Full Spectrum: It's Pride Month!

If this blog were a TV show, now would be the time for the following announcement: “This concludes the temporary blog hiatus. We will now return to your regularly scheduled programming.”

I’m still not back to my normal self, but I have started an antidepressant, and my anxiety has decreased a little bit as Oliver continues to settle in. [For the record, he’s still the cutest little man that ever was, even if he’s starting to test the limits as he gets more comfortable. Knocking my office supplies around my desk and swiping his tail across my face during work meetings are some of his new favorite pastimes.

Still, he’s becoming a cat, not just a scared little thing hiding at every sound, so I can’t really complain.]

I’m going to take the blog in a different direction for June, because first and foremost, I need to keep realistic expectations for myself as I continue working on my mental health, and secondly - it’s Pride Month!

My mother can vouch for the fact that I’ve always loved rainbows. In our old house, where I spent the first 10 years of my life, she had a collection of prisms which she hung from the kitchen ceiling. The kitchen was on the west side of the house, so any afternoon when the sun was shining, the walls and floors were covered in dancing rainbows. I loved to be in there. 

I was also the kid in elementary school who got yelled at for taking too long to put the crayons away because I had to put them in rainbow order in the box.

As an adult, rainbows have another meaning to me - I am an outspoken, visible supporter of the LGBTQIA+ community. I started to write out the ways I’m involved, but that got to sounding like I’m tooting my own horn, and that’s really not who I am as a person. If you’re interested in the ways I show up for the community or the list of organizations I support, just ask.

In honor of Pride Month, my love for rainbows, and my firm belief that all individuals have the right to be treated with dignity and respect and to be loved and accepted for who they are, all my posts this month will be in the Full Spectrum series and will feature one or more of my rainbow-colored models. Here’s a preview!

 

 

Be inclusive and kind, love your neighbor, treat others as you would want to be treated, and value the beautiful diversity of the human experience.

A Brief Hiatus

If you're a regular visitor here, you may have noticed that I've fallen off my posting schedule this past week.

 

I need to take a brief hiatus. Every May since 2015, like clockwork, my brain hands me the unwanted gift of seasonal depression. I had hoped that my horrid bout of depression back in December and January meant that May would give me a miss this time ... but alas, here we are, in the thick of it.

 

I've got all the usual stuff - sadness, hopelessness, fatigue, brain fog, irritability, etc. but the most inconvenient part (and the most damaging to the blog) is the apathy. Every post requires planning, photography sessions, and not a small amount of time to write. I don't have much desire to do or care about anything right now - I could sit on the couch and stare into space for hours and not be bothered in the least - and the little I have gets divided between work and Oliver, which means everything else has gone by the wayside.

 

[Side note: If you're not offended by excessive, gratuitous, and hilarious use of the f-bomb, this song on YouTube is accurate to describe my mental state right now.]

 

I thought about pushing through, but I think that would lead to bad writing and boring posts, and my models deserve better than that. Instead, I'm gonna just accept where I'm at and take the rest of May off. 

 

I've already got the June 1 post written and ready to go, so that's when I'm planning to hop back in.

Full Spectrum: "Surprise" Web Specials

For today’s Full Spectrum post, I’ll be talking about my two decorator “Hey, here’s a surprise web special!” models.

 

 

For all that he’s not blue, this is one of my favorite decorator models in my collection. He's a lovely bay, nicely shaded, and fall is my favorite season of the year.

#712046 Fall in Love, a run of just 200 pieces on the ever-popular Nokota mold, was a surprise Cyber Monday special run in 2011. Like many web specials, he was offered by random drawing. I was not lucky enough to get selected.

On Saturday, April 28, 2012, I was attending the Southwest PA Classic show in southwest PA, hosted by my friends Bonnie and Leslie. I was just sitting there minding my own business when one of my friends (I think it was Kelly W) came over to me and said, “Fall in Love is available for straight purchase on Breyer’s site!” I didn’t have a smartphone until 2015, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t have my work laptop with me, so I have no idea how I ordered one. Maybe Kelly let me borrow her phone? Whatever the case, I was successful in snagging one. He gets to show in collectibility from time to time under the name Hojas, which is Spanish for leaves.

 

*****

Let’s talk about the Vault Sale.

In December 2012, five days before Christmas, Breyer announced that they would be releasing limited quantities of rare things through the Collector’s Club Vault sale. No one knew exactly what to expect. That round, they had Connoisseurs, including Silverado and Moon Warrior. Everyone promptly lost their shit. Breyer’s website malfunctioned quite a lot and most of the stock was grossly oversold (like … 30 people thought they got a Silverado, and less than a half dozen people actually ended up with one).

In May 2013, they announced another vault sale. This one invited us to “Strike the Mother Lode” with a limited run model. People were a little more wary given the issues from last time, but most of us dutifully logged in at 9:00 p.m. to take a chance.

The website crashed. As in HTTP error: 504 Gateway Timeout, “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage” crashed. Amidst the flailing and constant refreshing, this wonderful LOTR meme was born:

 

After 13 minutes, the #760238 Mother Lode models appeared - a run of just 100 pieces, split into 80 of the solid gold charm, 10 appaloosa, and 10 pinto. They sold out within seconds. I am a huge Lady Phase fan and had one in my cart, but the checkout page took too long to load, and I got the sad notification that the stock was no longer available and my cart was empty. Blab and Facebook were full of many, many angry and disappointed people. I was among them.

Then, an hour after the models finally appeared on the website, someone posted in the Blab thread that more were back up. I ran straight to the site, did not pass Go, did not collect $200 … and I got one!

 

I didn’t quite believe it til I got the order confirmation and shipping notice. Obviously I got the solid gold charm, which was fine with me. I’m happy to have gotten one at all, and for cost. She gets to show occasionally; her show name is Vera Madre.