The Realm

New icon. It's from the SpongeBob ep Procrastination where he has to write a report about what Not to do at a Stop light. When he finally gets around to writing he spends lots of time making a fancy THE to start his sentence wasting more time. I love this episode so much and this is what I am doing typing on LJ right now. This is bad haha. I'm trying to work on this year's card. I've drawn the sketch. I'll just spoil what it is. This card features my four apartment birds. Minion, Whitey, Emma and Nautica. But sometimes just opening the file in photoshop is an accomplishment in itself. I'm also trying to make art for some business cards. Luckily those will be easier because they will have art I've already made. I'm trying to promote my youtube channel in real life. I don't make any money on my channel but you all know I always share interesting things and more people should know about it. Especially Minion and my art ideas. I want those to be known and loved by the world. So these cards will feature Minion and Scary Fear. Funny enough I had to find my old art on my hard drive back ups. I remembered the Minion was around my birthday so when I pulled out June it was too soon. It did not exist yet. Then I pulled out Nov and well it was half done as I colored him for Christmas. Half the layers were missing. Arg still wrong time period. It's like time traveling. You have to keep these things in mind you might think you have the right month and year but things might not be totally complete yet. So by March of next year I finally had the right files to work with. I need to add a mic to Minion's wing. It's something I'd been meaning to do since last year's Christmas for this very reason. Talk about procrastination. INTJs are bad about it too but at least we finsh most of our projects even if it takes us 50 years.

So I've been working on wreaths still. Making Christmas ones because the people I plan to make gifts for told me Christmas was their fave holiday. So you can imagine I've had a hard time finding materials as we're in Christmas right now. One of these people is my vet. I want to make something nice for her. She's been amazing.

So Minion and Whitey got sick a while back. Minion seemed poofy and less energetic and so did Whitey. I didn't like the look of his poops. They got antibiotics and are doing better now, but a follow up is in order. I don't think Minion got rid of his bacteria completely. But you know how it is. You can't just get in as soon as you want. I don't go back til the 14th. That was the soonest. The only good thing about that is I have time to save for the bill. Oh and I'm getting a new parrotlet to replace Melville. I'm taking in my vet's pet that is mean nasty and wild. I don't care, I just need a breeder. He's all green. A normal and has a tumor on his wing but is healthy other wise. Again I just need a breeder. He acts normal and the tumor is benign so technically clean bill of health for him. And if it doesn't work out I can bring him back. I love that because I tell that to my customers when I sell birds. I don't care how old or how many years they can bring my babies back for whatever reason whenever.

Speaking of new babies I really REALLY want a black female doberman. Been watching lots of videos about them. Been looking at dog toys and supplies. But what's holding me back is two things. The lack of fence and that we can't put a dog door anywhere the way the house is set up. Though I'm home all the time I know I won't be at some point and then who would let her out to use the bathroom? Also right now we don't have room inside because we're still getting rid of stuff. I might do some major rearranging in the living room today to make room.

Well I've goofed off long enough. I better get back to working on something.
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I have been so busy lately. I have finished the cards. I think... Seems I always leave someone out or a last minute person appears I need to send one to. Luckily I have extras left just in case. I cleaned the budgies in my room and dusted my computer desk. I'm very happy about that.

So it's official. I like cactuses and have started to collect them. I know the plural is actual "cacti" but that dangling "i" looks stupid so I refuse to say or write it that way. I think my faves are mostly from South America. Almost everything I have is from there with a few that are from Mexico. Oddly enough I don't think I have any American ones other than my Saguaros. I don't know why I don't count those.

Time is running out for Christmas and for the new year coming. I hope I have time to do some mild decorating and some last minute art. As in a full completed digital art even if it's simple like my icon. The birds are all doing well. I think I'll stop here and I should get back to it.
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I finished the art for the Christmas card yesterday and started printing. It's looking very nice. The only stupid thing is that the "card paper" I bought last year for this is too thin. It's glossy and lovely but it is soft like a brochure. It came with envelopes and I see they tried to make up for that by using thick textured envelopes. The envelopes are ugly with a red line on the back. I have nice colored ones but they are made of paper so these cards would get crushed in the mail. So I do have to use the ugly envelopes the paper came with. Other than that dumb thing they look great. I hope my printer ink holds for as many as I'll need.

I'm working on making paracord grab handles for my neighbor for all the work her and her husband have done on my jeep. I hope I can finish this in time. They have a four door and I'd love to make them a full set of handles. But wow that's a big gift. That's four handles for each door, four door catches and two rear seat handles. I'm gonna need a lot more paracord. I've also misplaced at least three D rings. I'm waiting on several to come in the mail still, but they are coming from China. I hope some of them get here within this month at least. After this I need to make a full set for myself. Luckily I have a 2 door so I only need half as many handles.

I've been working in the garage again trying to meet my end of the year deadline. It's getting close. I've actually gone through all of the photos finally. I think. With my mother's stuff as you know she has tons of it. Multiple copies of the same photo in different packs. Even when she had stuff put on CD she had copies of the CD over and over like 10 copies. WTF? No joke. And what's worse is they were copies of bad photos. I threw out at least five CD's of nothing but the same 10 blurry flower pics. WHY keep that let alone make so many CD's. I get so mad that she was so wasteful and irrational and I'm still paying for that. To make things worse the photos and boxes smelled disgusting. Some were making me sick. All her stuff reeks because she loved to spray perfume into drawers and boxes to make them smell "nice". Well the chemicals break down over time into new unpleasant compounds. I used to like most scents when I was younger but now I mostly like no smell. Also her and I were very different on preference. She loved floral while I preferred fruits if I had to have a scent. But I was never a fan and men's perfume wasn't any better.

So anyway the photos are all ruined that way. I threw out all the old photoboxes. I bought some "ugly" ones that I don't care if they get stunk out for now. I went through everything and kept maybe 10% of the photos which is still a lot. Next I will try to sort things by date as best I can. Mostly by decades as I'll never know exact years let alone months. A few had dates stamped on the back but not many. And I then plan to find a photo place and have everything digitized. I'd rather they go on a thumb drive than a CD because it can hold more and it's smaller. Once that's done I can throw away the photos. I feel a bit weird doing that as that will be the end of the originals but you would not believe how much photo junk there was. I can't believe I had two storage units of stuff. Two large storage units of her junk and now it's down to about three walls in our small garage and a bit in the living room. Lord help me. This burden is almost lifted. I'll be so proud once it's done.

I should be getting my custom tail light covers today. I can't wait. I hope they'll be as awesome as I'm imagining them.
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I am feeling sooo much better now. I can safely say I am over being sick. It's nice to have a normal energy level again. Christmas gifts are still slowly trickling in for me. So soon I think I can do the part 2 haul photo. Well I'm almost done with cards. Here are a bunch that went out yesterday.



That's about half of them. I need to send out about that many more still. But everyone here on LJ will get theirs. I updated my address book after doing this because it's both funny and annoying to see so many former friends on there from over the years that have either turned traitor, I've had to dump or just disappeared without a trace. So new book for the new year and up to date. New friends too so it always balances out. Out with the old in with the new is the famous phrase.

I made a cute little print out of the Books of the Bible on a shelf. It's a check list for if you want to read the whole thing you can do so out of order. You can dowload and print it at home HERE. Save the image then open it in your picture viewer and it should have an option to print. Chris has gotten far and colored in the New Testament. Chris's page. This is how you view it. You can color the shelf too. He's already further than this. Here's Mine. I've only just started so only four books for me so far. I'm on Psalms now which is the biggest book so it will be a while before I color another one. I'll post these again when they are finished. I have read the Bible through twice back when I was in high school.

My Art Year In Review.



January we have the presentation of a new character The Doctor. I hope to draw him more soon.
February. No colored art but I made this sketch based on a lovely dream I had where both Chris and I were my character Fear. Well, this is the month I had my second surgery so not much art was made. Gosh I can't believe that was this year. Seems way longer than that. Had gall stones so I had my gall bladder removed and I was in bed for several weeks.
March Conspiracy of Fear . The remake of my masterpiece. I fixed this drawing up. The biggest changes were the green mouth plus added more colored highlights. I'm still working on this piece for something special.
April Alone in Fear . At last this is finished. A drawing I made last year as a gift for my aunt. Inspired by the lovely forest and rivers on her property.
May I AM FEAR Several remakes. The major change to this and most of them is adding in his green mouth.
June Fear In The Sky This piece turned out so nice I have many plans for it still. Fear greets the sunrise from the mountains.
July Fear Amused My thank you card I toss in as a bonus for people the I do commissions for, that I have done business with or that I just want to say thanks to.
August Terror In Waiting A mood piece that turned out nicer than expected. He has become my water mark on some pieces.
September No Hard Feelings Easily one of my all time fave pieces now for the vibrant colors and how frightening these two are.
October Fear and Death Halloween 2018 My fave drawing from my Bullet Journal. The main piece of the last week of Oct. Fear and his brother death.
November Got You Buddy This is also a fave of this year. I love this part of the Triangulum game story. George rescues Fear.
December This year's Christmas card. The winter version of Fear in the Sky for mailing out. I should get those today so I can start sending them out to everyone.
Bonus. The cover of my Bullet Journal. Appropriate that it features Bullet.

Ok so time for the New Year's Questionnaire. I love filling this out every year. I will post the blank version again. The old one is here and on DA but we might need a more recent one that's easier to find than going through the tags. Also I have added new questions as many holidays where left out.

1. What did you do this past year that you have never done before? Saw the Fall leaves. As Floridians that was a new and wonderful experience for us.

2. Did you keep your new years resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Yes and No. I kept some but not others. More on that at the end. Yes I will make new ones. I'm a goal setter. I'm constantly setting goals not just for new years. My J nature makes that easy.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No thank goodness. I don't need to lose more friends. They'd be gone for 18 years.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Just some of my birds. Sadly Optic my sweet blue budgie girl passed away. I do miss her.

5. What new states or countries did you visit. If not new did you travel for fun? Nothing new but we went to Georgia and North Carolina again in the Fall. We had a blast going to my aunt's house. Seeing the leaves, and seeing ACTipton80. That was the only big trip this year really.

6. What would you like to have in the new year that you lacked in this past year? I don't know. More money. Can never have enough of that. But I haven't lacked much. I've been quite good. Lots to be thankful for.

7. What dates from this year remain etched in your mind and why? The Trip at the end of October. It's the highlight of the year for me.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Cleaning out the garage and getting the jeep inside. Major goal met. Woo. I'm still very proud of myself over that one. Oh and attaining one of my mother's assets.

9. What was your biggest failure? Probably not being able to get rid of my mother's stuff still.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Yes. In February I had to go to the ER again for pain. I had gall stones and had my gall bladder removed. Two surgeries at the start of each new year. I don't want this to be a trend. I also got a cold in December. It had been over a year since I had a cold. It knocked me down for two weeks.

11. What was the best thing you bought? Hum, what I bought and what others bought me is a big blur this year. I'm not really sure. Perhaps my Fear mask. It was expensive but so worth the cost. I'm still working on it and it has turned out great. Still a work in progress.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Well all my awesome friends in the Raptor Pack. You guys are great. Actiption, Joker, Samantha, Kabuldur, basically if you got a card from me this year you rock. My real life friends and family too.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled? No one. At least no one in my inner circle. Helps when you get rid of the bad eggs. This year has been great socially.

14. Where did most of your money go? Amazon. Not just for me but for gifts I got others too.

15. What did you get really excited about? My trip. Every year when there is a trip it's what I look forward to more than anything.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of? Traveling. Organizing the house. Drawing though I managed to fill out the whole year with art though just barely.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of? Wasting time. I did a lot this year but could have done even better.

18. How did you spend Valentine's? Hum, I don't remember. February we either celebrate the 4th which is our anniversary or Valentine's. Usually depends on what is closer to a day off for us. Unfortunately nothing big. I think we just got each other gifts. Oh wait we didn't do anything. That's the month I had surgery and was down. No wonder I don't remember much. Well we have to make up for that this February then....I hope.

19. How did you Spend Easter? And I think I still wasn't well for Easter either as I don't think we did anything big unfortunately.

20. How did you spend the 4th of July? Ha, by July I was fairly recovered and we had a great 4th of July. We went to Fred Howard Park and watched the fireworks. https://thagirion.livejournal.com/980364.html

21. How did you spend Halloween? Halloween was awesome. It was our trip up north. We got to see the Fall leaves. I visited ACTipton. I brought Bullet with me though she was sick. I dressed up as Scary Fear and made a very nice music video of him. My costume was cool. We bought pumpkins in Georgia at Burt's Pumpkin Patch. The highlight of the year with the 4th being a close second.

22. How did you spend Thanksgiving? We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home. I was much better and decorated the house all nice. At least the small space I have in the kitchen. I found my inflatable turkey and we watched the turkey pardon. https://thagirion.livejournal.com/997568.html

23. How did you spend Christmas? Christmas was great. We went to visit Chris's parents and family. We got lots of gifts. We had a very nice time. Then the next day we had a quiet Christmas. Opened our own gifts and those of friends. Then that evening we visited Mike at his party which was a last minute invitation.

24. What was your favorite TV program? Travelers. I think I discovered that last year but season 3 finally came out this year and we enjoyed it very much. It ended well and we hope it's over actually because we don't want them to screw it up. Leave well enough alone. Funny enough I've started watching the cartoon Spirit. Based on the Dreamworks movie. I love that movie. The TV show doesn't have good art but I think I like it. Can't say yet but will watch more eps.

25. Did you make any enemies this year? Nope but old enemies have been replaced and then some.

26. Did you read any new books. If so which did you like best? Well Joker gave me the Jurassic Park Employee Handbook. I don't think I'll finish it in two days...well I guess I could but I'm reading that.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? The new Victorius Album Dinosaur Warefare. Also finally getting a hold of the SpongeBob soundtrack. The background music not the dumb incomplete CD's they officially have out. The instrumental stuff really helps make the show.

28. What did you want and get? Oh gosh lots of stuff. Let's see. 150 prisma colored pencils, Mosasaur figure, grow lights, backpacks, Bullet Journal, and a bunch of other cool stuff. Not just for Christmas but over the whole year.

29. What did you want and not get? The Ian Malcolm book. It got pulled from Amazon for copyright reasons. The jerks. A headset stand that got discontinued. A Bible I can't quite afford just yet. And a replacement for my truncata F plant.

30. Did you see any new movies this year? And if so which did you like best? I saw Venom in the theaters with Chris. That was good. But I don't really watch movies much anymore in theaters.

31. What did you do on your birthday? I got a custom Fear cake. Almost forgot about that. That was awesome!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQ53UiqXYDA

32. What is one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Looking back this has been an awesome year. I guess traveling more and meeting my other friends. I think about that a lot. I got spoiled by the 2017 road trip to Canada to see CVersailles.

33. Did you meet anyone new you became good friends with? Not anyone new in real life but I met Peregrine in September I think it was. We only had a few hours but it was our second meeting and we had a great time. Her and I have become closer friends and we really enjoyed each others' company. It was such a fun day driving around and doing fun things at my house. I have lots of new online friends though. Me a buddy on youtube that I trade plants with.

34. What video game obsessions did you have this year if any? Red Dead Redemption 2. I had not expected that to happen. Chris pre-ordered it and was all excited. I really didn't care since an ex friend a few years ago had ruined the first game for me. But I watched Chris play when he finally got his. Unfortunately he didn't like the game but I was hooked and wanted to see more from the little he played. And then Peregrine got it and kept talking about it on texts. So I started my own game and have been playing ever since. We make the joke that it's as though Chris got it for me. Plus the fact the way I have Arthur dressed, and how he sounds and his personality is just like George. Yeah I'm loving this game and how much better it looks on the new consoles.

35. Was your online time good, bad , same compared to last year? Good and better.

36. What hobbies did you improve, start or work more on this year? Basically how was your creativity this

year? I got into Bullet Journaling. I got out of it during my vacation but hope to do better with it this new year. It's a lot of fun making your own planner, setting goals and putting in your own art. Now with my new pencils this should help a lot. And I blame this on Peregrine but I participated in inktober for the first time and actually finished it. I drew something each day, even on my trip, on index cards.

37. Which holiday did you enjoy most this year? Halloween and Chris's birthday. Close second was 4th of July.

38. If there's something not by covered by the questions you would like to add about this past year you may

do so here. Happy New Year Hum, I think I have covered everything. I can always edit if I forget.

Last Year's Resolutions

* Get jeep in the garage. YES!! Finished before October I think.
* Get rid of mother's junk and our excess junk. No. Came so close. I got sick two weeks in December and this got really screwed up. I think we could have done it. We cleared out more room in the garage and then that happened.

Resolutions for 2019

* Finish getting rid of mother's stuff and possibly ours by April 1. I think that's a good time frame and don't need a whole year to finish. Could give myself more time but enough's enough already.
* Travel more. Try to do a road trip on my own again.
* Face my driving phobia. This one is kind of related to the top one if I take another road trip. I hope I can. It's harder now and all in my head.
* Meet more Raptors in person.
* Draw more. Make more comics. Finish Renegade and Dawn of Fear.
* Finish tagging LJ for pete's sake.
* Grow veggies either indoors or out. Grow tomatoes and chives.
* Manage my money better. Save more for the big goals like...
* New Tires and Wheels
* New door art or JP
* Fear Wings

Ok that's enough as those are major goals. The last three I don't have to do all of them but so long as I do one of those it would be good. All very expensive so I can probably only do one.
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Late Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you had a good one. Mine was great. We had Wed off and mostly worked around the house a bit. Had some errands to run like going to the bank and the post office. Glad those are out of the way now. But the coolest thing was we took advantage of the early Black Friday sales and Chris bought me an Xbox 1 X. We set it up but had a problem that there was no sound. It worked on the head sets but not on the TV. Chris finally found a video that explained how to fix it. You'd think it would be a setting under audio but it's not. It's a setting under Video. How dumb is that? For some reason in video the sound to the HDMI cable is turned off. And the HDMI that comes with the Xbox is not powerful enough to handle 4K. WTF? Why sell a 4K system if it doesn't come with the right parts. Luckily cables aren't that expensive so I'll get a nice one later for it. Chris bought a bunch of them for his system a few months back so I want a pretty green one for my Xbox. I may buy some back up HDMI's. I need one for travel too s it would be nice to have a nice yellow or red so I can see it easily in my black bag instead of everything being black. I used to love black electronics. Not a fan of it anymore. They are too hard to find in the dark and everything being black you can't see anything.

So yesterday was Thanksgiving. I set out my cute inflatable turkey. Finally I had room for it this year. Here is a video.


https://youtu.be/EsRltk4KjYI

I don't know if we can meet the goal of having gotten rid of all my mom's junk before the new year but we have a little over a month to do that. We also watched the Presidential Turkey Pardon. I love that tradition. It was started by Abraham Lincoln.


https://youtu.be/EZAeKC14u9s

Though I'm not a fan of texting I do enjoy sending holiday greetings to the few friends and family I have on my phone. Chris and I spent the morning sending Happy Thanksgiving and cute icons to everyone. I keep in touch with some of the raptor pack this way too. It's fun to send a photo about pets and plants and art.

It's interesting how the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, has gotten so big over the recent years and changed so much. It's always been a big shopping day because many popular items are majorly discounted. But it's spawned things like Cyber Monday and Early Black Friday which I do and don't like. I remember that for Thanksgiving if you didn't buy food and supplies you were out of luck because nothing was open on Thanksgiving. I think it's good the whole nation took off to give thanks and relax. Same thing with Easter. It was total shut down. But now stores are opening early in the evening to get in some last minute sales before the official Black Friday. I don't want to be anywhere near stores today. But we did take advantage of that. Chris bought me the Xbox but I had no games so we went to Gamestop to get me my own copy of Forza Horizon 4. There was already a big line. I had to go back to the car. I didn't want to wait, I was tired and low energy despite having fun. Also too many smelly nerds. Chris toughed it out and got the last copy in the store. What luck. That was too close. So it worked for us but, it still seems wrong since it's supposed to be Friday when the sales happen so that game is gone for the shoppers today. Well I am happy with the deals we got. There are a few more things I wish we could have gotten but we can't afford it even at sale prices. So we're done.

We spent the rest of the day gaming. We had a blast. One of the funniest thing was I crashed and my car went flying over the tunnel for so many yards. I was launched. I had a corvette that was Lightning McQueen so it looked funny. If only the Xbox recorded better like the PS4. PS4 is always recording and if something happens you can save the last fifteen minutes of footage. The Xbox only records forwards so when you press the button it records what happens next. I hate that because you don't know what will happen next. You want to record what Happened most of the time not what will happen. So we don't have a copy of that unfortunately.

I hope today I make progress on the George and Fear drawing. I've been so busy with gaming and last month's vacation really messed up my time. I have no finished this month's Bullet journal which means I'm now behind on December. I'm not happy about this. I hope I can make something in time for this month.

So on that note I'm thinking about Chritmas cards but I have NO ideas. I'd like to feature Fear this year, but any of my other guys will do also. So PLEASE comment. I'm open to ideas. Fear, George, Schuyler. Hum, maybe even Gord ha that would be an ugly Christmas card. But I would like it to be Fear this year.
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