He ate the light...

"He ate the light..." is a quote from the movie "Jaws." Taken completely out of context, this quote could mean just about anything. For me, right now, I'm in this weird place where I'm trying to find my joy again. I feel like I had this light in me, and now it's gone.

Like it got eaten?

It will make sense in a minute...stay with me...

I saw Jaws when I was really much too young to see Jaws. (watching scary movies at an age where I shouldn't' have been watching scary movies was kind of a theme in my house) As a result, growing up, I was pretty sure that sharks existed in any body of water, and were just waiting to kill me. Can't swim in the lake - sharks. Can't go to the pool - sharks. Not going to take a bath because...sharks.

original photo found here

Fast forward to grown-up me and I've figured out that sharks aren't in my bathtub. I also know they aren't really in pools or lakes and the chances of being eaten by a shark in the ocean are pretty slim. That doesn't mean that a small part of my brain doesn't still think that I'm going to get eaten by a shark in a pool, a lake, or an ocean. There is a tiny part of me that is still convinced that I will die by shark.

Given my lifelong fear of being eaten by Jaws, I'm also strangely drawn to the ocean. I'm fascinated by coral reefs. I love the idea of swimming with aquatic life. Sitting by the water brings me more peace than just about anything else in the world.

Emiquon Nature Preserve, where there is so much water and so much peace.

A lot of the jewelry I make is also inspired by water...specifically coral reefs. The more I started researching reefs, the more I realized that I wanted to someday see them in person. Which means that I would have to figure out how to face my very real fear of getting into really deep water...where all the sharks are. So I signed up to get scuba certified.

I had about 50,000 panic attacks in the water but I finished the course and am now certified to go swim around some coral reefs. And Jaws.

The thing is, when I finally got in some deep water, I discovered that the scariest thing about it (for me) was the nothing. The part of the water where you can't see the bottom and you can't see the surface and you can't see into the distance anywhere around you and you're just sitting there...in nothing.

Which is what depression feels like to me. Like nothing. I've cried a LOT in the past few months, but in the worst parts of it, I wasn't crying or sad...I wasn't anything. I was just there. And I wasn't sure why. But I didn't really care. Because there is nothing. And nothing is actually terrifying.

painting by Jessica Mcghee

Sometimes you start wondering what is beyond the nothing. Sharks? Dead bodies? Ghosts? Piranha? (so many scary movies in my life, so many irrational fears)

So, for me, depression with anxiety is kind of like being in the deepest part of water... in the nothing...and then starting to wonder about what's beyond the nothing...and getting really, really freaked out about it.

It's awful. And it isn't rational. And it doesn't matter, because the tiny part of my brain that believes that I will die by shark is really strong for its size. And the rational side of my brain is now constantly in battle with it. The rational side of my brain sets my alarm to get up everyday and face the world. The part where the shark fear lives hits the snooze button because sleep is better than nothing. When I finally do get up, the shark fear part of my brain tries to convince me to stay in, because if I venture beyond the nothing, the sharks will rip me to shreds.

The depression has been easier to fight than the anxiety. Even now, as I write this, I can feel the sharks circling. Today I'm in a good mood, I'm up, I'm working, I'm functioning. But I'm also alone, which feels very, very safe. Because people are sharks, and sharks are terrifying and if I have to get in the water, I'm only going to get in the bathtub because it's super small and I KNOW the sharks can't fit in there.

I'm getting better. After I wrote my last blog, I was overwhelmed with the amount of support and concern and love that I was shown. So overwhelmed that I got even weirder around people because I was already uncomfortable around them, and now I pretty much feel naked. Of course, since I wrote that blog, now most people in my life know about what only a handful of people knew before. And they're understandably concerned. But the thing is, I wouldn't have even been able to write that 2 months ago. I'm being pro-active about this. I'm trying to be realistic. Monday was a great day. Tuesday, not so much. Today is kind of meh, and the fear of sharks is pretty strong. I just tackle each day as it comes and when it's over, it's over. If  I didn't get out of bed all day (like last Thursday), I didn't fail at life. I just had a bad day. 

I have always been a person that tries to find the silver lining in any cloud. I am trying to find the silver lining in this experience, and I believe I am succeeding. When I first realized that my brain was just going to go off and do it's own irrational thing, I didn't want to tell anyone. I felt like it would give people even more to talk about - like, "see? She's crazy. I told you to stay away from her." 

And then I had a good day and I decided to write about it. And opening up about this has prompted other people to share that they deal with a lot of the same things. And it sucks. And it's exhausting. And it's isolating. And embarrassing. And if anything, we should not feel embarrassed by this and we shouldn't feel like we're alone in this battle. We should not be ashamed. 

artist unknown

I do have to say that I am far braver on paper than I am in person. I feel like I am oozing confidence all over this blog post. But in about 3 hours I have to go to work...I have to throw myself into the middle of the ocean, and I am quite sure it's infested with sharks. And I'm terrified. But I'm going to do it and I believe that, eventually...someday...I will again have as much confidence in person as I do on paper. I will get back to the place where I can just enjoy the water, and not be so sure that everything swimming around me is a shark.

Effie Trinket Inspired Party Dress

For Halloween, I found this lavender clown wig in my closet, stuck some holiday decorations in it, covered my face in glitter and wore my birthday dress from the year before...which was actually my wedding dress, re-worked. I don't know what I was trying to be, other than dressed up, but someone decided I was Effie Trinket a la the Hunger Games, so I just went with it. 

I throw a big party every year for my birthday, and always wear something over the top (because why not?). This year I decided to keep the Effie Trinket inspiration going and make a dress inspired by the Capitol City crowd.

On a budget, of course.

I found a deep blue version of this dress at a thrift store for $5.99, with the original tags still on it, marked down from $90.00. (I had pictures of the original dress, but all was lost when my phone exploded)

I bought a bundle of teal holiday poinsettias for $6.50, originally marked at $13.99.

Tulle is basically my favorite party dress accessory ever. Every dress is a party dress with tulle. I bought two rolls, at approximately $2.50 each.

White feather butterflies and glitter teal butterfly floral picks. The butterflies were the most expensive, at about $1 each.

I already had the butterfly punch. The glitter paper cost $1.99 per sheet.

I basically scrunched tulle up and sewed it around the neckline of the dress, making it as poofy as possible. I sewed strips of tulle to the skirt of the dress, making that a little bit poofy, as well.

My sewing skills are terrible. I hot glued the poinsettia leaves, butterflies and floral picks onto the dress, hiding bad sewing and using the tulle to cover the glue marks and anchor everything in. I glued myself to myself approximately 17 times in the process.

I glued the paper butterflies absolutely everywhere.

Glitter, fake eyelashes, fake hair, and more butterflies. I ended up taking the fake hair out - in an outfit that was designed to to be over the top, the fake hair made it TOO over the top.

 More glitter. Our house looks like a glitter bomb exploded, but the dogs are feeling very shiny and pretty.

 My dress held up all night...from posing for pictures at 7 pm....

to dancing on chairs at midnight...

...to floating in cages at 4 am...(???)

The total cost for the dress was just under $40 and almost everything on it can  (and will!) be re-used for other projects. Not a bad life for a party dress, right?

Infusing Positivity Into Everything I do

...or trying, at least. I'm also trying not to pretend everything is perfect all of the time for the sake of marketing my little jewelry company. Sometimes stuff sucks. We should talk about it.


When I was little, I thought that there were 2 kinds of mean people. Little kids who were mean to other little kids, or adults who were mean to little kids. For some reason, I figured that when everybody grew up, they wouldn't be mean to each other because...well, I don't really know why I thought that. I just did.

So it came as a big surprise to me to discover that grown-ups can be bullies. I mean, professional, 40+, "you should totally know better than this" kind of grown-ups.

I know. I'm totally naive.

Anyway, apparently, when you start doing great things (I'm lucky enough to be part of an organization that does really great things!), people feel weirdly threatened by it. And they start being mean. Like - "Mean Girls" high school, Lifetime movie of the week, holy crap I can't believe this is real life kind of mean. And there's all sorts of weird politics involved, and lying and manipulating. For me, there was a lot of crying and beating my head against the wall as the result of this.

And then I had an epiphany. The details of how I finally came upon my epiphany are long and boring and completely uninteresting, but the important thing is, I got to where I needed to be, which is this:

I don't care anymore.

I mean, I don't completely not care, but at the end of the day, I can't control what other people think or do. The kind of people who are comfortable lying and spreading rumors and being manipulative and trying to hurt other people are always going to be like that. Even if I'm a complete asshole, or even if I'm Mother Theresa, people who are jerks are always just going to be jerks.  So while I might be still be bothered by it (like I'm bothered by a fly) I'm not going to be hurt by it anymore. Because flies can't hurt you - they're just really annoying.

I'm not going to let mean people change who I am. I did let it change me for the last 6 months. I let it make me sad and angry and bitter and tired and frustrated and then...

I stopped caring about people who don't care about me. I like who I am. I love my friends and family. I'm surrounded by people who do amazing things every single day. I like them. I care what they think.

I don't care about flies because seriously...so gross. Flies are gross.

Anyway, the moral of the story is this: I'm a good person, surrounded by good people. I have faith in this.

 I love joy. And love. And hope. And kindness. And I deserve those things, and I want to share those things with others. And sometimes I need to be reminded. So much so that I tattooed it on my skin.

A reminder - Be kind to others. Be kind to myself.

Tattoos aren't for everybody, so I made you this bracelet. (I mean - you knew at some point I was going to revert this back to my shop, right?)

Look! You can mix and match! 

Also, listen - I totally photoshopped this picture. I carry some major baggage underneath my eyeballs and I don't really like to show that so I airbrushed it out and made myself look well rested.

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world." ~ Harriet Tubman

(You can have this. I mean - you can buy it, and then it will be yours to have.)

"Let your hopes, not your hurts, shape your future." ~ Robert H. Schuller

I have hope tattooed on my other wrist. I forgot to take a picture. Sorry about that.

And finally, in closing, in the immortal words of Wilson Phillips - someday somebody's gonna make you want to turn around and say goodbye. Until then, baby, are you going to let them hold you down and make you cry? No. You're not. Because you are awesome and things can change, things will go your way, blah blah blah, you know how it goes...

Why Shop Local?

The big cry right now for lots of people is "shop local!" ...but why? If Big Business donates thousands of dollars to a local charity and a small business barely squeaks by but does nothing to contribute to their community, why shop with them over big business? Shopping local is great but it's better when it means something.  I wanted to take this opportunity to tell you the story of my business and the businesses around me and what it means for us when you shop local.

This is The Gaslight, a tavern my husband and I bought 4 years ago. 

It used to be run by drug dealers and murderers until the FBI and the DEA came in and threw everyone in prison. 

 This is 100% true.

It was closed for 8 years after that, until new people came in and tried to start over. It didn't work. The bad element never went away. Drug dealers still wanted to hang out and after a year, it closed. Then somebody else came in and tried it. It didn't work. They kicked out the bad element and there was no one left to buy anything. They closed after 3 months.

My husband and I are apparently crazy, so we thought we'd give it a try.

We decided if it had even a chance of success, we had to change everything and we had to do it with almost no money. Because we're crazy.

We used a lot of blue paint...so we called our bar "Blue."

This is Blue.

Blue has been here for 4 years. My husband and I work almost every night and we don't let drug dealers hang out. Not even in the parking lot.

These are a couple of our customers.  They work for the local public television station.  The guys behind them are from a local church. They just finished a community clean-up because...

If you're going to locate your business in a struggling neighborhood, you should sponsor clean-ups. So we do. Every month, April through October.

We were incredibly excited when the guys from Excel and Urban Artifacts decided to take an old boarded up building down the street...

And convert it into retail shops, artist studios and two art galleries...

I liked this idea so much, that later on I decided to locate my own store right here!

My husband liked it so much that he decided to locate James McGhee Photography here:

Urban Artifacts and Excel decided to give us money to help with the neighborhood clean-ups. With more neighbors and more financial support we decided to take an empty lot...

And start a community garden.

When a business that had been here forever decided to close, we were disheartened.  Until somebody came in and opened the amazing Broken Tree Coffee in it's place! 

This is a mural in progress on Broken Tree's outside wall...The owner works on this in between running his shop, being a father and husband and helping out with the community garden and neighborhood clean-ups.

Meanwhile, across the street, we were looking at this...

Which was pretty depressing...

Until...

The Main Statement opened! Owned by a young couple with a brand new baby, they carry work from a large variety of local artists and help out with neighborhood clean-ups and the community garden.

Do you know what would be really great next to The Main Statement? An artist studio and gallery....so Russ Joseph opened one...

He keeps late hours and is helping us form a neighborhood watch program. His gallery compliments the already existing Backspace Collective, a "space for contemporary art and ideas."

In the meantime, the local karaoke bar shut down, leaving an empty storefront in the middle of all of our hard work....

Until....

Pitch Karaoke opened! The guys from Pitch not only help out with the clean-ups and the garden, but they also raise money for cystic fibrosis and the local humane society!

With more and more businesses coming into the area, we took on a couple more projects...

 This corner needed some work...

So we're working on it...a little bit at a time...

These planters always end up neglected...

So we clean them up...

The more we all do, the more people seem to want to be a part of it...

Like Jessica Ball, from The Art Garage!

(photo via Peoria Life)

Jessica Ball and her family help with the clean-ups, the garden, the landscaping and recently adopted a dog  through Foster Pet Outreach.

With all of this activity, we decided to start The Renaissance Park Community Association - a group of all of the volunteers, neighbors and businesses that are working so hard not only to build their own projects but to build this neighborhood into a community we can all be proud of. Other businesses in the area that have contributed to all of this hard work include the amazing neighborhood staple, The Costume Trunk and Mr.G's (now owned by the same people who brought you One World Cafe!).  We've even attracted help from businesses outside of the neighborhood, like Heading Om Yoga and Top Hat Productions!

And me? I volunteer for the local humane society, Foster Pet Outreach, Crittenton Centers and am one of the founders of The Renaissance Park Community Association. Don't be surprised to find me picking up trash and pulling weeds at midnight around here - surprisingly, it relaxes me.

So this year, when you think about shopping local, think about why...and hopefully you'll think about us!

 XOXO,

Lola