New Year (a little late)

Well, this Radioactive Duck has been swamped (and stressed) with work. I won't bore you with the details, suffice to say that even with insomnia there has been little room for anything more than work and family drama. So as I try to reintegrate myself into blogging, the post may be short and more sporadic.

For the winter holidays I received a new custom corset that fits me even better than my first custom corset. There is definitely a learning curb in figuring out the measuring and fit, and even more so when your corsetière is not local. My new burgundy and lavender corset upgraded the front busk to a spoon busk and I'm very happy for this splurge. Currently I'm only wearing it 1-2 times a week, but can go about 9 hours with a 3-4" reduction. I hope to be feeling up to wearing it more during the week as 2012 progresses.

November Wrap Up (a little late)

November was a bit of an off month, to say the least.  The November Challenges that finally made there way up to the leader-board were:

→Make own solid deodorant
→Use up pre-packaged items in apartment
✔Cut my own hair and bangs
✔Make tooth powder instead of using tooth paste
✔Tolerate Green Smoothies

I'm going to give myself a pass for not completing four challenges since November turned into the "get Hope out of her depressed state" month and "get Hope working on her final paper" month.  Let's just say thank goddess for antidepressants, cause if you were depressed and had to pay for antidepressants without insurance it sure would make you depressed (nearly $400 0.o).  Towards the end of the month I began feeling like my old self and then completely freaked about my paper.  Though I'm happy to report that I'm currently at 34 pages of the 40 page requirement.  Alright, before I ramble on too much more lets get to the challenges that I attempted:

→Make own solid deodorant So this one didn't happen yet, only because I found more deodorant when I went on a middle of the night cleaning spree (more to come on this later), but I did finally find and acquire all the ingredients for this, so it's only a matter of time for this one.

→Use up pre-packaged items in apartment Still an on-going battle, but I am down to my last roll of paper towels and finally on the absolute last tube of deodorant.
✔Cut my own hair and bangs There were lots of hair trims this month, still not great but better than nothing
✔Make tooth powder instead of using tooth paste I definitely succeeded in this endeavor, though I had to add an extra 10 drops of peppermint oil and it's still a little on the icky side but I can definitely handle it better now.
✔Tolerate Green Smoothies nuff said about this already

I'm still struggling with my insomnia, and let me tell you depression and insomnia are not a fun combo.  But I'm back to my old ways of handling my insomnia: massive cleaning sprees.  Ok, so we all know how I've moved out of the master bedroom in my two bedroom apartment and into the smaller bedroom.  Well, I still had quiet a bit of stuff just hanging out in the master bedroom.  So since I still don't have a job I'm trying to rent out the master bedroom (still no luck there), which meant that I needed to finish cleaning out that room.  The biggest culprit of stuff still hanging out in there was the bathroom.  Remember when I said I thought I had successfully decluttered the majority of the bulk from the apartment?  Well apparently I was wrong when it came to the bathroom.  I found all sorts of stuff I had no idea was even in the bathroom, like a unopened back of cat litter. Well after three days of purging I'm happy to say everything fits in the one half bath without the counters and cabinets overflowing.  There are still somethings I could probably toss, like my caboodle and my make up that I only were once in a blue moon but I did empty the caboodle and only kept my green eye shadows and favorite lip glosses/chapsticks.

Sleep is what evades me

I'm still alive, and still fighting with my alarm clock.  But that's probably because I'm having a difficult time getting to sleep so out comes the artillery of alternative medicine since I've long given up on sleeping medication (I'd rather be a little tired vs. feeling like I've got a hangover every morning).  First up was jasmine tea a few nights a week.  Then I moved my meditation to night to try and help calm my brain (that and meditating in the morning was just making me want to crawl right back into bed).  Then I moved up the time I take my vitamins from applied kinesiology in the mornings.  Then a trip to the chiropractor was in store to help with the literal pain in my neck.  As all these has yet to help bring on the sleep (and shut my brain off) I'm off to see a hypnotist tonight.

In other wacky news for the day, I'm in the middle of adding some purple streaks to my hair.  I'm not sure how they'll turn out, the goal is a subtle high/lowlight effect.  Also speaking of hair I'm giving a new no 'poo recipe a whirl this time with peppermint castle soap.