Sort of dropped off the map for a while. I developed pretty severe depression after starting my new position, to the point where there were days I didn't even get out of bed. I've been slowly pulling out of it, and I've had several pretty good days in a row which is a relief. For a long time I thought I just had some mild, situational depression,  but looking back, I can see that I've been fighting this for a long time now, for at least a couple of years now. I've started investigating therapists available through my health insurance, but it's hard to know what to look for, and I'm so anxious about opening up to a professional. But, I'm taking steps forward, so I feel like I'm heading in the right direction.

I've had to change my entire outlook on my current job. I thought it was going to be a job I would have for a while, which is why it felt so devastating when they pulled the rug out, but now I've just had to start thinking of this like the jobs I had while I was in school - temporary and unimportant. I've been using up the vacation time I had saved to take days off here and there for evening archaeology lectures, which has made things feel much less confining. The next lecture is about a scientific analysis done on the famous Nefertiti bust, which I'm really excited for!

Unfortunately, because  of the job stuff, I decided to cancel all of my travel plans for the time being. I cancelled the places I had reserved for our Paris trip (thankfully we hadn't booked our airfare yet), and I didn't bother registering for CoCo, so it's of the table now, too. I thought I would be more upset, but it's more of a relief than anything. Maybe next year I'll feel more like interacting with the human world again.

House hunt is on hold, so we're working on turning our room into a short of studio apartment. I'm clearing out my sewing corner so we can make it into a kitchenette with a mini-fridge, microwave, and maybe a Keurig. We keep eating fast food because we don't feel able to use the kitchen to cook, and I really miss vegetables! I can't wait to have a place to store things like lettuce and yogurt. I've never missed salads so much in my life!

My whole weekend flew out the window (not that I had any achievable plans, mind you) when I came down the cold that M brought home with him the other day. Of course, he suffered some sniffles for a day and a half, but I get the full blown version where I become a useless lump that can't get out of bed. I stayed home from work yesterday and stayed in bed (finished off season six of Game of Thrones because I could), but am at work today because I thought I had run out of sick days. Joke's on me, though, because I had 22 hours of sick time saved up, but I can't go home now that I'm here because everyone I know is working until 6, so I'm stranded. Blah. Not having a car really sucks. I'll just stay huddled in my office and cough at anyone that wants me to work too hard.

Speaking of the car, it is officially dead. M hooked up the new fuel pump and reassembled everything, and it still wouldn't crank, which means it's a bigger, more expensive problem somewhere down the line, which is both beyond his ability to fix or my ability to pay for. We were looking for a cheap car to hold us over until M gets his school refund in September (we had hoped the Lincoln would make it until then, but it clearly had other plans), but finding something in our price range (under $800) that doesn't have a whole slew of major mechanical issues was proving to be impossible. Sifting through the ads was pretty amusing though. A lot of them read "great car, interior and exterior in good shape, ran great until it died horribly, but great car".

Indulged in a bit of escapism and did some "lotto shopping". Decided that if I won the jackpot, I would buy this piece of land in the next county over and build a house on one of those peaks. Probably the little knobby one in the far background so I could overlook the valley. I would throw awesome costumed parties there.

Had a horrible scare last night. One of my cats has fleas, so I grabbed some flea treatment from the Basket o' Pet Stuff we have in the laundry room, dabbed it on his neck, and went about my evening. It was only later that M realized that it had been dog flea treatment and not cat, and dog flea liquid is toxic to kitties.

We rushed him to the bathroom as soon as we realized it and washed him off about six times with Dawn dish soap, since that's what the product's website said was best. The packaging had a hotline number, which we tried calling, but they wanted $60 just to call the hotline! I don't have $60 in the bank account right now, but thankfully the website told us everything we needed to watch out for and what to do.

We had to watch him all night to see if he developed any symptoms of poisoning, so we took turns staying up and holding him in a snuggly towel. Once he got over the fact that OMG BATH, he settled down into our arms and really started enjoying all the attention we were giving him.

Thankfully, after the 12 hour period they said to wait, he hadn't developed any symptoms, so we think he's in the clear. M is going to keep an eye on him the rest of the day and make sure there's not some sort of delayed reaction, but we don't think he had any time between us giving him the flea stuff and us bathing it off for him to ingest any.

Bad night.

I think that I'm finally letting go of a lot of my stress and allowing myself to relax a bit. Getting away from everything last weekend really helped, more than I thought it ever would, and I had a Big Talk with M about him helping out more with the chores and packing, which also helped take a few things off my mind.

I actually managed to updated the Guild website some, which it desperately needed, book some upcoming events, and send out a newsletter to our subscribers, which was way overdue. It's so hard for me to focus on costuming stuff when it seems like the walls are caving in, but I finally feel like I'm back in a good place, at least for the moment. It felt good to check a bunch of stuff off the to-do list.

I've even started thinking about sewing projects again, and figuring out how I can work them into my new home circumstances. I'm losing the sewing room, so everything is going to have to happen in my bedroom from now on. We did clear out a bunch of space, and now there's a 5x5 foot space at the foot of the bed where I can set up a mannequin and my sewing machine. It's basically the same thing I did when I was a teenager and my sister was still living at home, so I know I can make it work, as long as M doesn't invade with his massive collection of shoes. XP

A lot of what I need to work on for upcoming events can be done by hand. I have set of stays that I need to finish for all the upcoming 18thC stuff, and I was halfway through the boning channels before I was forced to abandon it to focus on life stuff. I still have everything together in the same project bag, so it shouldn't be hard to pick it back up and finish it. I also need to dig my smaller panniers out of storage and knock out a couple of petticoats, but I figure I can sort of save working on those for the 18thC undies workshop next month since they're an easy project.

I want to use the brown embroidered fabric that I picked up last weekend for a ~1760s en forreau gown with lots of fly fringe, so I need to get started on the fringe so I can have some extra time for trial and error. I also need to find some matching or complimentary fabric for a petticoat. I'm not quite sure what to actually do for the petticoat yet, but I'm thinking a plain brown taffeta in the same color as the ground for the embroidery, with the furbelows trimmed with the fly fringe so it all ties together. But I'm also thinking of doing a deep coral colored petticoat to give a pop of color to a pretty earthy colored dress. I guess I'll just have to see what the warehouses offer up. And I can still work on the gown until I figure out what to do about the petticoat.

M also needs a whole new ensemble for the Casanova event in September, but I have a complete blank on what to make for him. I guess I could revisit the unfinished purple and yellow ensemble, or try and spruce his burgundy coat, but I'm feeling very 'meh' about both of those. He is giving me no input on what he wants, saying only that he trusts my tastes and likes pretty much everything I make for him, which is very sweet but totally unhelpful. Whatever I end up doing, he needs breeches, a shirt, a waistcoat, a coat, and a wig, so I better figure it out soon so I can get started.

Alright, I'm going to try and shake off my current slump by focusing on the things I want to do next year, since this year is basically shot. (I know it's barely halfway through, but nothing can change until we move out this year, which will take us saving money until the end of the year to accomplish.)

Goals for this year:
-Get everything packed up and into storage no later than the beginning of October. The housing market usually opens up in fall and winter, and sales slow down, which means we might actually be able to get a house before someone snipes it, which is what keeps happening to us now.

-Pay off three credit cards. Crush debt is exhausting.

-New Car. We took it in yesterday for a horrendous shake it had developed, and they search the entire car to see what was causing it. Turns out the wiring is completely shot, the shocks are gone, the transmission is going out, and the wheels are coming apart. A new car needs to happen pretty soon, and we're saving for it, but it will be another couple of months before we have anything sizable. Shooting for August.

Goals for next year:

-House. I think that once we have our own space and I don't feel like I'm being slowly erased from existence, I'll be in a much better place mentally as well as physically. Right now I feel like every day I get pushed farther to the periphery, and having my own space that I own and can organize, design, and decorate the way that I like will make me a much happier person.

-Get back to sewing stuff. I've been pushed out of my sewing space and reduced to living in basically half a room, which means there is no space for sewing. I want to make pretty things again and have the space to actually work on stuff again. I'll definitely be looking for a house that has a spare room that can become a sewing room.

-Get back to being creative. I trudge through one day after another doing the same thing and feeling very stifled. I want to call up my old painting teacher and get back into painting, and maybe get back into writing, too.

-Start attending events again. I've bowed out of a lot of stuff already this year because I don't have the money or space to make a new outfit for it. I miss going to things. I miss seeing people. I miss travel. Small list of travel goals, in no particular order:
-Francaise Dinner - especially since it's supposed to be in Williamsburg next year! I neeeeeeeed to go.
-Versailles/Paris/Germany - this one is all planned out, I just need to stick to a savings plan to make it happen. I'm so excited about this trip, I've wanted to see Paris for so long! I wish there was time to make a trip to Grasse to see the Chanel flower fields (it's always been a fantasy of mine to work in the flower fields as a flower picker during harvest season, but apparently getting work in France as a foreigner is damned near impossible. Maybe I could get paid under the table...) but it's a 6 hour train ride in the opposite direction of where we need to go, so that will have to wait for another time.
-Fan Days - I miss sci-fi cons and geeking out with my fellow Trek nerds.
-Costume College - duh.
-TrekCon Vegas - It's been quite a few years since the last time I went, and I think it's time to try and go back. Hopefully it won't end up on the same weekend as CoCo, which it sometimes does, but if it does, CoCo wins.

I feel better about the future thinking about this year as laying the groundwork for an awesome next year. It doesn't feel as much like a crushing void of not being able to do anything because of debt and savings, and more like I'm setting the stage to have a really awesome comeback.

Today is a good day.

I am so bored at work. Even on a good day they only have enough work to keep me busy for a couple of hours, but right now the Captain and all his subordinates are off teaching a class for the week, so I REALLY have nothing to do. I've been browsing house listings and pinterest on my phone, but that can only keep me occupied for so long. Gaaah, I'm gonna go crazy!