General Life Updates:
It’s been two and a half years. Some of you reading this are already aware of some of what has been going on with my life as you’re either friends with me on Facebook or you follow my A’Cloth the World artist/ blogger page there. Hopefully this won’t be entirely redundant.
- Perhaps the biggest piece of news I have to share is that I’ve successfully completed graduate school earlier this year. I now have a Master’s degree in Social Work. My long hiatus can largely be attributed to having had to put so much time and energy into school. But, even in these few months since I’ve completed the program, I’ve needed time to simply relax and recharge. In a lot of respects, grad school kicked my butt and utterly drained me. Ultimately, though, I’m glad to have gotten through it and I’m thankful for the experiences I’ve had and people I’m met that I otherwise wouldn’t have.
- I actually have some rudimentary knowledge of Turkish now. The university where I did my grad program offers Turkish classes at the Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced levels. I ended up taking an extra year of coursework and so, since I could, I managed to at least complete the Elementary level before I graduated. Türkçe güzel bir dil. Daha öğrenmek istiyorum. (Turkish is a beautiful language. I want to learn more.)
- After 4.5 years of selling books online, I *finally* got around to creating a business page for AikiFox Books on Facebook. Of course, I now have the problem of not being entirely sure what I should be posting on said business page beyond notices of new listings as I add things to my inventory.
Possible Futures:
I have found myself, as I have many times before over the years, unsure of which direction to go as I amble forward. All of these internet-based projects I had been working on – my Lammily group on Facebook, my YouTube channel, even this blog – have ended up much like the myriad craft projects that find themselves sitting in the closet as perpetual works-in-progress. The question is, do I want to pick them up and start working on them again? Or am I itching to start that next thing? I have some many ideas swirling around my head, but I know they cannot all come to fruition.
- A’Cloth the World – As far as this blog goes, I already have a few post coming showcasing some of the crafty work I have done during the hiatus. I don’t think I’ve written the last of my doll stories. I’ve not yet decided whether I want to keep those here on this blog, or whether I want to create a secondary blog dedicated to that. What do you think? I’m open to suggestions from readers.
- YouTube – I think I have largely already decided that I’m not going to continue trying to create content on YouTube. For the most part, it’s much too overwhelming for me and I don’t feel my content was even that good. Many of the videos I had made are far too cringe-inducing for me to watch now and I’ve already gone in and adjusted the privacy settings for most of the videos. At this point, I think *if* I were to try the YouTube thing again, I would rather make an entirely different channel and use it as an outlet for practicing Turkish. I’ve seen a few other Turkish vlogs from non-native speaking YouTubers. I think it could be a fun motivator me. But, time will tell if I ever do it.
- Handmade Lammily Fashions – I’m thinking I should find another Admin for the group. I’ve been the sole Admin since I created it and I feel like it has suffered as I haven’t been able to give it the attention it should have gotten. The banner needs updated and we need to do something fun to renew interest in it.
- Income – Aside from encouraging you all to peruse the books I sell online or trying to sell doll clothes or other crafty things on Etsy, I’ve decided I may as well put up a button or something for my PayPal. I need to figure out how to make a widget or something. In the meantime – if you like what I write, if you’ve found any of it helpful, consider sending me something at paypal.me/AikiFox 🙂