My grandma started her chemotherapy this week.  Her anxiety filled mind that tells her it is the end will age her faster than the chemo.  I hope she chooses to be more optimistic.

I am not sure why it has taken me five years to realize that if my budget has not worked for me, I should develop a new budget.  It’s not exaclty rocket science, but I guess comfort zones are just too irresistable.  So starting in November I am implementing a new budget, one that both my husband and I can follow (he is not as good with money as I am).  I think that was one of the main problems I created.  I followed the same type of budget that I used when I was single.  Hopefully creating something that will meet his needs as much as my own will help us see more financial progress.  I also need to set clear goals and actually work toward them.  It is easy to pretend that I have goals, but to actually set them and work toward them is a different story.

Over the years I have learned that it is much easier for me to make myself inaccessible than to later learn that I’m not needed.  It really is kind of a screwed up defense mechinism, but at least I recognize it.  Sure, it jumps in and bails me out, and sometimes it is really helpful.  But when it jumps in at the wrong times to defend, it only means that I fail to create more intimate bonds with people, and that is unfortunate. 

These things have been surfacing, and I am curious to see the healing God has in store for me.  When I start to prayerfully work on these issues in my life, it always makes me wonder what kind of test is waiting for me around the corner.  What is it that I will face were I will need to have this defense mechinism in check?

Change is difficult when it makes you realize you aren’t as important as you thought.

The Ben Folds concert was so much fun.  It was nice to hear him with the orchestra because it brought out some different sides to his songs as if they all had little personalities.  It was quite enjoyable.  It seemed to take him a few songs to warm up, but once he did, he was on fire.  He talked a lot too, which just adds more flavor to the mood.  Now if I could have only eliminated the two guys sitting behind me that talked louder than my grandpa snores, the concert would have been nearly perfect.

My staircase must be in a very bad mood because we’ve treated it so badly this week.  It all started when my cat decided it would be a good idea to throw up as he was running down the stairs.  It doesn’t take much imagination to picture the mess that caused.  I’ll spare you the details by just saying that he started vomiting half way down the stairs and nastiness landed on every step (and the wall) from that point on. 

Then the next day my husband went upstairs to make two tuna fish sandwiches for dinner.  I was playing a game when I heard a crash coming down the stairs.  There was some silence and then I heard the painful whimpers from my husband.  I jumped up to see if he was okay.  The light was off so I couldn’t see the damage yet, but as soon as we determined he was okay and he turned on the light, I saw the mess before me.  He only managed to fall about half way down the steps (thankfully), but his poor tuna fish sandwiches didn’t survive the fall.  Pieces of tuna, bread and cheese decorated every step and the wall as if they exploded on impact.  Actually, there is no ‘as if’ about it.  They did explode on impact.  Once I saw a piece of cheese by itself at the bottom of the steps I started laughing uncontrollably.  I couldn’t help myself.  It was a tuna disaster.  My poor husband was so disappointed.  He just wanted to eat his sandwiches and relax. 

So, now I am just waiting for my fall.  It’s been a while since I have fallen down stairs, and my time is probably due.  I use to have a reputation for falling down stairs, but I’ll save those stories for another time.

Ben Folds concert tonight =

Do yourself a favor.  Pat yourself on the back and go listen to some Ben Folds.  You deserve it!

I have to finish up a cat portrait for Monica’s boyfriend, Matthias.  But, then I am going to work on a fanart drawing of Daenerys Targaryen from the book A Game of Thrones.  She isn’t my favorite character, not even close, but I find her intriguing enough to draw her mainly because I think her design will be fun to draw.  Silver hair and purple eyes!  I’ll post the sketch in the sketch blog once its finished.  For now I need to get back to that cat. 

So far I still like tumblr, so I may keep my blog here.  I don’t know exactly what I will do with the freewebs site.  Maybe I will eventually turn it into an online store if I ever get around to creating good artwork.  Or, I could set it up as a gallery, or even set up a more specific website, like a site for games or whatever.  Hmm … so many possibilities.

One specific thing I do like about tumblr is how easy it is to queue posts.  When I write, I typically am in the mood to write something, and I will often have many ideas at one time.  But, then I often go a few days with nothing to write.  Now I can easily write each idea, but set them in the queue to be published at specified times.  That way I can keep my posting more regular. 

Monica’s boyfriend liked her cat portrait so much he wants a drawing of his cat.  He is a black cat, which I think could possibly be difficult to draw because you have to make sure you are showing enough shades to show volume.  In other words, I can’t be lazy.

Since I am not made of money, I typically draw pictures for Christmas presents, and I always take some portrait commissions from people at work.  So, I need to prep myself for the busy work ahead of me.  The problem with doing portrait commissions is that I tend to get bored after doing so many, so I really need to make sure I am either experimenting with my style enough to not get bored or make sure that I am doing plenty of other personal drawings.  Of course, I am drawing a picture of Wade Robson for my sister, and I doubt I will get bored staring at him. :)

Multiple posts in one day!  I am on a roll.  Anyway, I bought Final Fantasy XII, and so far I absolutely hate it.  I really want to like it, but only five minutes into the game I am as bored as a sloth.  Other final fantasy games were recommended to me, but this was the only one the store had at the moment, so I took the chance.  I am really hoping that gameplay picks up, but I have a feeling that the gameplay is the thing I will hate the most with this game.  Why the heck would I want to click x only to have a menu pop up making me pick the type of action I want and then wait and watch the action take place?  Boring.  Why not just go up and seamlessly perform the action without going through a stupid menu?  Are all the games like this?  I really hope not.  I can see that working for a strategy game like Civilization or a game like the Sims but not this.  Maybe it just wasn’t what I expected and I should give it more of a chance, but I really hope the other games are better.  I guess I really can’t hate a game after only 5 minutes, so I will play a little longer.  Maybe my opinion will change. 

I’m at work and just looked down at my shirt.  I realized that I am wearing a dirty shirt with a stain straight across my boobs.  Sometimes I wonder how people even function in the morning, and I am typically a morning person.  It makes me wish my work day was shorter, and that I could wake up on my own time and come in to work when I’m good and ready.  I’m tired of this rolling out of bed at 5:45am crap.

I was checking game faqs to find the new release date for Silent Hill: Shattered Memories, and like I always do when I lurk around a silent hill forum, I stumbed across a thread basically stating that Amercians suck and only the Japanese can make games.  That attitude is really getting dated.  I’ll be the first to admit that I enjoyed the first few silent hill games made by team silent more so than I liked the last two games made by American developers.  But, let’s not forget that silent hill 4 made by team silent also did not live up to its predecessors.  Let’s face it, the concept was pretty amazing, but the gameplay and level design was below par.  Don’t get me wrong, it was still a better game than many that I’ve played, but within the series it was lacking.  I guess I could probably state something similar about the third game in the series.  I really loved the game especially the atmosphere, but the story was a direct sequel to the first game so I can’t exactly say that it was very original.  Does that mean Team Silent was already losing steam after only two games?  Possibly.  Homecoming definitely had its own set of flaws, but I am not going to ignore the fact that other games in the series also had flaws.  It isn’t like Team Silent is so perfect that they poop gold.  I think what I would prefer to see people do is actually be realistic and discuss the positives and negatives of both developers.  Getting to the bottom of what actually works or doesn’t work for this series is what will keep it alive, not this attitude that we should totally bash a certain culture.  I feel that people forget that Team Silent was actually influeced by many American story tellers.  They meshed American and Japanese influences, and created my favorite series. 

The good news is that the Ben Fold’s concert is less than a week away.  The bad news is that I am feeling even more sick than I did last week, but I am still not full blown sick.  If it is just waiting to pounce on me right before the concert, I will be so mad.

I gave Monica her birthday present, which was a drawing of her cat.  She loved it, and then of course did her job of embarrassing me by parading it around the office for everyone to see. *blushes*  Can you tell I’m a little shy.  But, I appreciated the love.

My weekend with my sister was great.  We finally beat the game Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance 2.  We have been trying to beat it for years now, but just kept puting it to the side despite our geeky love for the game.  Now, it can finally rest in peace, at least until we decide to try different characters and get another game going for months and months. 

I am going on a date tonight (with my husband of course!), but I don’t know where we are going.  Maybe I can talk him into the seafood buffet. Yum!

I guess if tumblr doesn’t work for me, my next step will be to try blogger again. 

So far what I have learned from tumblr is that I know very little about html, but just enough to get me in trouble.  Oh, the headaches I have caused!  One little code placed in the wrong spot, or deleted by accident, and the entire profile page has to be redone.  But, I think I am satisfied, at the moment at least, with the end result.  Does this mean that I will stay with tumblr?  I guess I am not quite sure yet.  I still want to test things out, but it does seem like once I stop messing with the html everything should run smoothly.  And, I really like how easy it is to post pictures and music.  Freewebs is far more user friendly when it comes to finding templates, but overall this may be easier to use in the long run.  I will keep posting here to see what I like.

Here I go again with a new blog host.  The problems with freewebs are the advertisments on the top of the page, and the lack of community.  It was hard to get a blog noticed and difficult to find other bloggers.  The good thing about freewebs was that it was an actual website, not just a blog.  I liked the ability to make multiple pages.  However, I think it is time for me to test some other hosts until I find what I am looking for.  What am I looking for?  I think from almost the beginning (at least once I started to draw), I wanted something that gave me a personal blog and a seperate blog that I could use as a sketch blog.  Free webs got the ball rolling for me, but it was a pain to keep a page just for sketches and my drawing ramblings.  Tumblr may be the next step for me because of its ability to allow more than one blog within one account.  I don’t need anything incredibily fancy.  I really just need something where I can continue to practice my writing skills, and have something where I can post my art studies.  Just like writing on a regular basis improves writing, having something to keep me accountable to draw on a regular basis obviously improves my art skills.  I am definitely not shutting down the other site, at least not immediately.  I want to test this one out first.  But, hopefully this will be my new blogging home, at least until I am bored again.