Milk Tea, Music and My Life in General

Hello wonderful people! I've been up to very little lately as the LunaMusings household approaches our normal again. My mom is back to work now, but very tired when she comes home so I've been trying to do more of her dishes during the day in addition to all the stuff I try(and often fail) to do in a given day. Thanks for the all prayers/thoughts/good vibes! She's even making lunch today!

And as a small note on other things consumable, the combination of green tea brewed with lemon verbena leaves and added to milk is a lovely thing after you've woken up from a weird night of sleep. And by weird I mean having this stuck in your head so badly it plays in your dreams:

Yeah...it really messes with normal sleep patterns...

At the moment I'm currently downloading all our our music collection from my hubby's compy to mine. 837 out of 13409...it's going to be awhile...

As for the rest of my life, I'm having a crisis of projects. I'm trying to figure out how to balance working on my artwork, soaking and sprouting grains, cooking everyday, making sure the kitchen doesn't explode, working out every weekday, trying to research better eating habits (throw out the fat free, racid oil and processed crap, bring on the full-fat dairy, bone broths and quality produce!), and figuring out how to do all that on a budget. I think I need 72-hour days. I think I'll get this eventually, but in the meantime, I could use some of those prayers/thoughts/goodvibes...

Walking on the Wildside with Rafflecopter

So I think I may be more insane than normal.

You see, there's this fabulous book/DVD set that I have been drooling over for a loooooooooong time, as in as soon as I heard of it.

Behold! Making Babies by Shoshanna Easling. I have watched some of Shoshanna's Youtube videos and read a few other things she has done and wow, does she ever speak to my sensibilities when it comes to health and nutrition (of course, I'm saying this as I finish the last Mt. Dew in the house. At least I hope it will be that last!).

So why have I lost my mind? I actually entered an online raffle for it, through the blog Keeper of the Home. http://www.keeperofthehome.org  I would REALLY love this. And to buy it outright is $110 of money I don't have. Honestly if it weren't an issue, I would send Shoshanna all the money right this second. But I am no where near made of money and since my mom in recovering from her surgery (quite nicely too), money is fantastically tight. Tight as in cutting off circulation. Ick.

So I guess ...Wish me luck?

A Prayer from a Scared Daughter

Dear Jesus,

I'm really terrified right now. I didn't realize how bad it is until now. I'm avoiding silly things because it feels like those things will make this all the more real. I'm scared of what will happen tomorrow. I'm scared for my mother. Her surgery tomorrow is fairly routine, laproscopic and shouldn't take very long. But I'm scared. I'm very scared.

I'm trying find reasons to ignore what's going on. I'm putting off even calling the local zoo to make sure Missy will have a wheelchair when we go on Saturday. As if that would make it any easier to deal with this. It won't and I know it. So I guess I'll pause here and call the zoo.

And they were absolutely no help whatsoever. Fully-automated information systems don't answer that sort of question very well. Oh well. I'll try again later.

I'm also trying not to get angry when my mom tells me all these things that need to be done and adds a bunch of stuff that isn't that important. I know how to clean a bathroom. Really. I know she just nervous though and doesn't want to come back to a mess. Not that the common areas of the house are ever really that bad. But that's beside the point. I need to do this for Mom, whether I'm having a conniption silently in the corner or not.

I'm scared also that I'm going to lose it in the two weeks or so after the surgery. I'm going to be doing everything for real this time and I'm scared of it. I'm terrified of my mother relying on me.

Please help me. Give me the strength to get through all of this. I know that with You, I can get through this intact.

Thank You so much.

In Jesus's Name,
  Amen.

To Etsy or Not To Etsy?

To continue my little reference there, that is the question.

I have wanted to sell some of my work for ages. I have a few problems with it but the main problem is, where do I sell? I don't want this to be a full-fledged business, just a side thing. It really comes down to having some skills that often require financial investment and I simply don't have that. I'm a homemaker and my hubby and I are having to learn budgeting the hard way as we were never taught as kiddos. Add that my mother, our roommate, is having surgery this Friday, so she will be off work for a bit.

So yeah, not a whole lot of money running around in this household. And yet here I sit, wondering how I'm going to afford a new graphics tablet. Oh Wacom Bamboo Create, why are you so out of my reach?

But it doesn't have to be so out of my reach. And that's where Esty may come in. I would really like to sell some of my work to fund this. I was originally going to go through Kickstarter but I'd rather not ask people to fund that part of my materials. Plus...I could use it sooner rather than later. I've been so very behind on my art, it's driving me bonkers.

Esty seems like a possible solution for this predicament but I'm not so sure about it at the same time. One, I don't know what of my many things I do I should try to sell. Two, would Etsy be the right place for me considering I have to pay to post my work. Yet it isn't that much and in the end I would make more. Then again, I'd have to sell my work first.

I know I should definitely look around Etsy to see if anything I do make shows up among the many things offered there. I have art I can sell as prints, stuffed animals, and knitted items I could do. I'm also working on my sewing so something could be made of perfected projects. But I just don't know.

Maybe this is more a confidence issue than anything else but how has it worked for people out there in the wild yonder of the internet?

Picture of the Day:

How I hope my Etsy Adventures go...

D and D, My Flab, and All I Wish to Grow

Hello again Internet People. I seem to have very little to post about lately that isn't complaining and what have you. So I'm going to try and limit that in this post. I'll do my very best but I'm not so good at it. So please bear with me while I work on this.

One of my more recent undertaking has been a Dungeons and Dragons campaign that my hubby has been DMing until level ten. We are currently around level four so we have a way to go. But that's not the point of this. I'm planning on turning our campaign into a comic soon. I know I know, it's not like I don't have a million other projects in this brain of mine. But I really can't help it because what's happened thus far is pure gold. Seriously. I have two words, which I will explain at a later time. Undulating Skin. Yes. Let that settle in your mind for a moment. Gross, isn't it?

Now here's my one complaint. Thus far, I've been working very hard to lose weight so I can be far healthier than I ever have been. Yet I seem to be getting no where fast. Of course, my husband buying a bunch of soda didn't help much because I have a HUGE weakness to it. Even as I type this, the Mt Dew is flowing...~sigh~ I'm really bad at this. It's why I hate buying these things. I can't resist and there goes any of my progress. I need to be better at this. I can do all things because Jesus gives me the strength, I just need to ask! Please pray that I finally have some success at this. I means a lot but I've never lost weight before so this is very new to me.

I've mentioned before that I'm an ambitious person. I have a great deal I would like to do for my family. My husband and mother are diabetic and I may not be far behind on that one so healthy food is a huge thing for me. As such, I have a passion for starting a garden, culturing things like yogurt and sourdough, and cleaning with less harmful solutions. This has grown into a desire to homestead. I want our household to be able to take care of itself and not rely on conventional produce and mass-produced crap.

I've discovered this sort of desire often breeds new interests. Now I've found myself wanting chickens. Chickens led to goats, ducks, pigs and cows. Honestly I'd love to have a small farm, just a little one that could provide my family with food and a tiny part of the income. I'm not sure if its feasible though. It drives me crazy though, because it seems the best way to take care of those I love.

I have thought of alternative ways that make it a little better without becoming a full-fledged farmer. There are plenty of places I can find better quality meat around here. Fish is a bit of challenge (may have to raise my own). Vegetables and fruit are available through CSAs and farmer's markets until I can start growing things myself. I'm not sure about grains. I may need to do some research for quality grains in bulk.

It always seems like I'm fighting for this and yet I can't do a tenth of what I want to do. Blargh. There I went again, complaining...

Today's Picture:

I don't own this. It's just sheer hilarity.
Thank you to the guy who made basketball better and to the person who snapped this picture.

Holy Noseplosion Chiroptera Male!

Chiroptera = bat. So yes, the title is a reference to Batman. But I don't like Batman all that much, so Chiroptera Male!

Any way, I've been sick with an allergy-induced cold for the past few days (stupid vacuum cleaner being all full of dust and crap...), so I have had a lot of time to think about every story I have except the one I'm supposed to be working on. I seem to be really good at that.

But there is good news! I've finally broken my "drawing guys" block. One again, my character Bram from Lark Song, has helped me with that one. I've been putting off drawing him in his half- transformed werewolf form because it involves mostly naked man chest. I'm pretty terrible at that but it turned out really well. I'm still trying to figure out how to make the proper balance between a werewolf head with all that neck ruff and their legs which tend to seem soooo much smaller in light of the neck rough and manly muscular shoulders. Fem werewolves are so much easier in that respect since women have that lower center of gravity, thanks to wider hips.

Now I'm concerned that I won't be able to reproduce such good results, especially considering the next male character on the list is a Japanese dragon man who is based off a friend of mine (and my hubby's) who is decidedly not Japanese (whom we call King of the Wild Frontier. You can find his blogs here: http://caseybutlerkingofthewildfrontier.blogspot.com and here: http://parachutepete.blogspot.com  Visit him. Love him!). I'm also not well versed in dragon drawing in general, let alone the Eastern varieties. Lungs are decidedly different than the European wyrm-style ones. And that's just the beginning. I also have to design a rock golem man, a volcano golem man and three werewolf children, another weakness of mine.

And those are just the main characters. There's all kinds of other lychanthropes in this story of mine, from something as simple at a were-elephant, to horrible composite creatures that eat people. What have I gotten myself into?

Well I can at least show y'all the good things that I have done so far, excluding anything of Lark because those would spoil the whole plot. Pardon the crappy cell phone images. At least that means people are less likely to filch my work. So yeah, no stealing my brain children.

This is Drew in her normal form. I gained a lot of confidence having drawn her.

Here is Alfa. Isn't she cute?

And here is the wolf-man who gave me so much trouble. He's not done yet.

If I could kick my own butt, I would be

Hello Internet Peoples!

Since I'm a homemaker without kids yet, I get to spend a lot of time in my head. I sometimes wonder if it's too much but that's not the point of this post. I have two main goals right now, and recently added a third one. I'm great at setting goals. I'm also terrible at making them happen. And it's driving me nuts!

So for once in my life, I'm going to actually get things done. The first goal is actually the one that seems to be going well. My goal is lose weight in preparation for having future children, which I have mentioned before. This is a huge stretch for me. I've been on the larger side of life for as long as I can remember. If I wasn't heavier than average, I was taller than all the kids my age (from age 4 to 10, when I was genuinely big and tall. After that, the guys were slowly catching up to my height). But no more! I actually managed to work out almost every weekday in July and August is going to be much the same. So how have I earned a butt-kicking?

Weekends. Weekends have been murder for me. Some of it is my own fault because I don't like exercising around other people, least of all my mother. On the weekends, she's already taken over the Wii, which is what works best for my antisocial self. But that's not the worst part. The weekends are when my mom cooks, or at least is supposed to be. Usually she cooks one of the six weekend meals and either I do the rest   (good) or my hubby and I have to grab something as we run various errands, go to church on Saturday night (yay Veritas!) and set up the chairs for the Sunday morning service. This is a recipe for disaster because it's usually copious amounts of nutritionally bankrupt crap, even if its tasty.

At least the solution is obvious, not eating the crap and eating less of it if that's what's available. I've also gone from doing a thirty minute workout to two hours. This isn't workable for most people, but at the moment I have time to spare for that kind of thing. I did the fully two hours for the first time today, and honestly I feel better than I've ever had.

Now for the newest goal, since the last one has more to do with what this blog is about. I really want to stop complaining about everything all the time. I'm really bad about this, especially when it comes to my mother. I let my self get all worked up about things and then I become the most negative person I can possibly be. So no more of that. As cliche' as it is, the whole "if you can't say something nice" saying is very applicable.

Finally, I'm currently working on one and only one of my stories in earnest right now, in hopes of publishing the darn thing soon. I'm trying to get more groundwork done so that I have a more complete work when I start it as a Kickstarter project ( www.kickstarter.com ). But I'm letting my short comings and insecurities get in the way of my work. I'm nervous about my male characters because I've never been very good at drawing them. I'm also fantastically bad at architecture as I can't draw a straight line with a ruler and a T-square, yet I'm working on a story set on a college campus so BUILDINGS GALORE! I hate when I get scared into inaction simply because I struggle with the more subtle curves of the male figure and Euclidean forms.

I have to be bold. Why is that so difficult?

For today's picture, I give you this:

Baby Sugar Glider, you are the cutest!