Inside an artist's mind

It's been sometime and some of you have reached out wondering how I'm doing so here's what happened...

We had my dad's memorial at the end of June and it was a wonderful service with over 100 people attending in person and many more virtually. Lots of family was in town and it was so helpful to have all of their support. We have one more thing to do which is inter my dad's ashes in his final resting place which will happen mid August so I will be traveling for that.

I returned to college and the summer semester has been a lot of work but I am doing quite well. I took a lot of classes in this accelerated summer semester just to get them out of the way so come fall I will only have to take 2 classes which will be nice.

I'm participating in my first ever Art Fight by joining Team Mystery and it has been a nice distraction so if you want to check out my work you can take a look at my page

My dad passed away on May 24 with my mom at his side.

The past week and a half has been tough getting used to the fact that he's gone and making adjustments at home. We plan to have his funeral at the end of the month so that way family has time to travel and give time before and after to spend time with each other.

On top of all of this, I've gone back to college to leave the teaching world behind. I wish my dad was able to see me start as he was so proud of my decision to get my life going in a better direction.

Work on And You Thought Things Were Over is extremely slow going, but still happening. At this rate, I anticipate returning to posting mid-July, late August at the latest. It all depends on how I feel and how big of a chapter buffer I can build.

Back in Janurary...my father was diagnosed with Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer. This is a cancer you can't beat back into remission, only delay the inevitable. He was given two life expectancy options...maybe 3-7 months with no chemo or maybe 1 year with chemo.

He chose the chemo and it seemed to be helping for some time. That is until about 3 weeks ago when his body started having major issues that sent him in and out of hospital. 2 weeks ago he was checked into the hospital where the doctors operated trying preserve function in his organs to improve quality of life.

It helped a bit but no where near enough. And the worse news, the chemo was loosing its effectiveness and his body was in no condition to continue any form of chemo treatment.

After speaking with his doctor and my mother last night, my father has made the decision to enter palitive/hospice care until he reaches the end of his life.

We don't know if that will be 2 weeks or 2 days...but he's going soon.

I'll be going on hiatus so I can focus on my family, especially my mother who is losing her husband of 40 years...41 if he somehow makes it to the end of June.

Once funerary services take place and all affairs are settled, I'll return to posting chapters but I have no timeline for when that will be so please be patient with me as my family goes through our grieving process.

Thank you all for supporting me during this time and being willing to wait for my return. I might put stuff on tumblr but I'm not promising anything until everything has passed.

And You Thought Things Were Over is back on AO3!!!

Thank you to the volunteer staff at Ao3 for responding to my inquiries quickly so that the whole situation was handled in a timely manner.

The email I got said there was a 7 day waiting period to remove the comment and link I had regarding my kofi account. I did that within five minutes of the fic being hid and emailed them back but I have no idea if they will release it sooner or if I have to wait out the 7 day waiting period.

I'm not sure if the reporter knew if this was the consequences as if they just left a comment, I would have removed it and the whole thing would have been done in five minutes instead of a week and getting the admins involved.

The reason why the kofi link was even there in the first place was because I had no realized that it was against TOS and I had just separated from my now ex-husband and was desperate for income as I needed to cover living expenses and get funds for a divorce attorney. I had forgotten the link was even there as I am financially in a much better place now.

I hope they see my email soon and remove the lock so that you all can reread to your hearts content and I can update this week on time.