There's no short version of this, thanks in advance to anyone who cares to read the whole thing. So much has happened to me this year that's kept my stress levels higher than usual. Feelings of normalcy were lacking, but I'm hoping now that most everything is over with, I can start getting settled into a more comfortable routine again.

RELOCATION(S):

So, in the beginning of 2017 is when plans were starting to form. My husband Dreamous and I decided it was time to move out on our own, no more roommates. As fun as they were, we were ready to just have our own space and place to call ours and ours alone. Fast forward to April/May and that puts Dreamous as having finally finished his PhD after 7 LONG years of blood, sweat and tears from him, and we're ready to move in time with our lease ending in Southern California. Hooray, right?

Well, that's where a little problem arose. Dreamous having just finished without a job lined up, and us not wanting to sign another year-long lease in a place we couldn't afford without both of us having income (we'd be relying on just mine for a while), meant that we had to find a temporary place that was affordable for me to handle. Unfortunately, that meant we couldn't stay in SoCal. Too fucking expensive there, as most everyone knows. Our only option was to move in with Dreamous's mother whom still had a couple rooms open in her house now that her other son had finally moved out from there. We would have had to move to the Central Valley in Modesto until Dreamous was able to find work.

That is, until really good friends of ours in Phoenix offered to let us stay in their house while we figured stuff out. And thank goodness for that, because as much as we love Dreamous's mother, we dooooon't want to live with any parental units of any sort, haha. I don't think most people would after not having lived with them for over 12 years for either of us. So, that had us scrambling to get all our moving stuff figured out to transition from SoCal to Phoenix in just a couple weeks' time. We ended up getting rid of a LOT of stuff we just didn't need anymore, and also got rid of 99% of our furniture. We only kept our bed. It was the only way we could afford a moving truck small enough to make the move to a (thankfully) furnished place.

So MAJOR downsizing of our stuff happened, only keeping valuable collectibles and essentials, and we moved from SoCal to Phoenix in early May. And that was actually a really nice stay! Our friends there were great, and we had time and space while we figured out what our next move was. It was good knowing that was only temporary so it kind of had a fire under our asses to really get things figured out. Poor Dreamous was rather freaking out though, heavily worrying about career paths and hoping to get hired somewhere. I understand the worry, but he's an extremely intelligent man, and I was confident he would find something. And he did. Several interviews across the country later, and Dreamous was offered 5 different positions! WOOOOO! :D But, with so many options came the hard part of choosing. He would be able to go into more detail of weighing the choices, but ultimately he decided on a university in Winston Salem, North Carolina.

After a couple months of deliberation and a career path for him finally chosen, we could start making plans for another major transitional move. Let me tell ya, it really sucks to have to make a major move RIGHT after having just made one. It's double suckage. Even though about half of our stuff was still packed up, it still didn't make it any easier. Arizona to North Carolina is NOT a short distance, so there was a lot of high stress in figuring out how we were going to do it while I still had to work to raise funds for it, and working around my set schedule (I do commissions on a schedule, so it makes things outside of work very difficult).

Eventually, we decided it be best if we have most of the stuff moved for us in order to save SOME amounts of stress and time for ourselves, especially with having to repack a lot of our stuff, while I was still working and maintaining my art/community stuff. What made stuff even harder was that for a whole 2 months I was without Dreamous during my stay in Phoenix. He thankfully had a temporary job lined up to get some resume stuff as well as earn a little cash to help with the move. But it was back in SoCal. So, among other things that happened, that just made things more difficult for me. I am so dependent on him for all sorts of things emotionally/mentally. I really missed him and it just seemed to heighten stress all around. Not that I blame him or anything, it's good that he did that. But… after having a significant other attached at the hip for several years in a row suddenly leave felt like losing a limb. :P

But, we managed okay more or less, and fast-forward to late September, and we made the 2nd major relocation in less than 5 months. Ended up getting our stuff moved by PODS, and then driving ourselves with one car (sold my car and kept the one we share), 4 days across the country. This time from Phoenix to Winston Salem. Don't ever make 2 huge uprootings in such a short time if you don't have to. So much time, money and stress isn't worth it, but hey, life happens.

FAMILY:

Family is a weird concept for me. I'll go ahead and just say; I've never really been very close to my family. Not for any particularly horrible reason, just never have. I have been mostly neutral to most of them my whole life. I am a quiet person, and generally keep to myself, so I think that's been one of the reasons I've been probably the only person in my whole immediate and extended family that doesn't have an obvious or outward disdain for any one of my family members.

So, you can imagine what that means between interactions between the rest of my family members. To say my family is broken and spiteful would be an understatement. (Now, I know that pretty much everyone has some really horrible family shit going on, but I'm not here to compare, just saying how it is for me. I'd really appreciate this journal not becoming a place for people to vent or compare our families, this is just me putting my thoughts into words finally, for everyone who follows me to know what's been going on with me, thanks).

I could write a fucking novel on how my family has evolved from something that somewhat resembles a family 30 years ago to the shit-show it has become, but I'm only going to talk about the stuff that's relevant to the purpose of this journal.

A few years ago, I lost another of my brothers. To put it lightly and concisely, it really fucking sucked, for SEVERAL reasons. I really miss my brother. And his death shattered something inside me that helped keep a concept of “family" alive for me. And it did for everyone else, too. It was really the catalyst for when things went from bad to worse within my immediate and extended family. It just kind of brought out the worst in everyone.

He was sick for several years, and it just ended up coming to a point his body couldn't handle it anymore. My mom did all she could by taking him to all sorts of doctors and taking care of him where she could, but my brother was staying with my dad in hospice during it all, so my dad is the one who would be interacting with him more personally even though it was my mom who was doing a lot of the medical stuff for him. That's putting it in the most non-complicated way I can though, because there's so much more there than I have time to write. But essentially, my dad's side of the family saw/painted a picture in their heads of my mom being out to be a villainous person with only self-benefit in mind. I am disgusted with my dad and his side of the family to this day about it. My mom wasn't even welcome in her own son's funeral, because of my dad's family.

So, fast forward a couple years, and now my grandma died (mom's side). This happened during the whole Phoenix thing for me, and that's how this is relevant to current events in my life. Things that happened during my brother's final year, and my grandma's final year, are all coming back to haunt my Mother, and I'm basically the only one in my whole family who is even on any sort of speaking term with her after all of this.

It's just me and my Mom, now. Her siblings are accusing her of more or less only taking care of my grandma for self-interest purposes. How this is happening twice is a mystery to me, but I know my mom, and her family. Her siblings did NOTHING to help my Grandma when she was at her worst, literally saying they didn't care what happened to her, they just want her house if they're gonna have to take care of her. My grandma was not a good person or a good mother to her children or grandchildren, but she's still family and still needed help.

So my Mom took care of her until she died too, and now my Mom is being sued for the estate which is like, basically nothing. My grandma was very poor. On top of that, my mom is giving it all to the grandchildren, whom my grandma never even gave anything to. It's not even going to the children, but the children's children… And yet they are upset that their kids are getting the money and not them. Like… How could you be upset about that? I just don't get it. It's like they don't want their own children to benefit. So once again, I'm disgusted with my family, just my mom's side this time. But to make it even worse, they decided to bring in my brother's death from a few years ago into all of this and are trying to get my dad and his family in on it too. They are all going after my mother. And I'm just here trying to help her out. How they are going to do anything is beyond me, because the beneficiaries are all on paper now for both instances. My brother's estate went to his daughters, and my grandma's estate are going to the grandchildren… So, they're gonna waste all the money that isn't even hers on attorneys and shit.

It's fucked up. I didn't want to attend the funeral because of everything happening, but I did, for my mom. She needed me, and thank goodness I was there because I think I prevented some shit from really hitting the fan in the funeral home and the gravesite. I hate my family. They disgust me. And I just wish that eventually, everyone can find their own peace and never have to interact with me or my Mom again.

But, this all happened while I was without Dreamous for the time in Phoenix, while working 7 days a week to raise funds for the move, and while I was trying to get things ready for our move from Arizona to North Carolina…. So. I think I may have lost a couple years between everything that happened. XD But, hey, that's okay. I'm sure I'll get them back thanks to advances in medicine. :P But yeah, to know that I basically have no family anymore, is sort of bitter sweet. Like I said in the beginning. I wasn't too close to them, but… they're still family. I just wish I knew what having an actually functional or decent family was like.

This isn't even to mention stuff happening in Dreamous's family… He lost his great aunt too, only a few months after losing his own grandma. All this year too. Just… everything kinda happening at once.

But, in other family news. We have a dog now. \o/ His name is Deebo and he's a good boy. <3 A pit bull that we got from Dreamous's brother because he doesn't have time to take care of him anymore. You can see my Twitter for pics of him, if you'd like. :)

ART & COMMUNITY:

So, I really have to thank everyone for bearing with me during everything that's been happening with me during this whole year's events. Especially to my patrons on Patreon, my Picarto stream-goers and my Twitch stream-goers, all whom interact with me on a personal level, constantly. It's been really really tough trying to keep streaming up while everything that's been happening. And I'm exhausted. But happy to do it. Thank you all so much for everything, really. WIthout you guys I'd be aimless and empty without direction to go with my art or projects.

I started streaming more for Patreon patrons and Twitch streaming alike this year, and mostly during my Phoenix stay. Being consistent was so tough during all of that… I don't know how I did it while still managing to get shit done for the move. I'm so tired and still recovering, haha. But it's actually back to work for me today. I'm going to be trying to get back into a regular schedule of work, streaming art (including Roommates), and streaming Twitch.

It may take me a bit to de-rust after nearly 3 weeks of inactivity while we made the move. But I know I'll be able to swing back into a normal thing very soon. :)

I'm currently not accepting more commissions, and going to finish out the ones I have scheduled through December. In January, I'll be opening again, and I'll be doing them a little differently. But nothing too wild, just schedule changes for myself to make things easier on me and have it more consistent for everyone else. Thinking I'll do 2 to 3 slave streams a week, 1 Roommates stream and 1 Patreon-only stream, every week. With Twitch streams at nights where scheduling works out. I can finally have weekends this way! Or so I'm hoping. We'll have to see, but I will make a more detailed announcement with details when the time comes.

In the coming weeks, I'll be attempting to upload more stuff since I know it's been kind of a drought with that lately with everything that's been going on. Thanks again for everyone sticking with me. Love you guys <3

CONCLUSION:

2017 sucked for so many reasons, man. I think most people would agree, huh? But hey, 2018 is around the corner. Let's hope it's a better year, for everyone. ^^

-Sal