Juvenile Diversion

(reposted from July 13 from my Patreon)

Hi all. I need to fill you guys in with some harrowing details of my life. As you may know, much of central Vermont was hit by disaster flooding. Unfortunately, my house is located directly in Central Vermont. The last few days have been horrifying, wet, dirty, and exhausting. Our entire basement was underwater. Like, our ceiling tiles were knocked off. Our first floor was hit a little bit, and now our house is covered in mold and mildew. And because our electric box was in the basement, there’s no power in our house, and there’s no way to turn it back on without an electrician. It’s such a huge, insane mess. My house was unlivable, and we had to get out.

Luckily for Dean and I (and Vienna), we were able to get out yesterday and drive north to stay with Dean’s family, who are high and dry up here in Northern Vermont. I realize I’m one of the really lucky ones who’s able to flee to a safe place, and of course, I’m worried about everyone still stuck behind.

Also, equally lucky, Dean was able to save all my computer equipment, con merchandise, etc. So I was able to take all that with me. Right now, I don’t have anything set up, but I should in the next few days. I know I’m already late sending out the mail to higher-tier patrons, and I’ll get that to you guys as soon as I’m able. Hopefully, understandably, this also means the comic will be on a bit of a hiatus until I can get everything settled a bit more. I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back home, or even if I’ll be able to go back home.

Anyway, I just wanted you guys to know what was happening. I’m OK now, just tired and overwhelmed. I hope everyone is doing well and not having to deal with this, too. Take care all, and thank you for all of your support. It means so much, and I can’t wait to start getting new art and comics up.

Update as of October 8, 2023

OK! So what’s going on currently: It’s been a few months! I know! I’m not purposely neglecting the comic or anything, I just don’t have a space where I can comfortably work for long periods of time on a computer. So comics are kind of out until I get back home. I’ve been able to get the last few wallpapers up on my Patreon because they’re only out once a month so I was able to break up the process a bit so I’m not sore all over all day.

Anyway, life/house updates. Our house has been being worked on this whole time. Unfortunately for everyone, it’s been a long process because there are hundreds if not thousands of others also affected by this mess. And there are only so many workers/contractors out there. We have made a substantial amount of progress to our house, right now we’ve gotten some funds from different places and we’ve put them into fixing and cleaning everything up. Our power has been back on for a bit, we have clean, running water (though not hot yet), and our basement is gutted out, cleaned up, sanitized, etc. Lots of things here and there have been fixed, like our roof being patched up, and other small things. We have a heating company coming in to do our heater/AC and our new hot water heater, and amazingly, they will be taking our old radiators out as well! So that’ll be really cool having all that new wall space. We’ve got a brand new fridge, and a new washer and dryer ready to be hooked up and used. The main thing right now is getting our new heating system up and running (especially because I live in Vermont), and once that’s done, we should be able to go back shortly after. I can’t give you an exact date right now, because I don’t know when it’ll be, but we’re looking at early-ish November. Which is much better than the original estimate of late December! -_- Anyway, so once we get back home, and we get things back in normal order, I can get back to doing the comic weekly again.

I know this is probably not the news you wanted to hear and believe me, I wish there was a much easier solution to all of this. But please hang in there, we will be back. Thanks for all of your support over the years, it really means a lot!

Hello everyone! How are you all doing?

As you know, the world’s been a bit insane these last couple of years. Like everyone else, I’ve been affected by this insanity as well. I work at a pharmacy as my day job as low-ranking management, so this has eaten up much of my time. We’ve also been suffering from being able to keep managers on staff (We’ve had at least five in the last three years or so), and this affects my schedule as well as my one coworker who has been with me since the beginning (Everyone else has left or gone back to school).

I also don’t want to go into too many details, but things with my family have been rocky to say the best. My biological dad died last June, and I’ve been struggling mentally since then but mostly managing. My mom and I basically don’t speak. I talked with her last October after not having seen her since the end of 2019 in person, but things basically ended in calamity. She’s very anti-vax and anti-mask, and pro-gun, etc., etc. you get the point. She turned her back and walked away from me after I poured my heart out to her. She disowned me from the family before, and this was essentially the push I needed to completely block her from my life. Needless to say, this has affected my mental health a lot.

All things haven’t been bad though! 2021 was an incredibly rough year, but it hasn’t been too bad this year thus far. I’ve been drawing a lot more frequently (you can see a lot of this progress on my Patreon!), I did really well at the fair last year, and I did better than ever artwise financially, which is awesome! Still not enough to quit my job, unfortunately, but hopefully in the future soon! But this in itself is a blessing and a curse, I suppose. I love doing art, and I’m never going to stop doing it, but it’s very time-consuming! I also currently have two big commissions I’m working on, which I took when I didn’t have too many hours at my day job, but that has since changed. They are mostly both finished, but I don’t like having too many untied ends before working on another big project.

On top of all this, I am learning Japanese, trying to spend time with Dean in the short amount of time we have together every day (he’s also struggling at work), and snuggling with Vienna (my dog). I also occasionally get some video game time and reading in!

I know in the end, this all sounds like a bunch of excuses (and I guess it is), but believe me, I absolutely, completely miss drawing the comic. My characters bring me so much joy in drawing their dumb faces, and it’s not something I plan on quitting until the story is complete. I know there have been some pretty big gaps here and there, but unfortunately, that’s life. In the meantime, you can help me out by backing my Patreon or buying some stuff in my store! Every little bit helps me get closer to being able to quit my day job and retail (ah the dream) forever.

Thanks to everyone who’s been sticking with me all these years, I hope you all stay rad.

~Heather

Sorry guys, I’m going to have to take this week off. I had a death in the family, and I’m still pretty shaken up. I’ll try to get it up next week. Thanks for understanding ♥