Nov 2021 – Thankfulness, Surviving Holiday Rush, & Upcoming Surgery?!

It’s been a busy bout of holidays with Thanksgiving and prepping my little corner of the internet for the holiday shopping rush.  I’m happy to report I’ve survived the rush thus far and that we had a relaxing holiday break playing video games at home with tasty leftovers to fuel the Trials of Mana marathon and watching Shang Chi (such a cool movie!).  

From our lil family to yours, we hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving (or a wonderful week, if you don’t celebrate).

This year, we’re so incredibly thankful for the fact my husband, Kevin, is still with us.  He very nearly didn’t make it back in January when he fell ill with COVID and went into the ICU.  It’s hard to believe it’s only been a few months since then!  After this huge trial, life has been very kind to us in a way we never could’ve imagined back in January now that Kev has started a new job and our life together has taken a new trajectory.  We’ll soon be looking for our forever home and settling down after years of being rental nomads.  It’s a dream we’ve nurtured for a long time!

I’m happy to say much of the behind the scenes prep I’ve been doing in the meanwhile to quietly improve my art biz’s presentation, re-designing my websites, and tidying up my product photos seems to have paid off with one of the best holiday shopping seasons I’ve had this year!  I’m slowly, but surely getting to a point where I hope to create a self-sustaining art biz that allows me to be healthy and happy without overworking myself.

IMPORTANT Announcement!  An Upcoming Hiatus?!

While we’ve had plenty of good news, there’s a bit of bad news that has been long in the coming.  After years of pain and dismissive doctors, I’ve finally had an MRI taken of my shoulder and the scans have revealed a suspicion I’ve had for years – that I have a torn labral tendon.  This happened years ago when our very large and lovably clumsy bulldog-mastiff pulled me down the stairs and jerked my arm nearly out of socket (which has to be THE most country injury ever haha!).  My shoulder muscles have been compensating incorrectly ever since.  Better late than never to fix this, right?

I’m currently awaiting the date of my surgery, which will most likely be scheduled for January.  What this means for you, my lovely Patrons, is that this Patreon will be going on hiatus in January 2022 until my shoulder heals and I am fully recovered, which could take months.  Unfortunately, this surgery affects my dominant/drawing arm, so I’m going to be out for the count until I heal and make it through the recovery process.

Life has been a long, hard lesson in adversity for us for the past few years even before COVID and I know we’ll weather the storm as well as possible!  I hope during this recovery time that I’ll get to experiment with dictating some of the story ideas I’ve been sitting on to my computer so I can at least get some writing done, as well as read the many books on my to-read backlog.

Once I’m able to return to full functionality, I plan to re-launch this Patreon with an updated structure that I hope you all will love!  (More on that later once we’re closer to being ready for that.)

Posts You May Have Missed in November

Rewards Added in November

Coming in December

December is going to be the last month of material from me for a long while!  I plan to share the following:

  • ($5+ Tiers) A coloring page of an Elvish Songstress
  • (All Tiers) A Behind the Scenes article about planning the Birthstone Goddesses’ Art Book
  • (Public/Free) An article talking about my favorite movies that make me want to paint

—-

Whew that was a long update, but it’s been an eventful time!  As ever, feel free to come hang out in my Discord server with me where you can keep up with minute-to-minute updates and WIPs in my special Patrons-only section.

Till next time!  Wishing you all inspiration,
♥ Ang

Leave a Reply