Merry Christmas TO ME!

I have been SO in the mood for Christmas this year! (This will likely be me just rambling on, so be forewarned! :")

Every year my hubby sets up our Christmas decorations on the day after Thanksgiving. That really got me in the spirit this year, I guess because my family was feeling so close (being that the boys were sick and very cuddly and needy - and they are feeling better now, btw!). I've been turning on the lights every night, and turning them off before I go to bed. We do that because traditionally (in Hubby's side of the family, I guess), we only turn the lights on ALL night on Christmas Eve. Even still, this little task has helped put me in the mood for the giving season, too. I get to admire our humble, little tree before turning out the lights each night.

My side of the family usually does a Christmas gift exchange. We draw names and buy or make presents for that person and it's a big guessing game (and really, no big secret *LoL*) of who has who... and we all eventually find out. But SHHH! Don't tell my dad that! ;) This tradition has extended into our extended families, too. My grandparents do it, my parents, my siblings and all of my siblings' families, too. Some years everyone opts out, but most often we try to do it, and for me, it's a fun family tradition that I want to keep going in my own little family, too. Anyway, we're doing homemade gifts this year, and I'm excited because I have mine done already and we have some great ideas for the boys' gifts, too. Bruce's gift is going to be a hit, I think his person will really love what he's come up with it and it should be fun to make, too. This is one of my favorite family traditions for the holidays, and Sheila's post about Memorable Gifts from Monday (I guess I tied Christmas gifts with traditions some how - oh yes, the gift exchange! *LOL* Either way, her post got me thinking!) had me reflecting on the many traditions we have in our family for Christmas. I love traditions!

And I love GIFT GIVING! If you know me at all, you KNOW I love to give gifts. I love to send packages or cards, I love to wrap presents and all of that sort. It's so fun and fulfilling! Anyway, due to personal reasons (that I won't explain here and now, but may eventually), every year I buy myself a gift for Christmas. I was talking about my hubby recently about how it would sure make things easier if more people were willing to just tell others what they wanted instead of making others guess about the gifts their loved ones would like for Christmas. I figured since I go out and buy myself something anyway, maybe I would just tell my hubby what I wanted this year and let him get it for me, that way I kill two birds with one stone... one less gift, but also one less worry for my hubby when it comes to what to get me.

It worked!

I got what I wanted.

I found a desk and cubby shelf set in the classifieds and emailed the seller to ask if they were still available. Sure enough, they were! So I emailed the ad to Bruce and he picked up the desk and shelf set (for super cheap!) the same night. Wuhwho! Merry Christmas TO ME! We've been looking for a cheap desk or set of shelves for months, with the intention of setting up a craft area in our bedroom for me to organize my crafty stuff better. We certainly hadn't intended to get BOTH the desk and shelf, but this was a steal and too good to be true! They were used, and handmade, but in really awesome condition and they're perfect - EXACTLY what we were looking for. I could not be more happy with them! Bruce even went so far as to bring them up inside, take down the door, and moved them into our room and set them up all on the same night. He's so sweet! They are covered in my crafts now, so I need to organize things, but I intend to post pictures when I do. :") Yippee!! It will be so nice to have my OWN little craft area now, instead of using our bed, or spreading my stuff all over the couch or table. *dreamy sigh*

Also, I got a BIG, totally unexpected package in the mail yesterday! Bruce brought it up on his way in from work and low-and-behold it was from my swap person, Sue! I had been thinking so much about what to get my swap person for the Christmas swap that my friend, Bonnie, set up, that I totally FORGOT (how in the world could I forget!?) that I'd be getting a swap package from someone else, too! I opened it up and right away the kids were all over the stuff *LOL*, it was filled with so many Christmas goodies and the boys LOVE Christmas stuff. It was far more than I was expecting (and considering I forgot I'd be getting a package, I wasn't expecting much at all - Haha!), she is such a generous person. Sue included a cute plate and Santa mug for 'milk and cookies' for Santa. That is SO perfect for our family, we love doing milk and cookies the night of Christmas Eve! She also sent some scrapping and card-making supplies which I LOVE (I displayed them on my new desk and shelf, touting it all like a proud, little girl! Bwahahaha!), and some cute candles, and a plush decoration that reads 'JOY', with a reindeer, Santa and a snowman holding the letters. Oh, in addition to all of that, she included some cute, Christmasy notepads and recipe cards, as well as a... well, how do I describe this? It's one of those little balls you put on your car antennae, but it's a Santa Mickey Mouse. *LOL* It's so cute! I gave it to Bruce to put on the car. :") We've never been to Disneyland before, and I know that Sue lives somewhere near there, so this was a fun little for us. The boys were very curious about it, really admiring the mickey bag it came in and the little ears poking out from the Santa hat. Anyway, if she or one of our mutual friends happens to read this, I want her to know that I really enjoyed the package and all of the fun Christmas gifts she sent for the swap! Thank you, Sue! And thank you to Bonnie for setting this swap up for us! It's been so fun. :) I will definitely be hosting a swap next year (hopefully January or February!) if anyone would like to join in the next one to come around.

I have SO many fun ideas for gifts this year. *sigh* Oh, I love, love, love being in the mood for Christmas. I've been a big scrooge in the past, but this year.... ahh... I LOVE IT!

Merry Christmas to ME, and to all of YOU, too!!!

Sophisticated Flop (Feedback Appreciated!)

This month has been incredibly trying for me in a thousand different ways. My confidence with my schoolwork has suffered because of it, too. I finally finished my brochure assignment and I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. I was going for a sophisticated look with a tropical, dutch colonial feel to really represent the island of Curacao. I added the finishing touches last night and finally got a good night of sleep - the first one in weeks - and I could breathe easy because this huge assignment was DONE. No more! Wuhwho!
Wrong.
I still had my presentation to do in class today. I thought I did alright, but I wasn't too proud of the feedback I received. Perhaps I'm being overly pessimistic and just looking back at it from a bad perspective, but I really did not feel great about it. *sigh* The best comments I got were about the colors and that if one of my peers saw this in a gas station, they'd pick it up. Ok. That made me laugh, really. I was going more for a nice hotel pick-up or something. Flop! I tried to get a lot of opinions as I created my brochure and tried hard to implement a lot of what I heard into my final design. I honestly thought it turned out better than I had expected, but now I'm thinking it really wasn't good enough.

What do you think? This, remember, is a trifold brochure for the island of Curacao. The front cover is on the right, the back of the brochure is in the center and the left hand side is the inner flap. The second page is the inside of the brochure. I'd love any feedback you have, positive or negative. If I could have improved something, where do you think that would be? Hmm... Any thoughts?






Tomorrow we're going over our next big assignment, which is to be a 4 page newsletter for any organization of our choice. I have some ideas for what I want to do for that, but already knowing it's 4 pages (twice as much work!) and due in less time than this brochure, I am feeling pretty overwhelmed at just the thought of it.

The kids have been driving me nuts - seriously, nuts.

I am ready for a nice trip to a spa. Or better yet... how about a vacation to Curacao! Anyone want to pay my way? Anyone? No? Well screw you, then! *sobs* Haha, just kiddin. :")

Schoolwork

Oh, how fun it is to apply my creativity to my schoolwork. This week, before Thanksgiving, we were issued our first big 'creative' assignment for my InDesign class. I had never used InDesign before this class that started on the 15th, so I think I'm doing alright considering. We were asked to make a brochure for any location of our choice. It has to be a trifold brochure, meaning it has two folds, a flap for the cover, a flap for the inside. Well, I'm sure you've all seen them before and know what they are. If not, just take a regular letter sized paper and fold it into thirds. I've been working on this assignment all weekend, and chose to do mine on Curacao, so I wanted to give it a really tropical feel, a relaxing but adventerous taste to it. I really hope to go here someday!
Anyway, I thought I would share with you what I have done so far, so you can see what I've accomplished. I'll try to share the finished product when I'm done with it, but since I'm not quite there yet, you get the sample version. (The two white stripes aren't really there, I just added them for this snapshot to show where the folds would be in the paper. This is the inner flap on the left, the back of the brochure is in the middle, and the cover of it is on the right. I haven't added the text for the back, yet.)


This class has been really fun so far. I've enjoyed learning about the printing process, and how to package things to be printed. I am not so sure that the printing side of graphic design is where I want to go when I'm done with school, though. I am really interested in the web design side of it. I'm looking forward to the Flash class, and things like that, but who knows how that might go and where this might lead me. :) In the meantime, I'll just try to soak it all up and learn as much as I can so that I can be prepared for a good career come graduation!

Just a little update

Oh, I know. I haven't been around much, and for that I apologize. I hate when I fall behind, not only on my own blog, but those of you who are friends whose blogs I enjoy so much. I miss reading and commenting and seeing all that is going on in your lives! I will spend some time this weekend catching up a bit with you.
Over here things are quiet, uh... minus that loud horn honking outside a moment ago. Obnoxious drivers in the middle of the night on large intersections! Grr! Oh yes, back to what I was saying... We had planned to drive up to my in-law's home for a great Thanksgiving celebration this year. It was to be close family, so ours, my mother-and-father-in-law, my brother-in-law with his wife and son, and other brother-in-law... and probably the pets, who are so very cute and so much a part of the family. I was hestitant about going because of the awful two weeks I've had, but reluctantly agreed and started looking forward to it. We were confident that because Hunter's illness, as awful as it's been for him, hadn't spread to anyone else and seemed to be very gradually improving, we could attend a gathering like this without anyone else getting sick either. We had done so well to keep things under control and very clean, very sterile so as not to spread germs and get anyone else sick here at home.
Unfortunately on the eve of Thanksgiving Troy woke with similar symptoms after only a few hours of sleep that were just as scary and sudden as Hunter's had been when they first appeared. Coughing and gagging, very raspy voice and hard to catch their breath. I stayed up with both boys as they woke on and off all night, and final fell to sleep for good around 4am. Bruce called my mother-in-law first thing in the morning to tell her that it was probably best that we not go - we didn't know how contagious Troy might be, and we certainly didn't want to get anyone else sick, especially our little nephew who is younger than both Troy and Hunter.
We hadn't planned to eat at home for Thanksgiving, so as I coddled the boys (I love how lovey they are when they're sick, but hate having to watch them be so miserable at the same time!) on and off throughout the day, Bruce ran to this store and that to find everything we needed for our own little Thanksgiving Dinner. We anticipated my friend, Oscar (some of you know him as 'Ghetto' ;), visiting, but he ended up having other plans, which again, was probably for the best. I would've hated to get him sick, too. I just hope that I have the chance to visit with him before he has to leave back to California. Anyway, Bruce made a fantastic dinner. It was honestly better than I could've imagined! Rather than a traditional turkey we opted for a boneless turkey roast - boy they are delicious! Aside from that everything else was very traditional, from the mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, fruit salad, buttered rolls, celery sticks and olives, to the stuffing and pumpkin pie with whipped cream for dessert! I am still amazed that Bruce pulled that off with such short notice, having none of it at home beforehand, and while still helping me tend to our sick little chitlins. Troy didn't touch his food at all, being that it hurt him so much to swallow anything, and Hunter only picked at his here and there, but they both enjoyed it more warmed up again the day after. Although we didn't have the Thanksgiving we had been looking forward to and had hoped for, it was still good, something very much to be thankful for none-the-less. Oh, did I mention... as Bruce cooked everything, I cut out little leaves from various colored papers and we all came up with things we were thankful for to write on each one, Troy included (Hunter napped, but we thought of things that we know he is thankful for, too), and then Troy and I posted them to the bare little branches of a cut out tree on the wall. We made a beautiful Thanksgiving tree in the end! I think this will be a new tradition for us every year. :)
Being that the boys have been so sick, I haven't had much time to catch up on my homework this week. I have a big assignment due on Tuesday morning, and several discussion posts due on Monday. I have tried working on it all night, but I'm stumped (and therefore blogging! Haha!) so I'm feeling overwhelmed right now. Am I going to be able to get it done in time? I sure hope so! I have so many ideas for what I'd like to do, I just don't know how to execute them most efficiently. The program we're learning, InDesign from Adobe, is so easy, yet so time-consuming, and that is so frustrating for this project. It's especially frustrating for me as I try to balance my time between tending to two sick and needy boys, do daily household tasks and my school with the holiday (and unexpected events) in between. *whew!*
There is my little... er, long?...update for the time being. I hope I'll have a bit of time this weekend to read and comment on other blogs, but forgive me if I don't get around to it until the beginning of next week sometime. Family first, as you all know. :) And I hope *your* family is happy, and healthy and had a wonderful holiday! See you soon...

Middle Name Meme

Rachel passed this one my way. :") It looks pretty interesting, so I'll give it a try!

Here are the rules:
1. You have to post these rules before you give the facts.
2. Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
3. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog-post containing your own middle name game facts.
4. At the end of your blog-post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

For privacy reasons I'm going to use a middle name that I loved and wanted to give to a daughter if we had had one. As you may know, we don't have any girls and can't have any more children, so on we go! (I wanted to use the name Maiteley Ruth for a girl, btw.)

R - Rebellious! Recluse! Radiant! Oh, there are so many descriptive R words for me.
U - Ultimately a lost cause. You don't try to help me unless I come asking or else there will be a big mess. Bwahaha! People most close to me call me needy, confused, high maintenance, etc. and since I believe I am no more these things than anyone else, there's no point in trying to change my mind for me. ;) It just won't happen. I guess that means I'm a stubborn lost cause, huh?
T - Taking on more than I can handle is probably one of my biggest and most often made mistakes.
H - Handsom, heroic, hilarious are all words that describe my Husband, through my own eyes! I am so lucky to have him in my life.

A few people came to mind when I saw this, thinking I would love to know what their middles names are and what little facts they can come up with about themselves. So here we are, I choose to tag the following:
Ellie
Julie
Liz
Sheila
Enjoy, ladies!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

As noted, my husband and I did the drawing last night for the winners of my Thanksgiving Give-Away. I really wish that I could've been able to give something to EVERYONE who entered, your tiny contribution, just a simple comment, meant so much to me! :) Alas, I can't, but I thank you anyway for entering the contest and making it a fun experience.

So who might the lucky winners be? Well, after submitting everyone's name and multiples for some people (Thanks for the promotion! You guys are AWESOME!), the random generator selected none other than my good friend ELLIE for the first gift package! She has been a friend of mine for years and is such a sweet, inspiring woman. If you use Yahoo! 360, consider adding her to your friends list (her ID is eternaljoy4u). The second person generated for the additional gift package was Abookworm of A Book Blogger's Diary! She also mentions great book contests and giveaways there on her own site, so check it out.

Congratulations ladies, and thanks again to everyone who participated! It is really fun to give a few gifts away on my birthday - that is a gift to me in and of itself! I am already setting up a new giveaway to be held the first week of December, so be sure to visit Tattered Too again soon!

Thanksgiving Give-Away at Tattered Too!

Yikes! We had a family emergency the beginning of this week, so I wasn't able to set up my giveaway on Monday as I had planned. Sorry about that! Things are slowly getting back on track here at home though, and one of the worst feelings is feeling flakey, so on we go!

Originally I wanted to name my give-away something fun and catchy, but for the life of me I couldn't come up with anything. This is when I confronted Bruce, and he suggested, "TabiTina's Turkey-Time Blog Extravaganza!" It has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? Yeah, doesn't quite fit, though. ;) Sorry, hun! So, we'll stick with the dull and boring "Thanksgiving Give-Away at Tattered Too!"

Rather than having a whole week to enter the contest to win and having time to contact the winners -- that's right, plural! -- I'll have to shorten the contest. You can begin entering this contest as soon as this blog entry is posted, and all you have to do is submit a comment to THIS entry and make sure you leave your email address so that I can contact you! That's it. Pretty easy, huh? You have until Friday evening to post your comment (that's only two days - I'll do the drawing at 8pm MST), and I will use random.org to choose TWO winners to recieve a Thanksgiving Gift Package, which I will share photos and a description of here in a bit. If you happen to win the contest, I will contact via email immediately after your name is drawn to ask for your mailing address. Should you win, I need you to respond to that email by 11am MST on Saturday (the 17th - this gives you just over 12 hours to respond) with your mailing address. I will be sending out both winning gift packages the same day! If I do not hear from the winner by 11am on Saturday, I'll have to pass the luck on to someone else who can hopefully respond in a timely manner so the package can be sent to them alternatively. In other words, check your email on Friday night and first thing Saturday morning to see if you've won!

Now, why the rush? Well, I would really like the winners to receive their gift packages before Thanksgiving Day, and I am hoping that shipping the boxes priority on Saturday will still allow for just that. Thanksgiving is in my top 3, if not my FAVORITE holiday. Come on, what's better than a huge home-cooked meal that is dressed up and shared with family and friends? Very little, I say, so few things can add to the holiday than dressing it up a little bit more with some decorations and taking the time to indulge in little treats amidst all of the work of prepping prior to the feast and the clean-up afterwards. So here is what is included in your Thanksgiving Gift Package from Tattered Too to help you with that:

• One glazed, ceramic decorative dish in the shape of a pumpkin, featuring a lid with a stunning bronze glazed stem and leaves. I couldn't resist these gems, they were so cute and just yell "IT'S FALL!!" don't they?
  
• Filling the pumpkin dish are two bags worth of individually wrapped Dove chocolates. They are some of the best little treats ever, and have sweet inspirational thoughts inside each wrapper. Some of my favorites, really! Dove chocolates are so good, I love to sneak a few for myself now and then, but because of my delight in them I love to share them with others even more.
  
• A personal notebook with elastic closure from the UCreate's Simply Silhouette line. Each package has one chic, little notebook in either metallic tan or minty green. Writing little notes to leave for my loved ones is one of my favorite ways to surprise them and let them know that I think of them often, so I always grab notebooks like these to use when I feel so impressed to.
• Two vanilla-scented pillar candles in different sizes. Candles always bring a feeling of 'home' to any atmosphere, and a warm, delicious scent is the best way to go if you ask me! I love, love, love scented candles!
• A can of Stephen's Gourmet French Vanilla Hot Cocoa. If you haven't heard of Stephen's Gourmet Hot Cocoa (which was founded here in Utah but sold all over the world!), you must be hiding under a rock AND you're missing out! This stuff is delish. Mmm, I have to have Stephen's Gourmet Hot Cocoa every fall and winter! Hazelnut is my favorite, but French Vanilla and Mint are close runners up.
• Last but not least, 5 packets of Alpine Apple Cider. Yum! I love hot apple cider! There is nothing like hot apple cider with pomanders and cinnamon sticks simmering on the stove, but Alpine is a great instant treat for those occasional cravings for sweet cider in a mug that warms your frozen fingers.

I may or may not throw in a few other little things, it all depends on how much time I end up with after all of the schoolwork I need to catch up on, but this is the jist of what the gift packages consist of. They are all things that I, myself, would enjoy, so I hope that whomever wins these will enjoy them as well.

Now remember, leave one comment with your email address here on this blog entry for your chance to enter the contest. If you would like to have your name entered twice you can write a blog entry linking back to this blog entry about The Thanksgiving Give-Away at Tattered Too, (please let me know in your comment if you do this so I can check it out!) and be sure to mention the deadline of Friday at 8pm MST. For a third entrance, you can also add a button to your site linking back to this blog. You can find the button to my site at the very bottom of the left sidebar. Simply right click, save, upload to your photo hosting service and link back to TatteredToo.com/unchained.html! (If you don't understand how to do this, feel free to email me or post a comment asking for step by step instructions and I will email you back as soon as I can.) Although you can have your name in the drawings up to three times, you may only win once. Having your name in the drawing 2 or 3 times as opposed to only once ups your chances at winning one of the two Gift Packages.

I have been so excited to host my own blog give-away, especially after winning Sheila's Give-away of a new edition copy of The Jungle Book. We absolutely loved that movie and it was a real treat around here. If this goes well, I will consider hosting a blog give-away once a quarter or so! I hope you enjoy, and best of luck to each of you who enter!

A Taste of Humor From My Home

My husband has the best sense of humor of anyone I know, and that is a quality that I really admire about him. He loves to make other people laugh, and that makes us a perfect fit because *I* love to laugh!
If you've been to my blog before you may already know that my husband has his own blog, in which he shares little bits of his day and thoughts that he has, things about work, but mostly his sense of humor shines through it all. With his permission, here is an entry from his blog, and if you like it, consider visiting there again once in a while. You can find his blog here, and from my blog you can click his name under the photo of us together on the right sidebar. The following is a real conversation had between my husband, Bruce, and my now-2-year-old, Hunter.

Dad: Hunter, come here
Hunter: Joos
Dad: Do want something to drink?
Hunter: Joos
Dad: Would you like some juice?
Hunter: Joos
Dad: You just going to keep saying juice?
Hunter: Joos
Dad: Hmmm
Dad: What do they call OJ Simpson
Hunter: Joos
Dad: Who did Moses lead in the desert?
Hunter: Joos
Dad: hahahahaha
Hunter:...

And here is another blog entry from Bruce, with a conversation between he and our 3 year old, Troy, after we went camping this summer.

Dad: Did you like going camping?
Troy: Yeah
Dad: What did you do?
Troy: I help make fire
Dad: Where did you sleep?
Troy: I sleep tent
Dad: What did you have for dinner?
Troy: Hot dogs, Chips, Beans
Dad: Did you go fishing
Troy: Dad go fishing
Dad: Do you want to go camping again?
Troy: Yeah, sleep tent and fire too

---

I also wanted to mention that tomorrow I will be hosting my very first Blog Give-Away! Be sure to check back here again and enter for your chance to win some Thanksgiving Gifts. There will be TWO Thanksgiving Gift Packages given away to up your chances at winning... but more details to come tomorrow, so get ready, get excited, and share the news!

Odd Admittance

Yes, I've been tagged with the SEVEN Things About Me Meme. Odd things, things you might not have known. Who bestowed this upon me, you ask? None other than Rachel, the sweet southern belle I met on Maya's Mom, and she's now a Top Momma, too! Very cool, very cool indeed! (If you hop over to Top Momma, find the adorable picture of her blonde princess covered in icing and click it to support her as a Top Momma.) Anyway, seven things about me, you ask? Hmmm... let me do some pondering and I'll throw a few, or a few plus 4 little facts out there.

1) I'm a real princess. Not a fake one, but one of those real ones, like the kind you find on TV. <--- My husband, when I asked what I should begin with, chose this one. From him, word for word (ok, except he said 'you' instead of 'i', but you get me.). It's true. My 3 year old, when asked, "Who is Tina?" rather than saying, "My Mom," will say, "A Printhess." If a three year old says it, it must be true, right?! I swear, I didn't teach him that! (Psst... his dad did. ;)

2) I love to work out. I just don't do it often enough! I thought I'd put this one because we're scheduled to go to the gym in about 15 minutes. We schedule trips to the gym? Yes, yes we do. Why? Because we have kids, and our gym requires appointments for the playroom. Our boys LOVE the gym, too. I suppose that should be motivation enough to go, shouldn't it?

6) I'm a chronic complainer. Yeah, you probably already knew that if you're really close to me, but if you're not, you know it now! It's been proven that if I complain, even about the most minuscule thing, life is comfortable and good. If I accept things as they are, and admit that life is very good, terrible things happen. Bwahahahaha! (Isn't that something like Karma or what not? ;) So that's my true excuse for complaining. I must complain in order to keep the order!

7) I can successfully avoid admitting things by thoroughly confusing people. For example, there is a logical explanation as to why there are only 4 numbers on this list, and yet I've admitted 7 things to you already. I could explain the logic behind it, but of course, that would confuse you, so you should probably just accept this as truth.

Time for the gym! Bye. :")

A New Facial Medium

How often do we look in the mirror and have with ourselves an inner conflict about our appearances? I won't deny that I have, but as of late, I don't do so as much. Contentment and serenity is such priority in my life now, and how others view me isn't as important as it once used to be. Having said that, I can't truthfully say that I know my own face. If someone were to take plaster molds of 4 other average women's faces and mine as well, I don't feel confident enough to say that I could pick mine out easily. A photo, sure, I could pick myself out, but there is so much more depth than a photo often shows. Thoughts and emotions can be facially expressed, but there are also thoughts and emotions hidden behind each unique feature. Some people hate their noses, their ears and their crow's feet. Some like their dimples, their eyes and their cheek bones. As different as our individual features are, so are our emotions behind them.

This week's Wrapped Emotions prompt is to Re-create Your Face. (Please follow the links to learn about the Prompt of the week and see other beautiful contributions.) My Mac isn't connected to our printer, so rather than printing out a photo and drawing on it to scan back in, I took an iSight photo, lowered the saturation and then used the pencil tool to trace my lines and features on the computer. I did the original instruction first, just tracing lines, but as I progressed I wanted to add more to it, so I changed brushes and traced and filled in shadows. As I finished that second portion, the shading, I started to think about the things that I used to really dislike about looks, and moving from one area to the next, I thought about how much I liked or admired the features I inherited, too.

I added one more layer and drew some green and pink areas. The green areas represent features that I like about myself. My lips. My jowls. Yeah, I like my jowls, thank you very much! I've had a few surgeries that, although they weren't supposed to, changed the look of my nose in the slightest of ways. I like how it looks, now, while I didn't like how it looked much while I was growing up. I don't know if the surgeries had anything to do with that, really, but the fact remains that my opinion has changed. My eyes are also green, as is my widow's peak. It's small, but I like it! And things I haven't liked much, like my chin, I've come to accept are parts of who I am, and I can like them or dislike them to any extent, but I wouldn't want to change them because that simply wouldn't be me. These things are in peach. Again, my chin. My temples, my frizzy hair, the circles under my eyes. I've have not dwelt on why I don't like these features much, because mostly they are irrational, but partially because I just don't care much that I have undesirable features anymore. I like how I look, even when I don't look my best. I think, most of all, I like my face now, and even more after having done this prompt, because I am more accepting of myself than I was previously, too. I don't always have to find faults and flaws in myself or in others, whether it be physical or non-physical, and I think people do that all too often. I am so very happy, and above all, so very grateful, that I am where I am at in my life right now. I can put a finger to my cheek and like what I feel, and I can smile and feel like it does indeed make things a little brighter in my life.

I'm so glad that I took time to reflect upon my face today, and wrap my emotions around what I saw there. (PS - I'm 21. ;)