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Yes, yes, I know. Crazy long title. This is also from the Twig line from Little Yellow Bicycle. Isn’t that line amazing?
Journaling Reads:
Today started calm and relaxed. I didn’t journal but I did do some work on my art journal and I printed all of January’s photos for scrappy pages. I haven’t made a layout in about ten days which is really long for me. But I have some commitments coming up so I wanted to have photos at hand. I then did my exercise and then the most important item on my todo list. So overall I was feeling good already. Then we took the family shots. (Look at Nathaniel enjoying his book.)
When Nathaniel woke up from his nap, we all got in the car to drive to Filoli Gardens but when we got there we found out that it was closed for a few more days. So we went to a nearby diner called Buck’s. I’d already changed my lens which is why Nathaniel looks like he was captured with a fisheye here.
Then we went to Elizabeth Gamble gardens in Palo Alto and Jake’s dad grabbed this of us. If Nathaniel didn’t look like he is about to pass out, it would be great.
I snapped a million flower photos and then took one of the little boy.
My inlaws with David.
And one with both the kids.
Then we came home and it was evening routine time. We were all wiped from the food and then walking in the sun. So the kids went to bed, Jake and his parents went out to dinner (and then airport) and I am lying on the couch, trying to decide if I will do more work. I think I will finish off a few more simple to do items and maybe journal a bit. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For:
David says: I didn’t like when Brad broke the motorcycle by mistake. He didn’t mean to do it and I like that he apologized. My favorite characters were Ralph, Brad and Ryan. I also like Matt. I like Ryan because he took Ralph to school when he asked him to. I like Brad because he gave Ralph the sports car. I like Matt because scared the relatives away so they left Ralph alone. I like Ralph because he was trying to make sure Matt didn’t lose his job. And I loved the ending because Ryan’s mom married Brad’s dad and they became brothers! Reading a book a week with my six-year-old son David is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
Most of the day is a blur today and to add to the crazy I didn’t accomplish anything on my personal list. I did go food shopping and we ordered David’s cake and of course I exercised and journaled too. But nothing else really. David got to play Wii early today because his grandparents were coming later in the day. And, of course, Nathaniel was sitting right next to him.
Then I set up the tripod to take some family shots.
It was super early so we had to use really high ISO and here’s a typical shot of everyone looking in a different direction.
This one is a bit better.
In the afternoon, David did some puzzles with his grandfather.
When we came back from the shopping trips, it was really late so I tried to snap a few more photos before I lost all the light. And Nathaniel smiled at me while I snapped.
David ran into the house and managed to bust his lip as he banged on the trash can (don’t ask….) so you can see that if you look closely (upper lip.)
We were supposed to go out tonight but I am completely wiped and the idea was so so overwhelming to me that I just decided we needed to stay at home. I needed to and I think Jake felt the same way. I am just going to relax and watch TV and make some book lists for myself and maybe work on my art journal a bit. I have to write something but I am not sure it’s possible to do it when i am this tired. Let’s see…. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For:
jake karen david nathaniel and here’s the card version:
Us Right Now is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
Another rushed day. I seem to have too many of them lately. But that’s ok. Life goes on and life’s wonderful so I am not really complaining. I got very few photos today. Here’s Nathaniel digging into the raisins while he plays and I work.
And here’s another one of the boy with the blue eyes.
I tried to get more shots of Nathaniel but by the time we came back from the school interview, all the light was gone so I snapped several, all of which were blurry.
So here we are. At the end of another day. The exercise this week has been hard so I am extra proud that I kept with it. I haven’t done a huge amount of creating but I did do several projects and I’ve journaled almost every single day. Stephanie’s class is over as of today so I am hoping I will just continue journaling anyway. It’s been incredible and I really really want to keep it up. Thankfully, Melody’s class is on a few more weeks so she will encourage me to keep journaling for now. And my class starts next week too. I’m really excited about that! We’re off to another date night tonight. We’ll be driving to the city to meet with a friend of Jake’s from high school and his wife. I am excited for a good night with good conversation. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For:
Well here we are. Another week. Another month even. I can’t believe January is over and I managed to do 2.6 miles every day. I can’t believe I survived the hotel room and CHA and 6am and still made it through. I am really tired this week. 2.7 is hard and has been a challenge. But honestly. I think even 2.6 would be right now. I am just trying to be kind to myself but also keep going. That’s the only trick here: to keep going. To do it anyway. I’ve been hungrier than usual, too. I imagine that’s cause I was twice as active as usual during CHA. I’ve been trying to eat without overeating and not binge on candy or anything else bad. But I do let myself eat a few extra graham crackers if it will do the trick. And it often does. Yesterday I told myself I’d finally stop drinking all the coffee but today I woke up and all I wanted was quiet time with my coffee and crackers. I think at this moment in time, it brings me too much comfort and does not do enough damage to warrant such a drastic change in my comfort level. So I am going to keep drinking it for now. Even if it means I lose weight more slowly. Slow and steady is ok with me. and here’s this week’s card:
Healthy for Life is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here. This is one of the Pink Paislee layouts I made for CHA. Everything on it is from the Hometown Summer collection.
Journaling Reads: Details:
I think I should go track the cycles I seem to have on my blog. I get the sense that I get depressed and tired and whiny every six weeks or so. I don’t know if it’s biological or just feeling worn out after living a go-go-go life for a while. Either way, I seem to be on the down spiral right now but I know from experience that the pendulum will swing the other way soon. I am trying to wait patiently while I still continue to live my life. I got these photos of David today that I love.
Especially this one. My stunning, stunning, boy.
Nathaniel was watching TV.
He’s gotten really demanding lately and wants me to put on a specific thomas and then changes his mind and gets super cranky and I cannot deal with it since I am working so now he gets no TV.
Which of course means breakdowns. and weeping. Thankfully, my mother in law got him a Thomas book so they read that together.
And then he read it a bunch on his own.
And then he had several more breakdowns at which point I decided he was ready for bed and now he’s lying in his bed playing of course. Ugh. I have a long list of things to do tonight and I sent everyone out of the house. But my hunch is I will end up just lying on the couch, watching TV, drawing, and maybe doing some art. That’s about it. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: Last week, my friend Kristen asked me what exactly I do when I exercise so I thought it might be a good idea to write it for all of you. Please bear in mind these important facts: 1. I am not a doctor. It is highly recommended that you go see a doctor before you start an exercise regimen. Ok so with those caveats, we begin. I decided to start exercising on the evening of October 1, 2010. I had already bought nike plus many months before when I’d read about it on Cathy’s site and I’d bought the pouch too. So I just went outside and walked. For all of October, I walked outside, whatever time of day I could and I walked for as long as I could. I experimented with running and walking. I took Nathaniel along most of the time (sometimes Jake was home so I went by myself.) One or two days, Nathaniel was sick so I just walked in my tiny backyard back and forth about 65 times. There was no rhyme or reason. I just did as much as I could every day. The goal was to go out there daily even if for just 15 minutes a day. Here’s the chart from October, you can see I was totally inconsistent.
Towards the end of October, my mom bought me a treadmill, which was the greatest present. Since the day it arrived, I have used the treadmill every single day. I might choose to go out again when the weather is great but honestly I love the treadmill so I have no problem just using it every day. You can see that November was a hard month for me. Most days, I went as fast as I could. Some days I tried to go as far as I could. My knees hurt and I had to go to the doctor who told me I had runners’ knee. I bought a knee thing to wear on the treadmill but it didn’t help that much. Then I finally bought new sneakers and that made all the difference in the world. Happy sneakers meant no knee pain which meant happy Karen. Here’s the chart for November.
for some reason nike’s site won’t show November 30 when I show it in monthly mode. I tried using several browsers and many times so I just give up. In case you think I am hiding something, here’s the entry from November 30. You can also see here that I was pretty slow.
I was pretty frustrated by this point. I couldn’t decide if it was better to go longer or go faster (I still don’t know.) but I knew that I wanted and needed to be consistent. For me, consistency is continually the key to success. So I decided that for December I would walk 2.5 miles every day. That was 2 miles of walking and .5 miles of running. I generally do my walking at 3.8 which is pretty reasonable and my running at 4.5 which is slow. But I am still sweaty at the end and it’s a rate I can maintain day after day which is what matters to me. So for December there was one day when I couldn’t do more than 2.3 and I made up for it the next day by doing 2.7 but every other day, I just did my 2.5 miles.
For January, I upped it to 2.6 miles. 2 miles of walking and .6 miles of running. I did it every single day. Even during CHA, I woke up at went to the treadmill at the hotel. It sucked but I did it. That’s the thing with doing it every day, it makes it that much harder to give up.
And here’s February. Now I’m doing 2.7 miles a day. 2 walking .7 running. I didn’t change my speed at all. Just the distance.
And my plan is to increase it monthly until 3.12 (which will be June going at this rate) at which point, I will be doing a 5k daily. The plan for the second half of the year is to increase the walk to run ratio slowly. In June I will be doing 2+1.1 so I will do 1.9+1.2 in July etc. until the end of the year. I might even just do 2+1.1 for two months. We’ll see when I get there. So here’s the chart so far:
124 consecutive days so far. 58 hours and 40 minutes. About 258 miles. I don’t care about the calories cause it’s almost always wrong since it means I have to adjust my weight constantly. You should know: 2. I don’t work out too hard. I am not trying to push my body so that it doesn’t need too much time to heal so that I can do it every single day. 3. I do it around 11-12 most days. It’s the only time that seems to work well for me. I am awake and it’s early enough in the day that I feel a sense of accomplishment for the rest of the day. It’s also officially lunch hour so I don’t feel bad about work. 4. I generally read on my ipad while I walk which is the only time I read in my day and then put my ipod on for the running part. I listen to one song over twice right now and then the running part is over. 5. I’ve been doing this for 124 days and it’s still really really hard. Really hard. It’s hard to get myself to get up and do it. It’s hard to do it. It’s hard to make sure I am reaching my daily goal (2.7 right now). It’s just all hard. But I do it anyway. I just do it. I don’t give myself permission not to. That’s the only way it works for me. That’s it. I hope that was clear and it helps with any questions you might have had (probably more than you ever wanted to know.) Feel free to ask more. Please remember this is something I made up for me. Do what’s right for you. (Also, I kindly ask that you do not tell me to not do it daily. I appreciate your kindness and respect your knowledge, but I am not going to consider this option and it doesn’t help me to keep hearing it. So I respectfully ask you to please not say it.) I must admit that I am enjoying drawing these way more now that I am not painting. I am quite surprised with how different each of them are.
And how each time I think I took a step forward, I also see that I took two steps backward. I spose that’s how it feels to learn.
But I am still enjoying the process. I am still trusting that things will get better, even if slowly. I am trying to take my time. Give myself permission to mess up. My other journal is on its last page so I bought a new journal for February and cannot wait to fill it all up with faces. Six Portraits a Week is a weekly project for 2011. You can read more about it here.
I woke up in a better mood today thankfully. Things are still a bit fragile but I feel like doing some art last night really helped a lot. I got up and did pages of journaling, I exercised, Nathaniel didn’t nap and then napped and then was cranky. I worked, I read to David. So I did most of what I do in a day. I feel a little frazzled and disorganized still but I am feeling less depressed and less fragile which is wonderful. Little boy having fun while watching choo-choo.
A good smile from my big boy.
And one from my little boy.
That’s all I got today. I still have to feed dinner, do some more work, post two more posts, draw my portrait and get ready to go out to date night so I will say good night and let you know that I will respond to comments ASAP and I am not ignoring you and I am deeply grateful for all your kind comments and thank you for visiting me day after day. thank you thank you thank you. Three Things I’m Grateful For: Three Things David’s Grateful For: |
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