silvernomiko

Finally confirmed a house . . . the 28th. A lot of our rents are up the 1st. Hopefully we can move in tomorrow. Even our real estate agent's never had something cut this close to the bone. And my sublet/rent assignment fell through. So right now I've got two places. Ug. Glad I won't be homeless (yay)! We were waiting on hearing back on this house for this entire week!

OMG PACKING. Life will resume again once packing, moving, unpacking happens. Thanks everyone who's commented.

C/P:
As an update to everyone who is pending a commission from me: I'm sorry, but everything is going into looking for a house at the moment. Cleaning the apartment, preparing for packing, packing and setting up to move in July.

Please be patient. I'm trying to work on them when I can, but the priority is to make sure we're not homeless come July first. Thank you again for your patience, this whole house thing should've been finished like the first week of June but we have had all sorts of weird variable and obstacles which have increased the difficulty level of house acquisition.

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Con Line up:
Tokyo in Tulsa: Aug 2-4 (Tulsa, OK) maybe can share with someone? Tentative as I don't know if I can get 3 weekends in one month off
SanJapan: Aug 16-18, 2013 (San Antonio, TX) Attending
AnimeFest: Aug 30-Sept 2rd, 2013 (Dallas, TX) Attending
Ikkicon: December 27-29th 2013 (Austin, TX) Attending

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Current dA status: a hot mess, it's true
*************** Clubs ***************************

After A-kon, my friends and I are going in on renting a house together.

Early June: I couldn't devote much time to looking because of the con, but after that we hit the area pretty hard and found the perfect house . . . but was rejected.
Mid June: Then found another house . . . and again failure. Then my friends went on vacation. Still. no. house.
Late June: Saw more houses (one I fell in love with). By the time I was able to contact them (they're hiking/camping in Colorado), the house was off the market after ONE DAY. Still no house.
Now: We looked around again and found one, so we're hoping so very much on approval for this one. It's 6/21 and everyone's pretty much moving in 7/1. I'm looking into subletting/assigning my lease.

As an update to everyone who is pending a commission from me: I'm sorry, but everything is going into looking for a house at the moment. Cleaning the apartment, preparing for packing, packing and setting up to move in July. At the moment we're all pretty much homeless unless we secure a house in 9 days.

Please be patient. I'm trying to work on them when I can, but the priority is to make sure we're not homeless come July first. Thank you again for your patience, this whole house thing should've been finished like the first week of June but we have had all sorts of weird variable and obstacles which have increased the difficulty level of house acquisition.

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Con Line up:
Tokyo in Tulsa: Aug 2-4 (Tulsa, OK) maybe can share with someone? Tentative as I don't know if I can get 3 weekends in one month off
SanJapan: Aug 16-18, 2013 (San Antonio, TX) Attending
AnimeFest: Aug 30-Sept 2rd, 2013 (Dallas, TX) Attending
Ikkicon: December 27-29th 2013 (Austin, TX) Attending

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Current dA status: a hot mess, it's true
*************** Clubs ***************************

Okay, vague Sailor Moon pun aside, this here is my A-kon wrap up. There was a ton of tough competition especially from all the pretty, pretty Californian artists (you could tell from the pretty prints and the similar cut-out laminated keychain displays). I had new stuff on display, mainly the charms, stickers and notebooks. The notebooks sold surprisingly well, woo! Very happy and I really credit the new display piece I bought even though it's a huge table space eater. I'm bummed I forgot to take a pic of our table set up. I shared with

Got to see many of my friends at the con, glad they got tables: , , , , , , , , , , , , , . (Very glad is okay now)

Bought some lovely prints from and Jennifer Fu and . Also dropped nearly $100 to feed my Copic addiction as well as bought various things in the dealer's room. I got to visit it this time, though only for the last hour Sunday. XD;;; I need to get faster at arting!!

Art traded with Chibi Chains and Rainbow Runners.

Now to the heart of the matter . . . A-kon was crazy! Crazy cold. Arctic cold. I really regret not bringing my heavy coat (which is steampunk appropriate). I was often cocooned in our tablecloth. Everyone was really spread out. My boyfriend went into crazy button making mode right before the con (partially because he didn't make any since Matsuri) and I thought I was fully stocked up . . . and I nearly was. Can't ever truly predict what's popular or not. Got a lot of commissions early on, which kept me busy. Too many commissions, I didn't sleep Saturday night. I was sorta sickish throughout the con with a stomach thing, ug. Mainly it was just insanely busy but not quite as good an A-kon as A-kon past. Which just means I gotta work even harder to have more new stuff and better stuff and quit being lazy.

There is always some apprehension when switching to a new venue as parking, placement and flow are huge issues that can really turn a con on its head. Unfortunately that DID happen when the hallway leading to our AA, the dealer's room and the day time food trucks (they literally truck over to the Jade Entrance for night time), meant it was stupid crazy busy. Like fire marshal put his boot down and froze access to I believe both dealer's room and AA (I know for certain AA). To the point that one friend wasn't allowed back in TO HER TABLE. A-kon can't really control the fire marshal especially when it comes to safety but someone didn't quite plan things out well enough. Traffic through that hallway got bad enough that it was pretty much a standstill and walking those few like 10 feet or so to the bathrooms was agony. Also because there was a temporary lock down, that really affected sales as people couldn't go in and some opted to avoid the crazy hallway all together. The secured AA wasn't quite as secure as it could've been with the registration lines running by them. If there were partition walls or something to help security actually keep our AA secure, that'd help. Otherwise someone of us opted to stay late since they wouldn't shut down registration until the line cleared up at least Friday night.

Oh gaaaawd, registration. A-kon should feel shame. Honest to goodness embarrassment. It's the oldest con and it still does registration like that? Maybe it's residual small con mindset, but A-kon really needs to step it up. I've been to cons where kiosks are set up: you register, confirmation prints out, you get your badge, DONE. Even allowing space at the bottom for people to write their own names, they REALLY need to streamline the registration. It's not only an embarrassment but I'd be upset if I was a con-goer and I had to burn through so much of a day wasted in line. ESPECIALLY if I drove goodness knows how many hours from states away to attend. :shakes head:

The hotel was big and nice which was great. But we didn't get extra towel when we asked for two more. That was sad and unnecessary. :<

I'm sad I didn't get to look around at the AA much because I had a crazy commission list, but I hope everyone did well. And if I missed artists this year, hopefully next year I can get art from them. XD! As said, I'm happy the charms and notepads sold. At this point, I feel more confident in actually having STOCK to do an etsy shop. Maybe one day, just one day it'll get going. I slept over 15 hours Monday. Honestly, I pretty much slept the entire day from Sunday night to Monday night. I think I was awake for maybe 6 hours, haha.

Which means I need to get my butt in gear and finish commissions. They ARE BEING WORKED ON.
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Con Line up:
Tokyo in Tulsa: Aug 2-4 (Tulsa, OK) maybe can share with someone? Tentative as I don't know if I can get 3 weekends in one month off
SanJapan: Aug 16-18, 2013 (San Antonio, TX) Attending
AnimeFest: Aug 30-Sept 2rd, 2013 (Dallas, TX) Attending
Ikkicon: December 27-29th 2013 (Austin, TX) Attending

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Current dA status: a hot mess, it's true
*************** Clubs ***************************

First journal entry in forever. Mostly a con wrap-up. Also, I love having my own apartment. What sucks? The complex has old, OLD, OLD pipes. I've been in the apartment for a year and a half and have had to deal with 3 major leaks/pipe busts, and 2 water-related incidents from the ceiling due to my upstairs neighbor. Less than 2 years and that many leaks!!! Most of my personal possessions are in book form. D:< My apartment currently has a lingering scent of mildew and gives me a headache if I stay in it for too long even after the air filter and air conditioning combo. I'm sorely tempted to move my computer over to my boyfriend's apartment...which feels like some sort of defeat, dammit. And now on to the actual con wrap up.

The lead up to San Japan involved working 6 days in a row to use my precious off days for the con. I honestly slept more at the con than the week preceding it (though the hours were certainly longer). Slept most of the drive up (road trip with and ). Unfortunately we couldn't table next to friends but I did get to meet new peoples and art trade some even though I solo tabled.

Sat catty corner to who was awesome and helped watch the table when I needed a potty break, lulz.
Shout out to friends I saw at the con: , , , , , , .

Got to meet new peoples: whom I sat next to and button traded (and bought a cute Totoro charm) and Studio Sweet whom I had this epic art trade, thank you! <3 Also bought some sweet earrings from Rowan's Originals. Thanks all of ya'll.

And a HUGE shout out to all the people who bought from me, especially repeat customers (like my number one fan, you ) for my merch and for commissions. I'm really happy you like what I drew.

A lot of us didn't quite like the lay out this year, but hopefully next year it'll be better since its the first time in the convention center. Didn't it seem like the room we were in should've been the dealer's room and we (the Artist Alley) should've been in the hallway? Srsly, right? I only regret not getting more art trades in. Anyway, thank you San Antonio for a good con, for not making me sick, and getting to meet new peoples.

Hope to see ya'll at Afest in a few weeks. Also, I'm somehow in a very productive mood. Maybe this energy will keep up and I'll finally upload button sets on dA and...GASP! even set up my etsy account. Sorry guys, I'm so bad at this sort of thing.

Commissions are still being worked on. Ya'll know who you are.
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Con Line up:
AnimeFest: Aug 31-Sept 3rd, 2012 (Dallas, TX)
Ikkicon: December 28-30th 2012 (Austin, TX)

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Current dA status: a hot mess, it's true
*************** Clubs ***************************

Saturdays are my longest day 'cause I work all day, then game all night, only to work the next day. So I come home after falling asleep at the session (my own fault for only getting 3 hours of sleep the night before) . . . and I hear this dripping/watery noise. It first dawns on me that it's not right and then I drop my stuff on the ground only to see TWO leaks from my ceiling. The ceiling over my washer/dryer area is in shambles, with plaster and bits of CEILING on the floor. It's also where I store my extra blankets and boxes (I like to pack things back up in their original packaging), all of which are a soggy mess. It's 2 am and I just want sleeep.

And it wasn't until like 3-4ish that they could get a hold of a maintenance guy. I lightly and worriedly dozed while waiting for a return call, as I noticed the rate of which the main leak was filling up my bowl was far too fast. And we couldn't get in contact of the person above me in case it was leaking from their washer/dryer. So the scenario: awake for 20 hours on 3 hours of sleep, waiting for someone else to come try to fix it in the dead of night. Also, slightly paranoid about water + my possessions. It's pretty ridiculous because while the leak was impressively large and constant, it's not likely to FLOOD the apartment. But I own like 700+ manga, various artbooks, paperbacks, graphic novels, etc. I mean, srsly. Water OR Fire are not my friends. :<

I tried to keep waking up to call into work that my apartment is leaking and flooding my kitchen area. Only I finally fell asleep and woke up to the manager calling asking where I was. So I couldn't even call in early all nice and proper. The maintenance guy stopped by, but now we're waiting on the plumber . . . who is apparently like 1-2 hours away in a different city. o_@;;; So still waiting (occasionally bailing water out of the various buckets left behind). Decided to see if I can salvage any boxes, so I open up my porch area so I can have them sun dry . . . only a wasp flies in.

Honestly, at this point, after some obvious expletives of surprise, I nix the vacuum idea and spray the guy with wasp spray. The plumber arrived noonish and I've got crazy pictures of how large a hole he had to rip into the ceiling to fix it.

Maybe now I understand why my water bill seemed kinda high for a one person unit. Today has NOT BEEN MY DAY. D:<


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Got a table and plan to hit up AnimeFest (Dallas, TX Sept. 2-5)

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Art Trade in progress with: (D: I'm sorry I got distracted by the costume!)
Current dA status: a hot mess, it's true
*************** Clubs ***************************