Every year, many people who make New Year Resolutions usually include something about eating healthier, exercising more, save money, or just spending less of it on things that they don’t necessarily need. Contrary to popular belief, Blythe is not a need (I know, I know), it is a want. As many of you may already know, I am a student and currently unemployed. I sadly cannot live off of sunshine and clean air, because if you know anything about British Columbia in the winter months, is that there are many days with zero sunshine.

A personal challenge to myself for the first month of 2015 is to do a No Spend month, and it sounds as fun as it is. My exceptions are: tuition, groceries, gas, regular bills, and other necessary things in life. Necessary things would be like medication, and not doll shoes. (Personally, I think that doll shoes are a necessity in leading a cute life, but somehow I don’t think that would make it a challenge if that was an exception…)

“More dresses for me? Great!” – Kitty Brighton

So in addition to my current goals for the new year, I will also be including a limit on dolly-things-spending until August. To make it fun, I want to limit myself to $15 a month (starting from February) to put towards doll things or crafting materials to make things for my dolls. It’s a high enough budget that I could definitely purchase shoes or a dress, but not so high that I’m adding to my stellar designer dolly frock collection, if you know what I mean. $15 a month is an affordable amount of frivolous spending money, for me. An affordable monthly budget for you  may be different for you, based on your own income and financial responsibilities.

August will be my ‘big’ dolly spending month because, hello BlytheCon! and I will be employed by then *knocks on wood*.

For my set limit when determining my budget, I looked at what I spent on dolls and doll things last year, divided it by 3 and then divided it by 11 months (since January is a no spend month). That way I’ll be spending less this year (overall, hopefully, despite August) on dolls and doll things. Three cheers for keeping things under control!

New year, new obstacles to over come.

What interferes with my Blythe time? School, work, friends, boyfriend, family, studying (more studying), cooking, cleaning, and the very important sleep. That and time for commuting, because that sucks up some time as well! Life outside of my winter break clearly takes up a lot of my doll time. It was a lot nicer and care-free when I didn’t have school or anything to deal with. There was a lot more time for dolls and doing doll things. A lot more time.

What interferes with your Blythe time?

One of the things that I quite like about the beginning of new years is the fact that people are very optimistic. As a person who generally tries to be optimistic about the world and the people in it, seeing people make happy goals and wishes for the new year in terms of life style changes, or activities to better themselves, it’s a happy time in the year.

As January begins, the number of days left in my winter holiday is woefully short. I start back in a new term just next week. Not only is it a new term, it is also my last term (short of disaster occurring, of course). I’m really looking forward to it because it means that it is the beginning of the end, and it’ll soon be what I will cheerfully refer to as the Rest of My Life (a.k.a. Life After Graduation). The world of post-secondary education is one that I am very familiar with since it’s where I’ve spent the last 7.5 years of my life (has it really been that long?). Student life appeals to me because I love learning, but it also appeals to me because I don’t have that many responsibilities. That clearly went out the door once I decided to start a nursing program (hello responsibilities!). The new term, also my last term, will likely also be my busiest. I have 600 clinical hours to complete, papers to write, and the NCLEX to study for.

In the mean time, I completely intend to write posts for BlytheLife, keep up with the going ons of the doll community, and conduct interviews. I may have odd sleeping hours, but luckily I can schedule posts ahead of time, and write in my free time (free time? what’s that?). It may take me a little bit longer to reply to emails, but that usually happens during the term anyways, but I will still be replying to emails and working away on BlytheCon Vancouver preparations, and just being amazingly busy.

Hello, 2015. I’ve been looking forward to you.

As 2014 wraps up, I wanted to share some of my favourite posts and moments that I had written this year, in no particular order:

The Blythe community has been taken by storm by the use of Mimi Bobeck bodies in hybrid custom Blythes. I talked about the phenomenon over in Chubby Blythe: Mimi Bobeck x Blythe Hybrid.

This year, I started A Beginner’s Guide as a way to go back to the beginning and share what I’ve learned over the years about Blythe. So far, my favourite post for the series is A Beginner’s Guide: Different Molds.

In August, I had the pleasure of heading to Seattle and going to BlytheCon and I wrote about it in my BlytheCon Seattle: Recap! It was a lot of fun and I loved it. Getting to meet up with old friends and connect with new friends was the best part of the experience.

In An Endless Love Affair I waxed poetic about my ultimate favourite Blythe doll: Primrose, the Kenner. Oh yes, I talked about her crazy poof of frizzy hair and I was quite unapologetic about playing favourites.

Tiny Shoe Love began in July 2014 and I do believe that it is a BlytheLife feature that is here to stay: I quite like my doll shoes. My favourite post so far is actually Tiny Shoe Love #4, where I featured squishy pink Barbie boots.

Another new feature that I’m actually quite proud of is DIY Customizing. If you’ve been reading BlytheLife for a while, you know that customizing is just not a think that I willingly do unless absolutely necessary (or if I’m completely confident in my abilities). The first post in the new series was entitled DIY Customizing: Changing Pullstrings (Without Opening the Head).

There were many more posts that I was really happy about, but I felt I didn’t need to toot my own horn that much! What was your favourite post this year from BlytheLife?

Let me know below in the comments!

Belarus, the in-house BlytheLife blogger. I just live here.

Every year I think up a nice list of resolutions and honestly, I don’t think I fulfill many of them. I don’t even remember what my resolutions for 2014 were… So this year it will be simple:

1. Write for BlytheLife, and continue to enjoy writing for BlytheLife.
2. Continue working away on BlytheCon Vancouver and have fun on August 9th.

Two seemingly simple resolutions. I think I can manage those and remember them!

What are your resolutions for 2015?