Costume Challenge Round 2: Keeping it simple

Costume #13: Pineapple

This was another one I needed to be able to get out of fast so I could go to a music therapy appointment. So basically I just wore a yellow shirt and a hat made out of a paper towel roll and green paper leaves.

 The hat ended up being kind of a pain; I had to use about thirty bobby pins to keep it in place and then balance it on my head-- if I wasn't careful and leaned too far in any particular direction it would topple, yanking my hair as it went. I felt like I was balancing books on my head to learn to waltz like in old movies.

She is beauty, she is grace

She is a pineapple with a face

Costume #14: Rosie the Riveter

Another simple one-- I actually wore this straight to a music therapy appointment at a dementia treatment center since it kind of works for that setting. I wore a denim shirt, did my hair in a bun with a victory roll in front, and tied a red bandanna around my head.

Costume #15: Sherlock Holmes

Whoops, turns out the only photo I took was super blurry. Oh well. It's another simple costume-- I was kind of taking it easy this week. Grey slacks, a black vest over a white polo shirt, and I borrowed a deerstalker from my Mom's costume bin. Add a dollar store magnifying glass and bam, you've got a costume. 

Costume #16: The Riddler

I didn't want to spend any money on this costume, but for this one I think the costume suffered for that. I borrowed a green blazer from the store and safety-pinned a few paper question marks to it; sewing on some question mark patches would have looked a lot better. But anyway, I wore purple and green clothes and a black tie with another question mark attached. 

The makeup at least was fun; I used purple eyeliner and eye-shadow to make a domino-type mask, then used green lip-gloss and eye-shadow and added a few question marks in eyeliner. 

Then to finish the look off, I borrowed a bowler hat from my mom and added a couple of question marks to it. 

And, sheesh, I've just got one more week of costumes left. Amazing how much faster one month goes by than three. See you on the other side. 

Costume Challenge Round 2: It's a Jungle Out There, and other overused titles

I had a lot of fun with the animal themed costumes last year, so this year I decided to do a few of them.

Costume #8: Leopard

I got the tacky leopard print trenchcoat back in my freshman year of college for five bucks at a clearance sale--I rarely get the chance to wear it so it was fun to pull it out. The leopard print pants I found in my Mom's costume bin.

The makeup is a lot easier than it looks. I just drew the circles in with eyeliner, then filled them in with brown eye shadow. I did some other details in black eyeliner, and then did my hair in two buns to look a little like cat ears (like I did with the tiger costume last year).

Costume #9: Alice in Wonderland
I needed one non-animal costume this week because I had a music therapy appointment right after work, so I figured this was an easy one.

I wore my blue dress, and borrowed a white apron. I added some black and white stripe socks and made a black hairbow out of felt. I kept the makeup pretty natural looking-- this really wasn't a very crazy costume but it was kind of nice to have one that didn't take a lot of time to get into and out of.

The ultimate Alice in Wonderland Halloween song would have to be Heads Will Roll, but I used that for my card soldier costume last year so instead let's say a good theme song would be Jabberwocky by Donovan. (The version by Erutan is probably even better, you can look that up on YouTube)

Costume #10: White Rabbit

When I was looking up ideas for Alice costumes, I kept finding fun ideas for white rabbit costumes so I decided to run with it. 

I wore white pants and a white undershirt under a red and blue outfit to give an impression of white fur. I made some rabbit ears out of fun foam (fun foam is the best! Where has it been all my life!) and made an oversized pocketwatch out of cardboard. I also had a tail made out of cotton balls. 

 The makeup was simple but fun; a light dusting of white eyeshadow so I'd look pale, then details in black eyeliner. I found this was a makeup look that was very conducive to pulling silly faces.

Let's see, is there another Halloween appropriate theme song I can come up with? Well, Hold My Heart by Lindsey Stirling fits the bill if you watch the music video.

Costume #11: Giraffe

Not much to say about the clothing part; I just wore yellows and browns. 

The makeup was a little more intense. I put two buns in my hair trying (but not entirely succeeding) to look like giraffe horns, and made some ears out of felt that I stuck in with bobby pins. The makeup is mostly spots drawn in with brown eyeliner and filled in with brown eyeshadow. I also did some elongated nostrils and some purple-brown lipstick. 

This one got a lot of good reactions-- for some reason, people are really impressed when you can do makeup on your neck? I mean, I'm not sure why that should be harder than on the face, but OK.

And no, I am pretty confident that there are no Halloween songs about giraffes. The best I can do is to tell you to listen to the band Steam Powered Giraffe, which does have several songs that could be classified as "Halloween" --particularly their song "The Ghost Grinder", so I guess that almost works as a theme song if you squint at it long enough.

Costume #12: Werewolf

Well, I was aiming for werewolf but I'm honestly not too pleased with how this one turned out. 

I tried using lots of eyeliner to look like fur and get some wolf-type facial features, but I overslept and had to rush the makeup and it all turned out a lot messier than the tutorial I was following. Everyone at work was pretty confused about what, precisely, this was supposed to be. 

I actually took some time to make a tail to go with it-- made by brushing yarn so that it looks like fur. The tail is not pictured because, well... I kind of forgot I was wearing it when I went to the bathroom. So that was several hours of work down the drain.

Yeah. This one was kind of disappointing, it turned out a lot cooler in my head. Mostly the costumes this week were pretty good, though, so I guess I can be OK with sticking a dud in there.

(Theme song would have to be Werewolves of London by Warren Zevon, though Little Red Riding Hood by Sam Sham and the Pharaohs is a good runner-up)

And that's it for now. Just two more weeks of this and then I'll-- well, I'll be done at the thrift store and focusing on music therapy and orchestra teaching instead. That's still kind of hard to believe, but I guess I'd better get used to the idea.

Anyway, until next time. 

Costume Challenge Round 2: Lead-up and Week 1

In case you missed my last post, here's a summary: I'm doing the thrift store costume challenge again. But only for the month of September. Because I'm quitting in October. (yay!) I'm happy to be moving into the jobs I really want to be doing, but I couldn't help but give the thrift store one last hurrah-- after all, it really has been a good job and I did really enjoy dressing up last year. Well, I've raided the eyeliner section at the dollar store and dug out the body glitter; it's time to go out with a bang. 

Warm-up Costume: Dr Seuss

This one wasn't actually a Halloween costume; on Earth day, the store decided to do a Lorax-themed promotion, and encouraged us to dress up as Dr Seuss characters. Originally I was going to keep it simple, but then I found some cast photos from a production of Seussical the Musical that I couldn't help but play around with. Thus, my Thing 2 costume.

For the clothes, I dressed all in red, then printed and cut out a "Thing 2" circle to safety-pin to my shirt. I put my hair in a faux bob and used half a can of blue hairspray my mom had leftover from something, plus a bunch of blue glitter, to do my hair. White eyeshadow on the face, blue eyeshadow on the eyebrows, nose, and mouth, and a few lines in black eyeliner to try to look a little more "hand drawn".

Costume #1: Sports

I decided after this one to ignore most of the suggested themes-- many of them are this boring, after all, and if I'm only doing this for a month I'm going to do costumes I actually enjoy. But I did find a way to make this more fun than just wearing a basketball jersey:

I went as a Quidditch player!

The "robe" was my red jacket/dress with a gryffindor crest pinned to the front. I wore a t-shirt I got from a Harry Potter themed 5-K race featuring a quidditch player and some khaki capris.

I also wore my aviator goggles, and carried a snitch made out of an ornament, gold paint, and some feathers.

The "leather armor" is actually fun foam with some fake aging and para-cord laces. A little uncomfortable to wear for long but it looked pretty good. 

If I did this for a main Halloween costume I think I'd make some proper Quidditch robes with less safety-pin tailoring, but overall it was a pretty fun costume to wear. 

Costume #2: Mime

This one was pretty fun. I wore a black and white striped shirt with a black skirt, and added a red bandanna, red suspenders, and a black hat. I used white eyeshadow to make my face pale, added red lipstick, then did all the eye markings with black eyeliner. 

While I liked how it all looked, the real fun part? Not talking all day. It was kind of fun to try to figure out how to communicate everything just using gestures and facial expressions. And it was funny how many people would ask me a few questions, then kind of give me a confused look, then laugh and say, "Oh! I get it! You aren't talking because you're a mime!"

I'm not sure I'm going to bother with theme songs this year (if I change my mind I'll update this post later), but I think an appropriate one for this costume would be Simon and Garfunkle's "The Sound of Silence". 

Costume #3: Magician

You know, I went through a stage as a kid where I really wanted to be a magician. I ended up giving it up because it turns out I'm really bad at magic tricks, but no reason for me not to dress the part. I wore a black skirt, a black cumberbund I found in the costume bin, a white polo shirt, my red bowtie from last year, and a black coat with tails I borrowed from my Dad. Add a top hat, a homemade wand (made in roughly five minutes out of paper and an unsharpened pencil), and a trick deck of cards and I was all set.

Of course, the theme song here would be "That Old Black Magic" by Frank Sinatra.

Costume #4: Cracked Doll

The dress is actually my Mom's old gunnysack dress. Funny story; in middle school we had a "decades week" where we dressed up like different decades. My mom lent me this dress to wear on 70s day; all my classmates got after me for dressing up like the 1870s instead of the 1970s-- but the adults started waxing nostalgic about having their own gunnysack dresses. I guess it just goes to show that what we think people wore in a particular time period tends to be a little innacurate.

The makeup was a lot of fun to do, though I could have used some practice. I started out with some more natural looking makeup, then added some fake eyelids to try to make my eyes look bigger. The cracks are all in eyeliner (this was my first time using liquid eyeliner and it's kind of weird) with a little bit of white eyeshadow on some of the edges to try to look more realistic. 

Curiously, my costumes this year have been getting a lot more comments from customers than last year's costumes-- which you might remember is kind of exceptional because thrift store shoppers are jaded and hard to impress. This costume I had several people call out as a favorite; lots of people told me I looked cute. I'd been going more for creepy, but I guess whatever floats your boat. 

The theme song for this would have to be Kanon Wakashima's "Still Doll", even if it was a runner up last year.

Costume #5: Flight Attendant

This one was quick and easy because I needed to leave right after working at the thrift store for a music therapy appointment. I wore a blue 1940s-style dress (which you'll see a better shot of next week) with a silk scarf and my hair in a bun, and I printed out a photo of those wings they hand out to kids on airplanes to cut out and pin to the front. Normal makeup and I was good to go. I sort of expected to get flack on this one the way I did on my Star Trek costume last year since this was so easy. But I guess this outfit was different enough from normal that it passed as a costume.

Costume #6: Fortune Teller

So basically my strategy here was: lots of layers, lots of jewelry, lots of scarves. and a general aura of mystery. Pretty straightforward. We've actually got a crystal ball I could have used, but it would've been too much of a hassle to lug that around at work. 

Costume #7: They said to do cowboys, I did Indiana Jones instead

This one was fun. I wore brown slacks, brown boots, a brown belt, a white polo, and a leather jacket. I borrowed the hat from my Mom's collection, and did my hair in a tight braid. 

The hat is actually an official "Indiana Jones hat" that I got Mom for Christmas years ago. It's pretty cheaply made and a little small, but it did OK for a costume. If I had more time, I'd have come up with a whip and with some kind of artifact that belongs in a museum to carry around. 

You don't need me to give you the theme song, do you?

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.