|
|
||
|
Here’s this week’s card :
It says: you can shed any piece of you. This card uses a template from The Crafter’s Workshop (as well as a few others.) and acrylic paint. Gratitude PostCards is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my goal and the postcards I use here.
I read about The Life Organizer in another book I was reading (and for the life of me, I can’t remember which one.) but something about it was compelling immediately and I just bought it. This is not one of those books you read end to end. It has an intro section that explains some thoughts, the idea behind the life organizer, and how the book is structured. And the rest of it is weekly thoughts, intentions, and questions. I picked this book up in April and started doing the weekly questions as a way to keep track of my own thoughts and to be more intentional about my life and my weeks. It’s actually the book that got me back into journaling. highly recommended.
I have things I’ve been meaning to write about but then the days pass, the night comes, and I am tired and don’t really feel like writing. Not sure if it means something or if it means nothing. I’m trying not to over-think it and I hope you still come visit and check on me regularly even if I’m not being so diligent. What I have been doing is making plans for next year. I’ve been thinking about projects I might like to have and what my word might be, etc, etc. This is the time of year when I usually start getting antsy and feel the desire to already start working on new things. I haven’t fully formalized my projects yet but I am thinking of incorporating two classes into my plans for next year. One is a project from the Soul Comfort class I am currently taking. As with all the Brave Girls’ classes, I am loving this class and it has gotten me back into daily journaling for which I am deeply thankful. I have never taken one of Tam’s Life Book classes before but I am seriously considering signing up for the 2014 class. I’ve taken several of Tam’s classes before and she’s amazing and the lineup of the other teachers looks fantastic, too. So, if I sign up, this will be one of my weekly projects. When trying to sort out what I wanted from next year’s projects, I made a little grid for myself. I wanted to make sure I had a varying set of things so I wouldn’t get bored and so I could stretch myself a bit. So I picked a topic, format, media, and skill to focus on for each of my projects. We’ll see if any of them hold up but I am at least having fun thinking about them and trying them out and adjusting here and there so far. Is there a class you’ve taken this year that you’ve loved? I haven’t taken many this year and I am planning to keep it that way for next year, too. A few core ones and that’s it. I’d rather spend my time really honing some skills I’ve been craving to learn. And here we are. Have you begun thinking about 2014, too, or is it just me? My goal for 2013 is to make three sketches a week. If I make more, great. If I don’t, that’s ok. Trying to keep the pressure low while still encouraging myself to draw. my one sketch:
that’s it for this week. just managed one. Still feeling a bit blah about faces still so not motivated to do any apparently. Sketching is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my sketching journey here. Here’s this week’s gratitudes and celebrations: Not one of my favorites this week. Before:
it says: soak in the beauty of life. and here’s what the page looks like with all the gratitudes and celebrations:
Just another excuse to create art and remember the present that is my life. Gratitude Journal is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my goal other details here.
Here are some photos from this week. A lot of these are taken with my new phone and I consider them of low quality but they still feature our memories and that’s what this is about after all: Nathaniel and David playing in Nathaniel’s classroom. I just wanted to see if the phone can take decent indoor shots.
we then went to this place the kids call The Village in David’s school and this is apparently his hut. It was way way too sunny.
over the weekend, Jake’s brother, Clark, happened to be visiting us and so we decided go to the Computer History Museum. On the way down, we passed by Google campus and decided to stop and take photos with the Android statues. David insisted that I capture them with each. All the Android releases have dessert-y names. Kitkat is the new one.
Honeycomb.
ice cream sandwich.
eclair.
jelly bean.
gingerbread.
froyo.
cupcake.
donut.
donut, too 🙂
and the big android guy.
then we were finally allowed to go to the museum. I didn’t capture anything there except this where everyone was playing some video game.
and Clark and David playing Pong.
they had one of the Street View cars so Nathaniel got inside (which you were allowed to do.) and I snapped.
and here’s when I was getting the self-shots ready. I love this photo.
we’re yelling we love Fridays!
and tickle time!
and here we go. so grateful for my life. i hope your week was lovely, too. Weekly Diary is a project for 2013. You can read more about it here. Before this week’s art here’s the important reminder: Please remember, this is personal and hand-made and thus imperfect. If you want perfect art, do not buy mine. Also one more reminder that these are pretty small. 5.5inches by 5.5inches. That’s about 14×14 centimeters). You will just get the original piece of watercolor paper with my art and signature in the back. No mounting, no frame. I don’t want to misrepresent anything. I will put a paypal button under each (you can pay with credit card or paypal.) the button doesn’t update so you will have to click through to see if it’s sold out. I will try to update them as quickly as I can and remove the button if it’s gone, but just in case. Each piece will be $35. That’s US dollars. If you have questions please leave a comment and I will reply as fast as I can. With that here’s this week’s art:
it reads: choose to bloom. SixBySix is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my goal and other details here. Here’s the page for this week:
this one is all about soccer and one shot from David’s trip to NASA Ames with his friend Ari. See you next week! The Savor Project is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my goal and other details here. Here’s this week’s card :
It says: sometimes you have to sit quietly until things come into perspective. This card uses a template from The Crafter’s Workshop (as well as a few others.) and acrylic paint. Gratitude PostCards is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my goal and the postcards I use here.
I read Wonder for book club. I had seen it on and off but hadn’t managed to pick it up for some reason. I wasn’t sure if it woud be good. and it is good. no, it’s excellent. I really, really loved it. Just about everything about it. The style, the topic, the variety of perspectives. The whole book is just wonderful. I recommend it wholeheartedly.
As I was journaling yesterday morning, I realized a distinction that’s become interesting to me. I noticed that, for me, there are two kinds of Joy. Real-time and in-retrospect. Real-time joy is joy I am feeling in that very moment. I feel this when I am hugging my kids or we’re all laughing out loud. When I am making art. When I am driving and a song I love is turned up loud and it’s sunny outside so I have the windows down. This kind of joy comes from a happy experience combined with presence and the feeling of aliveness. The feeling of being in this very moment, feeling grateful, and really just soaking it in. In-retrospect joy comes in cases where I am not always enjoying the moment while it’s happening but the memories of it bring me a lot of joy. This can happen on vacation sometimes. With little kids and a lot of moving parts, vacations can sometimes we hectic in the moment. But then I come home and I look at our photos and relive the moments and I am swept with huge, deep joy. This also happens with my projects sometimes. There are weeks when working on the Savor Project isn’t maybe super-joyful in the moment (or even the art is like that sometimes) but it’s always always joyful when I sit down with the album. Deep, satisfying joy. I think both of them are valuable and add to my life in different ways. The in-retrospect joy helps develop delayed gratification which is an important skill to have in life. It also allows me to tap into joy in moments where I might not be feeling it. I can grab my Savor Project, spend some fifteen minutes and I am guaranteed to feel the rush of joy. The real-time joy gives meaning and light into my days. If I had no real-time joy, I think life would be a lot harder to get through. With a four-year-old, however, there is plenty of real-time joy, thankfully. Having said that, when he’s not around, I am not always good at this one. And, as I was journaling, I was thinking that what would be good is to have a balance between the two. So that each week (and even each day) is full of both: things that make me joyful right now and things I do because I know they will make me joyful later. Part of this is knowing what those things are. Identifying them, noticing them. So for the next week or two, I’ll be keeping track of the moments of joy and making a list so that I can then infuse them into my weeks deliberately. As much as I believe in serendipity and being in the moment, I also believe there’s something to be said for life by design (another post for another time) so this is how I start to design mine to be full of joy. PS: I have a blog post up on the big picture classes blog today. You can read it here. My goal for 2013 is to make three sketches a week. If I make more, great. If I don’t, that’s ok. Trying to keep the pressure low while still encouraging myself to draw. my one sketch:
that’s it for this week. just managed one. feeling a bit blah about faces still so not motivated to do any apparently. Sketching is a weekly project for 2013. You can see a detailed post on my sketching journey here. |
|
|
|
Copyright © 2026 karenika - All Rights Reserved Powered by WordPress & Atahualpa |
||
.
.
