Full Time Mermaid

[Mermaid Danielle]

I'm so happy for you! Sorry about your tail though. I'm glad it's worked so well for you though. The fact that it's lasted this long with everything you've used it for is a testament to both Raven's craftsmanship and your maintenance of it. I can't wait to hear more from you about everything your doing. You are a HUGE inspiration!

Best wishes!

[AniaR]

woo crazy few days.

If you didn't see my update yesterday on FB just wanted to share:

Today I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. For anyone who follows my statuses about coping with my other illnesses (IC and Endo) it probably doesn't come as a surprise (and I'm fine, nothing has changed for me I just have an additional name for what I cope with). What did come as a surprise for me though?? When I met with the rhuematologist today and he asked me what my job was? I did that whole hesitate and wonder how to explain it thing. I eventually just blurted it out and he said "Oh, I saw you on the cover of The Coast a few years ago and read the article. What a cool job!" LOL!!! Thank goodness for local media coverage. Makes explaining what I do a lot easier. Usually when I explain it the first thing people say is, "I don't get it... can you walk?" — at Halifax Mermaids

it was funny. I'm not too worried about Fibro, like I said, nothing has really changed for me. I am trying Lyrica and we'll see what happens. It would be nice if my chronic pain went down but for now I am used to it.

Today I went to a high school and gave a small business workshop similar to the ones I do online and at merfest. It was so much fun. The special needs kids (different class) made me a thank you gift- an ocean wreath for my door. so awesome. I even got a resume from a girl who wants to collaborate and make birthday cakes. woot woot







Also
Hope For Wildlife, a local rescue center that also has a TV show, shared a pic of me and one of their volunteers


It actually got me about 50 new likes which was cool, the photo on their page got just under 500! nice to know their FB page is so active.

[AniaR]

This week has been insane and something huge happened and I cant talk about it yet *publicly* but it's driving me bonkers hahaha I messaged a few select people. I am going insane trying to keep it in so to keep my idle hands busy I made a new blog post: http://halifaxmermaids.weebly.com/bl...busy-and-fishy

Busy weekend ahead woo woo. CANT WAIT FOR THE WORKSHOP EEE

[Aziara]

Gah, Fibro... Hang in there Raina, they'll be bad times and good times. It can only get better from here!

[AniaR]

So the past few days have been insane. INSANE. that good thing I am sitting on? Im having a meeting on Monday and I am practically bursting because I wanna tell people gah!!!

Im really really having trouble with my leg to the point I am limping and cant walk easily. the doctor cleared me for swimming but man I am sitting here at 11:30pm worried about my gig tomorrow. I ran two different workshops today, one was online and went well. both went well actually haha. but Im tired from all the business.

I also had a bit of real life crazy to tell you about. Picture this. I get this amazing life changing phone call could change everything for me, could even change things for other mermaids. I'm going through the roller coaster of emotions with that and Im walking around in a daze. Less than 24 hours later, I get a call, hey by the way, your abusive mom you're estranged from? She's dying of pancreatic cancer and you have to adopt your niece who she's been raising like right now cuz your mom is dying!!! Um talk about nuts. I have spoken several times in many formats about how awful my experience was with my mom. I cut her out of my life 4 years ago because she's so insane and abusive. So here I am on the cusp of my mermaid business and life getting so good and this happens. At first Im thinking, okay, I can do this. I can be the bigger person. I'll go sit with her and hold her hand and be kind even though she was awful. And holy shit be responsible for a 6 year old I dont know how I'll make that work but I will. And my whole family was up in arms and so much drama and I had to wonder if it was real. My mom has lied about being terminal before. So I phoned the hospital and she was indeed in there. But they couldnt tell me anymore because I wasn't her next of kin. So hours and hours later after everyone is all upset we finally find out, she's in for minor surgery -_- THIS IS THE LEVEL OF INSANE THIS WOMAN IS. SHE FAKES DYING AND CONVINCES A GOOD TWENTY PEOPLE. Including my dad and stepmom and aunt. So holy shit. that was a bit of an up and down and just super validation WHY SHE'S NOT IN MY LIFE. total crazy person.

Anyway tomorrow I'm busy with father's day stuff, and a gig. then this week I have my important meeting and a huge amount of health stuff and then a crazy insane weekend of 6 gigs in 2 days. ahh.

I will admit I am really really struggling with my health both in pain levels and financial levels. I have had to spend all the money I delegated for this month on my health and it's looking like this will be the trend. I am totally not looking for handouts, it drives me nuts when people do that and I am not starving or poor. but I do need help to be able to afford effective treatment and it becomes a spiral when I cant work because of pain. I am hoping you'll take a look at this tumblr post I made about all the things I sell and ways to help me earn money without spending any of yours, and read it and share it around. Even if you can't buy something or do anything, sharing is caring. I wanna appeal to you guys. I spend a lot of my time and my money trying to help the mercommunity, whether it's on a grand scale like mernetwork or an individual scale. I also paid 2k out of my own pocket to travel to merfest and give workshops I wasnt paid for so I could teach people in the community. I really do try to help people. In the past I have donated money to several of your fundraising efforts because I believed in paying it forward. It would really help me if you could at least read and share. Thanks <3 http://rainamermaid.tumblr.com/post/...g-with-quite-a

[AniaR]

So today was mostly good. Sean and I visited with his Dad this morning for Father's day then we had a mermaid booking. Between the booking and some thoughtful mernetwork members, I earned enough to pay for my chiro massage and part of dentist this week. <3 <3 <3 I am so thankful. I promise to pay that forward either by helping others, or financially when I am in a better place to do so. I Only did the one booking because my leg has just been so bad but I am hoping this week will fix me right up since the weekend will be so crazy.

The gig was fun, I'll post pics later, but man our tails are dying. I had posted earlier about my splash tail. well my mermaid creations tail fin totally split in two pieces and the seam right open during the gig thankfully at the end ugh. Im actually going to post a thread later to see if I can get some help for repairing it, it's pretty bad.All the tails are dying. My new one cant come fast enough and business money we *may* get (which btw can't be spent on anything personal, just business) is just so up in the air at this point. I hope I can get used tails that will fit these girls.

I have a huge meeting on Monday and Im hoping after it I can tell you this big thing Im sitting on because it's killing me keeping it in haha

I just saw the little boy who is non verbal non motor whose party I did over a year ago. He remembered me right away and pressed his head to mine and hugged me and let me give him kisses and yup I teared up. You never know the difference you make!! It was a beautiful little moment.

[Mermaid Lorelei]

Oh geeze! Your poor tails!

I'm glad the rest of your day went well enough.

[Mermaid Pickles]

My mom says (she has fibro too) to look up how to use magnets for it. She says yoga helps, and not do too much or too little. I just wanted to say. She says nikken magnets are good for spot treatment of the fibro. She says reducing stress, moderating activity, getting enough rest, and balanced living help. This is all coming from my mom. She's had fibro since before I was born. I just thought it might help to know how someone else deals with it.

[AniaR]

Yep thanks for the ideas. I've really had this at least a decade so I am pretty good at managing it I just didnt have the name. It's only been a pain the last few weeks because I pinched a nerve. ugh!

Update time!



I had my super awesome important meeting today for the super awesome thing. We're going ahead with phase 2. Hopefully I can tell you all soon!

I spent the morning working on my book and answering emails. We had a heart attack when my DNS went down and none of my sites worked or my email. We fired off a call to the host and they fixed it right away. It was only down for an hour but it did disrupt my client emailing.

Then I had my important meeting, and then we went to visit my awesome Nanny in her senior's home where she took me around and told all the deaf 80 year olds that I am a mermaid and her grand daughter. Pretty hilarious, honestly.

I haven't had much time to put any of our gig photos online, and I've been sort of wondering what is the point because Facebook has been so lame. I am sharing more on tumblr etc.

These came in the mail!



I'll be testing them out soon and letting you know my thoughts!

We recently after much though upped our prices modestly. I haven't been able to secure my same party favours and had to go for more expensive ones, I also had given my mermaids a raise and way paying it out of pocket for a while so I upped to compensate for that along with our insurance. I feel like things are a bit more reasonable for me now, and I changed the price of some of our ad ons based on how expensive or how much work they take. It hasnt stopped the gigs from rolling in, so that's good.

I also thought I'd share that we changed our update form to try and defer some of the spam we get. I am hoping it helps or at least slows things down haha http://halifaxmermaids.weebly.com/contact-us.html

I also wanted to show that we're now using google forms for our photo release and I think it's really awesome way to do that stuff https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13vh...2huZk/viewform

People often ask me what I use on my skin to cope with chlorine, Linden suggested this to me, I use it like crazy



Raven's awesome mom who is also like a mer-mom to me send me this in the mail and it's so cool!!!!



Also in honour of Father's day I thought you'd get a kick out of seeing a photo of my dad and I from 1989


I've been doing massive repairs on my tail. I really feel my tail would have lasted longer for me if I hadn't gotten it cast so thin (though, I needed to do that at the time) and had I done a better job of keeping mold out when I first got it. I know my next one will last much longer



Merwrangler Sean has been hanging out with my friend's son who was just born, the two have hit it off well. I share this photo just for the squee





Hee's an up close look at that wreath I was given, made by the special needs students



I cant remember if I said anything here or not but someone broke into my paypal and used it to buy online games -_- sigh what a racket. Waiting on paypal for a response.


This week I gotta repair Naida's tail blow out and track down my resources for the multicultural festival and buy handouts and just get organized for the insane weekend ahead. We've got A funeral to go to, and many doc apps, and I have another meeting to register more names for our business. (Canadian Mermaids, Atlantic Mermaids, -> as part of Halifax Mermaids) we've got it all reserved just gotta follow through (works diff in Canada) Also gotta check in with the funding people and see what's up

I leave you with cute gig photos, unedited (no photoshop) Just candids

[AniaR]

forgot two things:

1) I purchased targeted advertising for my page and decided to test it out. Over the past 3 days I've gotten about 300-400 new fans and *so far* none have seemed spammy, though Im sure I'll lose some in the end. I also noticed that activity on my page has gone up, but it seems to be on the more popular existing posts as opposed to the new ones. I'll keep ya posted how it goes. There;s not much I endorse as far as spending your money on advertising because I've never found it worked. I couldnt narrow this down to Nova Scotia but I could narrow it down to canada so we'll see

2) Also we had another publication



A fan took this photo, so I;ll have to get a better one when I get my copy

[Maethor]

3 things:
1-congrats on your secret, important meeting!
2- those kids are all adorable!
3- good luck with everything!

Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

[Cordelia]

I read most of this in one go. phew! What a busy few weeks! Here's to hoping your leg starts healing soon, and your new tail arrives! Also, I am captioning the second baby pic: "A mer- what?" Too cute!

[Arella]

I'm dying to know what the big secret it glad to see everything working out!

[AniaR]

Thanks everyone, heads up the advertising I bought was sort of a 50\50 thing. About half the fans I got were legit and I did start getting more activity, then I think they spammed me the rest cuz Edward Cullen and little Annie were liking my stuff.I had high hopes because the seller had amazing reviews. So between me and Facebook I suspect you'll see my fan number drop dramatically over the next week. No way in hell such a leap was legit though granted the ad said " you could gain up to 500 new fans" . anyway I'll keep ya posted. I think everyone and their dog has jumped on click farms even fb ads

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

edit: believe it or not, most of the fans actually seem legit. o_O I deleted some of the more obvious ones, and went through but my city didn't change, still says Halifax!

[AniaR]

Hands down the best reaction face I have ever gotten for my octopus bra. You can't see my bra in the pic but the joke that has started after several birthday parties is that the kids call it the "octo-booby". This is the best reaction ever!! — at Halifax Mermaids



Mermaid Naida signs the cast of a little girl



Also that interview Mermaid Mimi gave can be read here: http://halifaxmag.com/cityscape/rise-of-the-mermaids/

[PearlieMae]

HAHAHAHA! That is PRICELESS!

[Mermaid Galene]

What an expression! Priceless and precious!

[Mermaid Amelia]

Love that girls face haha!


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[AniaR]

what a crazy days and a bunch of crazy messups ahhh.

So Yesterday I had a meeting about getting braces which is exciting, I finally hit the gym again now that my leg is better, and got back to yoga. But I had the worst sleep ever and woke up every 30 minutes.

Today i had to get up early for a military gig, and I was NOT in a good mood. Super grumpy. but when I got there the gig was so amazing and I saw about 2000 kids (Im serious, we went through all the handouts I have ever collected lol) and it went off soooo well.

When I got home I knew things were about to get stressful as I have 4 more gigs to fit in this weekend all with great time constraint. Meanwhile, I have my other mermaids out doing gigs for me too. So I check my email and Im going through my one for the party tomorrow and the client suddenly starts talking like the gig is Sunday at the same time as another gig I have. Just randomly switches. So I go through all the emails and sure enough, she switched the date but didnt actually tell me. Ahhh so many emails and a crazy phone call later and thankfully Mermaid Nessie is able to take her party for her on Sunday while I'm on another. Which means tomorrow I only have to deal with one festival and no rushing to the next gig yay!

We decided since all 4 mermaids are going to be on the same side of the harbour that after the different events wrap up we'll be off to get a photoshoot with all 4 of us! woo. never happened yet. Most we've had is 3.

At my gig today big heavy hail started to come down... lol I needed an umbrella. Pics!

Me and a girl whose Mom did some of my photos before, and she's been to several parties.







^add spiderman to my list of marvel characters I've gotten photos with in tail hahaha



everyone kept hiding under tents whenever the rain/hail came down














Also. There was a petting zoo.

[AniaR]

Swinging by with another update!

Saturday I was at the multicultural festival for the 5th year in a row for my company. Loads of fun. I gave a workshop on mermaid myths from around the world, then I spoke about ecology, and then I handed out treasures.

I've been a little self conscious, I had to do some work on my tail which resulted in it getting much tighter in certain spaces like the waist. I ended up with a bit of a muffin top this first day. :/ too bad. But everything else was fine. The first day went by really quick. Here are some photos:

INtroducing myself and the program




The kids starting to come in. We ended up with a lot more.
[img]https://scontent-b-lga.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xpa1/t1.0-9/10401375_772696099428515_495156307690108446_n.jpg[img]































After that we got myself, Naida, Nessie, and Mimi together for the first time EVER. While I was at multifest Nessie and Mimi had been doing the second military family day. We all met up at Mimi's fiance's house, which is right on the ocean. And we got in it for a photoshoot. Lemme tell you IT WAS FREAKING FREEZING. It was 12 degrees C in the water, and Only 18 degrees C in the air. I lowered my belly in to swim and it knocked the wind out of me. Mimi swam all over but I couldnt last too freaking cold. We also got in a boat, and Sean got in the boat to get footage of us. We also did a kiss the girl style photo. Haha sadly when we got home we realized seaweed got inside the camera when Sean changed lenses a few times. LOL so I had to edit out seaweed that was in the middle of the air out of focus on a few pics, and it shows up in video. Hilarious.

Photos from photoshoot:


























So that went really well and by the time I got home I was exhausted. I stayed up late enough to clean all my gear, treat my hair, and edit a few photos, then I passed out. Got up bright and early this morning for day 2 of the multifest. It was much better and more kids. They gave me a scooter to drive around on! Hahaha super cute and fun.



Behind the scenes back stage





















I met a little girl who has seen me every year there for the past few years and her dad told me how much she runs the house about littering and recycling! Haha it's working!

After this I had to go to a swimming gig. I didnt get any photos it was pretty fast. but a little boy was there who had been at 2 events this weekend and when he came in the pool he was like "are there 2 of you? You're everywhere!"


This week is a little more laid back. I'm trying to get the rest of the book typed up while a friend edits the first 1/3rd. I start pelvic floor physio therapy on Tuesday which will be not fun. We have a business meeting with our head of our board of directors. I'm going to keep working on these photos and then I have to do business paperwork and file the past 2 months expenses cuz I havent had time to. LOL

It's almost July. There are 3 tails left ahead of mine in Raven's queue. We find out about our grant money. annnd Im going to see Lady Gaga in Montreal on July 2nd. It's going to be a good month!!!