Hey everyone, I'm not totally gone!

If you haven't noticed, I disappeared within the first or second week of January this year. I was supposed to announce the winners of the last art contest but couldn't get around to it, so thank you @Dynamo Pad for doing it for me and congrats to everyone involved!

So, where have I been?

I've just been very, very sick.

To keep it as short as possible, I'd gotten sick since this new years started. I think I picked it up from my sister and her boyfriend because they were coughing a lot after they were at some Christmas and New Years parties.

It started with the usual symptoms of a cold, but after a few days I'd gotten better! Well, except for two things: mucus and coughing. Both got progressively worse to the point that I was vomiting every night and my side was hurting from the coughing! I tried a lot of remedies like teas and cough drops, but unfortunately none of them really worked to help control my coughing this time.

I went to urgent care where they told me that I probably had influenza at first and then I got bronchitis not long after. So, the latter is what I've been suffering and recovering from currently.

It's now about a week or two after I was diagnosed and prescribed medication to deal with the bronchitis and now I'm feeling much better. I'll try to spare you from the nasty details, but I'll just say that it was satisfying when I started to cough up all of that nasty mucus, and I know my own body was happy to get it out of there. The amount of mucus I have now is a lot lower and is not those very nasty and concerning colors anymore.

I'm still recovering but I can get back to trying to do more things at least.

Now for the life update: I lost my day job while I was going through this sickness.

My now former job laid me off with the reasoning that they're struggling financially and they had to let me go because of it. Of course I have my opinions on how they can bring money back into their business, but they should've figured that out long ago because it's so obvious what they could do. I don't really want to rant and vent here, they've got a lot of issues that's their fault and no one else's and I'm sick of being the one to get that burden. 

Anyways, it's fine by me since I was already going to be leaving later this year but only when I had a good plan. Unfortunately, right now that plan isn't realized at all so I need to figure something out. I may end up working for myself here.

I have a few ideas and I think I know which one I'll go for as a primary source of income. It's not going to be music, which I'll still be doing but it's such a rough industry that it's unrealistic to have it as a primary source of income for myself.

Speaking of which, I have some big plans regarding my music but it's still too soon to really talk about it, so that will be a surprise for later.

It's late now and I need to get some water and lay down again. I hope you're all doing well. I'll try my best to catch up with everyone!