Long overdue update
Oh man, this whole posting more often thing totally hasn't happened, has it? Oh dear. So I will attempt a long rambly post to get some stuff out there. It's definitely a Choose Your Own Adventure on this one, too many topics to delve into.
Anime Convention! Costuming Geekery
We went to Fanime last weekend. I have finally wormed my way into a sufficiently geeky social circle that it did not take much convincing to get everyone to make costumes. We went as Guilty Gear characters. Here's some sprite sheets if you're interested in the individual characters. I went as Baiken. And..... because my sisters love me very very much they flew out here and played dress-up with the rest of us. Sharon totally rocked it as Jam and managed to sew her own costume with like, no prior sewing machine experience at all. Julie's A.B.A. costume was fairly easy, mostly bandages and some lucky finds at Goodwill, except for the giant key that Dave totally took over and created out of PVC pipe and insulation foam. So for niow a couple of low-res pics:
(Sorry Sharon, Dave is being a bum about pictures, I'll get some of you soon, I promise!) For all that Julie is not an anime or video game geek at all, she had a great time and lugged that big-ass key all over the convention center, refusing Dave's offers to carry it for her, and managed to be adorable in all her pictures and I think she had a great time. Now, for everyone else.... pics that other people took are cropping up all over, here's a group shot of us. Man we're awesome. We pretty much spent all day Friday trying to finish- way into the night and attempting last-minute stuff Saturday morning even as we were changing and getting ready to go to the Con. I was really worried that everyone would be exhausted and pissed and not have a good time, but it was such a blast, and even before the day was through discussions had started as to what we should dress up as for next year. Pretty much everyone can now competently use my sewing machine now, and it was just so awesome to do this with everyone.
Alternative Hair and Face Cleaning
So my hair is totally adjusted to no shampoo and conditioner. Really as long as I get in a water-only hot/cold rinse every couple of days I hardly even need the baking soda wash/ apple cider vinegar rinse. And my hair looks just as good as it ever did, nice and professional looking if I bother to blow-dry it, normal me the rest of the time. I'm really only using the baking soda/acv maybe once or twice a week. I still feel nervous about smell, but Dave swears that it doesn't, and I trust his judgment on olfactory matters.
I'm currently using a mix of jojoba oil and castor oil on my face, every other evening or so. Every morning and evening I wipe with a witch hazel astringent, and that seems to be helping. I still pretty much break out the same amount that I always do, but I'm not having any issues with dryness/itchiness. That could be the time of year though, I'm less dry in the summertime.
Ultimate Frisbees/Working out and eating healthy
So despite a 4th women's club team forming this year, I still managed to get cut from all the women's teams. :P I'm playing coed for real though, unlike past years where I pretty much just picked up for a tourney or two and then did nothing the rest of the summer. There's definitely been a lot of shakeup in the coed scene this year, as a lot of coed women tried out for the new women's team that formed. Our team looks like it'll be pretty good, but we won't have a sense of whether we'll really have a shot at nationals for a while yet. Our first tournament is actually this weekend, but we haven't practiced together so I have no idea how good we'll be. Oh! and Dave is on this team as well. hurray!
On the workout front I'm still doing crossfit. My pushups are improving and I can occasionally accomplish a dead-hang chin up. really though, I'm in the best shape of my adult life and feel strong a energetic. It's lovely. Oh, and I'm still eating fairly healthily and my weight is slowly slowly coming down, even with my muscle gains. I've been averaging a pound or two a month lost. I'm pretty much a size 8 now, and I'm contemplating what to do with my size 10 clothes. Perhaps a sewing project to take them in? jeans are pretty tough to sew though.
Holy Crap! Wedding!
yikes, this is really happening. Astonishingly enough, thing are actually kinda coming together. The biggest to-do at the moment is definitely sewing my dress, but I'm feeling way better about it after all of the anime costuming I've been doing. I think I'll start with a muslin version, maybe this weekend, especially as I want to modify the back some. I've looked a lot at wedding pics and stuff, especially for decorations and flowers and the like. The more I look the more I'm liking that we're barely having anything "professionally" done. Sure, in the end it might not look as polished, but it adds a whole lot more closeness to have done it myself. I really loved how the invitations turned out, and those were totally not the traditional invitation style at all. This leads me to want to attempt my own flower arrangements, as crazy as I am. really I just want roses anyway, and there seems to be a fairly established online bulk-order presence, they even have "wedding packages" for DIY types. :P The problem of course being that they pretty much have to be done the day before or the day of, when I and many other people will already be fairly busy. Well, I'm softening my local friends up to the idea of helping with the flowers. They seemed a lot more amenable once I explained that it'd just be roses, so the actual "arranging" will just be a matter of "take 50 roses, strip the leaves off, and stuff them in this large vase". more or less. Oh! and I'm in love with the goodwill stores around here, they have many very nice large vases for like, $2 each. hurray.
With the invites out the door and vague plans in place for decorations and such, I've turned my brain towards music. I'm almost set on ceremony music and we're SO set on our first dance song. and Dave and I practiced dancing to the first dance song yesterday, and I think we'll look pretty cool. hopefully. We'll be waltzing which is not our best dance, but I think it'll be ok. There's a monthly waltz in berkeley that hopefully we'll make it to in June, get more practice in.
We got our marriage license this week. We could have gotten married that same day, as California doesn't require a blood test. I'm really happy that the ruling on gay marriages happened though, (and it goes into effect in June) because of all the political stuffs, that was my one ideal that for a while I was all about actually taking a real stand on. If gay people couldn't marry then I shouldn't marry because it's completely discriminatory. Yeah, that lasted right up until Dave asked me... so much for being an idealist. But! it all works out in the end. hurray!
Anime Convention! Costuming Geekery
We went to Fanime last weekend. I have finally wormed my way into a sufficiently geeky social circle that it did not take much convincing to get everyone to make costumes. We went as Guilty Gear characters. Here's some sprite sheets if you're interested in the individual characters. I went as Baiken. And..... because my sisters love me very very much they flew out here and played dress-up with the rest of us. Sharon totally rocked it as Jam and managed to sew her own costume with like, no prior sewing machine experience at all. Julie's A.B.A. costume was fairly easy, mostly bandages and some lucky finds at Goodwill, except for the giant key that Dave totally took over and created out of PVC pipe and insulation foam. So for niow a couple of low-res pics:
(Sorry Sharon, Dave is being a bum about pictures, I'll get some of you soon, I promise!) For all that Julie is not an anime or video game geek at all, she had a great time and lugged that big-ass key all over the convention center, refusing Dave's offers to carry it for her, and managed to be adorable in all her pictures and I think she had a great time. Now, for everyone else.... pics that other people took are cropping up all over, here's a group shot of us. Man we're awesome. We pretty much spent all day Friday trying to finish- way into the night and attempting last-minute stuff Saturday morning even as we were changing and getting ready to go to the Con. I was really worried that everyone would be exhausted and pissed and not have a good time, but it was such a blast, and even before the day was through discussions had started as to what we should dress up as for next year. Pretty much everyone can now competently use my sewing machine now, and it was just so awesome to do this with everyone.
Alternative Hair and Face Cleaning
So my hair is totally adjusted to no shampoo and conditioner. Really as long as I get in a water-only hot/cold rinse every couple of days I hardly even need the baking soda wash/ apple cider vinegar rinse. And my hair looks just as good as it ever did, nice and professional looking if I bother to blow-dry it, normal me the rest of the time. I'm really only using the baking soda/acv maybe once or twice a week. I still feel nervous about smell, but Dave swears that it doesn't, and I trust his judgment on olfactory matters.
I'm currently using a mix of jojoba oil and castor oil on my face, every other evening or so. Every morning and evening I wipe with a witch hazel astringent, and that seems to be helping. I still pretty much break out the same amount that I always do, but I'm not having any issues with dryness/itchiness. That could be the time of year though, I'm less dry in the summertime.
Ultimate Frisbees/Working out and eating healthy
So despite a 4th women's club team forming this year, I still managed to get cut from all the women's teams. :P I'm playing coed for real though, unlike past years where I pretty much just picked up for a tourney or two and then did nothing the rest of the summer. There's definitely been a lot of shakeup in the coed scene this year, as a lot of coed women tried out for the new women's team that formed. Our team looks like it'll be pretty good, but we won't have a sense of whether we'll really have a shot at nationals for a while yet. Our first tournament is actually this weekend, but we haven't practiced together so I have no idea how good we'll be. Oh! and Dave is on this team as well. hurray!
On the workout front I'm still doing crossfit. My pushups are improving and I can occasionally accomplish a dead-hang chin up. really though, I'm in the best shape of my adult life and feel strong a energetic. It's lovely. Oh, and I'm still eating fairly healthily and my weight is slowly slowly coming down, even with my muscle gains. I've been averaging a pound or two a month lost. I'm pretty much a size 8 now, and I'm contemplating what to do with my size 10 clothes. Perhaps a sewing project to take them in? jeans are pretty tough to sew though.
Holy Crap! Wedding!
yikes, this is really happening. Astonishingly enough, thing are actually kinda coming together. The biggest to-do at the moment is definitely sewing my dress, but I'm feeling way better about it after all of the anime costuming I've been doing. I think I'll start with a muslin version, maybe this weekend, especially as I want to modify the back some. I've looked a lot at wedding pics and stuff, especially for decorations and flowers and the like. The more I look the more I'm liking that we're barely having anything "professionally" done. Sure, in the end it might not look as polished, but it adds a whole lot more closeness to have done it myself. I really loved how the invitations turned out, and those were totally not the traditional invitation style at all. This leads me to want to attempt my own flower arrangements, as crazy as I am. really I just want roses anyway, and there seems to be a fairly established online bulk-order presence, they even have "wedding packages" for DIY types. :P The problem of course being that they pretty much have to be done the day before or the day of, when I and many other people will already be fairly busy. Well, I'm softening my local friends up to the idea of helping with the flowers. They seemed a lot more amenable once I explained that it'd just be roses, so the actual "arranging" will just be a matter of "take 50 roses, strip the leaves off, and stuff them in this large vase". more or less. Oh! and I'm in love with the goodwill stores around here, they have many very nice large vases for like, $2 each. hurray.
With the invites out the door and vague plans in place for decorations and such, I've turned my brain towards music. I'm almost set on ceremony music and we're SO set on our first dance song. and Dave and I practiced dancing to the first dance song yesterday, and I think we'll look pretty cool. hopefully. We'll be waltzing which is not our best dance, but I think it'll be ok. There's a monthly waltz in berkeley that hopefully we'll make it to in June, get more practice in.
We got our marriage license this week. We could have gotten married that same day, as California doesn't require a blood test. I'm really happy that the ruling on gay marriages happened though, (and it goes into effect in June) because of all the political stuffs, that was my one ideal that for a while I was all about actually taking a real stand on. If gay people couldn't marry then I shouldn't marry because it's completely discriminatory. Yeah, that lasted right up until Dave asked me... so much for being an idealist. But! it all works out in the end. hurray!