All The Productivity!

All of it! XD

So there's so much for me to cover in this post that I'll have to put it into sections! *Gasp*

Deviantart

So, my deviantart as you all know is littlewolfdreamer.deviantart.com. It's active, it's happy, and it always holds an eclectic set of things.

 Themes

I've also joined a couple of new groups. Almost exclusively for the prompts and themes. It's exciting to be able to have something to write about constantly. And some of these groups desperately need participants.

One group I'm in, Unseen Writers, has the weekly theme this week of Sandman. You could choose from two kinds of sandman. I chose the traditional pleasant one that comes around and puts sand in your eyes to help you get to sleep. I wrote the poem "The Insomniac's Letter" to add a little twist on the theme.

Another group, We Write To Escape, has a fortnightly theme. This fortnight's theme is "Chains, Barbed Wire, and Broken Wings." So I'm currently working on a story called The Gargoyle Hunt. I might change the name later. We'll see. 

Finally, Live Love Write has a weekly prompt which this week is 

"Write anything that features one or more of the following:

- schizophrenia
- displacement
- positive symptoms
- delusions"

I haven't thought of something for that yet. I'll keep you posted.

 Contests

There are some contests that I get into on deviantart. Usually, they have nothing to do with art, they're more like raffles. However, there are a couple that I've been doing that are actually art related right now. One being a mini contest by Popolis where I get to draw a winter fantasy scene. 

It's actually really neat stuff and I think I'll do more like them.

 Scheduled Deviations

One of the Greatest Things I am now using with deviantart is the idea of SCHEDULING a future deviation! This is super useful for those days where I forget about the world or don't feel like doing anything. Emma's Journal has had some of that happen. Wouldn't it be great if I could write at will and just have one page posted everyday?

This way I don't spam the deviants with all my silly deviations at once! I've posted things from an Angry Speaker to a Cello. And both at times I wasn't even awake. This will totally help me get my 10,000 page view goal. (Well, that and the promised bikini picture in the snow if I get the goal early.)

Writing

What would be one of my posts without a writing update? Pointless, in my opinion. Because I will become a published author and it will be awesome. I just have to finish my silly stories. I mean awesome stories, because they're awesome... Or will be... Eventually... XD

 Emma

Who remembers the very beginnings of Emma? I started it as a self rant about everything and it's now turned into a complete fiction work about things very out of hand. It's kind of awesome. I have outlines and everything all ready for both stories!

    Journal

The creepier of the two stories, I have finally gotten going again on it!! I finally made the Halloween Day post. And let me tell you, it takes the story in a straightforward and scary as hell direction. Which makes me very pleased, as this was the point.

    Story

As for Emma's Story... I'm getting there slowly but surely with the prologue! Yes, I will post the prologue on deviantart, but that's all I will post of her story. This will be one of my little secretive kinds of things. I will be writing it on paper and having someone edit it for me. And then I'll take their edits and revise it and then I'll PUBLISH it. Yes, that's right, Emma's Story will be published. Emma's Journal will come afterwards.

Photography

I've been working on a blog for just plain modeling style stuff. I've made myself look purdy and taken pictures. Self portraits, however, aren't the only things I'm taking pictures of. As Previous Pictures on Deviantart will tell you, I enjoy taking pictures of pretty much anything. 

The point of my photography is to capture something that I consider beautiful or special or important for some reason, albeit even a small one. My cats, my friends, my projects, they all succumb to the power of my camera. 

Too bad I hate the cold. I could get some good winter shots.

Freelancing Opportunity

So here's another thing. This person is writing a book on homeschooling that she wants someone to help write. "But Alex! You've never been homeschooled!"

A. I'm an autodidact
B. My Aunty Homeschools my two cousins
C. I have a lot of friends who are homeschooled
D. I'VE GONE THROUGH ONLINE LEARNING
E. And a Charter School - which is as near to homeschooling as one can get for still sending their child off to some kind of instructional facility.

Plus I have a passion for all sorts of independent learning and really everything homeschool entails. If you've ever been lucky/unlucky enough to sit around and listen to my Xena rant... She's going to probably be homeschooled. Because I'll know how to do it and I feel like that's how she'd learn best. (For those that don't know, Xena is the name of the little girl I'll have later on in life.)

And I'll do the Exercise update Tomorrow/Later! Because I'm Feeling Lazy!

.

Week one!

That's right, it is the end of week one of my awesome new exercise routine. As promised, some pictures!

And now for some stats! First item on the list is pushups. Me and my lameness started out being able to do 1 pushup. Total. Over the past week my pushup range has been 1 pushup a day as the smallest amount and today I reached 6 pushups in one day!

As for curlups, my lowest day had 42 curlups and my highest in a day? 70. It's pretty neat.

Now let's take a look at my times for the week. My first session (morning) had the lowest at 15 minutes and went all the way up to an hour. As for the second session... The lowest was 20 minutes and the highest was also an hour.

The longest day was the fourth with a total time of 1 hour and 20 minutes.

In case you're wondering, today's themes were yoga and fighting.

Today's picture shoot was all done by me. My camera (nikon coolpix) has a ten second timer. So I set it up, set the timer, ran over to the aimed spot, and struck a pose.

It turned out well in my opinion at least.

Also today I visited my dad's yoga class. It was an adaptive yoga class as he has some knee problems among other things. It was weird. A good experience, but I don't think I'll be joining next week. XD

Now on to my writing work. Today I did almost Nil. I did my dictionary project at least. I wrote a tiny bit of other stuff. I did a bit of the story edit. I wrote an outline for a freelance story.

I guess my productivity wasn't toooooo bad...

Well, on to other news. Hm. I started a contest today on my deviantart in order to reach my goal of 10,000 views by the end of the year. I'm at almost 9,100 right now, so we're on a roll!

In other other news... I hung out with two of my best friends today. We played uno, it was a blast. Yes. I still have managed to hold a social life. Crazy, huh? In fact, I'm going to someone's house tomorrow to spend the night. I probably won't be able to post tomorrow. Oh well.

Enjoy your night!!
-Alexandria

Been Awhile

I'm gonna try to keep up with this. I know I say this after practically every single other hiatus but hey, can you blame me? Life is busy. There's been Thanksgiving and now Christmas is coming and all this stuff!




So, to start off, here's a current picture of mwah. Which brings me to my next commentary. There will be a lot more pictures of me. The reason behind this has to do with my newest interest: Exercise.




That's right! I've gotten into exercise! It's pretty spiffy stuff. I even have little motivational thingies and tracking my progress and even like 5 exercises just chilling on the closet door. I feel so accomplished. I was given an exercise/balance ball from Mike (the one that lives at the house.) I was sooooo happy! I still am soooo happy. I started bouncing on it, because you know, that's obviously what it's meant for. XD

Each week, starting tomorrow, I'm going to do a picture showing myself to see if there's any difference in how I look from exercising. There will be two pictures. One of me in normal clothes, and one where I'm wearing my swimsuit. That way all the cuts can be seen. My hope is that I'll keep motivated when I see the differences and changes. Tomorrow will be the seventh day of exercise.

I'll also be sure to give statistics on my progress. Before you see how terrible it is... Before I started I could do maybe one push-up that was "good enough" (in my opinion) based on how close to the ground I got and the form. If a push-up is not in good form I don't count it. And no, I won't count the knee push-ups I can do.

As for curl-ups, I used to be absolutely amazing at them. I could do 100 in a row before stopping. Now though... I can do like 30 in a row before I have to stop. And that's HAVE to stop. Like it hurts too much. So I've been working on them slowly but surely.

The next stat that will be included is the workout times. The way I do my exercise is I do two sessions each day. Each session is at least 15 minutes in length, but no more than an hour. That way, together, I get "at least" 30 minutes of exercise each day. I might as well say I have yet to go a day where I've gotten less than an hour of exercise.

Note that each session involves a five minute warm-up and cool-down.

I also have themes for each day, I might start sharing them as well. Like today the themes are Aesthetics and Balance. (Obviously this is a "rest" day.) So I've been working on my posture and trying to balance and perfecting my form for various exercises, like push-ups.

In other news, I've been in the festive spirit! I put some lights around the lamp in my room and some tinsel. I think I need to try to elongate the tinsel ^.^"

I also have some red tinsel I think I'll put along the walls. I have a string of colored lights I can use, too. Intertwining them might be a neat thing to do! Then I can have pretty lights amongst pretty tinsel! I just need to make sure the cord reaches an outlet. XD


Now, about story stuff. (Sorry for the long post by the way!!)
I've been working on Emma's Story and Emma's Journal for awhile offline. I'll be typing them up eventually. I've also done a bit more of other writing. It's been difficult but I've been doing it! I just need to push myself to get things done and I will.

Unfortunately I had a small string of computer problems lately. It's all better now so for the last week I've been working on a person's story editing. That's right, I'm still doing all my freelance work. All the fun stuff! It's great.

Have a terrific day and I'll see you tomorrow!!
-Alex

Time

I had no nightmares today. This is Awesome because for the past couple nights I've had a lot of nightmares. I still remember the third one from two nights ago, still remember the feeling, but whatever.

This morning I had an amazing breakfast. I think I'm going to have it as the highlight of my day. It was just fried onions, potatoes, and eggs together but it was still really good.

I had a major disappointment today though.

 I was going to meet a new person at the library, and although I wasn't overly enthusiastic about it I still wanted to hang out with the person. That would've been fun, but unfortunately some things happened and we ended up deciding that we'd reschedule. Which wouldn't have bothered me except for the fact that I had already been sitting there for two hours and I could've just stayed home and gotten a lot more work done.

That was pretty much my day. Breakfast, some work, and waiting. I still have time, of course, but it's just going to include Night Vale, Ted Talks, and freelance work.

Blargh.

On the bright side, I'm planning on meeting someone cool tomorrow. We're meeting at Caribrew to chat and watch netflix and all that fun stuff. I'm mega excited. I like hanging out with people. 

Trying to stay upbeat,

Alex

The Dream and Today's Things

This was the second day in a row that I woke up nauseous from a dream. I only had one dream last night. It was a weird one. I was in this house that I don't know much about besides that it was about two stories which I only knew because I and my dream older sister shared a room on the second floor. I also know the stairs were old with dark colored wood. Like at the place my grandpa used to live, the stairs were similar, not the house.

In other rooms lived other peers and we all had to kill off one another. My dream sister and I weren't frightened. First, everyone worked together to kill off a couple people that made living at the house hell. And then we all split up. My dream sister and I were incredibly cunning and took everyone else out quickly and efficiently. Then we agreed we didn't have to kill each other but that when it was time to leave we were each on our own.

Dream sister created a mechanism that would blow up the house at 10:30am. Then two dream grandparents appeared. Not nice grandparents either. In fact, if it weren't for my dream self identifying them as grandparents I'd think they had no relation to myself and my dream sister at all.

So not only did we have to pack our stuff without them knowing, we had to sneak out too. We both ended up deciding we didn't need much of anything. Dream sister took a blanket and I took... Nothing. What's weird is that I had been able to leave absolutely everything behind. I'm a very sentimental person so... The dream ended after showing us we had to escape through lines of soldiers in mechanical suits, which was easier than one would think becauae we knew a lot of them. I don't know what happened afterwards.

Now on to more of real life.

I had a talk with my boyfriend that basically came down to, you guessed it, the fact that there was a misunderstanding. Once the miscommunication was cleared things went pretty well. I am now "rule-less" because being in a relationship with someone requires you trust them to not try to hurt you.

Yes, for you people that remember a couple nights ago, I am still a relationship anarchist. But it would be stupid to take away a pre-given title like that when it's obviously important to the other person. I'm not going to do anything to jeopardize my relationship with this awesome person.

HOWEVER. This means I don't plan on taking on any more title-filled relationships. I'll still care for others, love others, go on dates and kiss others. (Because I'm polyamorous as well.) But none of them will have a title because I don't discriminate someone's value to me based on the label they have.

So that is my post for tonight and I have a lot of work to do. XD

With love!
-Alexandria

The Post for 11/12

This is meant to be the post for the twelfth, because I didn't post anything earlier, and I know I will have much to post for the thirteenth as the day moves on.

I started my day in the worst fill of anxiety I've had in almost a month. Which is weird because the day before was by far one of the best I've had in awhile. I woke up from a nightmare, fell back asleep, woke up from another nightmare, fell back asleep and then repeated this once more. That's right, I had a total of three nightmares to haunt me.

The final wake-up was at 1pm. I stayed in my bed until 4:30, just mulling that last one over in my head.

All the nightmares were based on some sort of journey. I remember nothing else about the first one. The second one i remember only that and the me representation being about 9 years old. In the very last nightmare... I took a journey with some friends and something happened to me that I'm not going to disclose. But it made me wake up feeling gross and weird. Unhappy. That feeling stuck with me for most of the day as I attempted to figure some things out.

I eventually was able to get in some freelance work, watch 4 TED talks, see Fizzi36 livestream, and listen to another episode of Welcome to Night Vale.

Now I have an important meeting (maybe two?) tomorrow about important topics and more freelance work to do. Stay tuned to hear how those go.

Good night everybody!

-Alex

Attempted Stress Reduction?

I'm going to try a normal circadian rhythm, guys! Crazy, I know. This means I'll be going to sleep around midnight or one tonight, depending on my work.

Speaking of work, I have a couple fun things I'm doing. Obviously we have NaNoWriMo where I'm writing Emma's Story which is the "Prologue" to Emma's Journal on my deviantart.

I'm also editing a wonderful story for my friend from the UK. To do that I do a first read through just quick and in my head of each chapter. Then I go through the story, reading aloud in an English accent, trying to find the grammar/spelling/other mistakes/things that should be changed for better readability. I'm pretty good at editing and this is a fun way to do it. :)

Another fun project I'm doing for freelance is transcribing some videos for the awesome Risa Lynch. She seems pretty cool, both from a freelancer perspective and that of a youtube viewer. I mean, come on guys, she has a video for making homemade chocolate. That seems pretty awesome to me.

A final thingy I'm doing consistently is blog/forumn commenting. I basically get to look at a forumn with a bunch of musical posts and go to certain ones and add my own commentary. It's pretty awesome because I get to learn and teach with each post.

And because I'm lame and tired that's all that will be on my blog tonight.

Except for how some people that I watch livestreaming of/for have told me I should try livestreaming. I've downloaded OBS and now have to try and figure it out. Fun stuff, that is. I don't even have that much to stream, but hey, eventually I will. Right? I hope so.

Oh, and apparently if/when I visit the UK I have two possible places to crash for awhile. Which is a great thing to think about for my potential backpacking across Europe.

I love you all!
-Alexandria

A new start?

I hope, many years from now when I tell the story of these upcoming years, I can say "On the day I realized I'm a relationship anarchist my entire life changed for the better." Not to say that making that decision changed my life, but that after realizing something that will take effort to go against preconceived notions to live with will spark further epiphanies and changes.

So here I go. I identify as a polyamorous relationship anarchist. What does this mean? Well it means that I believe that I can love more than one person at one time, but it also means I don't feel a need to give them a label. I don't know if that means I should or shouldn't be dating people or in relationships with people. In fact, I'll have to go over this with Devohn to get his thoughts on what I should DO. (That opens a whole different bucket of worms ENTIRELY.) I'll obviously have to work on figuring things out as they come.

The next step in my process is to devote, TRULY DEVOTE my time and effort to writing. I know I said I'd work on my writing and crafting before but you all saw how my blog kind of died for a bit there again. Not anymore if I can help it. My blog is an essential part to my writing. If I can't trust myself to write a couple thoughts every day how am I to expect myself to write a novel? This also means COMPLETING NaNoWriMo AND putting my writing before my freelance. My freelancing has a habit of taking over my life.

I have a plan for my freelancing now. I make sure I make enough to cover bills every month. I work on each project AS IT COMES IN instead of giving myself the option of procrastinating. This should be simple for the most part but it requires a couple things to change.

The first thing that blocks my freelance success is over applying for jobs. Because one job seems to take forever to get back to me I should limit the amount of jobs I apply for to maybe 75% of what I normally do. This insures I can give the best quality to my client and deliver all projects on time.

To go with that, I should start working more on Mechanical Turks which is a site I'll give the link for a little later amongst my posts as I continue to make changes. It will allow me to feel like I'm "Doing Something" instead of just waiting for job peoples to get back to me.

The second thing that blocks my freelance success, and the hardest to deal with, is my bouts of anxiety. Say I'm told by a family member that I'm worthless. What does this do to me? This causes me to react terribly, I lay in bed for hours just shaking and breaking down and staring blankly. So I need to find a way to remedy this. I'll need to find an instant "pick me up." So far, fresh clean socks are hilariously helpful in boosting my mood. Especially when fresh out of the dryer. I'll need to brainstorm ideas further.

That's actually part of my life changing process, is to get and carry around some insta pick-me-ups to help me along.

That's all for now folks!
-Alexandria

Time Management

There are few things in this world more important for me right now than time management. "But Alex!" You may say, "All you do is write and crafts, why do you need time management?" Ha. Stereotypes are hilarious. Young grasshopper, only with time management may an Artist/Writer Succeed!

Every day you must do projects to strengthen your skills and get your name out there. Every day you must practice, every day you must market. This is why I do my dictionary project every day. I read as fast as I can for a minute and choose one of the words I've read to create a poem or other art piece for. Poems have been the best so far at highlighting the words.

And, actually, I'm also doing freelance work. Sure, it's writing, but it is a job. Jobs have deadlines. Don't finish by a deadline? Have no money. No money? No phone or data plan. No phone or data plan? Less of an ability to get more money. See how that goes? There's also the lack of food and tea and other things that make life worth living. Time management helps me have less anxiety, when I am successful at it, anyways.

Amusingly enough, even though I'm allowing myself extra time to sleep (even though I shouldn't) my mood is instantly boosted by the idea that I've been actually going to bed at the exact time or up to ten minutes early as I had planned. This is great! It's highly encouraging to see some success.

So how am I feeling right now? I am feeling... Okay I guess. Not anxious, perhaps a little stressed, a little bit cheerful. I've been playing some PC games to take breaks. Like right now I'm playing Diamond Hollow II on Kongregate. It's good stress relief. Platformers are my favorites.

So, not only have I been doing writing, freelancing, watching live gaming, and playing some games myself, but I've also been doing some surveys to help me get some funds. I have been using surveysavvy and valued opinions. Valued Opinions doesn't have a referral link, sadly. But whatever. Surveys don't pay a lot, but they pay enough to be worth the effort of clicking on a link every week or so.

As for my writing projects today... I plan on doing the dictionary project and a couple example articles that will help me get more jobs from elance.

Wish me luck!
-Alexandria

Hey look, a distraction!

So, my sleeping stuff is getting better. I've actually been asleep during the times I was supposed to be asleep. Huzzah!! I mean, I'm still doing a little bit of oversleeping, but I feel like that will be resolved soon. And yes, I feel rested so far every single wake-up. ^^" So we're doing good.

Well, This is still what I've been up to. A lot of live game watching. But hey, I've come up with some ideas to make it into actual work like stuff ruther than just sitting there staring at a screen. For one, I realized Mario or Super Monkey Ball's background noises help me stay focused on what I'm doing. It's really weird but who am I to scorn what works? Soon I will be a multitasking powerhouse!

 Another thing that occurred... Making hot dogs over fire! It was super awesome. You see, I adore fire. Those were some really good hot dogs. I added too much garlic to mine, though. :( 

Anyways, yeah. I missed posting yesterday because I was lame like that. I just couldn't write. Which is fine because today I can't draw at all. Like, I tried to draw some of my friends or my little sister and I just failed. So badly. Maybe it has to do with the hairstyle, I dunno, all I know is they did not look right. So I erased and put my drawing pad away for another day.

That's all the updates for now!

-Alexandria <3

Life is odd sometimes

Life is odd, sometimes... There I was at 2am thinking about what to eat for breakfast and how I only had four more hours until I should be asleep again... I had just finished reading a story on a nazi lampshade made out of human skin that I found quite accidentally as I was searching the word skin on google to help me with an article I'm writing.

It put me in a really odd mood. The world took on this weird hue suddenly. And then I remembered I needed to check my deviantart and the feeling kind of faded away but the thoughts were still there, albeit pushed back a bit. It seems weird to me, just last night I did a poem on an abattoir for humans and this morning (yes, 2am is morning for me) I find that story excerpt... 

*coughs* in other news... I think I'll just post when I DON'T oversleep. I think this is going to happen quite often. I'm starting to get the hang of it though!

And yes, I'm still watching speed runs. It's cool. And actually I can do work and watch/listen to speed runs at the same time :)  This picture is of the user Cereth on twitch. Playing Super Monkey Ball 2!

I've been making some progress on Wendi, finally. I'll probably try to finish her within the next 24 hours... While I'm watching speed runs. Actually, tomorrow somebody is doing a 24hr speed running thing, so I'll be watching them like MAD! They're gonna do a lot of Mario which is super fun to watch. Like amazeballs. I'll post a link or something somewhere for them probably because that's some intense stuff. And I'll probably get a lot of story bears done in the process.

I've also been working on my specialized cards and am, in fact, almost done with one for my favorite web comic artist, Jocelyn. The card will be finished and sent when I have stamps to do so and money to send her other gifts. I'll send the package and the card within a couple days of each other :) it'll be super fun and I hope she enjoys them.

I really need to do more work on those this. Actually, I need to find my routing information for my bank. Then I can finish setting up my Etsy with all my cools inside and yeah...

Anyways, my boyfriend is coming over a little later and we're going to roast hotdogs over fire. Doesn't that sound awesome? I might try to get pictures for tomorrow's post. Fire is hard to get pictures of though. Hopefully it'll turn out. 

I'm feeling pretty awesome, I should be feeling tired if I were doing this silly triphasic sleeping thing right but apparently I haven't been doing good enough. But I've apparently done well enough that I'm actually starting to sleep during my naps. That's new. 

My writing be going well and I really don't have much of it planned tonight. So yeah. 

-Alexandria

Live gaming

I am so addicted to watching live gaming right now. I just got a twitch account and have been "wasting time" watching awesome runs, mostly of Mario. 

Believe it or not, it's helping me go from nap to nap.

Speaking of naps, they've been both successful and unsuccessful. 

What I mean by this is I overslept a bit, but it was spaced out amongst two naps rather than one. And there are a few reasons this keeps happening to me.

1. I'm taking some melatonin to train my body to sleep at certain times

2. MATTRESS SUCKS

3. Still not used to triphasic yet

This is like day 3 so it makes sense that I'm not used to it yet, yah know?

I'm a little bit tired but not too tired, which is good and to be expected.

I've done almost no writing but I plan to do a lot after my next nap. I've pretty much just been watching live gaming because it's been my way to stay up and such.

-Alex

Snooze

 You see this amazingness? It is so nummy. My mum and I had some last night and I took another piece today. I love food so much...

Speaking of food... My mum made homemade soup again!! It was so delicious...

No this entire post is not going to be about food (even though I absolutely adore food.) No, it's also going to be about my recent failure. That's right. I have failed yet again. But it's not a permanent fail. More of a misstep. 

I've been having a bit of trouble with the triphasic sleeping, obviously. I haven't been sleeping really during the allotted times. There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, as I was nocturnal my body was used to being awake during the night time slot and up by the evening time slot. I did sleep kind of during the middle of the day one. Secondly, my body was on a monophasic sleep schedule during my nocturnal phase, though I did do some napping. Therefore it was used to sleeping at one time only. And thirdly, two hours to fall asleep. I apparently suck at falling asleep.

So this morning I let myself have an actual rest for awhile, taking up the entire first third of my day. I know I need sleep so it seemed reasonable. I'm going to continue my triphasic attempts. My stomach has already gotten used to eating three "meals" evenly spaced throughout my day, so it was quite mad at me that it hadn't gotten anything yet. Silly stomach. I fed it :)

Yup. Mentioned food again. Haha.

I'm feeling a little off right now, but I guess that's normal.

As for my writing, I haven't written a thing yet today but I will later. I have a lot of stuff to do later, actually. In fact, off I go to snooze soon. Which brings up another problem I have with sleeping...

MY MATTRESS IS TERRIBLE! 

I can feel each and every spring. It's almost enough to make me want to clear off the living room couch and sleep there. But that would make sleeping more difficult. Although more comfortable.

I really need a new mattress.

My room has a bunk bed, one is my sister's bed, one is mine. Both mattresses are in the same shape. They've had a good life. OVER 10 years. They've been flipped so many times the action has become useless. It will be time for an upgrade... Whenever I have the cash for it...

With Love

-Alex

Not all true writers only use computers!

I got very annoyed recently while talking to an old friend of mine. She made a comment on that she learned somewhere that "true writers" can only use the computer to write because it's the only thing that can keep up with their brains.

I highly disagree. Here are my three refutes:

1. Some of the best writers lived during a time when there were no computers

2. Faster does not mean better

3. Who is to say what a "true" writer is? If you write, you are a writer. If your work is being sold, you are an author. Simple as that.

Okay, now that I got that venting over with, on to cool stuff.

It is day 1 of my triphasic sleeping experiment. And this picture should show exactly how I feel: 

Teehee. I kind of look silly. And tired. Very tired. It's always hard at the beginning though. I'm using a sleep app on my iPod to show my quality of sleep. There's a little graph to show your cycles of sleep based on your movements. My hope is to see an improvement in how much sleep I get in a two hour period. Otherwise I will be a zzzzzzommmbieeee!

I've not just changed my sleep pattern, I'm also working on eating healthier. I think being nocturnal wouldn't have crashed so hard if I had eaten the right foods to keep me energized. Oh, and drinking water!!!

So I described how I was feeling and some things that are going on so now we move on to the productivity part of the post!

Guess who is doing fantabulous? This gal! I have over fifty things written down and I'm trying to see how many I can do today. I'm keeping major tabs on my progress which is a great motivator to see those percentage go up and up! My goal isn't even to do 100%of it. Just 75%. I can do more the next day. It feels great!

Some stuff I've completed already:

1. Finish the thought part two

2. Draw older sister

3. Practice drawing mouths, hands, eyes and butterflies

4. Apply for freelancing jobs

5. Creating an article to use as an example for Elance projects

...and much much more...

Some things that I'll be doing today? Creating another article, teddy bears, drawing three of my friends, and a couple other writing related projects. Boy do I have a full plate! But staying occupied is important to keep me awake today!

God knows I need it...

Today is a good day!

-Alexandria

"This is my livelihood!"

I got into a discussion with my mum today about the stuff I was doing. I made a lot of comments about how what I'm doing IS my job. I told her "it's my livelihood" to which she responded "not yet." She wasn't trying to sound negative about what I was doing, she was just being a devil's advocate. My mom is amazing for that. She brings up things one would never think of.

She's also great at helping with suggestions for some of my creative endeavors. In fact, she helped in making a decision on Melissa's ears. Which are now happily sewn on by the way. Melissa is amazingly finished and oh does she look cool!


Well, actually, I think I like her box more. I got into acrylic paints with it and everything. Which brings me to my next commentary.

I played with paints. Oil and acrylic. I made some pretty oil painting pictures

and used the acrylic paint to start a new project I suddenly thought of. I'm making a little sculpture Christmas tree. I had to make brown with my limited supply of acrylic paint, which was fun and amusing. It's in the very beginning stages.

Another thing that I said a lot was that I used to always think having so many interests was a bad thing, I got all these art supplies and other things and they mostly were laying around because I just didn't know what to do. Suddenly though, I find having all these ideas is amazing. I'm going to try everything I can think of. Hopefully one thing will lead me to success.

Right now I'm working on the teddy bear Wendi. I'm in the cutting out pieces stage.


It's coming along slowly but surely.

I've had a million things to do today and so far I'm doing a good job on working through them.

In other news, I'm going to try out triphasic sleeping. That's right. I'm trying yet another sleep habit. Why am I doing this? Because my nocturnalness keeps getting messed up, I need more daylight as SAD is creeping in, spending too long in my bed is giving me leg cramps, and it will help organize my time. I've split my naps up completely evenly and divided my day into sections.

Section 1: 10pm -6am. 

Nap will be from 10pm - 12am.

This will help me keep organized day one from day two if I wake up right past midnight.

Also great because it gives me my darkest sleep, as well as my quiet time to myself.

Section 2: 6am - 2pm

Nap will be from 6am - 8am

All the morning daylight that I need to keep up my vitamin D. Nap will be in the daylight but when I wake up, the sun will be bright in my eyes, perfect for getting me up.

Section 3: 2pm - 10pm

Nap will be from 2pm to 4pm

I hate being awake from 2pm - 5pm, so at least I can sleep for two hours of that time.

When I wake up, others will be awake and active. This is when I can hang out with people.

Okay, on to the general questions I have to answer to count this as my "journal"

How am I feeling right now? I am... Tired. Which is why I came up with the triphasic thingy in the first place.

How is the writing going? So-so, better than expected for all the stuff I have to do today, yah know?

What will I be writing today? Mostly just my warm ups considering my day ends in about an hour. This is strange. Yeah. It will be changing everything up. 

So when will I be doing my journaling? I think I'll journal every midsection of my day. So when I'm awake after my 2-4pm nap I'll journal about how the day went so far and what I'll be doing later. Makes sense to me.

This is Alex, signing out! 

Chicago?

Apparently a friend of mine thinks I ought to move to Chicago. Ha. Right now I have like no income or anything. I'm trying to work on those teddies but things just keep messing up and I don't know... I guess I'm working on freelancing again. It's something, yah know. Ugh. I hate things.

I made little Wienies in an onion and bbq reduction sauce today.
 I feel quite accomplished for it. I am an amazing cook. At least in my honest opinion. If I have the ingredients I can make a ton of cool stuff.

I still haven't found my camera cord. I haven't really looked, either. Just being honest. And not because I'm lazy. Actually, partly because I'm lazy. But I was kidnapped for like 36 hours, so, yah. (AKA I went to be with a friend and they got too lazy to drive me home... fun times...)

Anywho, I'm back to trying my best to be productive. It's difficult. Very difficult. It's always been a struggle for me. And guess why? I'm ADD. No medical insurance though, so no meds. Which means I'm on my own. Just like I'm on the own for my anxiety.

Speaking of anxiety. I concocted a disgusting smelling solution to put on my scabs when I try to scratch them. What's in this concoction you may ask? Well, fish oil, a vitamin, the liquid from an ibuprofen liquid gel, iron, and a variety of other random stuff that will actually help in the healing process of the wound and make me less likely to go after them. Huzzah! Hopefully it will work.

Second Story Bear (AKA Melissa) is being worked on. All she needs left are her ears which are obviously cut out and ready to be sewn on:

As for the next story bear idea I have a patterned fabric I want to try.

We'll see how that goes. I'm also going to make a white bear with a pink tutu. For my younger sister's birthday. She mentioned it. Actually, what happened was, I was working on Melissa and she said "You should make me a ballerina bear. A white ballerina bear with a pink tutu." And I was like "Haha, maybe." But in my head I was like "YOU'RE A GENIUS AND JUST SOLVED MY DILEMNA ON WHAT TO GIVE YOU FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY!"

M'kay, back to the basics here... How am I feeling right now? Apparently mildly antsy. My leg keeps going *boing, boing, boing.* Incessantly. Like it's being crazy. And I'm like "stahp it leg!"

Hm, and how is my writing going? Well, this seems to be picking up, so okay I guess. For the circumstances.

And what will I be writing today?
Good question.

I should probably do the next part of my finish the thought practice. And doing the dictionary project which I've been failing at doing again. Teehee. Right. So that and anything I think of later.

Bam!
-Alexandria

Dreary

Por amor de Dios.

It looked so terrible outside. It's raining now. I've been miserable all day and felt kind of sick. I still feel a little sick. I hope my younger sister didn't make me ill. She's had to go to the doctor a few times already. I'm having soup in the hopes it will help me out.

Ugh, I don't know what to say anymore for this journal. I was supposed to hangout with my boyfriend today. That didn't happen. I'll hopefully see him tomorrow.

Hopefully it won't look so disgusting out tomorrow.

I thought my depression was pretty much gone. Completely replaced by anxiety. I was wrong. It comes whenever the weather sucks. It comes mostly during winter, but also when it looks like shit out. Yeah, I know, SAD. Can't do a single thing about it. 

Lack of drinking water is also a factor in this day's terrible feelings, I'm sure. I'm usually dehydrated.

Another oh so great factor is I'm trying to help a friend of mine who is upset. She's in another state, she's crying, she's all worked up over this asshole who won't give her the time of day after all she's tried to do to help him. I don't know what to do or say anymore.

Makes

Me

Want

To

     SLEEP.

Right. Writing. Um. I haven't done anything today. This is the first thing I've written since I got up besides random mutterings I scribbled on my walls in pencil that I'll wash off when I'm doing better.

I'll try to complete most of the things on my list. 

I like night time. 

You don't see as much dreariness.

It's all covered by black.

Teddy Bears and Various Plights

Well hello there blogging world!
You may have all noticed my complete failure so far at doing these things daily. Yeah, it's a little difficult for me. I get busy and sidetracked and tired and such things. I have some good news though throughout all of this! I am creating my story bears!

Yes, that's right. These things I have been talking about as just an idea for months are now coming together with such beauty and happiness.

The teddy bears are about the size of a soda can, if not smaller, so you can take one with you anywhere. They have little special boxes that I'm decorating and oh goodness they're so cool. I mean, they could always be cooler, I could be a much better seamstress but man am I excited! I've even attached some pictures of the process.


First I had to sacrifice a teddy bear in order to come up with a general pattern. It turns out I hated that teddy's pattern and finally easily created my own. It was hard for me to come up with one for the longest time, but with a little bit of help I finally made my own mini masterpiece.

I have thus far created my first ever story bear who I will begin to treat as a bit of a "Flat Stanley" type thing. He'll come with me places and get his picture taking having some fun. I am working on his first little friend and first teddy to be listed for sale: Melissa.

And that's not all, folks, I've created a little short story on my deviantart littlewolfdreamer.deviantart.com and I've been active on there with a bunch of things. I'm trying guys! Trying! I will be successful!

On the Nanny side of things, I am not excited. "But why wouldn't you be excited for this opportunity?" Um, because I'm nocturnal and she needs me when I'd normally be asleep. It'll ruin my entire sleep schedule. I keep thinking I don't want to do it, but how else will I make money?

If these story bears or my writing takes off I won't have to do anything, but until then... Hey! It's only a couple months until Christmas! I might be able to do some advertising. Oh, and I just thought about three little girls who might want story bears of their own. Can we say Christmas Gift idea?

Same with my little sister. She gave me an idea for a bear. A ballerina bear with a pink tutu. Happy birthday dear sister, only 21 days for yuh!

Oh, and the teddy I sacrificed? My older sister will be getting it for her golden birthday. I'll even replace the paws with leather ones. Just as a special touch. Perhaps I'll add some cool patches and stuff, too. All for my sisters :)

Um, hm, how am I feeling? I am... Doing well, actually. A little bit stressed and shizz but you know, it's not causing me problems at this very moment. But it was messing with me this morning. Can we say itching at scabs like mad? (See dermatillomania on my deviantart.)

Hm, so I said my writing was going well by talking about that short story... Yeah but other than that it's been pretty chillaxed. I finally posted that review for you guys. I hope you enjoyed it :)

I'm going to try to use more links and such in my blog posts. Just know if I use my iPad mini to post rather than my laptop you WILL be able to notice. There will probably be a general lack of links and the pictures will be all one sized and placed however it feels like. Because the app is a meany moe. But hey, whatever, I'm happy with it. In fact, I'll be using both the iPad and my laptop for this post.

The laptop is for this first composition part, then I'll be using my iPad to post the pictures in here. Then I'll come back on my laptop and put them how I want them in the post and then post it.

My camera is dead and I dunno where the cord is.

And last but not least, on the agenda tonight/today we will be finishing up The Nomad's first part to post to my deviantart. Huzzah!

With Love: Alexandria :3

Review: Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Director: Joss Whedon

Year: 2008

Main Characters/Actors: Billy (Dr. Horrible) - Neil Patrick Harris, Captain Hammer - Nathan Fillion, Penny - Felicia Day.

Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is about a "Villain" named Billy, but known as Dr. Horrible. Billy is on a mission to get into the Evil League of Evil, and there are only two things in his way. The first thing in his way is the almighty "hero" Captain Hammer. Billy defines him as his arch nemesis. Captain Hammer foils many of Dr. Horrible's crimes. Though Captain Hammer is the hero, he is in fact the antagonist.

The second thing in Dr. Horrible's way of success is Penny. Penny is the "girl of his dreams." He has been
pining after her for years and as such she is a major distraction. She is seemingly a secondary character because her role is only important in his love for her, and Captain Hammer's retrieval of "what he wants."

Having Neil Patrick Harris play the leading role is the best choice practically any media related item could make. He is an amazing actor and fits well into any character. He made the protagonist evil villain character both believable and heart warming. It was easy to feel for the "bad guy."

     Likewise, Nathan Fillion was exceptionally good at playing macho man mentality Captain Hammer. He was able to make Captain Hammer seem like the "corporate tool" that Dr. Horrible was calling him. As such, many people disliked this "hero" which was the point of making him the antagonist.

The entire cast played their parts incredibly well and the singing was beautiful. Catchiest tunes I've heard in awhile. I've watched Dr. Horrible multiple times and looked up the music on youtube even more than that. It's fun to sing along, as the name of it states. Highly recommended. 

Teddy Bears and Pregnant People with Dogs

Good day fellow gremlins! It is I! The Weirdo Lady Thing Alex!

Wow, okay, odd start to this. Anyways... Right, um, day events. So, I woke up to barking. I was dog sitting. Only natural to hear dogs bark. Grumbling to myself I get up and soon realize all is not normal.

The woman I am dog sitting for is home. How odd, I think. She tells me she decided she probably shouldn't go to feat, she's been hurting all night. Tends to happen when you're carrying a baby in your uterus, you know? Well, I suppose if you're a dude you don't know what a uterus feels like, but hey, just imagine something kicking your stomach and causing both acid reflux and the insatiable urge to pee all the time. 

Yeah, so we spend the day taking care of the dogs and watching idol rich people on television. I get NO work done. Whatsoever. This is the first bit of work I've done today. 

Well, actually...

I've been taking apart this bear, piece by piece. I'm going to take a look at the design, change it up a bit, and use that design to make my story bears! I'm quite excited, actually. So far, this is what I'lve gotten done: 

Not a whole lot, but hey, it's something.

In other news, I have new bike lights for my bike. I'm happy to be home with my cats, and hopefully normality shall return soon. Ha. Normal. There I go using that word again.

As for how I'm feeling right now? Anxious, like always. And perhaps a little hungry, even though my mum made the best homemade soup ever. Curse myself for not getting THAT in a picture. Next time dears, next time.

My writing is... Well... Dog sitting throws things off, I'm very behind tonight and hope to start getting things back in order soon. I worked on a short story for deviantart which I will post eventually.

Tonight I will be doing the review I didn't do yesterday, as well as all the other things I've been missing out on.

Tata my good friends!

-Alexandria