I've been, frustratingly, busy as of late.

I was on the last week of league/tft quests so needed to grind them, which ate up a lot of time.

I've been busy with work.

I literally had my car turn over sideways due to going into a ditch on Tuesday. (Surprisingly--as far as we can tell--the car is fine; I am fine. I'm not traumatized, but I am just frustrated and confused.)

I've been busy with stuff.

I don't even remember what.

Just.

I've not had free time. I don't even know why. I've had objectively more time but objectively have been getting less done. I did things. I was doing things. I just don't remember what they were. I was really busy.

Now, granted. Life stuff has happened. We're up to knowing the name of four voices that aren't soulbounds like Vee and Ruby. (Morgan, our Aussie; Bella, our southerner; Ashe, our high-pithced 'hiiiiiii' voice; and now, Amanda, our deep 'yo' voice.)

We've been doing at least some work on our novel.

We've done a little bit of work on our castle in minecraft.

We've done stuff, but we've been left quite busy.

This week started promising in terms of health between both showering and brushing teeth and now I've done neither.

I've not streamed this week and between picking up a shift on Sunday and the staff meeting tomorrow, I probably won't, which is frustrating.

So like.

​Just not a great week.

...Late for bed again.

We celebrated my mom's birthday today, and managed to schedule a few youtube videos, and get some work done.

So like. Good day, but now we're gonna have a bad time tomorrow.

​Especially since there's a deadline thingy due on Monday at 11:30 am and there's nothing I can do about it other than hope and pray, I've done what I can.

Yesterday's lack of blog was due to us being way too tired.

Today, it's due to the day being too short; we had only 8 hours of usable time and we're on hour ten of that. (See also, title of blog.)

But, it was at least somewhat productive. We knocked out some of the basic basics behind farn and spent almost all of it on background information. Basically, we know a lot of what happened.
How Lilith became a demon, the way Milodee became a demon, the way Mastemo became a demon, the way a different demon became a demon, the backstory of Bairn, the importance of Bairn, the basic geology of the land Bairn and Gardoni are in, the fall of three archangels, the fighting of two different pantheons of gods, and a lot of information that is important to the story.

But while I can cut a lot of corners, I still need to give at least some idea of timeline.

My current story is basically an anime (a shonen, mostly) in story form--the thing about anime though is that they usually show maps and in order to have a good map, I need to have mapped out the basic layout of every country referenced. The entire continent the setting takes place on is mentioned, a neighboring continent is mentioned, and most (or even all?) of the demons ascending as well as the majority of gods coming into power, came into power in various parts of "the old world".

But there are also gods prominently in power in the continent in countries other than Gardon and Bairn, and they need when they were established at least loosely done as well.

So like.

I have a lot of work to do, yet.

I got eight hours' worth done today tho, which gets me close to striking distance of done!

It's nearly an hour past my bedtime meaning two consecutive days of 5 hours of sleep.

Productive days, mind you (well, kinda--largely networking? Which I consider productive), but still.

Okay so like. My family's putting on a second episode after my bedtime anyway so given how loud the tv is, I wouldn't have been able to go to bed and sleep on time anyway, but like.

I need my six hours, I'm not getting it. Every day is more rough on me than the day before.

The good news is, I'm crushing it in most areas outside of that.

Brushing teeth, taking showers, changing clothes, and doing a majority of the workouts I'm meant to (which is the second failing outside of sleep).

I have done a lot of lore-work on my novel, but now I need to actually write it.

Oh speaking of, I think I might've also solved the demon problem I had there, which basically gives the demons I have in mind to be able to do everything I want them to do (which borrows from other settings heavily), while still being my own creation. (Basically, domains both in farn and in their demon realm. All have demon domain, some have farn domains, which works through land connection, people connection, etc. Have the details in head, keep them there, Bree.)

I do need to better define the limits of all divine beings, what they can/can't do, but mostly: I need to write. It's half-way through NaNoWriMo. If I don't keep writing, I ain't finishing in time.

​Anyway, gotta get ready for bed.

Alright so I'm 11 minutes late for bed and counting, so I may as well get a blog entry in since I can't get 6 hours of sleep in anyway, butyeah. Not a real blog, a pseudo-blog because I'm late for bed for sleep for work tomorrow.

I don't really have anything on mind in particular. Lots of random things, need to brush teeth, need to shave, have a change in work schedule, am working a shift tomorrow as a sub that I thought I was going to work originally so it's no change anyway, haven't gamed today, probably just a bunch of random stuff.

Doing better mentally overall, but not resting as much as I should on a Saturday, maybe.

I guess I'll risk mentioning that I am working on a new profile picture for my twitch, twitter, and discord. I've become a little more cations ever since learning that there's art thieves going around trying to claim credit for the ideas of others by literally completing their art before they finish it and such, but like.

I'll risk it. Nobody reads my blog, anyway. So like. By the time an art thief would come along to try, I'll have presumably long-since finished it. Or, they'll try to steal from the unfinished product too soon and later my version has radical differences proving mine came first. Or whatever.

My point is, it's probably safe to share this.

The thing I wanted to comment on is the mask. The mask. Because WHOAH. The MASK.

Do you see how good it is????

Like--the shading's not perfect, I'm not quite sure how to fine-tune it but realize I might need to adjust it to be better. So that part, could use some adjusting.

But the rest of the mask is just...like...WHOAH. It's so good!

Do you know how hard it is for me as an artist to be proud of my art???

I'm proud of that mask! It's SO good. Like, the more I look at it the better it looks. It looks EXACTLY like the genuine article does. So I nailed it.

Still got a ton of work to do, mind you. Gotta do what I did for the mask, to the collar.
Gotta do what I did to the mask and will do to the collar, to the shirt.
Gotta add in the skin.
Gotta add in the hair.
Gotta work on details.

But like.

I already have done a huge thing with that mask and it is good.

Like--I like the eyes. Hazel eyes are notoriously difficult to draw, having a mixture of gray, green, blue, brown, and gold in them, with the exact color changing in the light. (And yes, I'm quite certain it's those five, we've seen all five in our lifetime under different lighting.) Trying to capture that in art is notoriously difficult.

But like--while I really like the eyes and I feel like we nailed it, my perfectionist self-doubting self may fine-tune them some more later.

The mask?
The lighting/shadows, maybe. But beyond that, it's just...it's perfect. And I love it.

I did something today that freed a lot of the burden from my shoulders. Genuinely, before I did it I was literally in a spot of darkness, misery, anger, and utter exhaustion. I couldn't remember being happy. I was just tired in every way possible, and angry at so many things. And I wanted it to just...stop.

So I did. I did something which made it not be an issue.

And once I did it, it genuinely was a weight off our shoulders.

Immediate relief. And I mean immediate relief. Within five minutes, a flood of positive emotions.

Feeling giddy, happy, upbeat.

For the first time we can remember in weeks.
Calm, relaxed. Just, serene.

We were happy. We were free. We were good. We suddenly had the time and mindset for working out, and to actually knock out life tasks.

All good, right?

Sounds like it should've been a good thing, right?

And, well.

It certainly would have been!

...Except for one small issue.

We ADHD'd our way back into doing the same thing. It has become an obsession. A very unhealthy one at that.
We let go. We were free.
And then we weren't. Because we are stupid. We are dumb.

Even now we're thinking of that thing and it is taking every rational part of us to go, "NO. No. Bed. Not that. BED."

Which gives an idea for how bad it is. It's genuinely an addiction--and yet.

In spite of knowing how unhealthy it is, in spite of knowing how it is making this hellish week all the much worse.

We keep going back.

For god only knows what reason.

See also, we are stupid. And we hate it.

I am sick physically.
I am sick mentally.
I am sick emotionally.

Genuinely.

Nothing is going well for me right now.

I'm exhausted on every level.
I'm tired.
I'm sick.
I just...I'm losing so much.

My health is going down. Physically, especially.
But also mentally and emotionally.

I am worn down.

I am tired.

I am genuinely not okay.

I'm not doing so much I should be.

I'm struggling.

I feel like I am breaking down. That I am broken, that I can't continue on.
I just feel like I'm so done with life right now.

But like. Can't exactly not live it. So in spite of feeling like I'm just done--obviously I'm not actually. Which arguably makes me feel even worse because I feel like quitting something that there is no quit option for.

(Well--technically. But. Y'know. I'm not going there. There's no quit option. Period.)

I'm struggling to remember how to be happy.
I'm struggling to remember how to function.
I'm just.

I feel like collapsing.

My whole life is just. Tension building, no release.

I genuinely don't know how to keep going.
I mean, I will.
I just don't know how.
And there's a very real--justifiable--fear that I simply...pass out. Behind the wheel.

I'm not healthy in any way.
That bad health adds up.

Something's gonna break bad.
Physically would be the least damaging, but most annoying. Sickness would be a way to force rest, but would cause so many small issues.
Emotionally would be the most destructive. When I break bad, I burn bridges.
And Mentally would be the most dangerous. If I fall asleep while guarding, it's dangerous to other patrons. If I fall asleep while off the stand it could cost me the job for sleeping through rotations. But mostly and obviously: if I fall asleep while driving...

...When I drive on some of the most dangerous highways in the state...

...Hoo boy I don't think I need to say how dangerous that is.

And I've come close to all three mentally before.

Very very dangerous.

And it's getting worse.

It's not the work schedule in of itself.
It's just a perfect storm of everything wearing me down.
So many events going on that I am juggling.
The extra work I felt I had to take.
The time-limited things I am struggling to try and get on time.
The picking up of things that I am invested in.

It's all adding up. It's all piling up.

I don't think it'll have the effects of the worst burnouts where I genuinely left areas of my life I loved permanently in the past. That shouldn't happen.

But.

I am just. So so dead inside.

I mean, physically, not so much. It did leave our foot blistered when normal workdays don't, but that's minor. In of itself, yesterday was fine otherwise. Altho the fatigue is definitely felt--today's drive home from work felt alarmingly dangerous, because tiredness built up from exhaustion.

Emotionally, well yes but we've recovered.

The main way it messed us up was scheduling-wise and all the fallout which follows.

We were meant to do a minimum of 7 things today.

Watching one video.
Watching two vods.
Brushing teeth.
Going to bed on time.
Taking a shower.
Keeping discord talks up to date.
And catching up on mafia games. (We usually take Saturdays off. Which is normally fine, because we have eight hours of free time on Sunday to devote to the game. Not yesterday! Yesterday we had a maximum possible of two. Two hours, IF we were doing NOTHING BUT mafia. Suffice to say, we did not get that done.)

We tried to do them all.

You know how many we got done?

Well if we brush our teeth, that'll be two.
Otherwise?

One.

One, of seven.

These are genuinely all things that I could've gotten done if I had my normal amount of free time.
If I didn't have a double shift yesterday, if we didn't work ten hours yesterday, if we worked a far more sane five, then we'd have had five hours to devote to knocking tasks out.

We wouldn't have needed to even watch the DRX vod, because we'd have caught it live. (Maybe the very beginning we'd miss, but the most of it we'd catch.) Instead, we came in on the ending of game 4, meaning we had 4 games to watch and then some. (In our credit, we did get to near the end of game 2, but we honestly should rewatch that game since we didn't even notice when DRX got the edge there. It started with an EDG advantage and we knew EDG won the first two, so we kinda figured "oh EDG just won this from that early play, match wrapped", except actually no, it was an EDG win but DRX had the lead and I didn't really notice when or how that happened, so like...we clearly weren't paying enough attention to game 2 meaning we need to rewatch it. But I digress. Point is, we didn't finish that.)
We would probably have had time to watch the Paranormal Detour second episode.

We'd have had more time to catch up on discord.

And we'd have had more time to play mafia, meaning a lot of the work we did today could have instead been done yesterday, when we actually promised it. (We still haven't done things we promised on Saturday we'd do. Can't elaborate, ongoing game rules, but since the info is public in said games I think I can safely say that much without violating site rules by keeping it vague and not explaining.)

Granted, still wouldn't have gotten everything we wanted to do, done.

We'd still be late for bed and still not have finished everything.

But we'd have finished more.

Because today we still didn't finish. We're nowhere close.

We took a shower, miraculous as that in of itself is. But that's genuinely it. Everything else we planned to do, we didn't do to the amount we had planned to do. Or even remotely close.

All off the back of a single double shift we really didn't want to work, but worked anyway because we felt we had no choice but to.

The sad part is, we knew this would happen; that's why we didn't want the shift in the first place. We KNEW it would mess us up in this exact way. It's just that, well. We got stuck with the shift anyway, and now the consequences: we are suffering, because everything is out of whack.

There's so many things piling onto the to-do list.

We're neglecting League and TFT, in spite of time-sensitive missions there.
We were planning to stream today (oh that makes a minimum of eight, not seven), we didn't do that--and to knock out the to-do list for today we'll have to give up streaming tomorrow, too.
We haven't worked on our art since Saturday (our day off).
We haven't written since our last stream.
We have barely scheduled youtube videos, staying afloat at uploading one per day and releasing one per day in spite of the idea being to schedule several in a day that release every day. (I need a buffer. I have none.)

And our health is not great.
Every workout is a struggle. We barely did the 59 knuckle pushups today (broken up into two sets because we're too weak and pathetic to do them all in one). We only did the 59 jackknives on a technicality, doing like six sets of 10 or so. (Actually, 5 sets, since two sets were 15.) Again, those are meant to be one continuous set. And they had half-hour gaps between them.

Realistically speaking, time constraints mean I can't do an entire workout in half an hour, so doing one set of 59 jackknives is unrealistic, but I introduced a concept of a "soft-reset" where I keep some progress but roll it partially back if I have a half-hour break. So, 20 becomes like 16, 16 becomes like 10, something generically in the area but which accommodates for how you're not supposed to get that much rest between sets.

Today each set of jackknives--10 to 15--was separated by a half-hour...and I couldn't use a soft-reset for any of them. We did pretty much on the dot 59, both officially AND unofficially. No soft resets involved. Which means the ab workout was sub-optimal.

We didn't do proper arm stretches.
We didn't do extra ab work to target the side-abs.
We didn't do extra arm workout to build the muscles up not activated by knuckle pushups.

​And we are so tired. So exhausted. And it's only going to get worse. We're late for bed three days in a row now. We work 31.5 hours officially (33 with lunch accounted for), over five days this week. We're dangerously tired as-is and our workouts are increasingly hard to do, likely thanks to lack of rest to properly build the strength back up.

It has all snowballed from what amounts to one thing we felt like we had no choice but to do. One extra shift, and our whole week is dangerous, miserable, tiring, and getting worse and worse and worse and worse.

Granted, it's not like everything is bad.

It's just that: genuinely?

We don't have time to appreciate the good. We don't have time to celebrate the good. We don't have time to enjoy the good.
​There is good happening, it's not literally all bad--but we just...well, we see it, but it's hard to, I guess, perceive it? Observe it? Feel it? We objectively recognize the good when we think about it and in the exact moment of the good...

...But we are so overwhelmed right now that genuinely any time outside of the good, we can't actually think of the good.

So while the week isn't all bad and has good within...

...The good kinda gets buried under the pile of exhaustion, fatigue, and business, from work and a continuously piling up list of things we are meant to do that we aren't doing.