Saintly St. Ana

I tried to make the title cute so this post wouldn't be a total bummer... Did it work? Before I get started I posted the video that inspired this post below. I happened to stumble upon it after watching several of her makeup tutorials (my youtube guilty pleasure). It's nice when these things end up finding you. I was able to relate to a lot of her thoughts on "deleting the bad" and trying to explain anxiety to others. Even if you don't want to watch this specific video, or don't want to read the rest of this blog post, her makeup tutorials are fun and cute and cool!  Okay, let's get into it: A couple of months ago I decided to switch antidepressants for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I felt them interfering with my libido. Like seriously, what a bummer. I was finally feeling okay-ish about life again, but I felt like my relationship with my significant other was different and not in a good way. It took me a while to figure out why I was feel...

If you've read my last couple of posts you know that I've been busy putting together a zine for the ABQ Zine Fest which was just this past weekend!  The final product along side our custom pins! We ended up pulling together a pretty good variety of work to put into the zine. Early on we decided to keep it purely visual and use as little text as possible. I thought it was a pretty interesting approach considering that most zines I'd seen either had a combination of both text and visuals or just text. I'm not sure if that idea just wasn't as appealing as I thought it would be or if it wasn't the right audience, but we didn't end up selling that many. Initially I was disappointed with the lack of sales, but  it wasn't because I was expecting to make a ton of money.  I was mostly disappointed because it didn't seem to grab people's attention like I thought. I guess some people are just into certain things and you can't really control the w...

One of the craziest things about depression is that it can sneak up on you out of no where.  Last week I was writing a post (obviously unfinished) about how I felt like my mental health was finally on an upswing, but in the blink of an eye I felt like all my progress and confidence were lost. Over the weekend I entered a deep depression and it felt worse than any of my lows in recent memory. It was triggered by a rather insignificant event and instead of being able to pull myself up and out of a negative thought process, I was sucked in to a dark place that lasted over a day. It was probably one of the longest and emotionally draining days I'd had in a while. Luckily, I woke up on Monday morning feeling mostly back to my normal self.  I was alone for most of Sunday which was really, really hard. It's hard to come out of something like that when you're physically and/or emotionally alone. In order to keep myself going that day I looked up some ways to help deal with...

We're making a zine! And by "we" I mean my friend, Anne, and I.  There's an annual zine fest in Albuquerque and this year we're going to collaborate and attend! Anne went last year with her own zine and had an awesome time. When I realized that the event was coming up again, it seemed like a good idea to finally attend since I had been meaning to for a while. I was interested in collaborating because I wasn't sure if I could come up with enough content to fill a zine (and keep it engaging) by myself. It's also fun to collaborate in general. I think Anne and I have similar aesthetic interests so it works out well. We're also having other friends contribute so it's going to have lots of different styles and perspectives in it. I'm so excited to be working with friends again. It's something I definitely miss about school. It's easier to get inspired when you have other people's feedback and are able to bounce ideas off each oth...

This is essentially two Weekend Adventures in one because, well, life happens. Last weekend (Labor day weekend) I went to a Purity Ring concert and it was amazing! Definitely exceeded my expectations. They had awesome, over the top lighting that tied the whole experience together. They talk about their show being an experience in  this  interview, plus they play a few songs live and they sound amazing! People love lights, by the way. I really love going to live shows, but I always forget that at larger shows there will always be larger crowds. Seems obvious but for some reason it always takes me by surprise. I always get overwhelmed in those situations but this show was definitely worth enduring it all. Inspired by Purity Ring I also got to go to a very special birthday party last weekend. My friend Beverly came into town and celebrated her daughter's first birthday while they were here! How cuuuuuuuute, right?! Beverly is the first person I've known IRL to ha...

I had one of those weekends where you're too busy doing all the things. I spent a majority of the weekend crashing with one of my oldest friends. Her (new-ish!) fiancé went out of town so she decided to have a girls' weekend at her place. We made cocktails, ate junk food, watched Netflix, slept on an inflatable mattress, and last but not least, listened to a lot of Selena. Like for real, we love Selena. These are things we've been doing since we were in elementary school (minus the cocktails and Netflix for obvious reasons) and it was fun to get to 'relive' those old memories!  Anything for Selenas An old friend of mine happened to be visiting this weekend so I also got to spend some time with him. He moved to Albuquerque for college and is now running for city council there! He's one of the most dedicated and driven people I know. I guess you kinda have to be if you're running for public office in your early twenties!  Salsa Fest was also this ...

Art is never finished, only abandoned. —Leonard0 da Vinci Yeah yeah Leo, I get it. I remember a professor quoted this to me once and I like barfed in my mouth. Who quotes Leonardo da Vinci in an intro level art class? Like who are you??? Well now I'm quoting it at you. It's probably one of the cheesiest things I've ever heard related to creativity (there's a lot of that ish out there), but now I know it's sooooooo true! I feel like every one has looked back at a piece of work and thought to themselves 'I wish I would have done that differently' or at least wondered what else it could have turned out like. Hindsight is always 20/20, isn't it? I was always under the impression that those tendencies were those of a perfectionist. But I don't think I am a perfectionist, at least when it comes to most things. I stumbled upon this post that led me to the conclusion that, "m aybe creativity is the  act of embracing perennially unfinished ...