Saturday gets and new tamagotchi

 Hello!! 

This weekend has been relatively laid back. We were supposed to go to a family party for my husband's family, but he's wasn't feeling well so we stayed behind (∩︵∩) 

I ended up going to the store to get the new Story of Seasons game for the switch! I like to have physical copies of my games when I can, even though I might play this docked on my tv or computer monitor haha. I've never played story of seasons/harvest moon before, but I like other farming games so I wanted to try it out. 

I also ended up buying a mascara primer and brown mascara. I was shocked to find a primer without phenoxyethanol :0 it's so rare for that to happen. I haven't been liking liner on my eyes recently, and I've been more into surf style that usually doesn't use a lot of mascara, so I wanted to try out brown again. Maybe I'll like using brown liner too or something. I also found this really cute yellow top! I'm trying to incorporate more color into my wardrobe recently. 

Also, I started running a new tamagotchi today, it's an iDL (✿ ♥‿♥) I've gotten back into playing these recently, I'll have to post a collection photo sometime since I just organized them. 

I was super lucky and found this purple one at the anime convention flea market for $10... which is absolutely INSANE for a tamagotchi nowadays, these usually sell for at least $60, probably more like $70+. I always look at the flea market for tamas, but I never see any so I was absolutely shocked haha. I actually asked the seller if it was broken or something and she looked at me so confused xD she actually sold me an uni for $10 as well, which has been going for a lot more than the iDL. It's all in Japanese, so it's a bit of a learning curve... lol. I forgot how confusing it is to run the Japanese ones when you don't also have an English one to translate xD

Sometime soon I think I wanna post some of my late 90's makeup looks that I do based on some inspo from one of my surf mags! I found a really cute eyeshadow at Ulta the other day that I keep forgetting to show you. 

See you later!! 

ヾ(〃^∇^)ﾉ

Diary post ˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚＊

I want to make some more diary-like posts to look back on in the future!! 

Nothing much exciting happened this week. It's finally cooling of which is great, and I'm starting to feel a lot healthier mentally since getting off of a medication about a month ago.  

I finally (2 years later) had the energy to make and order a wedding album. It was so stressful tbh. The photos we have are nice, but they're mostly all of me  o(╥﹏╥)o  it makes me so anxious to look at them because most of them are "artsy" i guess, so either me or my husband are looking away from the camera. oh well i guess. i'm trying to not get too caught up on this but it's hard. I did find 2-3 I really do enjoy, and that's probably all i need, and it's not like the photos were the most important part of the day anyhow. I'll post them so you can see the ones I really liked. 

It really was a happy day (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

✿✼:*:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑

I really want to try to make my own fabric with Spoonflower. I've been feeling really inspired by the surf/tropical patterns that were popular in Japan in the late 90's and it's basically impossible to find any fabric or clothes like that anymore. Luckily my paintings are mostly tropical flowers, so I think I have some ideas on paintings I can make specifically for fabric. I took these photos at my parents' house the other day as inspo ♥‿♥

Baby G watch & new nails (✿ ♥‿♥)

 I recently got something I've wanted for a really long time now, a Baby G watch (✿ ♥‿♥) They were super popular in the Japanese surf style mags from around 1999 which are usually my favorites. I was surprised that this brand was still making the same model that they were making in 1999, just in different colors :0 

I took forever deciding on a color, as usual xD it's so hard ordering things online because I can never really tell how it's gonna look, and I couldn't find many reviews online either. In the end, I picked this transparent teal/blue shade. 

Isn't it so pretty? (✿ ♥‿♥) I love it. I'm so happy I ended up with the blue one!! There's even an animal animation that plays every 30 seconds or whenever I press the button, it's a dolphin here but there's several different animals. I'm obsessed. It's such a perfect 90's transparent color and it fits my arm perfectly and everything. It also has a lot more functions that I was anticipating, like apparently you can store phone numbers in it xD 

I also got my nails done on Saturday! I went quite a bit shorter than I had been since I wanted squares this time and it's hard removing my contacts with long square nails, lol. I might try to get a better photo later, but I really wanted to show them off and this was the only one I had. 

I recently found my nail artist Rui near my new house and shes AMAZING. She moved here from Japan so she knows all about Japanese style nail art and understands the type of styles I like. She likes doing intricate nails too, so we always have a great time discussing the designs. This time she even had a display of tropical nails to show me based on a photo I sent her of one of my surf magazines. (◕‿◕✿) I feel so lucky to have met her!!  

6% dokidoki fashion show... looking back

 I've been so on and off about blogging that i've missed some major life milestones haha. For me, modeling in a fashion show is one of those because it's been my dream since I was a little kid. Last year I had the incredible honor of modeling in 6% dokidoki's fashion show and it still feels like a dream ☆(❁‿❁)☆

6% was very inclusive and let me walk with my cane on the stage, I never felt awkward for needing to use it. I have a problem with one of my big toes, so the cane can make it easier sometimes. 

They also let me bring Melody Jr. onto the stage with me xD I dressed her up in a 6% bow and some other accessories I made and the stylist really liked it and asked if I wanted to walk with her, and of course I absolutely wanted to. I had such an amazing time on the stage, the music was really fun and it was a party from start to finish. I would've walked multiple times if I could! 

I also got to meet Sebastian, if you aren't familiar with the brand he is the founder and a well known artist. He was super cool! I really never thought I would get picked to walk, let alone for such an iconic brand, it was really a dream come true. 

The photos look kinda weird in my blog format for some reason, but if you wanna see them more clearly just click on them, they're much clearer that way. 

Thanks to Maya Lovro for the photos!

The day after the show was the jfashion tea party, and I ended up winning the phone case Sebastian autographed. I think this was my lucky year for conventions xD 

OOPS.. comments are fixed.

 OMG. making a quick post because I feel awful about what happened to my comments. 

I’ve had the “always moderate” setting on for about a YEAR. guess what. I’m so air headed. I thought it would email me when someone commented. NO. it’s a separate tab! No notification!! I found out when I was bored at work clicking around on here!! I feel like a jerk!! 

I have a YEARS WORTH OF COMMENTS. I am so sorry D: you all probably thought I didn’t wanna hear from you. In reality I desperately wanted to hear from all of you. Some of you I don’t have on Line or other messengers and I thought you didn’t read my posts anymore :( when I discovered the messages I was truly so happy. 

I hope you are still reading and please leave comments because I fixed them now. 

Have a photo of my most recent nails as tax. I’m responding to the comments when I get home 😭 

Reconnecting with Creativity

Recently I've gotten really frustrated with the way the internet is. I've posted about it before, and then always just went back to the way things were, mindlessly scrolling for hours and always feeling bad afterwards. And then I fell down a rabbithole of digital minimalism videos on youtube, and the more I learn about the algorithms and apps and smartphones etc. the more I am sickened by them. 

Learning about how the companies manipulate and use you made me look inwardly and realize how addicted I have become to my phone and how miserable it makes me. I never finish scrolling Instagram and feel happy, my mind always feels gunky and anxious. 

I reflected on how over the past several years, I've let media convince me that my ideas and my self expression are not enough if other people do not appreciate it. 

I think it all started when I posted photos of the kind of tropical gal outfit that tends to get likes online. From that moment, I realized how good it felt to be the kind of person that got compliments online and at conventions. I didn't even get very much attention online really, but it was more than I was used to. I felt like I had to keep up that look and it destroyed my self-image. I felt ugly if I wasn't wearing dramatic makeup, tanning, getting super long nails and wearing over the top outfits. I felt like I had to have the perfect image of gal all the time or I wouldn't be worthy of friendship. If I stopped doing any one of those things, I felt like no one would accept me anymore. I started equating that specific look with my worthiness as a person. Old habits die hard, and I eventually realized I had made gyaru into another rigid set of rules I felt that I needed to live by in order to be accepted and avoid ridicule. I didn't feel free to explore ideas and make up my own mind about how I wanted to look anymore. 

I value creativity a lot, and my freedom to create outfits that I thought looked good felt stolen by this pressure to attain external validation. 

Here's my most important thought. I want to be free to wear exactly what I want, be inspired by what I want, and look bad if I want. I want to look ugly if I want, and not care if someone comments on how I'm doing everything wrong. If I like the way I look, why does it matter if someone else says it's ugly? No one I want to be around would abandon me for looking ugly anyways. I don't think it matters to me if other people think I'm a gal or not. I don't want to dress for others as a performance anymore. 

I no longer want to be a product for social media to profit off of, so I finally deleted Instagram from my phone. I think I feel better now that it's gone. 

For the first time in months, I opened up my surf and gal magazines from around 1999. I felt so happy looking through them. I felt inspired to create again. I saw photos of people I think are cool, but felt no pressure to look exactly like them. In fact, I felt relaxed seeing outfits that I can actually imagine myself wearing in my daily life. 

A large part of me reconnecting with my creativity is using my phone less. I wish I could eliminate a smartphone completely, because honestly I don't trust myself to not scroll on something even without instagram, but for several reasons I'm not able to get around day to day without it. I want to get an mp3 player, digital camera, and a watch so that I can eliminate most of the reasons I end up trapped somewhere in an app. I always end up opening my phone for one of those and then end up on some other app wasting my life. If I don't need to open my phone, I think the chances of that happening are far less. 

I don't know if my journey will be successful, or if I'll even want to post about it or post here at all. I could write private posts but I think part of myself still wants to connect on the off chance someone here feels the same way I do. 

I think I'm starting to feel more like myself again, and that makes me happy ✿◕ ‿ ◕✿