A new adventure

Holy crap! Has it really been eight years since I posted a blog post?! As they say, better late than never.

 

This is a year of some big changes so I figure there’s no better time than now to give you all an update.

 

So much has happened since 2011. Too much to put in one blog post. So maybe I’ll just start with what’s still the same.

 

  • I’m still happily married to my husband Mike. No kids yet. But we’re hoping to start our family within the next couple years.
  • I still struggle with ADHD. But, I continue to invest time and energy to understanding and managing it. I have made huge strides especially in the last few years.
  • I still work for Google, though not for much longer. (I’m going to keep you in suspense!)
  • I still run the creative community, PaperDemon.com.

 

And that’s what leads me to make this updated blog post. This year I’ll be embarking on a journey; A journey to fulfill a dream of mine that I’ve had for over a decade.

 

PaperDemon.com has always been a passion project for me. I’ve been telling myself for years how awesome it would be to work on PaperDemon and PaperDemonMedia full-time. I get so much joy from building something for creative’s and helping them share their work with the world. As well as creating stupid funny videos. Every time a colleague of mine would leave Google to say they’re leaving to work on their own business, I would stare at them wide-eyed with so much joy and happiness for them as well as envy. I would say, “I wish I could do that!”

 

Many people have dreams, but few actually attempt to see them through or give them a real chance. About two years ago I started to get serious about it. I realized that if I wanted to make my PaperDemon dream happen, I had to actually work on it and dedicate myself to it.

 

I doubted myself a lot (I still do). I wasn’t sure if I had the discipline to do it. Up until two years ago, I could never stick to something consistently. I have a long history of unfinished projects telling me that I can’t stick to anything or finish anything (this blog being one of them).

 

Oddly enough one of the thoughts that motivated me to try anyway is that when I have an ADHD child (there’s a 50% chance) I want them to feel like they can take risks. I want them to go through the world believing that they can fulfill their dreams, in spite of their disability. If I gave up on my own dreams, what message would that send to my children?

 

The time has finally come for me to take the plunge and commit myself fully to seeing my dreams through. My last day at Google will be April 1. I’ll then take a few weeks break to recover. (The last year has been incredibly hard. More details coming.) And then it’ll be time to roll up my sleeves and see it all through.

 

I’ll be honest with you, I’m pretty scared. I’m going to need a lot of support in the coming years. It may be a while before I’m profitable. I will continue to have lots of self-doubt. I very much appreciate any positive encouraging words you can send my way. Your words are more powerful than you could possibly know.

 

I don’t just do this for myself, I do it for my family, and I do it for my community. Here’s to you, me, and our dreams.

 

Special thank you to my husband Mike for his love and support.

 

Blam!

Wow I haven’t posted a blog entry in a while. Damnit! Things have been crazy busy.

Work is great. I’m perkier than usual. I’m enjoying making some of the tools at work. Things are going pretty well there.

And lately when I’m not working at my job, I’m working on our new PaperDemonMedia show. We’ve got the script for the first episode done and have started character designs as well as some voicing. I’m not sure yet whether I should share the designs. I will discuss with the other PDM staff members and if they say its cool I’ll post some of my work.

We’ve got a good flow going right now. We are meeting every week to brainstorm and work on the show. I’m happy to see so much collaberation. However, I still feel that a lot of the burden of work is resting on my shoulders. I’m doing all of the art and animation as well as organizing things. It’s a lot of work but I enjoy being in charge I guess. Though its tough when we get together and then get off topic and waste time. But we are having a lot of fun working on the show.

I have yet to blog about how my Halloween costume came out… So it came out pretty well as you can see from my photos in my Link Photo album. I enjoyed walking around that day and having people recognize who I was. I was in the grocery store and a few people said "Woah, it’s Link!" and I was holding in my excitement. Everyone at work was blown away by my costume as well. I’m not satisfied by my photos though. I don’t have any that really look that good other than the glamore shot but that doesn’t show all the cool detail I put into the costume. The angles are either boring, unflatering to my figure, or don’t show the cool features of the costume. Damnit. I will need to do more photos when I get the costume closer to completion.

The costume still has a ways to go. The ears were missing because I didn’t have any liquid latex that was usable to use to attach the ears. I forgot to buy a new bottle. Silly me. Also the shield broke during the day. Someone helped me fix it though with telephone wire haha. It’s just a temporary fix though. I still need to start the chain mail. I also need a better sword. I also want to do a significant amount of work on the boots. The wig needs work as well. Hopefully I’ll have it all done in time for Fanime. I’m taking a break from it all right now but I’ll get back into it in a couple months or so.

 Anyway, that is my update for now. I’m going to be taking a rather long holiday break. Something like 2 and a half weeks long to work on my art, PD, and the new PDM show. I’m looking forward to it!