New Year, Refreshed Start

 Hi again everyone!  Welcome to the new year and hopefully to the turnaround of this whole pandemic.  This virus is still kicking the Earth's bum here but at least with vaccines now getting made and being distribute among the populace, things are starting to improve for the long run. Let's keep at being safe!

For me personally, I'm finally all done with projects to just use up extra crafting materials (it's taking WAY too long for them anyway while still working an essential job).  This year, THIS YEAR, I'm now all about my artwork and to freelance or at least to get work as an artist. Okay, I'll be making time for other things like my health & fitness (the Keto Diet has been doing well for me) and purge away what I don't need or compact down my storage for more space and less excess materials. One good lesson to learn with managing your stuff is to figure out what purposes each item has for you and to know what you really need from them.  It's really that you want it very badly or you need it essentially, otherwise don't buy or collect it. Unless you can trade it for what you want like money.

What I'm doing right now is brushing up my knowledge on the legal and accounting side of freelancing: GST/HST, T-Forms, Canada Revenue Guides, Business Essentials, any legal advice with freelancing.  After that, I can start working on building up my portfolio with new works. With freelancing, I'm NOT understanding about Canada's legal business obligations and how to file taxes as a freelancer and that is baffling me.  I was taught about it somewhat way back at my OCAD years but ultimately it wasn't possible to narrow it to only Canada's way of business start-ups and registration as it was an international university with students across the globe.  I've done some artwork jobs before but only as an individual, not as a registrant business owner.  I want to change that so I'm studying on the business part of freelancing so I won't be afraid about it anymore. One way to overcome a fear to learn more about it, that's my thinking behind it.

Lastly to talk about is that I'll be considering a new site to host my artwork soon.  While I've relied on Blogger for years due to being free to host on, it doesn't allow much design freedom for displaying your content online.  I've tried my old web comic on this site for a while but the navigation was terrible.  Unless there's been changes for available formats since then, I want to build a more professional website to not only showcase my artwork better but also allow me to do a webcomic again.  Maybe to restart my Crystalium series again but I'll need to dust off that project too, refresh my work and revise how to tell it eventually after I get the ball rolling again on my freelancing.

If not weekly, then bi-weekly or monthly updates are going to happen from now on.  I want to do this full-time eventually and not working still at a supermarket (as long as I can support myself by artwork alone).  Either with a tidbit of news or maybe a doodle sketch, I need to start talking on social media more to re-grab people's attention again as well as drawing. So that's it for now.  See ya next month.

My Future Planning for 2019

So it's the new year now.  Much like everybody else, I had thought about what I would like to accomplish for the months ahead.  I'd also thought about how the last year went.  Dad's passing was a huge transitional trigger for both Mom and I. There was a lot of purging that we are still doing between our work shifts. I'm still trying to use up or donate my old materials and clearing off my old project or DIY projects, on a weekly budget basis.  It's getting whittle down to less and less on the back burners but eventually this year, I should get all of it or almost cleared off.  I do have two goals that I would like to get underway among the purging.

The first goal is about my health. After spending about a decade nursing and living around Dad's health problems, I'll definitely want to avoid having my final years in sickness like that. I have some general idea of where to start: 1) work on my dietary intake, control better what foods and their portions that goes in me, 2) have an exercise regimen that's compatible with my job activities and 3) keep up with reading ways of improving myself with my health.

I have had the exercise equipment for doing the work, part of the problem was keeping my bedroom space clear for doing the work. As I'm getting rid of things, I'm also getting what helps to organize my remaining stuff better (under bed containers, vacuum bags, storage totes, etc.). It's getting better for having more space to stretch my limbs or just not knock/whack into anything. When the warmer weather comes back, I can do stationary workouts on the back porch area again. The other part is doing the work around my work schedule. The shifts are random so I could work late at night, then early the next morning on some weeks.  It's also an exhausting job if you don't pace yourself sustainably, like a long 8 or 4 hour rep session; it feels like a long workout sometimes on top of the mental stress from some customers so I might not do any exercising for that day because of work.  During the warmer weather, I would commute to work on my bike but only on half-days, 4-hour shifts because that's all what my body can handle for now.

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My second goal is about my employment.  While my current part-time cashier job is giving me money for savings, essentials and project funding, I've been reading or watching internet videos about how to improve my skills and to make a better living. Things like Alux.com, Jumpcut, Udemy Courses, whatever allows me a flexible pace with my random work shifts.  I won't make the same mistake again of quitting a job before you have another one to fall back on but I wouldn't want to do the cashier job for the next several decades of my life for all the muscle strains it gives me.

Mainly the one thing I want to do career-wise is get back into freelancing or just sell my artwork again.  Just not like it was with the online freelancing where you seem to get paid in peanuts (less than minimum pay) for work that I could be pay much more for at a 9 to 5 retail job. I would like to be make as equal or more as my art skills are worth (though I'll likely have to brush up on some of them).  My lack of confidence is on the legal/business side of freelancing.  I have some general idea for how a freelancer goes about their job, it's about getting a business number registered, collecting taxes and reporting the income properly among other matters.  The legal requirements are different on geographical areas (Like CRA in Canada and IRS in USA) so I need to learn what those are. My teachers back at OCADU did do their best to explain the whole process but they made a point of researching into the matter itself (rule updates, hands-on experience, etc.); internationally, they don't know how every country's set of rules for having a business are like.  With some dedicated time, I could finally get around to understanding the process in Ontario, Canada.  If I were have to suddenly to get by on my own, I would need to make better income than my current job allows right now.

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Well, those are my thoughts for the future for now.  I'll be posting up any artworks I make as I go though I might not do weekly as I tried in the last few months.  There are some things as I said that I want to clear away for good and that won't always be art-related stuff.  Basically, if I got something art-wise to talk/showcase about, I'll post them up here.  So, for whatever you guys aim to make of your year, I wish for you all the best success for it. Until next update!