It has been over a year and half since I last blogged. Since January 1, 2022 to be exact. My hiatus was unplanned, as so much since March 2020 has been. Initially I fell behind because early 2022 became busy, as in-person events started picking up. Things got worse in fall 2022 when I started commuting to work again, which added a bunch of stress. (Spending 1.5-2 hours a day commuting was tougher than I remember it; I do not know how I blithely accepted that for a decade.) I was a big ball of anxiety in the winter of 2022-2023, and then I got hit with another shock: the barn I had been horseback riding at since 2010, Reddemeade Farms, announced in February 2023 that it was closing. Reddemeade was a big part of my life, especially since I had been spending more time there during the pandemic, as horseback riding is a relatively COVID-safe outdoor activity. I was devastated by the closing, which certainly did not help with my anxiety. I spent as much time as I could at the barn until it closed in August 2023. I will always treasure the many fun memories I have from that last summer, but it was also constantly depressing to say goodbye to fellow students week after week as they departed for other places. Mentally, I was not in a great place.
Things started to turn around in the fall of 2023. I was fortunate to be able to continue horseback riding lessons with a former Reddemeade instructor, Jess Schaberg, who started her own program, Fresh Start Equestrian. It was so great to be able to keep riding and to stay in touch with a bunch of people and several horses from Reddemeade. I also finally began to feel like I had a routine at work and had gotten used to the commute. I had been grieving for the loss of Reddemeade and also bouncing around between different telework/work schedules for most of 2023, which had left me anxious and unsettled. When Reddemeade finally closed and I got things more ironed out at work, I started getting things back on track. Since the fall, I have made slow but consistently upwards progress in terms of my mental health.
As you might expect from the above, I was not particularly productive in terms of costuming during 2022-2023. Which is not to say I wasn’t crafting. I focused more on small knitting projects (lots of hats and mittens) that kept me busy but were not mentally overwhelming. I was also not super motivated to sew myself clothes as I had gained some weight during my 2023 funk. (Though I have since lost about 70% of what I gained.) I did make a few costumes in 2022, but I made almost none in 2023. So far in 2024 I have sewn about 75% of a regency dress, and that’s it. However, as I have started to feel better, I have begun to think about picking some costume projects back up.
Here is where I left things back in January 2022 in terms of goals,
2022 goals
-Finish light blue regency dress-Yup!
-Catwoman’s wedding dress-Nope!
-Cassandra Cain Batgirl-Nope!
-Continue to improve my skills and confidence at photography-Up and down, but I’ll say yes.
-Hang in there, both emotionally and physically-Nope! But doing better now.
On to photos of what I did finish!
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In the Long Run 
