Well thanks for nothing YouTube

Well, its pretty common knowledge now that YouTube changed their policy and now to get monetized you have to have 1000 subscribers and 4000 HOURS of views in a years time.  Great.  I worked my butt off to get the 10,000 views to get my monetizeation, and now, nope.  Goodby.  Jerks.

I only have 220 subs and only like 900 hours of view time in the last year.  So fuck.  Just when I was just starting to see the money going up in my account, ever so slightly closer to the magic payout  amount, and now, unless I can magically create 800 subscribers and like 3500 hours of view time, I lose it all.

I'm not going to stop making videos, cause its a great hobby, but well, I was hoping to maybe this year make a little money which I would have either invested in new equipment for my channel like better lights, lenses,etc, and maybe into giveaways for my subscribers.   Now, it won't happen probably for a couple years.   UGH!

I'm going to Des Moines on Sat by myself and doing some shopping.  I think I might pick up some decorations to have in the background for my channel.  I have a backdrop, but I think sometimes I'd like to have something different so we'll see what I find.  I also will buy new shoes, cause, well, NEW SHOES!   I might show them off on my channel soon. 

Yes, maybe I might expand out to showing off shoes, clothes, etc along with makeup and skin care.   If you are interested let me know.

I'm going to be going through my makeup collection and getting rid of a few things.  A couple blushes and one foundation are going bad I'm pretty sure, so they need tossed.  And a few palettes, I can just do without.    Decluttering at its best.

Hope things are well for you.

SHERLOCK IS HOME!!!

And I'm just a little bit excited. Ok, maybe a whole BUNCH excited.

Yes, I'm in my scrubs.  He came home on Fri when I was at work, of course. So I didn't get to see him until Sat morning about 12 hours after he got home.  Little devil.  He's thinner than he was, but overall seems pretty healthy.

And he seems very happy to be home.

And he's stayed as far away from doors going outside as he can lol.

I'm trying to figure out my calories and macros to eat to get rid of some of this fat I carry around my waist. Its fucking HARD!  I don't want to cut back much,  as I have a big appetite and to be quite honest, I like eating and get rather bitchy when I cut back to much.   But sadly I think I need to cut my carbs back some to get rid of the belly fat.  Time to get more bacon I guess.  More bacon and eggs for breakfast and less cereal. 

Workouts have been ok.  I need to train more days a week, but they are killers when I do manage to hit my home gym.  If you are interested in my home gym, here's a link:
My Home Gym

Not much else to say.  Trying to recover from my shit storm of a weekend at work.  The flu is hitting big time, and its not fun.  Thankfully, I have a few days/nights off to recover.

I can't believe I bought that! FAINTS

So, after weeks of considering, looking at, wishing for, and dreaming about, I finally got this.

This is the Viseart Grande Pro Volume 1 palette.  It cost, wait for it, $175.  Yes, I mean $175.  And I ordered it.  No I'm not crazy.  Ok, I am, but not really.  I ordered it from Beautylish, and they have a flexable payment plan so I can pay for it in 3 payments.

Now, I love LOVE Viseart. I've got 2 12color palettes from them, and I love them. They are quite frankly the best eye shadows I've got. Blend well, last 14+ hours look amazing. And the 12 color ones were $80.  So I got 24 colors for $160.  So 30 colors at $175 is a "steal" lol.

Besides, this sets of my Slow to No Buying Challenge I'm going to do for 6 weeks.  Until Feb 28, I'm going to greatly reduce the amount of makeup I'm going to buy.  I've got more than enough, and the stuff I've seen that's coming out soon, it doesn't inspire me at all.   It all looks the same or its from brands that are very inconsistent in their products. Either they are nice, or crappy. 

So, I'm going to put more money in savings, and maybe buy a new pair of shoes, or a nice outfit.   And use up the makeup that I already have.

I'm also going to start a Pan Project for some of my makeup.  Pan projects are where you use makeup enough that you either use it up, you hit the pan in powder like eye shadows or blushes, or you decide you just don't like it and declutter it.  I'm going to be deciding which products to hit pan on for 2018 and film a video on the products I have decided to use up.

Been trying to workout.  This week sucked cause well, I lost Sherlock and I've not seen him since Tue. Its Sat now. I don't think I'll ever see him again.   In my happy place, in my happy thoughts, I want to think cause he's so friendly, someone took him in, and are now keeping him warm and happy.  I don't want to think the other thoughts.  Nope, I've cried enough, thank you very much.

One of my kitties is lost, and its all my fault

My kitty Sherlock got outside yesterday.  I'm 99% sure its cause I didn't quite get the kitchen door all the way latched and so it blew open, and out he went.  We can't find him. Its been more than 24 hours now, getting closer to 36, and I'm devastated.  He was my special kitty.  I found him living outside as a very young kitten, and got him inside. In a couple weeks had a very nasty ear infection that darn near killed him.  I mean I was giving him water and tuna juice for a couple days to keep him alive until the antibiotics kicked in.  Since then he walks with a tilted head I think as a result from damage from that ear infection.  And now he's lost, outside, probably dead by now, but if he's still alive, he's scared and hungry and I can't find him to help him.

I've been alternating between trying not to cry cause I'm around people, or sobbing like a toddler who lost their teddy bear. I was walking around outside about an hour ago, sobbing, while putting the cat food in the dish we feed the cats in over and over hoping he'd hear it and maybe come to get food.  He didn't.  So I sobbed even harder as I went back in the house.

The weather is going to turn to crap tomorrow, so if he's not already dead, which is a good possibility, thanks to morons who think they need to drive 70mph on the highway we live on, or the fact we have fields around out house and raccoons and coyotes think cats are things to kill, he will freeze to death.

I hate thinking he might have been killed by a wild animal, scared panicked cause I couldn't get that fucking door shut. My poor kitty. I miss him. I miss him so much.  He would sit and look out our kitchen window with me in the mornings, or sit on the deep freeze and paw at us as we walked by so we would pet him.  He also loved to go into my gym with me.  He'd sometimes sneak in little scamp.

Here he is in the dog kennel.

Here he is helping me play video games.

I'm going to miss my Sherlock.  Please come back

So I need to get my crap together!

The holidays are over, and I need to get my crap together.  I've been slacking way to much.  Been buying way to much.  Been sitting way to much.  I need to get my shit up, moving and back saving money.  Or more money. 

I've decided to take up using a bullet journal.  I've ordered a nice looking journal and I'm hoping to get started in the next few days.  I've got a simple day planner, but I mainly use it to keep track of my workouts, and other fitness stuff, which is what I wanted it for.  But I want something to have to keep track of everything else.  Bills, stuff I want to do, videos I want to film.  That sort of thing.  And I think a bullet journal will be a good way to keep track of my life.  Easy, I can make it what I want it to be, and well, use stickers and all the pretty pens etc to make it mine. 

I did manage to do a good thing today.  I got my dressing room cleaned out.  Got rid of all the boxes, extra wrapping paper, stuff and it looks so much nicer.  I also decluttered a few makeup items I don't want anymore.  I need to get rid of even more, but well, its hard to get rid of makeup lol. At least for me it is. 

I've also decided to do a second "Wise Buying Challenge" for makeup.  I do have 1-2 things I want, but really, I don't need any new makeup for a while. I need to use what I've got and trust me, I've got A LOT!  And I've got a few new foundations I still need to review, and some I want to do a second opinion on, so I've got plenty to keep me busy.

I'm trying to get my YouTube channels to grow. I've now got two.  One that's beauty focused, the original Barbells and Beauty, and one that's fitness focused, Rhonda Gets Fit.   I think if I have a journal, where I schedule when to film my videos, it will be a good thing.  Might help me grow my channels just getting videos out there.  Can't hurt, now can it.

Been colder that SHIT here the last several days.  Like today, we were all happy it stayed above zero, as in Fahrenheit almost all day!  That's bad. I'm ready for spring.  Only a few more days and maybe it will get and stay warmer.  I can only hope.   I'm not a fan of winter, snow or cold weather.  My ancestors were not smart enough to go to a place with warm weather for a longer period during the year, and I'm not any smarter I guess.

So I'm still watching bullet journal YouTube videos, and trying to get in mind how I want to set mine up.  Mine will be very me I think lol.