Tuesday, January 29, 2008

happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday darling lauren
happy birthday to you

Monday, January 28, 2008

happy birthday to me
happy birthday to me
happy birthday dear margaret
happy birthday to me!

Monday, January 21, 2008

day ... something

I seem to have run out of creative juice for right now. Not a big deal, I'm not beating myself up about it. I'm just going to take a little break and then come back to it.

It's nice being inspired to create. It's nice having that desire there. And that is what I really wanted to bring back into my life. So, job well done, I guess!

Friday, January 18, 2008

inspiration

Yesterday, in a moment of being very open about my weaknesses (which actually doesn't happen often on a serious level), I confessed to my best friend, K, that I need help with this whole exercising thing. K paused for a moment and then said, "When you did this before, when you were all super active and lost all that weight, what inspired you then? What kept you going then? How did you do it?"

I've been thinking about her questions since she asked it, and I've come up with three answers ...

1. To be totally honest, I don't remember how I got into the habit of exercising and eating well. But once I was in the habit of doing it then it was easy to keep going. Or, at least, easier than it seems to be to start up again.

2. I had company, every step of the way. My darling Lauren and the divine Miss A (who is now Mrs. A), were my workout buddies. The three of us did yoga together all the time. Miss A and I took a couple ballet classes together. I wasn't alone on the journey.

3. And finally, this is embarrassing to admit, but I was competitive about it. Miss A was also going through a period of weight-loss and I was very jealous watching her get thinner and thinner and admiring her body and envying her fit-ness. She was in the best shape of any woman I've ever known and was constantly striving to be in better shape. It was amazing and made me jealous enough that I got my butt in gear and worked out harder and lost more weight than I would have otherwise. In retrospect, of course, she lost much too much weight and was definitely anorexic, but now she's better. (And, if you still read this ever, I think you look MUCH better now than you did then.)

So how can this help me now?

1. I know that I just need to start. If I start then it becomes habit sand if it become habit then it's all so much easier. That's actually pretty simple.

2. I need company. I need friends who will support and encourage me along this journey, who will joke with me and congratulate me and make me go and offer me support and help and love along the way. Maybe if I can learn (again) to do this with other people then I'll start to understand how to do it alone.

day 9



Taken with my fancy new macro lens.

day 8

Nothing. I wasn't feeling it this day and, as opposed to doing what I should have done and pushing myself to do something creative, I just didn't.

Boo to me.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

ugh

You know what the problem is? I don't want to do "exercise". I just want to live an active lifestyle. I want to go snowboarding and skating and play hockey and do yoga and go for long bike rides and run around the block and go hiking and swim across Walden Pond and walk everywhere and play soccer and go dancing and learn to fly on a trapeze and do kung-fu and tai-chi. That's what I want.

But I feel like it's so hard to fit all that stuff into my real life, so instead I tell myself I have to go to the gym. And then when I don't go, because I hate it, I feel like crap about myself. Instead I should just figure out ways to do all that other stuff I want to do.

Yeah.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

day 7

Two studies on a comb.





I've figured out that I can't just take a picture for my art of the day. That's too easy. I have to be taking a picture consciously, with purpose. This was me experimenting with my new macro lens. Very strange. Very cool.

Monday, January 14, 2008

day 6

Sunday, January 13, 2008

day 5

I'm finally figuring out that I just have to take my camera everywhere. Sometimes it really pays off.





day 4

I like this so much I think I might have to make a more fully-fleshed version.

It's a "city made of shoulds".




(magazine photos, poster paint, vellum, ink)

Saturday, January 12, 2008

day 3

Simple, yes. But it's something that I created, and that's what this is all about.



(medium: cardboard, paper, embroidery thread)

Friday, January 11, 2008

test your vocab and feed the hungry

It's fun. Just do it.

FREE RICE

Thursday, January 10, 2008

day 2



I made this today, inspired by some pictures I took yesterday (on a holga) ...







Wednesday, January 09, 2008

day 1

a challenge and a success

The Challenge:

I've been futzing around a whole bunch of creative, artsy blogs on the internet in my free time these days and I'm feeling very inspired. So, on that note, I am going to try to do some sort of art/crafting (photography, collage, knitting, sewing, etc.) every single day for 30 days. Admittedly, it'll probably end up being photography most of the time, because it's the easiest and fastest for me, but it'll still be good.

If you can't get your creative juices flowing on your own, figure out ways to help yourself do it. And I will, of course, post pictures of everything here.

The Success:

I figured out a system that keeps me accountable to myself! On my calendar, at the end of every single day, I write a V if I've taken my vitamin, an F if I have flossed, a W if I have washed my face, and an E if I have exercised. And now I guess I'll add an A if I've done my art for the day.

It seems so silly that I have to do this. These are all very little things, but they're things that I want to do every day so that I will feel better, and they're things that I generally don't remember to do on my own. But if I have a place to write them down then I am more likely to do them. Incredible! Awesome! And so far it's working!

Tuesday, January 01, 2008

the beginning

These are not resolutions. They are simply things that I want to work on before this time next year rolls around.

So here they are.

1. Start and continue with a bedtime routine for Darwin ... bath-time, story/snuggle-time, and then bed, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

2. At some point really actually transition him out of our bed. As my friend Amanda said, "He's a year old, it's time to take back your life." This is one of the reasons for the above bedtime routine. He needs to start sleeping on his own, so that I can start sleeping through the night.

3. I love to bake. Oh god, do I love to bake. But this holiday season I baked so many cookies that I gained 3 pounds. Not the biggest deal in the world, I know I'm still on the low end of the national average for weight-gain between Thanksgiving and New Year's, but it's still isn't ok by me. Time to scale back on the baking. How about once a week? A treat for Sunday!

4. Which leads us to healthier eating in general. More vegetables, more healthy protein, less saturated fat, less sugar. Eat good to feel good. Don't eat when I'm not hungry. Keep in mind that I am a really good cook and can make healthy food that tastes good. I know how to eat well, I just haven't been doing it.

5. Get a job. I want Darwin to go to daycare and have the opportunity to interact with other children on a regular basis and I'm ready to go back to interacting with the real world. It's time. Of course, this means that I have to make sure the job I get offers me great benefits and a good enough salary that it makes sense for me to be going back to work, but I'm pretty sure that can happen. I've applied for 10 university jobs over the last three days, so here's hoping!

6. When people offer help with Darwin, take it. Don't think about all the things that could go wrong, or how much I want to be independent and not need help. I do, in fact, need help and I need to learn to accept it when it's offered.

7. Work on asking for help.

8. Learn to be better at taking time for me ... no baby, no husband.

9. Go snowboarding more than once.

10. Go snow-shoeing at least once.

11. Go skating as often as possible.

12. Go to Walden Pond at every available opportunity.

13. Write more.

14. Read more.

15. Spend less time surfing the net.

16. Go to the gym. Really, it's time that's entirely for myself, where I'm doing something productive, and don't need to interact with a single person. I should be chomping at the bit to go there ALL THE TIME!!!

17. Go to yoga at least once a week. J and I have decided to commit ourselves to going once a week in the month of January. That's six hours. That's it! After January, we will reevaluate the situation and decide what to do about February. And so on, throughout the year.

18. It's time to start losing some weight. I've got 33 pounds to lose (I'm at 153 as of this morning) and it's not going to just come off on its own. I need to work for it and that's the part that scares me. But that's not a good enough reason to not do it, so let's get it started. I know I can do it, because I've done it before. Here we go weight-loss, here we go!

Happy New Year, everybody!