The Stress Snowball

I am very familiar with the Stress Snowball. 

You see, it starts off small. 
It's so small, that I ignore how cold it is. 



I even ignore the rock in the middle of it, which makes it dangerous, but I'll get to that later.

I ignore the snowball, thinking that I can handle it. 

…

I'm wrong. 

Eventually, I drop the snowball and it starts to roll around. 

It picks up other stress inducing things.

This happens because I didn't take care of the small things, and now I'm too stressed to deal with the bigger things…

It picks up pretty much everything, from school stuff, to work stuff, to even other people who were just there to help.
 

This can get overwhelming to the point where I just don't want to do ANYTHING and so the ball continues to grow. 

 


When it gets this bad, we are tempted to dive in and get to the source immediately, but sometimes that gets us stuck in the ball. 

Instead, take a moment to take a closer look.
 

In general, if you can peel off some easy tasks and stresses first, just little ones from the top, you can start to get some layers of snow off of your stress snowball.
 


Keep at it, and before long, your stress snowball will start to shrink to a more manageable size.
 

More layers removed, and you'll get to the rocky middle. 

The stress which started it all.


The stress I thought I could handle, whatever it may be. 

The stress I didn't realize was so heavy. 

For me, it looks like this:
 

This center of stress is generally just a failure to keep up with the tasks of taking care of myself, along with everything else.

I have learned to keep this center of stress happy with tea and comic-books.  

It is often tough to find time for this though, so to-do lists come in handy. 

I treat taking care of myself just like any other task.  

This is the key to avoiding the stress snowball. 

Do I still fail to do this on occasion?  
Of course.  

I'm actually a little worried about this coming semester, since it's my last.  

Here's hoping I remember this post! 

New Year Post! And How To Keep Your Resolutions.

2013?  
I moved a bazillion times, applied to internships, took my five hour and actively started practicing driving, took huge steps in getting back to eating right, got back up to 100 pounds, started dating my Knight, finished the first chapter of Oh Hell, Donna!, participated in the Shuffle comic, almost finished my MA, met a chunk of Rob's family, went to a bunch of museums and movies, Rob got my portfolio site up (www.rowyngolde.com), made a lot of stuff, remade some old connections, attempted to assist friends with wedding plans, wrote stuff, drew stuff, attended conventions, sold stuff...  started re-learning guitar...  I feel like other things happened.  ...That's all I can think of. 

For 2014, I wrote up a giant to-do list by month.  
The things anyone reading this might care about mostly involve getting my driver's license, finishing my MA (with starting my internship), getting Deddrie back online, and posting Oh Hell, Donna! one page at a time.  
Eventually, Donna will be available for purchase as a book.  
Moth will also be published hopefully within 2014.  
*crosses fingers*  
I also plan on working out a bit more, practicing guitar a bit more and possibly learning a little more Japanese.  

You might be wondering how I intend to do the things I'm saying.  
Well, I have a plan. 


How to Keep Your New Years Resolutions

Make a list:  

Write down everything you want to change or accomplish this year.  
Then cut that down to reasonable things.  
For example, “eat healthy” might be a bit better than, “marry that movie star.”  



Detail that list: 

Having things like “Go to the gym more often” wind up meaningless really fast because they are vague and therefore make it easy to come up with excuses to avoid.  

Instead, write things like, “Go to the gym X amount of hours, X amount of days a week…” and write exactly what you plan to work on while there.  

You can even go to someone who works at the gym the first day and ask what kinds of exercises and machines you should do to achieve your goal. 


This process works for pretty much any goal, not just working out! 

Mini goals: 

Having mini goals along the way can help you remember that you are making progress, which will help your desire to continue.  
Mini goals also give you something to build on in order to get to another level or step of your ultimate goal. 



Do you wanna?

Make sure you actually WANT to do the things on this list, or that they will make you healthier, or better your life in some way.  

Sometimes, we say we’ll do things just because other people want us to do them.  
This makes it less likely to actually stick to it, for obvious reasons.  

That being said, if something is on your list because a friend is doing it also and wants a buddy, you should probably stick to it.    


All else fails?  
If you can find an excuse to quit, you can find an excuse to continue.  
Make up a reason why it would benefit you to stick with the resolution, even if it is just a sense of pride and bragging rights.
Along those lines, if you don't really want to eat more healthy or keep track of something else medical but your doctor tells you to do so...  You might want to just suck it up and try it anyway.  
Who knows?  
Your doctor might be right and you might start to feel awesome. 

Have a buddy:  

It isn’t necessary, but having someone else hold you accountable and having the drive to stick to it too will benefit you both.  
(This can be in person or online.) 



Remember: 

If you find that it isn’t working out, you can change something about your routine.


Ask around and see how other people achieved similar goals. 

Form a habit!

Like brushing your teeth, if you do something every day, eventually you’ll do it without even thinking about it.  



Do research:  

This works for above examples, as well pretty much everything else in life.  

Want to learn a new skill?  Find a teacher or online tutorials.  

What does it take?  What supplies will you need?  

Start small though.  
Getting too involved too fast may cost you a lot of money for something you might wind up not actually enjoying.
You can always build up on supplies once you know that you want to continue. 



Help is good! 

In some cases, you may want to go to your doctor to see what the healthiest way is to achieve your goals.  

Do this especially if your goal involves ANY kind of diet or exercise plan.  



In other cases, you may want to find and go to a counselor or a psychologist if your goal involves facing a long standing fear or even attending to social problems.  

It doesn’t have to be something huge in order to seek professional help.  



In fact, asking for some kind of help is always recommended, no matter what your goals may be.  



Write down your progress:

On a calendar, or even sticky notes, write down every single time you accomplish a part of your goal.  
Even a tiny accomplishment. 

Say how many hours you did it, or what mini goal you met.  


If you organize your main goal, mini goals, and steps to get there by date on the calendar to begin with, this will be easy to see.  



Remember!!!

You can always add goals throughout the year.  

Every day is a new day, so we don’t have to wait for the next year to make goals.


Woo!

It's a Kind of Magic

For a little while, and perhaps again soon, I was altering Magic cards.  

I don't even play the game, but I love the art and some of them were fun to play with. 

So, here are a few examples because this is my blog and I can show what stupid things I do with my time.  

First up, bunnies and that... thing.  With scared people.  

Here, I had a request to make this dude into a lady.  The colors are actually a lot nicer in person, but oh well.  

Sometimes it's just fun to extend the artwork...  

And lastly, NEKKID.  I think this was the first one I did, so I wasn't really...  sure what the Hell I was doing. 

What I Wore and Convention Madness

I'll start this off with the first chunk of the 30 day "What I Wore" challenge... meme... thing.  

Day 1 was me dressed for a presentation.  I was nervous as all Hell, even though it was with a group.  
I still can't tell if I screwed up or not.   
Also, I love vests.

Day 2 was me being grumpy because it was Halloween, but I had class from 6-9PM and couldn't do anything fun.  
We didn't even get trick or treaters.
That pink sweater is becoming my favorite Winter item though.  
It's too big and really soft and lovely.   

Day 3 was somewhat exhausting, but in a good way.  
My household is one of introverts, so we aren't great at crowds or entertaining friends for long periods of time, even when we'd really like to do so.  
This day was me entertaining a couple friends I hadn't seen in a long time, followed by going to a loud bar to meet two of my knight's old friends.  
So.  Yeah.
The outfit was dark jeans and a neat, oddly warm top with lots of sparkly things.  I had to push up the sleeves because they are only 3/4 length and it was driving me crazy. 

Day 4...  Why did I look so unhappy?  
I had my gore pants on...  Invader Zim shirt... Comfy hoodie...
I remember.  Headache.  Headache and utter fear of my then upcoming half hour solo presentation.    
This entire semester has been utterly insane. 

Day 5 involved a Batgirl shirt and plaid pants that were given to me when a friend hit puberty and couldn't fit in them anymore. Conveniently, I'm about the size of a child.
No shoes because screw it.   

Day 6 during the day was just jeans and a black tee, since I was going to be meeting with my advisor at some point.  She had a puppy in the room because he was training to be a therapy dog.  Also, my advisor is really nice and helpful, which is new for me.  
The hanging pants are my workout pants.  ...Actually, I reversed the color of them somehow.  (Shows how often I actually workout...)  
Hitting the gym as though I’m healthy!  Yay!

Day 7 was drawn really super tiny before it was scanned in.  I have no excuse for this fact. 
Trigun shirt and blue jeans. 

Day 8! Again, full of angst. 
Again, angsty because of the half hour presentation.
On the bright side, that sweater is comfy.   

Day 9 was presentation day.  I was terrified, but I did my best to pretend I wasn't.  The teacher had a lot of discussion points and I'm still not sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.  
Was she trying to correct me?  It was mostly clarification purposes... Was I not clear?  
Does she just respect me enough to want a discourse?  
Am I going to fail?  
Questions?   

Day 10 and the drawing looks nothing like the actual top.  
The top is silky and has red, grey, and pink flowers, but it's much less simplistic.  
It ties in the back and the grey part over the cleavage is a separate under shirt, needed for obvious reasons.
The choker necklace has the sign for Scorpio. 
My clutch there is awesome because it not only has my cards, cash, whatever, but it also fits my epi-pen and chapstick. 
...The epi-pen is a little more important than the chapstick.      

Day 11 was a day I did not leave the house.  At all.  
Wore my “Cry baby” shirt and drank tea from one of my tiki mugs.
My chair (from my knight's sister) is actually much more awesome than what I drew. 

Aaaand day 12, which was today.  
Again, I'll be doing this for 30 days, but I figured I'd stop and do a post here because today was a convention and I wanted to mention that I went.  
The comic I worked on wasn't quite ready to show yet, but it'll be at the next one!  
Here, I'm dressed as Cassie Hack from Hack/Slash.  

My knight was dressed as Vlad, so he bought a plain mask, I built Vlad's mask on top of it...

and then my knight painted it. 

That's my lap.  

We didn't stay long at at this convention just because the three of us (the other one was Deadpool, by the way) were all kind of peopled out by the time we got there.  

Still, we saw some friends, looked at a lot of stuff, and managed not to buy anything. 
I also learned that in or out of costume I'm terrible at recognizing anyone I know.  

I can tell what character he or she may be dressed as, but I won't know where I know the person him or herself from, let alone his or her name.  
I'm memorable, as are the other two of this household, so this can be an issue. 

Last time we went to this convention was memorable due to 11 leftover House of the Dead credits someone had walked away from while playing.  

Knight and I took over. 

Turns out that my aim isn't bad, but I'll automatically shoot anything that moves.  
As I result I one shot...  

...two of the scientists. 

BUT I killed a lot of zombies too.  

Greater good and all that, right? 

Foil Rose Because I Can't Function

I am so stressed about tomorrow that I can't even explain... things. 

I am going to be presenting for half an hour about a subject I know very little about and I hate everything. 

So, I made a thing. 

 I bet I can do it better. 

It's supposed to be a rose.

...A rose of Dove wrappers.

One day, maybe even this weekend, I won't be so full of stress.

When that day comes, you'll get a real blog post again. 

Adventures in Dressmaking!

I found a pattern and bought it on a whim.  It looked simple enough and I'd never used a pattern before, so it was exciting.  Then I scared myself into thinking I'd just screw it up and never even tried. 

 I was going to do this one, with a cowl:  

 ...

Like a year or something later?  More than that?  

Couple of years later, I bought fabric for this pattern.  My buddy Dani helped me pick out this fabric: 

 Isn't it cute?  I don't really own a lot of cute things.  I mean, yeah, it's still skulls but...  CUTE!  YAY! 


 Now, the pattern called for stretchy fabric and this was not, but I didn't want a zipper up my armpit either, so I decided to do panels on both sides of stretchy stuff.  

You know what I own even less of than cute clothes?  Pink. 

 Seriously.  Everything I owned before was red, black or brown.  Sometimes there were blue things.  Mostly black. 


I am le goth kid.  

And so it began!  I went to my mother for assistance, realizing that she had about as much experience using a pattern as I had.  She had done it once in the sixties and her story didn't exactly have a happy ending.  


Pinning up the fabric to then cut out the shapes: 

There was this tone of "Is this going to work?" throughout the process. 

 Of course, there were some mishaps.  One example being when we attached both panels to what would become the same side, instead of one on each: 

 Slowly, it began to become a thing: 

Thiiing: 

The cat was entirely unhelpful.  Please note that the rest of the table was clear at that point.  She managed to sit on ALL the dress fabrics.  

"I shall sit RIGHT ON ALL THE THINGS"
(The darker fabric in front of her is what we used for the second dress.) 



It fit!  We just needed the final touches aaand: 

BOOM BABY!  

The finished dress!  The pink, as stated, is stretchy.  The rest is not.  That means it's comfy enough when bending the elbows and (while it doesn't look it on the hanger) it's really form fitting.  The bottom of it wound up pleated just so it could be more fit to my body after the fact, so that's neat.  

WOOT.  I DID A THING.

Well,  WE did a thing.  My mother did a lot of the actual machine work because pushing pedals with my feet to make a loud thing go fast scares me whether it's a sewing machine or a car.  

I need to work on that.

But WOO a dress!

EYES ON ALL THINGS

I'm alone in the house all day.  I try my best to keep up with dishes and putting away laundry and all that stuff...  I do commissions and I write and I complain about how things will be when I'm adding homework and papers to that list of stuff to do.

However, every now and then, I find myself feeling ill or I temporarily run out of shit to do.

And then I get bored.

Oh

Oh so bored.

And then the duct tape comes out.  

The "eyes" are ping pong balls sliced in half.  I've done this a thousand times, the most notable of them being the one I did here. 

So now the apartment has been invaded by trashcans which look at choo all da time.  

 LOOKIN AT CHOO


The "mouth" is the top of the trash bin.  That way you can feed the monster.  Sometimes I add teeth to the inside.  

Also, this means that when you knock over your can and the tissues or whatever fall out, it looks like the bin is vomiting.  JOY!

Standing up: 

I had done more complex monster bins before, including one that got complicated enough that I didn't want to use it for garbage anymore:

Now he holds umbrellas, so he's still useful.  

 "Bleh!" 


ANYHOO

I did it to the kitchen one too:  

Each had different colored eyes:  

The bathroom one was the only trash bin to need a different color duct tape: 

*sings*  Too much time on my haaandsss!