I am still alive!







I am officially laid off from Nickelodeon. There was another round of mergers, with a new CEO. No new projects have been greenlit for my department during the turmoil, and although they tried keeping the artists as long as possible I have been out of work since end of June.

After jumping through all the hoops I am getting unemployment payments from the state. I am honestly surprised since I was a remote worker for the New York division, but Nick has been taking out all the proper taxes so I did qualify. That only lasts 6 months and it has already been a month...clock is ticking on the job search. I am on the internet every morning going through the job boards, but it is not easy. Last week I found one new listing, for a Canadian company that might be open to remote work. This week I have not found anything. Hope is that Nickelodeon will start new projects now that the top exec shuffling is done, but who knows how long that will take. Execs have a bad habit of tossing out favorite projects of previous department heads, and it was just a year ago that my last department was touted as the "way of the future" by the now ousted boss. All the politics are way above my pay grade. Us artists just want to work and pay the bills.

Finances are tight but okay for the moment. We have a bit of savings left. I am dusting off and selling some collectibles from the basement finally. Apparently animation cels are worth money now? I should have grabbed armloads back when I had the chance, LOL. Ebay has streamlined the process of selling stuff, so the most complicated part is finding correct sized cardboard boxes for shipping.

Kid is moving back out this weekend for the fall semester. I will miss having him around, but our grocery bill will be cut down to a third. 

Cats are still cute, weather is dreadfully hot but the view is lovely and the fruit trees are doing very well this year. Apples are slowly turning red. Chickens love the wormy cherries. Pitting the cherries are a bit of a pain, but the birds get so excited for them that it is worth the trouble.

I am trying to get up the motivation to draw something again. I need to do a drawing for Magic Rat. 

Here is hoping that a new job will be found soon...wish me luck!