And Now for something Positive!

*tosses out a magnet*

*crickets chirp as no one gets the joke*

*sigh*

So, my blog has been leaning (in fact almost spiraling) to he negative side of things going on.  Right now, things aren't great, but some things are looking up.

Been talking to a couple of people on an internet dating site (locals, of course), and I seem to have made a couple of friends (and a couple of enemies too).  That's definitely a bright side of things.  I am doing better, griping less, and letting my anger and frustration no longer get the better of me.  Or at least, I am trying.  I don't feel near so alone as I have lately, which has been on my mind a lot.  I'm not sleeping better, but I am resting more, learning where I need to stop stretching myself quite so thin, and where I can take a breath and keep calm...

I just wonder how much more I'll be able to take....  I move in one year...  *sigh*

"And I only write love songs to those whom I don't love.
I only reach for him who's tied to someone else's glove.
That which I hold inside, which I admire and deride,
Which I protect and hide is yours...

Bend your branches to the ground and hold me close
Let me harmonize with all we knew.
Share your sympathy and weep for me!
Oh, willow, heal the hearts I've broken,
Make me pure and start my song anew..."
~Willow by Emilie Autumn

Inspirational Blog

"It's easier to play a part, and read your lines,

than freely speak what's in your heart and in your mind."

~Dunce by Voltaire

So, I've been having a rotten week.  Mixed with a couple of not-so bad things.  Had to squawk to a higher-up to get my ceiling patched.  They showed up yesterday morning, woke me up from a very nice musical-themed dream (I promise, I'll stop falling asleep to Love Never Dies one of these days), with a can of stark-white spray paint to paint over the crack that had been sealed in one spot while it was still wet with caulking.  I told him no, I wanted it dried out, cleaned, gutted, and repaired properly, he said it wouldn't happen, ther'es ventilation up there (as if I'm an idiot) and it's dry.  I went fuming into the kitchen to make coffee since I was obviously not going to get to go back to sleep.

Got home yesterday to find they had patched the crack completely.  This morning, it's starkly obvious (even without my glasses) where they did the repair, and there's even signs of water damage (those funny yellow-orangeish spots that tell you this is going to start molding?). I give it a week before I have to go storming into the apartment office to demand that it gets the full repair that it needs.

It's really hard to be "nice" to these people now... 

Stickers are almost done (I keep saying that, I know!), I promise I'll have stuff done for Nebraskon ("Yeah, yeah, Starving, we've heard it all").

Of Hamburgers and Leaky Ceilings

So, I've managed to get through the first day of the week, and halfway through today, just another four and a half hours to go!  Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.....*quickly loses enthusiasm*

I need a new clock.  Well, actually, I need a clock in general, since I don't have one, besides my ipod, stove, and microwave.  I was hinkig maybe this one (Because it made me smile), but then I realized like my family and "normal" friends wouldn't get it.  Then I thought maybe this one.  But I don't like it to light up, so that didn't work...  *sigh*

I still need to finish my work on the stickers.  Maybe I'll do that tonight in between My Little Pony (don't judge me) episodes.  *slow streeeeeeeetch* I don't want to go back to work...

Quote of the day!  (I know, not a daily blog, bite me.)

"Gotta move, gotta choose!
You've got a difference to make.
Don't watch it happen again.
Gotta change; rearrange;
Something's bending to break,
It's just a matter of when."

~Hope on Fire, by Vienna Teng

To Recap

The Week From The Very Hot and Arid Place:

Monday:  Disposal not fixed.  Try to do dishes around it, back hurts significantly from standing on the floor, leaves a lot of dishes not done.  Dishwasher still has smelly water in the bottom and doesn't run properly, and gurgles back into the side of the sink with the disposal.

Tuesday:  Disposal fixed.  Notice to clean apartment for inspection the following day.  Proceed to stress oneself and eat a bad burger, after three and a half hours of cleaning.  Call in sick.

Wednesday:  Alternate cleaning and being sick from the hours of 9:30 am to 4:30 PM.  Apartment is mostly clean, still decluttering, but almost all of the trash has been taken out.  Don't pass inspection, but vast improvement on the day before, have 14 days to finish cleaning and keep it clean (easy enough now that the big things are out of the way).  Be sick some more, eat a decent meal, flop in bed for some much-needed computer time.  Look up at the ceiling in time to see the crack start dripping as it's pouring rain, and discover it's no longer dripping, it's a small stream.  Crack is three and a half feet long, and WASN'T THERE BEFORE.  Emergency call to maintenance, can't fix it because of the darkness since is coming from outside.  Advised to keep bucket under it to catch the drips.  Proceed to insomnia stage, despite exhaustion.  Move to living room, set up computer and keyboard, proceed to knocking over brand new fountain drink of Mountain Dew onto freshly cleaned carpet.  Almost start crying, not for the fact that I like Mountain Dew, but that it had been a long day, and that was my singular reward.  Move on to dropping really nice guy from Washington into vats of acid and burning him with lasers in Portal 2.  Finally go to bed at 2 am.

Thursday:  Wake up to dog freaking out.  trudge into living room, find maintenance guy at the door.  Show him the crack, then have him leave. Proceed to fall asleep for another hour and a half.  Wake back up and drag self to work.  Proceed to have to listen to calls from a month ago to review how well I am/am not doing. 


Friday BETTER involve something funny, something sweet, or, at the very least, some more Mountain Dew.

Ow.

So, I cleaned from 9:30 last night to about 1:30 in the morning, and then again today about 9:30 in the morning to about twelve minutes ago.  I didn't pass inspection, but for the most part, I HAVE A FLOOR NOW.

Some things I've learned while cleaning today:

1.  I hate vacuum cleaners.  Particularly when I have to stop vacuuming every few minutes to cut the hair out of the vacuum.  At first, this wasn't a huge deal, only after a while it kind of stops spinning...  *sigh*  a curse of long hair...

2.  My paper shredder doesn't shred very well if it's more than one or two pieces of paper.  So naturally, it takes a lot longer to finish that part of 'cleaning'.

3.  I can't go up and down the stairs repeatedly.  I just can't.   It's all I can do to just stand in the kitchen to clean.

4.  I need a desk.


That is all for now.  I'm going to go back to shredding things and trying to "tidy up".

Great googly moogly!

So, I've been fighting maintenance to fix my disposal.  I have also been neglecting a large portion of housekeeping, partly from being sick, and mostly from being tired ALL the time.  I try my best, which recently, has been kind of sucky.  I'm also super conscious of how much noise Sweeney makes, and I do my best not to leave her alone for long periods of time.

Today, I get a notice that maintenance came by (after allegedly coming by on the 6th), and that I now have a 24-hour notice of inspection because my apartment is a mess.  Great.  Also on this notice, it states how my dog often disrupts the peace.

First, I know this sounds petty of me, and I'm sure it is, but, had they come into my apartment on 9/6 like they said they did (and we all know they didn't), then wouldn't I have gotten this notice then?  Hmm.  I think I'll have a talk to them about their maintenance people lying tomorrow.  I won't deny that my place is a mess, and I've been spending the last hour and 15 min since I got home to clean (pausing only now for dinner) so that maybe over the next couple of days, most of the work can be finished already.

I swear...  They complained my dishes weren't done, when my dishwasher and half of my sink were unusable...

Oh.  And they left a large puddle of water in my kitchen from the dishwasher.

*angrilly eats the Sonic burger*

More Nngh

Okay, so, I have a sinus infection, and I've been taking my meds like a very good girl, and I still feel like crap.  Oh well, I did get this sticker drawn, scanned, lined, and started to color.  I am most proud of those eyes, very vibrant!  <3

This is from a very ancient  doodle, back when I did really cruel things to Vaughn, my necromancer.  Namely, when I did things like, oh, say, turn him into a four year old.  Lots of fun for me.  Not so much for him.  I need to find my other drawings of small-Vaughn, they were adorable if I remember right.  This one is not Vaughn, as one can maybe tell by the curly hair, but I didn't want to deal with the Sephiroth hair tonight, so he got sweet curls.  <3333

Thank you, Ryan, for choosing the hair color (green), because I would have spent hours trying to decide on my own.  ^^

Oh, oh, quote for the day!  Had to search my music to find this one, though I think I've always kind of loved this song:

"I won't tell you there's nothing beneath your bed.

I won't sell you that it's all in your head.

This world of Oz is not as it seems.

The monsters are real, but they're not in your dreams.

Learn what you can from the beasts you defeat:

You'll need it for some of the people you'll meet."

~Goodnight Demonslayer by Voltaire

Nngh and Blargh...

So, back to work after the long weekend.  My garbage disposal has a leak that was discovered, yaaaaaaa, while I was doing dishes.  -.-  Maintenance didn't go by yesterday, and they weren't there this mornin before I left, so who knows if or when they'll get to it.  For now, I just have to be careful with that side of the sink.  *sigh*  today is unnecessarily long, and needs to be over, like, right now.  I don't have the energy to keep up something like this...  I fixed Grell and Castiel yesterday (if you look at the posted pictures super closely, you can notice things like Grell's eye not having color, the glasses missing, the color from Castiel's shoes bleeding up into his pants, etc), and I officially started and finished my "cat" sticker (who was a commission once upon a time, just a stylized black cat that I've fondly dubbed "Basement Cat").  I have plans to do one of DJ, who is my classic little trap/sweet lolita, and that will make ten total!  I plan to have them proofed and printed with next paycheck, and then I have to see about finding somewhere that can make me postcards for cheap.  Yaaaaaay for resorting to more Etsy...

I also need more prints of my older stuff...  I think I need to redo some of it....  Hmmm.... 

I really need to save up to do an order of badges from Office Max again, because, due to my error, they printed all of my "Yuri Addict" badges wrong (namely, without the words). 

So, to recap the things I still have to work on, and in the order I should probably work on them in: 

1.  Finish stickers.  6 designs done, 4 left to go.
2.  Get them proofed and printed.  (Find out if they come trimmed or if I have to cut them apart)
3.  Touch up, fix, and reprint older works.
4.  More badges.
5.  Clean apartment.  (This may need to be moved up...)
6.  Figure out how to display the stuff.  My corkboard won't survive another year, methinks, I may need to get a magnet board or something...
7.  Bag up the remaining doll clothes for sale...
8.  Work on Michaeyl.

Stickers and Sculpting Beginning

So, Jareth and Grell are done, as well as Castiel, Momiji, and Chi...  And I've begun sculpting this morning, after spending four hours sketching everything out yesterday.  Wish me luck!

Here's some sticker pictures to keep everyone happy!

Castiel, from Supernatural, I am most proud of him.

Grell Sutcliffe, from Black Butler.  I actually fixed the eye (I forgot about it) and added the glasses after I made this preview picture, so you'll have to imagine the finished product XD

And last, but not least, Jareth, the Goblin King, from Labyrinth.  I have had more fun drawing and coloring these pictures than I have doing the million other commissions and drawings I've done in ages, not counting the doodle-to-painting series.  <333

Stickers, Sculpting, and Progress!

Okay, so, painting got paused when I realized I have about 8 weeks until Anime Nebraskon--and I don't have my "new" item yet!  Last year, I got buttons for the first time.  The year before, I got badges.  Before that, I had bookmarks (though the stock I had got destroyed, sigh).  This year, I'm trying stickers.  I have eight designs approved, of random characters.  Anyone that wants to see a special character, please, request it!  I want to get ten together and printed.

Here's my favorite:

Jareth, the Goblin King.  Why I decided there would be crystals is kind of still beyond me, but I wanted some reason... and reordering space and time, it seemed to fit.  AND I spent two hours drawing that pose.



Here's the second one almost finished:

Grell Sutcliffe, from Black Butler.  I'm not proud of the face, but I AM proud of that coat.




I'm planning to sculpt two dolls, one MSD and one yo-SD, of a couple of my favorite characters from my own stories.  One will be Michaeyl (of the 5-6 year old range), and one will be a Full Halloween, Three.  He's intended to be SD size initially, but for sake of getting him sculpted, I will make him in MSD.  I've talked to a couple of BJD casting companies, and I think it will be an awesome project to put my time and effort into doing.


Itzy is about 1/3 finished now, and Tlaloc needs only some finishing touches--"moonlight", "fog", and then my signature (somehow).  I hope for him to be done by next weekend.  <3333