I’ve been feeling the blahs for the last four days now. As I sat by my desk tonight, I found myself wondering if it’s a good idea to write when I am grumpy or if I should just avoid the blog at all costs.

The thing is, there are many little and big things where I feel like I am running behind lately. Or just dropping on the floor altogether.

• I have been terrible about posting family photos here on the blog since around June. I have a lot of photos. They’ve been piling up but I just cannot get myself to do the work to post them. 
• I’ve dropped the stitching project altogether. I think I’d just had enough of it. I have some ideas for Thursdays now but I haven’t gotten around to writing them.
• I haven’t been really taking any pictures for months now. I have been using my SLR so little, it actually had a dead battery (from disuse) this has never happened since I bought the camera years ago.
• I feel uninspired to blog lately.  Or journal. I think about both nonstop and want to do more, but I can’t get myself to do it.
• I have a month’s worth of shoes I drew back in June and never posted.
• And 75-days of sketching with only pen.

So hence the question of should I even bother. But sometimes it’s more about the practice of writing then the content. So I am going to keep at it. Here are some thoughts, things on my mind, things in my life, things to share, in no order:

1. I just finished “I’ll Give You the Sun” by Jandy Nelson. One of the best books I’ve read in a long, long time. Really magical.
2. My third sketching class is starting (actually i just checked and it looks like it just started!) and I’ve been sketching daily to get in the habit again
3. I’m completely caught up in Life Book (just have this week’s lesson to do)
4. My nephew and son have both been excitedly waiting for the latest and last Percy Jackson book. It’s been really fun watching their anticipation. I love that feeling of waiting for a book to come out so you can finally read it.
5. I’ve already picked my word for 2015. Let’s see if it changes between now and November.
6. I’ve been thinking about December Daily. I want to do a mixed media one this year, I think. Just not sure how it will be formatted. I need some time to think, plan, imagine.
7. I’ve also been thinking about my projects for next year. My plan is to have one watercolor notebook and one acrylic one and just do all my projects in one or the other. I think….
8. My son’s really into music and I love watching him sing and how he’s learning to play guitar. There’s nothing like music that speaks to your soul.
9. So many people have emailed me to say they love my little one’s smiling face. It’s so sweet to hear.
10. I miss my parents. My sister. My nephews. I miss my friends at home.
11. I want to be better at keeping in touch with my friends all over. Another thing I never make proper time for.
12. I’ve been reading Howard Jacob’s J for a while now and can’t seem to get through it but I also refuse to put it down.
13. I have some important meetings this week that might determine how the next few years unfold. Please pray for me if that’s your thing. Or just send good wishes my way.
14. I made a list of 12 nonfiction books and 12 art books and I am thinking of attacking one each month and actually making progress using the books I’ve bought.
15. I’m 24 days into the Whole Life Challenge. And it’s challenging. I am hungry and tired a bunch. And I have not lost as much weight as I would have liked by now.
16. I am trying to treat myself with some grace over the latest grumpiness.
17. But I had told myself I had until the end of September to get organized again. It’s officially October.
18. I hope you sign up for my class.

That’s it from me for now. I am sorry for the uninspiring posts lately. If you’re still around I’d love to hear from you on how you’re doing.

I’ve now been doing the Whole Life Challenge for seventeen days. This means that for the last seventeen days, I’ve been exercising daily, drinking a ton of water, stretching every day and most significantly not eating chocolate, not drinking diet coke or lattes. Also not eating bread, cheese, corn, milk, and any processed food.

Add to that the fact that I don’t cook and one would think I’ve had nothing to eat. Considering all that, I will say that it hasn’t been nearly as challenging as it sounds. (Though there’ve been plenty of challenging moments.) I’ve basically been sticking to a pretty consistent breakfast-lunch-dinner routine daily.

Breakfast: Black Coffee + Water + Whole Grain Oatmeal (i’ve been eating these) with raspberries and blueberries

Lunch: Big salad with lettuce, carrots, beets, broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes, celery and then I add chicken or lentils or beans and blueberries or honeydew + water + tea

Snack: My big salad takes a while to eat, but if i am hungry, I’ll make some more coffee and have a few nuts of a bit of a lara bar or some fruit (sometimes i have all of these things.)

Dinner: Dinner is trickiest for me. Sometimes I am really not hungry so I will have some yogurt, some tea/cofffee/linden tea. If I am hungry, I will eat an Amy’s Bowl (this and this are compliant for my level). If I am still hungry I might eat some more of my Lara bar or almonds.

I usually eat my dinner early (5/6pm) and will then possibly snack at 7 with a fruit. I usually go to bed no later than 9pm since I wake up at 5am.

Here are a few other things I do:

• Once a week, I will cook 6-7 chicken patties to have a week’s worth of chicken.
• I go to Whole Foods to get carrot and beet salad because I like them and am too lazy to grate them myself
• I will make one big omelette with 3 eggs on Sundays and put a lot of veggies in it just to experiment and have fun. It’s easy to eat a lot of eggs on this diet and so I am trying not to get too dependent on eggs as I want to keep my diet vegetable heavy.
• I will also make Almond and Peanut butter when I am at Whole Foods and if I am hungry or craving chocolate, I will grab a spoonful of either
• I haven’t been to many social events yet but now that I have 17 days under my belt, I am considerably less worried, though we’ll see
• It’s getting better but I still really dislike the taste of black coffee. It still sort of tastes like what I imagine eating cigarettes to be.
• Apparently my vitamin B is really low so I’ve changed my supplement to be B3 per my doctor’s advice

I know this doesn’t seem like a lot of food but I am never hungry. Most of the time, I am eating because I am bored and having these limited options allows me to make wiser choices during those moments. And eventually I hope I will stop eating because I am bored and only eat when I am actually hungry.

The exercise has also been going well. I stopped being incredibly sore after day three. I still hurt while I exercise so I know I am pushing myself but it’s not the acute, cannot-walk pain from the first days. Progress.

I haven’t measured myself again but I did get on the scale last week and I’ve lost some weight already but most importantly, I just feel good about finally changing the way I eat and getting a lot more vegetables in my system every single day.

Let’s see what the next seventeen days brings.

ps: in case I haven’t mentioned, I am now Instagramming occasionally.