Amazing mental clarity from the fresh air

I just came back from a 5-day vacation at Trout Lake with a lot on my mind. Meaning my mind was distracted and muddled. Feeling depressed a little bit and wondering where I was going to go with my business and my artwork. Working on T-Shirt designs has been toiling on me and I never wanted to work on anything. So when my aunt invited me to go to Trout Lake with her I said yes, I would love to come.
Apart from enjoying the gorgeous scenery I was doing a lot of thinking and processing about myself and where I wanted to go with my life. I realized that I have put a lot of financial strain on my husband without realizing it. Then I realized that I HATE working at home! I am not really happy with our home as it is. I don't like having my work space and our bedroom in the same space. It feels restricting and suffocating in there. Also the fact that the bedroom lacks the natural light that I need to work. I realized that I work best with some natural light shinning in a room. Two rooms that fit this description are the living room and the kitchen. Although, sometimes I don't like working in these spaces because it doesn't have the same privacy that I like when I am alone in a room with a door. I feel like even if I solve this problem I will still have trouble working.

During my stay at Trout Lake I got some work done! I was able to sketch like mad and I came up with some great designs! and I started to do the line art on the computer and everything. I was excited to work and draw again.

But I wasn't home.

Again, after much internalizing I came to the conclusion that I have to get a job. I would really love to be drawing for a living but if I can't do it when I am home then I won't be able to do it. However, I think that if I get a job I will be able to come home and do my art and want to do anything else that I want/ need to do. So here are my goals for April:

Get a part-time job

Produce at least 10 different designs for April (If successful then bump up to 15)

Cook meals for my family

Work out at least an hour everyday

Tell my husband everyday that I love him

The last one is more important. Here's to changing my life for the better. 

"From the end spring new beginnings."

-Pliny the Elder

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Strange Dreams

I had a weird set of dreams...

Jack Nicholson was at our apartment and talking with my mom who was here for some reason and we were chatting. Then he left to get some deli food. It was crazy.

Another part of my dream. There were these aliens that bored into people's minds and controlled them as a hive mind. I didn't know what was going on. I knew that the guy who was at our house was a part of the aliens but really I have never seen him before (In real life). Then there was a black Rottweiler that appeared to me and tried to possess me but I was too strong for it and I wouldn't let it. Then my husband came in and saw that I was being attacked by nothing since he couldn't see the rottweiler but I could. I was trying so hard not to let the dog enter my body. I discovered by the way my husband was acting about the dog that something was wrong. After beating the dog back I realized that a darker power was at work to I asked for Satan to appear before me. When he showed up he was fat and messy. He had long grey hair and beard and he was smoking a cigarette  I asked him what was happening and confirmed  that my husband had become apart of the aliens. My husband sat on a bed and looked contented. I noticed that he had an X scar on his forehead. The other guy had a hole that looked fleshy and open in his brain as well as the X scar on the forehead. I didn't see the fleshy hole on my husband but I knew that it was there. It made me upset inside. Satan told me that I was chosen to become the egg carrier. Which means as soon as I had the alien inside me I would die after the egg process, whatever that was. I asked him if there was anyway that I could die less painfully and he said no. I asked to be euthanize and he said no. Since the aliens needed a warm human host and if I held the eggs and was then euthanized that could kill them. He told me that if I had just become possessed that I wouldn't have felt any pain. I was trying to figure out how to die or live when the alarm went off and I woke up.

Then I fell back asleep after my alarm and I was dreaming that I was trying to get somewhere and I  had a little scooter. I thought that it would be quicker to take a shortcut through a court hose/library. Turns out that it wasn't much of a shortcut. I got to the security check point and I asked the really tall, larger than life (he looked like a basketball player but taller, way taller) security guard how to leave and he pointed to the exit across the room, but I couldn't leave without purchasing something or checking out a book. A librarian took over and said if I bought some little juice box I could leave no problem. So I got out my wallet gave her a card that wasn't mine (it was my mom's for some reason but it didn't say my mom's name, it was a joke name) and I getting ready to scooter out of the building then I woke up.

Posted new designs!

I have some new designs that I have posted on zazzle.com and redbubble.com

There are available in men's, women's, and child sizes. 

Designs are at: Zazzle and Redbubble

Happy (Belated) New Year

I was reading some of my old posts and... wow... I was a pompous ass. Well, maybe not pompous but arrogant maybe? I don't know... 

In any case... yeah... 

I have had one hell of a year last year. I was depressed and going through some major anxiety issues relating to school. I dropped out of Ai. I quit my crappy job and my husband and I moved across the river to Vancouver, WA. I was depressed that my art career was/is (currently) going nowhere. I am currently just a unemployed artist who's husband's income pays for everything. All the while I didn't know who I was or what I really wanted to do with my life. 

I notice that I always do this... I always talk about my life this way. Spilling my guts out on the internet, hoping someone would comment or check on me. As if I was asking for attention. Since most of my life I have been in the background, even to myself. Like I was watching my life from the backseat with no one driving. Okay, maybe not that bad. 

But, I digress. 

Truth is I don't care who reads this or who responds or whatever. Really. I don't care what people think of me because I am who I am. I am a complex and unique human being. No one can define who I am. No one can tell me who or what I am. For a long time through out my childhood, people have been trying to figure me out. Find out what makes me tick. Trying to shape me in their images or put me into they're categorized boxes. The truth is, no one can do that to me. No one can change me.

With this knowledge finally sinking in, I feel better about my self than I ever have before. I am strong! I have started eating better and working out my body so that I be healthy again. I have started a health blog, I write in it everyday after every workout. I am feeling better about my self and I feel like my life has a purpose again. I want to start my freelancing art business again. I am drawing almost everyday. From the day that I realized that I can take control of my life by becoming healthy and living again... I feel like I can take on the world. 

I wrote a phrase that I have on my gtalk account for those who are able to chat with me: "Facing today's challenges with a smile on my face" because it's true. Life isn't all sunshine and roses all the time. But, it isn't constantly problematic and chaotic either and that was something that I feared. I feared life. I feared that everyday would be hell. The only way that everyday was going to be hell is because I believed that everyday WAS going to be hell. But if I just believed in myself, I could just walk in and out with a smile on my face. Sure I am not perfect but I don't have to be. Just taking it one day at a time and letting go of the past is what is really important. Not letting everything get to me. Sure things annoy me and always will but I don't have to hang on to them. What's done is done and tomorrow is a new day.  

Anyway, I am rambling a bit... but this is what I have been doing with myself. Fixing my life so that I can enjoy it. And if problems come up I will be facing them with a smile on my face. 

(BTW- Probably going to be posting some art up here pretty soon. As soon as I figure out how to get the art from my tablet into Photoshop on my laptop)

Plan of action

So after much discussion, my husband and I are going to move to California next year. I am dropping out of Ai (the Art Institute) and I am going to go to PCC to take some pre-req classes. I am going to start learning a language (most likely Spanish). I am going to take my knowledge test for my driver's license next week. Which makes me happy, I am FINALLY going to get my license! I am excited! After a year we are going to move to Cali and live there for a year and then hopefully I will get into Fullerton. Fullerton has a really awesome art department and the kind of school pace that I can learn and absorb knowledge instead of cramming it all in like how it is at Ai. I am sure that some people can learn like that but I can't. That was an expensive lesson to learn.
My husband just got a permanent position in his job which will teach him a lot and give really good job experience. The best part is that can will be able to take that job title anywhere. I know after all I have said and all the lessons that I have had to learn, I just feel like this is the right course of action. There is nothing for me here and I was fooling my self thinking that I could stay here and suffer through my education to learn things that I didn't want to learn. I am excited and for the first time in a while I feel really happy.

Where to go from here?

There is always a time, at least once a month, where I feel like I am heading nowhere. I work really hard and at the end of the day I feel like I have nothing to show for it. 

I hate my job, which is something that I have said for years but I don't know how else to get out. However, I do know one way and it was the way I did it before, but that takes planning and time and resources. But it also means freedom. That I would finally be free! Away from this job and this city. I am almost at the point where I say to hell with responsibilities and why not get out of this god awful place. The time for that has passed, since I now have a husband and going to school. But what about breaking free?  What about getting out? I want to break free! I want to get out! 

There have been things that I have been dealing with and things that I have not been dealing with. I am trying to get sorted out at the same time making more of a mess of what I truly want. 

What do I truly want? 

I want... to go to California. I want to go back. There is nothing for me here... and even when I graduate art school I don't feel like it is the right place to be. I think I want to start again in California and make a fresh start. I know I can make it there. I don't want to go to the Art Institute any more and I don't want to go to PNCA. I want to go to Fullerton. Only problem, I need a year of residency in California, which I don't have. I could transfer to the Art Institute down in Santa Monica but same problem, no cheaper tuition. I feel stuck... and I need to be released. 

The job hunting is failing, the longer it takes the worse it is for me at my current job. I don't know what else to do. I am not giving up, I am just not sure if what I am doing is right. The Art Institute isn't right for me and I don't want to go there anymore. However, PNCA isn't really right for me either. I don't know... sometimes I wish I could hit a reset button. I am sure that things would have been different... I just want things to be different now. 

Wish Me Luck!

I am so excited! I have a job interview tomorrow!!!! I know I am going to get it because it is going to be awesome!!!! I can't wait! I am finally going to be free from my horrible job! YAY!!!! Wish me luck everybody!