Crap. It is totally 8am right now.

And I have terrible heartburn, and it's ticking me off. I already took an anti-acid. Honestly, most of the time I wanna just empty my stomach, but that obviously isn't going to happen, nor would it be a good idea-medically speaking.

So 2013 was the worst year of my life, and 2014 wasn't the greatest either. Losing 3 cats in 2 years, three grandfathers, and a great uncle is leaving my heart feeling pretty sore right now. No wonder I am so tired, emotionally, all the time.

My Papa (mother's dad) passed away on the 23rd of December.  I'm trying to be strong about it because I know his death was peaceful, I had time to prepare myself, and my Nana really needs a break after 8 years of taking care of him. He wasn't a very easy person to live with. I am still having a hard time with it though. I've spent the last 4 months dreaming consistently about him dying. I'd have to wake up and convince myself he wasn't dead. Now, I have to convince myself that he is...

Christmas was pretty good otherwise; aside from the typical frustrations with my family. I got the Stylus for my iPad Air that I wanted, thus all the art updating. My husband and I shared a gift with each other instead of buying separate things. We treated ourselves to another display cabinet! So now I can finally reorganize our original one so that it isn't so crowded anymore.

I've also finally come to a decision about my life. Recently my husband has been watching a lot of online sermons as well as some TED videos. He discusses them with me and through this I've come to a bunch of different conclusions. Now, I know most of you probably aren't "religious" so I won't go into too much details. However, one of the topics that our pastor is discussing really made me realize the path I should go.
Now, without bringing Christianity into play, the best way to explain it is this. When I was a child there were four goals I had. Now, they weren't all created at the same time, but they were established before I was 10 years old. In order my dreams were; write my own stories/illustrate them, become a Paleontologist, making money through my own business, and bringing stories to life visually; via animation-video games-comics.
As strong as my love for dinosaurs is, the pay isn't that great, it's really hard physical work, and most of the time you are out in the baking hot sun. A part of me would still love to go that career route, but with my medical limitations, it's pretty much out of the question. However, the other three actually happen to work hand in hand.
Now, I've always had this desire to dedicate myself to my writing and my art, but every time I brought that up in conversation my mother's response would be "Well you can't do that right away. First you need to have a good job, and then you can write and draw on your side time". Obviously, this makes sense-if you change career paths later on in life. This 'advice' is very circumstance based, and I didn't realize it before. I've always had it in my head that until I am making a bunch of money through working a regular job, my art and my writing would have to wait. This is another reason why 24 hours isn't long enough for me. I push myself everyday to do all the things I was told was "more important" than my art or my writing. And by the time I'm done all that stuff, I am WAY too tired to work on anything else.
What my mother didn't understand was that I'm not the sort of person that can do that. That writing and art, which are done professionally, are not "just a hobby" that I can make money with on the side. Being an author, or a comic artist is a career. A FULL TIME CAREER. Or rather full time CAREERS. For example, J.K. Rowling stated in one interview that she would write 10 HOURS a day. That's NOT a hobby. Many professional artists have said that they work LOOOOONG hours, often sacrificing leisurely actives with friends and family in order to make constant deadlines. Like seriously. How can someone work a full time job AND write a novel or draw comics. The answer is either they can't, or they work tiny bits on the side, for a long time, until they make enough cash to quit their other job. Essentially, my mother's statement was very ill-informed.
Growing up my parents always put "chores" before anything else. That included food, homework, or even sleep. Because of this, I never took my art seriously, or my writing, because who has time for that when working has priority even over basic NEEDS. It's no wonder I'm not getting anywhere.
So now that I have realized this I suddenly became 're'aware of that deep, deep, ever burning desire to dedicate myself 100% to art and writing. I even spoke to my husband about it, and told him how guilty I felt because if I gave in to this feeling, we would have to wait even longer for a more stable financial situation. But you know what he said to me? He said, "I'd rather you do what you feel you are meant to do, then waste your life fretting over this and never achieve your dreams". I love him. So essentially he told me to stop worrying about the money. Whatever I can bring in extra is appreciated and helps, but he wants me to focus on my art and writing first, and he'll take care of the income until I can start bringing in more from my chosen careers.

So on that note, I've been trying REALLY hard to get into the habit of drawing and reading everyday. If I want to earn an income off my writing and art, I need to get into the habit of making the time for them. I'm still in my novel writing course, thus the reading. Eventually, the time I am using for my course will be cut down, and I'll make that time for my novel. I do also need to read too though. I just won't need to spend HOURS on it.

This year I am really determined to stop letting silly ideals get in my way. I will work with whatever schedule my sleep falls on, and stick to it. From there, I will plan and organize my life around that, and be more motivated, inspired and productive. I've got many years of not drawing to make up for, so I'm hoping 2015 will bring me MAJOR improvement if I push at it as hard as I can.
I'm always been told things like, "the world doesn't run on that time', or "you can't do that unless you do this first", or "that's selfish of you", or "just get over such and such and stop letting blank control your life". I'M DONE GUYS. SO DONE.

By the way, thanks for supporting me everyone. I just can't express to you all how much it truly means to me!

Until next time my friends! "I'm up, over and gone!"-Sonic

PS. I have a Patreon now! If you would like to support me I'd really appreciate it! www.patreon.com/MREcartoonist