There's a good reason as to why I haven't been posting lately. Sorry for the absence. I'm actually not 100% sure I'm coming back to post to this blog regularly just yet. Probably soon as soon as I figure out a few things; I really enjoyed posting here, but I've kinda disappeared from a lot of things recently.
One of the things I backed away from was the music scene I had put myself into. After the whole kerfuffle with the successful/touring band my wedding band went through a bit of turmoil and I was just completely turned off of music. I also have not been writing as much as I should and may have lost my part-sponsorship because of it, but it's fine, I will get it back, I'm sure. I just couldn't handle it.
What I have been doing a lot of is fine art and horse training. So I'm alright in those areas and will continue to grow in those two jobs. I've met a lot of big names at both of these jobs and they've gotten me some serious "in"s in the industries. Actually, an art decision I made got me into an area of horse competition that I never thought I'd see. I've actually, luckily, made what would really be seen as "smart" business decisions in these past months, though I promise it wasn't on purpose or because I'm a business guru or anything. It was pure luck and I'm holding my breath right now to see if all goes well.
The reason why I disappeared from here and other places is entirely mental-based. I have not been in a good place lately, and I will go into more detail later, perhaps. But right now I can't because I'm sitting in an airport in the USA going back to Canada and it would take me waaay too long to type it out/it's a stressful thing to talk about. It is mostly having to do with my chronic anxiety and depression problems, but I'm addressing them quite thoroughly right now and am slowly moving into a better place.
I can see you reading over my shoulder, computer screens are reflective you genius.
I'ma just leave that there. So everyone on my blog will know you're a text eaves-dropper. Cool.
Anyways. Sorry. I hate public places. The look on their face was priceless though. Biggest pet peeve: people reading over my shoulder. I'm going to get off my computer now, though. My flight leaves soon and I'm anxious about flying.
Peace out, everyone. Thanks for checking in and I'm sorry I've been so absent.
12/17/12
10/5/12
A rant on health.
There's this thing going on right now with a news reporter who got called obese in an e-mail and publicly outed the douche that did it. And then the douche that did it came back and defended himself and was basically a big dink. It's a pretty cool story and I applaud the woman for standing up for herself in some way other than crying and shouting "I'm NOT fat!" between mouthfuls of ice cream. She actually handed it with lots of dignity and was very composed and said some extremely well-chosen words.
What followed is what got my gears grinding. A few woman were talking to me about this. All of them were overweight, none MORBIDLY obese, but still. The things they said made my head spin, one in particular. All of them had the same complaint; losing weight is impossible, they're happy with themselves as is and there's nothing wrong with being their weight.
Well, no, it's not... and if you are happy with your body, awesome! I don't judge because I am still a bit bigger than average and I used to be very obese. Also I don't judge because judging people is wrong.
The thing that got me going was one woman in particular. She went on this rant about how it's impossible for her to lose weight and how clearly I understand because I seem like I keep a healthy lifestyle and I've still got some extra pounds.
That's what stopped me. She's only known me for a few months. I know from what she's said that her daily life consists of sitting at a computer and eating takeout. Not even because she has no time, simply because she "doesn't feel like doing stuff."
She knows from what I've said about my life that I run long distance races, work out every day, eat healthier than your average person, and go for regular physicals at the doctor's. I don't understand where she thinks that we sit in the same boat. She was also under the impression that the only reason to lose weight was to look pretty.
That is NOT why I lost weight.
Before I get into this, I want to show you a picture of me from when I was in high school and a picture I took tonight. I used to be 265lbs. It was awful.
Before:
Now:
I've come a long way. And it's not because it's the North American standard or because I felt bad in my own body. Actually, if it was just how much I cared about how I looked I would probably be even heavier now. Did you see how I dressed? Seriously? It wasn't about image.
So this is my rant on health.
I am bigger than normal. I am still seen as a bit fat. I am above average weight for women, still. I couldn't care less about that. Honestly, if I had to put my feelings about my weight and my image into words, it would be "I don't give a shit."
Honestly, truly. I could still be as wide as I was up there, but if I was as healthy as I am now it wouldn't matter much. But I don't think that's possible. Whatever. Point being, it's not about weight, it's about health. And weight is deceptive in the world of health. This woman saying that we're on the same page is insulting, not because she's heavier than me or whatever, but because she is incredibly unhealthy and not doing anything about it. She has uneven, heavy breathing suggesting an unhealthy heart, and gets out of breath just walking.
Losing weight and being healthy is not impossible or even hard. You don't need to be on a huge exercise program with a personal trainer and eat like a rabbit to start losing weight. Once you start it kinda cascades into a world of health. But you start slow. Like... switch to milk in your coffee one week. Stop eating fast food but every once in a while, have a burger. Whatever. Just do it slowly. Maybe you start going for walks every day. Then sometimes you jog a teeny bit. Maybe sometimes you lift a bit of weights. Not much.
Sometimes you'll have to take a break from health and divulge and then you go back to it.
At this point I go for a 3 1/2 mile run every other day and I eat almost vegetarian but I didn't get there overnight. I took small steps and a few times got frustrated and tried to do it all at once and then fell off the bandwagon because I pushed myself too hard.
I did this stuff because my blood pressure was awful, I didn't want diabetes, and I wanted to ride horses competitively and you have to be in shape to do that. I wanted to be able to climb the stairs and breathe afterwards. I wanted to feel good and boost my immune system because I was sick of being SICK.
I had debilitating tendinitis in my knees. Some days it was so bad I needed crutches to walk. The seizing tendons were becoming so bad that they were slowly working my bones out out of their sockets and caused a dislocation. My doctor told me that unless I wanted to be in a wheel chair from 30yo on, I needed to take better care of my body.
I also have a slow metabolism (it runs in the family - both of my parents are overweight) so it wasn't easy and it's tedious and slow-going. But it's been 7 years since I made the choice to change. I was told by my tendon specialist that I couldn't run, walk too hard, climb stairs, battle snow, or do high-level biking to start out. I needed to swim, horseback ride, and do craptonnes of yard work in order to start it.
So I don't want to hear ANY bullshit about how it's too hard to lose weight. I did it with all of those restrictions and chronic pain in my legs and back from my effed-up knees.
When someone complains about how hard it is to lose weight because they have a cookie addiction or something and just don't have the willpower to introduce exercise, it just rubs me the wrong way. I was told I could end up in a wheel chair by age 30 AND I was told that I would not ever be able to run. I went for a year without running. A whole year, didn't run a step because I was so terrified.
Now I've run in long-distance races and I regularly run a 3 1/2 mile route.
Don't complain to me about overcoming your stupid Oreo addiction. Grow a pair and deal with it if it bothers you that much! Don't get pissed at society for telling you it's bad to eat a WHOLE BOX OF OREOS. Guess what? IT IS BAD. In so many ways. That stuff will KILL you. Literally.
Do not group me in the same area as yourself if you're unhappy with yourself but unwilling to change it.
Healthy saves lives, people! I'm not trashing anyone who looks any way, I'm just asking for people to not bitch about their health/weight if they aren't willing to work out how to deal with it.
Also, here's a picture of me and a friend of mine after the last 5k we ran together! I'm on the right =)
What followed is what got my gears grinding. A few woman were talking to me about this. All of them were overweight, none MORBIDLY obese, but still. The things they said made my head spin, one in particular. All of them had the same complaint; losing weight is impossible, they're happy with themselves as is and there's nothing wrong with being their weight.
Well, no, it's not... and if you are happy with your body, awesome! I don't judge because I am still a bit bigger than average and I used to be very obese. Also I don't judge because judging people is wrong.
The thing that got me going was one woman in particular. She went on this rant about how it's impossible for her to lose weight and how clearly I understand because I seem like I keep a healthy lifestyle and I've still got some extra pounds.
That's what stopped me. She's only known me for a few months. I know from what she's said that her daily life consists of sitting at a computer and eating takeout. Not even because she has no time, simply because she "doesn't feel like doing stuff."
She knows from what I've said about my life that I run long distance races, work out every day, eat healthier than your average person, and go for regular physicals at the doctor's. I don't understand where she thinks that we sit in the same boat. She was also under the impression that the only reason to lose weight was to look pretty.
That is NOT why I lost weight.
Before I get into this, I want to show you a picture of me from when I was in high school and a picture I took tonight. I used to be 265lbs. It was awful.
Before:
Now:
I've come a long way. And it's not because it's the North American standard or because I felt bad in my own body. Actually, if it was just how much I cared about how I looked I would probably be even heavier now. Did you see how I dressed? Seriously? It wasn't about image.
So this is my rant on health.
I am bigger than normal. I am still seen as a bit fat. I am above average weight for women, still. I couldn't care less about that. Honestly, if I had to put my feelings about my weight and my image into words, it would be "I don't give a shit."
Honestly, truly. I could still be as wide as I was up there, but if I was as healthy as I am now it wouldn't matter much. But I don't think that's possible. Whatever. Point being, it's not about weight, it's about health. And weight is deceptive in the world of health. This woman saying that we're on the same page is insulting, not because she's heavier than me or whatever, but because she is incredibly unhealthy and not doing anything about it. She has uneven, heavy breathing suggesting an unhealthy heart, and gets out of breath just walking.
Losing weight and being healthy is not impossible or even hard. You don't need to be on a huge exercise program with a personal trainer and eat like a rabbit to start losing weight. Once you start it kinda cascades into a world of health. But you start slow. Like... switch to milk in your coffee one week. Stop eating fast food but every once in a while, have a burger. Whatever. Just do it slowly. Maybe you start going for walks every day. Then sometimes you jog a teeny bit. Maybe sometimes you lift a bit of weights. Not much.
Sometimes you'll have to take a break from health and divulge and then you go back to it.
At this point I go for a 3 1/2 mile run every other day and I eat almost vegetarian but I didn't get there overnight. I took small steps and a few times got frustrated and tried to do it all at once and then fell off the bandwagon because I pushed myself too hard.
I did this stuff because my blood pressure was awful, I didn't want diabetes, and I wanted to ride horses competitively and you have to be in shape to do that. I wanted to be able to climb the stairs and breathe afterwards. I wanted to feel good and boost my immune system because I was sick of being SICK.
I had debilitating tendinitis in my knees. Some days it was so bad I needed crutches to walk. The seizing tendons were becoming so bad that they were slowly working my bones out out of their sockets and caused a dislocation. My doctor told me that unless I wanted to be in a wheel chair from 30yo on, I needed to take better care of my body.
I also have a slow metabolism (it runs in the family - both of my parents are overweight) so it wasn't easy and it's tedious and slow-going. But it's been 7 years since I made the choice to change. I was told by my tendon specialist that I couldn't run, walk too hard, climb stairs, battle snow, or do high-level biking to start out. I needed to swim, horseback ride, and do craptonnes of yard work in order to start it.
So I don't want to hear ANY bullshit about how it's too hard to lose weight. I did it with all of those restrictions and chronic pain in my legs and back from my effed-up knees.
When someone complains about how hard it is to lose weight because they have a cookie addiction or something and just don't have the willpower to introduce exercise, it just rubs me the wrong way. I was told I could end up in a wheel chair by age 30 AND I was told that I would not ever be able to run. I went for a year without running. A whole year, didn't run a step because I was so terrified.
Now I've run in long-distance races and I regularly run a 3 1/2 mile route.
Don't complain to me about overcoming your stupid Oreo addiction. Grow a pair and deal with it if it bothers you that much! Don't get pissed at society for telling you it's bad to eat a WHOLE BOX OF OREOS. Guess what? IT IS BAD. In so many ways. That stuff will KILL you. Literally.
Do not group me in the same area as yourself if you're unhappy with yourself but unwilling to change it.
Healthy saves lives, people! I'm not trashing anyone who looks any way, I'm just asking for people to not bitch about their health/weight if they aren't willing to work out how to deal with it.
Also, here's a picture of me and a friend of mine after the last 5k we ran together! I'm on the right =)
10/4/12
"SHUT UP" girl.
When I was in my last year of high school I somehow gathered a following of overenthusiastic teenage girls who were for some reason in love with me (not in the romantic sense). As girls tend to frighten and annoy me I can assure you that the feeling was not reciprocated. These were the girls who lived in expensive houses, had loving parents, but slacked off in school and alternated between complaining about how awful their lives were and acting like annoying overly-excited/happy 5-year-olds. And not in a humorous way.
And they would hang around me when I worked (I started my art career in high school and would do commissions in my free time/on breaks because I worked 2 jobs outside of high school) and practiced music. I would do or say something that they found hilarious and they would split their sides laughing and tell me I'm awesome.
Okay. Sounds not bad. But it would be something like:
"Man I need a coffee" to a friend of mine and they would just fricking explode out of nowhere! It gave me a bit of a nervous twitch for a while.
They were the kind of girls that you could hear clearly from across the room because they only had two vocal presets: crying and screaming at the top of their lungs.
They added me on Facebook and followed all of my posts and liked my art website and page and blog and followed my band around like tame sorts of groupies. They wanted to be our roadies. Or some BS that we didn't need because we were an out-of-high-school-rock-band playing for at best 200 people and at worst 5. As soon as HS ended, I blocked most of them from my FB page and blocked their updates and wanted nothing to do with them.
However, one girl in particular just somehow weeded her way into my Facebooking experience. I now know her as "shut up" girl because every single thing I see her post makes me want to tell her to shut up and grow up. Because by this time she's got to be at least 22 years old and she still talks like she did when we were in high school. Which was already immature for her age. But I never say anything because I did a couple of times and she would cry to me about how mean I was and how I used to be her role model.
It was really stupid things that I called her on, too, like her publicly bitching out her father on Facebook for never being around or being in her life.
Her father is a FREAKING SOLDIER. He's never around because he spends most of his time deployed.
So after the 8-millionth time I finally deleted her. It takes a lot to get me to delete you from Facebook, mostly because I really couldn't care less who's around, so you have to blatantly annoy me to the point of me blocking you from appearing in anything, and then somehow worm your way back onto my page and continue the annoyance. It takes skill!
Anyways. So she requested a billion times (probably once a month) to be my friend on Facebook again and I kept declining. Finally it stopped until a couple of years later when she asked again. I thought, "hey, she HAS to have grown up a BIT since I last saw her... right?!"
Nope.
It's the same whiny crap, and she still lives with her parents. Except NOW she has a "photography business" that has been around for a couple of years and has never had a paid photoshoot because her pictures are AWFUL. But she's always talking about how she's going to make her living off of it and as soon as she does she's going to move out of her parents' house because they're mean to her and they suck.
She's going far, man.
Anyways. Here's some stuff from shut up girl. I will post more as time goes on and more happen.
Seriously. Every single post. This is the only person for whom I feel NO pity when they are sad. And I have like Christian guilt over it too because I'm supposed to love everyone but I can't like someone who refuses to do anything with themselves.
Remember this is coming from a highly privileged 22yo who's lived rent-free in her family's half-million-dollar homes all her life.
And they would hang around me when I worked (I started my art career in high school and would do commissions in my free time/on breaks because I worked 2 jobs outside of high school) and practiced music. I would do or say something that they found hilarious and they would split their sides laughing and tell me I'm awesome.
Okay. Sounds not bad. But it would be something like:
"Man I need a coffee" to a friend of mine and they would just fricking explode out of nowhere! It gave me a bit of a nervous twitch for a while.
They were the kind of girls that you could hear clearly from across the room because they only had two vocal presets: crying and screaming at the top of their lungs.
They added me on Facebook and followed all of my posts and liked my art website and page and blog and followed my band around like tame sorts of groupies. They wanted to be our roadies. Or some BS that we didn't need because we were an out-of-high-school-rock-band playing for at best 200 people and at worst 5. As soon as HS ended, I blocked most of them from my FB page and blocked their updates and wanted nothing to do with them.
However, one girl in particular just somehow weeded her way into my Facebooking experience. I now know her as "shut up" girl because every single thing I see her post makes me want to tell her to shut up and grow up. Because by this time she's got to be at least 22 years old and she still talks like she did when we were in high school. Which was already immature for her age. But I never say anything because I did a couple of times and she would cry to me about how mean I was and how I used to be her role model.
It was really stupid things that I called her on, too, like her publicly bitching out her father on Facebook for never being around or being in her life.
Her father is a FREAKING SOLDIER. He's never around because he spends most of his time deployed.
So after the 8-millionth time I finally deleted her. It takes a lot to get me to delete you from Facebook, mostly because I really couldn't care less who's around, so you have to blatantly annoy me to the point of me blocking you from appearing in anything, and then somehow worm your way back onto my page and continue the annoyance. It takes skill!
Anyways. So she requested a billion times (probably once a month) to be my friend on Facebook again and I kept declining. Finally it stopped until a couple of years later when she asked again. I thought, "hey, she HAS to have grown up a BIT since I last saw her... right?!"
Nope.
It's the same whiny crap, and she still lives with her parents. Except NOW she has a "photography business" that has been around for a couple of years and has never had a paid photoshoot because her pictures are AWFUL. But she's always talking about how she's going to make her living off of it and as soon as she does she's going to move out of her parents' house because they're mean to her and they suck.
She's going far, man.
Anyways. Here's some stuff from shut up girl. I will post more as time goes on and more happen.
Seriously. Every single post. This is the only person for whom I feel NO pity when they are sad. And I have like Christian guilt over it too because I'm supposed to love everyone but I can't like someone who refuses to do anything with themselves.
Remember this is coming from a highly privileged 22yo who's lived rent-free in her family's half-million-dollar homes all her life.
I'm too tired to write about my day.
So I drew a picture to describe it. Here's a brief explanation. First a man on a pink bike drove by me screaming weird things then I had coffee with my ex whom I'm still friends with and he had a surprise for me then my pet snake escaped into our storage room and hell if I can get him out then a customer asked me out and I said no. Then I realized my writing was awful today, so I took a break to set heat/food traps for my snake and then I had a slight mental meltdown.
I'm fine, just tired. I need to wake up before everyone and remove the traps before my roommates see them. And then just keep setting them at night (snakes are nocturnal) until I catch him without them knowing he's out. Anyways. Picture.
And as an added bonus here's a picture of the pants.
Good night.
I'm fine, just tired. I need to wake up before everyone and remove the traps before my roommates see them. And then just keep setting them at night (snakes are nocturnal) until I catch him without them knowing he's out. Anyways. Picture.
And as an added bonus here's a picture of the pants.
10/1/12
Business day!
Things are sorting out. I've been in contact with some well-known professionals in the horse business and am currently discussing doing artwork for their farms. I've also hidden the advertising for authors to kind of keep my sanity but still offer character design. This morning, I ended up going out to a wellness studio that's hanging a series of paintings that they commissioned me to do.
I recently bought a bunch of English tack so I can practice and keep in riding shape while I'm not training out at the farm, and so I can use it (it's old/beat up) to work with the younger horses so I don't have to wreck the barn's $6000 saddles if a young horse gets away from me.
Working on some other paintings. Found some time this weekend to write and outline a bunch and shut my editor up/calmed them down enough to stop harassing me all the time.
Had an interesting conversation via Facebook with my mom yesterday. I showed her a video of me working on conditioning a Grand Prix jumper and she goes "why are you riding ENGLISH?" like it was a dirty thing to do or something. She's always mocked the English tack, saying it was prissy or something, I don't know, I didn't pay close enough attention because it was always BS.
It was just humorous because for the past 8 years I've ridden nothing BUT English. The first time I've been in a Western saddles since I was 17 was last weekend when I went out to a friend's ranch to work with some of her youngsters. I told her that and she kind of goes "well this family never rode English."
"This family" rides casually at best, so it's not like I'm insulting some family honor. I DO have an uncle who is a professional rodeo rider but he's not actually related to me so he doesn't count.
I kindly explained that you CAN'T ride jumpers without riding English, and she just has no clue.
I missed being in the horse world. I really really did. I can't believe I bowed out for a whole 2 years.
I recently bought a bunch of English tack so I can practice and keep in riding shape while I'm not training out at the farm, and so I can use it (it's old/beat up) to work with the younger horses so I don't have to wreck the barn's $6000 saddles if a young horse gets away from me.
Working on some other paintings. Found some time this weekend to write and outline a bunch and shut my editor up/calmed them down enough to stop harassing me all the time.
Had an interesting conversation via Facebook with my mom yesterday. I showed her a video of me working on conditioning a Grand Prix jumper and she goes "why are you riding ENGLISH?" like it was a dirty thing to do or something. She's always mocked the English tack, saying it was prissy or something, I don't know, I didn't pay close enough attention because it was always BS.
It was just humorous because for the past 8 years I've ridden nothing BUT English. The first time I've been in a Western saddles since I was 17 was last weekend when I went out to a friend's ranch to work with some of her youngsters. I told her that and she kind of goes "well this family never rode English."
"This family" rides casually at best, so it's not like I'm insulting some family honor. I DO have an uncle who is a professional rodeo rider but he's not actually related to me so he doesn't count.
I kindly explained that you CAN'T ride jumpers without riding English, and she just has no clue.
I missed being in the horse world. I really really did. I can't believe I bowed out for a whole 2 years.
9/27/12
I'm sorry I broke my promise. Here's why I did it.
Things got very stressful this week. I'm pretty run into the ground. In fact, I think the stress and anxiety is making me very sick, if my achy body is any indication.
And just now my roommate John got extremely passive-aggressive which is a trigger to my anxiety attacks. As soon as I notice it I don't know how to handle it or work through it and John is one of those guys who can't be reasoned with once his mind is made up.
So I'm having a bit of a pissy night so I'm ranting on my blog because I don't talk to anyone anymore.
I've been reviewing training and show videos for the barn I'm training at, taking care of all feed, equipment, and med orders, payment transfers, repair requests, etc, along with dictating the training schedules for over 50 horses. And planning my own training schedule.
I am also dealing with about 16 art customers at the moment which are circulating through "wait" schedules now that the other job has started, which they were ALL warned about and "okay with." However, there are two specific ones that have been giving me a very rough time with daily e-mails demanding impossible updates.
My editor is threatening to drop my sponsorship if I can't provide some more portions of manuscript for critique and review.
And my music career might be ending before it properly starts, as I certainly don't have time to commit to my band and we've lost a couple of shows because of my schedule. Which I've tried to sub out to other drummers but have only been successful a couple of times. And as it's MY band, it's kind of essential I have time for it.
So yeah. Great that I'm making some money, but not so great that it's this stressful. And each and every job is high-pressure and comes with complainy people.
I just don't have time to really think anymore. I barely make time to eat and only keep up with proper meals by packing "day packs" at the start of the week of fruit, veggies, nuts, and pita bread that I grab and carry around with me all day every day and set alarms every 2 hours to remind me to eat a couple of bites. So that way eating only takes a few seconds.
After my work day wraps up I usually pitch into the housework and take care of my animals.
I'm not sleeping much. And my family is not good. And my life is changing very fast.
Tonight is just not a good night. The day started alright enough but the night just got bad. Some plans fell through. Got a few bad e-mails. Had a bad allergic reaction, and spent two hours cleaning up a room I haven't been in for more than two weeks. But it needed to be cleaned because the boys and their friends made it so gross it was starting to grow mildew and mold on some of the things left in there, and mold can send me into anaphylactic shock. And I don't want to die, so...
But I do this at least one or two times a week. I clean up after everyone's mess. It's what I've always done. Because I'm obsessive/compulsive and I can't help it and I refuse to hold others to my extreme idea of cleanliness because I respect them and their lack of OCD.
So yesterday I did something which was hard, but I did it. I ignored the dishwasher. Problem is, John runs the dishwasher through all the time, and has emptied it a couple of times this month while we do dishes probably once every 2 days because we have 4 people and a small dishwasher. But the 2 times a month have given John a sense of "I do all the work," and he's refusing to empty it.
What a stupid thing, right? Like what a stupid, small, insignificant, selfish, childish thing. It's a fucking dishwasher, get over it.
He runs it through, we all load it up as we dirty dishes, and the couple of times John doesn't empty it I do it the rest of the time.
But I've left it for others lately because I simply don't have time. I don't even have time to eat. And there are three other people to do dishes. I don't even use dishes. I'm so tired, I need to somehow let others do some things.
But it was the wrong choice because John had emptied a few days ago and thus is naturally off the hook for the next two weeks and has gained the special privilege of deciding whose turn it is to do the dishes and being an asshole when they don't do them.
So he decided it was "my turn" solely based on the fact that he thinks Laura won't do it ever because he thinks she's useless and lazy and Ian helped him rake up some leaves like a week and a half ago so therefore he's done his workload and thus it is my turn despite my cleaning both bathrooms, spending hours vacuuming the basement and hallway (it took two and a half hours to do a tiny hallway and a small basement because some people insist on wearing gross shoes in the house and not wiping their feet so I had to be meticulous), cleaning up the gross and moldy basement, handling the flooded laundry room by myself because everyone else was worried it was septic (... it was rain water), and taking care of fixing up our utility payments... along with working, what, four jobs? Clearly, I need to unload the fucking dishwasher.
Because some people can't grow the hell up and stop being selfish.
I should probably mention that I've been playing councilor to Laura about a guy she can't get over, along with another girl with the same problem which might be alright if I wasn't sick of hearing about these boys and the girls' inabilities to talk to them.
So anyways.
Tonight was the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, which is my favorite TV show and used to be the ONLY one I followed every week until I discovered Doctor Who and Community and Game of Thrones. As Community and Game of Thrones are not currently running, Doctor Who has been my only. And Grey's Anatomy left a HUGE cliffhanger at the end of their last season so I was excited about today because today was the day I get an hour-long break in this screwed up work schedule to just enjoy some TV. I planned it weeks ago. I haven't had a day off of work in over a month and a half.
I sometimes just want to be a girl and enjoy some girly drama. I hardly ever get to be a girl. I'm awful at being a girl. I'm emotionally stunted, I hate talking about girl things, and I would rather wander around in paddock boots and jeans and a t-shirt and get covered in mud and horse poop and dirt than go shopping.
Sometimes, I want to be a girl and watch Grey's Anatomy!
So yesterday I sent everyone who lives here a text saying that I would be using the basement for a certain hour because that's where our TV with cable is. Everyone said it was okay and I was free to enjoy my show.
This morning, during making breakfast, I realize John is being a bit of an ass and very not talking to me, which is weird because usually I can't shut him up when I'm making breakfast. He always wants to talk about shit he's doing and what he's doing that day, and what people have pissed him off lately.
I knew exactly what pissed him off. The stupid effing dishes. I decided to brush it off on the grounds that he would get over it and do them himself like an adult.
Tonight, John gets together with his ex-girlfriend and plan to use the basement for the night. When I learned of this, Ian, Laura and I were in a car with a friend coming home from dinner because they dragged me out for Subway because I was overworked and couldn't walk/talk straight so they made me stop for real food before my hour-long break. So I asked Ian to text John reminding him that I needed the TV for an hour as I did not have my cell phone with me because I'm absent-minded and always forget it at home.
When he did, he received a text that at first he tried to avoid showing to me before reading it out.
"Well if she does the dishes she can have the basement lol."
Which might sound not that bad, but I have heard him outright mock Laura in the same way, in person. Once she left me a couple of bananas when she left for a week, telling me to finish them off so they didn't go bad. I laughed when I received the note and told John, and he said "haha too bad she didn't tell you to do her dishes too!" which later turned into an evening of seething about Laura and her - ahem - one cup and one spoon she forgot to toss in the dishwasher before she left.
So yes. It was malicious. Ian thought it was a joke, but I turned and looked at Laura and she mouthed that she knows exactly what I was thinking.
Nonetheless, John and his ex left me the tv and have been shooting me dirty looks all night. And falling silent every time I enter the room.
So I've had a panic attack. I'm so tired of humans.
And just now my roommate John got extremely passive-aggressive which is a trigger to my anxiety attacks. As soon as I notice it I don't know how to handle it or work through it and John is one of those guys who can't be reasoned with once his mind is made up.
So I'm having a bit of a pissy night so I'm ranting on my blog because I don't talk to anyone anymore.
I've been reviewing training and show videos for the barn I'm training at, taking care of all feed, equipment, and med orders, payment transfers, repair requests, etc, along with dictating the training schedules for over 50 horses. And planning my own training schedule.
I am also dealing with about 16 art customers at the moment which are circulating through "wait" schedules now that the other job has started, which they were ALL warned about and "okay with." However, there are two specific ones that have been giving me a very rough time with daily e-mails demanding impossible updates.
My editor is threatening to drop my sponsorship if I can't provide some more portions of manuscript for critique and review.
And my music career might be ending before it properly starts, as I certainly don't have time to commit to my band and we've lost a couple of shows because of my schedule. Which I've tried to sub out to other drummers but have only been successful a couple of times. And as it's MY band, it's kind of essential I have time for it.
So yeah. Great that I'm making some money, but not so great that it's this stressful. And each and every job is high-pressure and comes with complainy people.
I just don't have time to really think anymore. I barely make time to eat and only keep up with proper meals by packing "day packs" at the start of the week of fruit, veggies, nuts, and pita bread that I grab and carry around with me all day every day and set alarms every 2 hours to remind me to eat a couple of bites. So that way eating only takes a few seconds.
After my work day wraps up I usually pitch into the housework and take care of my animals.
I'm not sleeping much. And my family is not good. And my life is changing very fast.
Tonight is just not a good night. The day started alright enough but the night just got bad. Some plans fell through. Got a few bad e-mails. Had a bad allergic reaction, and spent two hours cleaning up a room I haven't been in for more than two weeks. But it needed to be cleaned because the boys and their friends made it so gross it was starting to grow mildew and mold on some of the things left in there, and mold can send me into anaphylactic shock. And I don't want to die, so...
But I do this at least one or two times a week. I clean up after everyone's mess. It's what I've always done. Because I'm obsessive/compulsive and I can't help it and I refuse to hold others to my extreme idea of cleanliness because I respect them and their lack of OCD.
So yesterday I did something which was hard, but I did it. I ignored the dishwasher. Problem is, John runs the dishwasher through all the time, and has emptied it a couple of times this month while we do dishes probably once every 2 days because we have 4 people and a small dishwasher. But the 2 times a month have given John a sense of "I do all the work," and he's refusing to empty it.
What a stupid thing, right? Like what a stupid, small, insignificant, selfish, childish thing. It's a fucking dishwasher, get over it.
He runs it through, we all load it up as we dirty dishes, and the couple of times John doesn't empty it I do it the rest of the time.
But I've left it for others lately because I simply don't have time. I don't even have time to eat. And there are three other people to do dishes. I don't even use dishes. I'm so tired, I need to somehow let others do some things.
But it was the wrong choice because John had emptied a few days ago and thus is naturally off the hook for the next two weeks and has gained the special privilege of deciding whose turn it is to do the dishes and being an asshole when they don't do them.
So he decided it was "my turn" solely based on the fact that he thinks Laura won't do it ever because he thinks she's useless and lazy and Ian helped him rake up some leaves like a week and a half ago so therefore he's done his workload and thus it is my turn despite my cleaning both bathrooms, spending hours vacuuming the basement and hallway (it took two and a half hours to do a tiny hallway and a small basement because some people insist on wearing gross shoes in the house and not wiping their feet so I had to be meticulous), cleaning up the gross and moldy basement, handling the flooded laundry room by myself because everyone else was worried it was septic (... it was rain water), and taking care of fixing up our utility payments... along with working, what, four jobs? Clearly, I need to unload the fucking dishwasher.
Because some people can't grow the hell up and stop being selfish.
I should probably mention that I've been playing councilor to Laura about a guy she can't get over, along with another girl with the same problem which might be alright if I wasn't sick of hearing about these boys and the girls' inabilities to talk to them.
So anyways.
Tonight was the season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, which is my favorite TV show and used to be the ONLY one I followed every week until I discovered Doctor Who and Community and Game of Thrones. As Community and Game of Thrones are not currently running, Doctor Who has been my only. And Grey's Anatomy left a HUGE cliffhanger at the end of their last season so I was excited about today because today was the day I get an hour-long break in this screwed up work schedule to just enjoy some TV. I planned it weeks ago. I haven't had a day off of work in over a month and a half.
I sometimes just want to be a girl and enjoy some girly drama. I hardly ever get to be a girl. I'm awful at being a girl. I'm emotionally stunted, I hate talking about girl things, and I would rather wander around in paddock boots and jeans and a t-shirt and get covered in mud and horse poop and dirt than go shopping.
Sometimes, I want to be a girl and watch Grey's Anatomy!
So yesterday I sent everyone who lives here a text saying that I would be using the basement for a certain hour because that's where our TV with cable is. Everyone said it was okay and I was free to enjoy my show.
This morning, during making breakfast, I realize John is being a bit of an ass and very not talking to me, which is weird because usually I can't shut him up when I'm making breakfast. He always wants to talk about shit he's doing and what he's doing that day, and what people have pissed him off lately.
I knew exactly what pissed him off. The stupid effing dishes. I decided to brush it off on the grounds that he would get over it and do them himself like an adult.
Tonight, John gets together with his ex-girlfriend and plan to use the basement for the night. When I learned of this, Ian, Laura and I were in a car with a friend coming home from dinner because they dragged me out for Subway because I was overworked and couldn't walk/talk straight so they made me stop for real food before my hour-long break. So I asked Ian to text John reminding him that I needed the TV for an hour as I did not have my cell phone with me because I'm absent-minded and always forget it at home.
When he did, he received a text that at first he tried to avoid showing to me before reading it out.
"Well if she does the dishes she can have the basement lol."
Which might sound not that bad, but I have heard him outright mock Laura in the same way, in person. Once she left me a couple of bananas when she left for a week, telling me to finish them off so they didn't go bad. I laughed when I received the note and told John, and he said "haha too bad she didn't tell you to do her dishes too!" which later turned into an evening of seething about Laura and her - ahem - one cup and one spoon she forgot to toss in the dishwasher before she left.
So yes. It was malicious. Ian thought it was a joke, but I turned and looked at Laura and she mouthed that she knows exactly what I was thinking.
Nonetheless, John and his ex left me the tv and have been shooting me dirty looks all night. And falling silent every time I enter the room.
So I've had a panic attack. I'm so tired of humans.
9/21/12
Another quick update, I promise I'll post more on Sunday
So I'm on a bit of a time crunch here but I wanted to give a quick update.
I've scheduled a hole in my fine arts commissions to write. I realized a few days ago that I was going crazy when I sat down to write for the first time in weeks and got so emotional over a scene I was writing that there were actual tears for my MC. Which rarely happens and usually only when I'm over-tired. So I realized that I really have to keep at these stories, so I made a spot where I can take a couple of hours every day just to write.
Right now I'm packing up to leave for the weekend. I will be going out to the barn I work at and giving some of the show jumpers some trial runs to see where they're at, and then on Sunday I'm skipping over to an Appy farm (spotty horses) to do some training work on 3 of their 5yos who are starting competition training in Western sports.
I'm at a conflict with one of my art customers right now who is annoyed that her pieces are "taking so long" despite their being larger-than-life oil paintings that require a minimum of about 30 hours of work each. So I will keep you all up to date on THAT drama.
But I'm really pressed for time right now (so sorry!!) so I have to go and do my job. I will come back on Sunday and actually do a useful update!
Thanks so much for your patience, 5 readers. You rock!
I've scheduled a hole in my fine arts commissions to write. I realized a few days ago that I was going crazy when I sat down to write for the first time in weeks and got so emotional over a scene I was writing that there were actual tears for my MC. Which rarely happens and usually only when I'm over-tired. So I realized that I really have to keep at these stories, so I made a spot where I can take a couple of hours every day just to write.
Right now I'm packing up to leave for the weekend. I will be going out to the barn I work at and giving some of the show jumpers some trial runs to see where they're at, and then on Sunday I'm skipping over to an Appy farm (spotty horses) to do some training work on 3 of their 5yos who are starting competition training in Western sports.
I'm at a conflict with one of my art customers right now who is annoyed that her pieces are "taking so long" despite their being larger-than-life oil paintings that require a minimum of about 30 hours of work each. So I will keep you all up to date on THAT drama.
But I'm really pressed for time right now (so sorry!!) so I have to go and do my job. I will come back on Sunday and actually do a useful update!
Thanks so much for your patience, 5 readers. You rock!
9/15/12
What do busy art days look like? Why is everything about to get busier? Let me tell you over this morning's coffee.
Over these past couple of weeks, I haven't had much down time. I have a bit now, but only for about half an hour, so I'm going to think fast and type fast.
I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog, but I've definitely been alluding to it on Twitter, but I have a real life job now. I recently got hired at a big showjumping barn in Alberta as a full-time trainer and barn manager, and will be working with both mini prix and grand prix competitors. I will also, in the next year, be sponsored as one of their riders. I know it's not art but it's a solid job and, in the end, what I want as a career, so I'm going to do with it for now and see where it gets me.
On the other hand, my fine arts business has exploded all over everywhere with awesomeness and popularity and I'm not 100% sure how it happened.
I was not going through a good time, two-three weeks ago. Art was happening, but not fast enough (I was barely making enough to cover bills), the writing won't pay off on a monetary basis for another few months, and my music tanked with one band bowing out and the other sans bass player. We got a couple of shows this month and a few next, but it's still only $150 for me per show, and $300/mo from music is nice but not enough to pay rent.
So an old customer of mine came back a couple of weeks ago and laid down three commissions after I had just picked up commissions from about 5 different authors. And then there were my two corporate customers that were paying off every couple of weeks but being extremely frustrating about it/horrible to work with but still paying well.
Well, when this customer came back and started showing off the new pieces I did for her, another couple of farms stepped up and wanted some done too. A major showjumping competitor (I cant's say who but he was in the Olympics and isn't Canadian...) caught wind of the horse-related designs from my ex-boyfriend (who is still a very good friend of mine and competes in grand prix showjumping) and he and I are currently e-mailing back and forth talking money and commissions and timelines, along with contacting professional photographers to get the rights to their photos so I can legally copy them.
So all in all, it's suddenly very busy. I have three farms, five authors, two businesses, and a freaking Olympian on the go right now. Which is too much, in short. I actually can't do them all at once, so a few are circulating through wait lists, especially seeing how they're ALL for multiple commissions.
Which is cool, if it keeps up. If I am always this successful in art, then I probably won't do anything but horse training and art for the rest of my life. Which is fine. I would like that.
So I just want to talk, really quick in the next couple of minutes here, what a day in the life of a busy artist looks like.
This morning is a pretty typical day. It's a weekend, so I'm taking it a little easy, but I'm going to run down my typical day.
First, I get up. I look at my ragged self in the mirror across from my bed and have a 10-minute silent argument with myself assuring myself that, in fact, if I do not un-lazy and take a shower, I will scare all of my customers with my poofy, poofy mane.
So I take a shower and then grab my laptop and sit over my breakfast and coffee, scrolling through e-mails and making a list on a word document of things that have to get done today and filtering through the big list of things I have on the go to see if there's anything else I can take on.
After the coffee, I head to my "studio." A lot of artists have a separate room for their studio, mine is now my bedroom. I have a table set up and a paper-sized space laid out on it, while every other surface in my room is piled with art paper, pencil boxes, art tools, concept sketches, paint tubes, and other various art supplies.
Before I used to put them away every day on a nice tall and thin Ikea shelf I have, but lately there's been too much daily art to be able to do that, so it's chaos time.
I work on one piece for a few hours, then take a couple hours to reply to e-mails and dig up some references. I then head back to working on a piece for another few hours. Then I re-check my e-mails, reply to any new ones, make any phone calls that need to be made in relation to art, and if there's digital work to do, I do it. This includes photo re-touching to showcase on my website, cleaning up line art to send to people, and creating some time lapses for the people who are interested in them. This usually takes me to the early evening, in which my productive gear kicks in and I art for about 6-7 hours straight. This takes me to late at night where I will get back into any digital work and comb out the list of things to do again. If there's any feedback from anyone I've e-mailed progress to, I will fix what they need fixed, and by the time I wrap up I've worked straight all day and it's usually the early hours of the morning.
I sleep for about 6-7 hours and then do it all again.
I've been doing this for two weeks.
It's crazy. Seriously.
Today I have to meet in person with two customers and then go art supply shopping because I'm out of fixative and HB/3B/3H pencils. And THEN I have to go buy super glue because in 5 days I'm going out to the show jumping barn and giving some of the competition horses test runs and strutting my stuff once more for the owners so they can feel okay about letting me work unsupervised with $20k-$35k horses.
EDIT: ALSO LAST SUNDAY I SAW ERIC LAMAZE LIVE. I'm not lying. Seriously. I almost died. I did cry. Because he gave a very moving speech and I was so excited that I was shaking so moving speech just tipped me over the edge.
Here's a picture I took. That's him. I am such a creeper.
He didn't ride because his horse is young/inexperienced, but I DID see Ian Miller, Rich Fellers, Robert Whitaker, and many many more phenomenal riders ride the course. I learned a lot and got that much more excited to start my show jumping job.
I don't know if I've mentioned this on my blog, but I've definitely been alluding to it on Twitter, but I have a real life job now. I recently got hired at a big showjumping barn in Alberta as a full-time trainer and barn manager, and will be working with both mini prix and grand prix competitors. I will also, in the next year, be sponsored as one of their riders. I know it's not art but it's a solid job and, in the end, what I want as a career, so I'm going to do with it for now and see where it gets me.
On the other hand, my fine arts business has exploded all over everywhere with awesomeness and popularity and I'm not 100% sure how it happened.
I was not going through a good time, two-three weeks ago. Art was happening, but not fast enough (I was barely making enough to cover bills), the writing won't pay off on a monetary basis for another few months, and my music tanked with one band bowing out and the other sans bass player. We got a couple of shows this month and a few next, but it's still only $150 for me per show, and $300/mo from music is nice but not enough to pay rent.
So an old customer of mine came back a couple of weeks ago and laid down three commissions after I had just picked up commissions from about 5 different authors. And then there were my two corporate customers that were paying off every couple of weeks but being extremely frustrating about it/horrible to work with but still paying well.
Well, when this customer came back and started showing off the new pieces I did for her, another couple of farms stepped up and wanted some done too. A major showjumping competitor (I cant's say who but he was in the Olympics and isn't Canadian...) caught wind of the horse-related designs from my ex-boyfriend (who is still a very good friend of mine and competes in grand prix showjumping) and he and I are currently e-mailing back and forth talking money and commissions and timelines, along with contacting professional photographers to get the rights to their photos so I can legally copy them.
So all in all, it's suddenly very busy. I have three farms, five authors, two businesses, and a freaking Olympian on the go right now. Which is too much, in short. I actually can't do them all at once, so a few are circulating through wait lists, especially seeing how they're ALL for multiple commissions.
Which is cool, if it keeps up. If I am always this successful in art, then I probably won't do anything but horse training and art for the rest of my life. Which is fine. I would like that.
So I just want to talk, really quick in the next couple of minutes here, what a day in the life of a busy artist looks like.
This morning is a pretty typical day. It's a weekend, so I'm taking it a little easy, but I'm going to run down my typical day.
First, I get up. I look at my ragged self in the mirror across from my bed and have a 10-minute silent argument with myself assuring myself that, in fact, if I do not un-lazy and take a shower, I will scare all of my customers with my poofy, poofy mane.
So I take a shower and then grab my laptop and sit over my breakfast and coffee, scrolling through e-mails and making a list on a word document of things that have to get done today and filtering through the big list of things I have on the go to see if there's anything else I can take on.
After the coffee, I head to my "studio." A lot of artists have a separate room for their studio, mine is now my bedroom. I have a table set up and a paper-sized space laid out on it, while every other surface in my room is piled with art paper, pencil boxes, art tools, concept sketches, paint tubes, and other various art supplies.
Before I used to put them away every day on a nice tall and thin Ikea shelf I have, but lately there's been too much daily art to be able to do that, so it's chaos time.
I work on one piece for a few hours, then take a couple hours to reply to e-mails and dig up some references. I then head back to working on a piece for another few hours. Then I re-check my e-mails, reply to any new ones, make any phone calls that need to be made in relation to art, and if there's digital work to do, I do it. This includes photo re-touching to showcase on my website, cleaning up line art to send to people, and creating some time lapses for the people who are interested in them. This usually takes me to the early evening, in which my productive gear kicks in and I art for about 6-7 hours straight. This takes me to late at night where I will get back into any digital work and comb out the list of things to do again. If there's any feedback from anyone I've e-mailed progress to, I will fix what they need fixed, and by the time I wrap up I've worked straight all day and it's usually the early hours of the morning.
I sleep for about 6-7 hours and then do it all again.
I've been doing this for two weeks.
It's crazy. Seriously.
Today I have to meet in person with two customers and then go art supply shopping because I'm out of fixative and HB/3B/3H pencils. And THEN I have to go buy super glue because in 5 days I'm going out to the show jumping barn and giving some of the competition horses test runs and strutting my stuff once more for the owners so they can feel okay about letting me work unsupervised with $20k-$35k horses.
EDIT: ALSO LAST SUNDAY I SAW ERIC LAMAZE LIVE. I'm not lying. Seriously. I almost died. I did cry. Because he gave a very moving speech and I was so excited that I was shaking so moving speech just tipped me over the edge.
Here's a picture I took. That's him. I am such a creeper.
He didn't ride because his horse is young/inexperienced, but I DID see Ian Miller, Rich Fellers, Robert Whitaker, and many many more phenomenal riders ride the course. I learned a lot and got that much more excited to start my show jumping job.
9/14/12
I'm so sorry. I'm still busy. But I will come back.
I feel bad for my 5 readers. I mean, here's this sub-par blog about someone's life that I'm not sure why ANYONE (never mind 5 people) would care about and I just walked away from it for almost a week. My readers are never coming back, I'm sure of it.
I've never been this art-busy in my life. With all the character designs, I'm also designing an album cover for a local band, I have two HUGE paintings on the go, and four graphite portraits in the wings to do in my spare time. And of course, EVERYONE needs them done ASAP.
Seriously.
I haven't written a word in the novels this week, and it's driving me crazy. I haven't touched a drum kit in who knows how many days.
I don't sleep, I forget to eat because I'm busy, and let's not even mention the fact that the first human interaction I've had in three days was an hour ago when Laura started singing "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" loudly in the hallway of our bedrooms, and Ian and I burst out of our rooms to join in. Humorous, but after it happened, I realized I hadn't seen anyone the prior two days.
I've been drinking a full pot of coffee a day.
A full pot.
Like, not half full, brimming.
I'm probably going to have a heart attack. That and the lack of food. My pants are loose-fitting, as of about three days ago. And most girls would be ecstatic, but it's not healthy.
FINE ART IS KILLING ME. I should have turned some of these guys down but the thought of having a comfortable financial bed at the end of this is driving me on.
In between working on people's art, I've been doing promotional videos and such, trying to grab as much attention as possible, because due to some recent musical failure it looks like music will not be a career that I am looking at anywhere in the near future. Art, on the other hand, is. And if my books are successful, maybe those too.
The positive thing about all of this artwork is that I do very much enjoy drawing, despite my continual complaining about it, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if it ended up being my career.
I've never been this art-busy in my life. With all the character designs, I'm also designing an album cover for a local band, I have two HUGE paintings on the go, and four graphite portraits in the wings to do in my spare time. And of course, EVERYONE needs them done ASAP.
Seriously.
I haven't written a word in the novels this week, and it's driving me crazy. I haven't touched a drum kit in who knows how many days.
I don't sleep, I forget to eat because I'm busy, and let's not even mention the fact that the first human interaction I've had in three days was an hour ago when Laura started singing "I Believe in a Thing Called Love" loudly in the hallway of our bedrooms, and Ian and I burst out of our rooms to join in. Humorous, but after it happened, I realized I hadn't seen anyone the prior two days.
I've been drinking a full pot of coffee a day.
A full pot.
Like, not half full, brimming.
I'm probably going to have a heart attack. That and the lack of food. My pants are loose-fitting, as of about three days ago. And most girls would be ecstatic, but it's not healthy.
FINE ART IS KILLING ME. I should have turned some of these guys down but the thought of having a comfortable financial bed at the end of this is driving me on.
In between working on people's art, I've been doing promotional videos and such, trying to grab as much attention as possible, because due to some recent musical failure it looks like music will not be a career that I am looking at anywhere in the near future. Art, on the other hand, is. And if my books are successful, maybe those too.
The positive thing about all of this artwork is that I do very much enjoy drawing, despite my continual complaining about it, and it wouldn't be the end of the world if it ended up being my career.
9/6/12
I've been busy.
Seriously, seriously busy. I've been going constantly working on expanding, solidifying, and making five separate authors AND an editor happy, along with two farm owners and business e-mails out the you-know-where.
Hello, I'm The Artist and I have established myself into some stupidly complicated careers.
Just kind of trying to keep up with this blog because I feel like I've let all of my five readers down skipping out on postings. It still amazes me that a small handful of random people actually read this stuff, and I'm really sorry that I've skipped days!
I just have NOT found the time to do personal stuff. I haven't slept in three days because I've been so busy. I'm about to go to bed, but I just wanted to hop on here and write.
So, just to fill you in on the life of a 3x artist.
In the fine arts field, things are crazy. I'm expanding my business into the digital realm. I've been experimenting and goofing around in Photoshop paintings since I was a teenager, but I've never offered it professionally. Now that I've inserted myself into the world of character design and concepts, it would actually be better for me to do them in Photoshop instead of on paper, just because of the industry right now. Some authors have been asking me why I DON'T do that, and have acted interested, so I've been readying myself to offer the PS paintings professionally.
But that means lots of research, lots of practice pictures in all of my spare time, and lots of tutorial reading to be sure I'm not doing anything stupid due to a self-taught background.
Which is the PITA for every medium I've ever worked with. I've never taken art lessons, and every time I do something I haven't done in a while I get paranoid that I'm going to miss something or skip over important stages out of ignorance. Which really doesn't happen, but hey! I'm super anxious.
So aside from the Photoshop, I've had a huge stack of designs and concepts to work and research, and then a "rush" portrait to do. All in all, in the span of three days I've had to sort through about 17 drawings in some way, shape, or form, and I've done 3 practice paintings in PS along with 2 studies. I've also had to do a few anatomy studies because in the stack of character designs I've stumbled across some shady areas of my knowledge of the human body in motion. Which is extremely frustrating for someone who's been professionally drawing humans for the past 7 years.
Due to my sudden rise in fine art demand, I've had to bench my novels for a bit. I just can't keep up with them. I just sent that e-mail off today, but before then I was struggling to write a couple thousand words a day along with everything else just to shut the editor up (he keeps demanding to know why I haven't sent anything off to the critical analysis lady who is the MOST USELESS CRITIC EVER). But I can't, I need sleep, so I probably won't get ANYTHING written until next Monday.
Which is sad, I like writing, but art is making me money so I have to side-track for a bit.
Then, because it's September, there's a bunch of BBQs and parties and picnics and the like, along with some weddings gearing up for the "pretty week" in Alberta where all the leaves are bright red and orange, so my band just got an onslaught of "play for my party" e-mails, and I've been juggling those and booking with my band mates to make sure they can make the shows and THEN explaining exactly why some clients are not able to pay us $50 for the whole band for two hours of music, because our flat fee for two hours is $750 and that is a considerable difference. And because I'm over-tired, these e-mails take FOREVER to type because I have to make sure I don't say something along the lines of "YOU IDIOT, YOU NEED TO PAY YOUR MUSICIANS PROPERLY. WE ARE PEOPLE TOO."
Because that wouldn't be professional.
On top of this all, normal life is still a thing and I still have to do thing like grocery shopping, cooking meals, showering, meeting customers, some semblance of housework, and acknowledging the existence of other humans in my presence. There's just not enough hours in the day.
With that, I'm going to bed.
If any of this post is incoherent, I apologize. I'm too tired to proof-read or properly function, which is a dangerous combination.
Also it took me a couple of hard-thinking minutes to realize that the word I was looking for in the above sentence was "incoherent." You know I'm tired when my vocab tanks.
Hello, I'm The Artist and I have established myself into some stupidly complicated careers.
Just kind of trying to keep up with this blog because I feel like I've let all of my five readers down skipping out on postings. It still amazes me that a small handful of random people actually read this stuff, and I'm really sorry that I've skipped days!
I just have NOT found the time to do personal stuff. I haven't slept in three days because I've been so busy. I'm about to go to bed, but I just wanted to hop on here and write.
So, just to fill you in on the life of a 3x artist.
In the fine arts field, things are crazy. I'm expanding my business into the digital realm. I've been experimenting and goofing around in Photoshop paintings since I was a teenager, but I've never offered it professionally. Now that I've inserted myself into the world of character design and concepts, it would actually be better for me to do them in Photoshop instead of on paper, just because of the industry right now. Some authors have been asking me why I DON'T do that, and have acted interested, so I've been readying myself to offer the PS paintings professionally.
But that means lots of research, lots of practice pictures in all of my spare time, and lots of tutorial reading to be sure I'm not doing anything stupid due to a self-taught background.
Which is the PITA for every medium I've ever worked with. I've never taken art lessons, and every time I do something I haven't done in a while I get paranoid that I'm going to miss something or skip over important stages out of ignorance. Which really doesn't happen, but hey! I'm super anxious.
So aside from the Photoshop, I've had a huge stack of designs and concepts to work and research, and then a "rush" portrait to do. All in all, in the span of three days I've had to sort through about 17 drawings in some way, shape, or form, and I've done 3 practice paintings in PS along with 2 studies. I've also had to do a few anatomy studies because in the stack of character designs I've stumbled across some shady areas of my knowledge of the human body in motion. Which is extremely frustrating for someone who's been professionally drawing humans for the past 7 years.
Due to my sudden rise in fine art demand, I've had to bench my novels for a bit. I just can't keep up with them. I just sent that e-mail off today, but before then I was struggling to write a couple thousand words a day along with everything else just to shut the editor up (he keeps demanding to know why I haven't sent anything off to the critical analysis lady who is the MOST USELESS CRITIC EVER). But I can't, I need sleep, so I probably won't get ANYTHING written until next Monday.
Which is sad, I like writing, but art is making me money so I have to side-track for a bit.
Then, because it's September, there's a bunch of BBQs and parties and picnics and the like, along with some weddings gearing up for the "pretty week" in Alberta where all the leaves are bright red and orange, so my band just got an onslaught of "play for my party" e-mails, and I've been juggling those and booking with my band mates to make sure they can make the shows and THEN explaining exactly why some clients are not able to pay us $50 for the whole band for two hours of music, because our flat fee for two hours is $750 and that is a considerable difference. And because I'm over-tired, these e-mails take FOREVER to type because I have to make sure I don't say something along the lines of "YOU IDIOT, YOU NEED TO PAY YOUR MUSICIANS PROPERLY. WE ARE PEOPLE TOO."
Because that wouldn't be professional.
On top of this all, normal life is still a thing and I still have to do thing like grocery shopping, cooking meals, showering, meeting customers, some semblance of housework, and acknowledging the existence of other humans in my presence. There's just not enough hours in the day.
With that, I'm going to bed.
If any of this post is incoherent, I apologize. I'm too tired to proof-read or properly function, which is a dangerous combination.
Also it took me a couple of hard-thinking minutes to realize that the word I was looking for in the above sentence was "incoherent." You know I'm tired when my vocab tanks.
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