A quick hello and some cookies

Hello again!  See I told you guys that it wouldn't take me half a year to write another post.  Did I maybe think I was lying when I said that? Who knows? No one. No one knows. No one can prove anything.

It's been a different kind of crazy than our normally scheduled programming these past couple of weeks.  Mainly because I started school and most of you know, either from practice or theory, that this drains a person.  And it's also a little weird being back in a studying environment after so long.  I love home-schooling more than I can possibly say, but I have kind of missed the outside structure. Watch me regret those words.  Watch me.

So yeah, there's all this running around trying to find my classes and my books. Trying not have a panic attack on the first day of class and all that. And through all of this, there hasn't been a lot of time to get much done in the way of finished artwork and writing.

So until I get another chance to sit down and write something entertaining:

Shhhh, let's pretend it didn't happ- too late.

It's fairly safe to say that a lot has been happening since the last time I posted.  Which was in freaking November.  November, guys, November.  Do you know how long ago that was? It was so long ago that we've almost done a full lap and a brand new, shiny November is only three freaking months away.

Unacceptable.

It's not like I forgot that I had this thing where I would write words and draw things and generally try to entertain whoever stumbled upon my ramblings (Hi, mom).  It's just that for a while there I had zero time, then I had zero energy, and then zero motivation to even get out of bed. (March and April were some fun, entirely dandy months let me just tell you.)  For a little bit I considered just deleting this whole thing because I never had time for any sort of continued updating and it felt like it had become a chore rather than my own little practice story time that I had originally intended it for.

But ultimately, I've missed writing and drawing it too much.  There's something very therapeutic in drawing you and your family as little cartoon people.  I have little understanding as to why, just that it is and I highly recommend it.  That and these people around me can be so amazingly ridiculous that it just seems like a complete waste to not write about. What kind of sister would I be if I didn't inform the general public that my sister has taken to whacking her foot with a book? Or that my brothers are in what I can only assume is some sort of weird, standoff over a stuffed platypus and we keep finding said platypus in the refrigerator? (Different refrigerators even. I really don't understand the platypus, you guys. Have I also hidden him? Of course I have, I'm a child.  But participation does not necessarily equal any kind of understanding for your weird, albeit entertaining, custody-battle-thing.)

And let me just tell you about how wonderful a thing it is to have something else to write that isn't another dang re-write of a comic chapter that I have been working on for like a year. Procrastination is a beautiful thing. Come on, say it with me now.

I'm also starting my first semester of college in a couple of weeks. (After a couple of years figuring out what the f#$@ I would even want to spend that kind of money on.)  So while I've managed to actually not completely lose my head with anxiety, (I'm not sure if you can appropriately understand how much of an actual, freaking miracle this is.) I figured that I should get back into the habit of writing posts again so that I have some form of stress release when life inevitably becomes a great, big panic party.

I'm also under no delusions that I will probably have no energy to do any sort of stellar blog posts.  So if you even hear from me in the next couple of months I would like to go ahead and warn you that I'll probably have stopped caring about quality at that point.  I've been told (repeatedly) that I will be sick of writing by the time this is through. Oh God...this is never going to be through.

For now though, I have a few more weeks and I'm still excited about it.  I'm really, so incredibly ready to leave this almost-past year in the dust.

It's been very...interesting.  A lot of development, too much stress, and probably more ice cream than was needed.  Due to a couple of unfortunately-timed events, I needed to quit my job in January.  Am I sad that I no longer have to deal with the unfortunate sides of the service industry for right now? No.

But I miss the other parts so much that it isn't completely out of the question that at some point in the next couple of years, I'll probably return.  It depends on how much school is kicking me in the sides.

On top of that, there was house-sitting, wedding planning for my sister (Never again.  Never. Again.), my (fantastic, perfectly lovely) mom getting surgery right after (full recovery, I'm ecstatic to add), my (wonderfully intelligent, previously mentioned) older sister getting ready to go to France for seven freaking months, and so many more things that, had I the time/energy/adequate level of cares, would have made for several fascinating, if not amusing, posts.

Sometimes there are regrets in life, kids.

Now though, now we're gearing up for Fall (I think we all know by now how Elysha feels about Fall) and I have almost no doubts that the next couple of months are going to be full of just as many post opportunities.  So let's cross our fingers and hope that Brain cooperates with me.  You all know it won't happen, but I can still hope dangit.

Until next time, you lovely people.

The November Conspiracy

I've reached a point where I've just stopped wondering where all of my time goes. Because I'd still be wondering what happened to July, not mentioning October.

It's probably where all of my hair-bands go.

Not that I'm complaining that it's November. I love November. I love Autumn, I love food day (It's called Thanksgiving, Stomach, stop trying to type for me.), I love going outside, I love blankets and hot coffee drinks and all of that nonsense.

It's just that I swear to you I went to bed sometime in July and I woke up today with everyone trying to convince me it was already November.  What is this conspiracy?

                    (Common Sense is so done with Brain's shenanigans right now)



Life has been crazy. Life has always been crazy and if I were to place a bet I would say life will always be crazy from this moment on. (But hey, at least I'd be making some money from it). I feel like I've been in a haze of busy since April at least. Work has been a constant and for the last couple of months I've been fighting off the intense inconvenience that is my very own Cave Mode (Complete with 'Anti-social' dragon and everything).  That on top of everything else has made it very difficult to find time to write a blog post, or do anything that wasn't work or watching British murder mysteries for that matter.

But after weeks of fighting it, I have triumphed! I have faced the 'Anti-social' dragon and I have beat it in the face until it became a passive lump, laying in it's own shame. It's still in the middle of my floor though, which hinders a couple of things, but at least (hopefully) it won't cause as much trouble as it has been.

To be fair though, I haven't been completely worthless. I've managed to get some writing done for my comic (which is currently going through some kind of teenage phase and not cooperating with me nearly at all.) and I didn't hide in my room from the responsibilities that are assigned to me. I think that's pretty darn impressive.

Anyway, except a couple of events that will be explained in further detail later, I'm just going to pretend that past couple of months didn't happen, that I really did just go to sleep yesterday in July and everyone is lying about the date for some reason I may never understand.

Something you might have noticed..

Yep, new blog. Sorry about all of the switching about and changing things on you, but I ran into some personal issues with my previous one (My Mind's Lint) and had to change over. Again, sorry.

But onto greater things!

I've recently come across some energy the past couple of days.  It's been a rare thing over the course of the past months, so I'm trying to get a lot of things done while I have it. Don't worry, a blog post is definitely near the top of that list.

I'm still switching around things here, getting used to the new blog, switching posts over (Because I'm selfish and wish to keep them with me despite their older artwork.) and setting up random things. So I apologize for any future mishaps that are just waiting to happen.

Until I can finish a blog post, though, have a picture of the pumpkins Kristin and I carved for Halloween.



Yes, this is mine. If you haven't seen Nightmare Before Christmas then you won't really know what it's from and also you shouldn't be reading this as you CLEARLY need to go watch that film. (Seriously, go. Now.)

And Kristin's! She is super talented with the Pumpkin carving situation.

Elysha's Summer

Oh boy, let's just talk about this summer.

Summer has never been my favorite season.  Give me fall, winter, or early spring any day, but not summer.
There's just something about this season that makes me want to hide in my room and not emerge into the daylight until I can go outside and not hate everything.

It's like hibernation or something.  I should just start hoarding food and air conditioners, I could get away with this right?

So with all of the horrible heat that comes with summer and getting some new responsibilities at work, time hasn't been in abundance.  And when I do get time to myself I usually spend it flopping onto the sofa/bed/floor and watching murder mysteries until I can no longer remember the outside world.  (This is how Elysha deals with the stress of the modern world, everyone. Doesn't it sound healthy?)

Anyway, all of this to say, I apologize for disappearing off the face of the planet over the past few months.

Here are a couple of thing I HAVE managed to get drawn, but don't really have purpose.

(Top three: Tiny Elysha drawn while making Disney World plans with Sara, Elysha-drawn because I can, random picture used for drawing warm up.
Top four: Evil laughing Elysha-drawn to demonstrate what I look like when I write comic plots, Tiny Kristin-drawn because I was bored and had nothing else to do, Tiny Lisa-anne-drawn to follow up tiny Kristina and tiny Sara, and finally Tiny sara- drawn because KRISTIN got one and how come she didn't? Hence the grumpy face.)


And as I am too busy (Read: Lazy) to draw these, you get them in real life form. Welcome to Elysha's summer:

  So, obviously over the course of the summer, since Kristin was studying Tolkien all summer, we had to purchase all of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings.  (We watched these over the course of two days by the way. I've never been so tired)  And at some point we had to pause it so we could get water or something and this little gem is the scene we paused it one.  You're welcome.

  I had mustache cookie cutters and bread that was disgusting and couldn't be eaten.  I feel this requires no further explanation.

     So when we purchased all of the extended editions of Lord of the Rings we OBVIOUSLY needed a magical fort to watch them in.

            And this happened as well.

           Lisa-anne left Daniel and I in the car by ourselves.  Then she took too long.  So we sent her this.

                 Kristin found my hair clips.  So she decided to put them all in my hair.

Sara was being anti-social and wouldn't go swimming with us.  This was unacceptable.

             

                        And this is what I do when I have talked it her into something and then go to kidnap her.

Gnome Chomsky

     So a fair amount of events have occurred this past year and due to lack of time (laziness) I haven't really been able to give them fair justice.

But for the purposes of this post I may want to mention that I moved...again. Completely unexpectedly.   In less than two weeks.  With my car continuously breaking down.  August was stressful.

Anyway. The reason this is important is because where I moved was my sister and her fiance's house.  We'd been talking about it for a little while and due to just a bunch of crap happening all at once it happened much sooner than expected.  But it's been awesome so far, despite the fact that within the first month of my living there Kristin had burst into my room and began singing opera. Twice.  Then I started locking my door and she whined outside of it and called me a 'meanie'.

And yet we are still considered adults...

Sam, for his part, is a ridiculously evil mastermind of ridiculousness. He often comes across as the only sane, adult one of the group, but do not let that fool you.  There's a reason he and Kristin are together.

Sam also likes video games.

Sam loves video games.

Sam would marry video games if he didn't love Kristin so much.

When he's not busy with law school or entertaining Kristin (meaning that I'M having to entertain Kristin) he will sit at his computer and talk to his friends while they kill zombies and such together.

Now, online gaming is nothing new and the theory of it shouldn't come as a shock. But when I was growing up and would watch my older brother play games, he never played online.  So I'm not exactly used to people talking to their computers and such.

So when one evening I'm sitting on the sofa in the living room drawing pictures and I start hearing Sam talk...my first assumption is that he's talking to me.

"You have to bop the clowns on the nose."

After the initial confusion of him saying random things out of nowhere and then apparently not caring about my answer, I realized that he's playing a game and was probably talking to someone online. This was reassuring because it meant that I didn't have to tell Kristin that her fiance had gone insane. That kind of news always put a damper on the relationship.

I had gotten this all mentally sorted, was going to go back to drawing...then he started talking again.

And here's the thing...I had no idea what he was playing because I couldn't see the screen from where I was sitting. So all I had to go on was his part of a conversation that I couldn't hear, about a situation that I couldn't see.

All of this has been to get to the point of this entire post.

Because while a normal person might have just asked what he was playing, I just kept on replying and writing it all down. And with me being such a generous person, I thought I would share.

"At the end a gnome pops up" I'm sorry? What?  What game is this?

"Hey where's the gnome? Yeah, Chomsky." Gnome...Chomsky...well aren't you clever.

"Don't shoot the peanuts.  Yeah we all can."  I feel that this statement is sending mixed signals.

"HEY! Don't shoot the peanut!" YOU CAN'T TELL ME HOW TO LIVE MY LIFE.

"CHOOOMMMMSKKYYY!!!! I MISSED YOU CHOMSKY!"                                                                   

"You can't shoot a weapon and keep the gnome.  It's like using a gas can." I do not have any idea what this means...


"Hey, you want a katana? I found one in here." Because it's common knowledge that those just lay about.


"Does someone have to carry him the whole way, or can one of us carry him?" This question makes no sense.


"Oh...a fire grenade...but I have a guitar already..." I don't understand why this is a difficult decision.


"Maybe he self destructed." Wut. Why are things spontaneously combusting?


"Hey, where's the witch? If I run fast enough I might can pop her." So she's a balloon? Or are you calling her fat?

"Shooooot it didn't work." Aaaand now you have a SUPER pissed off witch, don't you?


"Run for it dudes, I'm dead." You're handling this VERY well, Sam.


"You're like a running back with that gnome, man. Just running through these crowds." 


"Hit up that tunnel of love" Excuse me? Hit what?


"It's the clown zombies, their shoes squeak." What form of hell were you sent to, Sam? Why are you in a tunnel of love with clown zombies? Does Kristin know about this?

"Arms and feet inside at all times."  I think you've gone insane.



"It's like metal gear solid back here." ...I'm not sure I heard that correctly...



"Make sure you have Chomsky tight. Hold him tight now." If you lose Chomsky, Sam, I will never forgive you.

I have grown an emotional attachment to Chomsky now, Sam. You better protect that gnome.

"Basically we have to fight off a hoard and then we run through some gates. Usually there's gas cans around here...but I don't see any." What in the world are you using all of these gas cans for, Sam?


"Oh shoot, yeah you got to grab him."  Is that Chomsky? IS HE OKAY?



"Hang on I can give you an adrenaline shot. WAIT. DANG IT!" I think Sam is experiencing some difficulties. 


"Maybe we weren't supposed to go in here? I don't see any way ou- OH FU----" I think that pretty much answers your previous question.



Something I have learned in all of this, Sam, is that you are horrible at giving directions.



"You guys want to call it quits?" NOT UNTIL YOU FIND CHOMSKY AND MAKE SURE HE'S OKAY. YOU GOT THAT? 




He apparently couldn't hear me through his headphones so I just kept replying and posting everything online for other people to enjoy.

This went on for a good amount of time. It wasn't until he stopped playing and Kristin came in to ask why he'd gone insane that he found out what I'd been doing.

I regret nothing.

Month of the Hermit

$^@#$ this past month.

I'm super sorry, guys.  For some reason I was hit with Cave Mode all this past month.  It's a special mode where I want to crawl under my blankets and never talk to anyone again.  And it's horrible because I get nothing done at all.

And Responsibility has had it up to HERE with Brain.

Brain is being completely uncooperative.