30 jan 2024
and just like that, january is coming to a close. january is always such a strange feeling, it feels like it's the longest month out of the year. this year feels a little different though, i sort of feel like i'm lost in space and time right now in a month that doesn't really exist (not that any of them do in the grand scheme of things but you know what i mean). well, moving is pretty much done. it's been tricky trying to consolidate and downsize, but the smaller apartment feels much cozier than the old one and it's in a quieter part of the complex which is a bonus. last night we were sitting inside and we could hear two great big hoot owls talking back and forth to each other- it was the coolest thing ever =]
i took the day off so we could wrap things off, and also i'll be in class all weekend since we're running a thing for it. i'll have to play catch up on some homework, but i guess that's alright. my desk is set up along with my altar and i even got some stuff up on the walls. once we move the last of the stuff over we're gonna split up- slater will clean up the old unit and i'll take over organizing and getting stuff together over here at the new one. there's so much that goes into moving, i really feel so drained... wishing i could get just one more day off but instead it's gonna be go go go until next friday unfortunately.
but at least i got everything settled here. i'm just tired, stressed about school, work is about to get very difficult soon... but in the meantime we've got some really cool things in the works. yesterday i started planning for an african diaspora themed garden! really wanna focus on food and herbs, not just culinary herbs but recognizing plants that hold a lot of medicinal and spiritual significance. still lots and lots that needs to go into that, but i'm trying to be proactive and really take the reigns so we can make it happen. super stoked for that, and i plan on documenting each and every step of the process =]
the last two weeks i've been doing a lot of darkroom work for class. we made some little pinhole cameras and have been playing around with photopaper and developing it. i really like the feeling of being in the dark room, especially with the water running... feels like i'm back in the womb lol. last week when it was cloudy i got some really cool shots, but yesterday on a sunny day all my shots were turning out funky. to be fair ithink my camera is falling apart, so i'm going to try and make another if we have time for it. or maybe i'll just do it for funsies on my own time- but these days i don't have much of that.
well, i took a nice hot bath in our giant new bath tub and i think i'm going to call it a night.. no more organizing or fussing with stuff, just gonna lay on the couch for a bit and watch some venture brothers with slater. we've been doing a rewatch for the last week or two since it's a show we both really like. anyways, just wanted to pop in and say hey. i'll try to remember to post some pictures of the apartment when it all comes together. it's a shame imbolc is happening on one of my busiest days of the week.. i'll still try to find some time to squeeze in a little celebration. well, i'll log off for now bye!
this is the type of view that makes me remember how lucky i am
27 jan 2024
long time no see! i've been very very busy. a few days ago i got the call that we could get our apartment keys early and begin moving things over, so i really jumped on that opportunity yesterday and began the agonizing process of moving all of our stuff. thankfully my car does pretty well with all the things that we're moving and since it's just to a different unit on the same complex we can take as many trips as needed. we have until thursday to get everything moved, but i really want to make sure that it's done before the weekend is over so i don't have to miss out on any work or class like i was originally planning for.
the guest bathroom is finished, our computer room is mostly finished, living room is kind of finished, bedroom is kind of finished.. everything is partially finished, and it's driving me insane. i was working all by myself yesterday since slater was at work, but once it was off we moved the stuff that i couldn't do on my own like the couch, our mattress and our new bedframe which was still packed in boxes along with our new dresser. i assembled the bedframe this morning but when i went to put together the dresser i noticed we had boxes 1 and 3, but not 2. so now we have a big heaping pile of half-assembled dresser just chilling out on the floor driving me insane... i'm so exhausted and i just want to be finished with all of this. it feels like there's still so many little things that need to get gathered up, all the clothes etc. slater is really particular about its things so i didn't touch any of its stuff so all of that needs to come over also. doesn't help that our "ground floor" unit that we're moving from is actually down a flight of stairs so everything has to get moved up 2 flights of stairs.
but enough of that. the new unit is really, really nice. less space of course, but that makes it feel cozier to be honest. it's right next to the creek so when you sit out on the porch you can hear running water, and the neighbors are all really nice. it's going to take some getting used to being on the 2nd floor, but i'm doing my best to walk as quietly as i can and move furniture as carefully as possible! my desk is back in the bedroom now like it was in my OG apartment back in southern pines. not sure if i like or dislike it, it's nice to have my own little corner and i feel like it makes the bedroom feel a little less empty like it did in the previous unit.
omg do i feel so sore. my hip injections also feel like they're starting to wear off which is disappointing for the amount of trouble it is to get them. just sitting here (well kneeling here since i dont have my computer chair here yet) listening to the rain outside and trying to get the energy to go back to the old unit and start bringing more things over... i need to take apart the fold out couch but i just don't even want to think about it right now. it's all so overwhelming and i have homework due that i should be working on instead of saving for last minute. sorry for such a whiny post, it's just been a hella busy week and now that i've had a chance to stop and breathe it almost feels like i can't get going again.
this semester just feels so bizarre. i don't like this time of year in general, this weird transition from winter to spring... everything just feels so uncomfortable and off. doesn't help that it's been unseasonably warm and it's looking like winter is getting cut short again this year. climate change aside, the vibe is just off. i'm hoping that the feeling will clear up over time. for now i'm just holding on for dear life lol. there's a lot of major changes happening at work which have also contributed to the weird feeling- i was planning to stay and work over the summer again, but i'm starting to change my mind now that things are looking like they'll be way different this year. we'll see, there's a couple of factors that i'm waiting on.
well, that's all i have for you guys right now. i'm going to go back to the old unit and start shuffling over things like clothes, a few stuffed animals that got left behind, stuff from the kitchen etc... i think i'll leave the final touches to slater since it's gonna be off on tuesday and wednesday when i'm having to go back to school. my schedule is so off and weird, it feels like i can't really find time to chill out in the evenings so that's why my blog posts have been so sparse lately. hopefully things will get back on track soon. but for now i'm gonna head off, i hope you guys are having a great week and that it's not too cold (or hot) where you are!
i left class early to get a head start in the rain and was rewarded with this sight!!
19 jan 2024
wow, almost a whole week without an update... sorry about that. once school started on tuesday it really felt like i was immediately going full speed ahead. my days are pretty much 100% full at this point. mondays i work all day, tuesdays i have classes from 8 am to 9 pm, wednesday is kind of chill then thursday is another 8 am to 9 pm day. i only get about an hour to take break between work + school and it's just gonna get crazier once it warms up again and stuff starts growing. mow season is just around the corner and even though my work is supposed to be more focused on greenhouse stuff i have a sneaking suspicion nothing's really gonna go down the way it's supposed to =P but we'll see. there's still a few months before all that starts happening. other than that, classes have been going well so far. i keep feeling like i'm in over my head for whatever reason, even though i Know i'm beyond capable of taking these classes. yesterday in my drawing class we just immediately jumped into working on a still life and i completely choked- dunno why. it might've been because idrank a big latte before that and i think it was making me really shaky. arghh i don't know, i have another still life for that due so i'm just hoping i can get it togther.
other than that, it's been same old same old. haven't been able to think about anything or do anything that isn't school or work. yesterday i came home and could barely keep my eyes open, just laid on the couch dozing off while watching venture bros. ended up crawling in bed around 9 or 10 and slept allll night, didn't wake up or anything. first time that's happened in months. felt really good to just get a full nights sleep for once, but i'm starting to feel sleepy now =p
it snowed today for the first time in over a year. you would think living in the mountains would mean a lot more snow, but the way we're situated here means the snow goes kind of north and west to us on the other side of the mountains along the TN border. same with all the rain too, but we got really lucky today and it's been snowing steadily. not a lot of it stuck, but enough to turn the ground white and pile up on the backs of the cars. this also meant slater got to come home early from work and we went for a short little walk out in the cold all bundled up together. didn't go too far, just down to the creek and back cuz it was windy and also starting to get dark. slowly but surely, it's starting to stay light out longer and longer each day.
i was looking at some old pictures from last summer and it's so crazy how different everything looks when it's warm out. can't wait for fireflies and all the lush plants to come back- but i'm also enjoying the winter. well, enjoying it when i'm not outside trying to blow leaves that are frozen to the sidewalk. though i'm sure when the warmer weather comes back around i'll be dreaming about the cold again.
well, i think i'm going to try and draw something for now. been trying to draw something every day, but that's easier said than done. maybe i should do the right thing and work on my homework, but i think i might just draw something chill for now. anyways, just wanted to check in and say hey and letting you all know i'm still alive. i'll ttyl!
it's so grey outside, but that means the evergreens really pop out!
13 jan 2024
there's something deeply unsatisfying about typing 2024. 2023 is satisfying, 2 then jump to 0 then it's an easy step from 2 -> 3. 2024 adds an extra skip and a hop over to the 4, i keep finding myself making typos over and over again every time i have to type it. hahah okay, i think that's definitely an indicator that i've been out on break for way too long if i'm over here writing about the simplicity of typing '2023' vs '2024'. well thankfully for everyone, school starts back on tuesday and i'm back to the grind. surprisingly, i'm feeling sort of anxious in terms of classes... it's all art classes this semester, but i can't help feeling like i'm going to slip and fall flat on my face. growing up i was always unbelievably confident when it came to art- everything else not so much, but art was something that i 100% felt like i knew what i was doing. now? not so much... i will just have to work hard to maintain an open mind and draw/paint from a place of real creativity and not force myself into a box like i'm so bad about doing. i think i am a little too good at following instructions sometimes and play it nice and safe, following everything to a T and then after it's all done i realize i could've gone outside of the box way more than i did.
so yeah, going into this semester with an open mind for sure. other than that, nice and quiet over here. it rained all day yesterday and i was hoping for snow but there wasn't any... there might be some later this week though, but hopefully i'll be nice and warm inside of the greenhouse. we'll see =P simon seems to be doing better... i think? the vet gave him some fancy food which he's been eating just fine, but the poop situation itself gets better then goes back to being weird again. overall though it seems like he's getting better, so i'm not exactly concerned. he also isn't sick per say, he's eating and drinking and just his all around normal happy simon self, so no cause for concern. he still needs to finish up this round of probiotics and if there's still problems then i'll hit the vet up again.
my sleep schedule is so messed up. not even from being out of school and staying up all night or anything, i just suddenly stopped being able to fall asleep at night. it takes me forever and then when i do fall asleep i'm either waking up every other hour or i'm plagued with really intense, weird dreams. then by morning i feel like a total zombie and like i can't really fully wake up throughout the day. dont know what's going on with that, but it's frustrating. it might be hormonal issues, i'm having all kinds of skin problems out of nowhere for the past few weeks. hopefully when school starts back up things will even back out, at least in terms of being able to sleep.
stopped by the witchcraft store a little while ago and picked up a few herbs for my offering dish and some stuff for a road opener bath. now it's time to clean up the house and i think i'll do some anatomy practice today. i feel very frustrated by how it feels like i just never glean anything from anatomy studies or figure drawing, but i think that i'm just not doing enough of them. last night i was thinking about it like "damn, i've been drawing like this since i was a teenager and i feel like i just can't get better." but the more i thought about it the more i was like... ok logically if i just practice a shit ton of what i want to improve then i'll eventually improve. and if it doesn't improve then there's a gap there that needs more practice. this is such a duh moment for a lot of people i think but i don't know lol i think artists especially myself get to a point where we kind of expect things to just happen on their own. or maybe it really is just a me problem =P
quinn stuff is coming along, i'm just kind of stuck right now. i still need to finish scripting out each actual chapter before i can draw it, but it just feels like something is *missing* from it all. like there just needs to be an iiiiittty bitty bit more to flesh out the story, but i'm not sure what. don't want it to drag on and on, but i also don't want it to rush by. either way feels unrealistic and weird, so it's been difficult trying to figure out a balance. but that has to happen and get written out before anything else can happen. i feel bad for not updating my comic for almost 2 years now... but looking back it was hard for me to do anything during that time, especially 2022. either way, things are coming eventually. lots of little changes happening to the story and the art, but it'll be worth it when it's finished and i can move on to another project.
for now, i'm going to start cleaning up the apartment... gonna have to go to the store and get some under the bed storage boxes since we'll be losing a whole closet when we move to the new place, but that's for another day. trying to go to walmart on a saturday is like a suicide mission lol. have a good weekend =] pictures will be coming back soon, ihaven't been doing much noteworthy lately.
08 jan 2024
okay! new blog layout is here. i guess it's not really a new layout, just fixing up the old one. figured we could go with a lush, green forest-y theme for 2024. i also realized i dated my last entry as 2023 so i fixed that too -_- i'll probably be doing that until mid february before it finally sinks in that it's 2024. time really does fly- it's so werid to think about how 2018 was already 6 years ago!! it feels like it was just a year or two. but at the same time it's a good feeling to look back and see where i'm at now in comparison.
i keep getting videos on my feed about how it's going to be spring soon. it's been a very warm winter, i find myself wanting to have winter for just a few more extra months to make up for everything. the only thing that i could go without is how dry my skin has been, especially on my hands. though i would take dry skin over warm winters and climate change... don't get me started on that though or this will be a very, VERY long entry haha
saturday i had to take simon to the vet. i noticed a little bit of blood in his stool so i packed him up in his little carrier and took him in. thankfully they were able to get us seen, there weren't a lot of places nearby that were open on saturday, let alone for an urgent care appointment. they checked him out and poor baby was so scared but so sweet. simon may have his issues but he's the sweetest little kitty in the world- even after the vet took his temperature he turned around and started rubbing and loving on her.. he really is so sweet and trusting. it always feels awful when i have to put him in the car, he cries and i have to put my fingers against his carrier so he can rub against them. they couldn't get a sample from him so that's what i spent my day today doing... waiting for the cat to poop so i can take it into the vet lmao life with animals is so nasty!!! but i guess it's worth it.
don't wanna jinx myself because it feels like every time i say this, i end up falling immediately back into an art slump. but the last few days i've been productive creative-wise. i'm still feeling so exhausted every morning when i wake up though, and i really hope it's not something like sleep apnea and instead is just my lack of being in school/work... maybe i just need to get active and stay active. we fell out of going to the gym the first week of january but tbh some of that was me not wanting to go to the gym the same week when EVERYONE decides "ok time to start going to the gym since its new years". it's silly but i feel like everyone is on the same page of not wanting to work out around others, and since our apartment's fitness center is soooo small it feels a little up close and personal in there lol. so i guess i'll put together a workout for slater and i tonight so we can get back on that.
then theres the move looming on the horizon... i'm trying to prep things now while i'm not in school so i'm not having to juggle class, homework AND settling out the move. our actual move day is one of my busier days so i'm trying to get us moved in the morning so i don't have to miss any work hours or class that evening. thankfully we're just moving to another unit within the same complex. and look- i am NOT the one you want driving a uhaul. i've driven big Huge vehicles before, but it's very unnerving and i hate it lol. but spending money on movers is just such a waste when we're just moving to another building like 2 seconds away, so instead i rented one of their pickup trucks instead.
and honestly, i think i'd be able to move most of the stuff myself in my car. it's just things like my desk and our fold out couch which are just too big and bulky for me to fit into the trunk. as for actually lifting and moving everything, i think me and slater could handle it by ourselves but some of slater's friends are going to come help us out. the more the merrier! now i just need to actually start packing up the stuff that's in our closet so when we get close to the actual move date we can just pack up all the odds and ends that can't be packed until last second. there's times when the thought of moving doesn't seem worth it, but it'll save us so much money by downsizing. the only reason we chose a 2 bedroom was because we thought family & friends would be staying with us more, but we just don't have visitors frequently enough to justify it =P
and while having a computer room is nice, we'll still have plenty of space to have our own areas for doing art, etc. this year i'm really focused on saving money so we can start prepping for a house- that way when the market finally eases up we can make our move. there's still so much that i don't know about buying a house and we're nowhere Near financially ready for it... so until we are and until we figure everything out, it's best to just save money up as much as we can. hopefully things will line up to where we can move to our own place by the time i'm done with school. it's funny, it seems so far away now but i know when i graduate i'll be writing on here like "i cant believe 4 years went by like that!!!!" lol
anyways, i'm gonna head off now. think i'll work on rendering on procreate, i'm so out of practice haha. cya!
simon at the vet, being so sweet
04 jan 2024
well- i haven't decided what kind of blog layout i want tbh. all my inspiration is gone... there's something about january that just kills me- i don't know what it is but i feel so drained. the last few days i have felt so exhausted but i've been unable to sleep, but too tired to do anything like draw or be creative. it's like i'm just stuck in this weird in-between place. i'm frustrated because it feels like i wasted my break feeling too uninspired to do anything that i wanted to accomplish and the last 3 days were supposed to be my days to sit down and be creative like i've been itching to do and i've just been too tired. too uninspired. i've been in this rut for years now and i keep thinking that i'm coming out of it only to just not really do that.
okay, i'm in a bad mood i'll admit it!!!! i got a haircut this morning. i scheduled it weeks ago back in early december because i wanted to give myself time to back out... but it was high time i did something about my dead ends. i felt really great about the hair stylist i was going to because she's cut curly hair and her work looked great. the last week or so i've thought hey, my hair has been looking really good lately, i feel really good about it! it's so long now and my hard work of growing it out really paid off! thought about cancelling the appointment, but i went through with it because i knew i'd have to get some weight taken off of it and like i mentioned above, my split ends were sooo bad. we talked about wanting to make it a little less bottom heavy and focusing on shaping it a little while retaining length, she talked me into some fringe.
well, 2 hours later, cut is done. my hair is FRIZZED the fuck out. she gave me some product in my hand to work into my hair and admitted that their salon doesn't really use any products that would really hold my curls enough... i had to keep my eye from twitching!!!!!! its frustrating, i warned them my hair is 3a-3b and really thick/frizzy. but i trusted the process, worked the product in and she continued to diffuse my hair. like don't get me wrong, this stylist is INSANELY talented and she's so so nice!! she really worked with me.. it's just my hair that's the problem. completely frizzed out and she fought with my hair, trimming up here and tehre in a desperate attempt to get it looking right. she took before+after photos and i just felt so ashamed and embarrassed and so SAD looking at all my hair all over the floor. now i was left with a big frizzy mop on my head.
but i was still holding out hope that everything would come together... just had to go home and wash my hair and style it with my products that i normally use that i Know can hold my hair. and it looked really good when it was wet! i diffused it and let it dry and the more and more it dried just the worse and worse it looked. and of course since its FRINGE i can't hide it. all of 2021 i had to hide my hair under wraps and hats while it grew out, now i'm stuck with this. pulled it up into a pony tail and pinned the fringe back. this is what i'll be stuck with until it grows out. it's so silly to be this upset over a bad haircut.. but yall...
i've avoided getting my hair cut for YEARS. my childhood was full of bad haircuts and being bullied because my hair was always poofing out and frizzy, i'd be in tears after accidentally breaking hairbrushes trying to brush through it. it wasn't until i was in my 20s did i really start to learn how to take care of curly hair and figure out that it can look amazing. so i was really vulnerable going in there to get my hair cut. i am already not very easy on the eyes and i've always felt like my hair helps make up for that. this cut just doesn't suit me At All... like it is really ghastly lol. basically, i'm really sensitive about my hair and it's been a long hard 3 years of trying to grow it out from a crop cut. well, i guess on the bright side is that it's not ALL gone... and when it grows out, it'll hopefully look nice. and thankfully the split ends are gone, AND i can pull it up! lets just hope these stupid bangs grow out before mow season starts or i'm in loads of trouble. guess my hair will be up in a ponytail for the majority of 2024.
well, i already feel a little bit better talking about it at least. sorry for not coming back with a new blog layout and instead a whole wall of text complaining. it's just been a long week- i started EMDR a few days ago and while i won't bore you all with the details i really, really don't think i like it. but i am being kind of forced into it, i'll explain the situation in a separate post someday perhaps. believe me, i'm very grateful for the resources- i just wish i felt like i had any control or agency over how i handled my own mental health. anyhow, gonna go play some more shadow of chernobyl and try to wake myself up. talk soon =]