Day 280: June Recap
The end of June marks the end of the first half of the year, which is quite unbelievable. We only have six more months of 2020 and while that seems utterly impossible, I believe we're all secretly glad this year has passed us so quickly. However, this post is to honor the past month, not to remark on the future.
June began with an incredibly sad event that took my family to Iowa for a few days. While we were there the entire country seemed to erupt in flames, quite literally and we saw a bit of the effects of the riots when traveling home. In other words, June did not start in the best way one can imagine a month starting in. But nevertheless, each day was lived to the fullest extent of my ability.
All in all June, was an incredibly slow and normal month. I created six images and took two zoom ballet classes every week. Fortunately, this month included a lot of time spent with friends, which was so abnormal compared to the other months this year. One of my two favorite days this month, was when my friend and I hit four Goodwill stores within two days and spent over $100 dollars. It was so worth it and I ended up purchasing the most amazing vintage wedding gown.
One of the most frustrating parts of this month was starting an online boutique to sell costumes and props. I had this idea a while ago and decided to pursue it to the best of my abilities. I purchased a few new items on my goodwill trip and went through my costumes to find a few things to sell. I began thinking of names and settled on The Atlantis Boutique.
The frustrating part about starting this boutique is that my office has terrible lighting and not a single white wall that isn't slanted because I'm in a finished attic space. Not to mention, apparently the rest of my house also has bad lighting and terribly spacing by white walls. My goal was to be able to shoot my costumes against a simple plain background so that I didn't distract from the item.
Unfortunately, that lead to an incredible amount of frustration and almost giving up. But I ended up making the decision to use what I had and if possible progress to a cleaner background sometime in the future. My biggest goal was launching the boutique, not shooting against a white wall and I had to final make that realization.
The end of the month saw the preparation and completion of my family's first summer party and man it was great to see multiple people all in one place. We played games, like a giant water balloon fight with 400+ balloons, ate hot dogs, and stayed up pretty late. It was a lot of fun to see the shift of life returning to normal.
All in all, June was just a normal, possibly boring month that did not see much of anything. My biggest accomplishment during this month was definitely being able to spend so much time with friends, in person and over facetime. While it's hard to believe half of the year is over, I'm really looking forward to what will happen in July. Since the world is opening up, I'm beginning to have hope for the future.
Biggest Lesson Learned: Work with what you have right now, it's about starting not starting perfect.
Favorite Moment: Driving to multiple Goodwill's within a few days and finding some beautiful items while spending time with a friend.
Summed Up In One Word: Normal
Until Next Time,
Lillian Merritt
