I'm not one to make a fuss about birthdays normally, but I usually take a day off work to draw myself something. I'll probably be taking another day off in lieu and continuing to work today instead! I have a couple more sketches to get through for the bags, but everyone who has seen their WIP's are happy with the way they're looking so far!

I want to get these out of the way before I take time to make myself an art piece, so I'm wondering what should I do? Should I do an onsen picture? It's been ages since I've done one.

Recently I've been focusing more on using twitter, trying to get PawPrinting going and focusing on learning about new machines to add to my list of things to get in the future. I have my eye on one that will allow me to make acrylic charms of (almost) any size but it'll be loads of saving to do and easily be the most expensive machine I've ever purchased. Aside from that we really need to get Ellis a car that I can take to conventions to promote PawPrinting and my own custom merchandise. I have a few items in mind to make which I think would do amazingly well in the fandom! We're hoping to do Confuzzled 2018, JFTW, Scotia Con at least next year, though next year we'll be getting married as well with family from around the world coming which probably makes EF out of the question.

Health wise I've been given the greenlight FINALLY to have the surgery I need. All of these abdominal issues will now no longer be a problem as I'll be completely sterilized. While discussing with my biological sister what had happened to me as of recent she disclosed that she and our mother had cervical cancer at young ages, so my insides changing as dramatically as they have been doing it's suddenly more risky to leave it and my doctors have all agreed this is the right step to take. They wanted to try leaving me in tact as long as they could but now is the time to remove everything. I'm somehow slowly taking my insides out.

Knowing that this chapter will finally be over is incredible, but it leaves me wondering when the surgery will be. I have two more appointments to go to (one for scans and another with my doctor again to discuss the scans and determine what hospital I need to go to as the units are all specialised in our area for different things. Cancer patients go to two hospitals, normal procedures go to the other two more local, so we don't know where I'll fit in yet, which is all part of the fun of waiting for the answer. I hadn't done a CA125 in ages, so I'm not holding my breath wondering anymore.)

The other sad bit in my life as of late is Mack, my 50% heart rat (Vern was my other 50% who died a month ago) took a turn yesterday and had difficulties breathing. I took him up to bed with me just to hold onto him for a while longer as we made the decision to take him today to have him put down.. but at 10:41 last night he left in my arms, the place he loved being the most. I can't honestly comprehend what it feels like to have something die in your arms but you truly feel the life leave. I whispered as it was happening to be there when I meet him again. I'm sort of glad that he went naturally rather than us having to sign his life away. Just waiting for Ellis to come home so we can go find a nice plant and bury our little man next to Vern and Ken (his brother.)

It's sad that they have short little lives but their personalities and impact is huge. I never thought I would ever be a rat person but Mack was the first rescue we got that really left a mark on me, none of our pets including Bailey showed nearly as much love as Mack did. He loved his humans and was absolutely spoiled rotten.