List: What Is Mandy Up To? (July 2017)

I know it's only been six or so months since my last Up To, but a lot has changed / happened so LET'S GET INTO IT, MY LOVES.

• Obsession: Watching sewing and fashion videos on YouTube.  I've been wanting to learn to sew and *attempt* to alter my own clothes from thrifted items, but all I can muster in the motivation department is learning by viewing.  I'm currently binge watching through a bunch of sewing DIYs and thrifted items transformed or altered to something custom and/or silly.  My dad makes costumes as part of his living as an artist and my grandmother has always been crafty, so WHY have I not learned the basics at least in sewing by now - at twenty-seven years of age?!  Looking into a sewing class as a girl's day event ASAP.

List: 5 Things I Do Every Day

My day to day activities are not extravagant or at all blog-worthy, but the ones I like to keep up with every day keep me moving forward towards the positive.  If I do these productive, routine things on a regular basis, I feel less like a lazy, garbage person and somewhat closer to the concept of an "adult."  Here are five things I tend to do (mostly) every day (on an average day), excluding the usual eat, sleep, work, etc boring stuff:

Bullet journal.  Logging my life through journaling and other methods used to feel like a chore and unnecessary burden, until I color code my days/weeks/months and any little detail I want to display using the bullet journal method.  (I post more about it on my Thinks blog, so if you want to read me rambling on at how fun and amazing bullet journaling is, go there.)

List: What Mandy Loves About Sleep

I only subscribe to two "addictions" in life: sugar and sleep.  I'll drink iced tea all day every day or migraines come as punishment for thinning my body's sugar resource.  Sleep is my escape that takes me away from the world and recharges my body and mind.  There's nothing like getting cozy under sheets and blankets with your memory foam pillow and just turning yourself off from life.  Here's what I love about sleep:

• I get to do it every damn day.  It may seem forced to do so because it's what my body needs to pff, "sustain life" and all, but it will never stop feeling like a privilege to me.

List: Mandy's Favorite Makeup Look

I'm not an authority on makeup whatsoever.  My mom has always rarely wore makeup, so my growing self would pick and choose what I thought I'd like from friends or the dreaded media, and it's caught up with me now.

It's either getting older and not caring anymore or being accustomed to my broke self, but I don't do much with the stuff anymore.  I'm beautiful as I am, but I can flaunt a few of my natural features when I wanna.  I know what works for me in my laziness and basic portrayal of my "best face."

Excluding naming each product I use, here's a list of my favorite makeup items for an everyday look:

Finds & Treasures: Bulbasaur Figurines

Thanks to the smash nerd takeover of last summer's Pokémon Go app, I have fully embraced my love for Bulbasaur as the best Pokémon there is and ever was.  I'm only a bandwangoner of the Poké-verse with my superficial bias towards cuteness over anything else, so go ahead and judge.  I'll be over here with my Bulba's having a grand ol' time catching as many pocket monsters as I can.

The boyfriend, who is a huge Pikachu fan boy from the start of Pokémon in the ninties, has noticed my newest obsession and has found two cute little figurines for me so far while finding little Pikachu's for himself.  The tiny vinyl one rests on my desk (as shown in my Totoro post in the background) but has a vacation home in my purse to occasionally be everywhere with me.  Boyfriend's latest purchase who has taken residency on a stack of books is the 3D printed one!  How rad, right?

DIY "Pixel Pansy" Granny Square Blanket (plus free pattern!)

One thing I can never have is too many blankets.  I'm always cold and swap out my style so much that I like having so many options available to me to be cozy and colorful in my home.  Since I started learning crochet, there has been one project I've wanted to start and that's a simple blanket I can customize.

One Pinterst browsing session a few years ago sparked my interest in a possible blanket idea.  I set up my own pattern spreadsheet and used a few techniques along the way that turned this idea into a two year blanket project I recently finished.  The blanket itself cost more than I usually pay for a blanket because of all the yarn I had to get to finish it (underestimating is one of my unfortunate specialties), but it turned out looking SO GOOD and was so much fun to make that I consider the cost well worth it.  Each granny square based on my pattern took about 20 minutes to make, and each completed row took at least an hour to join, so that's why it took me two years on and off to finish this bad boy.

If you're up for a blanket project that's custom to your style and skill level, I hope this DIY is inspirational to you.  Here's how I made this pixel pansy flower granny square blanket:

Finds & Treasures: Totoro Music Box

Anime is not usually my thing, but My Neighbor Totoro is one of my favorite animated movies.  The loveable, fuzzy creatures and plot all about family love stuck with me all these years.  I hadn't watched it since I was a kid and kept meaning to revisit it until last month.  Some sad news in my life gave my boyfriend an idea to watch it.  It made me feel loads better and he got to see it for the first time.

Fast forward to Christmas and what did he get me?  A moving music box thing of Totoro!  Wind it up for the theme song while the pulley mechanism moves Totoro's umbrella and some characters around in the clear cylinder.  I guess you could call it a music box, but it doesn't hold anything.  (There are other versions of it in other Studio Ghibli projects, too if you search Amazon or eBay.)

List: What Is Mandy Up To? (January 2017)

I'm starting a new year off with an Up To.

• Obsession: Back to Pokemon Go, I have no shame.  Most of my birthday, the boyfriend and I walked around a park near his house just to catch as many Squirtles as we could.  I may explore my neighborhood again for more of these little pocket monsters (especially since Bulbasaurs, my favorite, are popping up everywhere!)

• Joy: Setting up a new bullet journal!  My 2016 one was a good stab at the system for my noob status, but this year I'm going the *full custom route* in a blank notebook instead of a store-bought planner setup.  I've found a layout that I think will work great, the color system is better, and I'm tracking more of what I am willing to track instead of forgetting / overwhelming myself with last year's attempts.
  
  

List: What Mandy Loves About Bullet Journaling

Bullet Journaling has taken over the Internet for those who love logging their life in cutesy ways using old-school pen and paper.  I'm one of those suckers who jumped right in and NOW I'M OBSESSED.  I use the techniques in a personal planner with colored-coded awesomeness, and use it with work for logging to-dos and meeting notes.  I'm even getting inspired to journal more (even if it's not happening technically yet, sure - the inspiration is there).

Since I can't stop / won't stop making my pseudo bullet journal the best it can be and soaking in all the tips all over the Pinterests and blogs and Googles, I must chime in with a list of what I love about it for the record:

List: What Is Mandy Up To (May 2016)

The past few months have had a few big changes, so might as well get 'em out in an Up To:

• Obsession: Puzzles!  Kid Mandy was obsessed with em, the more complex the better.  Scott (the boyfriend - see the Hope bullet) mentioned there was a puzzle in his office break room that reminded him how fun puzzles are, and I gasp "I have ONE puzzle!  LET'S DO THIS."  Several puzzles and multiple shopping trips later, our obsession can't stop, won't stop.

Finds & Treasures: Mutemath Band Tank

For those who know me, Mutemath is the exception to every rule.  They have a show in the Bay Area?  I'm going even if I need to sell a kidney to get tickets.  I normally dislike band tattoos or lyric ones in general, but I have one Mutemath tattoo of my own with at least two on the way.  I'll wear their merch out to other concerts even though I don't like when other people wear merch from other bands at shows (it's like those who wear jerseys of other teams at a sporting event - we get it, you like sports, but why!)  It's safe to say I'll always be an Odd Soul.

The boys are back on a regular tour schedule with fresh, new material that hasn't been seen since 2011 and I'm STOKED.  I saw their pre Vitals tour of last year and snagged this tank top from the merch table the second I got in the door.

List: What Mandy Loves About Exercise

I grew up with a mom who always went to the gym five to six days a week (and still does).  Kid Mandy, who has only had ONE year of P.E thanks to band and musical theater credits, would occasionally go with her when I would otherwise sit on my butt - then go back to sitting on my butt.  Most of the time, I was the '90s kid who USED to be active to mostly chase bugs, but would rather sit on my butt and waste this long-legged body on sedentary hobbies.

Now I'm supposed to be an adult who eats right, exercises, and can take care of myself, blah blah blah, right?  In reality, I keep the relatively same body I've had since high school by taking semi-regular walks and fasting accidentally more than purposely eating healthy.  I have access to a gym I'll occasionally go to and stick with for a few months, give up and eat pizza, repeat.  It's a cycle I've accepted of myself until I find that adult motivation, or I won't and that's fine.

When I DO embark in purposeful movement for healthy reasons, here are the few things I actually love about exercise:

Finds & Treasures: Red Candle Warmer

Ringing in a new season always meant lighting a new candle for me.  Currently, I'm breaking this personal tradition to use as much as I can of my roommate's neglected collection of candles.  Most to save money / the scents he has don't make my head explode (curse you frilly scents that seem fine til they give me a headache seconds later - boo).

I've never known a candle I couldn't use every drop of wax from using a candle warmer.  My previous one was electric and took a god-awful amount of time to warm up, so I've been on the lookout for a new tea-light-powered warmer to burn my stache of wax cubes (stored in ice trays - genius).  I've found a few tiny ones that were fine, but they were always shallow, couldn't take much wax at a time.

List: What Mandy Loves About Live Music

Scott's and my ears have been busy with shows since our first one together in October, and there's plenty more to come.  My third Mutemath show happened this weekend (featured in this pic, of course), Megadeth was this past Monday, Nightwish is this coming Friday, Disturbed after that is the following Wednesday (my teenage self cannot believe it), Fall Out Boy is on Easter Sunday, and don't get me started on April.  For someone who had only seen three live shows in a lifetime at this time last year, it's been a CRAZY year for these ears (at eleven and counting).  Good thing I found these fancy earplugs, or acoustic filters, so we can still hear like normal human beings.

I've caught the live music bug, that's an understatement.  Here's what I love about going to concerts / shows / live music / whatever you want to call it:

Tip #31: Store Candle Wax in Ice Trays

I cut my candle budget down to mostly zero, partly because my roommate already has a few he let me steal.  He has a bunch of nature and pine scents, holiday ones, and basic simple scents - all rarely used.  One, in particular, was a big candle with a tiny wick that would always burn out too fast with too much wax left over.  So what did I do with all this great scent that would otherwise go to waste?

Break apart chunks of scented candle wax and store them into thrifted ice cube trays!  

Each square is the perfect size to put into a candle warmer to get the greatest use out of the scent.  The trays are washable so once you run out of that wax you can wash them out and put in new wax with a different scent.

I have two of these trays stacked together in a closet so I can pop out equally portioned candle wax into my candle warmer at the ready.  Genius, right?

I've seen others store candle wax in candy molds or other silicone shape trays not just for ice to store them in cute shapes, too!   How have you used / stored excess candle wax?  Let me know in the comments!

Finds & Treasures: Fabric Jewelry Box

Hanging jewelry in any decorative fashion doesn't work with a despicable feline who thinks anything long and circular is his to destroy.  I was running out of high places to hang things in the No Jimmy Zone, so this find at my thrift shop down the street solved my first world problem marvelously.  Until my Jimmy ascends to the big cardboard box in the sky, I think I'll have to avoid displaying jewelry... or not wear jewelry at all.  NOPE, back to jewelry boxes, I go.

I haven't used a jewelry box since I revampted this one for smaller items.  This bigger one is the kind of thing my grandmother would own - fabric-covered with a mirror and two levels inside for necklaces, bracelets, rings, and other accessories.

List: What Mandy Loves About Minimalism

I discovered back in 2013 the concept of minimalism, ie pairing down the unnecessary in your life to focus on what truly matters.  I've embraced the principles in logical respect (getting rid of the clutter, shopping less, etc), but haven't fully yet in true execution (ahem, you see all the stuff I have on this blog alone, excluding what's in my house and life).

I'm excited to accelerate my minimalistic momentum this month, so I thought I'd do a not-so-minimal list for it!  These are the things I love thus far about the concept of minimalism:

Tip #30: Leave Out A Dream List

Internal motivation is something I struggle with when only my personal gain is at stake. I tend to question everything, wondering what the point really is if it's just me to disappoint (and I'm a very forgiving individual).

I've tried those "hang in there" inspirational posters and quotes as nice reminders, but they don't do much to push me. I liked the concept though, but I noticed I need to customize my own external motivation in a different way.

Leave a "dream list" where you can see it daily for constant motivation towards your goals.

The image below is out for the start of 2016, hung up on my bathroom door at eye level. The physical reminder of what my life could be like if I just - like Britney says - "WORK, bitch!" is just the kick I need.

Finds & Treasures: THE LIST Notepad

A self-described List Queen such as myself takes list-taking very seriously.  Any method to jot down quick notes to logging long-term projects / goals / etc is right up my alley.  Stationary and office supply sections in stores are a hotbed of activity when I feel like wasting money on the latest paper product that I'll pile up for my ongoing list obsession.  The Bullet Journal craze of recent Pinteresters and other crafty time-wasters on the Interwebs inspired me to check out planners recently when I saw this beast of a paper pad.

THE LIST, it proclaims, with check boxes built in and easy-tear sheets stacked so high.  It's heavier than it looks, about as big as an iPad Mini, and whispered to my List Queen core to "take me home."  I couldn't resist.

List: What Mandy Loves About Tattoos

If you squint and tilt your head to the side a bit looking at the picture to the right, you'll see I currently have ONE tattoo - in my ear.  It's an omage to my hippie-kid self and an obvious love of peace and tranquility and all that junk, but it's also in a neat spot and easy to hide with hair.

My love for tattoos has grown since that day after my 18th birthday when I was FINALLY able to get one of my own.  I have plans for several more, even promising my 30-year-old self she'd have at least SIX by that birthday.  I need to catch up!

There are a lot of things most do not like about tattoos (pain, commitment, money, etc), but I love it all.  Here's more specifically what I love about tattoos: