Love, Lydia - Notes from a geeky, plus sized artist.: blogging
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blogging. Show all posts

Saturday, October 21, 2017

Coming Back to Life

Hey friends,

It's been a really long time, hasn't it?  Sorry about that, but I've been going through a lot this past year and it's left me unable to deal with a lot of things the way I'd like to, or how a normal person would, much less keep up with a rigid schedule of blogs, social media, and videos.  And I've learned a lot from the experience and wanted to share some of what I've gone through and catch up with you all.

So this time last fall I was starting to feel symptoms of anxiety, I didn't know that's what it was at the time, but I did get around to realizing it in the past few months.  Mostly this left me feeling like I couldn't handle much socially whether that be in person, returning messages to many dear friends, or writing blog posts or doing other things I love.  Some of that's depression too, and as Bryan has said to me before, sometimes it's hard to tell where depression stops and another issue like anxiety pops up.  I thought the anxiety was mostly a side effect from depression, and I tried to do the best I could.  However I found it harder to keep up with everything as the holidays came closer and I started retreating more often.

The same time as all this was going on Bryan and I had been trying to have a baby for about 3 and a half years, completely unsuccessfully.  It had been taking a toll on our relationship and how confident I felt about myself after so much of what is perceived by society as failures.  We'd done tests, tried some medications, and more and nothing helped.  We finally got to a point where we talked to family members about it some and started to talk seriously about adopting while we hadn't quite stopped trying either.  To us it makes more sense to adopt than pouring a lot of money into something like in-vitro fertilization or other techniques which disrupt your life and procedures and hormonal nightmares while still offering no guarantees.  4 years of trying leaves you very stressed and discouraged.  It's enough to cause depression by itself, so in some ways I'm not surprised a bit that I was having trouble.

After the new year started Bryan and I finally had a good talk about things, with lots of tears and coming to a better understanding of how we both felt let down, pressured, and unhappy with each other and the silent expectation we thought we had to live up to, but never feeling like we could acknowledge it properly.  After that conversation we knew it was time to stop trying.  I'd dealt with a lot of pain each month from my periods and was very glad to go back on birth control to manage it.  I've looked into it as we had all the tests for fertility done, and there's a decent possibility the pain is caused by endometriosis, but there's no way to know for sure without surgery.  My doctor doesn't want to resort to that without better reasons than we currently have, which were mostly unexplained infertility and enough pain that I had to go on birth control back in college because otherwise I'd miss classes regularly since no pain killers can help on my worst days.

Around the same time I'd had my yearly physical and had my blood glucose test come back in the pre-diabetic range.  I'd not worried about this too much in the past, but with all the was going on I had gained some weight over the holidays and wasn't in a great place.  I was told to try to be more healthy, and come back for follow up tests in a month or two to assess whether the blood glucose reading was an anomaly or something to worry about.  In some ways this was a wake up call since I do have a family history of diabetes.  Somewhere between the two visits I made the decision that I wanted to be healthier, and was serious about it.

That spring proved to be a very hard time though, and while I did get healthier metabolically I also got sick a lot, several times with stomach bugs, plus the normal cold or two, and between it all I threw my back out horribly.  I didn't really recover from it until mid April, but during that time I did start walking more, because that would help with my back some.  I honestly got so little done at home during that time that it left me feeling very guilty, and I backed away further from friends as I found sitting up to use a computer hurt.  I had started back on birth control in February and found it lifted a lot of my depression, though I still have the occasional bad day it's much less often.  And when I went back for follow up testing things were better!  I had started to change how I thought about eating and pay more attention to my eating habits in general so I'd be more sensible and balanced.

The summer was a bit of a mixed bag as I tried to find some balance between the healthy habits I was trying to make, more going on with family, and trying to deal with things around the house again and contemplating art again after depression led me to abandon it for several years.  Often I felt like I'd take two steps forward and one step back, but things were slowly getting better.

As fall has started I've been dipping my toe into a lot of things, remaking habits to create, socialize, and hopefully run my business again.  I've been doing it all with a much different approach than before, where I tried to do too much, imposing perfectionistic ideals that led to cycles of failure, depression, and self sabotage.  Now when I start something I ask myself a lot more questions about the process with the thought of making sustainable habits, and making myself healthier mentally along the way.

You're probably thinking that's a lot of mental health jargon and not a lot of concrete goals.  But it's been helping me.  I've been tackling the Inktober challenge; it's a trend that started for artists to create an ink drawing each day for the month of October.  I've been taking it with a more forgiving attitude, allowing myself to take more time on some pieces, and get caught up on others.  And sharing these pieces has been getting me back into talking and posting on social media, as well as working on refreshing my Etsy shop to include the new pieces and put more polish on what's already there.  Once I get through with Inktober I'll be working on serious pieces more often too.  Right now I've got one watercolor going to get back into practice.  I do have to admit that putting things down for so long has left me rusty.  On the flip side starting over has given me new ideas and left me feeling more refreshed in many ways than I have in a long time.  I kind of wonder now if what made me stop wasn't just depression, but a bit of burnout too.  In any case, it's good to be back.

I'm not quite sure what that means for what I'll be writing here on the blog, but I hope you'll stick with me as I try to find out.  I know two things though, first off I want to work on projects that leave me feeling satisfied, maybe that means I'll write about fashion some, or art more, or subscription boxes sometimes, I'm almost sure I'll write about books, and probably a lot more.  That overall leads me to my number  two...

Coming Back to Life, David Bowie Quote, love lydia, lydia dickson, lydiasdesigns, etsy shop, etsy artist, artist blog, depression blog,coming back to social media

Thanks for reading everyone, and until next time.


Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Where am I? And "Sister, Spy" Book Review

Hi friends!


I know I haven't been around much lately, and I wanted to give you an update as to why.  For the first time in what feels like a long time many of the reasons are good.  And I'm happy to share some great things on the horizon too!



Where I've Been...

First of all May kept me busy, I've been in a great group coaching course called the Own It Academy, led by Jessica Rasdall (She's amazing!  Her story is unique and moving; definitely check her out if you want to learn how to convey your stories to folks!).  The class has been a fantastic experience that's had me writing away as I learn more about how to tell my story to you all.  The idea behind the course is boldly owning up to your story for the world to see and telling it effectively, so your audience can be encouraged, learn from what you have to say, and understand what it's like to be you.   We're about 2/3 of the way through the course now and along the way I realized the writing I've been doing there has honestly sapped away at my creative energy for posts.  So I'm sorry I haven't been around as much as I usually am, but I'm happy to be learning a lot, which I'm excited to start sharing with you all.

One of the biggest things I've discovered is how I've been looking for balance in my life and failing to find it.  Mostly because I push myself so hard to reach goals that are unrealistic.  I imagine you all can relate, you set great goals that when you look at each one individually seem quite attainable, but when you look at the big picture you realize you're trying too hard to be superwoman.  Honestly, my goals have been ambitious, and that's not taken into account how I deal with depression or other areas of my life I want to respect.

It's made me re-think my plans and goals for the future.  I'm prioritizing being happier and not being down on myself because I've set a course that's impossible to follow and be healthy.  It means that instead of trying to post 3 times a week I'll try for 1-2 really great quality posts that will help you, my wonderful readers, much more.  I love spending the time to research topics, creating great images, and fully writing out my ideas to give you the best I can.  I'm looking forward to doing more of that.  Right now my biggest problem is that I have loads of great ideas to write about, and have learn to put some of those ideas on the back burner!

Other than that I've been doing a lot with family, like having my parents visit, attending my brother in law Davey's wedding, and spending time with my husband.  I've dealt with a nasty cold, and some other health issues, which are thankfully getting better, though I'll touch on them more in a future post.  And in the past month my husband, Bryan, had been waiting for and finally received notice that the job he'd been contracting for the past 6 months is hiring him as a permanent employee.  We're super thrilled about that and starting to think ahead for some new developments in our personal life related to the increased stability we'll be so lucky to have.


Sister, Spy - Book Review




I love finding new books in a variety of genres, and while normally spy stories aren't my thing the premise of this one captured my interest.  And luckily I was given a copy of it to review by the publisher.  "Sister, Spy" by Menahem Misgav is about a pair of siblings who survived WWII living in monasteries and were recruited by the Soviets to spy for them in the fledgling country of Israel.

The first third of the book starts with a situation where the brother is killed, then we learn more about his family and how they lived the war.  A good amount of the next third of the book is about how he and his sister came to be spies. (Including a chapter on the sister's sexual awakening and subsequent relationships, which was a little graphic for my tastes, with all the parts of the story before it being focused on the family it was a little jarring.)  Finally in the last third of the book we get to see why the brother was killed and what his sister and father will do now that he's gone.

Overall I enjoyed the author's writing style quite a bit and found a fast and engaging read.  Other than the sexual content the only other fault I might have would be with some light mistakes in editing, all homonyms that snuck through the editing process.  I feel like this happens with many recently published books I read, since publishing now relies so heavily on spellcheck as an editing tool.  Perhaps this means I should take up editing?  In any case such a common issue it's hardly worth mentioning if I weren't such a grammar nerd.  I think most people with an interest in Holocaust survivors, spies, or Cold War fiction will enjoy this novel.  Please check it out here on Amazon through this affiliate link.



Coming Soon

More book reviews!

A follow up article with more reviews of LuLaRoe clothing than the popular original post (found here).

About a dozen videos, including lots of unboxings of beauty, geek, craftsy, and food boxes, plus my first fashion review on film!

And last but not least here's a brand new giveaway if you scroll down, because it's been too long since I've had some fun with you all!  Thanks and I'll see you all again very soon.



This giveaway includes a pair of LuLaRoe leggings in size TC (Tall & Curvy, fits sizes 12-24) 3 pairs of owl socks, and 2 pairs of "invisible" or "floating" style cat socks.  The owl and cat socks can be found here (owls) and here (cats) through my Amazon affiliate links.  LuLaRoe clothing is sold through local or online consultants, you can buy leggings through my consultant, Nicole's Facebook group here.  None of the companies involved paid me in any way, I just wanted to share some fun clothing with you all in this month's giveaway, which runs until July 4th!






LuLaRoe Leggings and Cute Sock Giveaway

Monday, January 4, 2016

New Years Resolutions or All The Lists

Hi friends!


It's a brand new year and I'm excited to hit the ground running now that the last Christmas celebrations are completed (The first weekend of January we had an extended family shindig).  In past years I haven't done much in the way of making resolutions, I've never believed in diets or going cold turkey to change your life.  But this year I'm going to try at a couple that I know will make my life better in healthy incremental ways that I wait to keep up for the rest of my life.

New Years Resolutions


  1. Make smaller attainable goals for my life each month, to improve my motivation levels.
  2. Not be discouraged by my failures, but learn from them.  Mostly the not be discouraged part though, 'cause seriously...I fail at my goals so often because life and mental health issues just happen.
  3. Celebrate the good stuff no matter how small, to cultivate gratitude and boost my positive thinking.
  4. Exercise daily, which is a habit I will build gradually.  But eventually I want to have at least 5 minutes and ideally 30 minutes spent doing something that's not sitting on my butt.
  5. Do some of the things I've had my list forever, and by this I mean fun things like that book I've meant to read, tackling Steam games I've had for over a year without trying, and new foods or travel experiences.
To get things started off I'm going to go over some of my January goals here, because writing about them makes me feel more motivated to take them on.

January Goals

  1. Write or post videos here 3 times a week.
  2. Get in exercise 2-3 times a week consistently this month.  Learn to love it along the way.
  3. Play 2 new Steam games, read 5 new books, listen to new music every week.
  4. Do one of those new things every day, because they're fun!
  5. Try cleaning my house for 15 minutes each day.

January Blog Related Goals

I almost didn't share this with you guys, but I feel like it's a really important part of what I'm doing that needs to be seen.  Bloggers work hard too, especially when we're making it our job.  And that's my main goal these days, which is hard sometimes, but all my successes get me excited.  I really want to share that with you all!

  1. Meet my new monthly goal of over 5,000 visitors here.  Last month I was down a bit at 2134, but in November I had 3630.  I can do this!
  2. Post to social media daily and increase followers to the specified numbers - Facebook page 125, Twitter 350, Tsu, empowr, and Instagram 500), and post to YouTube weekly to work my way to 50 subscribers.
  3. Blog about the cool new things I'm trying out.  Seriously, this is the fun part that I get to share with you guys!  Also I want stick with my planned post schedule at least 60% this month.
  4. Contact some companies that I love or want to try out and review them here in partnership posts.
  5. Give my blog a beautiful facelift with the help of some great branding advisors.
Here's a peek at some of the font tests, a bit of which I'm already starting to implement!


This Week's "Menu"

  1. Start the cleaning and exercise routines mentioned above.
  2. Start the post routines on social media.
  3. Plan time for fun new things daily and make it happen.
  4. Write a book review post Wednesday.  (Let's see how I did on my 2015 reading challenge!)
  5. Finish creating my Winter 2016 Capsule Wardrobe. (So excited about this one!)
  6. Prep for and then talk to my branding advisors.
As you can see things are looking good, and I'm hoping for a fantastic year of growth in many areas of my life.  And to top things off, this past week Bryan and I had our third anniversary.  We have yet to really sit down and celebrate it, but we're going to try to do something special soon.  This week we're opting for a normal date night, which I don't mind since we're just getting back into the swing of things after all the busyness of the holidays.

I hope all you readers had a great holiday season, let me know what your resolutions are in comments.  Or better yet tell me how you've been able to keep up with the resolutions you've made in the past!  Tips are always welcome when you're just starting out in any new endeavor.


Happy New Year,