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My life is a mess
2 years ago
I've had one of those scream-into-a-pillow kind of months. I feel like life updates and rants can come across as super unprofessional, so I like to keep my personal and work life separate, but there are times when the two overlap. You all mean so much to me, you've given me an amazing opportunity to pursue a career as an artist, and I'm so incredibly thankful for that. Because of this, I feel like you deserve to know what's going on when life starts to affect my work. If you want to skip the nonsense and want to help please go here: (https://www.furaffinity.net/journal/10650044).
For those of you who decided to stick around, here's what's happening in my life that I'm comfortable with sharing;
Things that broke and I have no money in savings to fix them:
My glasses - the protective film has rubbed off making them blurry and causing migraines
2 vehicles (Tires, windshield, turn signals)
The AC (The condensation pump has failed)
Large cast iron pipe ( main sewage pipe spiderwebbed with cracks )
(My poor basement looks like a swamp because of the dripping pipe and AC)
Other things that are inflicting mental damage:
Suddenly sick, sneezing chickens.
My old apartments are demanding payment for damages that our deposit covered over a year ago and they're using a third party debt collector to pursue. We have receipts, but they're refusing to accept them. (Oh boy, what fun)
A letter from a Workers Union I haven't been a part of since November, thanking me for returning (which I have not) and asking for payment on hundreds of dollars for union fees (wtf?)
Here's the big one I'm really asking for help on:
A family member has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Life expectancy is about a few months - 3 years.
We're hopeful for more time, but it's their 4th cancer, so it's not good.
They live 1200+ miles away from me so it's a struggle for me to visit them, and I don't have the finances to, either.
A close family member that lives out of state has not been doing well with this, and has been surprising me with last-minute visits.
I've had to scramble to put together a guest bedroom because of this. We're in a new house and we have a guest room for the first time but we didn't have a bed or furnishings for it. So I had to buy paint, a bed, comforter set, pillows, carpet and curtains.
We're expecting another family visit next weekend so it's nice to have, but I wasn't ready for the expense.
I had an opportunity to go visit my sick family member, but it was very, very last minute. I was told I had a few months to plan and figure things out. A week or so later, things suddenly changed and I had about 2 days to figure out if I could go or not because the date had drastically moved forward. Between a string of events and my empty pockets I couldn't go. This has been devastating to me.
I'll have another opportunity to go in about 6-8 weeks and I want to be ready for it, but I need help.
Some of you might be thinking: A real paying job would fix most of these, and you're right. Trust me, I'd love to have a stable job to get me out of this mess. The problem is I have severe tendonitis of some form in my feet that makes working any standing job extremely painful. The pain doesn't end when my shift is over and I kick off my shoes, it continues whether I'm caring for my animals, cooking, doing chores, taking a shower, evening resting on my days off or sleeping. I have destroyed my feet working 10+ years in bakeries. I'm not exactly qualified for any desk jobs, there's not a lot of those in my area either. I tried so hard to get one before committing to art full-time. There's other factors too, but my best option is to continue doing what I'm doing and make what I can off of my art.
Thank you for being so patient with me this month on commission times and my crazy uploads. I still haven't uploaded everything I've made yet.
Let's end on a positive note!
I dug all the pennies out of my couch to buy stickers to hand out at Denfur.
Yep! I'm going to Denfur, despite all of life's set backs! Yeah, I could probably put the money towards my AC but it's a drive away and I've fought so hard for what little I've managed to save for it for months. I kind of need to go for business reasons as well because I would like to have a table there next year. Having never been to a furry convention, I kind of have to go to see what it's about if I want to reach my goal.
That's not all!
I have a webcomic in the works. It's a fantasy story of a mage with a pet shop, rescuing and rehoming magical creatures, filled with chaotic hijinks. It's still in development. The major story plot is mostly done, just filling in with bridging ideas and characters now. I won't start on any pages for awhile until it's mostly scripted; but I will be uploading concept art for Ko-fi members: https://ko-fi.com/kuddlykodiak/tiers
I'll try to help where I can