karenika

Not Looking for Meaning

This morning, after Jake came home from dropping off the kids, he was chatting with me about the wedding he went to this weekend and asking me how I am doing, etc, when I had one of those I-think-I-might-be-losing-my-mind moments. I started telling him all the ways in which things were falling apart and then got myself more and more riled up as I talked. It wasn’t pretty.

And, to add insult to injury, after having just yelled at him for a while, when he tried to kindly help me, I said “I don’t want to waste my time talking about this stuff.”

Right. Not pretty.

Instead of getting mad or upset, he just hugged me and let me go on with my day and went to work (as I asked him to so I could be alone and calm down.)

Typically, I would spend the rest of the day trying to explain what happened. I am hormonal. I didn’t get enough sleep. Feeling a lot of pressure. Blah blah blah. Looking for excuses. Looking for things to fix. Looking for things to blame. We’re meaning-making machines after all. So when something like this happens, I try to immediately pinpoint the cause so I can either absolve myself or fix it (or both.)

Instead, I did neither today. I just let myself feel bad for a while. I did my sketch (which always makes me feel peaceful.) I then focused pretty hard at work and got a bunch of stuff done (which also has a tendency to make me feel better.) And when it was time to pick up Nathaniel, I walked instead of driving to his school. The school is about a 7-minute walk and he loves it when I come on foot. I went a little bit earlier than usual so I could sit with him for a few minutes cause he likes it when I am there with him.

On the way there, I called Jake and thanked him for being so nice to me and told him not to worry about my craziness this morning. I told him what makes me happiest is seeing him and the kids happy. And it does. It truly gives me a deep sense of peace.

When we came back home, Nathaniel went down for his nap, and I worked more. I even spent twenty minutes on an art journal page. I then had food, worked more, etc. until David and Jake came home. Since it was nice out, I decided we should all go have a bite to eat. Which we did.

And then I worked a bit more and now I am off to spend some time with Jake and then David. Then I will read some. And then my day will be over.

So, in the end, I will have done a bunch of things I love (spend time with family, do art, read), a bunch of things I need to (work, exercise, walk outside), a bunch of things I shouldn’t have (eat chocolate, not do strength exercises, oh and scream/cry). But what I won’t have done is spend any more time or energy on today’s outburst.

I didn’t make up reasons for it. I didn’t look into why it happened or try to solve it. I didn’t wallow. I didn’t make it bigger. I didn’t look for meaning. I just let it get lost in the events of my day. I took opportunities to make myself happier and to savor the things that do bring me joy so that the frustration and sorrow naturally took a back seat.

I am not saying that it’s not important to stop and think about what might be making you sad. Or making you cry. There’s a time and place for that, too. And if you’re regularly upset, of course you should figure out why. Of course you should get help.

But, sometimes, you just have a crappy day. A crappy moment. And giving it more attention than it deserves can make that worse instead of better.

Sometimes it’s better to just not look for meaning but, instead, take steps to turn it around. To run (or at least walk) in the direction of joy and let that be the solution.

Today, for me, was one of those times.

I love my life with my boys

This is a layout I made for My Mind’s Eye’s blog for April.

And the journaling says:
Many people ask me if I wish I had a girl. I guess being the mom of two boys must make me want to have a little girl but I must admit that I really don’t. I love my life with my boys and I just adore how much they make me laugh every day. Wouldn’t have it any other way.

details:

David’s BoGM – Week 10

Here is the next spread from our book:

And the next spread:

The left side is a funny face David’s making and how he likes his silly face. The right side is an older photo from 2010 when we walked across The Golden Gate Bridge. David remembers that day fondly. (so do i!)

More next time.

David’s Book of Good Memories is a bi-weekly project for 2012 with my seven-year-old son David. You can read more about it here.

Weekly Diary – May 5 2012

here are some great moments from this week:

for three years, now, we’ve been celebrating Nathaniel’s birthday with our neighbors so this year we did the same.

at the little park by our house. david brought along his paper airplanes.

i love that Nathaniel sang along with the others.

and then he blew the candles.

and dove right in.

those cupcakes were delicious.

one of the presents Nathaniel got was these moustache stickers.

the kids loved them.

and i loved the photos.

nathaniel’s potty training is pretty close to done. it does mean he gets to spend a lot of time with his underwear tho. And here he is using it as a pillow.

and sleeping on it.

here he is working on his letter book.

i snapped some good photos of david this week, too.

those eyes and freckles are so perfect.

the highlight of his week was getting the lego club magazine.

i snapped a photo of the little boy, too.

he’s so very cute.

both kids spent time on the “computer” this week, too.

especially nathaniel, who loved figuring it out.

he also had a doctor’s appointment for his third year. he’s all healthy! yey!

and then there were some faces.

and some laughter.

and then my favorite: tickle time!

and here we go. i hope your week was wonderful, too.

Weekly Diary is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Journey into Collage – Week 18

Page eighteen:

I used leftovers from a large colorful sheet I’d used for many art journal projects. I just liked the way it looked oddly shaped. IT says “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” which is an Eleanor Roosevelt quote, I think. It also says “do not EVER consent.” I painted the page yellow afterwards. I like how bright it is.

more next week.

Journey into Collage is a project for 2012. You can read more about it here.

Not Working Ahead

Back in December, one of the goals I set for myself was this:

Slow down and be aware: I tend to be an over-achiever which is great but because I am so task-oriented and accomplishment-focused, I often rush through things. I am focused on the end and I don’t enjoy the journey. I don’t slow down. I don’t take my time, explore, learn, grow as much as I could. So my plan this year is to slow down considerably. Take my time drawing. Take my time reading and thinking. If some things don’t get done, that’s ok. I think that much more growth happens when we slow down and approach things mindfully. Since my word for this year is savor, this is something I plan to pay extra-attention to. One change I made from last year was to aim to reduce some of my daily tasks. My goal is to do 4 sketches a week and 4 art journal pages a week instead of doing 7 of each. This way I get a few days off and if I want to I can complete a sketch over two days.

We’re now into the fifth month of the year and I don’t know if I’ve done this. There are definitely moments when I have. And, other times, I’ve rushed through the art just to “get done.” However, there’s a part of this that I’ve been working hard on: not working ahead.

I have a tendency to work ahead. This way on any particular week, I don’t have any tight deadlines. So if my layouts are due in a month, I will do them right now and be done. I used to do that for the blog, too. Create a bunch of art journal pages so I have a bunch of posts lined up. But one of my goals this year was to do this less.

I feel like consistency helps me with my creativity. When I work ahead and pile a bunch of art/layouts, I then take a long break. During this time I don’t feel like doing art. I don’t scrap. I have no ideas. I get rusty. I get lazy. I’ve learned, over time, that what inspires me most is doing. When I am creating regularly, ideas come to me. I feel more inspired. I feel more driven to create.

And when I take a long break, I get lazy.

This year, I’ve been trying to scale down the art but also keep it more regular. I actually do two art journal pages a week. If I am super-inspired I might do one more but it’s rare. I do one collage a week and then the savor project and the daily sketching. It would be nice to add one layout a week, too because my inspiration on creating layouts has waned a lot (especially since I do the Savor Project). I try not to overdo it. (At least for me.) I don’t sit and create ten pages in one sitting. If I’ve filled my goal for that week, I stop.

I save some for next week.

I take small breaks instead of feverishly working ahead and then burning out. If this means some weeks I have no art to post, I prefer that to taking a long break. This also keeps me more in the present, I think. I was ahead on Art Journal pages and Collage pages from early on in the year so I have a little breathing room on those if I have a dry week. Savor is always running one week behind, so that gives me time to catch up, too. But, honestly, I just try not to stress about it. I feel like the discipline and presence makes it work better for me.

This way, I have some art to do each night of the week. I try to collage on mondays, art journal on tuesdays, do my savor prep on wednesdays, do another art journal page on thursdays, and then finish my savor project on friday. the weekend is my backup for whatever’s not finished. And maybe I can scrap a layout each weekend, too. I don’t schedule these thoughts posts either. I want to make them about “now.” About how I am feeling in the present. It’s all part of being more aware. Being more here.

This does not come naturally to me. My instinct is to work ahead, get done, have it off my list. But I am learning that there’s something to be said for slowing down and creating something every single day.

So here’s to not working ahead. Here’s to being present. Here’s to controlling instinct and tying to be more aware.

So far, so good.

But, always a work-in-progress, of course.

Art Journaling – Arches Printmaking Set 1

I started using Arches Printmaking paper this week.

Here are some more pages I did:

The full text reads: No one gets to tell you who you are or who you can be. You decide. Only you.

And here’s the next page:

The full text reads: you can fly anytime, your wings are already there.

Well here we go. More coming next week.

I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about this project here. This set uses the Fabriano Roma papers.

Year-Long Classes – Month Three

Since I spent the night watching Glee with Jake and it’s almost 9pm here, I figured I might as well catch up on posting about the yearlong classes. So here is March.

I am taking two year-long classes at Big Picture Classes this year. I am pretty sure you must have heard of both. Even though these are not amazing, I still thought it would be fun to post my progress each month. If for no other reason than to record things.

Here are my OLW pages for March:

my one-thing was two things. one was to go out to breakfast 3 times and the other was to drive on the free way 3 times in March. And despite the difficult months, I accomplished both:

here it is open:

And then here’s the Move More, Eat Well page for March. Looks like I didn’t photograph it in my album but I do have the page:

And here we go. That’s where we are now. I will post a April update soon.

A Book a Week – Breakfast with Buddha

I read Breakfast with Buddha in two days. It was for a new book club and I had just a few days to finish it.

It’s an easy read and didn’t take me long to get through it. I hadn’t read anything by the author before so I had no idea what to expect. To be honest, I didn’t even know if it was fiction or nonfiction while I was reading it (it’s fiction) but I did enjoy it.

I wouldn’t say it’s one of the best books I’ve read or that it was amazing but it certainly was thought-provoking at parts and made for a fun book club discussion.

The Savor Project – Week 16

And here’s the spread for week sixteen (i have come to believe i will never take good photos of these :)):

here’s a closer up of the left side:

Sorry for the blurring of the art. This week’s art was for an upcoming blog hop so I am keeping it safe till then. The stories here are: david and nathaniel’s love, david losing his tooth, david’s stickers on his sketchbook, the boys hanging out in the yard.

And here’s the right side:

The first one here is a new tradition we started with David where we both individually spend a little extra time with David on a date so he can get some alone time with both of us. The next one is Nathaniel’s sharing at school and then our playground fun.

My art and our family photo along the bottom as usual.

So there we go. So far, so good. Still enjoying this project a lot.

Happy Savoring.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read about my setup here.

Planning vs. Not Planning

I’ve been thinking about planning vs not planning. And while I’m generally a huge fan of planning (as I am sure you know if you read here at all) I’ve also become a big believer in nonplanning at times, too.

So for things that are hard and require motivation, you want to plan. For example, things like exercise. At least for me. I’ve noticed in the last month that if I don’t have a plan (however small) for what I will eat during the day, I either eat garbage all day long or I eat nothing and then find myself completely famished at the end of the day. Neither of which is healthy or sustainable. I need to plan the food better.

Same goes for things that you know you love to do but don’t tend to prioritize. For example, I need to plan going out with friends. I always seem to enjoy myself when I have a nice chat with a good friend. Or even with a new friend. I feel energized (and, yes, a bit spent, too) the rest of the day. My head is filled with ideas. My spirit is renewed. And I got to go out and have some sunshine. All of which is good for me. But I rarely make time for this. It seems like too much work. And since I am almost always perfectly content to be home, it just doesn’t get prioritized. So, it needs to be planned out.

And finally, new traditions I am trying to start need to be planned out. At least in the beginning. Creating a habit is often about creating a pattern. And plans work well for creating patterns. David and I have weekly date nights and we plan each of them out. Otherwise we’ll show up and there’s nothing to do. I want to make sure the first few are structured so that we have momentum. Then it will go where it goes.

But then there are other areas where I am trying to not worry about having a plan. For example, I try to create two art journal pages a week and a collage page once a week. I rarely ever have a plan for what I will actually create. For the daily sketches, I keep a pinterest board for inspiration but for the art journal pages and collage pages, I rarely ever have something to draw inspiration from. So I just sit at the table and start pushing paint around. I make one decision. To use a product or to pick a color. And then one more decision building on that one. And let it take me where it does. Often times, by the fourth decision or so, I have some kind of direction. And the lack of planning is not a good reason not to sit and try.

Same goes for short vacations. For us, the best ones end up being the ones with the least itinerary. We get in the car, check in, and then just relax. We walk and explore. We relax some more. We don’t stress about not following a plan, cause there is no plan. This helps us get rid of the feeling of “missing out.” Which, to me, defeats the purpose of vacation anyway.

I am learning that there’s a time to plan and a time not to plan. And I want to add some more spontaneity to my life. I want to be ok with a little of the unplanned and unexpected. I think it will make me happier and lighter.

What about you, what do you plan vs. not plan? Any advice on how to roll with the punches?