I am going to spend the night at my boyfriend's house on Saturday and I'm so excited! I love getting snuggles all night and watching movies and reading next to each otherLiterally the best thing ever! I'm looking forward to it so much!

So OMG I have had my world completely changed. My mom found some frozen nuggets in the freezer and taught me how to cook them in the air fryer and OMG. They taste JUST like fast-food and it's SO AWESOME. I've been needing to start cleaning up my diet and I always want chicken nuggets at the most inopprotune times, plus I don't want to go broke, so once I get some good fries things will be perfect!

I'm going to start looking into other air fryer recipies I can try so I can get better at cooking on my own. I also am going to see if I can find where the fast food places get their condiments so I can have 24/7 Mcdonald's at home for cheap.

Anyway, today has been the best day ever in a long time. I've been feeling pretty down so learning this has really brightened up my day.

Now onto design work!

That's it. ADS.

I am so over them invading every area of my life. Invading all of my social media, pop-up ads on my mobile phone that I can barely close, Youtube videos, and now even GAS STATIONS. I'm not sure when this problem has started getting worse, but what I do know is that I'm starting to get fed up with it.

Now that I've gotten to revisit a taste of the old web that I found comfort in as a kid, I realize how freaking spoiled I was to not get bombarded with advertisements every waking minute of my life. YouTube had like one skippable ad here and there and none throughout the videos. Ads were amusing web banners that said things like "download free cursors here!" or had themes that obviously pointed to viruses, but were creative and funny.

Now things seem completely different and it's beginning to upset me a lot. I am starting to get overwhelmed with social media as a whole because I feel like I see a post for an ad every other post. The algorithms are getting so ridiculous that I can't even see my family's posts and I wonder what's the point of wasting my time on it if everything is just going to look like an ad reel?

And Youtube? The ads are becoming so ridiculously obnoxious that I don't even want to ever go on there anymore because the ads enrage me. I loved the Snapchat clickbait stories on the explore page, but got so angry about the ads every five seconds that I had to quit it altogether. TikTok used to be full of funny memes and videos that I've liked just a mere 2 years ago, but now that's becoming invaded by ads from stupid "infLuEncERS" telling me that xyz beauty product that I don't even care about is the best thing ever and that I should buy it.

Now, I don't necessarily mind the targeted ads that I like because those don't feel as annoying, but besides that I'm extremely over it. I've noticed that even TUMBLR which used to be the best website ever is now making you PAY to have their website be ad-free. No thank you. I don't want to spend a SINGLE PENNY to get rid of ads, it's just so ridiculous. It shouldn't have to be this way at all. I'm so sick of companies trying to manipulate me into buying their products that I don't even care about.

I'm so angry about this that I literally go out of my way to avoid social media more and more. I want to find every way possible to block every ad on my computer. I never want to use Safari to shop online using my phone ever again. If that's going to take some grit and patience for me to make that happen, or even resorting to only using DuckDuckGo as a browser, then so be it.

I honestly don't mind the ads on television all that much because they're much higher quality than many other ads I see, and can respect both the filmmaker and editors' hard work and feel proud that I studied in that field. But I get so upset when it happens on every other platform that I WANT to use, but now feels completely unusable.

At least books don't have ads. At least HTML code and web design doesn't have ads. At least Nintendo games don't have ads. At least SOME mobile games don't interrupt you with ads. At least Neocities doesn't have ads!! I hope it stays this way because I'm starting to get to my wits end with tolerating this ad-pushing.

I got to invite a significant other to my family's early Thanksgiving for the first time in my entire life, which was really exciting! My boyfriend and I both had fun. I also get to go out to eat lunch with my new friend Alisha today which I'm really looking forward to!

So...I've kinda forgotten about my website. I have been pretty busy focusing on real life responsibilities and my first full-time job (at least until I was laid off). Now I am job hunting and have way too much free time. I am going to definitely update my website more next year.

For my job situation, if I don't get a established full-time job by around Christmas, I am going to apply like crazy to part-time jobs and keep looking for a new job as well. I am unfortunately finding out that right now is a pretty horrible time to attempt to get a job because I've heard of there being MANY recent layoffs due to financial difficulties in the companies. I honestly have a gut feeling that I'm going to have a REALLY rough start trying to find a job now, and it's likely going to take months.

The good news is that I've definitely been keeping myself busy! I have been coding a lot more now that I have much more free time which has been great, and my sister's fiance gave me a Javascript for Dummies book to read, so I'm going to start seriously learning Javascript!

I also am focusing on trying a lot of different treatment options with an open mind after finding out multiple things about my health this year that I now need to manage from here on out. They're nothing super bad, but some of managing them will require some long-term lifestyle changes on my end. Accepting the medical conditions I have has been a hard pill to swallow, but it's ok! This is a new chapter and the start of a new life!

And yes, I'm still very much in love with my cute boyfriend. I get to go see his family on Thanksgiving and I am super excited!! It will be the first time that I have this type of experience with a partner, so I'm really looking forward to it.

Anyways, this is just a summary of what has been going on with me in the past few months.

My friend from my graphic design program invited me to the Barbie movie yesterday! The aesthetics of the movie were really fun to look at.

After the movie, we went to Round One and played some games. I got a bunch of tickets from a coin pushing game :D We also tried these tiny crane machines near the entrance, and both of us won something!

I went to work yesterday, and saw that they had the CUTEST Halloween ghosties out, so I had to splurge :) Here's what I bought:

I first got this adorable ghost garland. I'm absolutely in love with how cute it is, and can't wait to put it up in my room near Halloween!

This is the second ghost garland I got. I couldn't resist buying these AD0RABLE ghosties and I'm planning on cutting them off and putting some on my plant shelf. I already have started doing that as of right now💀

I'm planning on tying one of the pink ghosts onto my car mirror indefinitely :)

The third thing I bought is this absolutely adorable "boo to you" ghost sign. I can't wait to put it up on my door near Halloween!

I also bought this cute little potion bottle to put up on my plant shelf near Halloween. I thought it would be perfect for spooky season!

Now THIS ghostie was an absolute REQUIREMENT. No other words needed.

This ghostie was ALSO another requirement since I was torn between the pink one and this one. Plus I learned my lesson the hard way last year about how quickly the cute Halloween decorations at Michaels get sold out :((

Last, but not least, is this "be our ghost" sign! I absolutely love it and honestly might just keep it up in my room year-round because it matches perfectly with the theme of my room, and it's an adorable ghost! There's no law saying you can't put a ghost up all year sooo... that's that XD

On another note, today I had a great time with my boyfriend! I was invited by his grandmother to have dinner with her at her new assisted living place, and it went well! I was really nervous at first, but then it got better as I talked to her more and got to know her!

After dinner, him and I went to his house to watch an episode of The Last of Us. Tonight overall was a great time!

I went to pride today with my friend Audrey! I got to meet some of her friends and chat for a bit which was fun! I found some adorable things I bought from the vendors that I'm thinking of using for future craft projects/potential phone charms.

Also, here's a picture of me, and of my adorable cat Blossom :)

Hi, it's been a while.

I haven't forgotten about this website! I've just been so busy developing and editing my professional website/portfolio that working on my personal one went on the wayside...

Anyways, I'm thinking of posting here again because my website design hyperfixation is coming back with a vengance this summer, and hopefully it won't go away soon. It would be cool to be a web designer someday!

In terms of general life updates, my freelance illustration gig is officially complete and the Bible study book is now published with my illustrations in it, which is SUPER exciting!! You can buy it on

My boyfriend and I are still together and I'm loving him more each passing day. I can't believe it's only a few short months away from us being together for a full year! Crazy how time flies so fast.

Here's another Reid portrait I drew a couple months ago because why not?

That's all for general life updates. Catch you later!

On our last date, I drew a picture of my boyfriend :)

He was pretty flattered by the fact that I wanted to draw him :) He knew what he was getting into though when he chose to date an artist sooo...

Maybe I'll draw him as a humanoid dragon from a magic the gathering card or maybe as a DnD class? We'll see.

I'm so excited that I finally have time to illustrate portraits again, which was previously taken up by my freelance gig. The opprotunity itself was great though and taught me a lot!

Here's a sneak-peek drawing for the whole series!

It's a farmer gardening in the sunrise and waiting on the rest of the garden outside of the dandelions to bloom. The drawing series itself is based off of James in the Bible, and they will be published into a book! Updates regarding the book will be published on my Linkedin.

One of my favorite pictures I took in 2022. I took it with my Nikon camera and this moment is priceless.

Happy New Year! I'm excited to have this fresh start in terms of how I use the Internet. I'm excited to use modern social media less and go back to simpler times where posts were more authentic and less airbrushed (blogging pretty much). I honestly miss the times where we didn't have the ability to post about our lives instantly and just took pictures for funsies and lived more in the moment. I don't know if I honestly jive with the idea of Snapchat/Instagram stories, or even BeReal, which has gained popularity recently because even that feels fake.

Modern social media is too much, too overwhelming, and too invasive. I dislike the inability to be able to customize your profile and be stuck with questionable UI design that changes constantly to the point where it's unusable for anyone older than 30. At least HTML is straightforward and barely ever changes. I've personally observed the changes over the years while learning more about web design, and it hasn't changed at all whatsoever, which is really nice. Maybe I just feel picky like this because I have the mind of a designer. Or maybe more people than I think view this how I do, but feel hesitant to speak up about this.

I dislike the fact that all social media apps are trying to compete with each other by trying to smash every other competitor into one app. It's just too much for me personally. And the algorithms that don't display posts in order and all of the unneccesary advertisements? No thank you.

I am all for advertising/PR to some degree, but the amount it has ramped up is becoming a bit excessive. You can't even get through 15 minutes of a Youtube video without being bombarded with unwanted ads you can't skip. I noticed this on Christmas morning when my dad put on a calming video of a fireplace, and the second the mood was set, it got ruined by obnoxious advertisements. Multiple times. Not to even mention Snapchat. The fact that you can't even watch 30 full seconds of one of the tabloid video stories that suck you in without the video getting interrupted mid-sentence for 2-second Ulta advertisement is ridiculous. Maybe I'll delete that too. It's getting so irritating to the point where I don't want to use it anymore.

On a similar note to downsides of modern society, I miss when buying and owning your own music was more popular before streaming services took over. While it's nice to be able to listen to a ton of music for a lot less money, you also lose the ability to keep it and basically don't own it. It's basically renting music, and if it's gone, it's gone and bam, money gone. I have the temptation to buy an iPod, quit Apple Music, and just start doing it old-school again, at least for some of it. It's probabaly a safer alternative when driving anyway to plug in an iPod than having your cellphone by you and potentially getting distracted. If I can find one that's under $50, great. Maybe I'll start doing that again someday, even if it's slightly more inconvenient. Plus a smartphone is way too bulky to just be used as an on-the-go music player. We'll see.

This looks funner to use for music than a bulky phone anyways.

Anyways, this is just going to be my primary way of updating my family and friends about my life, at least for now and in the near future. I just want to try this out and see how I feel about it.