Tag: work

Changes

I mentioned this on twitter but I guess I should mention it here as well. Mrs. R, the 97 yr old woman I was caretaker to for 4 and a half years, passed Monday while a fellow caretaker/friend and I sat with her. Funeral was today, viewings were yesterday. She is greatly missed. She was a wonderful, feisty woman, and a huge encouragement to me. I (as well as most of the other caretakers) am at peace and have closure as we knew it was coming and I was there when it happened.

However, this means I am without a steady full time job. I am currently focused on getting my art, illustration, and web design business’ really set up and moving forward as real jobs instead of just side gigs. I sold a painting today, I have 4 illustration projects in the works, including 4 book cover jobs, and several other projects on the back burner. So while I am not working full time I am working full time, but freelance. We are currently okay and are hoping that between me pushing forward with the work I have now and coming up and several website projects, some sewing and herbal remedy stuff I have on the side, combined with some extra freelance work Shamus is taking on and his Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/shamusyoung) we MIGHT be able to make this work. We are hopeful and nervous.


If you are interested in my art, I just updated my site (http://www.tinybookdragonart.com/) with pricing explanations as well as purchasing options as well as keeping up to date on my  Facebook , Etsy, my Amazon page, Instagram, etc) so you can buy my stuff. Once I get Seriously Simple back up and running I will link to that. I will probably be selling the geeky skirts through the Nine Tailed Bunny page but possibly will keep them on my art Etsy. I haven’t decided yet. And once I update my illustration and webdesign pages I will share those as well.


I do NOT expect friends to purchase my stuff to help us. However if you know someone who needs book covers, illustration, logos, or art I would love if you passed my site along. That is how I have gotten several of my illustration jobs. Someone knew someone who needed something I do. (And prayer always welcome. This is scary and big and new and well, we are taking turns panicking. :D)

A Season of Transitions and Many Blessings

After 3 years of  full freelancing, with God providing from all different places including the work of our hands, the Lord has seen fit to give me a job that is providing fully for our family. This will enable us, God willing, to find a local place to rent instead of moving wherever (as we were willing to do and are still willing to do should things change, yet this means we can stay here where family is, especially my grandmother who is not doing as well as we would hope.) This was completely God’s hand– one minute I  was doing some website work and an hour later I had a full time job.

New palette– sketch for future color reference.

This job is not a forever job.  I am part of a team of women who care for an elderly woman. When she no longer needs us then I will no longer have this job.  So we are using this income to get ourselves on better financial footing, to pay off debt,  and find a temporary place to live. (The bank finally, after 6 months, decided that the buyer of our home was not suitable and that we were going to back into full foreclosure. Sigh. So we have a Sheriff sale ate again and a move out date.)  We are packing up the house and looking for a place to rent, or will as soon as the plague leaves our house. We have a list of places to check but are waiting on God’s timing, and part of that is being healthy again (Rach got sick, then the rest of us did– par for the course, though I think we are on the tail end of it now).

Little reader dragon-ACEO

In the last month, not only have we been adjusting to the changes that come with me working full time but also, God has been doing some serious spiritual heart surgery around here.   There have been many changes of a wide variety and those, combined with me working, and the family being sick, have made for a very interesting time but one I am not quite ready to discuss publicly (especially since we are still in the midst of it– we are talking deep internal changes which only show in small things externally). Basically Shamus and I have been spending a huge amount of time listening to the bible together and talking about what God is showing us and  the internal understandings and changes have been pretty huge. Aside from  all the other stuff He has specifically laid 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you,12 so that you will behave properly toward outsiders and not be in any need.) on both of our hearts and we are praying and learning what that looks like in the work that He has given us to do.

Curled up with a Good Book– dragon postcard.

Also, during that time Shamus had a huge computer mess which lead to blessings but that is a story for him to tell (which I believe he will be sharing later this week.) In fact, I believe he has another thing to share this week as well.

All in all God has been blessing us from every angle.  The job I have permits me a lot of downtime and quiet, so I spend that time reading and painting. I do have internet access but no laptop or tablet so I can only be online in part, via the wi-fi smart phone– this means I can keep in touch with the family while there without having to make calls. This means I am spending less time  on groups on Facebook and more time just praying for the CU group (I can only access it sporadically from the phone and usually don’t get updates). That said it is a blessing to have quiet time to paint, and be encouraged to do so (the lady I work for loves that I spend my downtime painting and encourages it.) So I am not only working full time but also producing more paintings.

New book dragon.

The only downside of me working is I am getting less time at home with the family. 🙂  They don’t seem to be suffering for it, in fact it has been a neat transition as Shamus is taking on more of the daily conversations about anything and everything. I think it is a very good thing all in all but I do miss having a good feel for what is going on, what is needed, and who is struggling with what.

Finally, Shamus and I celebrated 16 years of marriage this week by getting nice and sick (well, he is.  I am only slightly  so– stuffy nose mostly) but that made for an interesting anniversary.  Also, Rach spent her birthday last week sick but I think had a super awesome birthday anyway.

So there it is.  A bit of a rambly post about how God is working in our lives and  where we are right now. Aside from being sick the kids are thriving. Shamus is thriving. I am thriving. God is good and is doing great things.  We will see where He leads us next.

Work and a Gift

Actually the title should be something about how work is a gift from God, which it is.  How bored we would be and how little enjoyment we would have if we didn’t have something to do with our hands.

I am excited because the Lord has gifted me with several bits of work to do that may lead to other bits of work in a field I adore.  This is especially exciting because it combines skills I have developed over time (which is always nice– I would much rather do that which God has prepared me to do than some random new thing for which I am not designed), books (which if you don’t know already I am passionate about), and creativity (design using Gimp as well as with my pen and paints).

A friend of mine, Grace, owns a small publishing company, Splashdown Books, and was talking about all the work she had to get done this month and I (per usual) volunteered to help.  I got to layout a book cover (which I enjoyed a lot more than designing websites) and got to do a small painting that will be incorporated into the covers for the series.  And then she paid me for my work on the very first night which I was not expecting (like I said I volunteered) and for which I was grateful.  And it looks like she may have other work for me (at the very least the rest of this series which is also exciting, and fun.)

Ever since I was a child and wrote “BCL” in every one of my picture books (B___ Children’s Library) and then proceeded to organize them by author (and type for the non-fiction) I have adored books and wanted to have something to do with them. For a long time I thought I wanted to write and though I do I do not consider myself a “writer”.  I don’t care enough about writing itself to research the best ways to write, writing styles, getting published and all that.  On the other hand I AM passionate about art, a well designed book cover (I will often pick up a book based on a great cover), and encouraging good writers (and there are a lot though there are also a lot of  the other sort of writers out there.)  So it is exciting that God is leading in that direction at this time (I don’t know what He has planned for the future but I am enjoying where I am.)

That, combined with doing the box art for the card game (more art from that over here) is making for a very busy me. The sooner the box art is done, the sooner we can get it published so I am working to get it done quickly, and praying over the work constantly.

Also cool is that Shamus has had several possible offers regarding paying gigs (for both writing and his videos).  We are prayerfully considering each, especially since we are feeling very led to continue in the direction we are going.  He has also been writing about 2,000 words a day on his book, which is coming along nicely.

Finally my mother-in-law showed up with some cash from my father-in-law this morning.  She  said, “He just told me that I was to give this to you kids.”  So that is pretty awesome and appreciated.  Have I mentioned that our families are wonderful and have been such a blessing to us?   Regardless, I will say it now, they are wonderful and a blessing. 🙂  (Later on Rachel came home (she had spent the day helping her grandma and practicing piano at my mother-in-law’s church) she came laden with perishable groceries that my mother-in-law had gotten us: eggs, salad, fruit, and cheese.  Did I mention they are awesome?!

And now back to work. Trying to finish the final element of the box art before Sabbath so I can touch it up then get it scanned after Sabbath.

Saturday Trash and Treasure Sale

Yesterday I worked, as in outside the home, drive someplace, and work.  That doesn’t happen often but I was helping Carol out because she was short handed for her Trash and Treasure tag sale.  I took Rachel along because Rach always loves hanging out with Carol’s youngest daughter and her older daughter’s boys, plus she LOVES being around antiques.Read More

Serverlicious and strange answers to prayer

I just spent the last 7 hours trying to fix what was broken with my server–the one where I host 20 different blogs plus several stores. I am finally, I hope and pray, finished. That was arduous and panicky.

The good news is that not only did I fix everything (with a ton of prayer included) but I also managed to deal with some issues that needed dealt with. Some cleaning up, deleting of unused stuff, updating plugins, all the stuff I hate about running things and usually put off.

Finally, we had an answer to prayer. In order to explain I need to tell you a story.

As you may know I have my teacher’s certification in both Elementary Ed and Special Ed which means in this state I can teach all grades practically anything. When I got pregnant with Rachel we, after, much prayer, decided I needed to stay home and home school. However we were in huge amounts of debt and when Rachel was about 11 months old we felt the pinch. We decided that I needed to go back to subbing and let my mother-in-law babysit just so we could fill in the monetary gaps and start paying down debt.

This should have been fine. Rachel loved being at Grandma’s and seldom fussed when there. She also had been sleeping through the night since day one. There was absolutely no reason why I shouldn’t take the occasional subbing job to help us make ends meet. At least that is whjat we thought.

I got my name back into the system and got my first call to sub. I was supposed to teach 8th through 10th History for one of my old teachers at my old high school. I had plenty of time to prepare. I made arrangements for my mother-in-law to pick up Rachel, had everything all ready to go the nigh before, everything was set–or should have been.

That night, for the first time in her entire life, Rachel would not sleep. She was up screaming every single half hour, all night long. At roughly 2 am I was exhausted and spent the next hour frantically searching for the call back number to tell them I couldn’t sub. I never found it though we did realize that God did not intend for me to be working outside the home.

It took me a while to learn the lesson but every time I tried to take some new work on–babysitting at home, designing baby clothes, whatever, everything would fall soundly apart.

Over and over the Lord reestablished that my main focus was to be our children and that He would provide for us as long as that was the case.

Yesterday my husband and I were discussing our income and how we could bring in more. As you know I have a small but big for me web design business and as well as commissioned art. My husband is already working 4 different jobs from home and can barely handle it all as it is so the next obvious choice was for me to get a part time job. We spent some time discussing it and decided to pray about it. We did then today happened.

When we prayed together about this situation suddenly everything started getting fixed and falling into place. I could finally relax and we realized that we had our answer to whether I needed a part time job. The answer was NO.

Not only that but I suddenly have a few other paying projects in my hands which I could not do if I were working outside the home.

God has promised to take care of us and He has and He will for He continues to be Jehovah Jireh.  And days like this when He reminds me He wants me to be home and be available make me want to go bake cookies, read to my kids, and go all domestic.