Battling Concrete

This post also has some injury photos, though less severe than the last one. Still, in case someone glancing through my feed has issues with blood, I'll make sure the first few photos in here are of bike-related t-shirts I've seen at the thrift store. Really, this whole post is a bit mood whiplash-y so you should probably sit down and keep your hands and legs inside the vehicle--this summer roller coaster is on it's way.

Places you'd probably rather drive...

That seems like a pretty harsh exchange rate

OK. So we've already talked about how I spent the end of May. Well, let's fast forward to the end of June.

Last year I was really good about biking to and from the thrift store all summer, but this year I'd been a little lazy-- and then I'd cut my finger open (you wouldn't think that would cause a problem with biking but, oh, it does) --so I hadn't really pulled out my bike yet this year. But then my car had a problem with one of the wheels, so I decided to bike until I had a chance to get it fixed. This required replacing a flat on my bike and some other tune-ups, but finally my bike was in working order and I was ready to bike to work.

Except-- I wasn't in the habit of waking up early enough to bike, so I ended up running a bit late and booking it as fast as I could go.

Which meant that I didn't notice after one turn that, instead of straightening out my handlebars, I'd turned them around 180 degrees. Meaning that the next turn had the breaks tangled up around the wheel.

 I didn't know any of that; all I knew was that suddenly my bike stopped moving--but I didn't.

Take it from me, this is terrible advice

Yeah. I kind of hit the curb.
With my face.

For a minute, I just lay on the ground, stunned. My mouth hurt and I was terrified I'd knocked out a tooth. I was bleeding all over and shaking, and my brain couldn't seem to figure out how to get me off the ground.
Luckily I was in a bike lane-- so there wasn't a lot of danger of getting hit by a car. And as usual, I was wearing my helmet.
After I'd been lying there a minute, a car pulled over and a couple got out to see if they could help. They actually offered to call an ambulance but, after a moment to calm down, I didn't think that was necessary-- not when my parents were home and living less than five minutes away. I saw that my phone had landed nearby but I couldn't quite manage to make my hands pick it up, so I asked them to call home for me.
I overheard the man's side of the conversation.
"Hi, your daughter's been in an accident. We're at the corner of _______, can you come get her?" Then he hung up.
I did have the presence of mind to realize that this was not quite enough information.
It definitely wasn't-- my parents thought I'd gotten hit by a car. My Dad took off so fast he forgot to close the garage door behind him-- I think he must have been pretty relieved to reach the intersection and see me sitting up and waving sheepishly at him while the kind (if perhaps communication challenged) couple helped pour water over my hands to clean out some of the worst of the gravel.

Incidentally, my bike wasn't damaged in all this. Yay.

Between the couple and my Dad, they managed to pick me up off the ground and put my bike in the back of the car. I could walk fine, but I realized that something was wrong with my left hand-- other than the bleeding-- because it hurt too much to open the car door.

You should see the other guy...

Anyway, after taking me home and getting me an ice pack, my parents decided to take me to the ER. Again. For the second time in roughly a month. By this point, while I was hurting a lot I felt pretty foolish-- but we wanted to check I hadn't broken something in my hand. That worried me a lot, actually-- since I play so many string instruments, an injury to my left hand could be much more problematic than one to my right.

Anyway, at the ER we were able to properly survey all the damage. I had road rash on one knee, both of my arms, my knuckles, the palm of my left hand, and my face. I'd managed to bite the inside of one lip deep enough to leave a dent. I chipped one of my front teeth-- but just a small chip, and otherwise the teeth were fine. As for my wrist-- the x-rays couldn't find anything. In retrospect I might have had a hairline fracture in one of the bones of my hand, but for all intents and purposes my wrist was just sprained. I looked like a mess, but I actually got off pretty light, all things considered. 

Fixed it

The whole thing was probably weirder for the nurse who helped me disinfect and bandage all of my road rash, actually. Back when I was a kid, I started singing "ow" to the tune of Ode to Joy when something was hurting because it made me feel a little better. (And you all wonder why I ended up going into music therapy...) Well, I ended up taking a similar tactic, singing my way through the very painful process of getting all the dirt and gravel out of my cuts. My parents started giving me requests for what songs I should do, and at one point the nurse said, "This is the strangest reaction to getting bandaged I've ever seen."

So. Anyway. I stayed home from the thrift store for a while because there is only so much you can do to move clothes around when you can't do anything with your left wrist and you're covered in enough bandages to consider dressing up like a mummy. The reactions when I went to church the next day were, ah, dramatic.

 And, well-- that was my second ER trip of the summer. I've healed pretty well; I'm still building the strength back up in my wrist but it's doing much better. I've got some lingering scars on my hands, elbow, chin, and upper lip that turn funny colors when I get cold, but otherwise I'm back to normal.


These two injury-- adventures, both at the ends of the month, made me a little wary for the end of July. I didn't get injured, though in a kind of bitter irony my grandfather passed away at the end of July.
That was... hard, but not as much as it could have been? He was 97, and his health had been declining for a while; it was definitely his time. And I've been very at peace about it; I know the plan of salvation, I know that he's with his wife and his family now and that I'll see him again. And I did get to say goodbye-- about a week before he died, when it was clear he didn't have long, those of us who could came to talk to him one last time. I didn't really know what to say, but the words of an old jazz standard came to mind so I sang it to him.

I'll be loving you, always

With a love that's true, always

When the things you've planned

Need a helping hand

I will understand, always

Always

Days may not be fair, always

That's when I'll be there, always

Not for just an hour,

Not for just a day,

Not for just a year, but

Always

 I told him I loved him and kissed him on the forehead, and he told me he loved me. And that was the last time I saw him alive. And it was hard, but I'm so grateful I had that chance to say goodbye. My grandfather was a wonderful man, and I'm glad that there's a few times towards the end when I was able to use my music to bring him some joy and some peace.

And, well, now it's the end of August. And I had a coworker at the thrift store pass away unexpectedly last week-- it's getting to where I have a bit of a complex about getting to the end of a month. Guys, this summer has been doing it's level best to eat me alive.

There's good news heading into fall, though. I've found some more clients for my business, and the orchestra teaching program is having me do twice as many classes this year-- which, after some math, led to an amazing realization.

I can quit my job at the thrift store.

Don't get me wrong, that job has been good to me-- I've made friends there, and they were incredibly willing to work with me when I had weird scheduling because of my business. But-- I've been so desperate to get out of there and do the work that I, you know, went to college to learn how to do, to be doing more than a minimum wage job I could have done in high school, to do the work that I love and that I've tried so hard to make possible.

And starting in October, it will be. I'll be able to make enough income to get by just by doing music classes and music therapy; just doing the things that I love. It still doesn't feel real. 

Of course, I still have September at the thrift store, and it'll take me a while to get through all the photos of weird items and funny t-shirts, so you'll see plenty of that. There's one more thing about working at a thrift store in September, though--Halloween starts early.

My sister keeps reminding me that I said I'd never do the costume challenge again. But, uh, look, I might have an addiction to costumes now. Seriously, I'm actually kind of sad about leaving the thrift store before October.

It definitely will be less costumes than last year; I only have the month of September to dress up (plus a couple of off-season costumes I'll share next time), and several of those days need to be simple costumes that won't be a problem for going to do music therapy stuff afterward. So it'll be something like 24 costumes total? 23? 

My only rule this year is no repeats. I'm going to be ignoring most of the suggested theme days this year (which are actually kind of lackluster this year; the management completely forgot to do them until I asked about it) so this'll just be whatever I think sounds like fun and that I have the stuff for (or can beg, borrow, or steal).

So, on this last day of August-- here's hoping for a good Autumn. Wish me luck. 

Tears, Sweat, and Blood--South Jordan Summerfest, Round Two

Warning: this post has injury photos. I don't think it's too gruesome, but read at your discretion. In the meantime, have a photo of a fish tank since the first photo in any given post ends up in my Facebook feed: 

Yay Loveland Living Planet Aquarium!

Alright, we're down to people who won't faint at the sight of blood? (Or kind people who will read out loud to people who don't want to look at blood?) Stellar. 

Long time readers may remember that the Summerfest is a local event with carnival rides, vintage cars, other activities--and reasonably priced vendor tables. Last year I set up a children's instrument craft as a way to get to talk to people about my business. Which was insane, crazy busy last year--and kind of disappointing when none of the people I spoke to who seemed interested ever followed through. That being said, Summerfest last year did lead indirectly to a couple of the clients I've had, so I decided it was worth another try.

I did decide to change up the crafts a little, though, for variety's sake. I found instructions for drums made of a tin can, a balloon, and some rubber bands-- cheap and relatively easy to make, perfect for the purpose. So for the last few weeks of May I started collecting all the tin cans I could get my hands on. I may or may not have cooked my family an unusually high number of soups and bean-based dishes in order to get as many cans as I could.

The trouble started when I was washing one of these cans out one evening-- and my finger caught a jagged edge on the inside of the can left behind by the can openers. And the point just bit right in.

I immediately went to the sink to rinse out the little cut, then went in search of a band-aid. But the thing is that my finger just kept bleeding. I was leaving a trail of blood all over the house (we had finished off the box of band-aids in one cabinet and it took me a minute to find some in a different one), and quickly bleeding through the kleenexes I held over the injury. Finally I got a band-aid on and was able to wrap my finger tightly enough to get the bleeding under control. And then I cleaned up all the blood.

My Mom got home somewhere around this time. I was feeling pretty sorry for myself; my finger kept throbbing and getting sharp, stabbing feelings, like there was still a little knife caught in the wound. Mom recommended I put on some neosporin then go to the Instacare in the morning. So I took the band-aid off, and immediately began to bleed everywhere again. Now Mom was a bit more concerned. So I wrapped my finger up again and we went to the ER.

At the ER, they kindly gave me some pads to bleed onto while I was waiting for someone to look at the injury. It was a small cut, really-- but very deep. After poking around (and having to give me two shots of the numbing agent), the doctor told me that I'd managed to damage the nerve in my fingertip-- and that I'd probably have a cold spot in my finger for a while. That could last a few months-- or for the rest of my life. (I don't have a cold spot, though, just a patch that's very tender and sensitive even now that I'm writing this over two months later). Anyway, I ended up spending midnight in the ER getting four stitches on my right middle finger. 

If you've never gotten stitches before, it's a pretty strange experience. They numb you up so it doesn't hurt too much (except when they hit that damaged nerve and realize you need a whole second needle of numbing stuff-- not a great day to be afraid of needles), but you feel like a marionette having someone run strings through you like that. I couldn't handle watching the stitches, but I did think the end result looked pretty impressively Frankenstein's monster-esque.

They bandaged my finger up and gave me an aluminum "fingertip" to protect the stitches while they healed. Now, I had mentioned by now that I was a music therapist, and that this would be print a bit of a cramp on my guitar playing--but not nearly as bad as it would be if I'd cut a finger on my left hand, thank heavens. So when I got the aluminum fingertip, the ER doctor became the first of many, many people to jokingly suggest I use the fingertip as a guitar pick.

Let me be clear--it is completely the wrong shape and material for a guitar pick.

Here, instead, is a list of legitimate uses for aluminum fingertips:

-protecting your finger

-drum mallet

-making every hand gesture look like a rude one

-jabbing out the eye of a would be attacker

-excuse to get out of anything-- "Oh, I'd love to help you shave your cats, Ethel, but as you can see I'm still recovering from a severe injury, so..."

-an awkward but effective back scratcher

-sewing thimble
-collecting surprising quantities of finger sweat


Anyway. After my injury, I couldn't do much with my right hand for a few days, and had to take plenty of pain medicine--funny how such a little injury can hurt so much! I ended up missing almost a week of work at the thrift store. And, since this was the week of the Summerfest, I got to drag my Dad and brother around to do all the heavy lifting, and spent the day shaking hands with people and then explain my injury to them.
On the other hand, it did make set up a little easier that I didn't go in to the thrift store that morning. But-- it is a bit of a challenge to stand in the hot sunlight and act cheerful when your finger feels like it's still being stabbed and is covered in enough bandages to make a small tourniquet.


Summerfest did end up being fun, though. I took a break to visit the petting zoo--which had. a. baby. zebra. Which I failed to get a photo of-- what can I say, I've been off my blogging game-- and the tin can drums ended up being a huge hit. We were a lot less busy then last year--they had us in a more out of the way location, which hurt our numbers, and this year we had less families and more unsupervised kids coming by. Even do, you I was able to talk to some people who seemed interested--nothing's come of it yet except some newsletter subscriptions, but at least it's *something*.

It's not even close to an even return--because let me tell you, the ER visit cost me about five times as much as everything I spent on Summerfest combined. Still, you can't say I'm not putting everything I've got into this business. Sweat, tears, and now blood--let's hope the list of bodily fluids ends there.

Also, I'm asking for one of those really nice can openers that don't leave sharp edges behind for Christmas.

Taking My Business Old School

So remember that whole thing about me running a private practice? Believe it or not, that's still going on.

I haven't exactly been rolling in clients (as you may guess from the continued Thrift Store posts) but I'd been finding enough work that I didn't have to shut down yet, and that orchestra class got me back on my feet financially. So I've been hanging in there, despite some more disappointments and small failures. I kind of hit a bit of a plateau; not really getting anywhere, but at least not losing any ground either. Which was actually the source of some prayer and fasting and temple visits in April while I tried to figure out how I could get some traction in my life.

And then May and June happened, and my life turned back into a roller coaster.

Hang in there, this is going to be a bumpy multi-post ride.


At the end of April, I got an invitation in the mail to a ribbon cutting for a local business. Not really noteworthy; I made the dubious choice of joining my local chamber of commerce last year and ever since I've been somewhat inundated with contact from businesses in the area, usually wanting $300 or so for me to advertise in a golf program or something. But this local business was worth another look-- a brand new assisted living facility, not far from where I live. Which meant there was maybe a business opportunity.

I managed to negotiate my shifts at the thrift store so I could attend the ribbon cutting. The whole thing was pretty quick; a couple of short speeches, then they gave a little old woman (their first resident) a pair of scissors so big she needed a fireman to help her hold them to cut the ribbon.  Then they had a little time afterward for snacks and chit chat.

Steeling myself against my typical social anxiety, I approached the director and introduced myself. Awkward silence. I had no idea what to say. He, kindly, made a lame joke and excused himself. Not a great start.

But I took a deep breath, found someone else important looking, and tried again. This time I found the office manager, and managed to make some vague statements about how much I loved working with dementia clients before asking if we could exchange business cards. To my pleasant surprise, she asked for two cards so she could give one to the memory care director.

And to my utter shock, a few days later the memory care coordinator gave me a call. Which turned into a kind of awkward text message conversation--which, somehow, turned into a consultation meeting.

Basically, it turns out I was in the right place at the right time. (I'm inclined to attribute this to Divine intervention). Though the people at this facility didn't know a lot about music therapy, they had heard recommendations from several sources recently to look into it, and I just happened to get my card in the door at the right time. So I got my first "business to business client". And made a good impression with the first session--most of the memory care clients responded very well to music, but in particular there was a woman who's hardly spoken in days ever since a change in medications. But I got her to sing You Are My Sunshine-- every word-- and have a short conversation with me at the end. Music Therapy works, guys!

So now I'm doing more work in geriatric, and I have to say I'm enjoying it. I'd almost forgotten how much fun leading a group can be, since for a long time now I've only done one-on-one. I've been immersed in music from the 30s and 40s but I don't mind that. And-- and for once it feels like I can maybe learn how to run this business after all.

Of course, then I had to get ready for another attempt at the Summerfest-- and my first of two ER visits for the summer-- but that's a story for next time.

(I'm not sure I've ever ended on a cliffhanger before with this blog! It's Ok, I only needed four stitches. That time.)

Strange Things You See at a Thrift Store: May the Fourth be with you edition

Hey, long time no see! And for good reason. Turns out working three jobs at the same time keeps you kind of busy. (Surprising, right?) I do have a few stories to share once I can squeeze out some time, which will be easier in a couple of weeks when school gets out and I don't have orchestra anymore. But in the meantime, I wanted to have a delayed Star Wars day celebration by showing off some of the more bizarre and funny star wars t-shirts we've gotten at the thrift store.

I might have posted this one back in Halloween, but we'll bring it out again for that small subset of people who are fans of both Star Wars AND Haunted Mansion. 

This is obviously photo-shopped: no way Vader can use a touch screen with those gloves on.

I know some people for whom this would be persuasion enough. 

Can you imagine running into a proselyting Sith Lord as a missionary? Probably ten times as awkward as running into the Jehovah's Witnesses. 

OK, this isn't even a weird thing: I honest to goodness want this BB8 dress in my size and with sleeves. Maybe I can make one?

This one is mainly funny to me because I can remember selling these shirts at Walmart four years ago. I have spent more of my life than I care to think about organizing men's t-shirts.

I feel like you're mixing your murderphores, there.

I've mentioned before there seems to be a restaurant called "Chuy's" which sells Mexican-food themed Star Wars shirts. Here's a couple more examples of their work. 

On the other hand (ba-dump-tish!) , this shirt is a little more... impressionistic. 

Gotta hate those too-late realizations.

This one's for my Mom. And anyone else who speaks enough French to know what line is being quoated here. 

WARNING: Darth Vader might not be suitable for ages 3 and up. Choking Hazard. Contains small parts and a large temper. Always keep in a well-ventilated area. Batteries not included.

Anyway, I hope you all are enjoying your spring. I'll be back sometime soon with some more updates. But in the meantime:

Costume Challenge #44: Halloween Proper and Followup

Costume #44: Your Halloween Costume

No, really, that was the theme.

Anyway, after well over a month of putting on and washing off crazy costume makeup, finally on Halloween I started washing my makeup off and my face just came right off with it:

OK, OK, obviously that's not what actually happened, but I thought it made for a pretty funny explanation.

I went simple on the clothes-- a set of skull pattern pajama bottoms and a black t-shirt-- and put my hair in a simple bun to keep it out of the way.

I wanted something a little bit spectacular to finish the challenge off, and when I found the tutorial I used I knew it was the perfect look. As it happens, I was really scraping the bottom of the barrel of my cosmetics by the time I got here-- I'm out of a lot of things now-- but I think I still managed to pull it off.

The basic idea is to have one part of your face made up nicely, then use eyeliner to draw the drips and black spots to make it look like the skin is starting to decay. Then on the rest of the face I went for a slightly more realistic approach to doing a skull than my Day of the Dead makeup (which was more stylized and ornate). The teeth came out kind of funny, I'll have to practice those more. 

Time: 45 minutes

Unexpected or Notable Reactions: This didn't get a huge reaction at the thrift store, but I did wear the makeup for the rest of the day-- and this led to one of the best reactions I've gotten this whole challenge. I was at the grocery store, looking for something in produce, when one of the other shoppers turned around and saw me. He gasped a little and jumped about two inches. Then he laughed and said, "Oh, right, it's Halloween today."

Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Um...

Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Look What You Made Me Do, by Taylor Swift. (Though, really, what you should be watching is the Hocus Pocus Version: Look What You Made Me Brew. Just trust me on this, you need to see it.)

The old Jennifer can't come to the phone right now.

Why?

Because she's really tired.

Follow Up:

Well, it's been a couple of days since Halloween now, and I'm kind of sad that the costume challenge is over. I had a lot of fun doing this, and I learned a lot of techniques for hair and makeup that I can use even in regular, non-costume styles. I got lots of compliments (always a plus) and all in all had one of my best Halloweens ever. Now that it's over, my thrift store job is quite a bit less fun. Also, I keep having to remind myself that it's OK to scratch my face.

So would I want to do this again next year?

Hahahaha--NOPE.

I'm glad I did this. But I am also very tired of dressing up, of getting up early to do insane makeup, of trying to figure out how to work in impractical clothes-- it's been a lot. And now I have a lot of cleaning up to do: my bedroom is littered with costume accessories, I have a lot of borrowed items to wash and return, and my bathroom currently looks like the site of a chalk-and-glitter explosion. My current acne level is roughly high school. Long story short, I'm ready to be done.

I am desperately hoping not to have this job come the next fall-- because while the thrift store job really isn't a bad gig, it's definitely not my dream. Or what I got my degree in. No, that's my music therapy private practice, which isn't exactly thriving but is still (somehow) managing to stay afloat. You know, the kind of afloat like an iceberg where it's mostly sunk but there's just a tiny part still above water. We'll see where it takes me, but hopefully it takes me somewhere a little different from here.

Anyway, before I head out, I've got a follow up to my Halloween edition of "Strange Things You See In A Thrift Store".

They all came back.

...

I'm really glad that I don't have to work at this place after dark.



Anyway, I hope you had an enjoyable Halloween. Probably there will not be any blog posts for a few weeks because 1) sleep, and 2) November is Nanowrimo and apparently I have a death wish. But failing the chance of me falling victim to a hostile store takeover by demonic porcelain figurines, you'll hear from me again soon enough.

Costume Challenge #39-43: Final Stretch

Costume #39: Horror Movie

This might be the easiest costume I've done yet. Well, not counting the lion hat.

If you're having flashbacks to a particular horror movie, you're on the right track. I decided to go as an onryō, a kind of ghost from Japanese mythology that's become a staple of horror movies. (You can find out a little more about that on the TV tropes page for Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl)

I borrowed the old-fashioned nightgown from my Mom, then brushed my hair so it was all in my face. (For once a costume where my hair is an asset instead of an inconvenience!) I didn't bother with any makeup-- I'd been planning on doing something crazy with my face, maybe a slit-mouth like a kuchisake-onna (another staple of Japanese horror stories) but since I still had a runny nose from last week's cold I decided that sleep was more important than makeup. The teddy bear I actually made myself as a project back in college-- hand sewn (and pretty badly if you look closely) out of a bunch of scraps I had on hand. When I was making it, I hadn't gotten the pieces to do the face yet-- but when I saw how delightfully creepy the bear looks without a proper face I decided to just leave it that way and call it "No Face Bear". Perfect for a creepy ghost girl.

Time: 5 minutes. 

Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Hm. On the one hand, I loved how this turned out. Fast, easy, looks great and kind of eerie. On the other-- having my hair in my face is a huge pain. Itchy, hot, and hard to see. I gave up on the hair style by the time I'd been working for just a few minutes. So I'd want to think hard about what I'd be doing before deciding to use this costume. There are a lot of things that could be done to punch this costume up-- add some fake blood, doing something with the face, etc. For that matter, I think this costume would benefit a lot from just a bit of acting-- making weird noises, walking backwards, that kind of thing.

Most Appropriate Halloween Song: This is my only costume that even slightly fits with the Ghostbusters Theme, let me have this. (Though I think Still Doll by Kanon Wakeshima makes a decent Runner-Up)

Costume #40: Rebels

I knew when I saw the theme that they were intending rebels as in counter-culture: tattoos, punk clothes, mo-hawk, that kind of thing. But I felt kind of like taking a different approach-- specifically, a Star Wars Rebel.

I really enjoyed this costume.

I started out with a pair of khaki capris and a grey t-shirt. The cloth wraps actually used to be a hotel curtain-- my Mom has a big box of them left over from one of her jobs as a seamstress, so I cut it into two large strips for the body and two smaller strips for the arms. I added a brown belt, a pair of knock-off Uggs, and my trusty aviator goggles. I borrowed a toy lightsaber from my Mom's dress-up bin to complete the costume. The arm wraps were actually really annoying-- they kept unwrapping, or sliding down my arms, which started messing with my sensory processing disorder. I think in the future I'll have to figure out a better way to make those-- maybe sewing fitted arm-bands with some kind of fastener, and then putting fabric strips on that so it just looks wrapped. 

I didn't bother with makeup, but I gave my best stab at Rey's triple-bun hairstyle. It didn't turn out super well: my hair is just too long and too heavy (and I just didn't do that great a job) but it was close enough that most people still recognized who I was.

Time: 50 minutes (most of which was spent on the fabric strips)

Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: I had actually been wanting to do this for my costume last year, but sadly I didn't get to dress up at all. So I was really happy to have a chance to try this! I don't know if I'll ever do it again for a Halloween costume, but this is definitely coming back out when I see The Last Jedi. (Am I excited? Yes. Have I seen the trailer? Nope, and I'm not planning to. I don't want any spoilers. And if you think I'm not serious about this, you should know that I succeeded in not seeing a single promotional image or trailer for the recent live action Beauty and the Beast that included what the Beast looked like so that I could see him for the first time when I actually saw the movie. This involved a lot of clapping my hands over my eyes and stumbling around blindly. For months.)

Most Appropriate Halloween Song: There's no beating The Imperial March by John Williams for this one.

Costume #41: Steampunk

This costume almost slipped past me-- I had a lot of ideas of what I wanted to wear that didn't end up working out for one reason or another (too small, impossible to walk in, ran out of time to make) which made me very sad because I love the theme so much. But then I remembered my Movie Stars costume and remembering thinking that it looked a little like a robot... and I knew how I could make this work.

I went with simple clothes-- a maroon velvet skirt and a black t-shirt, with a creme colored camisole worn with the sleeves tucked in to make a make-shift corset. The top-hat I made for a costume several years ago, and I added a brown belt, a pair of gloves, and a necklace with a steampunk-esque design.

I based my makeup design on some of the makeup worn by members of Steam Powered Giraffe, my favorite group of singing steampunk automatons. I started by using gold eyeshadow as a base (not as good as metallic face paint but it at least gave me a bit of a sheen) then drawing in panels and screws with eyeliner and filing in/shadowing with eyeshadow and lipgloss as appropriate. I tried drawing some gears on my temple but they ended up kind of wonky-looking.

Time: About 40 minutes
Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Certainly, though there's a lot of details I'd want to fine-tune, fix, or add to make this costume really shine. A better blouse, a corset or waist-coat, some spats, more practice on the makeup... you get the idea.
Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Though there are tons of great Halloween robot songs, and just as many if not more great Halloween robot songs, I've got to go with Brass Goggles by Steam Powered Giraffe. Actually, a lot of their songs over the years fit the bill.

Costume #42: Hunting Season

For some reason during this whole challenge, black t-shirts have sort of become short hand for "you can ignore this part of the costume". Anyway, brown pants and a t-shirt, pretty normal clothes, this costume was just in the makeup. 

I used bronzer and brown eye-shadow to darken my skin. While I'm still out of white eye shadow, I did dig out an old container of white body-shimmer powder that did well enough for adding the spots and lightening the eyelids and nose. Then I did the eyebrows, nose, and eye-shapes with black eyeliner. 

Time: 25 minutes

Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Probably; I was really pleased with how it turned out. I'd want to get a brown shirt and maybe some antlers, but this was a good look for a surprisingly simple makeup job.

Most Appropriate Halloween Song: There's not really a lot of "spooky" songs about deer; the best I could come up with is Deer In The Headlights by Owl City. 

Costume #43: Zootopia

I have a pair of tiger-stripe pajama bottoms so I just wore those with a black t-shirt. Again, this costume's really in the makeup. 

I'm having a lot of fun with these animal-makeup costumes: maybe I should've just done forty animal costumes for this challenge. Or maybe I should do my makeup like this everyday, what do you think?

Eh-- anyway. I used orange and yellow pastel chalk, white shimmer powder, and a few different shades of eyeshadow to do the base. Then I added in the nose, stripes, and other details with eyeliner. For the mouth, I outlined my lips with black lipstick, turning up the corners, then did purple on the outside and pink on the inside to try to imitate actual tiger lips. To finish up I did my hair in two high buns to look a little like tiger ears (which, oddly enough, my hair was the part of the costume that got the most compliments).

Time: 1 hour

Would I Actually Wear This For Halloween: Sure, I'd consider it. It's a fun makeup job to do. I'd want to get a tail and some ears, maybe find or make a nicer outfit.

Most Appropriate Halloween Song: Tiger by ABBA. (Incidentally, I spent a long time debating whether or not to do a black cat instead so I could do Superstition for a theme song, but in the end I decided a tiger was more fun)

And I'm off Saturday, so that's it for this week-- in fact, that's almost it for the challenge. All that's left is Halloween proper. That doesn't have an official theme, it's just whatever costume we come up with. And I've got an idea that I'm pretty excited about, though it's a little ambitious so maybe I should have a quick and easy backup on hand just in case. 

Before Halloween, though, I did want to give you a link to this little Playlist I put together on YouTube. It's got most of the "Most Appropriate Halloween Song" entries I've been collecting over this challenge and a few other favorite gems. So if you're in the mood for a mix of familiar and obscure Halloween songs, are playing DJ to a Halloween party, or just think your costume deserves it's own theme song, be sure to take a listen!