Senior Year

It's been a minute, I'm not gonna lie, life has been crazy. And things have changed.


I never thought my depression would disappear. for years I've struggled with the monster that lies on my chest and plays with my thoughts. As a child I dealt with depression and suicidal thoughts. I used to self harm and even attempted suicide once. It was a dark time for me. Life hadn't seamed to get better by any means by high school. It was the same shit, different day, sort of deal.
I still see the scars on my arms and thighs. Every day they remind me of the past and what I felt. They remind me of the monsters that stared me down in the middle of the night telling me I wasn't worth it and that life in general wasn't worth it.
I've spent years battling these monsters. Some days were better than others, and then some days it'd take a miracle to even get me to leave the house. I still get days like that. Where my body feels like a ton of bricks and even the slightest move of my arm takes all the energy straight out of me.
But then I had days that couldn't be better, lately I've had more of these than the other. These are the days where I feel like me. I feel like I can tackle the world, and in a way I have.


When I was a kid, and I was told life would be better, I never believed it. I never actually believed life would get any better than it actually was. I always saw the posts on Facebook, tumblr, and even in school that I was loved and to keep moving forward, blah blah blah. It was the same everywhere you went. But I never actually thought it was true.


My senior year of high school was probably the worst and best time of my life. My depression was at an all time high. Moving to Saginaw was a new experience, while i had visited the city many times throughout my childhood, I never thought we would have actually moved there.I felt like I had lost a large part of me as a person when we left Leroy. And every day I still miss that shitty little town. 


I changed a lot as a person during my senior year. I had become friends with some wonderful people. They were kind to me, which I appreciated, but I still missed my friends back in Leroy. at the beginning of the year I fell for a girl named Trisha. I had never really thought about liking girls before. But there was something about this woman that made my heart stop. We messed around together for a few months, I feel like she was embarrassed to be around me in public and at school. Her friends didn't like me, she didn't care for my friends, she kept trying to repaint me as a person. Fix my hair, my clothes, the things I thought made me, well me. I listened to her every word, I tried to change the things she wanted, tried to please her. But it was never enough. Eventually she broke up with me. It stung, I wont lie. I felt like I had changed my entire being to love this girl, yet it was never retaliated in the ways that I had hoped.


About 3 months before graduation, I was raped,  I've told very few people. I don't think I've ever mentioned it to my parents. When your privacy and life is destroyed in such a way it changes your mental health. The sense of violation and pain that comes with being attacked is like nothing anyone can describe. I wont torment you with the details of the attack. Do not pity me, for I no longer feel shame or sadness from the event. I don't remember the name or face of my attacker anymore. I once read somewhere that after 7 years all the skin cells on your body have replaced themselves. I like to think that in 3 years any sense of that individual touching my skin will be gone.
Before graduation I had actually written my suicide note probably a dozen times, I even knew how I was going to do it. My plan was that after my graduation party I was going to go for a drive up to Leroy, go to my favorite field by our old house, take a bunch of pills, and close my eyes.
I wasn't planning my suicide just because I was depressed, with everything that had gone on throughout the year, I thought it'd be a way out. My mind couldn't take anymore and the monsters in my head told me to end it.


Something happened that I never expected to happen two weeks before I planned my demise, I met someone. His name is Andrew. We met online, our first date was at a sushi place called Sushi'n we went to the movies and spent three hours sitting in my car just talking. There was something about him that just drew him to me immediately. My demons slowly disappeared, the more time I spent with him the less the monsters came around.
As our relationship began the more I thought of his well being and the less I thought of mine. The monsters had been at bay. rarely making an appearance. Something about Andrew keeps them away. Andrew encouraged me to go to therapy, the doctors, and actually become a healthy individual. Without him I probably wouldn't be here.


As we passed our one year mark, Andrew and I moved in together. We rented a tiny 400 sqft loft apartment. And that's where our life began. After four years together, thinking of life without him is just something I cant do. He is as much a part of me as I am of him. Our four year anniversary came and passed and we are now engaged.


I'm going to be hypocritical and say, it does get better. I never believed it would. I never believed I would actually make it to my 22nd birthday. I have two amazing best friends that I couldn't imagine life without either. my best friend of 20 years who has been by my side through every piece of shit Leroy has thrown at us and them some, and my newest bestie of 4 years. My fiancé, my friends, life couldn't be better. The demons and monsters have nearly disappeared. Life couldn't be better.


Until midnight.
Courteney

A Touchy Subject

My entire life I've always been fat.
I had always been 'chubby' in my youth. What can I say? I like(d) food. Sweets in particular.
I've never been thin. I've never been able to run a mile without panting like a dog in the hot sun and passing out. I've never been able to shop in the clearance section and find my size. As a plus size gal these are things I've learned to live with.
As I grew older, I also grew aware that I wasn't 'conventionally' pretty. I didn't have a great complexion (hello pizza face). I've always had a gut and thunder thighs. And I'm more awkward than anything.
I've always surrounded myself with beautiful people. A lot of my friends were (are) gorgeous. Thin, perky, friendly, in my eyes perfect.
Growing up I can't begin to explain how hard this was on my self esteem. I haven't been under 200lbs since 7th grade. I've always been obese. I was weird, emo, never popular.

This year I've decided to make a change. I'm done being my weight. I want to better myself.
Ever since I've contemplated getting married, I look in the mirror and think, "Is this the body I want to look at coming down the isle?" While my self esteem at the age of 20 is high, and I do in fact love my body. It's just not healthy to be my size.

My doctors have all told me the same thing. Lose weight. It's to the point where it's affecting my health. So it's time to make changes.

I've joined a gym, I've been going 3-4 timed a week and working my ass off. In just three weeks I've been able to lose 8lbs and just the other day I hired a trainer for six weeks to keep my ass in check.
She told me I should be able to lose at least 10lbs a month. With my age a factor and the fact that I've never really exercised the first 30lbs should melt right off. I'm hoping this is true.

My goal is to be 175. This was my weight in 7th grade. I haven't been in the hundreds in 8 or 9 years.

Here's to a better me
This is just the beginning.

Start 212lb
Goal 175lb

Till Midnight,
Courteney

Building a Life

Things are different.
But different isn't always bad. Stuff happens so quickly in life and often you forget to stop and appreciate life.
Last year I moved in with this amazing person. He's all I could have ever asked for in a man. He's simply amazing. He's kind and loving. Passionate and driven. I absolutely adore his family and they (i think) adore me as well. It's the type of relationships your read about in books or watch in movies. Who would've known that meeting a strange man on the internet could have turned out so wonderful.
These past few weeks him and I have been talking about purchasing a house.
We moved in together May of 2016 we rented this small 400sqft Loft style apartment just on the outside of the city, close to my college and smack dab in between both of our jobs. Our tiny apartment ended up getting tinier when we moved our rescue dog, Crash Bandicoot, in.
With our quarters growing smaller we begged our property manager to move us.
We moved into a 900sqfr two bedroom apartment. We were content for a while. But we've decided that this home too we are outgrowing. We're over the rickety porches and the crappy insulation that sky rockets our consumers bill through the roof. Thankfully we were capable to make an addendum to our lease and we'll be leaving on Halloween.
Recently our relationship has been growing more serious. As Andrew and I reach our three year mark we have been talking a lot about our future together and where we see ourselves in life.
We've decided to look into purchasing a home. It's an exciting thought. Being able to purchase our first home while only being in our early 20s, after all not many people our age are capable of doing that.

Here's to hoping that we'll find something worth our wild and that things will be turning out for us in the long run!

Until Midnight,
Courteney

New Shop!

Happy New Year everyone! Just like everyone I'm hoping that 2016 will be a great year!

I have a favor to ask!

If you like shopping, jewelry, or paintings please take a look at my brand new etsy shop! We do custom paintings, jewelry, and sell antiques too. Kind of a eclectic mumble jumble of things I love.

My boyfriend and I are hoping to move in together in the spring/summer and I'm hoping this etsy page will do something good :) So please check it out, follow, like, share my shop please!

You can find my shop in many place
Twitter - twitter.com/CourteneysArt
Instagram - www.instagram.com/d3bating_0n_d3structi0n/
Etsy - etsy.com/shop/courteneysartistry
Facebook - facebook.com/courteneysartistry


Have a wonderful and magnificent new year everyone!

xoxo
Courteney

Happy Adoptaversary!!

Today is a very special day. 

Today marks the exact day we adopted our handsome boy Sherlock!!!

Look at him in all of his sassy cuteness. Our handsome Sherlock is a Holland Lop and super cute! We adopted him on November 13th exactly one year ago today from a wonderful rescue called Amazing Grace Animal Rescue. We are so grateful for them because without them we would not have found this handsome little guy.

When we first saw Sherlock we weren't quite sure if we were ready to get a new bunny. My sister had just lost her rabbit of 6 years (Buttons) about 2 months prior. We were also living with my grandmother at the time and we weren't sure if we had room to house him.

The day I brought my sister into the rescue she fell in love with this little ass (yes I mean what I said! Sherlock is a butt!) So she spent the next week Begging my grandmother to let us get him. And not soon after Sherlock was ours!

So today we celebrate the day this four-legged family member joined us.

When we first adopted our Sherlock he had a HORRIBLE biting problem. Assumably he was found on the campus of a local university just hopping around, (we believe he was a students pet who then dumped him off at the rescue). Today he only bites once in a while (WHICH IS GREAT!!)


Sherlock has also figured out how to open his cage door. He OPENS the door but NEVER comes out of it. Yes, he is a strange one!


So In honor of our little guys "Adoptaversary" I made him a little fruit and vegi "cake" and lit him a candle (only for the photo).

Happy Adoptaversary Sherlock! We love you!

xoxo

Courteney

Fall

Well the fall season is ending,

and the cold wings of Jack Frost are blowing closer. Soon winter will be upon us. 

Wanted to share a few pictures I took of my mum and her boyfriend while we were up north enjoying the wonderful weather last month. We also took some pictures of my wonderful friend Vincent. His senior pictures are turning out awesome!!

I downloaded some AWESOME leaf overlays from Deviantart and BAM! These turned out awesome!

Feel free to check out more of my work at...

courteneysartistry.weebly.com 

or on Facebook at

facebook.com/courteneysartistry

xoxo

Courteney

Bloody Moscato Cupcakes

Happy (almost) Halloween ya filthy monsters!

Halloween is by far my favorite time of the year, so I thought that I would celebrate by sharing my most favorite recipe with you guys!!!

Moscato Cupcakes, with of course some gore for Halloween!

 The original recipe is adapted from Brook Bakes and are my absolute FAVORITE! I make these cupcakes on a daily basis since my mother is a HUGE wine-o.

For the cupcakes you will need

2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. salt
1 and 1/4 cups white sugar
1 cup olive oil
1/3 cup Moscato wine
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 tsp. white vinegar

 As a wine family we always keep any wine (flat or not) because it can always be used in cupcakes. Todays "secret" ingredient is Beviamo sparkling moscato wine.

 So gather your ingredients and start cooking!

Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees. And then begin mixing all dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, sugar, and salt)  in one bowl and whisk together until blended. Then add all of the wet ingredients (olive oil, wine, butter milk, eggs, and vinegar) in another and whisk together.


After those ingredients are combined slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix thoroughly.

 Scoop your batter into your prepared cupcake tins, about 3/4 full. Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or until a inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Once your heavenly, magical, delicious, wonderful moscato cupcakes are completely cooked let them sit out to cool for a while before frosting them










As your magical cupcakes cool it's time to make the frosting.

What you'll need is....
 8oz of cream cheese (room temperature)
2 cups of powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. of Moscato wine

In a large bowl cream the cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add in the moscato and half of the powdered sugar and blend. Once that is evenly blended add in the final cup of the powdered sugar and blend until fully mixed.

Sooooo yummy right?

Frost the cupcakes and your all set!

And of course it being Halloween I wanted to add a little gore into the mix. I picked up these super awesome severed finger candies at Meijers for $2!! (image thanks to bakingbites.com since I forgot to photograph mine)

Pretty awesome!

I thought these would look a little too "plain" just throwing them up on the cupcakes so I added a special touch...... blood. 

I used a small amount a light corn syrup, red food coloring and a drop of blue food coloring. Mixing all these ingredients in a small bowl and drizzle them over the fingers and frosting on the cupcakes.

AND here is the finished product

Have a fantastic Halloween everyone! Enjoy these little bloody cupcakes ;)


xoxo
Courteney

Reading by the Moon: 3 Thursday - Inspiration on Life, Depression, and ...

Reading by the Moon: 3 Thursday - Inspiration on Life, Depression, and ...: Sharing some life tidbits on dealing with depression, finding hope, and why I continue to live...

3 Thursday - Inspiration on Life, Depression, and Inner Beauty

I always find myself scouring Pinterest at the darkest hours of the night. 
I've been having a rough week so I thought I would share a few my favorite quotes that have gotten me through some hard times. 

Image from https://www.flickr.com/photos/kohanart/4916218209/

In all honesty this is something I have learned the hard way. 

When I was younger I took everything for granted. I took life for granted. I didn't live each day like it mattered, I breezed by waiting for the day to end. 

When my grandpa died was when it really HIT me. The littlest things matter the most. It's not about living it's about LIVING. Truly and fully. And I'm not telling you that you need to go out and do something super important and amazing and fun right now. What I am telling you is to live. To learn to love life as though it could end any moment. Spend time with your loved ones as though today could be the last day you see them. You don't have to do something brilliant every day. Do something that you consider to be brilliant. Whether that brilliant is sitting with your mother and watching TV or baking with your grandma. Learn to appreciate the little things. It took me 19 years to figure that out. 

Image from pinkwallpaper.blogspot.com

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. 

I cannot begin to tell you how very true that is. After 16 years of school I have discovered that EVERYONE will try to mold you into something you are not. It does not matter who it is, teacher, friend, students, jerks you meet on the sidewalk. Everyone will want to change something about you. What you must always remind yourself is that you are perfect. It doesn't matter if you aren't a size 0 or that your boobs aren't quit perky or that you don't have that 6 pack abs that your bros at the gym have. YOU ARE PERFECT. Every inch, meter, foot, of you is perfect. You do not need to change so society accepts you. Simply say FUCK YOU to society and go on your merry little way. 

Image from healthyplace.com

I found this one one day when I was scrolling. It stuck to me like glue. There was something about this little quote that made my mind wander. 

When I was a kid in middle school I struggled with serious depression. The only thing was, I didn't realize it. I didn't see what was happening to me. All I knew was that I wanted out of life. 

When I was in 7th grade I started to cut myself. I would hide sharp things in my pillow. Some days I would escape into the school bathroom to find the sharp blade of release. This is what happened. Am I proud of it? No. But I was 11 and had no idea what was happening. I didn't know who to turn to.

In 8th grade I thought about suicide. A lot, more than I'd like to admit. I thought of it as a way out from the horror of my mind. It was a friday evening after school, my parents were still at work and my sister was still at daycare.  I went out to my woods and stood in front of a tree for nearly an hour or so debating on whether or not I should take the chance. Later that evening I heard my mother calling me for dinner. I dropped the rope and went back to the house. 

Life isn't just about getting through the day. I can't begin to believe how grateful I am that I didn't go through with what I had planned. My greatest accomplishment (even if I didn't know it at the time) was continuing to live when I truly felt as though death was the way out. I can't begin to say how important it is. 

Today I am 19, I graduated with honors from high school, I am sophomore in college, I came out Pansexual to my family,  I have a magnificent boyfriend whom I love more than my own life and we plan on moving in together soon and maybe I might even marry him (who knows?), my life has continued. While many days are a continuous struggle to fight myself and to get out of bed. My world is slowly getting better. I am working on fighting and living every day to the best of my abilities. Some days it takes more than work than others. 

I am happy I didn't use the rope.

xoxo

Courteney

Some Tidbits of Me

I kinda wanted to show off a little about me and what I love. I'm going to go away from the super depressive stuff today and think on the positive side rather than the negative.

When dealing with depression I often find it hard to do things, but knowing that someone or something relies on me really helps me get out of bed in the morning.

Personally I absolutely adore animals, big small, furry, scaly, I love them all. I am a constant volunteer at a local animal rescue here in the city, the rescue is called Amazing Grace. I tend to photograph many of the four legged friends that walk through the doors of the rescue. With doing so
helps the animals get adopted much faster and find their paws into a loving home.

Here is a picture I took not too long ago of a wonderful dog named Zephyr. He is one of my favorites at the rescue and my favorite pooch to snap pictures of.

His background is kinda rough but you wouldn't have guessed it by that adorable furry face of his!

 I love having the ability to spend so much quality time with the animals and volunteers that work at the rescue every day.
My senior year of high school I ran my own little fundraiser called "Paintings for Pets" I sold many paintings and raised $200 for the rescue. I had the honor of being interviewed and was on the front page of the paper about me helping the rescue by selling my paintings.

Some of my favorite things to paint are animals. 100% of any proceeds I have made from my paintings have been donated to the Amazing Grace Animal Rescue.

These three cats are some of my favorites, from left to right there is Valentine (deceased), Stella (Adopted), and Zipper. 

Photo courtesy of SaginawNews

Another thing about me is my general all out geeky/nerdy ness. I love adding all the nerdy to my house. I currently just finished decorating my bathroom in Star Wars.

. I love to cosplay and have been learning all I can on how to perfect my cosplaying. I have recently been able to bring my sister into the geeky world as well. We recently went to Almacon this past summer as Lady Loki (Me) and Poison Ivy (Sister).

xoxo

-Courteney

Learning to Love Myself

When I look at magazines my heart sometimes crumbles. 

Seeing images of these GORGEOUS girls with their gorgeous bodies makes me jealous. Seeing them in their bikinis and their little skirts with thigh gaps and flat stomachs kills me. When I was younger I would have KILLED to look like them. To be able to wear a bikini with confidence, to be able to wear whatever I wanted and look good, this was my dream.




photo courtesy of http://colorful.bigbangfish.com/

As I grow older I often find myself walking around the mall. More often than not I tend to spot something that I adore, either a dress or some jeans or a cute top. I rush to the display to search for my size and then return empty handed. This happens a lot. It happens again and again and again till I want to go into a corner and cry. And sometimes I do. I'll cry in the shower, I'll stand naked in that mirror picking and prodding at the fat under my skin. I'll jump and watch the fat jiggle underneath, then to only turn around and burst into tears.

When my boyfriend holds me I am self conscious. When he touches me I sometimes want to shrink into a shell. With the fact that he can feel every roll and every inch of my body that I hate. He has seen it. And yet he still calls me beautiful, and sometimes, I wonder if he is saying that to make me feel better.

My entire life I grew up "fat". When I was in middle school I had already reached that 180 lbs and by high school I was 200 lbs. I would always hear "All you need to do is eat better." or "Just exercise and you'll be skinny." What people didn't realize was that I did exercise and I did watch what I ate and counted calories and such. No matter what I did or what I tried. Nothing Worked. And so I grew to hate myself.

But it wasn't just my body I hated, it was me. The entire me. With my body looking as it did, in my eyes I was disgusting, worthless. My self hate grew and grew and grew. It grew so large to the point where my self hate started to feed off onto my friends. And that made them hate me. Without realizing what I was doing, I started to lose everyone I had cared for in high school.

When senior year came around my life changed drastically. My whole world shifted, some for the better, some for the worst. We lost our home, the home I had grown to love, the home I had lived in for nearly 16 years. It was gone, all in the blink of an eye. So we moved in with my grandmother. For a year I lived there. For a year I shared a room with my mom. And it took that one year to change everything.

It all began my senior year. I felt new, like maybe a fresh start at a new school would give my life some meaning. In a way, it did. I'm not sure what exactly helped but there were two teachers that truly made an impression on me for the one short year I was there.
The first one was Mrs. Woodcock, she was gorgeous. From the tips of her toes to the hair on her head she was wonderful. Her personality shined through everything. Mrs. W was the schools art teacher, art just happened to be one of my favorite subjects. She would never ridicule a student for their work being "horrible" (even if it was REALLLY bad). She gave criticism that helped you and moved you forward in the world. She does'nt know this but she helped me through a lot that year.With my world being turned upside down I found that art was my stable point. Mrs. W showed me that I could do anything, I could be anything, I could grow and create and learn to love through art... and that's what I did. Mrs. W helped me start to love myself once again. In the most simplest way too. Through art.

You can ask yourself, "What does art have to do with loving yourself?" Let me show you something.



Photo courtesy of www.wikiart.org

This painting is by artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir and titled simply, "Woman After Bathing". The painting, created in 1896, depicts a larger woman drying off. Now what does this have to do with self love? This painting is considered ART. This painting of a larger woman with meat on her bones and rolls and thickness is ART. She doesn't look like the women in the magazines and online, she is REAL and she is gorgeous. A man sat down and thought she was so beautiful that he had to make her last forever, in a painting.

This got me thinking. If a woman of a larger size is artwork, why not consider myself art as well? Afteral I look like her size, I have rolls and stretch marks and thickness and meat on my bones. Why do I hate myself for it?

And slowly I began to learn to love myself more and more.


Learning to love me for me was one of the hardest things I have ever done in life. Every day I still struggle with loving myself. Life is a work in progress. Much like clay, you have to keep working with it to get the results you want.


Today I am 19 and 206 lbs. I am a pant size 16 and a shirt size XL. I am PROUD of who I am. Yes I still struggle with loving myself, and some days are better than others.


 With 19 years of self hate you begin to ask yourself, is it really that bad? Am I really fat? Am I really ugly? The question I answer to myself today is no. I am beautiful, I am perfect, I am a fantastic individual that is worth living.

And so are you.

xoxo
Courteney

Something New

Welcome One and Welcome All.

Step right through these doors into a world of.... okay in reality there are no doors you're walking into nor is there a world I am showing you. What I will be showing you is random stuff throughout the year of me.

In all honesty I have 0 experience with blogs. So if my fuck ups in blogging amuse you be sure to follow!

Today marks the opening of my blog. In reality it's an exciting event (at least for me). One that I hope will prove to be rewarding in a sense (bring on the moola!).

 I am opening the blog to give me a place to relieve my stress and show off my creative sides.

I wanna show off some paintings and crafts and some pinterests fails. But I also want this blog to get serious. I suffer with severe depression and anxiety and this blog will be a way to help me get through all that. After all, writing is one of the best medicines. Maybe I might even be able to help a few readers out there deal with their anxiety and depression as well so win win!
I'm not really sure how this all works. I guess the best way for me to do it is to start the blog and learn as I go. After all that is what i do best.

A little about myself....
I am a current college student headed into dental, I will have my associates in science in a few years (YAY!). I have a guinea pig named Meadow (pictured below) she is an adorable Peruvian/texel mix (although the texel doesn't show).

 Isn't she adorable?!

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions on how this all works.

Until midnight

xoxo
Courteney