Falling back into step

Good evening, good evening!

It seems I have missed a post for last week... I have been busy and overworked (or it feels that way).

So the staphylococcus poison is all gone, thankfully; now I just have seasonal allergies. The poor Fox has Labyrinthitis now, however. And yes, that is a real disease with terrible symptoms, mainly strong vertigo which can apparently last for weeks or months. Technically it's inflammation of the inner ear resulting from bacterial infection, viral infection, or just strong allergies (we're thinking it was all of his multiple allergies that contributed). He's been off work for a week and a half because of it. Alas!

It's been rather a challenge to keep up with all of the household duties by myself (he has barely been able to stagger around the house). I may have been cranky these past few days. I know he's in no condition to do any cleaning or grocery shopping or anything of the sort, but I remembered that I mostly do that even when he's perfectly fine. Hm. That may have been the cranky-causing thought.

But he does have a horrendously long commute to work, and longer hours than me, so I feel bad assigning him lots of housework. Mostly because he's got so much drive and motivation to work on his passion (game programming!) in his precious spare time. I hate to see a passion like that impaired by housework! Also, I am just a faster and more efficient dishwasher, so it sort of pains me to see him scraping away at pots when I could do it in half the time.

There is the matter of me having time for my own passion... but I have to admit even to myself that if I just stopped faffing around on Facebook so much, I would probably have the time to paint several birds a week. So I don't think I get to complain about not having enough time -- not until I stop wasting it, anyway. Ha!

Speaking of birds and art; one of the reasons for my recent sleep deprivation (I can go to sleep at the drop of a hat, and never wake up in the night unless something is very wrong, so for me sleep deprivation means that I have not had time for sleep) was that I had a deadline for some art. I made an illustration for a little family project my sister is putting together, and of course, being me, I sort of waited until the last minute. Well, no, that's not exactly true... I would have finished much sooner if I hadn't scrapped the first one. It just wasn't working out, though. I was trying to do a tree of life style image, but during the colouring phase it just started to look awful and I'm not sure why. So I needed to come up with a new idea and a new sketch, and get it done in a few days (during which I was, of course, working). Woo! The exciting life of an artist!

I say that, but it did feel good to work on art at night again. Hearkened me back to my university days. Oh, the days of much coffee and nights of glowing screens... the giddy joy that comes from pure exhaustion. I actually don't miss that part too much. But the art-making, I have missed.

I shan't post the finished product here just yet. I have blogs and such for art already; this one just wants to be for writing for a while.

The next step in my application for the community college is happening today at 1pm. The dreaded keyboarding test. As I type this I am attempting to practice touch typing without looking at the keys. It's pretty slow going; fairly sure I'm going to fail the test. Blargh! But failure is good motivation to practice, which I have not been doing... and the assessment fee is a non-refundable $30. Even more motivation! Ha.

I don't have time to go back and revisit my tarot card reading at the moment (I received an audio file of the whole thing from the reader), but I'd like to do that soon; re-listen to it, take some notes, share them here. I will share some observations about the experience though.

Tegan is the name of the lady who did my reading. She works out of her basement suite, in a nice little room set up with a table and decorated with crystals and candles. (In a tasteful way. It wasn't like walking into one of those little tents at a circus or anything. Very professional.) I was greeted by two adorable little dogs, which of course for me is an instant win. She sat me down at the table and gave me some lavender water to drink (I would love to know how she made it -- it was nice and refreshing).

We went through a few different spreads in the hour I was there. The first one was sort of a general look at any current events and trends in my life, and the subsequent ones were focused on more specific questions that I had.

It was a fun experience, and if I were a wealthier lady I would do it more often. Now, being of a mostly scientific mind (I know, I know, a scientific mind would just think it's a load of tosh, which is why I specified mostly scientific -- allow me to have a little fun!), I am not 100% convinced that the cards are completely accurate. However, I do believe in a sort of life energy, and part of what attracts me to the whole pagan-magic-new-age-stuff is the belief that we can learn to use this unseen energy. Perhaps the cards are random, and we divine what we want to see from whatever comes up, relating it to our life... humans are good at finding patterns and seeing faces in tree trunks and that sort of thing, after all... or maybe our energy does slightly seep into the deck and helps to reveal insight. Anything is possible!

If nothing else, it's just fun, dang it. Stop trying to deprive me of a little harmless fun in the form of my silly beliefs about cards.

So, all in all I liked it. I still haven't really tried out my own cards much, but I plan to. Once this application for the college is all sorted out I can spend more time on my little hobbies. And my big hobby, which would be art.

I've been thinking lately of how I can start to get my stuff out there more, build up more of a fan base and hopefully start to sell it in some form. Of course, one needs a more solid body of work than I have now, so I start there. I need to focus on one or two areas of subject matter, I think, and try and find a niche. Fantasy art is my first love; fairies, dragons, the like. It's a popular field, but I do think I can make my own work stand out. I need to work on developing a more cohesive style so that when people look at my work they can instantly tell who did it. Right now my online galleries are a bit of a mish-mash of old school assignments, random illustrations of animals and birds, and a little fan-art based on existing media. What I need is a clear direction to take my work to tie it together and create a solid base.

Right now the things that I love to draw are wildlife (mainly birds) and fantasy related stuff. Perhaps I can combine them...

Hmm...

Funny how just writing something down will sometimes spark an idea, isn't it? This is a good example of why I wanted to start a blog in the first place!

Well, this hasn't been a very cohesive post -- sorry about that. But that kind of it how my brain works. Maybe one day I'll learn to write posts that are more about one topic and less about whatever pops into my head at the time.

Last point: I would really like to build up my blogging network. If anyone is reading this, and you have a blog, or know of some good blogs in the subject of everyday-life sort of stuff, please do leave a comment! I'm not really interested in recipe blogs, product review blogs, or that sort of thing. I want to read blogs about people's everyday lives; their experiences, their dreams, their successes and their hardships. The only one I really know of is Letters from Launna, which is always fun to read.

I'm not doing this with the idea of making money from my blog (although if that happened I obviously wouldn't say no, ha). I would just like to have online friends again, people who like blogging for the sake of it. When I was a teenager I always had all sorts of online friends from various art-related or fantasy-related communities on the internet, and though nothing can replace having excellent real-life friends, I do miss the online connection a bit. It's easier to find people online who are interested in the same things you are (I don't have any friends in real life who are interested in neo-pagan stuff or anything like that), and it's just fun. So don't be afraid to leave a comment if there's anyone out there!

Until next time. Wish me luck on this horrid typing test...!