It's strangely meta to be resurrecting this website with my name. That's because my name, Anastacia, literally means "of the resurrection" or "a new beginning". I'll be sharing a little story about that, later.
Last year, I started AVSmakes on a whim on April 3, 2014. It didn't sink in at the time, but I actually paid for a Squarespace membership and was supposed to start posting regularly.
Well, come April 3, 2015, and Squarespace asked me to renew my site. Whoops, I didn't realize I was paying for an unused site all year. I also couldn't afford the renewal charge at the time. (I was ridiculously unemployed and living in San Francisco)
But I didn't forget about AVSmakes, and over the summer I spent hours wondering if I should resurrect the site. Finally, I found myself eager for an outlet to share my projects. I would see other creative blogs and actually feel jealous. So, it's time to fix that! I've re-instated my Squarespace subscription and will be slowly adding new projects to the site.
Since I'm starting a new site, basically from scratch, I'll share a little story about myself as an introduction.
Hi, I'm Anastacia
In Improv, a popular warm-up is to go around a circle, and say an adjective beginning with the first letter of your name that describes you. So, "Hi, I'm Adventurous Anastacia!".
Growing up in NYC, people always asked if I was Russian. Anastasia is a Russian name, and since there are a lot of Russians in NYC it was a valid question. But few people know that Anastasius was actually a common Christian name in Ancient Rome & Greece. It means "of the resurrection" or "a new beginning", and was given to children born around Easter time, in the days when Christians were persecuted by the Roman Empire.
My mom chose the name because she had decided to leave her husband before I was born. She was married to him for 10 years before that, and she tried to make the marriage work. But once a baby entered the picture she decided to go it on her own. I joke that she was putting a lot of pressure on me to be her "new beginning". But I was happy to have a unique name. It was spelled Anastasia although we all pronounced it Anastacia.
Growing up, one favorite Disney movie was Cinderella. I suppose I liked the rag-to-riches story, the gaggle of furry animal friends, and that she was a seamstress! But the evil step-sisters name was Anastasia, and I did not want to be like her. And since my name wasn't pronounced like that anyway, I asked my mom if I could change the spelling from an "s" to a "c". To my surprise, she didn't have any problem with it at all.
So in the 3rd grade, I started spelling my name differently. I changed it from "Anastasia" to "Anastacia". I'll never forget the day my teacher called it out in class. Handing back papers, she said "You're spelling your name wrong, Anastasia.". I could not have been more proud to reply, "No, that's the way my name is spelled, from now on!" Even adults don't really change their name that much, but here I was, at eight years old, declaring a new spelling!
I used the new spelling unofficially until I turned 18, when I got it legally changed. Now, my passport "correctly" says Anastacia, and I'm pretty proud of my name and it's history.
