its time to kick the summer lazies.

im not going to lie, this summer has been an exceptionally lazy one. i mean, youve probably noticed that i havent been around much (or at all) right here, but blogging isnt the only area where ive let myself get lazy. part of it was due to james spending so long out of town, part of it was transitioning into full-blown self employment, part of it was burnout, and part of it was my fibromyalgia REALLY not getting along with this exceptionally humid summer. 

but reasoning aside, i havent been writing AT ALL, i havent (aside from preparations for create 2014) made (or even planned) ANYTHING for the shop, my jamberry calendar is empty until mid september. all my usual routines, structures, and busy-ness? thats all been a mess: the chore rotation is off, the errand schedule is a mess, and i dont even want to THINK about how much take out weve been eating. we certainly have NOT been keeping  close tabs on our finances.

but im not sorry, not one little bit. 

we needed the break. well, i guess it hasnt really been much of a break for james, hes STILL working tons and tons (fortunately in town, though). so what i mean by that is i needed the break. earlier this year i was working three jobs, rushing all over the place trying  to keep everything from falling apart, and for the last couple months, i havent had to do that. so i just sat back and enjoyed not having to do it. and it was awesome. 

but all good things must come to an end, and since school starts in two (!!!) weeks, now is that time. ive been easing myself back onto the meal planning/errand running/housekeeping/budgeting wagon, and for the most part, i can feel those things all getting back on track. 

and with the little things under control, im feeling a little less lazy and a little more ready to get serious about blogging again, about running the shop like a legitimate business, about planning AWESOME birthday parties for alice and i, about tackling home projects, and putting some major work into our long term family goals. 

like going on vacation. no seriously, were going on vacation next month. is this even real life?

p.s. everybody please notice my super amazing and adorable CUSTOM handmade (and surprisingly affordable!) bathing suit from beverly swimwear. shes amazing and will totally hook you up with the best suit ever (and she didnt pay me to say that). 

mid-year thoughts.

outfit details: 

top: urban outfitters (theyre having a killer clearance right now, this top was $6!)

skirt: vintage

sandals: shoemint

sunglasses: zenni optical

camera bag: kelly moore

its july. i know that because im right in the middle of that awkward transition between datebooks. 

this means were more than halfway through 2014. this is really weird, because, i swear that yesterday it was MARCH. but they do say that time flies when youre having fun. 

and apparently time really flies when all the pieces start to fit together and suddenly, you can sit back and enjoy living the life that you had always dreamed of. 

so, just in case anyones been worried that i havent been writing because something absolutely catastrophic happened (after all, i did keep writing through all of the awful things we went through over the past year and a half since ive been blogging), i just wanted to reassure you: i havent been writing lately because life is awesome. 

see, so far this year has been full of changes. the kind of changes im not used to. good changes. for all of us:

after (almost exactly) two whole years, jamess job has finally turned a corner from being a great job in theory, to actually being a great job. his hard work and persistency is really paying off; hes halfway through his apprenticeship program, earned a pay raise that is well above our current needs (even after the absurd amount the union takes out), and, unlike last year, hes working. a lot. (he hasnt had a day off since memorial day).

im working from home. legitimately working from home. making more money than i ever have before, on my own time, able to stay home with alice, slow down, and keep the household running without having to be an uptight, overstressed to-do list nazi.  

and alice gets to reap the benefits of both, she gets to have me at home, with the free time and energy to do more fun things together, AND since we have a stable income (for the first time, like, ever), we can do normal things like eat at restaurants and browse the clearance racks at target and even occasionally say yes when she asks for things for no reason without obsessively fretting over every last penny. 

its nice. if james hadnt spent the last five and a half weeks working out of town (though it does seem that more in-town work is happening), id maybe even go so far as to say things are perfect. 

there is one difficulty im struggling with right now though, and thats where this blog fits in with our new, comfortable, exactly-the-way-we-like-things life. when i started this blog, and  really up until a couple months ago, our life was looking like the exact opposite of what we had hoped and planned for. and to be completely honest, a lot of my inspiration and motivation for writing this blog came from the struggle to find and achieve the life we wanted as a family. but now that thats been more or less achieved, where do we go from here? 

what am i supposed to write about now that im, dare i say it? content with the way things are. how am i supposed to come up with new goals and projects when we dont really need anything? when am i supposed to write when i now have things id much rather be doing? 

what are your thoughts? what do you want to read about? 

may call for sponsors + i want to help you grow your business!

outfit details:

top: h&m

skirt: knitted dove (bought at a sample sale, similar)

shoes: urban outfitters (old)

necklace: c/o hole in her stocking designs

glasses: zenni optical

nails: jamberry in reminisce (matte) and snapshot

this is what i wore for jamess birthday dinner date. its a skirt ive had for a while, with a pretty basic top, and some very old shoes. basically a fancier version of every outfit i ever wear. it needed something. like this adorable chunky necklace from hole in her stocking designs. i mean, if you havent noticed, black and white is kind of my jam, but the yellow bows TOTALLY keep this necklace from being too basic, if you know what i mean. i love it. you can get your own here!

and this necklace, it totally helped me figure out something really important about what i have to offer here on poverty luxe:

see, lately ive been giving a lot of thought to the direction this little blog is headed in. generally, i feel pretty accomplished as far as things like finding my niche (healthy, crafty, environmentally conscious living on a nonexistent budget), developing my content, finding my "blogging voice" (which is apparently a LOT less annoying than my "talking voice") making connections, building a platform, etc. heck, ive even planted the seeds for diversified passive income streams (which are all words that i didnt even know existed when i started doing this a year ago). 

but, lately my mind has been consumed with finding the answer to this question: now that i have this (albeit, microscopic) platform, what exactly do i want to do with it?

i mean, yeah i still want to use this blog to share my endeavors on trying to make a healthy, comfortable, enjoyable lifestyle on whatever little money we have, and if i can help or encourage or inspire others to do the same for themselves, then thats great. (and if i can maybe make you laugh a little too, then mission accomplished). 

but, what exactly can i do to you know, help spread the word about other cool folks, while still helping to financially justify how much time and effort i put into this little project (that was, ahem, supposed to be secondary to the etsy shop)? sponsorships, right?

now, dont get me wrong, i LOVE using this space to share and show off all of the wonderful blogger ladies that ive met since i started doing sponsorships, but you know who i really want to help? small business and etsy shop owners. 

and the typical banner ad/feature type deal doesnt seem to serve small businesses as well as it serves bloggers. 

so, I've added a few new sponsorship options specifically tailored to small businesses/etsy shop owners. you can read more about the details for each option on my sponsorship page, but theres one option in particular that i want to highlight, because i have jenny from dancin with a dolly to thank for it. 

see, that necklace that i talked about earlier? jenny and i did a review swap (you can read her review of my scarf here), where we each sent each other an item from our shops and reviewed them on our blogs. it was a really, really fun way for two small businesses to support each other, and its something that i would LOVE to continue offering on poverty luxe!

and what about the other options, you ask? well, theres a full brand/shop feature (which includes a weekday solo post, review, giveaway, and social media love), a product review only (thats completely free if we set up a swap), and if you just want to send an item to be included in an outfit post, you can do that too. maybe thats a lot of options, but i also REALLY want to offer affordable options for small businesses to get the word out. 

hope youre having a great week so far!

easter fun + taking a break from weekly wishes

happy monday everyone! i hope everyone had a great easter weekend!

we did things a little backwards as far as easter/jamess birthday are concerned this year. normally for easter, wed go to church, and then if someone in the family (either my moms side or my dads) was throwing a party, wed go to that, and then wed spend jamess birthday (which is also his grandmas birthday) in san diego with his family. 

well this year, easter happened to fall on my brother in laws birthday, so we spent easter in san diego and did birthdays at the same time (meaning, well get to stay in town for jamess birthday). which, despite the fact that driving two-three hours (depending on traffic, which happened to be bad BOTH saturday and sunday) to stay the night at somebody elses house (not one of my favorite activities) totally stresses me out, the weekend turned out to be a very nice change of pace. 

obviously there was egg dying on saturday (which alice had never done before because she was too little last year):

and apparently alice LOVES hard boiled eggs if theyve been dyed first (i dont even REMEMBER the last time i offered her hard boiled eggs without her throwing them back at me). 

then sunday we had easter brunch (and i only pouted a little about not getting to go to church) and after that jamess grandma put together a little egg hunt for alice and her cousin:

then it was time for cake and birthdays:

(the 120 on the cake was my idea, jamess grandma only had number candles but didnt have everyones ages, so we added them all together and got 120. conveniently, she did have candles for that)

and later, since it was the hottest day ever and great-grandma and great-grandpa have a pool, and grandma (jamess mom) got alice a new swimsuit and life vest, there was swimming:

finally, when alice was just too cranky to function, we packed up the car for the LONGEST DRIVE HOME EVER. seriously. bumper to bumper traffic for over an hour THROUGH CAMP PENDLETON WHERE WE COULDNT EVEN GET OFF THE FREEWAY. and to make matters worse, it was easter sunday, and all in n outs were closed. 

but really, everything was fine. we had a nice easter, and now its time to get ready for jamess birthday. and my color theory class starting right after that. and then school week the next week. and then finals and my cousins graduation right after that. and then more birthdays for my brother and cousin after that. and then a quick trip to santa barbara and a wedding (unrelated) the weekend after that. 

so, um... what im getting at here is that ive kind of got a LOT going on right now, and weekly wishes? well, i dont really have the time (or energy) to work on new small goals every week. so, for the rest of april, and may, and possibly even the rest of the summer, the only goals ill be talking about are my big monthly goals. 

and im really looking forward to that. 

i finally quit my job! (an outfit post + april monthly wishes)

outfit details:

top: h & m

skirt: vintage

shoes: vintage

necklace: macys

hair clip: etsy

glasses: zenni optical

nails: jamberry in imperial (matte)

everybody please ignore the stupid face im making in the first picture, and instead notice that my shirt has cats on it. for a long time now ive been wanting to get a cat shirt, but my sister is pretty much queen of the cat shirts, and i didnt want to look like i was copying her, so when i found this crop top at h&m with japanese lucky cats on it (which are one of my favorite things ever), i knew i HAD to have it. even though it was regular price and im probably way to old to be wearing crop tops with cats on them. but, cats. maybe it wasnt the most practical $10 ive ever spent. but again, cats. and when i wanted to wear the wrap skirt i wore to dapper day to church without looking all vintage-costumey, my new cat shirt was there to make everything better. so heres to you, cat shirt. also, i FINALLY just had to put new jamberries on my nails (after THREE WEEKS the old set was STILL going strong), and this imperial print is definitely a win (and the matte finish, im in love!). 

but enough about cat shirts. its monthly wishes time!

last month my goals were all about getting ready for my fashion classes to start: i wanted to finish my financial aid appeal, change my name on my school records, get a new student id, research/buy running shoes, get a bunch of meals in the freezer, take alice to the zoo, and decide what i wanted to do about my job situation. 

and im very proud to announce that i did everything except getting a student id! (which, honestly, was probably the least important of all of the goals i had). 

most notably, i took the plunge and quit my job at joanns! which is totally the opposite of what i thought was going to happen, but even though school is only two nights a week, my classes are turning out to be a LOT more involved than id anticipated, so, taking back the cut counter position did not sound appealing. obviously i was concerned about losing the (albeit, pretty pathetic) income, so i figured id just skate by on just my teaching position. but then something completely unexpected happened: my jamberry launch party, despite having a ton of issues in the beginning (because facebook totally rewrote the notification stuff), and taking FOREVER to get any orders, and feeling like it was just going NOWHERE, totally made what id make in a normal paycheck at joanns working both positions. 

so, this weekend, i was basically faced with this choice: keep the job that causes all kinds of stress and problems and scheduling difficulties that pays hardly anything and has NO opportunity for anything better than what im doing right now, OR, quit and have more hours to put into this new work-at-home opportunity that has already proved to be more profitable AND has a basically unlimited income potential (provided that i keep up with networking and booking more parties). 

if youve been reading for a while, you know that this has been a long, drawn out, complicated, and emotionally difficult situation (i mean, im terrible at being employed so the nearly three years i spent with joanns is roughly three times as long as i had my next-longest job). but, once i looked at things objectively, it was pretty clear that working at joanns was NOT worth it. 

so, saturday, i finally quit. i may have to go back next saturday to teach one last class that has one student enrolled (meaning, its already in danger of being cancelled), but other than that, im done. and its great. because really, that silly little poorly paid part time job was starting to REALLY get in the way of our serious long-term goals (not to mention my health and sanity). 

and now, we can move on to aprils monthly wishes (because its the first monday of the month and thats how we roll here):

for obvious, just went back to college reasons, aprils them is LEARN. 

honestly, with this month being a weird transitional time with school, and also containing jamess birthday (and requisite trip to san diego), aprils goals are a little looser and less structured:

my big goal for the month is to soak up as MUCH information as i can in my classes and immediately apply it to my blog/business where appropriate. one of my classes is all about building a professional portfolio, and SO much of it is relevant to where my etsy shop is struggling right now, so my number one priority this month is to focus and excel in my classes (which shouldnt be difficult, since so far im the only one thats even doing all my homework). 

my smaller goals are to finish all the online training for jamberry (their consultant resources are fantastic, and i have SO much to learn if this is going to be a sustainable business), put together an awesome birthday surprise for james, and to write out a BIG list of EVERY house project/purchase thats been waiting so that we can take care of them on days off. 

those are my goals for april, what are your plans this month?

march in review (another blogger meet up, an outfit post + weeklywishes)

is it just me, or did march TOTALLY fly by? i feel like we were SO busy ALL month i didnt even notice that it was almost april! since this month has been somewhat of a blur, im especially grateful that i had already to committed to this whole "month in review" thing to recap everything we did, otherwise i might have forgotten that march even happened!

seriously, SO much happened in march:

we got a really bad start to the month when we spent a whole week without hot water and i almost forgot to go to my friends bachelorette party. but then i remembered and everything was ok! 

plus, since my dear friend shannon got married, i got to do some embroidery:

which i really, really love doing but for some reason can only find the time when somebodys about to get married. (conveniently, about eight thousand people i know are getting married right now, so it looks like the future will hold a lot more embroidery! yay!). 

also, poverty luxe turned one year old! this is totally insane because i never thought id be doing this for a whole year. but still awesome. 

we took alice to the zoo for the very first time.

and we welcomed a new member to the meyers family. meet B:

(obviously alice is totally obsessed) remember that time my sister rescued a kitten and named it gaston? well, it turns out gaston is a lady, and one of my moms cats (a fat, lazy, potato of a cat named ronald) apparently CAN NOT handle sharing his litter box with a girl, and despite living in a one bedroom apartment, ive been getting antsy to have more cats. so B lives with us now. its great. 

and in big, exciting, life-changing news: i started college this week AND dove into a new business adventure as a consultant for jamberry nails. 

i really wish i had something more profound to say about starting college again after so many years, but, i dont know, im taking two one unit classes for eight weeks. it doesnt even really feel like im in college right now. come back in september and im sure ill have more to say about it. 

jamberry, on the other hand, i just cant keep my mouth shut about that. dont worry though, poverty luxe (the blog, or the etsy shop) isnt going anywhere. the only thing that might be going somewhere sometime soon though is my job at joanns. i wont say yet that im quitting, but i will say that my first week with jamberry had a rocky, underwhelming start and i still made about what id bring home on a good week at joanns. so...

oh! saturday i got to go to another awesome blogger meet up hosted by melyssa and the bloggers giving back crew! this event was called well boxed: 

 and we had pizza and wine and put together care packages for the troops stationed overseas:

it was an awesome time getting to do something nice for someone that probably really needs it, while also getting to spend some quality time getting to know some other blogger ladies better (AND even meeting some new friends!). 

now, i noticed that amidst all of the crazy busyness of march, i havent been doing much in the way of outfit posts. even though thats totally my favorite kind of post and i swore that id do more of them they just havent been happening. so as of right now, im stepping up my game. heres what i wore to the well boxed event:

                                       

outfit details:

top/bandeau: diy (tutorial coming next month!)

skirt: poverty luxe.

shoes: shoemint

bracelet: vintage (james bought it for me when he was a scrap gold buyer)

glasses: zenni optical

nails: jamberry in diamond dust and cup of tea

i dont really have a whole lot to say about this outfit, other than i did make most of it (and the shoes i won from another bloggers giveaway), so i didnt really pay for any of it, which i guess is neat. also, lately ive really been working on finding different ways to style my poverty luxe skirt, since, you know, actually wearing the things i make is basically the cheapest marketing there is. at the blogger meet up i got a lot of compliments on my top, which was actually a really simple diy project, so stay tuned, because in a couple weeks I'm going to show you how to make one too!

so there you have our highlights for the month of march. 

well, that and yesterday james did that thing we do now and again where we dress up as dr. who characters for no reason and it becomes glaringly obvious why exactly we dont have any adult friends:

(but, i mean, if i was someone else, id totally want to be friends with us)

now dont think i forgot about weekly wishes!

last week i wanted to get a good start on my classes and order my textbooks, and i did both! in fact, i was SO excited about having homework to do that i did ALL of my homework for both classes on thursday. plus i saved like $80 bucks by buying my textbooks used (and ill probably get almost as much as i paid for them when i sell them in a couple months, so stay tuned for a post about how to work the textbook system!)

whats up for this week? not much, really. obviously I want to keep doing my homework early, but my big projects for the week are finishing Aprils editorial calendar (and deciding if Friday posts are coming back or not....) and starting a big list of all the home projects that need done/things that need to be replaced (with James working full time and me NOT working three jobs, we totally have the time and money for projects for the first time in over a year so its already a long, overwhelming list...)

what was your favorite part of march?

february in review + march call for sponsors

so, yesterday i was *this* close to catching up on our wibbly-wobbly blog week and start march off right on schedule... 

but...

right as i was about to get started on my february in review post, my friend shannon texted me and asked if i wanted to go hit up the local salvage fabric store, right now. it was her birthday, and she was asking me to go to my favorite place ever, so obviously i couldn't say no. i mean, how could i pass up a golden opportunity to play in all this:

so... today youre getting a combo february in review/march call for sponsors post. 

which actually ends up working out ok because february wasnt exactly action-packed around here. as far as family life is concerned its been a lot of boring work stuff for the grown ups and crafts for the alice:

that day in particular alice was making a beard. 

oh! and we finally got our first winter rain storm so alice got to stomp in puddles for what I'm pretty sure is the first time ever (california life is rough, guys):

 so, what else happened last month? 

lets see... i made a whole slew of cleaning-related goals, but i only did so-so on them (ill talk more about this on monday)

i did our taxes all by myself, which was a pretty huge deal because I'm really bad at math and paperwork (also, i didnt notice that wed gotten our refund for about four days because id been too afraid to look at our bank accounts, and i guess that was kind of funny).

james totally spoiled me with valentines day surprises, most notably a new functional workspace, which ive really enjoyed putting to work. 

i listed TWELVE new skirts in the shop. this is where id normally have some kind of preview of whats coming next shop-wise, but actually i took a little break from shop sewing to make bow ties for my friend shannons wedding (unfortunately she invited me out right when i finished so i didnt get a picture). also, i made eight bow ties which was a pretty huge accomplishment. 

jamess work finally started picking up again, which is a huge relief (though the work going on right now is all out of town so theres a whole other challenge there). 

i went to my first ever blogger meet up, and it was super scary but it was also fun and i made some new friends so it was actually pretty cool!

then the next day, james and i got all fancy for dapper day and strangers took our picture a bunch and that was weird (but grown up time at disneyland was nice!). 

oh! and I'm helping give away a super awesome dslr kit on the freckled fox right now! there are still a few days left to enter i think, so get on that!

and then the month ended with a huge emotional roller coaster as james (and i, by extension) endured a grueling interview process for a really awesome job opportunity but then he didnt get it and that was really upsetting but then his literal three month battle with unemployment finally got resolved so that was nice but now my job is causing issues so honestly i dont know how to feel these days. 

but enough about that. february was maybe not my favorite month ever, but we had some fun times, and work seems to be picking up for james, and I've got lots of big plans for both the shop and this little blog here. so, march should be pretty cool. 

and speaking of march... you know what time it is?

yep. its time for me to tell you all the reasons why you should sponsor poverty luxe in march. 

mainly, remember all that work i did in january to overhaul everything and make this blog awesome again? well, I've been working REALLY hard to keep the momentum going and well, the numbers dont lie. you can check out my sponsorship page for more details. 

and if you clicked on that link, you may have noticed that my sponsorship options have changed a tiny bit, and this is because ive been watching my sponsorships closely to see whats working and whats not, and adjusted accordingly. 

thats a thing nobody really talks about in blogging, the constant learning and adjusting when it comes to offering sponsorships. since i jumped into paid sponsorships WAY to early and WAY not prepared, ive been making adjustments basically every month. and ive decided that every month im going to share them (and the reasoning behind them), so that my learning experience can be your learning experience too. 

so heres whats changing this month:

the in-post ad seems to be doing well, i mean... its booked till mid april. so, im keeping things the same, but the price is going up to $10 (because, well, its actually a lot of work).

the large ads i really like, but they havent been selling super well, so I've lowered the price down to $3. i also noticed that theres really no reason why i have to limit how many people can participate, so ive opened it up to ten spots instead of the previous five. 

and finally, the small ads. this was a hard decision to make because i really like the idea of free ad swaps and i wanted to make it as easy as possible to offer them here. the thing is... for a few months now, the small ads have been booked solid, and... um... not a whole lot of those are actually swaps. SO now the small ads are $1. UNLESS you want to swap, in which case you can contact me for a promo code and we can totally do a free swap. oh, and one more thing i want to clarify: i can ONLY do the introductory tweet if you put your twitter name in the "about this ad" field, so, if your buying a small ad, be sure to remember to do that so i can introduce you to all my followers!

so thats whats going on in sponsorship land these days. please check out my sponsorship page for more details, id love to have you join my sidebar for the month!

hope youre having a great weekend so far, ill se you monday for monthly wishes!

january in review.

so, i think im bringing back my "month in review" feature. i havent done it in a couple months and ive missed it. i really did like re-visiting all the highlights of the past month, and this also seems like an appropriate time to check in on my monthly wishes. 

so heres some cool stuff that happened january, theres the real-life things, like: 

we spent new years eve with friends for the first time ever.

alice made her first sculpture:

i gave her some of those biodegradable packing peanuts and showed her how to lick them and stick them together. she made that crazy piece, which she named "snowman" (note: right now everything is a snowman). 

alice is back in ballet class:

i announced that im going back to school, AND we celebrated our two-year anniversary of moving to california. 

alices friend quinn had a superhero themed birthday party and asked everyone to dress up as their favorite hero, so naturally we did our first ever family cosplay in a doctor who theme, with james dressed as the eleventh doctor:

alice as the tardis:

and me as amy pond (admittedly, not nearly as good of a costume as james and alice):

james and i went to the namm show. 

and we had our first disneyland day of 2014:

and then theres the blog/shop things, like:

i completely changed both how i approach writing content for this blog AND how i market it and the results have been INCREDIBLE. i mean, the month isnt even over yet and all my stats have surpassed every record high, AND my reader engagement (tweets, comments etc.) has gone through the roof (SO many new blog friends! i love it!). it was an AWESOME start to the new year in blog land. 

i guest posted on the art of balance, and in my (totally biased) opinion i think its some of my best work yet.

i didnt get as much time to sew as id like (ive been working at joanns a bit more than usual), BUT i did manage to get a couple of new skirts in the shop, with a new (BIG!) batch coming very soon. 

i changed the way we photograph my shop listings, and i think it looks much more professional. 

and most importantly, ive put a MUCH bigger focus on running poverty luxe like a business, mainly meaning that im sticking to my completely insane business model, and that i raised my prices, so that i now have a wide enough profit margin to BOTH pay myself fairly and finance some major business growth. 

now what about januarys monthly wishes? well, in case you dont remember, this months theme was fresh, and my goal for the month was to incorporate that theme into four different areas: our diet (more fresh foods), my attitude (a fresh outlook on life), the shop (fresh product), and the blog (fresh content). 

and how did i do?

as far as our diet, great! were totally back on the weekly meal planning wagon, eating way more fruit, veggies and fish, and havent been keeping any junk in the house (plus! i havent had any soda in a whole month!). 

as far as the blog, also great! ive already talked a quite a bit about the new content, and it seems to be going over REALLY well. 

as far as the shop, i think i did ok, but i could have done better if work wasnt so busy. i didnt get as much new product IN the shop as i had hoped, but i DID start a new batch of skirts AND for the first time in ages ive been researching and prototyping some new products for spring/summer AND fall/winter. 

now as far as my attitude, that one i did really bad with. see, this month has been really, really, REALLY hard as far as daily life is concerned. remember this post where i was all excited for james working three days in a row? well it turned out those were the only three days he worked all month. and on top of being stuck at home, bored out of our minds, and totally stressed out about being almost completely out of savings, my health seems to have taken a turn for the worse (im totally having hyperthyroid symptoms, but theres nothing showing up in my blood work to suggest that my thyroid is actually up to no good). obviously tensions have been high and nine times out of ten ive let it get to me. ive been impatient with alice and ive been mean to james and ive withdrawn from my friends and ive done exactly the opposite of what i was supposed to be doing. i feel like a total failure. 

well actually, not really. this is actually the reason that ive decided to bring back the "month in review" post. because, even though a lot about this month sucked, and i really sucked this month, a lot of GREAT stuff happened and january wasnt a total loss. 

taking a step back and looking at the month as a whole has been really encouraging. january was tough, and it most certainly did NOT go the way that i had hoped, BUT looking at the big picture, all things considered it was actually a pretty great month. 

ill just have to continue working on my attitude probably forever (it wasnt really my strong suit anyway). 

dont forget to stay tuned for next month theme (im talking about it on monday!)