Goals Balance for 2019!

It is that time of the year in which one wonders where is the rest of the year, and how it moved in so fast. It was quite an hectic year for me: moving around the globe, the stress of taking my cat with us, and then having to work 14hours per day, including weekends for over two months. But nonetheless, I have a goals balance to make!


And so, Cookie embarked on a journey to the North Pole, to argue with the Chief Fairy of Gifts on a human's behalf, and tell him that -indeed- that human had made a lot during this year, given their circumstances. Would the Chief Fairy of Gifts listen to her? You must always listen to a cat, right? She wrapped up magical pictures of everything that happened to that human, and carried it all the way to the fairy portal that transported her to the North Pole. She was positive she could convince him.

And now, let's see what I proposed myself, and what I did!

1. Successfully move my dolls with me. I will need to sew bags for the dragons and Cookie. V and Coco will probably travel on their boxes, as well as Merry and KCookie. The griffin is like a teddy bear, it is soft. So no issues there. 

In a move that was really hard for me, and that made me cry like a kid for weeks, I sold Coco because I needed the money to move our cat with us. The rest of them (Merry, Cookie, Kitty Cookie, Venezia, and my dragons) arrived safe and sound. The griffin is also in mint condition, and the only "casualty" was a rounded table from my diorama, but it is something I can fix once I get the materials.

I did make a video and a post on my travelling setup, in case it was helpful for somebody!



2.  Buy back another camera for photos, as it has become an integral part of my life. I want to take my 50mm lens with me. I would only need the body, something like a Nikon D7200 or D7500. If I can get back the kit lens, that would be awesome as well. 

I sold my Nikon D5100 back in my country but kept the Nikkor 50mm lens, which was quite important for me. I had thought that I could purchase another Nikon and use it. However, in an unexpected turn of the tide, I ended up selling it here in Australia (also crying).

Using my tax return and pursuing some hefty discounts, I got a new Sony a6400, successfully moving away from DSLR to Mirrorless cameras. There is a box opening post with the box opening and the story in my blog.

I wasreally struggling with the kit lens, which is quite shitty, and suddenly, the lovely @the.kittyears on Instagram contacted me, offering to gift me a vintage Minolta lens, since the adapter was only A$18. I paid her the shipping of $7, and in November, I got my Minolta lens! I am so thankful to this community, honestly! I haven't shared any pictures yet, because it is a fully manual lens and I suck at it, so I need to keep practicing. But here are my dragons inspecting it!

3. Manage to ship the tiny's tree house all the way around the globe. Repair it if required.

Not yet, sadly. Too many debts, too much work, I wanted my camera back. So I haven't been able to get this shipped yet. My mom has it back in my country, so I hope that I can get it back soon-ish.



4. Prepare enough posts so I have something to post and photos to share during the time near the trip. I don't have a date yet, but it will be on the first semester. At the moment of writing this, I have posts lined up to June. 

I ended up having posts lined up until November. This mostly happened because after arriving, around September/October, I had to work around 14 hours per day (including weekends), to "catch up" with some things. As you can imagine, it was impossible for me to keep producing posts, and I barely managed to keep doing the interviews, often translating them really close to the date D:



5. Get a computer or laptop back, so I can keep posting and blogging. I will need to sell everything, and I will not be taking my current laptop with me, though. 

Yes, yes! I got a cheap laptop, but something is something, and I was able to keep posting and working. Of course, rendering the videos is an oddisey, but I can't complain, honestly! Good thing is I had everything planned for the move, so it went quite smoothly.



7. Coco broke her left ankle. Not the ankle, but the concave part of the joint. I'd like to repair it with epoxy, and do some resin match. I tried to resin-match with Calina, and I was terrible at it. I hope I can do it with Coco, though. 

In the end, as I said before, I ended up selling Coco and crying a river about it. So I wasn't able to "fix" her, or do anything with her, sadly. I did took a last photoshoot of her, wearing the Steampunk Late Victorian dress that I did for her back in 2015 (damn! Time flies!).

6. There were two people really kind to me in this hobby, who I want to give back to them. They both helped me with funds for my cat when I needed it before, and now with the moving as well. I have plans for what I want to give them, and I hope I can at least ship their presents late this year.

8. I needed some money for my cat, but I couldn't ship packages. So I went ahead and opened a new Etsy for digital products: I'm selling patterns for BJD clothes. For now I have 1/4 and some 1/8 outfits, because those are the sizes I have. I'm hoping to keep making patterns, also of props and furniture, so I can raise some money for my kitty. I shared it on my Instagram the expenses of moving him with me: they are ridiculously high (around $7000), and thus I need help to get the funds. Please, if you can read it and spread the world, I will be forever thankful. And you can support me through KoFi or my Etsy. My goal here is to make enough money to move him with me.

I'm going to address these two together. First of all, I did tons of patterns for the Momo's Patterns store,  even some new ones recently in October. Moving our cat was something really stressful, but it was thanks to this amazing community that he is with us today. I asked for help and people came to me for help. Unbelievable as it sounds, we raised $7000 to move Bread with us. People kept asking for updates, and I filled my Instagram with news.

The help this community gave is not something I was expecting. However, we are together with our cat thanks to the good will of hundred of people who purchased my patterns and donated money to my KoFi account, so he could be with us.

I still have some debts to take care of, but I have contacted some people asking if they will be okay with receiving a gift from me. Now, I am in the phase of budgeting everything to see how much it will cost to send around 10 gifts world wide. So, I am in the process of fulfilling #6, which I believe counts as a victory. My hope is to start sending those gifts by mid/late 2020.

This is all for my balance! I failed #7 and #3 but with good reasons, and #6 ended up postponed because I had to take care of other things. Overall, I think it was a decent year. I do blame myself for not being able to keep up commenting on friend's blogs, but working 14 hours per day took a heavy toll on me, honestly. So... how did you fare with the dolly goals for this year? I want to know!