Running on Air + Box Opening

I've finally got a chance to sit down and do some things today after a very hellish two weeks, more on that later.

First, some box opening photos back from the 11th January. This one was from Amiami.

She is the Merry Go Round Momokodoll. I ended up purchasing her with part of the Christmas gift money I received from my dad. This makes her the fourth Momokodoll to join my collection. I was particularly drawn not only to her outfit but to her hair and eye colour combination. She also looked like a girl who liked to have fun.

I decided to call her Mackenzie.

Also arriving on the 11th January was a box from Hobbysearch.

It contained my Elsa figma which I adore. She makes a fantastic display piece in my cabinet.

And I also got Flying Witch Makoto.

Here she is in her default outfit. Yes, she does come with a broom. I started to watch the anime after I got her and it's not too bad. It's more of a slice of life anime so the story and plot moves fairly slowly.

She's on the L body which is the first one I've ever had. I do love it a lot and she poses really really well. 

After a change of clothes ...

I've named her Madison. She's a Mageborn of the Old Blood and currently an acolyte of Mistress Gwendolyn. She attends a school for the Gifted.

A face up I did before the two weeks of hell as I'm starting to call it. Her face is a bit shiny. I don't think I had the water ratio right when I used the make-up sponge dab method for the Liquitex but as it's a practice head I wasn't too worried. I wanted to see if I could paint a Barbie face. It's the smallest scale I have done so far. (Taken with my new camera, more on that later.) I did her face with pastel and watercolour pencils only.

Those who follow me on IG are already aware of why I have been absent lately. On the 12th January, I took my cat for a routine teeth clean which ended in a torn trachea while she was under anesthesia courtesy of the vets who performed the clean on her. She spent the next 7 days at the pet hospital in an oxygen cage because she couldn't breathe on her own. If she couldn't heal the trauma on her own, she would have had to go under surgery. The surgery had a very high risk of her having a cardiac arrest on the table due to the location of the torn trachea. We didn't know what would happen or if she would even survive. Surgery was the last resort and the specialist surgeon recommended that we see if she could repair the damage on her own. They preferred doing that because of the high risk of the surgery. She came home finally last Thursday, however, because she had not been eating or drinking on her own, the hospital deemed it necessary to put a feeding tube in her until she could eat and drink on her own. For most of this week, we have been back and forth to the hospital as it seemed that her wound where her feeding tube went in might have been infected. Luckily, it was just irritated. She's slowly improving but it's going to take time.

Amidst all this stress, I also had my birthday. It was a milestone one. Truth be told, I was so stressed out that I barely took note of it.

Hubby not only bought me a new camera, a big upgrade from the one I was using previously but he also organised this profiterole cake as he knows these are my favourites. (Taken with the new camera as was the photo of my cat). Even though he was just as stressed out as me, he still managed to try and make my birthday a nice one. I'm always amazed at how lucky I am that I met him.

..and that's why I've not really been around much lately.

I'll still be popping in when I can (right now, my cat is asleep in the guest room with my husband, we have to keep a close monitor on her at the moment so one of us is always keeping an eye on her at least; she likes to try and dislodge her feeding tube!)

Hope everyone is having a great week. Today is a public holiday in Australia (called Australia Day). We're just having a quiet one.