12.24.24
hi everyone! its christmas eve here in NC. we had to make a last minute stop by the liquor store to pick up a gift for some family that we're seeing tomorrow, but other than that we've been just chilling out and taking it easy. tomorrow we'll make the drive out to see everyone, it'll be good to see family after everything that's happened this year. it's a little sad not seeing my parents this year, at this point it's been almost 2 years since i last saw my mom - something really unusual for me. i think this is the longest i've been without seeing her in my life- i always made it a point to travel to texas to see them for the holidays but i just wasn't able to swing it this year. tickets are too expensive and the drive is really long/hard to do solo.
my dad had neck surgery around thanksgiving so he's been down and out recovering, and every year my mom's work picks up even more around end of the year/beginning of the new year. so it's been really, really hard to co-ordinate seeing each other... being in school also adds another layer of difficulty to it all, it's not like i can just pick up and leave during the semester for a week. they've been talking about moving out to this area for a really long time now, and i wish they'd just do it. it would be so nice to have my family close by (despite it all lol)
tomorrow we're going to wake up really early to head out to see slater's family, so tonight we plan on exchanging the gifts we got for each other here at our place. slater's going to make makaronia me kima for us tonight, it's something super fast/simple. i think for the rest of winter break i'm going to try and cook more, it's amazing how much more energy i have when i'm not worrying about school.
also been trying to draw everyday, haven't been super successful but i'm just trying to ease back into the feeling of actually drawing. i also have some canvases i plan on prepping so i can get familiar with painting again before next semester starts and i'm struggling to remember how to do it all over again.
well, that's all i really got for now! i hope everyone is having a super cozy winter! stay warm and i'll try to write some before the new year sneaks up on us.
12.20.24
its finally over... i am oficially Done with this semester as of today! i had turned in all my final essays last weekend, but i still had a few classes to attend/a film screening for one class, then i had my last final exam this morning. i had spent a ton of time studying the stuff that i felt weakest on/was most worried about only for there to be one little multiple choice question about it. oh well =P can't go back and change it now - it is what it is. said goodbye to my friend who is graduating but i think she's coming by later to drop off a hairdrier that i had lent her. it's a weird feeling having friends who you only know for a really short amount of time before having to move away from them and not know when you'll see them again. it's something that i'm pretty used to because of my previous job/lifestyle but i'm still not used to it! it's definitely kind of a weird vibe with the end of this semester- last year there was so much excitement and buzz in the air but i think because of the hurricane we were all just kind of hanging on for dear life/burnt out by the end of everything. like i thought i would be SO hype right now but i'm really, really sleepy and might knock out here after i write this.
but don't think that this means i'm going to be out of it all winter- i have some big plans that i'm starting to work on! i'm starting work on quinn again, i know i keep saying this but i feel like i have a much more concrete direction for things to go in now which was what was stopping me before. but for now i just need to kind of chill out for a day or two... think i'm going to eat some udon tonight and just chill on star stable =P we'll see. ill update you guyts with some sketches/plans soon!
12.14.24
it's been a cold cold two weeks since i've last written here, we got a little bit of snow a couple of times but nothing that really stuck to the ground. for whatever reason i feel like i wrote an entry recently then just deleted it instead of posting, i have no clue why i didn't just post it? well, anyways... i recently got an offer for a new job starting next fall, so i jumped right on it =] this way i'll be able to finish up some stuff at my current job, then move on to the next thing where i'll probably stay put at for a few years. my only problem is that it won't be outside with plants, which kind of sucks. i've really grown to love working with plants and doing landscape design, it's just the work environment i'm currently in is making me really unhappy and it's really hard on my body.
which, speaking of... about to try and start the whole fiasco of getting that hip problem diagnosed again. yes, it's been almost 2 years of me trying to get this diagnosed. it felt like i was FINALLY making some progess, i was going to get referred to another clinic and i was going to meet with someone else about my claim, then the hurricane happened and i haven't been able to get ahold of anyone since. so now i'm going to have to start all over again from square one... i need to get back into going to the gym, i think getting out of a labor-intensive job is going to help me with that and i can hopefully start strengthening those muscles again. there's been a lot of pain recently, i think those steroid shots i got around this time last year have either started to wear off or have worn off.
but enough of that! i think i'm finally finished with all of my classwork. well, i'm just waiting to do one more final then i'm done. i took one of my finals today and only missed one question, then submitted two of my final papers. there's only one more exam i have to take, but that's at the very end of the week on friday...tbh i wish i could just go and get it over with. but even then i'm already feeling so much lighter like a weight was lifted off of me. already starting to get the itch to get back into drawing more frequently, and i want to start writing for quinn again.
i constantly bring up starting to work on quinn slowly once more but it's been hard these last few years. tbh i didn't want to admit it for a while,but i think i just got burnt out on working on it and i completely lost sight of my own characters/story. taking a big step ack from it for a while and thinking about other things has been helpful to me, and i keep trying to come back and revisit quinn to see if interest gets sparked again- which it does! but its always so brief and i have so much on my plate than i did before. but i think now that i'll have a little more time and energy to devote to my art soon i'll start doing more with it. we'll see what happens. either way it'll be slow going for a bit but i do still feel really passionate about the story and want to share it.
well, don't have any art to share with you guys. it's been a rough couple of weeks while i scrambled to get everything done, but i think i'm over the hump now. i'll talk again soon, i plan on picking up stalker 2 after this week so i'm sure i'll have lots to say on that...
yours truly + almost 3 months since helene and a lot of places still look like this. i still can't wrap my head around how high the water got.
12.01.24
hi guys! how's it going? i've added a second page to the blog to help break it up some, so now there's nto a giant wall of text to scroll through. images should also load better now. well, it's finally december... 4 more weeks and 2024 will be over, that feels so fucking weird to say!! this year has flown by, i know i said the same thing about last year and probably the year before that but it really feels like time just slipped right on past me this year.
well, i've been a little quiet on here just because of everything going on. school has been a nightmare, trying to make up for the time we lost out on during the flood has made things feel so rushed and stressful. feels like every night i'm having dreams about missing homework assignments, having a surprise test, etc etc. i was so excited to have a little break from school/work with thanksgiving weekend, but i ended up getting sick at the beginning of the week... thankfully it cleared up by the time break rolled around, but i'm still coughing up a bunch of nasty shit from being congested.
then on thanksgiving we woke up and simon was hiding under my desk. he normally wakes us up every morning begging for breakfast, but today he didn't beg at all... he wouldn't move, wouldn't come out for food or anything so we were really worried. we waited a little bit to see if he just needed to throw up, but after a little bit we decided to take him in to the ER vet. thankfully there were no obstructions or anything like that, we think it was a problem with a medication the vet had put him on to help with his IBS. he's off of that now though and on a probiotic instead, so we're hoping we can correct it with a planned diet and monitoring him for a while... he really gave us a scare with that though (but don't worry he is back to being 100%!)
over on bluesky, i've been doing a thread where i introduce 1 oc per 1 like the thread gets. the likes have surpassed the amount of ocs i currently have, but i thought i would have some fun with it and make little intro cards for each oc i'm posting about.
these are the ones i've made so far, it's hard to try and fit all this information into short concise posts on bluesky. especially when it comes out to my really fleshed out characters, like clive and quinn. doing it like this helps a bunch though, especially for characters that i don't have any art of like my stalker (as in the series stalker) oc tima... i don't think i have more than 2 pictures of him. i want to share more about my characters, but it's difficult trying to get out all my thoughts in a way that makes sense and sounds good. it feels like i'm always leaving something out/missing something important any time i try to make a toyhouse page or an oc page on my neocities.
i've played around with the idea of having character pages here on my personal site instead of keeping everything on toyhouse, but i've never really been able to flesh them out to the extent i'd like to on here. it also feels like 'who is going to actually GAF about this?' whenever i'm making it which in itself is just a silly idea because. it's my site bla bla bla i do what i want etc. i guess at the end of the day, it just feels a lot easier to set up a character page on toyhouse and throw a bunch of images in their gallery and move on. but maybe in the future i'll sit down and craft some fun individually themed pages for each of my ocs. toyhouse's custom CSS is great, but i do like the complete and Total control a webpage gives you.
speaking of stalker, has anyone picked up stalker 2 yet? i'm holding off until the semester is over, the last thing i need is to get sucked back into my favorite series right when finals are lurking right around the corner TT_TT it'll be a nice little gift to myself i guess. it's been a really stressful year and i can't wait for it to be over!! currently i'm doing the whole 'what are we doing for the holidays?' song and dance with my family and it's making me want to rip my hair out. we gotta get everyone living in the same state, i think that would make things 100x easier...
well, i think that's all i have for you guys, kind of a long one sorry lmao. i was putting off writing a blog entry until i felt like sitting down and splitting my blog pages up. anyways hope you guys are taking it easy and enjoying winter =] see ya next time!