Life certainly hasn’t slowed down.

I’m still bellydancing here and there, and part of the movement to get a local MECDA chapter up and running. We’re well on our way with that. There are a good number of local people ready for a thriving bellydance community here, and I think it will be a very good thing.

Still burlesquing. Just not as actively. It’s still fun, and fabulous. I just have to reignite my inspiration (and lose 30 pounds so I FEEL inspired).

I have a couple business ventures I’ve started. One is my own Lia Sophia business, helping people host jewelry parties in their homes, so THEY can get free jewelry and other awesome bonuses, while earning income myself. It’s a good fit. I like sparkly things. I like to share sparkly things with other people… Presenting to other people isn’t a problem, and I get to keep and wear all the jewelry I use as sample/display, so it’s all good. So what if it’s not fine jewelry? It’s still pretty.

I’m also dabbling in a Visalus business, more to use the product than anything, but my parents have been doing it, and they’ve both lost weight and had improved blood sugar levels! (They both have diabetes.)

Still Suicide Lounge-ing here and there, and it’s still fun. We keep adding new material every so often, so it never gets stale.

The rest of life is… life. Mostly frustrating, sometimes exhilarating, nearly always interesting. (The old curse “may you live in interesting times” comes to mind.) I could still use a job and a steady income. Not necessarily in that order. I do keep busy.

Maybe I’ll update here more often. Talk about new things I’ve tried recently, etc…

OH! Speaking of which… I got a new toy! It’s not a big deal, but I like this sort of thing. Intuit gave me a credit card reader that I can use with my iphone and Intuit’s GoPayment app… so when I’m getting paid for a gig, or getting paid for some costume-y thing I’m selling, I can tell people that I accept credit cards. Just swipe it through the reader, input the dollar amount, have them sign the touch screen and we’re done. If you have a smart phone, you can get one too. They send it to you for free, and it’s a small transaction percentage, but totally worth it to me, for the convenience. Just go to the Intuit site to read more about it.

Holy CATS there are some things I could use there…

Sigh.

Because I don’t have time to take NEW photos. If I did, I might have taken a photo of my orangey stained hands. (I just henna’d my hair today, and had run out of plastic gloves, but didn’t discover that until it was prepared and ready to be slopped on my hair. So… orange hands.) Or, I might have tried to get a good shot of the color of what my hair looks like RIGHT after I’ve used the henna…

But no, I have nothing like this for you today.

So… instead… you get this photo I’m still not very happy about, though other people have said it’s nice.

I have GOT to get over my self image issues and just accept what I look like. Maybe someday.

It’s an enormous file, because I was too lazy to make it smaller.

Now… back to sewing furiously so I don’t start out completely naked for my first try at burlesque in front of people on Sunday. That would be so anticlimactic.