Two years later...oops

Hi all,

It's been a looooong while. It is now Summer 2020, I have already had 2 weeks of holiday and 4 more weeks to come. I missed blogging, so even though my energy is going up and down at the moment, I am going to try to write a long post with a long update (so if you don't like reading long stories, just skip it or skip to the parts you like).

What happened?

There were some reasons why I stopped blogging here:

From September 2018 I started doing a course for coaching. In spring 2018 they had no plans to prolong my contract as a teacher (at the applied university), so I had to think of other stuff. Looking back I think I was both slightly frustrated with not getting a contract and determined to start/keep doing work I love that I wanted to make sure to 'get there' and not give up. And because I got more and more interested in personal development and coaching, I chose to follow a professional coaching course that would provide me with a decent level of skills and a certificate that proves I can actually do it. And so I learned a lot of things and finished it in September 2019! It was amazing, but of course it took quite some hours to do the work. Meaning less hours for hobbies. You can also take into account that I actually paid for the course myself and if I calculate it back I could have bought at least 20 brand new lolita dresses for it. Think about that. I even started selling some dresses, because I felt like I had to balance it out at some point.

The funny thing was that by the end of the academic year in 2018 they wanted to keep me after all (yay), which means that I got a permanent contract for three days a week and had to follow a training for teachers throughout the following year as well, which also costed a bit more hours (not as much as for coaching though). So because of both the coaching course and the training, by the end of the day/week I would just have less energy and time for lolita fashion and/or blogging.

At a certain point I did not feel comfortable anymore to put my blog on public, even though I had plans of making posts about our holiday to Japan in 2018. I also had my instagram on private for a while. I'm not sure but I felt that maybe now I am a 'real' teacher and coach I should not show this side of me. I got afraid for students or colleagues to judge me or something, even though I just wear it around in real life certain times as well. Later on I felt more comfortable again, because I do believe that I should just be myself and if others want to judge me that says something about them, not me. Then again, I also started to wear slightly more classic or casual coords so that made it a bit easier I guess. It is an interesting thing though in hindsight... I never really was ashamed or afraid to wear the fashion. Maybe it was something more psychological that I was going through.

Last year

In 2019/2020 I started to be more active with the fashion again. I met up with lolita friends a bit more and I went to the Summer Tales Boutique event Strike a Pose as well which did still make me happy. I did not go to a lot of general community meetings though. Around December 2019 I got less energy and motivation again (work-related) and that influenced me quite a bit. Then around Spring 2020 it got better again but you know what happened then already: Covid-19.

Anyway, in the last year I made four new dresses for myself again, two of them were for the Strike a Pose event.

The grey one I also made the print myself. In the end I was a little less happy about it, but I just wanted to try something different. I always wanted something like a landscape painting on a dress, bu maybe next time some different colors would have been better.

The black one with butterflies was made with a fabric from Timeless Treasures. The gold lines around the butterflies are of a shiny gold color. It inspired me a bit to do something with a Japanese/Wa-like silhouette, in the end I was pretty happy with it. It is versatile as well since the butterflies have all kinds of color, for example I wore it with a blazer on top for another (non-lolita) event.

The other ones weren't really made with something in mind, I just liked the fabrics when I saw them. The brown one I still want to coordinate in a more steampunk-ish way one day. Both also can be worn pretty casually, which fits into my current 'style'.

I also made some accessories to go with it of course:

The dangly headdress (actually probably has a different name?) was for with the misty mountains jsk. The rest can speak for themselves I think. I also made some resin necklaces again, but I don't have good pictures of them at the moment.

For the rest I did not touch my sewing machine a lot. Last thing I made were some masks for when we had to travel with public transport (did not happen until now, since I worked a lot from home and for traveling we use the car until now, we did not go away a lot anyway because of corona).

Purchases

At the Summer Tales event in 2019 I bought quite some things (well in my perspective). I was actually happy, because usually at events I get overwhelmed and always start thinking "I don't need this". But I think because I did not do a lot the year before I thought it was okay to spend some money. I bought some jewelry from Angelic Pretty, a bolero from Summer Tales Boutique and some accessories from Triple Fortune and Violet Fane. In july 2019 also bought my first item from Innocent World, the Forest Harvest Festival skirt in beige. I have been looking for either the dress or the skirt quite a while so when I saw it I was happy to buy it. Then later in October or so I also saw a nice (sweet!) print from Alice and the Pirates and someone selling the skirt for a nice price while it was brand new. By husband thought it was cute as well so I bought it and already wore it several times. But..I don't think I can wear skirts for a while (I'll tell why you below). Then a friend of mine, Charlotte, also offered to sell her BtssB cardigan since I've been looking for a light-green cardigan and it was perfect <3. Besides that I bought some minor things like tights/accessories.

Coords

Here are some coordinations I was happy with:

Skirt: Innocent World - Forest Harvest Festival

Left - Blouse: Bodyline, accessories handmade, rest offbrand (Ebay/AliExpress)
Right - Cardigan: Baby the Stars Shine Bright, Necklace: handmade by me
Brooches: Mulberry Chronicles, Rest is offbrand.

Skirt: Alice and the Pirates  -  Jewelry world on the clouds

Left - Blouse: Angelic Pretty, Blazer/coat and shoes: Bodyline. Star-clip was made by a friend, necklace by my mom-in-law. Button was a mirror that I glued a pin on, it was from the Dream Masquerade Carnival event in London. Rest is offbrand.
Right - necklace and ring: Angelic Pretty, Rose-brooch: Triple Fortune (won in a raffle!), otks from Baby the Stars Shine Bright. Both coords with headbow from Summer Tales Boutique. Rest is offbrand.

Coord to the left - Jsk and headdress handmade by me. Bolero from Summer Tales Boutique, otks from Alice and the Pirates. Rest is offbrand.

Future

Now for something different: talking about the future. It's been a while since my husband and I started thinking about having kids. For a long time we didn't really 'feel' it. I have brothers and sisters with kids but I frankly easily feel overwhelmed when I see kids play very loudly (I know it is different when they are at home and it is not a party of course..). And we love to travel so we used to say we "still wanted to do this and go there", but at one point it started to feel a bit empty in my life. Some family moved to new houses and I started missing having my own close family a bit (if that makes sense?). Of course I love my parents and brothers and sisters and my family in law but they all have their own thing and we are not a super-close family. Then Christmas after Christmas it felt a bit the same year after year, I got a bit tired of it. Next to that I think we got settled a bit: both a stable job, already together for years, having a home etc.
That does not necessarily mean I think it is logical to have kids then, I totally still understand that there are people who do not feel like that at all, or need a partner for that sake, to be happy. And I agree. It's totally okay. But my husband and I it felt like a good next step. There was one big holiday planned at the end of April but that did not happen because of the coronavirus and so, we thought why not now. Then I got pregnant, haha.

The pregnancy announcement I made for lolita friends/insta.

Then another thing is that I planned to start to going for a masters degree. We didn't really expect to be expecting something soon, since a lot of friends around our age had either 'troubles' or at least it took longer for them. Anyway. Same thing for the master's is that I had to request a scholarship for it so it depended on that but I got it in the end, meaning that I will do another part-time study for the coming years.
It will take some decent planning and effort to fit it together with both work (but at least I get hours for both things haha) and our lives of course, but we are going to try. If anything I am really happy and excited to have things going on and happening again, because last year was really a 'bla' year to me.
I am now pregnant for 14 weeks, the due date is January 25, 2021. And everything is alright until now, healthy mom and mini-growing-baby. Had some small pregnancy ailments of course, but I think less than average (?), let's hope it stays alright. In some weeks we'll know if it is a boy or a girl :) I am so excited to meet this cute little human!

Our general pregnancy announcement.
Our Dog Kairi is reading books here, we made covers related to babies and dogs living together :P.

Anyway that also means that some things will change again and I am really not sure for how long I'll keep wearing lolita fashion. As long as it fits and I feel like it. I definitely don't think that because I'm having a baby it means I should stop wearing it or anything. I'm already past my thirties anyway, I don't really care. And I think I'm not the only one, since I follow some other lolita-moms-to-be on Insta too.
The one thing I do feel though is that I feel less interested in meeting a lot of new people. Obviously I think it is really cool that more people get into the fashion and I'm happy for them, but at a certain point age also influences what you talk about or how you talk about it. I don't follow all releases closely (that is also maybe because lots of them don't spark my interest...), I don't get excited anymore when I see a random kawaii-stand at a convention or something unless it is something I haven't seen before. Maybe that is also because my style-preference changed a bit (even though I feel like wearing sweet from time to time). After multiple big events and going to Japan three times, a certain 'standard' grows with you. For example: I don't really feel like going to anime conventions at all anymore, why when we could easily just go to Japan ^^; I'm sorry, that sounds really spoiled and it is, but that is how it feels for me. That does not mean I don't appreciate small meets or Japan-markets or anything, I still like those quite a bit. But having more things going on in your life, makes the balance a bit different and influences choices and what you talk about. Sometimes I have to skip/cancel going to a meet because I got more work to do (teachers have deadlines too..). It is just how it is.

I did feel like writing blogposts about lolita fashion though, maybe it was just because I did miss wearing the fashion for some time and writing about it (sorry, Instagram and FB groups are just not the same..). Maybe it is because sometimes I felt like referring to a blogpost but then my blog was set on private. Maybe because simple I just still love the fashion and am sad that it is not smart to buy a lot at the moment because it will not fit me anymore in some months. So who knows I'll just write a thing or two here, maybe do a small story about the last Japan trip etc. Anyway, thanks for reading <3.