Into July!! ☀️Life Update Blog

It's time to welcome in July and do a little catch-up! It's been a while since a life-update blog!

Productive June

As most of you know, we took a pause here on patreon for the month of June so that I could focus on catching up on some client projects and book projects that needed to be done! It was definitely necessary for me to do that and was able to make some strong progress! All of these larger projects are either done or almost complete!

 I'm excited to share them with you when they are eventually revealed! I have a huge stack of new art from these projects stored in my drafts here that I can't wait to hit publish on!

I have some last bits and a few smaller projects that still need to be complete, but the workload now is much more manageable alongside patreon. I'm hyped to get back into making personal art and more stuff for patreon again! I really missed it and have so many ideas for things I want to tackle here!

Patreon Project Plans

Now that we are unpaused, aside from resuming our normal monthly tutorial(make sure to vote for the next one, by the way!) and rewards, I wanted to mention some art series that I'm really excited to pursue!

• We have the Tarot series, which is probably my top priority! My first goal is to finish the Swords Suite, and then we'll decide which suite to do next.

• Another series I'm interested in exploring is Arthurian Legends!  I have loved Arthurian legends since I was a teen, and recently read the book Half Sick of Shadows, which is a whole retelling of the build up to the infamous story of Lancelot and Guenivere but the main character is the Lady of Shalott. I really enjoyed it and it reignited my interest in these legends and reimagining the characters!

• Bookish Artwork.  It seems like bookish artwork is growing more and more in popularity, and for good reason. There are so many good books! I don't draw much fanart these days, but I would like to sprinkle in some more bookish fanart here and there! Maybe we can hold some polls on which ones to do!

• Mythology art is still on my radar, and I will probably dive into it whenever I feel inspired, as usual!

Cats Cats Cats🐈

A couple months ago I started fostering cats from a rescue with the intention of adopting! Eventually I adopted Kuma and Miso!

 Kuma was found trying to find food in the garbage and was showing up in people's yards wanting into their house before the rescue picked him up.

Miso was found repeatedly looking for food and shelter in someone's garden and he was looking mangier and mangier each time he showed up. Similar to Kuma, he was unchipped, unneutered, and no owner was found. When the rescue brought him to me, they had shaved him because his long fur was so matted. It is still growing in and he is getting fluffier and fluffier by the day!

My boys! It has been so fun to get to know them and see how different they are from my babies Mochi and Ukii, who passed away last year. Each personality is so unique!

I had thought we would wait longer to adopt but after a few months from Ukii's passing our home just felt so quiet and empty without furbabies. I'll always have a hole in my heart where Ukii and Mochi belong. But having these two rascals has been exactly what I needed in my home. I feel so lucky that they landed in my lap. (metaphorically, I wish Miso would get on my lap. he looks super cuddly, but doesn't actually like to cuddle. Why is it always like that!?)

After adopting my boys and getting them settled, I saw that the rescue I got them from was desperately needing more foster homes for the summer. I think it can be very tricky for them especially in the summer here because most people go on vacation and can't take their foster cats with them, so they need somewhere to stay for a little while. Adoptions also slow down this season.

Since Miso and Kuma are fairly chill cats and seem to get along as well as cats can with other felines, I volunteered to be a short-term foster. I can't actually adopt a third (I'll get into why later in this post!) but I can host a foster kitty for a little while!

That same day that I offered, the volunteer got back to me about this cute little guy that we called Mincent. He was found unchipped, and unneutered in the city center of Stockholm where traffic is very heavy! What a scary place for a little kitty! No missing cat ads or anything were found for him.

 He is about 1.5 years old and quickly became friends with Kuma when he came to stay with me. I took him to get snipped and chipped for the rescue and he stayed for a couple of weeks. He was very talkative and playful and brought a lot of energy to my little apartment.

After a couple weeks, they found a potential home for him with another cat named Freddy! So he moved on a trial period to go and stay at his new home. It was definitely hard to say goodbye after fostering him for a couple weeks. But I've since seen some video and photos of him with Freddy and they seem to match and get along really well! I hope it all works out and he has found his amazing forever home!

I'm waiting to take in additional fosters for another week or so because Miso injured his tail and I wanted to give him some time to recover, but I do plan on taking in more this summer! It's certainly rewarding to help out these kitties where I can!

A big Move🛫

As some of you have seen because of the big moving sale we have going on in the Secret Shop, I am moving back to the U.S. ( 'Murica!) in October! This is why I can't adopt a 3rd cat right now! haha! You can only take one cat per person with you in the cabin on the airplane!

The idea of moving all happened somewhat suddenly. Over the past couple years, my husband has been really craving being closer to family. Sweden is wonderful and lovely, and the quality of life here is great, buuuuut, both me and especially my husband are quite introverted, and struggle with making new close family-like friends in our adult years. I am a bit more independent and my own family is more scattered, so I am mostly okay, but his family is much more tight-knit and they are all still back in the state where we grew up. It has become more and more apparent that he may never be able to find enough contentment and happiness if we stay so far away from family full time.

Then a few other financial things that I won't get into started stacking up that made the idea of moving seem like a more logical choice for us. Once the realization struck, opportunities and things just kind of fell into place. (I'll admit, the timing of our moving back is horrid with election season, but politics have nothing to do with the decision)

Anyway, nothing much should change here on patreon because of the move, other than all of the envelopes will now be sent from the US instead of the Europe envelopes being sent from Sweden.

But yes... that is happening! I have some major mixed feelings about it, and I honestly have no idea where I'll end up long term. For now, we'll be going back to our home-state to be near family, but after some time there, WHO KNOWS!?

Anyhoo, there is the update!

Thanks always for being with me on this crazy journey! I know some of you have been here for a long time! It's incredible to think that some of you have been on this patreon rooting me on since before I moved to Sweden and now you're here to see me move again!

I'm incredibly grateful for each of your support and helping making this crazy dream possible! Thank you!

-Chrissa xoxo