I figured it was time to post another update since I’m in bed and in too much pain to do anything other than be on my phone.

I’ve been a bit distant on Discord and Telegram and not super active on my blog… apologies… it’s a variety of reasons.

🎈 I was dealing with PMS, and now my actual period, physically I feel like garbage.
🎈 We have a very stressful situation at home, namely, my husband has a somewhat reasonable possibility of losing his job. It’s gonna be touch and go for at least another week (unless we get terrible news today.) It’s not COVID related, but if it happens, COVID means it’ll be very difficult for him to find another job and I don’t know what becomes of us then. I’ve been as supportive and positive as I can be, but in the meantime a bunch of my tics have returned due to the stress. So I’m like “everything is going to be okay, you’ll see” while my anxiety-riddled brain decides that it’s time to furiously blink 10 times in 5 seconds. It’s great. /s
🎈 I finally undertook sorting a serious mess of art files and that has been taking a lot of my time, though it’s going really well.
🎈 I’m working a lot on my books despite no progress posted online. That’s also been taking a bunch of my time.
🎈 I’m working on commissions a lot.
🎈 I’m working on commercial art.
🎈 I’m working on personal art, too.

Add to this other recent events (Grandpa’s passing away, and my MRI scare) and… I guess I’ve been feeling a little overwhelmed. It’s been a lot. I’ve also been stress eating a lot and not exercising enough… it’s all taking a toll on me.

Of course good things are happening all the time too… I feel my life is great, it’s just stressful right now.

I would say though the biggest reasons for my silence is work. I really want to catch up on commissions, particularly a comic commission for Snow and a big one for Mwako, as well as that last one for Island with the complex BG. So I’m trying, I’m trying really hard.

I forgot to mention one more thing: for a full week I was dealing with a lot of shoulder and arm pain due to poor posture when drawing (the pain would wake me up in the middle of the night.) I had to rearrange my work method and areas to solve the problem (which I managed) but in the meantime, it caused a further slowdown. I’m so sorry about that.

One thing you all may have noticed is that recently I’ve mostly taken artistic freedom work. I think this, and YCHs, may become my new normal. It works out better, and I can churn them out faster. And you guys seem to prefer my artistic freedom stuff anyway.

I’ll make another post/s to update on other things. I just wanted to explain why I’m quiet (and will continue to be.) You guys are still free to reach out to me, just remember I prefer to keep anything resembling small talk to the Discord SERVER rather than DMs. And please don’t send me anything that’s just like “hi”. Even if we’re friends, if all you say is “hi” or “hey” I’m not going to respond. I think what happens to me is that if I don’t know where a conversation is going/how long it’s going to be, I become anxious. It probably all boils down to that. I’m far more likely to engage in anything resembling small talk if you do it in the channels on my Discord rather than via DM, but I am not always able to. I’m sorry.

Anyway. I’m gonna take some painkillers and try to get more work done. I wish you all the loveliest of days!