Happy Bearday, SnowTheBear! I miss you beary much! Hope you have the lovely day that you deserve. Love ya!
๐ Artwork is ยฉ 2021 by Marina Neira McKinzie. You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Only the commissioner/giveaway winner & those featured in the artwork may repost with credit and following my Terms of Use.
Having lots of fun with this next commission! ^_^ ๐๏ธโจ
๐ Artwork is ยฉ 2021 by Marina Neira McKinzie. You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Only the commissioner/giveaway winner & those featured in the artwork may repost with credit and following my Terms of Use.
This is a rare week in which Christopher is coming home early enough to spend time together every day. So every evening we do just that. He plays a game, and I watch him play while scrapbooking. Right now he’s playing Skyward Sword.
Hereโs my scrapbooking progress:
Itโs basically another version of my blog, but with a much โsmallerโ voice, since itโs a Little journal. And itโs only a selection of things that make me feel that way. I prefer to show the pages before I write on them.
During the day, I flatten it under heavy things as much as possible forโฆ obvious reasons… ๐
Also, during the last Iso Storytime I finished my coloring page! Then I laminated and put stickers on it. Squirrelโs getting ready for fallโฆ I feel very ready too! ๐๐๐
Speaking of squirrels… look at this cute little squirrel decoration I saw at Michaels:
I couldnโt buy himโฆ buying things is done for nowโฆ but I did take a picture! ๐๐
We’re all going on a fancy ride! ๐ This quite overdue piece was commissioned by my very dear friend Snow, who not only bought a slot to let me draw whatever I wanted for the purpose of buying my husband Christopher (Subrosian) a bunch of toy trains, but also let me include Christopher, myself, and my old friends: fellow train lover Tavi and little Ozzie with his socky –hadn’t drawn them in soooo long! I gave this piece my all, including Snow’s Ember and my Ricky as well. Used a 3D model as a base for the train, I think it turned out alright. ๐
Drawing Tavi and Ozzie filled me with nostalgia. ๐ฅบ In my early, rose-colored-glasses fandom days I drew them a lot, back when comms didn’t take my every waking moment. We don’t talk as much these days but they will always be my “li’l bros”.
๐ Artwork is ยฉ 2021 by Marina Neira McKinzie. You may NOT copy, color, reference, repost or use this artwork in any way or claim it as your own. Only the commissioner/giveaway winner & those featured in the artwork may repost with credit and following my Terms of Use.
They were very active this morning!
Good morning everyone. I overslept todayโฆ I am also just generally feeling a bit down. I suppose it is the “come down” from all my birthday fun, the knowledge of upcoming stressful stuff, and a looming sadness I still have in regards to a recent event that I’ve felt too awkward to talk about in detail.
The most I can say is that it has to do with my Little side and it’s part of why I’ve been pushing things that make me feel Little so hard during the last two or so weeks.
To put it in the simplest terms, after putting that side of me away for a long time, I took a dip, then a jump, into vulnerability once again. I am not really sure what happened –it may all be an unfortunate coincidence the details of which I do not know– but it ended up badly for me. I worried that I would completely hide that side away again, and it especially hurt to consider doing so after my Little side experienced a moment of such intense and utter happiness. It was a hard come-down.
So I bought a lot of toys/got lots of toys for my birthday and made a strong effort to nurture my Little side right after this happened, evidenced also by how much I’ve been talking about it, something I never did quite to this degree before. I dusted off my Fetlife profile and completely remade my page with the focus of finding fellow local Littles to befriend, and even made the jump to attend Isolation Storytime, which I thought I’d lurk all throughout and instead had my camera on for as long as I stayed, which was almost the whole two hours. I really enjoyed that. I’m going to try to keep doing this, balanced with my normal “big” stuff. But I think it’s still going to be a while until I feel okay again.
In other things that have been screwing with my mental health, I’ve noticed that I’ve thrice fallen into Twitter discourse again, including at least two occasions where it was absolutely NONE of my damn business. I’m not sure what made me do it after so long, but it was very bad for me mentally.
Worst of all is seeing friends post stuff that make me feel more and more disconnected from them. Twitter literally has weakened friendships for me because I feel much less safe around some people, including some people I once felt close to. Then again, it’s not like that was/is the only factor in those cases.
But I digress. Ah yes, Twitter. I ended up making a list where I follow a ton of furries and babyfurs (including plenty of people I don’t like or support) and this way I get a feel for the current community zeitgeist and what my friends are doing and/or how they are reacting to community goings-on. It is conductive to feeling less isolated but also more depressed, because so much about the community is just kinda terrible these days.
I can only access the list from the Twitter app, since on the computer, all of that stuff remains blocked with my Cold Turkey Blocker app. Lately I’ve had the Twitter app on my phone constantly though, so I check the list throughout the day, and the negative stuff from it has been affecting me severely. So I guess I may be deleting the app for a few weeks so I can have a break from that. Ironically, almost always the stuff that bothers me is from people I do call my friends and/or support –and this is why I feel less and less comfortable in the community as a whole.
Sorry, it’s all pretty cryptic, huh? ๐ But at the end of the day I am writing this post for myself, to vent. So, it doesn’t really matter. No one needs to know the details.
Today is gonna be a long drawing day. I’m hoping to get multiple sketches and lines done for overdue commissions. So please look out for those! With the warm-ups done for now, I’m trying my best to catch up.
I’ll also catch up on several blog posts throughout the day.
Iโd mentioned yesterday that I was waiting for two last birthday things. ๐ They arrived! One was the Heeler four wheel drive family vehicle. Itโs really cute! ๐ โจ
I haven’t opened any of my Bluey toys yet. Waiting for special occasions.
I really like the detail of the car seats and the accurate location of the steering wheel:
The other thing that came in was one more book for scrapbooking. Itโs also very cute. However, it has some minor water damage so Iโm having it replaced.
And thatโs it for all my birthday stuffs. Now Iโm doing some chores and from afternoon until night itโs going to be a serious buckle-down on commissions! ๐จโ
My last bit of birthday stuff (mostly Amazon gift card stuff) is arriving today and some arrived yesterday! I really ended up spoiled beyond belief… I will say that, considering that luxuries such as these are gonna go out of the window starting in August, Iโm so glad that I have so much stuff to have fun with for a long while.
First is this Bingo night light! Iโm going to enjoy looking at it every day on my desk while I work:
Here she is all lit up! You can’t turn the light off –it goes off by itself after a few minutes.
Here are some more vintage unopened trading cards. Canโt wait to open these during Littlespace and then scrapbooking with them!
These things can be really hit or miss though. Sometimes I get a lot of “puzzle piece” type cards…
Next –more stickers!! Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid and Crayon Shin-Chan this time. ๐
Then there’s another book for scrapbooking art into my journal. I have one more of these coming later today.
I had a lot of these books on my wish list and was really glad to get at least one. Itโs absolutely fantastic! If youโre a writer I highly recommend it.
The way it works is, you look up an emotion, and for each emotion you get a wealth of expressions that you can use to express that particular state of mind. It’s just so cool.
Finally โthis wasnโt a birthday present. I preordered this AGES agoโฆ it finally came today. (*๏ฟฃโ๏ฟฃ) โจ
I really did buy a lot of crap before things went south recentlyโฆ ๐ and other than Grandmaโs check (which I saved) I pretty much spent all birthday money right away, tooโฆ I wanna make sure it is clear no donation money went to any of this junk. It was either purchased before or with gift cards/money given to myself with the caveat that it was to be used for birthday treats.
Also. I think you all know this, BUTโฆ my spending sprees often coincide with depression. Especially if itโs my Little side that is hit. ๐ You can often tell Iโm depressed even if Iโm seemingly super happy by how much s**t I buy in a given period of time, even if I seem super happy in my posts.
With that said, it definitely wonโt be possible going forward for a while, so Iโll have to find a different coping mechanism. ๐๐ฆ Thankfully, I have a lot to entertain myselfโฆ and the Zoom meeting with other Littles did me tremendous good too!
To be clear, no one has given me a hard time about this at allโฆ but I worry about perception, so I wanted to set that straight.
I think that’s all for this post. I’m working really hard. Things are still fairly stressful at home, but taking time every few days to be Little is doing wonders for my mental health. I hope you’re having a lovely weekend!
Today I did something I’d been toying with for some time, but felt too shy to do. Same reason actually why I didn’t do BFC… Now, I wish that I had attended that as well. See, today I attended Isolation Storytime for the first time!
To tell you the truth I fully expected to keep my webcam and mic off for the whole thing, lurk a while, feel super uncomfortable and leave. This is because generally, being around other Littles that I don’t know intimately tends to cause a cognitive dissonance in me, a strong awareness that I’m a grown ass adult doing kid things, and I go into a bad headspace.
I’ve heard this happens to other Littles as well. In your mind, during Littlespace, you feel like a little kid. But depending on how your mind works, seeing other Littles being Little in their very adult bodies can be a reminder of reality and yank you right out. This, I assume, has a lot to do with how much you are exposed to other Littles, and is probably why I have Little friends with whom this does not happen at all.
Anyway, to my surprise, this ended up not being the case. For reasons I cannot explain, I turned my camera on right at the start. I ended up not feeling so shy and having so much fun. The hostess, Tibby/Mavis, was wonderful, I was blown away by how talented she was in her singing and playing! And everyone who offered their time and effort was so lovely too. I really enjoyed coloring while listening to stories. It left me feeling quite happy. I think I might even offer to read a story down the road…
It was also my first time in a Zoom group meeting. Still getting used to the mechanics of that.
During this time I tried out my new crayon sharpener that I got from Drake as a birthday present. Itโs amazing! It really gets crayons back to their old sharpness:
By this I mean proper crayon shape. I just found it so cool!
Anyhow, my first IsoStorytime attendance was very sudden, I had actually decided not to attend and changed my mind ten minutes before start time… next Friday I may use my laptop at floor level instead and prep myself a play area well in advance. Maybe even order a Happy Meal if Christopher lets me. ๐๐
CW: Calorie counting and/or weight tracking after the cut. Please do not proceed if you have an eating disorder and/or find posts of this sort triggering.
