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.