๐ŸŒˆ๐Ÿธ BIG ANNOUNCEMENT ๐Ÿธ๐ŸŒˆ

Hey everyone! As I’ve slowly been making some changes, I wanted to give formal notice of them. They’re kind of major, so I appreciate you reading this long but important post.

Even if you’ve already read this on FA, please note that this post has been greatly revised and expanded, so there’ll be more info for you if you read it again here.

๐ŸŒˆ BEFORE YOU READ ๐ŸŒˆ

The most important things to keep in mind are: I am in no way disappearing, and you shouldn't expect my artistic output to decrease, either! What I draw WILL change, however, and it will make me happier. ๐Ÿ˜Š

I am also making my withdrawal from the community a little more formal, but in practical terms, I had already withdrawn. I am not really spending most of my time in furry spaces anymore.

My Patreon isn't closing, my Telegram group isn't closing, my FA account won't be deleted and I'll still post art to it.

So really: the biggest change is that I am no longer accepting commissions. These changes are all for my personal fulfillment. I hope you can be happy for me, and not make me feel bad. I gave the majority of my time, life and output to the community for twelve long years, and I want to move on to other things, other hobbies, and other endeavors.

REGARDING COMMISSIONS

โŒ COMMISSIONS ARE PERMANENTLY CLOSED โŒ

Requests are also closed (and always have been), while trades are for close friends only (but I am not available for those for a while, regardless). I will eventually reopen trades and collaborations.

Any commissions that have been paid for, will be completed as normal, and my Trello remains available for viewing. However, I have removed all commission information from my website/socials/online galleries/etc.

๐Ÿ‘‘ MY PATREON WILL REMAIN OPEN ๐Ÿ‘‘

I have no plans to close or make changes to my Patreon! It will remain the only way to reliably get art for me in the form of freebies and YCHs. Indeed, if you’re a Patreon supporter, I am basically begging you to not cancel your pledge for a couple of months if you are able to maintain it without hardship. My hope is to find a job and clear my queue in the space of two months, but if I lose the $130-ish I get from Patreon, doing that may get much harder without accepting any new commission work. ๐Ÿ˜“

(With that said, I also don’t want anyone to get into undue financial difficulty, so if you need to cancel I understand and will manage somehow.)

Working on my Patreon pieces, which are artistic freedom, still brings me a lot of joy. I will stop offering the rewards the moment that feeling of joy goes away. So please know, if you’re a supporter, that if the tiers are still up, it means that working on that art is making me happy. It is not a burden in any way.

With that said: please do not try to get non-artistic freedom commissions using your Patreon rewards, by ignoring this fact and asking me to include details that would normally require a normal commission slot. There are no exceptions.

WHY? ๐Ÿ˜•

I have decided to take this more drastic decision of announcing closure and removing all commission info (rates, terms, etc) because I’ve kinda wanted to go back to job seeking and no longer take commissions, but either by temptation or necessity, I keep taking commissions –again and again– despite the fact that I’ve tried this before.

So I am forcing my own hand here, because other than Patreon (which I still find fun and fulfilling) I just don’t want to do this anymore, and without such drastic action, I kinda lack the discipline to pull the plug on my business of so many years.

It’s true that at my last job, little as it lasted, I was very upset about not getting to draw all day. Like my husband said, what I really need to find is a part-time job, or even temporary work. I don’t really have a need to work all the time, I am very fortunate in that regard. I just need to save money for certain events from time to time and make a little side money to help my mom.

๐Ÿพ MY PLACE IN THE FANDOM ๐Ÿพ

๐Ÿ™…โ€โ™€๏ธ I AM NO LONGER ATTENDING FURRY CONS ๐Ÿ™…โ€โ™€๏ธ

Every once in a while, friends still ask me “Are you attending so-and-so con?” And while I’ve mostly been unable to due to other travel plans or monetary reasons for about three years now, the truth is… I haven’t been terrible bummed about it.

I have come to the realization that my desire to attend furry conventions is simply not going to return; in fact, it wanes more with every passing month and year. It’s no longer my scene, I have no interest. I’d rather work towards visits to specific friends when I am able and attend other events and conventions that aren’t furry-related.

We may cross paths at other cons! Anime cons, science-fiction cons… who knows! But I no longer plan to attend any furry conventions.

๐Ÿ’Ÿ OTHER CHANGES THAT I HAVE MADE ๐Ÿ’Ÿ

I’ve deleted my Littlefur Mastodon account (I still have one on Mastodon.art and one on Sauropods.win).

My FA watch list has gone down from almost 2000 to a trim 160 (yes, really!) I went through every single person that I was watching and went down to that few. This is because I don’t plan to visit the site as often, and when I do, I don’t want to miss out on the stuff my close friends and favorite artists have posted. I did the same in other places, like cohost.

I unwatched people because they posted topics I either wasn’t interested in, or actively put off by, because they had been inactive for years/deactivated/passed away, or because we weren’t close any longer. Every rule I used to trim my list had one or a few exceptions, but I did unwatch people I really care about because I no longer wanted to see more extreme sort of fetish content, so please don’t take an unwatch as it meaning we are no longer friends, this is not the caseย AT ALL.

๐Ÿ’ญ INTROSPECTIVE ๐Ÿ’ญ

None of this is new; nor is it my first attempt at this life change. But it is the first time that I’ve used a bit of a scorched earth method to go about it.

You might say “you’ve tried this before” and yes –I have. But never taking all my commission info down in this way. It was a huge amount of work, because my commission offerings were intertwined with my entire online presence and dozens of pages on my site and social media. I had to fix dozens of broken links. It was a BIG job.

I have been gradually taking bigger and bigger steps back from the fandom over time: first, from our specific “niche”, then, from the fandom as a whole. It has been increasingly becoming a negative force in my life over the last few years, and a place where everyone is seemingly engaged in upsetting discourse or sharing of kinks that I have no interest in, which is pretty alienating at times.

I have tried to maintain a presence in certain spaces where I’ve long felt that I no longer fit in, mostly because I have friends and loved ones in those spaces still. But I don’t wanna force myself to be in them anymore. Hopefully the friendships can be maintained outside of that. Otherwise, it would be a real bummer.

Moreover, at some point long ago I stopped calling myself a furry. I slowly removed that tag from all my art. Iโ€™m not sure when that happened, because it was gradual, but it did. It isn’t a label that I feel fits me today. Itโ€™s just not me anymore. No community label does anymore, but furry actually feels alienating to me now.

I wanted a simple way to convey this last part without sounding emotional or upset, because I am neither: my interests simply keep pushing me to other areas. It’s been a fun twelve years, but I want to see what else my artistic future can hold.

You’re going to see a great uptick of personal work this year, and once I finish with the current draft (which has seen more progress these last three months than in the last three years) you’re going to be seeing a barrage of illustrated book chapters being posted to my site. I hope you’ll look forward to that.

When I came into the furry fandom, there was a big empty hole in my life. For twelve years, that hole was filled by the community, a large net of furry friends, and furry fandom activities, online and offline. I gave the community my all: twelve years of most of my artistic output. I feel that I’ve received a lot in return as well, but also that it has somewhat run its course in my life. And so, I find myself with a sort of emptiness again.

But that emptiness doesn’t upset me. Instead, Iโ€™m looking forward to finding a new community, or two. I want to delve more into paleontology and I want to attend science-fiction conventions. This year, I’ve filled my time with reading, scrapbooking, puzzle-building, gaming, walking, and other fun and fulfilling activities. It’s been wonderful –I can’t wait for more!

๐ŸŒˆ PARTING THOUGHTS ๐ŸŒˆ

I’d like to close with this: at some point in the next two months, you’ll probably see me fret, second-guess myself, worry about money, have trouble adjusting, etc. Please give me support (as in, cheer me on) rather than I-told-you-so’s. It’s gonna be a big change for me, but I’m going to give it my all.

Thank you for always supporting my artistic endeavors! I can’t wait to share new stuff with you!
Before you comment, please read this again (just including a reminder because again, I’m still posting art and interacting with my friends and with my Telegram group and everything! This isn’t a sad announcement.)

Week 10 Summary: Christopher’s Birthday! ๐ŸŽ‚

This was a week with some painful lows but still some happy moments. I went to see my mom, we had family visit, we celebrated Christopher’s birthday, my mom’s immigration process finally had movement, and I completed my first race (well, it was a walk) since restarting my daily strolls. I also took Kotoko to the vet, some tests were done, and the results were not good.

Because of those test results, I want to warn you that this post will discuss pet illness and impending (though not immediate) loss. Because it’ll come right away, under the Monday summary, there is no cut: if you keep reading, it’ll be after the “soot” photo. So please be aware of that. Anyway, let’s get on with the summary.

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s start Monday with something utterly delightful. Remember the soots from last week? The blue soot at this employee’s desk has been graced with a tiny hat!

I love the idea of someone possibly purposely bringing this hat to work for this soot. It’s so cute.

๐Ÿ’ž Pet Illness/Loss CW Starts Here ๐Ÿ’ž

Now, with much regret, I must move on to a more somber topic. You might recall I mentioned on my last post that I planned to take Kotoko to the vet on Monday. Her projectile vomiting is somewhat controlled by occasional Cerenia, but with no specific cause, I wanted to try the vet near our house and see if anything else had developed that our usual, beloved and trusted vet, Dr. Pisano, had not seen at the time. It was also time for a new blood test.

Kotoko was quite noisy as everything was done to her –check-up, x-rays, blood work. She was in discomfort, her tummy tense, and the x-rays would show other motives too. Here she is attentively listening to the vet talk about her:

After the x-rays were done, the vet took me to the back to show them to me. In this first one, if you know what you are looking at, you will catch a few things: the first being the spacing between her last few vertebrae, where an irreversible degeneration is occurring. This is painful for Kotoko, and probably made the x-rays more uncomfortable too.

The more important one is the thickening, or potential mass, in her stomach:

Because of her long-standing other symptoms, there isn’t exactly a multitude of possibilities here. It is almost certainly IBS or lymphoma, or IBS that became lymphoma. Kotoko’s blood tests also came back, and they showed the first stage of kidney failure. So as you can see, she is dealing with a lot.

The prognosis is not good. Kidney situation aside, this is a fast-acting disease, and Kotoko is 15 years old. We could do an ultrasound, and possibly need a biopsy to boot ($1,300 at a minimum if both are needed) but all this would tell us is how little time we have left. The course of action would not change.

We have decided to not subject her to any more diagnostics. Instead, we will use our funds for the best prescription foods, for daily medications that will substantially improve her comfort, and in paying for the service that will allow us to say a comfortable goodbye at home when the time does come (this is very expensive, hundreds of dollars).

And really, it could be fast. It could be two months. We could get unlucky, and it could be less, or we could get lucky, and it could be longer. We are going to do all we can to enjoy whatever time is left with her. We might just get lucky in how much time that is. Why not think positive? But even if we don’t, I know I’ll take a lot of comfort in the fact that, at 15, Kotoko has had such a long and happy life. She could have hardly had more loving or dedicated pet parents, if I do say so myself. She also had kitty friends, and many human friends to boot.

You might have seen me mention something very vague on Mastodon. It was about this. I didn’t want to go into detail, because even someone who understands pet loss may not realize why this loss will be so major to us. We’ve experienced severe heartbreak over pet loss before –this will be of a different magnitude. We will be okay. But because this isn’t a normal pet loss situation (I don’t think I could properly explain why) it will be a while until we are.

But I also want to concentrate in the here and now: with daily Cerenia, Kotoko already is showing a big improvement. No more vomiting, much bigger appetite. She just looks more lively. She’s a sturdy cat, and as long as she is here, we will love her and be grateful for her. Later we will have time to grieve. Before that time comes, I am also doing some things like a cute little cast of her paw, and a stamped imprint of it as well. I might do more things if I can think of them.

Something interesting that you can see in this other x-ray is that Kotoko has an extra rib, like some people or animals have an extra toe:

Let me close this part with a little more positivity. I really liked this vet, which is walking distance from us. They also have some chill office cats, three of them. Here’s a photo of one of them:

๐Ÿ’ž Pet Illness/Loss CW Ends Here ๐Ÿ’ž

Monday evening I completed the Snoopy Run, 13.1 miles! I walked it, though.

My medal should be here by the weekend.

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

The most significant event that happened on this day is that my mom’s immigration case entered the last stage on USCIS. She should have her residence soon… I hope!

A funny thing happened too. Tomoyo has a tendency to fling her toys high in the air when she plays. Well, while I was having lunch, this landed on my plate:

It actually landed ON my food (gross) but I moved it off right away. Meanwhile, she was just innocently waiting for me to return it to her:

Here’s a random photo of our sweet old lady:

In the evening I got dropped off at my mom’s. She gave Christopher his birthday present before he and our partner left. Then we had snacks, and wine, played Generala, and talked about a million things.

For dinner we had a baked potato:

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Wednesday was a calm day. Here’s Sweeney being very cute:

In the afternoon my mom made really delicious egg bites, and we watched TV together.

Later I lay down a while and played more Legends: Arceus.

Not long after, our partner picked me up. Once we got back home, I made the guys dinner, then tea, and just did my best to keep Christopher cheerful. Between the bad news this week and his back hurting so much without a break, it’s been really rough for him.

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

Thursday was Christopher’s birthday. I prepared his presents on his desk before he woke up:

I also hid one in his book bag so he’d have something to open at work. He liked most of them. ๐Ÿ˜Š In the evening, we had dinner at Blue Ginger to celebrate. It was really good!

On this day I finished reading another book. Though it was comics, it was really long, as it was an omnibus of all the Muppet Babies comics, plus the comic in which they first appear (The Muppets Take Manhattan). That marks the seventh book I’ve read this year. With it being March already, this may not sound like much, but “It” was well over 1,100 pages… so that took a while.

The Muppet Babies Omnibus was delightful. Some frames made me do a double take! ๐Ÿ˜ณ

Baby Rowlf was adorable…

There were a lot of funny fourth wall breaking moments. This one was particularly amusing!

Next, I’m going to finish The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black.

I decided to move one of the cat stairs to the porch to make it easier for Kotoko to access the chairs, particularly in light of her spine degeneration. She uses it, but right now, mostly sleeps on the bigger step rather than the chair, I guess because it became “new” again. Elliot sleeps on the chair.

It’s been so much fun to feed the birds and squirrels at the front of the house. Here’s a photo I took on this day:

Down the road, I would like to buy a bench and a birdbath, so I can enjoy seeing them up close while I’m outside reading a book.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s start Friday off with this photo of Tomoyo lounging on my chest. Really, she’s just waiting to be fed.

It was cage cleaning day, so here’s a couple of photos of a cutie:

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

Saturday morning we went to look at garage sales, a favorite activity when family visits. You never know what you’ll find!

For lunch we went to Chili’s. I had Palmito in my backpack so I took photos of him on this day:

You very likely have never seen Palmito, Robito or Rosemary (the skunk, not the cat). These little plushies were the first I ever took places with me back in the heyday of Toyvoyagers.

Though the website is still accessible on the date of me making this post, and the odd Travelog still updates, Toyvoyagers are sadly very much defunct. The idea was that you bought a little metal tag with a unique number for your toy, and left it places, and hoped someone would update its Travelog. It did happen! Alternatively, you could send your toy to one person elsewhere in the world, and then they would come back. Or you could have it join a “round robin” of locations.

All of my Toyvoyagers went places and brought me back souvenirs. It’s nice to be taking them out again.

When we got back from lunch, I found my latest medal in the mailbox. It’s really pretty!

I also have the t-shirt (though I won’t make a habit of ordering those) and the race bib with my number, which I’ll probably use for a scrapbooking page.

Christopher gave me $5 and I got some goodies while out garage saling:

This book is for dungeon masters but really cool and inspiring nonetheless!

And I couldn’t leave this little guy behind:

I’ve washed and disinfected him, so he’s ready for cuddling!

For Christopher’s birthday dinner, we went to Buca Di Beppo. We had chicken parmigiana, stuffed shells, meatballs, and garlic bread. We had a coupon for a free dessert for Christopher that was big enough for the five of us!

It’s really nice to be taking Palmito out for photos again. It’s been many years.

After we got home, we hung out at the house watching Christopher play GTA 5 (always fun) and then our friend Jessie came over, so we watched the two of them and our partner play the Stick Fight game on Steam. It was a really nice and chill evening.

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

I went on my usual five mile walk, and stopped by Target. I hadn’t been to Target all year. They had a new version of their Sesame Street figures that was really cute:

Christopher made a really good pasta with zucchini for dinner. It looked far too healthy to be so delicious, I was pleasantly surprised. Can’t wait to have it again.

I usually only sleep with Grover, but on this night I wanted to cuddle my new triceratops friend too. Grover didn’t mind sharing!

Before we know it, March will be over… the rainy season will come, with it the humid and oppressive heat, and then hurricane season. Time is flying, but I’m trying to make the best of it, and I hope you all are too. Let’s make this coming week a wonderful one!

The Common Squelf In Its Natural Habitat ๐ŸŒ๐ŸŒˆ

This one is a bit… unusual, but our partner coerced me to draw my squirrel avatar in different style, as wacky as I could muster and looking as ridiculous as I could manage, as part of a deal in which he is buying me the Trick Or Treat Studios Good Guy plush doll (Chucky). He was very satisfied with the result.

๐Ÿ„ You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Copyright is ยฉ 2023 by Marina Neira.

Week 9 Summary: Soots And Other Fun Things ๐Ÿ‘พ

March is here! It came so fast. March brings Christopher’s 39th birthday, Mwako’s visit, and the usual visit to the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition with my mom. Anyway, let’s get on with the summary!

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

Let’s begin Monday with a photo of Rosie chilling by my work area:

You might remember the little “soots” that took over our house quite some time ago. The following isn’t something that happened specifically on this day, I’m just picking this part of the summary to share it.

They now appear to be multiplying at Christopher’s workplace, with some help from him (though almost no one knows this for a fact, since he is very sneaky about it).

The colorful little soots have made their way all over the factory –even the CFO’s office! Christopher sends me photos sometimes, so here’s a few:

For the most part no one has removed them, though some HAVE moved a little. They seem to be amusing a lot of people, it’s pretty great! ๐Ÿ˜

You might also remember me mentioning that on Valentine’s Day, our partner got me a pair of headphones, but they turned out to be the wrong ones. So we returned them and I got to pick out a new pair. I picked the Razer Kraken x Doraemon 50th Anniversary Limited Edition gaming headset, which was only ever released in China as an exclusive promotion. They’ve finally arrived!

They are lovely. I adore this color scheme SO MUCH! Very kidcore-y vibes.

I would like to get some of the matching add-ons too, if only the mouse, because it’s actually my favorite mouse model, and it’s been discontinued.

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

On this day I was able to snap a pretty cute photo of Rosie and Tomoyo chilling out together:

Before grocery shopping, our partner and I went to get some wines. It was a nice little outing together, and he bought me a raptor wine stopper! It’s so cool.

I’m surprised to still come across brand new Jurassic World versions of these Good 2 Grow bottle caps/toppers/whatever they are. I found a pyroraptor one to add to my collection!

I forgot to post this on the day it happened, but a few days ago, the guys went to the grocery store and brought me flowers (the sunflowers, not the black roses, lol).

Sunflowers are my most favorite flower ever. They fill me with happiness. I wish I could always have some on my table, I’d never get tired of seeing them. It was such a nice surprise.

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

Elliot has been enjoying the outdoor “hammock” a lot since I moved it to the sun, but in an unexpected way:

Oh well… at least it’s getting some use!

In a moment of weakness, after being informed that Dollar General can be a surprise treasure trove for dinosaur toys, I went and took a look. To my delight, I found a large stegosaurus of the same fashion as my large foam dinos (Mojito, Churrasco and Fuit Gummi) so I brought him home:

I also found some totally bizarre and hilarious tiny dinos that are very clearly meant to be Gon ripoffs:

You probably don’t know Gon, unless you’re a big comic and/or dinosaur fan, but it is a true underlooked gem in manga. I only own this one volume, it’s very short, and one of my treasures:

Drawn by Masashi Tanaka, Gon has no dialogue and no onomatopeias. Every frame looks like it would have taken a full day to painstakingly render–I say this as someone who has similarly spent pleasant hours absorbed in crosshatching a scene with pen and ink. This is to say nothing of the absolutely BONKERS full-page spreads:

Gon is some sort of vague Carnosaurs, with a more t. Rex-like head, although I’ve also seen him described as a Giganotosaurus. This is possible, since Gon was first published one year after the discovery of Giganotosaurus.

Somehow, Gon lives in a more modern world. He’s escaped extinction in some way. The manga follows his interactions with these modern species, which are never quite prepared for the force to be reckoned with that is Gon.

While often humorous, scenes of death (very sad scenes, really) can be crushing and sudden, only adding to the emotional intensity that this wordless manga provides.

Below are two examples from this particular volume –in one, a wolf-pup is completely crushed by a tiger’s gigantic paw. This comes immediately after the same tiger killed the pups’ mother:

In this other example, a bird steals a baby penguin and very cheerfully flies away to eat it. The contrast between the bird’s happy face, the terror of the chick, and the shared grief so eloquently depicted by Tanaka in the frame that follows, are impressively drawn and brimming with emotion:

There is an animated, CGI version of Gon. It is, in my opinion, a terrible adaptation in which all of the nuance and charm is lost. I mean… here’s a couple of GIFs from it…

You know what, maybe farts are in the manga too, I haven’t read all of it, it seems out of character for the manga though. I watched some of the anime and it was SO lame. Worst of ALL, the animals talk! Ugh.

I should point out that Gon also made an appearance as a playable character in the game Tekken 3:

He does have a fart attack in Tekken, so who knows, maybe it’s a thing. ๐Ÿ™„ In any case, it was very amusing to find this little toy set that basically shows Gon as a bunch of different species –including a parasaurolophus!

As a funny side note, when looking for Gon gifs I came an account on Tenor that clearly has a “special interest“:

So yeah, that was odd. Aaaanyway… on to Thursday!

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

Thursday evening the three of us went for a walk together. When we passed the local pond/lake/whatever you call it, the bullfrogs were LOUD. Our partner walked closer to the reeds and grasses by the water to find one of them for me. It was enormous.

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

Friday was tank cleaning day, so I have a lot of photos to share. I also have some really cute lettuce-rasping action caught in video:

I ended up ordering a tree hide like the one the rats used to have. It looks really nice in the tank, and the snails seem to like hanging out inside it.

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday ๐ŸŒˆ

I continued to walk as much as I could, 4-5 miles every day. The weather is still mild compared to what will soon come. I snapped this pretty photo of a flower.

In the afternoon, I relaxed with more Legends: Arceus and a little snack. Then I had a nap.

๐ŸŒˆ Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

Sunday evening I went on a walk with our partner and we hadn’t gotten far from the house when we saw this little (fake) LEGO table set out for bulk trash:

I don’t really have space for it indoors, so I put it on the porch with a pillow for the cats. It’s colorful and cute, I didn’t really want to just leave it out to be trashed.

Anyway, that’s it for this week. Next week is Christopher’s birthday, and tomorrow I’ll be taking Kotoko to the vet right by our house to do some more looking-into her vomiting that won’t go away and see if she’s actually lost weight or it’s all in my head. I’ll update you all next Sunday. Until then, I hope you have a happy week!

Cosu ๐Ÿ• [Pizza Badge]

Badge for Cosu-raccoon! The background was added to make the digital version look more finished, but the badge itself is the character only. ๐Ÿ˜Š

๐Ÿ„ Artwork is ยฉ 2023 by Marina Neira. You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Only the commissioner/giveaway winner & those featured in the artwork may repost with credit and following my Terms of Use.

Week 8 Summary: More New Experiences ๐Ÿ‘ฉโ€๐Ÿณ

This week, like the last, was eventful and busy, but there was time to breathe too. Overall, it was pretty good! The nice thing about writing these posts and looking back on them is realizing how full of fun things my weeks usually are and how different the days can be. Life is always full of surprises and fun experiences!

๐ŸŒˆ Monday ๐ŸŒˆ

On Monday we had our belated Valentine’s Day cooking class! I got a beautiful sunset shot on the way there…

And some funny photos during the class itself:

Even though it wasn’t my favorite type of cuisine, the meal was pretty yummy, and the custard we had for dessert, in particular, was delicious! I also got to have a little drink.

I’m sure we will do this again, it was a lot of fun!

๐ŸŒˆ Tuesday ๐ŸŒˆ

On Tuesday we went on our (again, belated) Valentine’s Day dinner. We ended up doing everything on different days. This was a promising French restaurant, and the drinks were wonderful:

The guys liked their food a lot, but I found it all very bland, though the presentation was very nice:

In fact I would say this was my least favorite fancy restaurant experience so far. The only place I wouldn’t care to go back other than the drinks. But it’s still fun to try new places!

๐ŸŒˆ Wednesday ๐ŸŒˆ

I made a new type of salad for Wednesday’s lunch, a variation of the previous salad. This one had a baby spinach base. I think I liked it even better!

Later, after struggling a lot to decide how to handle this drawing, I printed it out into two different 8.5″ x 11″ pages and now I am tracing it onto a large piece of watercolor paper:

I really wish I had a bigger printed to print out my sketches onto directly in non-photo blue or other light color. Maybe later this year. I’ve been doing research on it, and I have one picked out.

This was tank cleaning day. Here’s some happy snails enjoying fresh foods and a clean cage!

๐ŸŒˆ Thursday ๐ŸŒˆ

I feel like I post too many photos of Tomoyo laying on my bed, but she is so cute…

Recently, during grocery shopping, I came upon a wonderful find. I’d first spotted this guy well over year ago in the same section of our Publix:

I’ll get him later, I told myself. I think I went the day after, or two days later. No dice. I waited for weeks, then months, for a restock. I found out it was scalped all to heck online. Such a bummer! This is a cheap little dino from the cheap toy section at the grocery store. But official JP babies are uncommon (I’ve yet to see that nasutoceratops IRL… ๐Ÿ˜ž).

Anyway, this week, lo and behold there he was again, and somehow he had not suffered from inflation. The price was the same as the first time I saw him. So this little guy came home with me, and now sits between the sturdy legs of mama brachio!

I don’t want to keep finding excuses to fail on my resolution, but it sucks when this was something I missed out on before and it happened to show up, finally. Sigh… ๐Ÿ˜ฉ

๐ŸŒˆ Friday ๐ŸŒˆ

I’ve been drawing a little almost every day. On Friday, I worked on another badge!

Here’s Tomoyo laying on the laundry I’m trying to put away. She can be terribly cute sometimes.

Before bedtime, I got a good amount of writing done. Well over a thousand words. So that was good.

๐ŸŒˆ Saturday & Sunday ๐ŸŒˆ

The weekend was really nice! Our partner bought these red ceramic knobs for our kitchen cabinets that he knew I’d been wanting, and we installed them together. Objectively, I can say (I know) they look bad. ๐Ÿ˜… But also, red is the accent color all over our kitchen. So, subjectively, I love it. Christopher was about as horrified as we expected he would be.

We had pizza for dinner on Saturday, and I also did our taxes on this day. It was nice to get that off my back.

After a few missed Project Nights, I did a little bit of scrapbooking on Sunday afternoon, and completed two new pages, a Jurassic World one (themed after my new Pyroraptor friend) and a Sesame Street one. Here they are in progress…

And all finished!

On Sunday morning I finally finished reading Stephen King’s “It”. This was a big deal to me, because “It” is the longest book I have ever read (that wasn’t a compilation of multiple books). It never, ever bored me for a minute. I’m going to read a comic collection next, before tackling another “real” book.

I’ll end this post with this GIF of Rosie hiding in the Kallax:

She is very sneaky.

๐ŸŒˆ My Friend Bluey ๐ŸŒˆ [Lineart By Nazz | Colors By Me]

A Patreon reward line art I got from Nazznikonanuke that I colored and added a background to!

๐Ÿ„ Artwork is ยฉ 2023 by Marina Neira. You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Only the commissioner/giveaway winner & those featured in the artwork may repost with credit and following my Terms of Use.

Marina's art, fantasy writing and daily life!