karenika

An Audience of One

I was talking to my husband tonight about how I finally tracked down someone who might be able to help me find a personal trainer. We talked a bit about different options and the cost and flexibility of each and then I said, “Won’t you like it if I do this?” or something to that effect.

He replied, “Don’t do this for me. I think you’re great just the way you are.” Or something to that effect.

And I smiled.

Here’s why: Last year, at some point, I decided to change my thinking completely. I decided that everything I do will be “for me.” This applies to all areas of my life. It’s easy to make things about other people, but it also has nasty pitfalls. When you think you’re doing something for someone else, that comes with some entitlement whether you admit it or not. Even if you’re the nicest person in the world, after doing something for someone else again and again, you’ll eventually start resenting them for not doing something for you in return.

I think that’s human nature. At least in my opinion.

So instead of doing things for other people and then little by little resenting them, I decided to turn around my point of view and do everything just for me. There are some obvious cases where this is easy, like the art, journaling etc that I do for me. It’s easy to think of it for things like the exercise and weight loss too. Because while my husband might benefit from them, I certainly enjoy the outcome of my efforts wholeheartedly. So it’s definitely something I do for me.

I’ve gotten so good at this way of thinking that it works on even the not-so-obvious cases. For example, I make breakfast for my kids because it’s important to me that they eat a healthy, balanced, nutritious breakfast. I read to my son because I love reading these books for the first time or getting to reread them and share them with him. I love to see what he thinks, I love to share those moments with him. I focus on the benefit I am getting out of the experience instead of thinking how he’s lucky to have me. This allows me to remember why I do it and puts me in a space where I expect nothing in return. So I don’t resent him for taking my precious time. I am choosing to give it. To share it.

Same goes for many other things I do all day long. I take time to step back from each thing I do and think of why it matters to me. What personal benefit I am getting from it. This way I can keep the focus on me. It makes it so I feel no entitlement and no resentment.

So far, I haven’t found anything where this system doesn’t work. I still get upset sometimes and I try to catch myself. If I feel I am getting bitter or feeling entitled, I give myself a good talking to and maybe even journal. I then let it go. The thing about life is that you only have control over what you do. How you feel. So if you start doing things for other people in the hopes that they will then do things for you, you could get badly disappointed. Because people may or may not respond the way you want, hope, expect, wish. Other people do what they do. You only get to decide what *you* do. So I think it’s best to do as many things for yourself as you can.

Changing my perspective and my way of thinking has made my life so much better. Happier. Calmer. Now I am doing things for an audience of one.

Me.

All those other people in my life? They just get the side benefit of me doing things I want to do.

And it works like a charm.

A Book a Week – Delirium

After having read the Lauren Oliver’s previous book and loving it so so much, I was almost reluctant to pick up Delirium because, for me, there was no way it could measure up to the previous one. And I wasn’t so thrilled that the writer was jumping on the dystopian bandwagon.

I put it off for a while but then finally picked it up.

And I was right.

While the novel is ok and she is definitely a fine writer, this book was nowhere near the caliber of the previous one for me. It didn’t have the profound effect and I particularly didn’t care for the ending. All in all, this was just another YA dsytopian novel whereas Before I Fall truly had a lasting effect on me.

I look forward to more books by her nonetheless as she’s definitely a great writer.

The November Savor Project – Week 1

The Savor Project is sort of a combination between Project Life and December Daily. Something I created for myself so that I could savor the little moments of our life and preserve our stories. You can read a lot more about it in this post.

Since I started this project in November, the first few weeks I share will be from November. I then took a break for December since I worked on my December Daily album then and I am going back to it for January. So here we are with some pages from November:

this is November 10 and 11. On the left is the kids playing together and David’s new desk which we spent all night putting together and he’s already lined up his legos on. I also added the box for the Robitussin because I was sick that week and absolutely hated taking this medicine.

this page has the back of the medicine and then a printout of a bug that caused me to work on a day I was officially off work. I took the 11th as a vacation day but then we had a compatibility issue and I ended up chasing it down all day so it wasn’t really a day off. I printed the public bug report out and put it in the pocket to remind myself.

Behind the printout, I put a photo of Nathaniel surrounded by diapers. This is to remind me that he finds ways to self-entertain when I am busy with work or being sick. And it ends up okay. It might be a mess but he’s happy.

The next spread is just a photo of the kids playing on the left. I was still sick and Jake was out of town. The kids were just sweet as can be. Played quietly and happily. I just feel indescribably lucky. The right page is about when Jake gets home from his trip and the kids are so happy to see him and hang out with him.

And finally the last spread. The one on the left is my performance evaluation. Just wanted to be able to come back and look at them. The right side is both the kids writing at different times of the day and how much joy it brings me to see them at the table and how much they enjoy writing.

That’s it for this week. More next week.

The Savor Project was supposed to be a weekly project for 2012. You can read more this album here. But then I changed setup and here is my new setup.

Doing What Lights you Up

One of the frequent comments I get here is about how I do it all. Where do I find the time? How do I manage? How can I possibly have time to do everything?

The answer is simple, of course.

I don’t.

The list of things I don’t do is way longer than the list of things I do each day. When people read my blog, they assume I do everything they do plus the things I do. Just like we assume a writer’s published book is how he writes or a blogger we admire has only the life she blogs about. We fill in the blanks. But we don’t fill them in accurately. Sometimes we assume the best, other times we assume the worst. We are rarely ever assuming the truth. I can even say we never do.

But what I was thinking about today isn’t even about how we are inaccurate so much of the time. It’s about quantity. I don’t think that doing so “MUCH” is an achievement by itself. Quantity is time consuming but not hard to produce. What’s harder is quality. And I don’t mean quality like creating an artistic masterpiece. I mean the quality something adds to your life.

There are some activities that lift your spirit up so much that doing them truly makes your day better. Not in the same way as checking off a to-do list item. For example, I exercise every morning. I do it as soon as I wake up, while it’s dark out and before I’ve checked my mail. It’s not an activity that lights me up. It doesn’t make me happy when I think of doing it and definitely doesn’t make me happy while I do it and often times not even after. I am just grateful it’s done. I am committed to doing it because I know it’s beneficial to my heart and body and health. But that’s it.

Then there’s the sketching. I often start my sketch while the kids are still at home and then finish it after I’ve dropped them off at school. Those 20-30 minutes spent on a page are some of my favorites in the day. When I am sketching, I don’t worry about the passage of time, I don’t feel frustrated. Most of the time, I don’t think at all. I just sit there and get into the joy of it. I feel like my sketches need a lot of work. There are many others whom I admire and wish I could be like. I yearn for more talent, better eye, clearer understanding of perspective, etc. etc. But despite not being anywhere near where I wish I were talent-wise, I still adore my sketching time. It’s an activity that definitely lights up my day.

There are other activities that add value to my life. Like the journaling helps me get organized and helps me sort out my head. This is exercise for my brain and soul just like the treadmill is for my body and heart. I need them both. But they don’t make me lose track of time the way sketching does.

So when thinking about how to spend your time, I say don’t worry about HOW MUCH you’re doing but worry about WHAT you’re doing. Are you taking care of your soul, brain, heart, and body? Are you doing things that light you up? Even if it’s one single thing. Even if it’s just for 15 minutes a day.

Sometimes we pile so much on our todo list that the whole days goes by without a moment of light. Without a moment of pure joy. When I watch my little son and see how many times a day he laughs all by himself, I find myself wishing for the same. I want to laugh with joy too. I want to do something that makes me so happy. This is not a race. And if it were, I think the ones who win are not the ones who do it all.

It’s the ones who do what gives them the most joy.

So look at how you spend your time. Look at your 2012 list. (I’m sure you have one.) Pick one thing that you know will give you joy. Don’t worry about all the others. Just do that one. Today. Right now. Do it for 10 minutes.

I promise you will be glad you did.

Daily Sketching – Week 39

Here are the sketches from last week:

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Friday:

Saturday:

I am planning on working on this style for now.

Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2011. You can see a detailed post on my steps here.

David Today You Made Me Cry

This layout is for Write.Click.Scrapbook’s January Gallery. The theme is to scrap “today…”.

Journaling Reads:
Today i went out to the movies with my friend. When i came home there were two notes on my bed. “I love you very much. I really missed you and I had a bad night and I peed like you told me to.” they said. They immediately made me cry. When I was a little girl, I left notes for my mother when she went out so it was so wonderful to see you do it for me. It made my heart swell and I wanted to wake you up and give you a huge hug. I love you so much.

David’s BoGM – Week 1

As the new year starts, so do our projects. David and I have already begun working on his Book of Good Memories. The idea behind this project is to create a book full of things that make him happy so that if he’s having a rough day or he just wants to look back and remember things that brought him joy, he can have them all in one place.

It also allows us to craft a little bit together and gives him a chance to practice writing and thinking more deeply about why a particular item/memory makes him happy.

We aim to do about 1-2 spreads a week. Some weeks we do more and others less. But if we end the year with one full book, I will be happy. I know these won’t be interesting to many of the readers here. That’s why I am posting on the weekend since those are quieter. These pages are meaningful to me and I want to preserve them. With that said, here are two more spreads from our book:

The left side of this spread is some tracing David did. He loves to trace and I do, too. The immediate gratification of seeing something recognizable that you created is sweet. The right side is a book he created in Spanish class which talks about butterflies and it was really beautiful so we made a little pocket for it.

And the next spread:

I love this page! It’s a printout of a digital art piece he created at school. I loved it so much that we glued the whole thing down and then created a little flap on the right where we could slip in his journaling because we didn’t want to cover any of the art. We just added one piece of sticker to it and this spread was done. I love love love looking at this one.

There we go. That’s all for this week. More coming soon.

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.

Us Right Now & Weekly Update – December 31

jake
This was a quiet week for all of us. Even for Jake. After a leisurely Christmas and day after, he only went to work for about a day and a half this whole week. It was such a joy and pleasure to have him around all week. The kids didn’t want to leave his side and I got to have snuggle time with him every day. He even got to play some video games and enjoy his new computer. We’re all calm and rested as we welcome the new year.

karen
I had a lovely week. I had originally planned to work one or two days this week but at the last minute just decided to take the whole thing off. I wanted to rest and be with my family and really take some considerable down time before the craziness of January set in. My work is about to get extra-hectic so I figured I should get some rest while I can. And I am so glad I did. It was a week of snuggling, doing art, reading, laughing, and simply enjoying out lives together. I am deeply grateful for 2011 and ready to tackle 2012 with open arms.

david
David also had a great week. He got the most toys for Christmas and set to build his lego sets immediately. There were a few sets and it took him two days to finish everything. All, Lego Star Wars, of course. He then read his books and started writing in his notebooks. He also used the watercolor paper and waterbrush this week. He even got to sort a lot of legos using his advent calendar plastic. I don’t know if he’s ready to go back to school yet but he certainly had a lovely time off.

nathaniel
It didn’t take much for Nathaniel to get into the Christmas spirit. When he realized he could finally open the presents that had been sitting under the tree for weeks, he was super-thrilled. He opened each gift with great abandon and spent time playing with the toys as the rest of us took our turns. Each time it was his turn, he was thrilled all over again and overjoyed to get yet another present. I think this was a lovely one for the little boy.

Here are some of my favorite captured moments from the last week of 2011:

opening the first presents of Christmas on the eve:

Christmas morning breakfast:

stocking fun for the little one:

and stocking fun for the big one:

opening presents:

playing with new toys:

building legos. there was a lot of building legos this year:

I got Nathaniel some I Spy books and they immediately became his favorite:

playing choo-choo with Daddy.

I love all the expressions he makes:

David finally finished his awesome lego, He did it all by himself:

another fun Nathaniel expression. David reading wikipedia and Nathaniel getting upset cause David won’t lookup trucks:

finally settling down and leaving David alone:

putting together one of the Star Wars models Daddy got David.

despite his expression this is David working on his Book of Good Memories.

coloring with his new waterbrush and paper.

reading another new Christmas present with Daddy. This year, I went to a local library sale and got a lot of great books for $1-2 each. This wonderful book was $3. They made for some wonderful presents for both kids.

Nathaniel loved his legos, too. He got some lego cars.

giving mommy a smile.

my amazing boy and his stunning eyes.

we used the plastic from the lego advent calendar to store sorted legos. I used Nathaniel’s to store my art supplies.

Friday there was some Wii-playing. Despite what this might look like, Nathaniel’s remote didn’t even have batteries in it.

“big tower, take picture” he told me. So I did. Then as I snapped, he decided it was an airplane and made some airplane noises.

today was family photos. Nathaniel insisted on sitting on daddy so we compromised on his sitting on David.

which David loved (but my depth of field didn’t.)

and here we go. Another week gone. Another year gone.

Thank you for coming here and supporting me. Thank you for being a part of my journey and sharing yours with me. I have so much gratitude for this past year. And I welcome 2012 with open arms. Wishing and hoping for a wonderful year and the mindfulness to savor it fully.

Happy 2012 everyone!!

Us Right Now is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

2011 – Looking Back

Well, it’s almost the end of 2011. Another year gone. I remember thinking at the end of 2010 that it had been a great year for me and that I couldn’t possibly do better in 2011. But I was ok with that. 2010 was great and it gave me the support I needed to tackle some newer, more ambitious goals for the following year. If I didn’t do as well, well that was okay, too. It didn’t have to get better.

But it did.

It got so much better. I feel like 2011 was significantly better than 2010 (which is saying a lot considering how I felt about 2010), in just about every way. And I am deeply, deeply grateful.

Projects

Like last year, I want to start by reviewing my projects (the title of each section links to the original post I made in December 2010 about the project I was undertaking):

Daily Diary:
I wanted to do a random photo, daily family photos, 3 gratitudes for me and 3 for david each day. I did this daily all the way up to a few months ago when I switched to posting weekly. The change was very conscious with the intention of creating the space for myself so that I could post more of the “thoughts” posts I used to do in the past. When I look back on the years of my blog, these “thoughts” posts are some of my favorites and I wanted to get back to capturing them more. Having the daily posts made it harder for me to do that. The weekly setup is working well for me and I plan to continue it in 2012.

A Book a Week:
As usual, this wasn’t a big problem. I love reading and do it as often as I can. With two book clubs, I have a lot of external motivation to read literary and interesting books. I have spent a lot of time reading Young Adult novels this week as there seem to be many good ones and I’ve given up reading anything that I consider unnecessarily sad. I am not sure how much longer this Young Adult novel kick will continue but I am ok with it so far. Whatever gives me joy is the motto I’m sticking to. I’m not reading so others can approve. I am reading for me. As it turned out I’ve actually read over 70 books in 2011.

Weekly Art Journal:
Well this has been a success if I say so. I had no idea how this project was going to go. I’d been scared of and interested in Art Journaling for so so long. I had no reason to believe this year was going to work any better than the past, but it did. It did! I’ve made over 200 art journal pages this year. I’ve art journaled consistently since February. I’ve created things I hated and things I loved and everything in between. I’ve taken many classes and experienced with so many mediums. And I’ve found my voice. At least one kind. I’m still playing with this but I feel so much better. I feel like this year has been a tangible step forward in art journaling for me.

Six Portraits a Week -> Daily Sketching:
Well this project morphed. It started with me wanting to learn how to draw faces, which I tried. I took classes, I practiced and I had mixed results. And then I got bored. I secretly wanted to learn to sketch so I changed this project to sketching. Which I did regularly since April. I’ve created over 250 sketches this year. I’ve used graphite, colored pencils, pastels, acrylic, and watercolors. I’ve drawn realistic, whimsical, landscape, portraits, and everything in between. I’ve created a practice. I still have a very long way to go here but I love love love sketching and I am deeply grateful to have picked it up. This is the area I hope to make a lot of headway in next year.

A Book a Week with David:
David and I read 52 books this year. Here’s our list. I am deeply grateful for this project. We read so many incredible books. We laughed. We shared so many moments. He loved so many of them and he is an avid reader on his own, too. For me, it’s some of the most precious moments David and I shared this year.

Healthy for Life:
Another huge success. I lost more than 20% of my body weight this year. I went from being on the top the normal weight range to the very bottom. I went down about 6-8 dress sizes. I started eating almost exclusively whole foods. And, most significantly, I exercised every single day this year. Every day. I am amazed to even write that sentence. I have never ever exercised for more than a week or two in my whole life. This was a huge change in my life. I am deeply grateful for it and very conscious of the effort it will take to keep it up. I’m fully committed to being healthier now and I will not destroy all the hard-work I’ve done in this space. Hands-down the biggest personal accomplishment I’ve achieved in a long, long time.

Us Right Now:
The biggest goal of this project was to make sure I was in more photos with my family. I wanted photos with me in them. And now I have hundreds of them. This project brought all of us so much joy despite the bickering and even yelling during the shoots. We tickled and laughed and made jokes. I love looking at these photos. I love their ordinariness. I love their imperfection. Most of all, I love that I am in them!! I cannot recommend this project enough to everyone.

That’s it for the projects I’d selected for 2011. I did relatively well with all of them and I am happy with how they turned out. I’ve printed all the cards and put them in their albums, too. All set to say good-bye to some and welcome new ones. A sign of a project that really works for me is that I choose to continue doing it. Like I did last year for the gratitude project. I carried the gratitude practice from 2010 to 2011 and will do so to 2012. I am carrying over almost every single project from this year to 2012. This, to me, is a sign that I chose well and have received a lot of joy from doing these projects. Let’s see how they turn out for 2012.

Goals for Each Priority

I had some other goals for 2011, too. Here’s a quick summary on some that are not mentioned and how I think they turned out:

Start a family night where we all play games or watch movies. This worked out good for the most part. We did it almost regularly and I loved each of them. We will continue this for 2012.
Take a class with Nathaniel We never did this one. Well, I tried one class but barely went which is rare for me. I disliked it quite a bit. We set a special mommy-and-me project for 2012 so I hope that will work well.
Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake We did quite a few of these. Most of them were to the movies. I’d like more variety for 2012.
Exercise & Food goals I had some goals around running a 10k, which I never did. I decided this is not a goal for me. I don’t really care to race. I just want to exercise. I also wanted to do more strength exercises which I still want to do. I need to focus on this one more. I did ok on vegetables and protein but could do significantly better. But I did finally manage to quit the coffee and graham crackers. (though in the last month, I’ve been drinking one latte a day but I plan to quit that before 2012.)
Monthly photo excursion I totally did not do this one. I am not sure why honestly. Most of the non-family photos I took this year were of flowers. I like flowers okay but they are not my favorite subject. They were just the most convenient one. I’m going to have to think about this one a bit more and see what I want for 2012.
Write weekly extended photo articles on my blog I’ll be honest. This is not something I want to do. I sometimes go through these phases where I think of things I “should” do on my blog to get more readers or links, whatever. But then I remember that this blog is mine. It’s my fun, my personal space and for me. It’s not really to make money or draw interest by doing something that feels painful to me. And, so I don’t plan to do this unless I can find a way that makes it fun for me.
Figure out for once an all if I want an etsy shop and what will go in it Another controversial area for me. Something I felt like I should do but not something I want to do. So, unless some amazing idea comes to me when I am not looking for it, this one is shelved permanently.
Scrapbooking After the tangible progress in 2010, I felt like 2011 was a quieter year for me and scrapping. I still scrapped quite a bit between all the assignments I had and goals I made for myself. But I certainly didn’t do it as much as last year and I haven’t been feeling the motivation to do so as much. But when I do sit to scrap, I find that it still gives me all the joy it’s always given me. I don’t know how this will evolve in 2012. I am leaving it be for now. I will be scrapping a lot in a different way for the savor project and i will have design team assignments. I am guessing those will keep me busy for a while until I sort out where I want the scrapbooking to go.
Writing This is an area where I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped in 2011. I did start writing more thought-oriented posts and I loved doing those and I did my newsletters which also made me happy. Most significantly, I started journaling again and it’s had an incredible impact on my happiness. However, I didn’t write a new class, downloadable, or a novel. I don’t want to do any of these things. I think that if I don’t feel ultra-motivated to do it, I shouldn’t do it. Time is precious and I don’t want to waste mine.
Learning I took a lot more classes than I’d intended. I loved most of them. I didn’t write an ipad app. I didn’t code much at all. I also didn’t make the stop-motion movie. I still hope to do that one. I have some audacious learning goals for 2012. I am scared of them. But that’s the idea.
Community In the end, I did okay on this one. Not excellent but better than I was. I made some new friends. We had many guests over. This area is challenging for me and I hope to grow more in 2012.

Free
My word for 2011 was Free. I wanted to let go of the past and feel free to do anything I want for my future. I wanted to be lighter by letting go of the load I’ve been carrying around all these years and be free to do, be, feel anything.

Of all the words I’ve had so far, this one seems to have had the most impact on me. I truly feel freer than I’ve been. I’ve spent a lot of time and work on letting go. This area will always be something I need to work at but I’ve made leaps and bounds of progress here. More than I’ve made in 20 years. And I’ve made some huge leaps in moving forward too. Sketching, art journaling, trying new things. These are major leaps for me. Not telling myself that I can’t. Or that I have no talent.

Most significantly, I feel like I’ve become a lot more aware this year. I notice things I do. The ways in which I am not kind to myself. The actions I take as a result of some past history. I’ve been able to course-correct so much more often. I’ve been able to come up with coping strategies. I’ve been able to fix things, let go of things, and embrace things.

And the greatest gift of this year has been an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. Somewhere along the line I realized how incredibly lucky I am. How much I have in my life. And since that moment I’ve been feeling a deep sense of gratitude. I can’t even put it into words properly. It’s not just words. It’s a very powerful feeling that washes over me several times a day now. It often stops me in my tracks. It’s fragile and tender and truly wonderful. It allows me to let go of everything because the sensation of gratitude is so wide and so deep. It’s easily been the best gift of this year. I hope to hang on to it for the rest of my life.

And there we go. Another year gone.

Here’s to an even better 2012. May I savor every moment of it.

Healthy For Life – Week 52

Here we are. The last card for the year. I can’t believe I’ve come this far. Even though I’m still holding on to the last ten pounds I’ve wanted to lose, I’ve come a long, long way this year.

More than anything else I’m amazed at the amount of exercise I’ve put into 2011. This is more exercise than I’ve done in my whole life up to now. Literally. I’ve walked/run almost 1,000 miles this year. This is an amazing record for me. I remember in 2010, when I setup my nike account, my password was something like “nonsense” because I thought it was crazy that I even thought I could do this.

And here we are. I know there is still one more day but at this point, I have enough faith in myself to tell you that I’ve exercised every single day in this calendar year.

Every. Single. Day.

I am beyond amazed. Proud. And I know this is just the beginning. I know the path forward is even harder. But now I am more determined than ever.

and here’s this week’s card:

Healthy for Life is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.

More Thoughts and Plans for 2012

Like last year, after I thought about my word and my plans for 2012, I began to think more and more about what the word and the priorities meant. Since I tend to be self-reflective during this time of year, this is very long and mostly for my benefit (I like having a record of my plans and my thoughts) so feel free to skip. I won’t be offended.

By the way, this is influenced by Chris’s annual review article. I’ve read this before and have always liked the idea. I’m a technical person at heart and all these specific goals, measurable steps, etc. are right up my alley. Since I have my list of 9 priorities this year, I thought it would be a good exercise to see if I could come up with 3-5 goals for each.

So here we go:

Goals for Each Priority

Family
1. Read to David daily with a focus on longer, more involved books. (We will incorporate these into David’s Book of Good Memories)
2. Take photo of full-family and write updates weekly (Project Weekly Diary).
3. Write a weekly diary of us and daily gratitudes for me and David (Project Weekly Diary) and the gratitudes are on the left column of the blog.
4. Continue our family night where we all play games or watch movies together (Scheduled for Sunday nights)
5. Create letter-focused spreads and art with Nathaniel each week (Project Letters with Nathaniel)
6. Create at least one crafty spread a week with David about things that made him happy that week (Project David’s Book of Good Memories.)
7. Volunteer in both David and Nathaniel’s schools at least twice each semester. (I know this doesn’t seem like a lot but it’s the minimum I hope to do.)
8. Schedule minimum bimonthly date nights with Jake

Health (Project Healthy For Life)
1. Continue running daily, work your way up to 5K a day
2. Find a trainer so I can add basic weight-training and strength exercises weekly
3. Track the food I eat each day. (not fun!)
4. Continue using the fitbit daily with a goal of 10,000 steps a day
5. Get minimum 7hours of sleep every night and 8 on the weekends
6. Eat at least one serving of vegetables and protein daily
7. Start a meditation practice

Work
I don’t share much about work on my blog and I won’t here either but I promise you I have 5 specific goals for work for 2012.

Art
1. Sketch minimum four times a week (Project Weekly Sketching)
2. Art journal weekly using hand-lettering at least half the time (Project Weekly Art Journal)
3. Take at least three art classes
4. Experiment with at least three mediums
5. Try sketching using different sizes. (Really big+really small)
6. Focus on and hone one specific sketch style. (or two or three!)
7. Experiment with collage once a week (Project Journey into Collage)

Storytelling
1. Continue to create for my design teams (Maya Road, My Mind’s Eye, Write.Click.Scrapbook)
2. Create at least four pages (2-spreads) in my book (The Savor Project)
3. Design a class around different ways of storytelling
4. Aim to do 1-2 guest design spots or classes (that I teach) this year

Reading
1. Read a book a week (Project A Book a Week)
2. Read daily to David (longer, more involved books) (Project Reading with David)
3. Regularly attend both book clubs

Self-Reflection
1. Write at least three long thought/idea oriented blog posts a week
2. Journal five days a week
3. Take at least two self-reflection-focused classes this year (already signed up for Body Restoration)
4. Do the exercises in A Minute for Me, daily

Learning
1. Take two classes locally
2. Take four online classes this year
3. Learn to drive on the freeway
4. Learn to ride a bike
5. Learn to collage

Community (This is a particularly hard one for me.)
1. Go out to breakfast/lunch once a week
2. Invite guests over for dinner at least once a month
3. Extend an invitation to someone new once a week
4. Leave comments on blogs I read once a week
5. Respond to comments on my blog + return emails within 48 hours

There we go. As more creep up over the year, I will likely come here and add/alter as needed.

Schedule for Blog

I’ve also come up with a tentative schedule for my blog for 2012:
Mondays – Weekly Layout
Tuesdays – Weekly Sketching
Wednesdays – A Book a Week + The Savor Project
Thursdays – Weekly Art Journal
Fridays – Journey into Collage
Saturdays – Weekly Diary
Sundays – David’s Book of Good Memories(including Reading with David) and Letters with Nathaniel (we will alternate this each week)

I will also aim to post self-reflection/thought posts four nights a week. Likely Monday through Thursday.

And I haven’t decided whether I will continue the monthly newsletter or not just yet.

Thoughts to Cultivate

Last year, I created major focus areas I wanted to have throughout the year. Things that I want to come back to again and again. Some of these I will repeat for this year since I still would like to keep them forefront on my mind. And others are new for this year. These will likely show up in my art journals + self-reflection but I also want to have them here for reference.

1. Let go of worry This is definitely the biggest issue for me. I worry constantly and I worry about the smallest things as well as the big ones. Even though I know worry is a wasted emotion I still can’t help myself. I want to continue work on this very actively during 2012. I didn’t keep a god box last year but I plan to start on it this year. I also want to create worry lists from week to week (I mention the idea in number seven of this post.). I want to be very mindful about what and who makes me worry more and create tangible solutions to each.

2. 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.

3. Do not yell This one is self-explanatory. I absolutely hate hearing other people yell. And yet I do it more often than I’d like. This year, it’s a non-negotiable. It will not happen. It’s not a 5-10% thing. It’s all or nothing and the goal is nothing. People I love deserve my respect. (This is word for word from last year. I wish I could say I adhered to it. But, no. So for 2012, I want to be more resolute. Stronger. Kinder. Quieter.)

4. Be patient This one sort of goes along with 2 and 3. I need to practice more patience. I don’t need to rush through everything. I have young children. They are good good children. They are kind and generous and sweet. They deserve my patience. So does my husband. And me, too, I deserve being patient with myself. This, too, aligns perfectly with the savor theme.

5. Embrace joy I wrote about choosing joy before. Savoring is all about seeking the marrow of life. I want to seek joy. I want to quit worrying and embrace life and joy and bring forth good things in my life. Joy again and again. This would be so magical if I could do this. Just the idea makes me feel good.

7. Reach out I want to focus on building community more this year. Not necessarily a big one but one that makes me feel more a part of something bigger. I want my kids to grow and cultivate friendships and I want to set an example by doing the same. I am often too lazy or scared to do it. Time to let that go. This also means taking more trips, traveling, and in general getting out of the house more.

8. Be brave and self-compassionate I want to be braver this year. Try new things. Take chances. In all areas of my life. With art, with reaching out, with work, with daily life. And I can only do that if I practice more self-compassion. I want to be an example to my kids that we practice courage regularly. It’s not inherent. I want to show that sometimes we fail but we get up and try again. I want to move away completely from anything that encourages shame-words. I want to practice kindness and patience with myself. I want to show that failure is a part of life and so is showing compassion to oneself.

And there we are. I am sure more will come up. But these are some of what’s on my mind.

Here’s to hoping 2012 is fantastic for all of us!

Art Journaling – Paper Canvas – Set 1

Continuing on the thread of using what I have on hand, I had one pad of Bienfang paper canvas. It’s heavy paper with the surface texture of canvas. I don’t like this surface very much, maybe cause it’s already prepped or who knows. But I wanted to try it and see and I also had it on hand so I am using it up!

So here’s the first set: