FyreLilly

I last left a journal entry in January of 2016. So much has happened since then! I lost three relatives last year and then, this year, my husband. I haven't been drawing much, mostly working, cleaning the house, doing laundry, etc. and trying to get used to life now. I am currently trying to teach my kids to drive among the craziness. I scroll through Facebook at least once a day, so that's usually a good place to get a hold of me. I hope everyone else's lives have been less. . .depressing. ^_^;  Wishing you all the best! Until next time . . .

Oh, yes, friends, last year was crazy. My boyfriend unexpectedly lost his job, I had to work a ton of hours at work (super long story) but I needed the money so. . .okay, no days off for three and a half weeks. Sucked. Then, as I think I'm settling into routine, supposedly Boyfriend's unemployment runs out, right about the time school is starting up again. Well, sheeeet. Okay. So I beg, borrow, and steal as many hours (up to 48 in a week) as I can to make up for this lack of cash flow. . .THAT NEVER COMES! *KILLKILLKILL* *ahem* So. Back to lack of cash, the lease on our apartment is up on Oct 31st, which is good. We've lived there waaay too long and it's gotten way too expensive. So I get one day off a week and I spend two of those coveted days scouring for a new apartment, preferably close to where the kids already go to school. I find one, BOyfriend doesn't seem to give a shit until I'm about to sign lease papers and then *BAM* Oh, no. We're moving into an apartment he suddenly pulls out of his ass after about five minutes of looking online. Douche canoe. Fine. So, in a whirlwind week and a half, and with only my mother, my sister, and my kids to help, I move us into the new apartment. BOyfriend has to do, like, two whole hours of work at the old apartment and bitches about it like a martyr. REALLY hate that shit. Moving is EXPENSIVE! So many deposits (we have one cat) and some of the bills required us to pre-pay before they'd switch us over and etc. etc. etc. So I'm broke as we move in and then Boyfriend gets a barely-20-hr-wk job. . . still not doing any house work. Didn't I tell you that? Yeah. No job, school is out for the summer, doesn't do housework. Drops out of college to save money for the move and upcoming holidays. Doesn't do housework. While this dumb girl typing this works her arse off waiting tables and being a fry cook 40 plus hours a week, helping with the kids, doing all that housework and. . . yeah. So, now we're both working full time and I hate it. I don't have time to do shit. I'm reading while I do the laundry, I scroll through Facebook while I eat breakfast and Tumblr while I eat dinner and then. . .that's it. I miss it here. I miss everyone. This place is alien to me now and I hate it. I'm hoping this will be a better year. I quit smoking, so I'll have more money and if he's working full time then I may just ask for a reduction in hours when everyone is done taking their vacations over the next month and a half. 

I lament that there isn't enough time in the world for me to listen to all the podcasts I'd like to, watch all the tv shows and movies I'd like to, read all the books I'd like to, do all the art I'd like to, and so on. -_-; I hate picking and choosing and still feeling like a loser. 

Here's to hoping my striving for balance works! I hope you all had better years and I hope I start drawing again. 

I'm alive and still lurking. I'm playing a lot of DragonPals these days. I read a little. I've had to pick up extra hours at work, because you can't survive on minimum wage, not with two kids anyway. Hoping to get a better job after the first of the year. I hope you and yours are well and that you've had a year with more good times than bad. ^_^

My sister requested art projects for her birthday present so we will oblige, the kids and I, which means there will be more art to upload. I'm foolishly excited and hopeful. ^_^;

Art to be uploaded this weekend after they've been presented, both here and on The Book of Faces.

See you soon!

It has been several months since I last posted a journal entry. Six months, actually. The world still spins, the content of the art on the front page still undulates and seethes like a pool of organisms: evolving and changing and, yet, still the same. That's not a bad thing. My comp monitor is still fritz. As I write this I have to keep moving the cursor down because only the top third of my screen is free of lines, shadows, fuzz, and etc. I fire it up at least twice a month to pay three bills, clear out my inbox here, and glance at a few things. Everything else, I do on my phone. I sank deep into my writing jag until the end of the year and then forced myself to put the keyboard down, though I do still take a note here or there (thank you Evernote, which gave way to Google Drive). With the new year, I, like so many others, tried to fix up the old Me and returned to the source of my escapism: books. I plowed through ten (or eleven?) Drizzt books, slipped through the Inkheart Trilogy (I am in love with and despise Dustfinger), devoured The Book Thief, re-read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and am now making my way through its sequel, Hollow City. Oh the number of books, both physical and digital I am itching to lose myself in even as the writing muse continues to fester and demand attention. *sigh* Though I have yet to conquer my addiction to cigarettes again, I have been eating a little better (healthier), moving around more, and look forward to nicer weather so, perhaps, I can return to taking those long walks outside in the fresh air with music blasting in my ears. I have to become a little better. I got a new tattoo, my fifth, a Christmas gift I finally cashed in last month. One of my co-workers is ill and I have volunteered to take up some of her hours, for better or worse. My car is finally fixed, save for a small, expensive thing in the exhaust system that I replaced a couple of years ago. An almost cruel way of coming full circle, I suppose. But I'm rambling. Like many hiatus before, this one continues to stretch and linger, like a cat, and though I may not post anything these days, I am still checking in, still being inspired, and still being. . .I am still here.