Greetings and Salutations, Blog Readers!

Today…We say goodbye to this month.

And to it, I say, good…fucking…riddance.

What a month. Between the betrayal that shook my world and the Coronavirus that has shaken everyone’s world, this month has been a tricky one, so, let’s wrap it up and move forward to April.

At the start of the month I decided with all that I had going on in my life, I wanted to focus on only my art.

Then life decided to show up and wreck my world, making art the best place for me to retreat to. Towards the middle of the month, the threat of the Coronavirus Pandemic finally grew to a level that affected y day job, and after a brief hour cut, we ended up closing the doors until we could afford to reopen, and everything was more stable.

And much of the rest of the world has followed in kind, and I have had nothing but time to work on stuff. I have had to process the emotions one deals with when being laid off, because even when it isn’t your fault, you still have emotions… and even with unemployment benefits, you will need more money. The stress and processing of everything else has taken some time, but now I have settled down a bit…likely due to the massive stomach flu I caught, which left me exhausted and beaten down, really having to look at what I could control, and focus on that.

In my path back to health, I have been writing, blogging, and, yes, even vlogging, and now I am well on my way to making all the content I have always wanted to make and produce, in all the free time we now all have due to the Coronavirus.

With no idea how long it may last, but many indicators saying it could likely be through summer, I am making great use of this time and am sort of falling into a new routine, keeping myself busy, and not wasting time watching endless streaming nonsense.

That being said, I keep some sort of entertainment on at all times, for background noise, at the moment it is Zomboat, later it will likely be Anna and the Apocalypse, but I am getting ready to review Zomboat later, with it being another piece of content I keep on repeat rotation.

The time off is great for my writing, but of course, bad for my personal budget and economy. The money got tight very quickly, with hours being cut and then hours being gone, the bit of money I had went to bills.

Now, rent is due, and while they aren’t expecting all of it, even at the due date, the first of the month is upon us. Unemployment benefits won’t be able to be requested for me until the fifth of April, and then I have no idea how long it will take to arrive. Any government stimulus we may get won’t come for a month or more, and the unemployment benefits are next to nothing, and won’t be enough to pay all the bills and pay for two adults to stay living without some sort of supplementals.

I would normally turn to reselling, but I don’t have a printer, or access to a printer, now with work being closed, and I have no place to drop off packages. I could walk a package to a drop off spot, which would suck and violate shelter in place orders, but, I could walk, but, I don’t have a way to print the label for shipping.

The shelter in place may be lifted, but the printer problem won’t solve itself. in the mean time, money has totally ran out.

Food, has all but run out. Sure, we have things that can be eaten, but it is getting down to some very bare bones, with all the things you want to help make a meal gone, and many basics also gone. (Update- Bret’s family was able to get some things delivered to us, so we are very thankful for the food we do have. My family is also trying to sort something similar out, so we are very thankful for the help we are getting)

Things have gotten tough, with the virus, but, the time I have to create is wonderful, so I am focusing on the blessings there in, and on how fortunate I have been in other areas.

I am hoping to find more ways to self fund myself through the outbreak, but in the mean time, I am hoping to just focus on my art and all the creative stuff that can go into it, and hope that my work and efforts pay off in some way, or that I stumble upon some way to make money doing it.

I have also started a vlog- FINALLY- on WeedTube, with one video live, and two more I am editing to post. Bret and I have a channel on WeedTube for play throughs of video games, watch throughs of movies, and other fun random “cafe” content, on the Meta Cafe channel.

I am planning one blog a day, and using spare writing time for Flake City. I may also be dropping small snippets from Flake City as second posts of the day, as we get closer to release time. I am also going to be tossing second posts up, periodically, as my time allows.

All this with my usual daily posting on social media and constant bettering of my craft, is what the experts say to do to promote and work on your art, so, I am using the down time.

It’s funny that I started March with the goal of focusing on my art and then a pandemic shows up and forces it.

Meta writing, am I right?

Anyways, I wanted to do a little blog all about my March Goals, and how I think March went. (Way more to plan than I expected)

Next up, I am doing a blog about my April goals. As you remember from my March Goals blog, my plan is to do these once a month, so, be sure to check that blog out next.

Thanks for Reading!

❤️

Abbi