A Couple of "Aha" Moments

It's been interesting, the past few months, coming to the end of some chapters and starting new ones.  Here are some rather profound thoughts that flashed across my brain that I wanted to share with you all...

I borrowed the most recent The Three Musketeers (2011) from the library and was not so much watching it, as frequently and compulsively pausing it and running it frame by frame so that I could study the costumes and their various trims, materials and contours.  Soooo pretty.  (And that's just Athos...)  I realized that should I ever come into a large sum of money, I would spend absolutely ALL of my time constructing period film replicas out of silks and brocades and then I realized, that's probably why I'm not wealthy (yet), is because the Lord in His wisdom knew once I went into a fully equipped costume studio, you lot would likely never see me again! ;)

I finally know what I want to be when I grow up (I can hear you all in a collective and very sarcastic "NO, really?!") but it wasn't always so clear, and anyway, even if you know what you want the end result to be, that's still a far cry from knowing the steps you have to take to actually get to that point, right?  Right.  So I finally have begun to wrap my brain around some of that and I figured out that achieving my dreams will mean giving up living debt free for a little while.  I paid a high price (not just monetarily, but emotionally and etc as well) to get myself out of credit card debt some years ago.  Recent events have forced me back in just a little (not to credit cards, thank heaven, but to family), but the education required to acquire the skills I will need to get the career that I so desperately desire will throw me back into the deep end of owing people money, and I am balking at that like a toddler getting their school immunization shots.  It's got to be done for the greater good, but I DON'T WANNA!  Factoring in tuition, gas money, materials, books and other general expenses, my degree is going to come with a doozy of a price tag.  I realized what else could be done with an equal sum.  There are the obvious things.  Buy a small house outright.  A couple of brand new luxury cars.  But I could travel to England on that.  And stay for an entire summer.  I could get myself and 99 of my closest friends into Dragon*Con with $900 spending cash each.  Or one could also buy 25,000 frappuccinos from Starbucks (close to 69 years worth, if you bought one a day).  If you're a Sci-fi fan, you can even own the Stargate from the SG1 series for that.  Of course, the cost for school isn't going to come all at once.  It will be spread out over 4 or 5 years-ish.  Still.  It's daunting.  There are grants and scholarships, of course.  I plan to find every single one of those that I can.  This is doable, and I will see it done.

As much as I want to go to the premier of first Hobbit movie in costume, it's 3 weeks out and I am nowhere near happy with my current design/materials.  I have decided that this will be much more worth the wait to postpone until next fall (Dragon*Con/Halloween) or even until the big finale third film is released.  This "Aha" moment was bittersweet, because it means not working like mad to get the outfit done by year's end, but all told, I feel really good about shuffling it to a later date so that it will get the time and attention (and therefore quality) that it deserves.  I've moved up a couple of Regency ideas in its place, the sales of which would afford better materials for the Hobbit dress.  Yes, that's a much wiser way to go.  I did come up with something BRILLIANT for the hobbit feet, though.  Short of how they made them for the film(s), of course.  (I don't have access to those quantities of prosthetic latex and molds, yak hair and spirit gum.)

That's about all for now.  I'm back in the studio doing some Christmas orders for the Etsy shop and figuring out some next steps all the way round.  Stay warm and cozy as the weather gets colder, my dears.  I'll see you again soon.
Love,
Lucy Jane