Wow it's definitely been a while. Let's see where to start...my four year old started preschool! I have to say dropping him off and leaving him somewhere for 3.5 hours is actually pretty difficult. He's my one and only and basically haven't really been apart from him ever so the first day was rough. It's getting easier, but definitely harder for me than for him. It's just weird having my house so oddly quiet!
In other news I got a HiDive account to access of course more anime. A friend came to visit and got me addicted to Oshi no Ko and HiDive is the only place you can watch it. I went into the show having no idea what it was about and I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was a murder mystery and not a cute show about idols XD. I'm very much addicted to it and looking forward to the next season. I have seen a bit of the manga and there are a few things that worry me going forward in the plot that I hope don't happen, but I'm not going to ruin anything for you! Another one on there that I've really enjoyed called The Eminence in Shadow. It has a bit of fan service so if that's not your thing it might not be for you, but the humor of the show actually had me laughing out loud a few times. The plot was genuinely amusing to me and I had a good time watching it. I'm looking forward to season 2 of that one as well which from what I've see should be coming out soon. Something I'm really looking forward to next month is The Apothecary Diaries!!! I adore the manga soooo much. If you haven't read it, it's about a girl named Maomao who lived with her adoptive father and studied being an apothecary under his tutelage. She also has an extreme obsession with poisons. While out gathering herbs she gets abducted by people who sell "relatives" to the palace as servants and then collect a percentage of their pay. She ends up working in the palace and gaining the attention of various people becomes a food tester for poison. While there she solves various mysteries that arise. The anime of this manga is coming to crunchyroll sometime in October! I can't wait to watch it! I love manga, but it's always fun to see it adapted to the characters "living" on screen.
Art wise I think I burned myself out a bit during artfight in July. I'm hoping to get back to things in October if I can find a good challenge sheet. Nothing like OCtober or inktober to help get back into the creative realm. I do have a few pieces that I'd like to post here when I get a moment. I feel like I've just had a lot going on. We just spent the last week or so being sick and finally recovered from it. (Yay exposure due to preschool). I hope you're all staying healthy and thanks for reading!!
It has definitely been a while since I updated here! We just had so much going on...holidays followed by my son's 4th birthday followed by hospital trips. Life has seriously been a bit exhausting lately. Back in March my kiddo turned four and we had a great birthday party for him with balloons, pinata, and even a cake decorated to look like Pororo his favorite cartoon character. We had a bunch of family and friends over to help celebrate and wouldn't you know it...someone was sick. Who? No idea...well a few ideas, but long story short we all got sick. Now recently I had taken my son to his yearly check up and told the doctor I was suspicious that perhaps he has asthma just because I noticed after running around a lot he usually starts coughing. He prescribe albuterol to see if it helped. Well before I could fill the prescription we all got sick from his birthday. By that weekend it was obvious Sammy was super sick. We were miserable, but he was really not good. He had the runny nose and horrible cough, but it was so much worse. He was super lethargic and trying to take naps on his own. He seemed wobbly and when it was bed time I noticed he was breathing like he was running a marathon just trying to sleep. At midnight I called it and said we're going to the ER. After getting him checked in we get called over by the nurse who put the finger monitor on him to check blood pressure, heart rate, and oxygen levels. Immediately he tells us to take Sammy to a room. Turns out he was definitely in respiratory distress. They put him on a nebulizer and initiated breathing treatments. We ended up spending two nights in the hospital in the pediatrics wing. Seeing a toddler have to get an IV put in and with breathing mask on is probably one of the most heart breaking things ever. I have to say it was some of the worst mommy moments of my life. Luckily I felt the need to bring him in or things could have been so much worse. Since then we've been doing daily breathing treatments and likely he does indeed have asthma which is why this virus caused such an issue. He's recovered well and life has gone on with a new routine that will hopefully keep us from a return visit to the hospital. Right after we recovered from this was Easter. Then it just seems like various other things kept happening for a bit, but finally stuff is calming down.
On to the lighter stuff! Anime I've been watching lately is Shadows House, My Love Story with Yamada, The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague, and Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion. Shadows House started a little slow, but the story has developed so much since the start and I'm really enjoying it now! I just finished season one of it and I'm getting started on season 2. The whole concept is interesting and it kind of has almost a fairy tale kind of feeling to it. My Love Story with Yamada is just a fun Rom-com and as an online gamer I couldn't help, but feel some connection with the main characters. It makes me laugh and I love the parts where they interact online! The Ice Guy one I just finished and I'm kind of bummed I reached the end. It was just one of those super sweet anime that almost makes your teeth hurt it's so sweet. It was really just a ridiculous feel good anime. I liked the mix of yokai and people that they blended in it! Fun if you're looking for something light hearted and very much none serious. Finally Raeliana is still coming out and it's another Isekai (anime is super saturated with these right now) Honestly it's not a super original plot, but I'm enjoying seeing the characters develop and the relationship build between the main character and the Duke.
Drawing wise I have been drawing, but it's been kind of spread out. I've also been realizing that I've been forgetting to post them here and then when I do notice I have quite a few to post and I hate to flood the gallery with my stuff. I have to admit that I've also been feeling some art block and that unless I feel inspired I'm having a hard time creating good pieces. I've been thinking about finally starting commissions as well, but I'm seriously at a loss as to how to set the pricing. I suppose I'll figure it out eventually.
Other than all of that I've been squeezing in some video games. Grow: Song of the Evertree has kept me pretty pre-occupied. It's really cute and has some really creative ideas twisted in with the farming sim feel and town management. It's different in a good way and I really enjoy that.
Whelp if you've stuck with me and my rambling until here I thank you for reading my randomness! I hope to be putting up some cool pieces soon. Got two to post right now. Hope you're all staying healthy and have good things happening!
Well October has hit! We've been busy unfortunately not in the way I thought. The friend who has been living with us for a year and her son were due to move out last weekend, but alas they gave us one more parting gift croup. Her son was sick and he sneezed and spit (not malicious kid thing...hard to explain) in my son's face. Unfortunately my son got even sicker than hers did and we ended up going to urgent care with him having croup. He woke up unable to breath with the classic barking croup cough. Luckily croup sounds much worse than it is. We took him in and they gave him a dose of medicine to help and now we're recovering. Delayed the move for a week as we went into sick mode. I was holding up ok and got my first couple OC-tober drawings done when it hit me. I'm now woefully days behind! I feel a bit like OC-tober is cursed for me....
Aaaaanyways....enough whining! On a different note I just finished up Black Summoner and Parallel World Pharmacy. I loooooved Black Summoner...definitely had that harem feel, but the story is great and I'm looking forward to another season! I really like Parallel World Pharmacy, but I feel like it ended kind of abruptly. I like the whole idea and it was a little different from some of the isekai tropes we've been seeing a mess of lately. Book wise I've been reading The Abandoned Empress....I love this series so much! It's a manhwa (Korean comic)and it's just beautifully done. It is fantasy and takes place in a time of nobles etc. I liked that it wasn't just "reborn in another world" comic. The main character always existed in that time period, but gets to go back and relive her life differently. I've been buying it as it comes out, but not going to lie I got so into it I HAD to go and find it online so I could read the rest! It started off as a webtoon so it's all out online already. The books are lovely though and completely in color. They're a bit spendy, but they're really good quality! I also got caught up with Something Must Be Wrong With Us....which can best be described as a steamy soap opera! I mean there's murder, lust, mystery, and betrayal! It feels a bit like a guilty pleasure. I'm not sure how Japan does it, but they can make the most banal things into something really interesting. In this case it's wagashi (traditional Japanese tea sweets). Thinking about it though there was Chihayafuru which is based around karuta or Shion and March Comes in Like a Lion both based on shogi. Bravo Japan! There's a brief summary of what I've been up to. Let me know what you've been watching or reading I'd love to know! Thanks for reading to the end! 
Yep you read the title right we have snow right now on the ground in the middle of April. Woke up to around three inches this morning. I think most of the state is being hit with it though. Luckily none of us have to leave the house for work. Not that three inches around here is a lot by any means, but there are definitely people out there who are not prepared to drive in any snow. It reminds me of years past when I was walking to work and fought a polar bear and ended up fracturing my elbow and tearing the ligament in my wrist (Mind you I remember a polar bear, but other people might just remember me falling gracefully on black ice). It was a cold April 2nd...the day is imprinted into my memory...but that's a story for another time. This is generally just a quick what's been happening to me update so if these type of entries bore you I will not be offended if you stop now.
Anyways moving right along for those of you who have stuck with. The roommate and her child decided to bring a cold of epic proportions into our house. My husband, son, and myself have been sick for nearly two weeks at this point so I'm hoping it goes away soon. We've spent a few nights on the couch the ends of which are reclining so that my kiddo could sleep at an angle. Being slightly propped up made it so he could actually sleep without coughing the whole night. It's been a rough patch, but we're getting through it. During this time we've been doing a lot of chilling and just relaxing due to the low energy levels. We started watching a clay-mation children's show called Pingu. I'm not sure how many of you have seen it, but it's all about a family of penguins. They don't actually speak except according to my closed captions in penguinese. It's a little weird, but oddly cute? You have to watch it with closed captions! I can't stress this enough. I nearly died at the "stern penguinese", "cautionary penguinese", "cheerful penguinese".
I finally got my second volume of Monthly Girls' Nozaki-Kun. I have to say the manga is even funnier than the anime. I've had moments where I'm should my husband wondered if he married a mad woman as I was laughing loudly at something that happened on the pages of my book. There's more characters and some of the situations are just so insane that you can't help, but giggle at the events happening. I also finally got around to reading all of the Toilet Bound Hanako-kun books that I have. I think they came out with a book 0 that I want to snag it's a prequel and I'm looking forward to the next volume. It's such a fun cute series with that slightly creepy supernatural/horror twist that I really enjoy. On the anime front the second season of Rise of the Shield Hero is finally out! I've been debating watching it as it comes out or just waiting until most of it is out so I can binge it without being left hanging when they toss in the expected cliff hangers at the end of an episode.
For those of you who have made it this far thanks for sticking with me! I know my posts can get a bit rambling! On the art front I've been working on trying to get back into the flow of things. I just haven't been feeling at my creative best lately, but video games and books definitely help. I did the drawing and commission for my friend and I think that's helping. Moonfini gave me permission and some inspiration to draw her character Joy again so I am in the middle of working on that piece currently. I hope that by the time I recover from this dumb cold I'll be feeling back up to snuff for creating new and fun pictures. Thanks for hanging in there with me! Hope you all are staying healthy and having fun!
Well as many of you already know I've been trying to do the OC-tober challenge this year and life is truly making it a challenge. I'm officially ten days behind! We have a friend moving in with us along with her kiddo and so we've been adjusting and trying to figure out the new groove of things. We also had an impromptu vacation into the mountains. Chasing after two kiddos and trying to enjoy the scenery left little time for much else. Got to go to the zoo which was actually completely open this time, but it was a bit too crowded for comfort. So with all these excuses I'm finally getting back into the swing of producing my OC's for the month. I did have one idea for day 10, but scrapped it for the current one as I decided I liked it more. My mind has been trying to focus on multiple things like coming up with ideas for characters and where we can move stuff to create more room for everyone. Having a household go from three to five definitely makes things more crowded and it's amazing how much more mess there is from two toddler tornadoes instead of one. I'm not giving up though! Hopefully I'll be churning out more quality OC's it just might take me longer than I'd like. I've firmly given up on finishing them all by the end of the month. To those of you still doing the challenges on time I'm mad impressed and keep up the fantastic work!
Anime updates....man what have I been watching.... Tsukimichi a moonlit fantasy which wow it's so much fun and surprisingly serious at the same time! I've been watching Horimiya and it's fun to revisit. (I haven't seen the anime before, but I read the manga). I'm a sucker for a warm fuzzy anime although I'll take a tear jerker too...Your Lie in April comes to mind.... so good! so sad!! Uuumm... oh rewatching Rise of the Shield Hero as season 2 should soon be on it's way. Manga wise I have some catching up to do. I bought the entire box set for Tokyo Ghoul:Re (already had the first part), still working through Fushigi Yugi, and reading Toilet Bound Hanako Kun. Finding time for everything I'd like to do is getting difficult. Between hobbies, kiddos, friends, and house work life is pretty hectic! I must admit that I miss watching scary movies and horror stuff at this time of year. I've settled for horror podcasts that I can listen to through earbuds away from tiny ears. Kiddo already believes in monsters so don't want to give those monsters any new faces by watching something that might horrify him. I feel like eventually though you have a snapping point and start thinking....my parents showed me that and I'm a somewhat well adjusted adult....Anyway hope you're all doing well, staying healthy, and letting those creative minds spill out onto paper, ink, digital outlet, or whichever way you choose to express yourselves! Thanks for reading!
