Comfortable out the window

So glad summer has started. That last school year almost killed me. I'm serious. I got sick multiple times, and even on the end of year evaluation the vice principal said that my stress level seemed very high this past year. My goal was to not go back to my classroom until August, but that was voided when I was told that I needed to show up today because a "newer" set of computers were coming in to replace my older ones. Yes they are faster, but it took J and I 3 hours to move everything out, clean what my students didn't clean, then move the new computers in. And no, we didn't hook anything up. I'll leave that to the "tech" that was supposed to show up to help us and didn't.

Arg, okay off that train of thought.

I'm enjoying everything so far on this break and I'm trying a few things that I'm not very comfortable with. One problem that I've been having lately is my anxiety is getting worse and worse. I'm having more panic attacks than I've ever had and for things that I've never had attacks over before. Something as simple as going to the mailbox can put me into a panic attack and I've done that how many times before? Yeah, weird. But something that I'm not too comfortable with is being in front of any camera. So, I have to organize photoshoots, leave my camera at home, then bring costumes. And then it takes 3 people to convince me to get into a costume and most of that time, I end up hiding somewhere else.

Here are a few moments caught on camera. J looks much better in front of the camera than I do, but there are few of me mixed in:

Photo by DragonWing Photography. Yes, I hand-dyed that fabric and it was a pain in the &^# to get everything right. . . and it still isn't right.

See? Jakob is amazing in front of the camera. That is his craft. I always look. . . .awkward. But apparently I need to be more comfortable in front of camera so I keep trying.

I was able to costume a few people, so hopefully I will post things soon on that blog (and I've got a Facebook Page for Black Rose Costume Design too.)

I also hate showing pictures of what my house actually looks like inside. I feel like it is never presentable to other people, so when Z (my younger brother) said that he would help me install some cabinets that had been sitting in our garage since we moved in 5 years ago, I wanted to show a before/after picture.

Yes, my shoes used to be strewn all over that corner of the room and if you bumped those containers just right, the entire tower of boxes would drop. So, I now have some nice espresso colored cabinets installed in that corner and my shoes fit nicely into them. Three of the cabinets have my shoes. . . Jakob has one shelf. The other two have our linens and towels which used to be stored upstairs away from our room and made it a pain if we needed anything. Nice to see everything together. Now, to figure out the rest of that room; I've got a plan but lets see if actually all works. Next actually on the tackle list is the guest bathroom on the main floor. I think people are getting sick of the greenscreen green that the bathroom actually is. I've got a plan and yes, we'll probably be down to one bathroom while we get it done, but it needs to happen.

Our summer has just started, so we'll see what goes on.