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Yeah, I need a wardrobe update…
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ACW Episode 291 – Young vs. old
Category: The Adventures Of Cynical Woman
Weekly webcomic about my life as a stay-at-home mom and erotica writer.
ACW Episode 290 – Who’s that girl?!
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You just never know who’ll show up around our place! (This should be fun!)
ACW 289 – We know what we love.
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I love my local library. Apparently so do a lot of other people. I usually get there just a few minutes before they open, and when I do, there’s usually a line of people waiting to get in. We don’t quite stampede through the front doors when they open, but we do get in pretty fast. The librarian is pretty nimble though, so she usually gets out of the way.
ACW Episode 288 – The Power of Yoga!
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So I had a slight miscommunication with the cat last week….
She was messing around with my iPad and some electronics cables while I was trying to do yoga. I told her to “shoo!” but apparently she didn’t hear me, because when I reached down to give her a nudge, she reacted as though I had just shot 20,000 volts through her. I believe she did three and a half somersault in five different directions before landing – claws first – on my left hand. Two claws slashed open my pinky and middle fingers. But one claw managed to puncture not just the skin of my ring finger, but also the blood vessel beneath it as well. And that claw sunk into me so deep that I couldn’t simply shake the cat free of my hand (though Glob knows I TRIED!!!). Instead, I had to roll around on the floor in agony while the cat swore at me and continued to shred my digits. Eventually, she took off, leaving me with a bloody stump where my hand used to be. It was three days before all my fingers grew back and I was able to wear my wedding rings again.
So just remember folks. Never set the cat on fire, and don’t mess with it when you’re doing yoga either.
ACW Episode 287 – It’s all a bit fuzzy to me
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Wow, I finally got a webcomic drawn and posted! It’s been like, forever!
Seriously though, it has been a month since I last posted a webcomic. The reason, of course, is because it was Girl Scout cookie season, again, and I let my life get taken over by Girl Scout cookie season, again.
The problem is partly the organization I volunteer for. Girl Scouts demands a lot from its volunteers, and I understand this. We work with girls who need us to be responsible, keep them safe, and offer them opportunities to do things that are fun and exciting. That requires training, certifications, background checks, the ability to handle finances, the ability to plan and conduct training, and so on, and so on, and so on. Basically, all the things I used to do in the Army Reserves. Only without the paycheck to go with it.
So I understand that, and I agree with that. But…
I’m not sure Girl Scouts understands what it’s asking of its volunteers. I mean, in a way, they do. They know what’s at stake when it comes to working with girls. But I don’t think they understand the demand these requirements puts on its volunteers. I volunteer at least 10 hours a week. And some weeks I volunteer more. A lot, lot more. During cookie season, I could end up volunteering 60 hours a week. Keep in mind that some weeks during cookie season I am also hosting the troop meeting (we have one 5-hour meeting a month), running cookie booths, handling accounting for cookie sales, making deposits of cookie money at the bank, preparing for Scout Sunday, preparing for Thinking Day, attending those events, and more. And doing all that is exhausting.
I read an article recently that talked about the ideal amount of hours to volunteer. And the number they gave was 100-800 hours. Less than that didn’t give the volunteers the same boost of happiness. More than that left volunteers burned out. Now 100-800 hours seems like one hell of a range, but the article also mentioned that there were no benefits to volunteering more than 100 hours. And I’d say they’re right about that. I’d be happy if I could cut my volunteering back to just 5-10 hours a week. That would put me at around 250-500 hours a year, as opposed to what I volunteer now.
But how to get those hours down? That’s where I have to admit that I’m part of the problem.
Yes, Girl Scouts asks a lot. But that doesn’t mean I always have to say ‘yes’ when they ask something of me. I need to start learning how to say ‘no.’ And there may be some folks I work with in Girl Scouts who will be disappointed to hear me say no. But I’m thinking that the organization as a whole will understand. Girl Scouts needs dedicated volunteers; it doesn’t need burned-out volunteers. And so I’m making the choice to step back from some of my volunteering so that I can do a better job at what I still intend to volunteer for, and so I don’t feel resentful about volunteering.
And then maybe I won’t be so tired that I try to type my emails on my cat 🙂
ACW Episode 286 – An Important Fact About Cats
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Sing it with me folks. “My cat has fleas!” Or rather, my CATS have fleas. All three of them. Do you know how hard it is to wash three cats? There’s a lot of bleeding involved. A LOT of bleeding.
At least the kitties smell nice when the baths are done. Not that they’ll let me get close enough to snuggle after I’ve dunked them in water, scrubbed them with soap, and dunked them again. But that’s okay. I need the time to clean myself up anyway. Don’t want to bleed all over my freshly cleaned kitties.
ACW Episode 285 – A Belated Christmas
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It took me soooooooooooo long to finish this, and for no other reason that I simply could not get my act together for the last month. And I’m still not able to get my act together, but I’ll keep plugging along anyway.
I should have another Creature Comforts post up tonight. It’s in the works right now!
ACW Episode 284 – No sugar plum fairies for me!
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There really is no good time to make changes to a diet, but taking out excess sugar during the holidays really, really sucks.
But, I really needed to make a change to my diet. I’ve been having problems with joint pain for a couple years now, and it gets worse during the winter. After doing a bit of research, I decided to try removing the excess sugar from my diet. I’ve given up soda, sugar in my coffee or tea, and any store-bought sweets for the most part. I’ve started cooking my meals from scratch, which is a bit of a hassle, but worth it. After a week, my joints, especially my knees, started to feel much better, so yay for getting rid of sugar!
On the down side, cutting out sugar also killed my energy level for the first week. I found myself passing out for hours at a time. I’m still taking little unexpected naps here and there, but it’s not as bad as it was at first week.
Anyway, we’ll see how well I get through this holiday season with a reduced-sugar diet.
I Love Drawing Comics!
Hubster is sooooo cute!
I have slowly learned over time that when I am sloppy drawing pencils, I actually get the penciling done faster, and better, than when I agonize over the details. There was actually another layer of VERY sloppy sketching with this snippet, but I accidentally deleted it once I had the pencil lines I actually wanted. Oh well! Maybe when I do more penciling tomorrow, I’ll be able to show it then!
Episode 283 – Parents, don’t let your babies grow up to be assholes
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This actually happened, although the backpack in question belonged to another young lady, not Princess. Regardless of who’s bag it was, I still get pissed off when I think about it. I expect a certain level of civilized behavior from kids, and the older they get, the more I expect. So when I see a kid acting like a huge jerk, I do not shrink from calling them on it. And when a parent lets me know they tolerate that kind of behavior, I don’t hesitate to call them out either.
Honestly, the first job of a parent is to keep their kids safe and healthy. The second job, though, is to civilize those little savages. And to be honest, I think the civilization process is a huge part of the keeping safe process. Because I am not joking – one of these days I will kill one of these kids.