Heavy Rain

No, not the video game. It has been pouring rain outside for most of the day, and I love it. Dramatic weather always inspires me to write something with dramatic weather in it, because descriptions of such weather are always fun to create.

Tablet Upgraded to Digital Book

After two weeks of waiting, my tablet's red leather case finally arrived in the mail. W00t! Other than being bright red instead of the dark berry-red it appeared to be in the photos, it is exactly what I expected, and I love it. I use my tablet to read Kindle books a LOT (every time I have a lunch break at work, namely), so it's cool that it can now look kind of like a book as well.

I'm also patting myself on the back for ordering one online. This way I got a pretty colored one in the exact style I wanted, for one-fourth of the price of the plain black ones available in local stores. I paid $9.99 for my case, and the cheapest case I've seen anywhere in person is $39.99.

Artpad #69 Is Nearly Done

I'm down to the final five pages. I haven't posted art from most of this entire artpad due to having no access to a scanner. I have been living "in transition" (e.g., with no place of my own and staying with family/boyfriend) for four and a half months now, ad my access to most of my stuff has been minimal, as the majority of my belongings are still packed in boxes.

At any rate, Artpad #69 will be over very soon, and I'll find a way to post the ending page and Artpad #70's (!) intro page when I draw them.

Quit Freelancing

I finally did it last night. I wrote the email asking to resign from my freelance writing campaign, and from the company as a whole. At one time this company was paying my entire rent, but now work trickles in from them, giving me only $100-200 in extra income per month (and also gouging me on taxes...more on that in a second.)

Simply put, the money isn't worth the stress of juggling deadlines every week, especially when I have to work on freelance stuff on my only couple of days off from my day job. I want to work on CREATIVE stuff during my time off, like drawing, writing and making smartphone games--and now I can!

Death and Taxes

...Not necessarily in that order. More accurately, first came the taxes, which determined that I owe money on my tiny income of $10,000 last year, and then came the death of my most recent paycheck as a result. As I mentioned above, freelance work gouges you on the taxes. Why? Because a regular job takes out the taxes before even handing you the paycheck, so you don't notice how much of your income is going there. Freelance relies on you taking that amount out on your own and saving it up to pay taxes later.

When one is making barely enough to live paycheck to paycheck, it's tough to save hundreds of dollars all year to pay taxes. All ranting aside, a regular job also pays half of the tax amount for you--so freelance effectively makes you take out and pay twicce as much as regular taxes on your yearly income.

Anyway. Taxes are done. My paycheck's done being useful the day after I got it. Time to count the days 'til one of my last freelance checks gets deposited.

Saving For a Home On Wheels; Reconsidering?

The Low-down: My current plan for a place to live is to buy myself a nice motorhome and live in it like a small apartment. I've been doing my best to save for one, since the kind I'm looking for (size, year, condition) usually runs around $1200. If I can pull this off, I can live in the same town as my job (much less commute time/easier time getting to work) and boyfriend (spending time with him without his parents being around would be nice...), not to mention pay a lot less rent per month than in an apartment (hundreds of dollars less), and actually get to keep the place I'm in instead of having to more my stuff if I ever want to relocate.

The above sounds nice and workable, but lately I have been reconsidering whether I would enjoy living in a motorhome. I'm not sure I would be comfortable living in a trailer park (even a really nice one in town), especially with the small, lightweight locks on a motorhome's doors. I've also noticed that the things I miss about my old apartment tend to be things a motorhome doesn't have, like a living room carpet, space to dance or party, a large flatscreen TV and game system, a queen-size bed, and a high-speed internet connection. If I could afford it, I would be totally happy moving back into the same place I lived in last, LOL.

Bearing that in mind, I'm seriously considering switching the home in wheels plan to renting a new apartment and getting myself a car/license instead. It would make my independent once and for all (not having to rely on anybody to drive me to work like I do now), and I find the idea quite appealing. Maybe I'm just fantasizing about having ANY place rather than living in transition like I'm doing now.

I'm still confident things will fall into place how they ought to when the time is right.

Doctor Who, How I Missed Thee

I have been re-watching some Doctor Who (Eleventh Doctor) episodes the past couple of days, and forgot how much I truly love this show. I wish I had DVDs of some of the Tenth Doctor's episodes, though--those are my absolute favorites. Sorry, Matt Smith, but David Tennant is just my favorite Doctor by far.

Speaking of Tennant, I saw him in "The Decoy Bride" and found it very entertaining. The leading lady is really cute and funny there, too.

Things to Check Out

Stuff I've checked out recently and found noteworthy (for better or for worse!)

Metal Gear Solid: Peacewalker - Not sure if I've featured this one before, but I found, dusted off and charged my PSP slim edition and have started a new Peacewalker game. Gotta love Metal Gear and Snake! This game follows Snake through Central America (a place I've just read an entire travel book about), so that definitely helps it to keep my attention. it also features the classic Metal Gear sneaking and stealth missions, tranquilizer guns, Kojima art style cut scenes, and of course, David Hayter voicing Snake.

Swagbucks - A web site that pays you points called Swagbucks for using their search engine. Sounds a bit silly, I know, but I've been using them for years--and getting free stuff. Usually I just save my 'bucks up to about 450 and spend them on $5 Amazon gift cards over and over, then buy things I want on Amazon. A whole case of 0.3mm mechanical pencil lead, a memory stick for my PSP, e-books I wanted but didn't want to actually pay for and video games are just a few of the things I've spent my Amazon balance on. You can find cards for Best Buy, Target and numerous other places, too.

If you do sign up, could you use this link to do so, pretty please? It lets them know I referred you, so every time you earn 'bucks I get bonus 'bucks too. 8D

Time to Plug In the Headphones

Time to blare music and write and ignore the room around me! Just watch, now that I've declared this, everybody will want to talk to me at once. LOL; I am working on a sci-fi story that just MIGHT involve plant-people...for my longtime watchers, references to plant-people just MIGHT sound familiar.

Off I Go, Then

'Til next time, hope everyone is doing well and getting lots of creative endeavors underway, if not finished!

~Threshie

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THE MIGHTY FOOTER

Commissions are currently closed! Just until I get some of these finished. Click here for commission info.

Commissions:

1) 1 lineart (ink) | *gakusangi (Paid; getting info)
2) Solomon's Boys (ink) | *gakusangi (unpaid; getting info)
3) Negaman vs Evil Celine (CG color/ink lines) | Brian (no DA) (paid; sketching)
4) Johnnyschick and Bill (pencil lineart) | ~johnnyschick (paid; sketching)
5) Light Yagami, Sebastian Michaelis, Shigure Sohma and a Mudkip interacting with OC Sicero (9 chibis, 4 pics of Sisero + other character and 1 pic of Sisero alone; paid, 2 done, 3 left) | ~Sammy-aka-Sicero

Kiribans:

1) 66,666 Original character pencil line art for ~Kyori-Hiketsu (No, I didn't forget about this! I'm sorry it's so late )
2) 77,777 Matt and Near CG cell color pic for *Zelly-Graywords

Links

Sites I either contribute to or helped make. The candlemaking and low carb food listing ones are made by family members of mine.

ThumbHurt Games Official Site
ThumbHurt Games Facebook Page
Rules For Coloring Threshie's Line Art
Link List of Threshie's Comics
Threshie's Tags Journal III
100 Theme Challenges:
Threshie's Fanfiction.net Library (current fic count: 44 )
The Little Knowns
Candle Making Crafts
Low Carb Food List