2018 was such A year. The good. The bad… the CHAOS! Looking back I wanted to combine all of my wrap-up videos and year-review ramblings into one GIANT post for reasons I don’t really know, but I’m doing it… so here we are.

Every year, at it’s closure, I think back and come up with a word to sum up the entire year. It doesn’t have to be completely perfect, but it’s been something that I’ve done for the last five or so years. My word for 2017 was CHANGE… and looking back at everything that happened in 2018… the word that stands out to me is ADAPT. Either by adapting to circumstances out of our control, adapting to my ever-complicating chronic illness journey, or trying to adapt and grow my content, craft, and community here on the Internets. So, my word for 2018 is definitely ADAPT.

Do you have a word that overall sums up 2018 for you? Tell me in the comments below if you’d like to share it.

All told, 2018 was definitely a year of lessons learned. I learned that no matter what – I need to give myself more time than I think for big projects because inevitably SOMETHING will go sideways. Another learning moment was that I really can’t do ALL THE THINGS no matter what my brain thinks. My body simply needs downtime otherwise it will force a reboot and I will be down for so much more time that I would have if I would listen to my Spoonie-self and take breaks along the way. Ko-Fi was a learning moment as well for so many reasons and I probably should double check anytime I want to use any kind of “named thing” from Rick and Morty… ugh, stupid schmeckles.

FAVORITE PRODUCTS —————————————

I didn’t want my favorites video to be an hour long, mind you there were about 54 minutes of raw footage after I plopped everything into Adobe Premiere Pro… yikes! With some clever editing, and a lot of jump cuts – I whittled things down to a homely 30 minutes which is just a touch longer than my 2018 Disappointing products video. Yay!

Since I was crunched for time, I wanted to share a few other favorites – mainly entertainment things with you guys on this post – just because I can. … OH THE POWER!

… I totally forgot to mention that one of my favorite CRACK foods of 2018 was Ketchup Potato Chips. I really hope that they come back in some form or another.

Other good things that happened:

♥ I successfully made it through another year!
♥ I tossed my name in the bucket for a makeup campaign as a model. I wasn’t chosen, which is okay – but I did step out of my comfort zone and give it a go.
♥ My skills in set design came back, just like riding a bike, when I helped my Aunt build some set pieces for a project. I am really good at making foam board look like wood.
♥ Going to the beach at the beginning of February for a photoshoot. It was so cold, but fun.
♥ I had the honor to work with the Sartorial Geek and ACTUALLY GOT A COSPLAY PUBLISHED IN A PHYSICAL MAGAZINE! I created a Jessica Jones cosplay for them as well as a Cosima Niehaus cosplay!
♥ We had so much snow at the beginning of 2018. Snow is one of those things that no matter what will brighten my mood and I revert back into a goofy kid sticking my tongue out trying to catch flakes. Also, Charlie likes the snow, too, because he is my kid.
♥ My love of sewing things has resurfaced. I have so many cosplay things planned and in the works for this year. Just you wait.
♥ Mr. Chaos and I celebrated our 8-year dating and 6-year marriage anniversaries. I can’t believe that I’m lucky enough to have that hooman in my life and that he willingly stays around.
♥ Kombucha is delicious.
♥ I can make very tasty vegan food… although don’t ask me for the recipe because I usually just play “throw all the things in a pot and see what happens.”

————————————— DISAPPOINTING PRODUCTS

Other not-so-fun stuff that happened in 2018

There were some not so fun things that happened in 2018, outside my Alter-Ego Superhero life.
I wanted to share them with you as well, just because my goal on this little corner of the Internet is, to be honest, not push the stereotype of “that perfect unattainable life” that a lot of bloggers – especially lifestyle and beauty bloggers like to maintain. Life is messy – the good and the bad.

I made it to mid-March / April with my bullet journal… and then I didn’t pick it up again. I think partly why it didn’t work is because of it’s design – which is weird because I’m the one who designed it…. but I don’t know. Don’t worry, I’ve started another one for 2019 and so far we are going strong. It’s A4 sized and the paper is a little better in quality plus I’m using it to keep myself on track as far as sleep, spoons, jaeCHAOS stuff and more. Would you be interested in some bullet journal setup posts? Lemme know…

My Grammy passed away in September. It was sudden and there was a mess with the hospital. Ugh. It is never pleasant when someone you love passes away… but I will say, with that – I was able to be by her side and hold her hand for a time before she passed. I’m glad I was there. I’m glad I made her laugh and smile one last time and now she’s with my Pap and all of my other relatives who have passed on before them. I was able to reconnect with family members who I haven’t seen in almost a decade – so I guess there’s an upside to funerals. One of the things that will always stay with me is how much she absolutely loved Mr. Chaos. She said that he reminded her of Pappy and my god, if that’s not the highest compliment in the world – I don’t know what is.

As a whole, my depression amped up in 2018… it’s something that I work through on a daily basis and have had in some form or another since I was about 11 or 12 years old, but if you’re wondering why I wasn’t as productive in November and December; that’s why. My depression also gets amplified when I have SLE or Fibro flares, which both have been happening as well… c’est la vie.

I want to talk more about it (depression/spoonie stuff) but I’m not sure if folks enjoy or appreciate that sort of content. I will be sharing some stuff that helps me fight off my SADs since now’s the time of year that it gets… err… sad.

OH! And right at the end of the year, the clutch on our trusty little golfball of a car went out.[By the way, it’s nickname is Golfy because it’s been through a few hail storms and I love giving my cars nicknames. Mr. Chaos calls it Squirrelsbain, but that’s because he’s weird.] Thankfully, it’s a standard and not an automatic because a clutch replacement is WAAAAAY less expensive than a transmission replacement – so there’s that. It was still a lot, don’t get me wrong, but 2k verses 7k is better in my book. All I know is that talking to and pouring compliments and encouragements on the car when I was driving it helped keep it going until we could get it into the shop. Mr. Chaos thought I was weird talking to Golfy when I would drive her… but it worked and she never broke down on the side of the road. Oh man, the drive to our mechanic the day we took her in was rough though. Living in PA with all the hills and mountains is beautiful… but not so great when your clutch is 3% away from completely going out.

Before I move on to talk about my looks from the year, I wanted to let you know that I do have the Week 3 and Week 4 videos of Vlogmas. I’m still editing them. I will probably back-post them to the blog and just keep them unlisted on my YouTube channel. I’m going to try and get them done in the next week or so. For some reason, I haven’t really had the drive to finish them.

—————————– Makeup 2K18—————————–

By the numbers, 2018 was my most productive year of Chaos (online)-at least up until this point because my plan is for 2019 to blow it out of the water. 89 individual makeup looks. 8 Influenster campaigns with 2 campaign wins. 27 different videos uploaded to my YouTube channel. 42 published blog posts – with countless more just chilling in the draft(-ers… get it, drafters, like rafters. I’m brilliant.)

Instagram definitely came with a hard learning curve this past year. I’m still working on not giving a damn about the numbers because in the long scheme of things – it’s not important. It still sucked a little mainly because I posted more looks, better looks – both from a makeup AND photography perspective – and the likes and views tanked. Looking back on my “Top Nine” / “Best Nine,” I can definitely tell when Instagram stopped showing my pictures to folks. Most of makeup looks in the picture above were created from the first half of the year.  Meh.

I would like to add that looking back at my “Top Nine” from years past – it is clear that my engagement has gone WAY down. … I miss the old Instagram. Harumphf. Like, compared to 2017 – I posted more content, better content, and received 40% fewer likes on more pictures. …ugh.

Looking back at my 2018 looks ———————————————————–

Which one was your favorite… or favorites?

Fun fact, there are about 5 looks from last year that I shot/filmed the tutorial for that I haven’t actually put out there on the internet. They will be coming within the next month or two, rest assured, but I have them chilling in my HD just waiting to be released into the wild. MUWHA HA HA HA HA.

WHAT ‘DOTH THE FUTURE HOLD?

2019 is already of to a roaring start, albeit with one not-so-great thing – but I’ll talk about that later. I am ready to kick 2019 in the butt and spread more Chaos here on the internet. #moarCHAOS, dudes! Today, I’m working on getting some videos edited and scheduled for tomorrow and next week. My goal this year is to stay ahead of the curve and work when I can so that I have content that is consistent and awesome.

I came up with some goals or milestones I’d like to complete this year – most are attainable by myself while others are like hitting certain numbers on my YouTube channel and blog. By the way, are you subscribed to my YouTube channel? I’ve got a new tutorial going out tomorrow and some more goodies to follow next week – just for starters… tee hee. See what I did there?

If you didn’t see my announcement post – I LAUNCHED A PATREON PAGE! I solemnly swear only to use my powers for good. CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY PATREON PAGE. Please?

Patrons get early access to some of my YouTube and blog content, as well as EXCLUSIVE videos for their eyes only – and lots of other stuff, depending on the tier you choose. INCLUDING SNAIL MAIL FROM MEEEEEEEE! We are also going to hang out at the end of the month for my monthly live stream – and I’m pretty sure I’m going to slam my face into some cake – toddler style. I would appreciate it if you would take a moment to check it out or share my Patreon page with your friends.

… alright – that’s enough Patreon plugging for now! On to other things…

As far as content goes, I’m planning on having a few series spin up this year – including some 101 helpful videos for those starting out with makeup and MAYBE some monthly themed ones. I am also HOPEFULLY going to be starting my Wig out Wednesday series in the next month or two. We will see. I am doing more cosplay and cosplay-inspired / character-inspired looks on the horizon… including a few DIY build posts. Oh, and I’m going to be doing the 13DoH this year … and will be prepping SO MUCH EARLIER than last year. Hooray!

I have a notebook full of ideas and I’m ready to rock your socks off!

With that, now comes the time to congratulate you if you’ve made it to this part of my lengthly blog post and to ask you two things. What were your highlights of 2018? (AND) What sorts of things would you like to see from me – content wise – this year? Please take a moment to share with me in the comments as I’ll be at my computer all day today working on admin stuff and would love to chat!

2019: LET’S DO THIS!