jake
As the holidays approach, things are quieting down for all of us, including Jake. Though he’s been working, trading and having meetings all week, he’s still working a lot and systematically. I love watching him work and seeing how into it he is. It’s a gift to get to be with someone who loves what they do as much as Jake does. And what a great example for our kids.
karen
This week was slightly more hectic than I would have liked but it was still calmer than usual. On Friday, I went to volunteer in David’s math class and that was really fun but for some reason my day got out of sync and then I haven’t been able to catch up since. I’ve been feeling very tired. More like exhausted. This next week promises to be a challenging one at work so it won’t come with downtime but the week after should be better hopefully and I plan to get a lot of rest during the holidays.
david
David’s been having a good time at school. Making new friends even now. Preparing for the Winter Event at his school with all the other first graders, and writing stories to share with us. He’s also reading so much and I love watching him read. I love that he’s interested in reading and loves reading the same book again and again. When I was his age, my favorite thing in the world was to read so I am hoping he will embrace the gift of reading, too.
nathaniel
Nathaniel’s week was relatively uneventful. He’s now learning letters as well and loves saying them out loud. He also loves all the Christmas lights everywhere. Tonight we went to ride a Christmas train and on the way there he said, “Choo choo train, Nei Nei happy.” It made us all feel so good. So wonderful to see his joy.
Here are some of my favorite captured moments from this very week. I apologize in advance as there are several repeats between these and my december daily posts of course:
nathaniel shooting david:
and then me:
nathaniel down!
david down!
both up and shooting each other:
and finally quietly reading to appease mommy.
Nathaniel looking through catalogs and telling me what he wants while I work.
David. I love him so so much.
Nathaniel playing again while I work:
He loves this truck:
Can’t you almost hear him making truck sounds?
he went to the fire station this week and loves this hat.
showing off his drawing:
Thursday night we drove around the neighborhood to see all the lights:
My boys!!
I told you he loves the hat!
I woke up at 5 am this morning because I wanted to see the lunar eclipse. Even though I couldn’t get a good photo, it was absolutely magical to watch.
then we took family photos.
And night time was a holiday train:
Nathaniel was so looking forward to it, kept saying choo choo all day and even said “happy” on the way there. He felt so happy. And so did David!
He looked out the window a lot.
The sun was just setting.
and David looked out too, enjoying himself and the chocolate chip cookies!
And here’s our train car:
And those are some of the moments from our week. Grateful and full!
Us Right Now is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
And here we are for day eight.
The next page was just a small baseball card holder page. So I just slipped some photos from the day and a little felt star. Kept it super simple. This page has the presents my neighbor left on our doorstep and the drawing Nathaniel’s showing off:
and the back has David smiling and a photo I took of one of the houses in our neighborhood:
And that’s it for day eight. Still keeping it simple.
This week was uneventful it seems. I gained a tiny bit of weight but I am not going to worry about it because it’s too insignificant to matter. To be honest, I am not eating well. Having one cup of latte every day and eating way more chocolate than someone should. And peanuts. And then not much else. Overall, a very unbalanced, terrible diet. I keep wanting to change it but feeling like I lack the strength, energy, or time. Which is, of course, total crap. Alas, here we are.
The exercise is going ok. I am running 2.2 miles every day. It’s hard, I am tired and feel like I can’t do it every day. But still I get up and actually do it every single day. I will admit that I still don’t look forward to it and I am still bummed I have to do and I am frustrated at having to wake up at 5:30am to do it. And it’s still hard. And tiring and definitely not the “rush” people claim it to be. Despite all that, I still keep going. Because I can tell it works. And I am not stopping it. Not ever.
The dress above is my most recent purchase. I haven’t bought anything in months so I was ok spending a little more than usual on it. And I was so so grateful to see how truly wonderful it felt to wear it.
and here’s this week’s card:
Healthy for Life is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop!
I wanted to welcome all visitors from May Flaum’s blog. If you’ve made it this far, you’re awesome because I know I’m the last stop on the hop!! Since I am last, I assume you’ve already read all about the class so I will go right to my story:
For my little tidbit, I want to share with you the story of our Christmas tree. I grew up in Istanbul, Turkey where most of the population is Muslim (however I am Jewish.) All my childhood, we had Christmas trees and so did every other household. In Turkey, we call them New Year’s trees and we decorate them and put presents under them just like they do in the United States. The only difference is that we open our presents on New Year’s Day and not Christmas. I’ve always loved the trees. So much so that when I moved to the United States for college, on my first winter break back home, my parents set up the tree in advance just to surprise me.
My first holiday season in the States, I was told by several other Jewish friends that because I was Jewish, I wasn’t allowed to have a Christmas tree. Jews didn’t celebrate Christmas after all. This made me incredibly sad. I was not willing to give up my beloved tree just because traditions are different in this country.
So as the years passed and I graduated college and got married and had a family of my own, I contemplated this “tree problem.” I finally decided since my kids were already going to be a mix of Turkish and American and Jewish and Christian (my husband is American and only half Jewish), we could create our own versions of any holiday we wanted. This is how we came to have what we call our “Jewish Christmas Tree”:
It’s pretty simple: basically all the ornaments and lights on our tree are blue or white. But, to me, it’s special. It’s my way of remembering my childhood and nationality (the tree) and integrating my religion into it and making a mixture of all of who I am and who my husband is and creating the perfect combination. (Which is what my kids are – a perfect combination of the two of us!)
Making it work for us.
That’s what the holidays are all about for me. Do you have any of your “combination” holiday traditions?
If the holidays are as special to you as they are to me, I hope you’ll join me and the 11 other amazing teachers in celebrating the 12 Days of Christmas!
You can sign up either by clicking the link above or by clicking here. I very much look forward to seeing you in class.
And just in case you came here out of order, here are the others on today’s hop:
1. Nic Howard
2. Georgana Hall
3. Stacy Julian
4. Tami Morrison
5. Wendy Smedley
6. Lisa Day
7. Kelly Purkey
8. Elizabeth Dillow
9. May Flaum
10. Karen Grunberg – you’re here!
Last year, David and I read a book a week. This year, we plan to continue reading but in a different style (more on this later this month) and I decided I wanted to add another project for some David and Mommy time.
One of the things David loves to do is go through my scrapbooks and look at his past memories. He loves reliving the moments, remembering the good things and feeling the happiness all over again.
So we bought a Moleskine Sketchbook for him and started collecting some of the items that have good memories associated with them.
So his project is similar to The Savor Project I’m doing with a few differences:
- He’s not tied to a calendar timeframe. If he finds something from two years ago that makes him happy, he gets to put it in his book. The pages are not in any time-order. Just a collection of things that make him happy.
- We don’t prep pages ahead of time and mostly use the sketchbook page as a background.
- He can put several unrelated memories per page if he likes.
- The only thing he has to do on every page is write a few words on why that item/photo is special to him.
We plan to use this book to save special items he brings home from school as well as milestones in his life, photos I take that he loves, etc.
We haven’t decorated the cover yet so there’s nothing to see there but here are a few pages we’ve already done just to give you an idea of what we’re doing:
This is the first page. On the left side is his name, a pocket that holds a fortuneteller a friend gave him at school and a few words on why he likes it. On the right side is a ribbon from the local swim school of when he leveled up from one to two. (He is on level 3 now but we couldn’t find that ribbon. More reason to do this project!)
And here’s the next page. On the left is a photo of a card he made for Jake’s birthday two years ago and a photo of Jake, David, and Jake’s mom opening presents on Jake’s birthday. Below that is a pocket that holds a lego card he likes and a few words on why he likes it. On the right side is a photo I took during the Polar Express train ride we took last year. Since the photo was really large, we put it sideways and created a pocket on the right side which is where he put the card that has his words on it.
And there you go.
We use a lot of the scraps I have accumulated and anything that makes him happy. As you can see, the pages are simple and putting two together takes us about an hour or so each week.
Our goal is to do 1-2 spreads a week and fill the book up throughout the year. I will be posting photos from his page every other week. (I have a project with Nathaniel this year, too, and he will get the alternate weeks.)
And here we are for day seven.
Today was two small stories.
The first was about a photo I saw in the Anthropologie catalog that made me instantly want to go to the store and buy the dress. Since I hate shopping and never ever feel such an instinct, I listened to it. And since the store here had it in stock, I took it as a sign. And then the XS fit me perfectly and I was just suddenly proud of all the hard work I’ve done in the last year. I felt deeply grateful. I had spent all day chasing after a lost package so this was just the perfect way to end my crappy day.
The second page is about how Nathaniel visited the fire station yesterday. He went with his class so I didn’t have any photos but when we got home he put on the gift form the fire station and we took some photos. A little journaling and we were done.
And that’s it for day seven. I love the variety of stories in one little book.
So here’s the next set of Fabriano pages:
The full text reads: We may not all be beautiful, smart, or talented, but we can all be kind.
this page uses acrylics and the quote comes from a movie trailer I watched. It moved me deeply and made me think for a long time. Here it is.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: The best medicine for a rough day is laughter.
I used acrylics and pan pastels on this page.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: Embrace imperfection. it’s a sign that you’re not afraid to try new things.
I used pan pastels and acrylics on this one.
And here’s the next page:
The full text reads: It is ok to be afraid, but do it anyway. Yes, you can.
I’ve been wanting to use this stencil for a while, too and wanted to make it look like the person was praying.
Well here we go. That’s the four for this week. More coming next week.
I am creating multiple art journaling pages a week for now. You can read more about it and the book I am using for these pages at the top of this blog post.
Even though they say knowing is half the battle, sometimes it feels like awareness is more frustrating than not knowing. If I don’t know something I can blame a third party. I can live my life in blissful ignorance. I can avoid the issue. I can step around it. I can duck the pain because being aware can be very painful. It can sting. It can make you feel small. It can make you feel exhausted. Like the battle’s too big for you to even begin trying to fight it. Like you can never win anyway so you might as well duck under the pillow and not listen to the voices in your head.
But, of course, we all know that when there’s an elephant in the room, it takes all the space there is.
That’s how awareness works for me. Once I know, I can’t un-know. My brain constantly shows me examples of how I repeat that weakness or bad behavior. Sometimes I even see it coming and still can’t stop it. Because knowing myself doesn’t always mean I can stop myself from making bad choices or decisions.
But still.
As frustrating and frightening and defeating as it might feel, I am a huge fan of awareness.
I believe in making choices consciously. I am grateful for the power of having options. I like to know the cards I am holding so I can decide if I want to rearrange them, let one go, or even let them all go.
I’ve been teaching this class on time. And when you start to look at where your time goes, the instinct to self-reprimand is strong. Just like when you’re gaining weight and you sit down to write all the things you actually eat, you often feel ashamed of how much you do indeed lie to yourself all day long. It’s not the eating. It’s how you *think* you’re eating so much less (or differently) than you actually are. It’s how you spend three times as much time on the computer as you think you do. It’s how you can see that you certainly have 30 minutes to spare to exercise each day.
Truth can feel painful.
But it also gives you the power to run your own life. I can’t remember where I read it but I remember an article about newborn babies and how even they prefer to have the choice to make their own decisions. How important it is to have options and to feel like we’re in control (even at that young age.) So knowing where your time goes gives you the option to change it. It puts the reins back in your hands. The reason it feels overwhelming is because “With great power comes great responsibility.”
But the thing is, whether we like to face it or not, we are responsible for our lives. We’re responsible for what we eat, what we do, how we talk, the words we say, the actions we take. And the way we spend our minutes. We already have all this responsibility whether we like it or not. The great gift of awareness is that it gives you a clear view into how things actually are. So you can make your decisions with 20/20 vision.
Would you rather go at it blind?
I’ve decided to embrace the gift of awareness. Bring it on. It’s part of growing up and owning who you are. Living in your story. Making the choices and standing by them. Good or bad. I prefer to see things clearly and make all my choices with acute awareness.
I only wish it was as simple to have a clear picture of how things are in all areas of my life.
More girls.
Sunday :
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday: (this one turned out odd.)
and then I took the rest of the week off. I am trying to figure out what direction I should take the sketching but I haven’t decided yet. Need some time to think about it more.
Daily Sketching is a weekly project for 2011. You can see a detailed post on my steps here.
And here we are for day six.
The next page in my book was a photo I loved so I just added some stickers to remind myself of my message.
I took a photo of our tree but I already have one later in the book from last year. This year it’s more blue lights so I wanted this one, too. I loved the way it looked on this page so I just couldn’t resist putting it down on there with a sticker.
and here it is as a spread.
and on the back, I put photos from yesterday night. I hosted book club at my house so I put up the photo of my table and chairs prepped and a photo of our book. Some thoughts and my page was done:
And that’s it for day six. Trying to take it easy this year and not stress myself out about this project in any way so I can savor the season.
I had The Perks of Being a Wallflower for quite some time but didn’t get around to reading it. Then I saw it on someone’s pinterest board and remembered that I had it and decided to finally tackle it.
I am so so so glad I did.
This book was truly wonderful. I enjoyed all of it and it will stay with me for quite some time. There were many many parts I underlined, but here are a few because I know I will want to remember.
- Here’s another thing to remember: hope keeps you alive. Even when you’re dead, it’s the only thing that keeps you alive
- But for some of us there’s only today. And the truth is, you never really know.
- It’s like when you are excited about a girl and you see a couple holding hands, and you feel so happy for them. And other times you see the same couple, and they make you so mad. And all you want is to always feel happy for them because you know that if you do, then it means that you’re happy, too.
- “I would die for you. But I won’t live for you.” Something like that. I think the idea is that every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people.
- So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.
- We accept the love we think we deserve.
A friend emailed me earlier this week and said that she stopped making art because of unkind words. This particular friend had just recently found her wings and was creating a lot of wonderful art that made her soul sing. She was taking classes, learning new things, and, most significantly, creating a lot of art. She was so happy that I could feel the joy reverberate through the emails she sent me.
And then someone she cared about said these unkind words. I will give this other person the benefit of the doubt and assume she said them thoughtlessly, without being aware of the impact it would have on my friend. She probably just said the words and forgot all about them.
But my friend didn’t.
She was so crushed that she stopped doing art. Completely.
Completely.
She put her stuff away and just cried. And then busied herself with other things. And then cried some more.
When I first heard about this I felt enraged. I have experienced this same thing so many times in my life in so many different situations that I felt like it almost happened to me. Time passed and I reflected on it a bit (which was easier since it didn’t actually happen to me.)
In my experience, when something like this happens and I am confident about the subject matter, it doesn’t get to me. I generally get annoyed at the other person or might even say something defensive or mean. But if it’s something that’s still in its infancy or something I am just getting comfortable with, I am much more likely to give credence to the other person’s words.
Which is unwise.
I’d even go so far as to say, it’s stupid. This takes me back to my thoughts on qualifications. I’ve suddenly made this person’s words and taste more valuable than my own. Why would she know more than I do? Why would her taste and opinion be better than mine? Why why why?
Because I am looking for the bad. I am still evolving and still finding my way. I am not secure. I feel the need for external validation. But more than anything else, deep down, maybe I am scared that I am not good. And when someone, anyone, confirms that I am willing to believe them. Or maybe now that I am finally feeling more secure and someone I trust says such unkind words, it feels like I was punched in the face.
But just like everything else. This is all about me. It’s about my personal faith in myself. About how I make the other person’s opinions more valuable than mine. And while there are many areas where this makes no sense, art is probably at the very top of that list.
Art is subjective by definition. In a post I wrote for Julie’s blog, I said these words:
“Give yourself the time and space to play and discover what feels authentic to you. Take it from me: you do not have to do it the way everyone else does. We are all different and we have the space to express our uniqueness; that’s what makes art so incredibly powerful.”
That’s the great thing. Your art is yours and that’s exactly what makes it beautiful. No one else in the world can create it exactly how you can. No one has the same magical combination that you do.
And even more importantly, there’s magic in being in that joyful place where something you do lights you up. Where you go to bed thinking about it and wake up with the excitement of knowing you get to do art today. It’s the kind of thing that happens incredibly rarely in life.
Why would you ever let anyone take that away from you?
So I was thinking about my friend today as I sat to make my own piece of art. I was thinking how there are so many voices around us. Voices of perfect strangers whose art we admire and yet are too intimidated by. They stop us from even starting. Voices of loved ones who utter crushing words carelessly. Voices of loved ones who don’t utter anything (silence can speak loudly sometimes.) Voices of our own lack of self-compassion or confidence.
We are inundated with voices. And yet, there’s that small, tiny one inside us. The one that rises up from our soul. The one that might be the quietest but also the most important. The one that lives in our true essence. That’s the only voice that knows how we truly feel. That’s the one we need to pay attention to and foster.
Because that’s the only voice worth listening to.
So, my friend, if you read this, please know that the voice of your soul is what matters. It’s all that matters. Please, please don’t give anyone permission to crush it.
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projects for twenty twenty-six
projects for twenty twenty-five
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
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