SOLD! + PREVIEW!

Well, I'm happy to say that my donation to the April's Army charity collective has SOLD!
Yep, that's $8 to a great cause!
That brings Hello Interloper's total amount of contributions to $22 for the year so far!
My personal goal is to donate $75 worth of crafts by the end of the year. I love what I do, and if I can help other people in need with my artwork, it makes everything so much more worthwhile!

In addition to my regular monthly contribution next month (which has yet to be made!), my mother, Hanna, will be donating some of her necklaces as well!
They have all been designed and put together by her using semi-precious stones, beads, and other authentic materials.
They're extremely beautiful, so keep an eye out for them at the end of August!

(Want to find out more about AA and the monthly charity shop? Visit the April's Army Blog for more info!)

Also, I realized that compared to the Hello Interloper Facebook Page, you blog followers have been missing out on previews of my new works and works-in-progress!
I'd advise anyone who is hungry for updates to check it out, as it's usually updated daily with a Twitter post, and also is easy to send my previews to from my phone.
You might be able to get my latest Twitter announcements at the top of the page here, but making a new blog post for a preview is a hassle, especially because I can't do it from my phone!

Since I'm already writing a post anyway, I'll show you guys my latest creation!

He still needs to trimmed of fuzzies, and my phone is a measly 1.3 megapixels so a lot of the details and shadows are lost.
In reality he's a bright yellow kitty with skyblue eyes! He stands about 4-5 inches tall I'd guess, so he's my largest needle-felted project yet. (I'm very stingy when it comes to my corriedale wool... It cost me my first paycheck from my fro-yo job, so I want it to last!)

He'll be put up for sale possibly next month, when I have more things made.
I prefer to photograph and list all of my new items at once rather than whenever they're finished... I find it saves time.

I also go back to work tomorrow... Eek! With these poked up fingers from needle-felting... it's not gonna be fun.

Until next time!

Oh my freaking fudgebuckets.

First of all, I want to announce...

THE APRIL'S ARMY SHOP OPENS TODAY!!!
The theme this month is "the natural," so I donated this pin to the cause!

ALSO, STOP LEAVING ME SPAM COMMENTS.

I had to delete 8 comments yesterday because they were all literally copy-and-pasted, word for word from my posts, with a link to crappy prescription websites in their name.

PEOPLE COME HERE FOR CRAFTS, NOT VIAGRA.

MASSIVE Shop Update!

My vacation started on Monday, and since then I've been hard at work making new things!
So, I present to you the LARGEST SHOP UPDATE YET!
Twenty new items ranging from $3-9!

Here's some of my favorites from this update!

Take a look at these and even more at the Etsy Shop!

Back to School... and back to fear.

Tomorrow I'm going to visit UConn Stamford to figure out when and how I'm going to go back to college.
I'm not going to lie... I'm PETRIFIED.

I've had a bad relationship with education.
I grew up bullied in school for being creative and "different" in a snobby town full of clones, but excelled in almost everything.
That all changed when I hit my teenage years.
I started noticing that I had to wrestle with my mind to keep focused. I became easily distracted, and gained a hatred of long-term things, like projects and essays.
Short-term things, I continued to do well at... math problems, standardized tests, short answer questions, and the like.

When I turned 16, it was apparent that something was extremely wrong. Nobody goes from being a straight A student to a kid struggling with their grades without something happening.
Turned out I had two things... major depressive disorder, aka depression, and ADHD-PI.

What's ADHD-PI?
For starters, the PI stands for "predominantly inattentive."

Wikipedia can explain the rest:

ADHD-PI is different from the other subtypes of ADHD in that it is characterized primarily by inattention, easy distractibility, disorganization, procrastination, forgetfulness, and lethargy - fatigue, but with fewer or no symptoms of hyperactivity or impulsiveness typical of the other ADHD subtypes. In some cases, children who enjoy learning may develop a sense of fear when faced with structured or planned work, especially long or group-based that requires extended focus, even if they thoroughly understand the topic. Children with ADHD-PI may be at greater risk of academic failures and early withdrawal from school. Teachers and parents may make incorrect assumptions about the behaviours and attitudes of a child with ADHD-PI, and may provide them with frequent and erroneous negative feedback (e.g. "you're irresponsible", "you're immature", "you're lazy", "you don't care/show any effort", "you just aren't trying", etc.).

The inattentive children may realize on some level that they are somehow different internally from their peers. However, they are also likely to accept and internalize the continuous negative feedback, creating a negative self-image that becomes self-reinforcing. If these children progress into adulthood undiagnosed or untreated, their inattentiveness, ongoing frustrations, and poor self-image frequently create numerous and severe problems maintaining healthy relationships, succeeding in post secondary schooling, or succeeding in the workplace. These problems can compound frustrations and low self-esteem, and will often lead to the development of secondary pathologies including anxiety disorders, sexual promiscuity, mood disorders, and substance abuse.

And there you have it. Me in a nutshell.
When I was officially diagnosed, I was floored. It was like somebody had observed my life and behaviors, and wrote a description of it.
I tried ADD medications, and had horrible heart-related side effects, leading my psychiatrist to scrap the ADD treatment altogether, and go straight for the neck of the depression.
Two years later, I was depression free, and have been ever since.

But what of my education?
I ended up failing classes in high school, and having to take 5 years to graduate what normally takes 4 years.
And if you've been following this blog at all, you know what happened to me in college... my lack of focus and frustration led to getting tons of incompletes, and eventually it was anemia that screwed me completely over.

Like I said, I'm not going to lie...
I'm scared to death of going back to school.
I have nightmares every week about school... elementary school, middle school, high school, college, you name it.
I either am failing, can't remember my schedule, late to class, missing a test, being kicked out of school, having to escape school, being yelled at by a teacher, being tortured by classmates, or the like.
Don't get me wrong, my life is great right now. I'm not depressed at all. At night while I'm asleep, however, my mind likes to dig up crap from the past and taunt me with it. It's like school-induced PTSD.

I'm wrestling right now about going back to college.
I know I can't ever get a job better than dog-washing without a degree, and it's not fair to Jon to not finish college while he works so hard to do so.
But I haven't changed. I can't focus, I hate projects, I drive myself crazy with my forgetfulness and inability to pay attention to things.
I think I need to try medication again... but I'm scared of side-effects too.
It's one evil or another. Failure, or the discomfort of having your brain go haywire from side-effects... a tough choice.

It all scares me.
Life never gets easy, does it?

What Kind of World Do We Live In?

Friday I drove to my friend's house in Jersey after work. On the way there I had to make a left hand turn, and it was a one-lane street. I slow down, turn on my signal, and get as close to the center line as I can without crossing it, so someone could pass on the shoulder. But to my knowledge it doesn't look like there's enough room for someone to pass me using the shoulder(it was a narrow street). There is another car coming the opposite way, so I decide to wait rather than book it across. Some hotshot prick who as been behind me for while, continues to speed, and is too impatient to wait and tries to drive on the shoulder to pass me. The guy realizes he can't fit in, so he shoves his fist on the horn. At this point the other car just passed so I begin to make my turn. But this asshole next to me made me lose it. He said something through his window and I screamed at him and then he sped the hell away. The whole event, from when I slowed to make my turn and from when I actually did turn must have taken 7-10 seconds. Some people are just impatient.

From there I made it to my friend's house without incident. We hung out for a while, watched Goodfellas at his house, went to his friend's sister's birthday party, hung out with them, watched Insidious there, and it was 1:15am by time we rolled out of there.
From his friends house, we(my friend, his brother and our other friend) went to a nearby diner for a meal. We drove up, parked, they place was pretty much empty, save for a group of 4 in another booth, which left a few minutes after we arrived. The waitress came up and we ordered our drinks. When she came back with our drinks and placed them in front of us we said "Thank you" and thought nothing of it. She turned to go away, then she turned back and said, "You boys are very polite, thank you".

Here's where I see a problem. She thanked us for being polite. For being nice. For having common courtesy. She shouldn't have to thank us for something like that. She can be thankful that we said thanks, but she should not actually have to thank us for being polite. My friend and I discussed, that she must have to serve the most shit kind of people if we have that kind of impact on her. We're no saints, but we're not douchebags either. What kind of world do we live in where common courtesy is a rare sight? Are most people so focused on themselves that they can't spare a thought for another person? Are we in such a hurry we can't wait 5 seconds for someone to make their turn? I can ramble on and on but I don't want to get carried away. I'll leave you with this: What kind of world do we live in?

New Items Up on Etsy!

I was able to photograph and list some items today!
New needlefelted birds are available, as well as the long anticipated animal rings!

Visit the Etsy Shop to see all of the new items!

Notice! Please Read

Hello!
This is just a quick announcement to tell you that I'm not dead, just extremely busy and exhausted.
I've been working 6 days a week for the past two weeks, and as a result I've been very tired. I'm not a very strong person physically, being only 110 lbs and never having exercised, with the exception of Physical Education back in high school. Working with dogs for 3 to 6 hours a day, some weighing as much as I do, can be a huge drain on my energy and strength. After work I always immediately take a shower, and most days take a nap immediately after that, leaving me to wake up at around 3 or 4pm.
In other words, my free time has been cut back a lot, and I've been feeling a lack of motivation to create lately. I feel more like vegging out and relaxing than working some more.
My boyfriend also spent the last week visiting, so most of my free time (which wasn't much to begin with because of work) was dedicated to spending time together.

This doesn't mean that this blog is going to die, or I'm going to stop creating things!
It just means that updates will probably be less frequent for a while.
I have a 9-day vacation coming up, and I have a day off tomorrow as well. I'll be needlefelting and finishing up the glow-animal rings I glued a few days back. If the weather wills it, I might also be able to photograph everything for posting.

Thanks for your patience!