WashiChiisai

I decided to delete all of the single months and compile all of these into a single post.

Over the weekend Tene and I went to Carmel by the Sea/Monterey Bay for the weekend. We figured we would go while everyone was watching the big Sportsball Event (The Superbowl), and that way we'd have the aquarium (our actual goal) mostly to ourselves. Our plan worked! The weekend was pretty great.

On the other hand, Saturday morning, Tene got a text from our roommate, which did put a damper on our weekend for me.

Lilith, the younger of my two rats, had passed away quite suddenly.

She had shown some distressing symptoms, but the vet didn't seem to be too worried, and prescribed some Baytril just to clear up any infection she might have. Her death was completely unexpected and hit me pretty hard. I had expected her to survive for at least another six months and was unprepared to deal with her passing.

Anise, the older, is also ill and has entered the end-of-life care stage (she's going to turn 3 on Monday - so she's rather elderly! The oldest rat I've ever had, actually). She's developed a tumor (still pretty small, so I'm not going to worry about it), has arthritis, and has bumblefoot. She's on Baytril and a pain medication. I don't expect her to survive more than three months, although I don't think the tumor or bumblefoot are going to take her.

After Anise passes away, I'm taking a break from rat ownership, for a few reasons. First is that I'm not physically or mentally able to take care of the fuzzbutts at the moment. I know that my last colony was somewhat neglected (not to the point of abuse, but I didn't care for them as well as I should have - occasionally I only paid them attention to give them food or water, otherwise not interacting with them for days. I'm fairly ashamed of this.), and before I bring more into my life I want to give them the best life possible.

Second is that I was evaluated for allergies a while back, due to just feeling crappy all the time. There were two things that stood out: First is that I am most allergic to dust mites, which sucks because they're everywhere. I've been doing better with keeping our apartment clean, which has helped, but I also take antihistamines most days. The second thing was that I'm allergic to rats. I'm not very allergic, it was a 1 on the scale, but I still reacted to the test, where I didn't react to nearly anything else (there were a couple types of tree pollen and grass). The hope is that being away from the rats for a year or so will let me k now how much they're affecting my health.

Anyway, due to the loss of Lilith, and the stress of Anise being old and nearing the end of her life, I'm not doing very well. I'm improving, and still playing Wheel of Meds, but I'm not great and I'm far from perfect.

Edit: And to top this all off, I've hurt my right wrist pretty badly. It's got all the hallmarks of an RSI, which doesn't surprise me - I haven't exactly been using proper ergonomic techniques when on my computer or laptop. But, this means I'm going to have to take a break from ... everything. I can't type without pain, and typing is what got me here in the first place. I can't write or draw, since it's my dominant wrist. Really, it rather sucks.

So, I am still working on my Drawing A Day thing, but I do have to admit that I'm behind.

From the 7th to the 14th I was in Idaho and Utah, visiting friends and family. I took my tablet with me (and my laptop, of course) intending to draw, but I never had time to. I was either busy being social, or busy sleeping (I was so tired the entire week). Since then I've been slowly recovering - I'm still tired most of the time, and I must have caught something on the plane ride there or home, or maybe from a family member (my brother in particular was pretty sick).

But, I should start up drawing again in the next day or so. I'm just going to pick up on whatever day I start drawing. I'll -maybe- go back and draw missed days later.

I'm also considering doing :devidSenshiStock:'s 50 Foot/50 Hand Challenge. Possibly not officially, but practicing hands and feet would be good for me.

I'm writing more, but still not working on anything specific. Just, getting used to the act and art of writing every day.

I really need to set up a schedule for myself - I do best when I have a regimen to follow every day. It's hard to do when you're basically self-employed.

So, it's a new year and I'm posting again! I hope to fill up my gallery!

I'm once again attempting a 365 Project - a picture a day. I'm currently a day behind, but should be able to catch up if I work at it. Each month has a theme, which is nicer than last year's complete randomness. I did a lot more hands-on picking and choosing of my prompts.

I want to get my website (tinyraven.net) up and functional finally. At the moment that's a bit down on my list of things to do, but it is coming.

I'm going to be starting Kyoot! up again as a weekly diary comic, and I'll talk about the strange or exciting things that have happened to me. I'm hoping that this will (1) give me practice drawing and planning out comic pages and (2) get me out of the house more to find more adventures to write about.

Webcomics Tankyuu and Storyline have been abandoned, although I'm considering writing Tankyuu in prose form. Still trying to figure out the actual plot for it.

As for writing, I'm trying to write every day (my goal is 1500-3000 words per day). Hopefully by the end of the year I'll be working on something serious, but for now it's just practice. Some of this will be posted here, most probably won't since it's a lot of stream of consciousness stuff. But, we'll see!

Otherwise, creatively, I hope to open my Etsy shop sometime this year (Here's hoping by June!) as well as continuing to crochet. I can't sell most of my crocheted creations (copyright issues, mostly), but I hope my friends will accept them as gifts. My shop on Etsy will have handmade plushes - I've almost perfected the Narwhal and I also hope to make an Axolotl and maybe some type of Fox for the opening. We'll see. I also hope to do some crafts for the home as well as starting to make my own clothes (the dresses I like are super expensive to buy off the rack, and it's much cheaper to make them myself).

Anyway, here's to 2013!

Hey everyone! So not much has been going on for me lately, but I'm hoping to pick things up pretty soon now.

First off, I'm going to start Livestreaming on the weekends. This is at least in part in an effort to up my production - I'm barely drawing at all, so maybe if I commit to doing a Livestream each week I'll actually get something done (my 365 Project has, at this point, fallen to the wayside. I'm thinking of trying it again next year). After two days of beating my head against my desk I finally figured out how to work the website and screencasting, but I won't be able to do it in Linux. So, I'm getting Windows set up (again) and getting the programs I want to try out. I'll probably start the stream either Sunday, or if things go way sideways, next Saturday (not tomorrow). Watch my Twitter (washi) if you want to know when I'm broadcasting. I'll update there.

Second, I'm starting to write again but need some beta readers before I publish my story. It's fanfiction of fanfiction, but the AU I'm using is far enough from the original source that you won't need to know much (I'm using someone else's world, but not their characters) to understand the what's going on. If anyone is willing to do some reading and give some constructive criticism to me, that would be awesome and please let me know. I hope to start getting chapters of my story up within a couple of weeks (I make no promises, however).

In other news, I should be getting a bike really soon (like probably tomorrow) now! I'm really excited - I found exactly the one I want, I just need to try it out and choose which color. Then I need a rack and panniers, and a waterbottle holder, a lock, a helmet, and gloves. Oh, and lights. I live in a bike "friendly" area, but people in cars are scary. Hopefully this will get me outside more, though, and I'll get some exercise.

I'm doing a little better emotionally, but still not great. Still have all those pending appointments, although I need to reschedule with the naturopath (my appointment was canceled because I'm bad at responding to emails).

I've started running an RPG (Airship Pirates)! It's my first time as GM, and I'm pretty nervous, but the first session seemed to go over really well - well enough that when I got passed the part of the playguide I had read through, the players were like "Oh, we can go do something else for half an hour while you read up so we can keep playing" - which was awesome and got me some frozen yogurt I'm glad I'm using a playguide for now, but I'm definitely excited to try ranging outside of it once this campaign is over. I have plans for my players *evil laugh*

In Progress:
Cleaning up dA watchlist (>_o)