A Witchy Diary

 It's been awhile... again. It's mostly because my work and family life are so busy I have little time for myself. I'm going to try to MAKE time, if possible, because I really do miss writing, drawing, and enjoying fandom things. I am mostly at Twitter because it's easier to update, but it's not the same as a journal, so I want to get back into Dreamwidth and Wordpress more.

Quick updates:

* I'm still working as a consultant for Subway as a content designer. It's busy and I'm working odd hours nonstop. Thank goodness I still work from home.

* Joe and I had a couple of health scares over the past few months. I had a endometrial biopsy, and he had his neck checked for nodules. I ended up with negative results for the biopsy, and thankfully Joe didn't need the biopsy, though he did get diagnosed with Hashimoto disease, which is an immunodeficiency. He already has vitiligo, so the Doctor says that having one immune deficiency brings on others. We're just both glad it's not cancer.

* Joe's mother died last month and we had the funeral this last Friday. It was super sad. She was in the hospital a lot, had struggled with her mental health for years, and just gave up recently to stop eating and taking care of herself. As a result, she had a heart attack and passed away on February 6th, the day after my husband's birthday. So it's been a rough month. The hardest part was holding my baby girl as she cried during the funeral mass because she couldn't see her grandmother anymore. 

* My best friend got engaged over Christmas and asked me to be her matron of honor. So I'm tasked to figure out where I can take an unvaccinated bride to be and other girls to a drag show, because that's what she wants. Wedding is in September. I also have to start looking for my dress given the color choices. I'm so happy for her. This will be her second marriage and she's definitely marrying a better guy.

* When I'm not catching up with work, I am trying to read more, as well as do some writing and drawing. I'm hoping to finish up another WIPs this year, fanfic and original writing. I'm trying to do a daily drawing exercise, but so far I haven't been very good at keeping up with it.

* I am obsessed with The Untamed. OBSESSED. I watched the show, am starting the anime, and bought the novel to be read soon. I love all the characters, the implied ships, the main ship - OMG, so lovely. For awhile I was just watching one episode a day while I was on my elliptical but I couldn't handle it and binged it within a few days over the weekend. I also finished HIStory 4: Close to You, which is a lovely BL show with so many wonderful tropes and characters. It was a feel good binge watch. I also enjoyed My Love Mix-Up, thought it sorely needs a second season. It was another cute show. I'm back trying to finish Guardian for now as well. I don't even bother with American shows anymore. I just love Viki and Netflix and all their Asian dramas and I'm set! I will say this about US shows, I do plan on catching up with the Marvel shows soon now that most of them will be in one place at Disney+, so there's that.

* I have decided to no longer update at Livejournal. My paid account was coming up and I just didn't feel like I was there enough to justify having a paid account or updating there. I cannot keep up everything so I'm going to just stay here on Dreamwidth. People can find me at Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Wordpress if you really want to find me. 

* The kid gave me a cold over the weekend, so I've been struggling with this since Thursday. It sucks. I've been trying to rest and take medicine all day yesterday and today. I have to at least get better before tonight as I have some work today before tomorrow morning's early publish for Subway.com.

* Lastly, I'm really trying to get healthier with my food and exercise habits, but it's been hard. I feel like I'm always starting over. I hope to make exercise a routine and eat less junk. I resigned up with Noom through my work and I renewed my Jillian Michaels fitness app. I just need to find the motivation and stop putting it off. I'm not getting any younger.

* I hope everyone is doing well. I hope to be more active here if possible but work has really been draining lately and it's not going to slow down because Subway is doing a complete redesign of their website that I'll be involved in. So there will be a lot of long work days and after hours work as well. 

Take care, everyone! Hope to see you around more.

I've been pretty down lately, but I'm also trying to keep myself busy.

The job searching continues. I haven't had much luck with it. Mostly I deal with recruiters who never get back to me, or I get rejection emails from places I've applied. I just have to keep applying, and I am. I'm devoting a lot of my free time to just job searching. I'm also signed up for a couple of courses to enrich my skills. I just need the time to work on everything.

Being a stay at home mom does not help. Juliet is joined at my hip, needs a lot of attention, and when she's home I'm unable to get anything I want to do done. I though I could save money by taking her out of daycare, but truth be told, I had to put her back in, at least a couple days a week. I told Joe I'd find the money somewhere, even I have to sell crap on Facebook or Poshmark or do odd jobs somewhere. The days she is at daycare is so worth it for my mental health, and now I'm also trying to have her daycare days coincide when Joe has to go into the office, so then I have a day home by myself to work on my things uninterrupted. 

The other hurdle is sleeping. I haven't been sleeping well and it's affecting my mental health as well. I sleep during times when I could be doing something productive and I toss and turn at night or stay up reading manga and feeling sluggish the next day. So I need to get my sleep back on track, and I need to get my workouts back on track too. I've been really avoiding exercising lately. Thankfully, I haven't gained any weight. But still, I know if I was working out more my weight would go down so I'm upset by that. Honestly, I really wish I could start taking power walks or running again like I used to. It really helped me with my anxiety and depression and helped me feel like I was "running away" from it all, just a little bit. With Juliet, who screams and freaks out if I leave even for an hour, it puts tremendous pressure on me and I rather just not deal with it. Still, I might have to do it...

Otherwise, mostly I clean, cook, take care of the kid and dog and husband, try to pay bills, job search, do some writing, reading and try to get some sleep. We had to unclog pipe in the basement where our A/C runs off. That was a nice bill from the plumber. It was leaking on our carpet. So that sucks. We really don't have money for this kind of stuff.

Recently I had to write something for unconventionalcourtship and it ended up being like 15K words of Modern-AU Reylo. I am happy how it turned out, but it also drained me because I was hauling ass trying to make the deadline. Next I have to work on wipbigbang, which is due in a couple weeks. After that I'm going to work on some short stuff, or look into contests or any other freelancing stuff. I have freelancing requests in the queue so I'm definitely tackling those next.

Tomorrow Joe goes into work and Juliet has daycare, so I have a day to myself, which means job searching, follow ups, and possibly continuing my online courses. So the rest of today I plan on taking it easy, hoping to get a decent amount of sleep so tomorrow I'm refreshed enough to work on some things.

Otherwise, I'm reading a lot of manga, mostly online. I really enjoy Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet  (May/December relationship between a writer and a poor HS student) and I was all ready to buy the English version and there isn't one, so all they have is scanlations. I've gone back and read it a couple times. Other manga I've enjoyed is Black Bird, L-DK, Blue Sky Complex, and Dame na Watashi ni Koishite Kudasi. 

I hope everyone is doing well and trudging through this year okay. I just really wish something good would happen. I really would feel a lot better if I got a new job and was able to feel more secure about the future.

Take care. 

My book Unbridled is among them. Go forth and enter for free books!

@ self_published on Livejournal

het_bigbang  reveals are out! Both of my artists got back to me about my artwork. The Mad Max author really liked it, and I am pleased. I'm going to pimp their works here because I DID read them to do the art and found them really good.

[Mad Max] My Blue Bucket of Gold by ninety6tears
Rated Explicit. Max/Furiosa, canon divergent.
Max returns to the Citadel to arrange an exchange of favors, but his end of a deal with Furiosa, as well as rising concern for the Dag’s struggles, proves to be much more than he bargained for. New beginnings promise healing, but some old habits are hard to wash out.


[Iron Man Movies] the bolder the lip by sandyk
Rated Explicit. Tony/Pepper, AU after Iron Man 2
Pepper said yes to going to Venice. The secret of Tony's success was to tell Pepper the truth, always.


And the story that wasn't finished but I did art for anyway has at least the first chapter up. 

[Riverdale] Jughead and Betty's Epic Detour by Browneyesparker
Rated T. Betty/Jughead. AU
Jughead and Betty take the road trip that Archie and Jughead were supposed to take together. Title taken from "Roger and Amy's Epic Detour" by Morgan Matson but that's as far as it goes. Rated T.

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I'm signing up for this challenge as an artist too. If you're interested:



A 10,000-word big bang for small fandoms! FAQ | Rules | Authors | Beta/Cheerleader | Affiliate (Artist sign-ups will open on Nov 1!)

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I read a really good and HOT fic on KU yesterday. I haven't updated on Goodreads yet because there are two more stories in there to read as a bonus, but the fic was really good if you're into erotica and want something decent to read to get your jollies off. I'm not usually into romance/erotica but I liked the premise and I like to see what sells out there.

It's called: So. Toxic: a virgin, fake marriage by Kelley Harvey.

I have a small shameless addiction to fake marriage / marriage of convenience set ups and I always like to see how they play out. Even as a bonus, these characters are reunited childhood friends which is always adorable IMO. The pacing in this story is pretty fast, and the two characters are likable, even the "bad boy". The writing style is light and amusing, but no where near the juvenile ways of EL James. It can be contemporary at times, but the writing is done well enough that I didn't find it bad or obnoxious. The voice seemed modern enough and fit the characters, like I could picture it.

The book is not without its issues. There is little to no plot, with some plot anecdotes here and there. Tyson has taken care of the baby boy he thinks is his son of a former girlfriend, who is a drug addict. He needs Jo to fake a marriage so he can look like a responsible father to the courts. The only thing I see about Tyson being a good father is what the author tells us. Most of the time he hands the kid off to a friend or something, but the kid does like him. The reason Jo "owes" him seems kind of silly, and we really never know why Tyson is rich or what he does as a job. So their are environmental things in the book that are weak if not non-existent. Jo is pretty milk toast. She has the spunky best friend to threaten the love interest when needed. There is also the evil racist mother trope. 

If you can look by any of that, the sex scenes, and they are NUMEROUS, are really satisfying. I tried reading this book during my lunch break, in the break room, with people coming and going and trying to talk to me, and I was definitely uncomfortable. Haha. 

If anything it was a shameless treat. It was a fast read, and I liked it well enough to share it. It's good for horny readers and not so much for people that like porn with plot. I'd probably read the author again. The writing style and grammar wasn't bad, which is a plus with KU.

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I can tell most people are phoning in today at work. My boss talked to me and another coworker about mattresses on sale and labor day deals for like 20 minutes. So yeah, it's that kind of day.

I do at least want to get all my emails done today, which is manageable. I don't like leaving dangling work for the weekend.

I hope everyone has a good Labor Day weekend. I'm looking forward to it. Maybe I'll be productive and get some stuff done.