beyond what it needs to be. But we eat all the food, and I think our simple but fun dishes are worth it. Especially when you take into account all I've had is chowhall food mostly.

I even got a bit stereotypical and enjoyed some flavored water that is all the rage on Pinterest nowadays.
Orange Blueberry water. It was super tasty! Though I drink a ridiculous amount of water everyday. So a jarful only lasts a few minutes around me.  I would need a whole case of jars to survive a day. So it was more of a treat than anything I guess.
I reused the berries and orange slices multiple times, they held a lot of flavor. Though I didn't taste much of the blueberries. It was mostly orange.
If I was to make a habit out of enjoying flavored water everyday I'd have to save it for just meals or relaxing time. I did enjoy not drinking just plain water for once, but using fruit at that rate isn't something I should do often. Fruit isn't cheap around here.

 I'm feeling a bit not up to going through all the crazy steps to rotate this picture on google. So we'll all just rotate our faces and see this delicious creation. We were going to have BBQ chicken pizza, but decided that BBQ Chicken Crescent Pizza rolls would be awesome too. We ate all of them. They were way too good.

 The hubs had Gatewatch on Friday, so I didn't see him till Saturday (Gatewatch is exactly what it sounds like. You sit at the front gate and check people's ID's and watch the area. You are only there from open to close, but the shift is 24 hours because then you stay overnight for base security). It's really lame, and probably pointless. But I wanted him to have something to look forward too when coming home, other than just looking forward to coming home. So I decided to try my own hand at some form of crepes.

These aren't overly beautiful or anything. Not sure if they are even technically considered true crepes.

 But they were super delicious!! We've had them twice now, maybe three times. Usually we just spread some creme cheese on them with some fruit, or peanut butter and fruit. They are magical. We definitely over-ate the first time we had them. We're slowly learning control when it comes to delicious meals. (hahaha!)

Our most recent kitchen en devour was curry.
I cannot express how excited I was when I found multiple Asian markets in our area and they carry a lot of interesting things. We've only been to one so far, and it carried the curry cubes I wanted. I'm sure nothing will compare to actually having curry in Japan. But this stuff was pretty darn good! Though we bought hot and extremely hot, but to me, they taste more like extremely mild. So next time gonna spice it up myself, maybe build up a coco's spicy sweat. :P
It was a very thick sauce though, and we had beef cubes, carrots, onions, and potatoes in it. When making it I felt like I was making stew, and then turned it into curry.

I want Yakiniku and Gyudon with all my heart though. I like to whisper it at night in bed before falling asleep, so maybe my husband will dream of meat and want it as bad as I do too. (He just thinks I'm really weird at the moment)

Housewife.

Well, my end of active service was officially a week ago. I found it a bit ironic that on my last day of active duty I ended up spending how I normally spent days off work; ate breakfast, went for a mile run, lounged and watched anime.

Biggest difference: I did it all with my husband.

Convincing him to run is always my biggest challenge of the day. :P
I enjoy running. I hated doing it for the military. But doing it for me is another matter.

But there hasn't been a huge paradigm shift yet. I'm still Cpl Morris in my mind. I still view things through the eyes of a Marine. I mean after years of being trained to do so, I suppose you don't just turn off Marine thinking in a week. And honestly part of me doesn't want to. If anything I'm still going to continue to better myself. That was the whole point of the military, wasn't it?
Besides I wanted money for college (Everyone pretty much wants that). 

I'm really happy that I get to enjoy a 'normal' married life now. Though not sure how normal any marriage really is. But we're not separated is the point here.

What I find interesting is how difficult it is for us to act like we're going to be living together always from now on. We have a tendency to still treat our time together like it's just a week visit. I'm sure eventually we'll figure out that I'm actually living here now an get into our groove of doing things. But for now I suppose we'll enjoy it.

After he takes his service wide exam (for promotions) we're gonna start working on our learning Japanese. I bought a bunch of stuff while I was in Japan. So I'm looking forward to that a lot. Being able to read and understand Japanese is something I've always wanted to do.

As an admin person at the Coast Guard unit said pointedly to me, "You're still affiliated with the reserves."
-_- And my dislike for her skyrocketed. Mainly because she just rubbed me the wrong way from the start. And her hair was INSANE. It's like she put it up a few weeks ago and hasn't bothered with it since.
And there's that Marine mindset again.

I'm still going to workout, now that I'm a civilian. Even dragging my other half into it with me. He doesn't really have any requirement to other than own personal interest. But I think he feels guilty if I'm doing it and he isn't. So Monday, Wednesday and Fridays he will actually be using his hour allotment for physical training and coming to join me.
(Three days a week he can leave work an hour early and he hasn't been. He stays there and works. What a motivator. I would be out the door in a heartbeat.)

But I'm spending the rest of my day....being a housewife?
I get up with the hubs in the morning (which is anytime between 0630 and 0700, depending on his snooze times), I am trying to get dressed every morning now. I discovered that if I stay in Pajamas that after he leaves for work at 0730 I sit around lounging and normally fall back asleep till 10. Which is a waste of a morning. Regardless of the fact I never fall asleep till around 1 a.m.
Drink some coffee with him, maybe have breakfast, make a list of things for the day to do.
Then attempt to accomplish them all.
I get sidetracked easily, I get bored. I remember more things to do, and do those things first. And so the list grows.
I do some cleaning everyday. I prep dinner, which we decide on either the night before or that morning.
laundry, dishes, VA paperwork and so on.
I'm really a friggin' housewife.

...I'm even wearing an apron right now...
0__o
I was cleaning earlier and I wear one when I clean or do crafts (crafts is next after this post).
But never thought I'd be a housewife.
Never thought I'd be married either, so life is full of plot twists.

I have a whole list of topics I plan on going over in posts. So that's nice. I have a plan for this!
As well as school starting in September. Exciting stuff.

I had planned on discussing more of my relationship in this post, but I sort of covered it in a nice way. I'm not going to pour my soul out of how much I care for my husband. I'm married to him, and we've been together for five years. I think that says it all right there. But this more was about the dynamic of my new lifestyle and how the relationship is now different from how it's been the entire time.
And I can't be more happier.

Recently free.

Well, so much for those regular postings. Should have done them every other week so they would have lasted longer. :P

No project this week, just some thoughts. I've had a lot of life changes recently.
I moved back to the United States. Spent some time in California at Camp Pendleton for outprocessing.
Collected my DD214.
Moved to CT, where my husband is.
Helped him finish moving apartments, before he left for two weeks of training.

Did I mentioned I got my DD214?
For the non-military folks out there, that is one of the most important documents a servicemember will ever recieve from the government. You recieve it at the end of your contract, it is your one and only proof that you are no longer in the military, and under what honor you got out under.
So here I am, taking my first steps back into the civilian world.
I'm technically still active duty, until July 20th. Then I'll be in the inactive ready reserve (IRR). So I do nothing military, but I'm still on call.

Four and half years of being in the Marine Corps....It's crazy to think about. And since I've had nothing but free time recently, I've done a lot of reflection.

There are things I am going to miss about the military. Quite a few actually.
There are more things I won't miss though, hence why I didn't stay in the military.
I've done enough complaining and ranting in the past four years that I won't start that up here.
I suppose I'm really just feeling weird.
My first several weeks at bootcamp I felt like the whole thing was a bad dream. None of it felt real. I honestly expected to wake up at any moment. And here I am, reliving that feeling. It's so different from what I've been living the past handful of years that it feels surreal. I haven't accepted that I've entered a new stage of my life.
Probably because it scares me. I joined the military for a hundred different reasons. One of the big ones was that I felt trapped in my current life and it was an escape. It was a life changing learning process.
I don't know if I regret doing it or not. There are a lot of things I lost and missed out on while I was active duty. But the things I've done, and seen, and learned are great themselves.
One of the biggest things I got out of the Marine Corps was learning about myself. I was forced into situations and my actions and reactions taught me things I never knew...about who I am and how I view/do things.
Everyone has a self image in their head, of how they are, and how they want to be viewed.
I did, but it was conflicting, going back and forth. I didn't really know myself.
And now I know myself a little bit better.
There are a lot of things I could have done better and excelled more at.
But honestly, there were a lot of times when I didn't want to. There were times where I knew I could be strong, but I chose to be weak, and there were times where I did my best to be as strong as possible and I crumbled.
There were times when I knew I was being a failure, but I'd rather play it off as "I don't care" attitude then admit my own struggles with things I wish I had a natural affinity for, because I can't bring myself to change who I am fundamentally.
But I stayed true to myself, and my personal feelings and beliefs. I didn't try to become something I'm not. Even though I would pretend.
And whether anyone will ever truly grasp this, but I did care.
I cared about a lot of things more than anyone who ever worked with me will ever know.
I would think the greatest thing I learned, the greatest gift the Marine Corps could have taught me:

I like me.

It took me quite a while to come to this realization, and I went through a lot of struggles dealing with an image of a person I was trying to become. And I realized why I couldn't, because I actually like who I am. (Or at least a majority of myself)
A lot of people have issues accepting who they are, or trying to be something, or someone else. I can't do that.
Honestly, I'll never know what those who I worked for thought of me, or what those who worked for me thought of me. I set some pretty poor examples of leadership sometimes, but I also had times where I felt like I kicked ass at my job.

A SSgt once said at a NCO Call (Non-commisioned officer's get together and have discussions about things). "Some of the worst moments in your military career turn out to be some of your best memories."
While I don't think this is true, there is some truth to the statement. The hardships I went through, I can look back on the fact I still did it, I can talk about it with an attitude of ease. The people who where there, or weren't there but did the same thing share that understanding with me.
It's hard to explain in writing I just realized. But after the shit is done and over with, it's another memory, another experience. For Marines the crap you go through brings you together and tightens your bonds to each other (I think its why they drag us through it sometimes).

My time as active duty is over, now I have to focus on the anxieties of "real" life.
College, finding a job, affording things, having a place to live.
But in the same sense, I know after my time in the Corps, I can probably tackle any challenge.

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.