Hey all

So, yeah, there's a lot to cover I guess

I've got a backlog of folks to reply to individually, but, I've got a high today, which has been a good day all in all, so, going to write this up while I have that energy and hope that I can get the follow through to get my replies and stuff done whilst I have that energy?

We'll see I suppose?

Yeah, grammar, commas, a little frantic and a little over the place but I'll take this over the last month or so and the doldrum I got myself stuck in over the Winter period

Not gonna lie, has not been fun over all and we'll just start with the bad new first is that sadly just around Xmas my pet dog Rascal passed away

Yeah, that was a big hit and it really didn't help me on top of the crapload that 2017 has been piling up on our door

She was an old dog, so, I guess it was something every owner has to go through - happened before with me and Flower, so I'm no stranger there - but right now it really was a bad time, even if it's never a good time

It just started with her being sick and then the vet told us it was cancer and I just couldn't believe it, Jeri was the one who went to the vet since it was too much trouble to take me in the wheelchair, I just expected her to come back with some medicine for Rascal and then she calls me with that

It just came so far out of nowhere I couldn't process it, the vet said that because she was such a big dog that it just happens that quickly, but I still couldn't handle it

The vet wanted to put her down there and then and I asked they give Rascal one more day, just to say goodbye

And I hated myself for it, asking one more day, knowing she was suffering, gave that girl all the love we could, even Mana went and slept by her one last time before Jeri went and took her away the next day, ended up I just couldn't bring myself to go with them

Goddamn I'll miss that fluff ball

People used to tell me that my mom and dad were crazy getting me a Malamute that big, lol, what with me and obviously, well, me

So, Rascal has caused at least three broken bones in me inadvertantly between tripping/knocking over/misc? But performed a Lassie at least once and got help for me and just been there for us forever

I'd be laid up in bed and she'd just always be there right beside me

Guess that's the big hole, just, reminding yourself you don't need to do the things you need to for them

Mana's still here and we've talked about getting another dog, but, maybe not right now, a little quiet time maybe and we'll see



So, on the back of that bad news, apologise to you guys who I promised the art dump for, but it really threw me for a loop, so much so that medical help was required and I was kept under a lot of observation

During that time I did a lot of self reflection and have a couple of things I guess that I want to get off my chest right now

For a starters, I need to redesign my fursona

Furry me has been unchanged for at least a decade, and I've never altered her since, where she's lived in this nice little cartoon limbo where she always breaks bones and just gets back up by the next episode completely the same

Whereas real life me has had health issues that didn't get the reset button and subsequently?

I have to admit to maybe vanity trimming on furry me, who is significantly skinnier than I am

Feels weird thinking back now, trying to think when I had a metabolism that could deal with being bedridden like several months a year, but despite diets and physio and attempts at exercise (don't think I can call what I try proper exercise really) I am what the kids these days would call 'fick'? That's right, right?

Soooooo, yeah, I'm not sure how to go about it, having drawn furry me the same way for a decade, but, healthy start to things is admitting things I've been hiding to myself and will try sometime to show Jazz a little bit rounder, I'd experimented slightly with Faith in when she evolved into a Ninetales, then kind of chickened out of when people started questioning it as weird and maybe cottoning on that something was out of place with how stark difference there was between Vulpix-Faith and Ninetales-Faith

Yeah, Faith fick too, and until I do something about that, so am I, lol

I'm now part of a group - one of several - about weight, because unfortunately and unhealthily, I somehow decided a while ago that overeating was a good substitute for drugs or drinking problems

And so as I've gotten older my oversnacking has caught up with my overclocked body and as you may well guess, that's not been helping me with my number of injuries I've had over the years, all that extra weight is something I've carried around a lot

And although - goddamnit I love them so - Squirrel Girl and Stormer are really wonderful for positive body image on being overweight? I need to do something to help me get a little thinner, not, like, model size thin? But at least maintainable?

Over the last year or so, this one had kind of been drumming on me, but, this journal's already long enough, not gonna go into detail about my jealousy of someone else getting rid of their weight and such x_X

So yeah, overeating, what else?

Yup, overspending, if I was unhappy? I managed to decide that I could fill that void with either overeating or just overspending, where I am unhappy enough to admit with myself that I spent around nearly 1000 dollars on Magic Online last month before I finally hit my lowest of lows

In the end? I only got found out because I suddenly started playing Jeri's Overwatch and she wondered where the heck all the new skins she's gotten had came from and thought her account had been hacked from all the micro transactions that went out of our account x_x

So, that was a fun weekend argument that went heated and really drove a lot of this out into the open

But, here we are?

I'm here and I'm still standing and me and Jeri are still okay, in fact, maybe a little better for everything? Weirdly?

we talked and talked and talked

It cut deep a lot of areas and went to places I won't readily share here, but demons are demons and it maybe takes a lot to fight one, and in some cases takes learning from someone else how they fought their demons to know how to tackle your own

In this case, addiction comes in many forms and it's easier than ever before nowadays to fall into

And what I've quickly seen as far as spending? Or eating?

You can't just go cold turkey, if I try and switch to a full on health-fest, my body will reject it, crave and crave and crave and then I binge which is just not helping at all

Same with spending

If I have a really bad day? Then decide the only way I can feel better is to pay 80 dollars for a playset of Noble Hierarchs that I'm hardly going to use, but want to? It's really easy to fall into a trap where I can be caught trying to make myself feel better by running to those vices

So what does this mean here?

Responsibility for one thing

What am I asking from you guys?

Not much, no money certainly, me and Jeri did the adult thing and I have a loan now that we're using to work back my debts and consolidate things so I'm no longer gonna hide bills or such

I'll still have a budget of things I'm going to be allowed, although that'll need to be solidified? *Shrug*

What I'll ask is a little more patience, the art I'm uploading today is what I have so far, as little as it is, once I can finally finish these owed DfDs, I'll have a load of my mind and I'm going to halt all 'premeditated' art I guess, so, no more DfD drives or any such, nor ideas of requests/exchanges/etc as we're lucky enough right now if I can sporadically come up with a new idea for any at all <_<

And that's simply because I can't handle it right now, any art that isn't owed for folks who donated money, I can't focus on, which is part of my problems right now that my attention and thoughts are absolutely shot to pieces

It takes forever to get me to do things right now, oversleeping or taking too long to just get up, having to find motivation just to keep putting one leg in front of the other is just a thing with clinical depression, and unfortunately when you're not able to move your legs it's really easy to let yourself just get pushed back I guess

So, yeah, this isn't much art today I'm uploading, but it's some, and every piece is one more piece off my mind

Once I've got myself somewhere better, we'll see how I handle under my own steam again and get going once more

The only other favor I wanna ask you guys is to be a safety valve for me, I've had my intervention IRL and all that people are going to keep checking on me and making sure I'm not importing dozens of boxes of Magic cards, but, I can do a lot of damage online too, which includes commissioning art

So, effective today, I'm going to look into the whole idea of blacklisting myself from buying commissions, and see if I can work out a way of spoonfeeding myself art of my fursona somehow, we'll see on that front, needs a bit of work >_>

I guess Rascal was the straw that broke the camel's back, but, like anything with me that breaks, at least now we know what's broken me and Jeri can work on putting me back together again?

It's easy to blame bad things that happened last year for getting me where I am, but, it doesn't much help me back down, and I'm at least okay enough to say that I've got folks willing to help lead me down again