karenika

Never Too Late

This particular thought has been on my mind often lately. Especially as I count down to my fortieth birthday, I’ve been thinking about the concept of “too late” and about how I had expected my life to turn out and who I had thought I might grow up to be, etc.

I was one of those unusual people who knew what she wanted from a very young age. Before I was in middle school, I already knew I wanted to work with computers (and some form of art ideally) and I knew that I wanted to study in the United States.

As I step back to look at my life now, I joyfully acknowledge that I have had many of my dreams come true. I have now been living in the US for twenty years, I own a home that I love, have a truly wonderful husband who loves me probably as much as any human can, I have two young kids who are gifts that I am grateful for each day. I have a job at a wonderful company who treats its people as well as can be expected from a company. And I get to work with computers and help build a product I care deeply about. I get to coach people who inspire me. I also get to do a lot of art in my spare time and have the honor of designing for a few manufacturers whose products I love.

I am not sure I could have designed a better life if I tried.

And yet.

Of course, it’s far from perfect.

I still think about “what i might have been.” I wonder what that even means. I think about the kind of person I turned out to be. The way I treat the people I love. The peace I seem to yearn for but never allow inside. The changes I would like in my day-to-day life. The amount of stress I am carrying at any moment in time. How much I’d like to do with my kids. How much more I might want to do for myself.

There are parts of me that I wish were fundamentally different.

But then I think, wouldn’t that change everything? If I had been a different person, wouldn’t my life also have turned out differently? Would I be willing to give up all that I have to be this other person? My husband, my kids, my life?

Likely not.

I have always chosen to take the known over unknown. Partly because when I sit down to think about things seriously, I realize that there’s more good about me and my life than the bad. Most of which I wouldn’t be willing to give up in exchange for other possibilities.

However.

This doesn’t mean I couldn’t change and shift things now. In this day and age, forty is not old at all. If I am lucky, I might get to live another fifty years. That’s more years than I’ve been alive so far. It means that instead of being near the end of the road, I am not even halfway yet. So this is no time to give up.

It is definitely not too late to be who I might have been. Every day is a new opportunity to recalibrate. I get to choose who I am each moment. Who I am and who I want to be.

It is not too late to be who I want to be.

I had a lot of dreams at the age of nine and I followed through on almost all. Now that I am almost forty, it’s a good time to sit and make some new ones.

How about you, do you think it’s too late to be what you might have been?

A Book a Week – The Lake

The Lake was a recommendation from Amazon. I’ve never read Banana Yoshimoto but I felt compelled to give it a shot. Not sure why.

But I am so glad I did.

This was an unusual, weird, but very very interesting novel.

I haven’t read anything else by her and I don’t know if this was typical for her or not. But I know I will read more.

If you’re up for something unusual, I recommend this one.

Savor Project – 2014 – Spread Ten

This week’s all about tennis, speech therapy, Nathaniel’s art, and schoolwork from David.

so grateful.

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

Leveraging what You Have

I finished my monthly project in March and will be posting it next week. For April, I decided I will try the “A month of writing phrases.” When I saw Lori was teaching a class in February, my intention was to take the class and then schedule this for a month later. From having taken her previous class, I knew she’d inspire me and she did not disappoint!

I have also been sad that I am not posting my thoughts posts anymore, so I thought maybe I can couple the two and see if I can post more in April. No promises as I am doing a lot of work at work but let’s see how it goes.

This is one of the phrases that I have in my inspiration board for this year. When I first saw it on pinterest it immediately spoke to me. This whole concept isn’t even new to me. Years ago, I read Now Discover Your Strengths, which fundamentally talks about the idea of focusing what you’re good at. I remember one specific example of how when your kids come home with an A in English and a C in math, you spend a lot of time asking them why they got the C and how to improve it but you don’t focus on why English is an A and what that might mean. We don’t focus on the good. Instead we have this idea that we should be well-rounded and “good enough” on everything.

While it might be valuable to have a solid base on many different things, clearly we’re never going to be excellent at everything. And if you’re going to pick something to be good at, why not start where you’re already excelling?

I also feel like we tend to assume that what we’re good at is as easy for others as it is for us. Or as fun. And neither is true. Each of us has her own unique cross-section of things we’re good at and enjoy and like to spend time doing. This list is not to be dismissed or undermined, it’s to be looked at really carefully. This is your essence. The stuff that comes “easily” to you or the stuff you like dedicating your time on is your stuff. It’s where your passion and talent meet.

It is not to be undervalued.

I feel that if we all did more of what we love and came easily to us, and less of trying to round out the parts of us that are less natural, we’d be happier and the world would be a better place. Not to extremes, of course, but to some extend. We do not all have to be good at Calculus. We do all have to understand some basic math. We do not all have to be able to write incredible poems. But we should all read some. To me, the balance is not in the “doing it all well enough.”

The idea is to pay attention to who you already are and cultivate that deeply. Take those seeds and really grow them.

And then you watch them bloom.

Remember This – Week 13

We’re back to Life Book this week. This is week six which is taught by Tam. The Lesson was on playing with spray inks. Spray inks are not and have never been my friend. I just don’t like how they are never easy to use. I have sprayed my face, hands, and all the items on my table in an effort to use them before I just gave up.

When I saw that this week was sprays, I almost walked away, but I decided it was a sign and that I had to at least give it a try.

so I did.

Even though the paper wasn’t perfect for it, I did the spray part on the right page first and then I drew the profile on the left and painted it with oils. The oils are still a challenge for me to use and I am trying to learn. They also take forever to dry.

Once it was done, I did some pen-work like Tam did and wrote my little reminder message, which says: We accept the love we think we deserve.

That’s from The Perks of Being a Wallflower. A book I love.

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

Monthly Projects – January – Birds

One of my goals for 2014 was to do Monthly Projects. My intention was to do a daily art practice every day on something I wanted to get better at. In January, I picked birds. I posted one update a long time ago. Even though I never posted more updates, I did do a few more. I didn’t end up with 31 but merely 14. That’s still 14 more than I would have done otherwise.

Here they all are:

None of these are original to me. All of the birds come from artists in this pinterest board.

And here are larger versions of the ones I didn’t post back in January.

So here we are. A whole lot of birds.

You can read more about my monthly projects in 2014 here.

Listen with Intent – Week 13

Here we are, at the end of March. For this week, even though most of the week will be April, I wanted to set one more brave intention. I figured after daring to be open, releasing what I was holding on to, and stopping to listen, it was only fair that I also chose to leap. Even though most of this word is not about action for me this year, I still feel like even small, tiny leaps to honor what I hear will be worthwhile.

The lettering I used here comes from Calligraphy Alphabets Made Easy.

I don’t know if the image worked well but it’s intended to look like a woman leaping. Half the fun of it was trying.

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

Weekly Diary – March 30 2014

Here are photos from this week:

Nathaniel made a cool lego creation.

so we photographed it from every angle.

i love it.

David went to the ophthalmologist this week as we thought his eye might be deteriorating. As it worked out, he was just fine (20/20 vision) but the doctor dilated his pupils so we snapped a shot.

they gave him these cool glasses to protect his eyes.

and they gave a pair for the little boy, too.

and here’s our photos of the week.

i love my family so much. so grateful.

we love minecraft!

tickle time – not david’s favorite.

but i love it.

so we’re keeping it.

and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too.

Weekly Diary is a project for 2014. You can read more about it here.

Nathaniel Reads to Mommy – Week 6

Nathaniel Reads to Mommy is a project for 2014 that I am doing with my 4.5-year-old son. You can read more about it here.

Today I Know – Week 12

This week’s inspiration comes from the Craft-A-Doodle book. Specifically from the artist Pamela Keravuori whose projects were my absolute favorite.

I drew this page and then colored it using Faber Castell qrt pencils and aquarelles. Then I used some other water color pencils and I used some pastels. Some neocolor ii’s as well. Then Stabilo All to trace it all once more. I colored the background with the gelatos.

prompt says: today i know that i feel best after I have

I wrote about how i feel best after I’ve taken some time for myself.

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

Stitching Circles – Week 12

This week’s stitching also comes from urban threads. I really like their sketches. Lovely ideas. I used satin stitch and back stitch on this one and fill stitch in her eyes. The little word is grace. I wonder if your eyebrows would really be the same color if you’re that blonde?

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

One Little Word – 2013 – Final Page

I realized this week that I never shared my last OLW page from 2013 with you. Last year, I didn’t do any of the OLW assignments past June. The individual assignments didn’t inspire me and I felt kind of blah the second half of the year so it just never came together.

After I beat myself up for a while, a long while, I decided to do one mixed media page that would allow me to reflect on my word and all its gifts to me throughout 2013 and then let myself move on. I had some fun and wrote some journaling and ended up with this.

With that, I was able to release 2013.

Never Too Late

A Book a Week – The Lake

Savor Project – 2014 – Spread Ten

Leveraging what You Have

Remember This – Week 13

Monthly Projects – January – Birds

Listen with Intent – Week 13

Weekly Diary – March 30 2014

Nathaniel Reads to Mommy – Week 6

Today I Know – Week 12

Stitching Circles – Week 12

One Little Word – 2013 – Final Page

projects for twenty twenty-five

archives by month

archives by category

savor every last drop

projects for twenty twenty-four

projects for twenty twenty-three

projects for twenty twenty-two

projects for twenty twenty-one

projects for twenty nineteen

projects for twenty eighteen

projects from twenty seventeen

monthly projects from previous years

some of my previous projects

me elsewhere

past classes