Thank you!! + updates on life & work

First, happy October! Fall is my favorite time of year, and in the Seattle area it's been nice and rainy so far. I always feel happier when the weather gets cooler. I hope you all are able to have a bit of a break from whatever variety of extreme weather you're getting in your area of the world. 

Thank you as always for tipping and supporting me. I so lucky to have such a big group of people who enjoy my art so much that they want to financially support me for it.
Even more still, thank you to all the patrons who are on the commission queue right now waiting for their turn for art! I didn't end up meeting some of my self-imposed deadlines for work in September, and I'll be sending out messages to those who are up next in the queue just to provide an update on where I'm at. I also wanted to update folks here on Patreon about what's been going on in my life.

(Personal life details ahead - if you're not interested in reading that, skip to the last paragraphs of this post!)
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I took a few days off in September to spend time with my husband with the intention of spending extra time this past week or so to catch up, but unfortunately, that didn't really work out. It hasn't been anything really major, but I have had difficulty working for a bunch of compounding reasons.

I had some nasty health anxiety after getting results back from a blood test, which was just a routine test to see how I'm doing on HRT. My sub-normal results are almost certainly from changes to my body after being on testosterone for a few years. My doctor essentially told me to keep doing what I'm doing to take care of myself, and I think I'm on the right track, but it's always really stressful when a treatment that helps one issue starts to cause other issues. In the end, it doesn't seem like there's reason for me to worry about having to stop taking T, but health anxiety when you already have anxiety problems can be very intense.

Just days after that happened, I found out via text from my father that my last living grandparent had passed away six months ago, and he only mentioned it in passing while talking about something else. My dad and I are not close, but we have spoken before in the past six months, so I was incredibly hurt by the fact that he never told me. I have not been dealing well with grief lately; I still struggle with grief over my mom's passing a few years ago, and the strained relationship I have with my dad has made it harder to grieve in a "normal" way. The passing of my grandmother without a chance to say goodbye or even know it happened until half a year later has brought a lot of the pain back and then piled onto it.
Thankfully, I am seeing a therapist, so I have someone to help me work through it all, but I'm sure a lot of you know how messy that grief can be. 

The last thing that's been throwing a wrench in my plans has been a leg strain that popped up some time in the past few days, which I think I got from hiking, but I don't know for sure. I have chronic back pain, but usually it doesn't interfere with me being able to sit and work so much, but the added leg pain has made sitting at my desk really difficult. I think it's starting to heal, so hopefully in a couple days it won't be making it so difficult to sit for long periods.
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Despite all that, I'm doing my best to keep plugging away at work! Art is not only my job but something that makes me genuinely happy to do, so when I go through periods of time where I can't get much done, it really affects my mood. I've also been slow to respond to messages because of all the things going on right now; thank you so much for being patient with me! I'll be working on responding to messages, too.

Once again, thanks for being here and supporting me. I'll be putting up the monthly request post soon, and posting some more art (I've still got a fairly large backlog of unposted work!), so look forward to it! :D