karenika

Learning with David – Week 11

This class is by udacity.com and it’s a computer science class called Intro to Computer Science, which teaches Python, too.

Learning with David is a project for 2014 that I am doing with my 9-year-old son. You can read more about it here.

Today I Know – Week 21

This week’s inspiration comes from this pin. I am still obsessed with figure sketching and I loved this one.

I drew the dresses in pencil then drew again with 0.005 micron and used the watercolors. The background is also watercolors. I also added some gold mica powder. You can see better in this other view.

prompt says: today i know that it is time for me to replace my

I wrote about good and bad news and how i listen for the bad and how i want to replace this point of view.

Today I Know is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

The Dare

believe in impossible things. dream big dreams. live the dare.

By the time I did this piece, I had run out of quotes. So I ended up taking some of my sheets from The Walk and pasted them on my page. I love how the wording turned out. I think it was a reminder to the deep parts of myself.

I could use a lot more of these.

I want to believe in impossible things. I want to be brave. Maybe the line between stupid and brave is thin but I still want to dance on it. I’ve always been conservative. Safe. I do the right thing. I make the wise choices.

Not that I didn’t make mistakes but in the grand scheme, I’ve consistently played it safe. It’s what I do.

But when I read “live the dare” it lights up my soul. I want to live the dare. I want to dream big dreams. The big dreams of my childhood are all met (and I am really grateful for that, of course.) and the only down side of that is that it’s time for new dreams.

New big dreams.

I think that’s fuel for the soul. At least for my soul.

So what are your big dreams? are you living the dare?

Stitching Circles – Week 20

This week’s stitching also comes from urban threads. This unicorn took me a while but I loved how colorful it is. I used stem stitch and back stitch on this one. The little word is colors.

Stitching Circles is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

that little extra

This quote says:

The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.

This one made me think a lot, too. I don’t really know if I agree with it. Is it really just “little” extra or is it a lot. Maybe it’s better to say a little extra every day. Because I think it takes a lot of work to be extraordinary.

I am a firm believer that we can all be extraordinary in pretty much anything we want to be (okay, yes there are some exceptions but fewer than people make it out to be.) and that the trick is consistent and persistent effort. And not just blind effort but concerted effort. Effort that involves critical thinking, growth, and forward progress.

When people tell me that they don’t have the brain for languages, I have to stop myself from calling them out. The fact is, languages might come a bit more easily to me now that I know many of them but, in the beginning, they were just as hard for me. I studied. A LOT. to get to where I am. When I learned English, I read incessantly in English. When I was in Japan, I spent hours every single day practicing. Just to get mediocre at it.

It wasn’t luck or genes. It was hard work.

And yes maybe some things come easier to some of us on a fundamental level. But it still doesn’t mean you can’t get extraordinary at math, it just means you might have to work harder than the other person. Which is something you choose or don’t choose.

But saying it’s not in my genes takes the choice away from you. It puts you back into the victim mentality and I dislike that. It also feels like a cop out. Like “too bad for me, i guess i am just not wired that way.” when it really is more like “aren’t I lucky, I have this excuse so I don’t actually have to put in the time and effort. I can just say I am not wired that way.”

Ahem.

If you don’t want to do it, that’s fine by me. I think there’s freedom in owning that. Just don’t confuse it with “can’t.” IT’s not that you can’t, it’s that you don’t want to do what it takes.

Which is fine. And takes me back to the quote. It’s not a “little” extra in my opinion. Extraordinary requires passionate amount of extra. Consistent. Disciplined. Obsessive. Truly, deeply, joyfully doing something enough to get really good at it.

Maybe if you’re passionate enough it feels like it’s only a little extra?

A Book a Week – And the Mountains Echoed

The name Khaled Hosseini is equal to painful but deep reading in my book after having experienced The Kite Runner. So I was in no hurry to read And the Mountains Echoed because I knew it would be painful.

But then the book club picked it.

So I buckled down and read it. And I am grateful to say that it wasn’t as painful as The Kite Runner. But it also wasn’t as good. The writing is beautiful. The story carries you. That’s his magic, he’s amazing at putting stories together. But they are always full of deep, deep sorrow and this one is no exception.

Savor Project – 2014 – Spread Fifteen

This week is all about the boys playing board games and david’s first trip to the eye doctor.

so happy.

Savor Project is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

What is Within

This quote says:

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us and when you bring what is within out into the world, miracles happen.

I like the idea of this quote. I like what it says. But when I really think about it, I am not sure I understand it. Is it just saying “be you”? Is it saying when you fully own who you are and step into it, miracles happen?

I am not sure 🙂

Alas, the quote really speaks to me anyway. I like the idea of bringing what’s within me out into the world.

This year’s been an interesting one for me so far. I find myself going up and down a lot and there are chunks of my life where I want to be doing more, better, different. I want to feel less overwhelmed and less purposeless all at once. I know that sounds weird that I can be both but I feel like I am.

I find I am much more productive and happy when I am stretched thinner. Partly cause I have a purpose. I like having things to do. It’s easy for me to spend my days alone, relatively unproductively (or even if somewhat productively, maybe not growing in all the ways I would like to grow). And I want to be bolder, stretch in ways I haven’t before so I can see what I am capable of. So I can see what I do and don’t like. So I can be willing to show up.

I’ve been doing a lot of things in the last few years but I don’t think I’ve been showing up a lot. Maybe a little more than bare minimum. Sometimes a little less.

And I want that to change.

Most importantly, I want to stop aching about things. I noticed that many times a day, I find myself aching for different things. To draw better, to be healthier (and thinner), to teach my kids more or whatever. These thoughts come and they overwhelm me. They make me sad and then they leave and I am left with the sad aftertaste.

I don’t want to ache anymore. I want to do or let go. Either is ok. If I find myself aching to draw better, then I need to pick a project where I draw more and regularly. If I want to sit with my kids, I need to just do it. Not much more to it than that.

And If I don’t want to do what it takes (because most of these are indeed hard work) then I need to let go of the ache. To remember that it’s my choice to not do it (and it’s a perfectly fine choice) and to genuinely let myself off the hook.

So that’s my plan for the next week. Pay attention each time I wish for things to be different. Then either make a change or let go of the wish. No more burdening myself with it.

Sounds easy but we’ll see if it’s so.

Remember This – Week 21

Life Book week thirteen was a bonus lesson Lesley Riley. The original lesson uses TAP but I didn’t have any so I was going to pass on it. But then, again, I reminded myself I am taking this class to stretch. So I decided to use Stickyback Canvas I’ve had for a long time.

I decided to do something super simple. I printed this photo of me with my boys and then did some writing.

It says: you are so very deeply loved and you will never be alone. I will always love you with all my heart.

In March, I took a class on line drawing by Lisa Congdon so I covered the back with some basic line work to practice and then a little bit of paint and my page was finished. Super-simple but I still like it.

Remember This is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

Listen with Intent – Week 21

For this week, I picked walk. Park of listening actively is changing my location and not sitting and listening while I am on the computer, etc. When I take a walk with either of my sons, I listen so much better. I am present, I am paying attention only to them and I listen. So my intent this week is to take more walks. To engage with my family as I walk.

The lettering I used here comes from this pin.

The image is from this pin by the awesome Inslee.

Listen with Intent is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.