Sore, Sore, Sore -- but Productive

Tons of great exercise today -- I mowed almost all of our yard, probably 80% of it, and for those who've been to my house, you know how huge our yard is!  Couldn't get the mower working at first (yes, checked the gas and oil, and we put some winterizer stuff in it last fall, it just hasn't been started yet this season) but the neighbor had some starter fluid he sprayed somewhere in the engine, and then it started up just fine.  I was out there nearly two hours and was completely bushed, so Heather finished it off when she got home from work.  Then we went to Lowe's and got some 2x6 lumber to make boxes around my garden plots so they'll be raised, and some grass seed.  We spent an hour or so after that spreading the seed on some bare areas in the lawn, and then we had a mini bonfire, burning up the stump of a big ugly bush that I had hacked down a couple weeks ago.  I was on hose duty and got soaked down one leg from the leaks.  Now I'm hobbling around the house like an old woman, barely able to stand up straight, but I do feel pretty good about how productive I was today -- and we saved all those grass clippings to use for mulch when I plant my garden.  I also feel pretty good about finishing off some presents for my sisters' birthdays and for Mother's Day, of which I will post pictures after this weekend when I visit Manti to give them.  :)  All in all, a pretty great day.

Clay Pendants and Beads

I found some batteries for my camera (yay!), so here are the pictures of some beads and pendants I've made.  All of these were done with translucent Kato PolyClay with alcohol inks, PearlEx powders, and colored chalks mixed in.

Obviously some of them haven't been made into necklaces yet, and the dark purple one doesn't even have a hole -- I was intending to use it as an embedded cabochon, but I haven't had a chance to work with it yet.  The yellow one is the only one (so far) that includes glass and stone beads too.  Only the yellow beads are clay.

I've been asked to put up a tutorial for the long-stitch hand bound books I took to demonstrate at our last mid-week RS meeting.  It's been a busy week so I'm hoping to get that up this weekend.

Chicken Worries

After spending three and a half hours preparing my garden plots yesterday, I was feeling really proud of the work I'd accomplished only to look out an hour later and see the neighbor's free range chickens scratching the hell out of all that nice new loose dirt.  Since I haven't planted anything yet, it's not that big of a deal right now -- but I'm positive it will become one.  I've been doing some google searches, trying to find tips on keeping chickens out of a garden, but I just don't know what will work and what won't.  The neighbor's have a really huge garden every summer, so they must do something to keep the dratted birds out of their garden... I've never minded the chickens.  I love that they keep the bug population under control -- especially since there's a horse pasture in my backyard -- but I'm worried about them digging up my new seeds and eating the sprouts and munching on the growing veggies.  I'll have to ask the neighbor what she does...

So I got some great exercise yesterday and this morning I'm all sore and achy, of course.  Brother Williams from across the street came over this morning and offered to use his tiller on my garden.  If only I'd talked to him yesterday!  He's still going to till up some areas that I didn't get to, and I spread manure over my plots that he's going to till under for me -- thank heaven for wonderful neighbors!  Then I'll need to rake out the walkways again, cover them with cardboard so we can put wood chips down on them, and figure out a way to keep those stupid birds out.  If their wings have been clipped, a pretty short fence might be enough.  Then I could still reach to weed and harvest, but since it's such a small area, I don't want to try putting up bigger fencing because I won't be able to get in to my plants!  I guess I could try enclosing the entire area, walkways included, but I'm not sure how that would work with the horse cleaning pad which is cement and can't be moved...  Grrr.  I wish they'd built that thing just a few feet east of it's current spot!  Of course no one at the time had any idea that someone might want to try a garden out there some day.  And since the whole backyard is pretty much built around the horses, there's not really anywhere else to put my garden.  :(  Besides, I've already put too much work into that plot to want to move it now, anyway.

My Creativity Sharing Stymied

I've been browsing polymer clay stuff and have found some really cool products and inspiring blogs, and I thought, it's been way too long since I posted stuff about the clay things I'm making.  In particular, I made some pendants and beads that I think are pretty unique and I thought I'd take some pics and post them on here.  So I dig out my camera ... and no battery power.  I go searching and I've only got 2 fresh batteries and my camera takes 4, so ... nope, that rechargeable battery thing I bought is completely useless and the batteries don't work.  I'm going to have to buy new batteries before I can take pictures, so I guess I won't be posting any pics of clay or jewelry OR garden any time soon.  ~sigh~

Well, anyway, I've been working on quite a few things for hopeful income, and I just got a short term job that will be probably be incredibly dull, but will at least bring in some income.  As soon as I can, I'll post some pictures of those pendants and beads. :)

Discouragement & What To Do About It

Last week in church (not day before yesterday, obviously, since it was conference), I sat in a row behind two little girls.  The younger sister was drawing on a blank pad and the older was writing on a 5"x7" spiral note pad.  I happened to notice the first line read "Once upon a time."  Immediately intrigued, I tried to inconspicuously read more, but could only make out a few words here and there in her large, childish handwriting.  Among them were "princess" and "talking cat."  This was certainly a little girl after my own heart!  She was interrupted once by her sister who gave her a drawing that included a heart and the words "I lov u," which she accepted with a smile. She wrote studiously for several minutes until the page was completely full of words, fitting in the end of her last sentence by turning the page sideways and writing the last couple words perpendicular to the rest.  Then, after tearing the page carefully from the notebook, she held it out, beaming, to her mother.

Those girls reminded me so much of me and my sister at that age.  I remember turning the page sideways, too.  After the meeting, I asked the mother how old the girl was.  Seven.  Seven years old and she's already writing stories.  When I mentioned that I used to do that, of course the natural response from the mother was   "How did that work out? Do you still write?"  I was embarrassed to admit that I haven't pursued writing as aggressively as I once thought I would.  But if there's one dream of mine that I've always had, as long as I can remember, it's being a writer, publishing a book.  I started my first book around age 11 or 12 -- never finished, of course.  The one I'm currently "working" on, I started at least 12 or 13 years ago.  My natural inclination is to beat myself up about it, but I must grudgingly admit that the last few months, I have actually worked on it -- mostly by starting over, but it's still the same story.

So, I'm discouraged.  I'll be 29 for the fifth year in a row this summer and I haven't accomplished anything I'm really proud of.  Listening to conference this last weekend, I thought about this a LOT.  I don't think that's what the talks were really about, but that seems to be all I heard -- doing something to make your life worthwhile.  I think my garden is a good start, and Janette, my RS President has been thrilled with my new activity at church -- I'm getting involved with the mid-week RS meeting committee, and that's been fun so far -- but the one thing I keep coming back to whenever I wonder what I really want to do with my life, is write.

Getting to the point... The garden will be good for me physically, I've made a good start at going back to church and being more active spiritually, so my mental well-being goal will be to finish Twin's Magic.  Hopefully I'll have it done by my birthday, but if I think of it that way, I'll put it off until it's too late.  Instead, I'm going to write at least 2 pages a day.  I won't limit myself to 2 pages -- if I have time or I'm on a roll, I'll write more, but I'm going to do at least 2.  So, here goes!  Good luck to me!

April Fools A Day Early

Well, now I know what April Fools is really all about.  It's about Mother Nature giving you a sweet little taste of Spring and then saying "HAHA, never mind!"  It's snowing today.  A lot of snow.  It's really pretty, but I think I shouldn't go outside at all when it's cold because I'm very stuffed up and having a hard time breathing. :(

I had to go out, though, because I'm volunteering at Bridgerland Literacy, an organization that works with functionally illiterate adults, teaching them how to read in a one-on-one basis.  Right now I'm helping Cari, the Literacy Coordinator, get the tutor training program online so it won't take so much time before she can match up a volunteer tutor with a student.  It's really interesting work, so far, and I get to interact with some great people.

I'm sad that I haven't been able to work in my garden this week, and definitely won't now for the rest of the week, but I'm doing a graphic design project that will be finished next week, and if I get paid promptly, I'll be able to use that money to go buy all my seeds and stuff that I'll need for the been tepee and the herb planter I have my eye on...  :)  That'll be fun!

What A Beautiful Day

The Weather Channel online told us it was supposed to be rainy today, but it was really very pretty out.  A few random fluffy white clouds and really deep blue sky.  It was maybe a little chilly, but when you're working hard out there, it still feels pretty nice.  I got each plot marked off and they're a lot closer to the tree than I thought they were going to be (I guess I'm not that great at measuring) and it looks like we might not be able to get rid of that tree this year so I may need to plan around it better.  Shorten one plot and create another smaller plot somewhere else.

I really wish I could just get the tree cut down, because I'm not looking forward to picking up the crab apples that fall into my garden.  But we want to put up some fencing and do a few other things and even though our landlord is a really generous man, we can only ask him to pay for so much at once.  At least it's all improvements to the property that will benefit them if they ever decide to sell.  The house belonged to their parents, though, and Heather doubts they'll ever sell Grandma Stefen's home.  At least they're good enough to let us make all these changes!

Once I've got the plots figured out for certain, I'll take a picture before I do anything to it so you all can watch the progress from the very beginning.  Well, I guess not the very beginning, because I've already raked the area and pulled out all the weeds and chopped down a big ugly bush that was in the way, but still... close enough to the beginning, I guess!

I hurt all over, especially my ankles and lower back, but mentally I feel more like myself than I have in a very long time.  It's kind of weird because I always hated working in the garden when I was a kid.  Maybe it's like Rachel says and it's just the thrill of a new project, researching and learning and trying something new.  Unlike most of my projects, though, this one requires a lot more physical work than I'm used to and I think that might have something to do with it too.  It would really be nice if working this hard made me start losing some weight -- but I'm not going to think about that as a goal right now because I don't want the numbers on the scale to start taking over my excitement in the project.  It's just nice to think about.

I'm Gonna Have A Garden!

I literally cannot remember the last time I spent so much time outdoors in one day.  I got home from Manti at about 4pm, and spent from 4:30 to 5:30 raking yard refuse into piles to get rid of.  Then I was inside for maybe a half hour to have a sandwich when Heather got home from work.  Then we both went out to load piles of dead leaves and pine needles onto her trailer for later hauling to the dump (I kept 3 big black bags full for mulch).  Finally, we measured and staked out the areas for my garden plots.  I'm going to have one 3'x10' strip against the fence with blueberry bushes and then two 4'x10' plots for vegetables, all separated by 3' wide strips of wood chips for walkways.  There's a crab apple tree that we're going to get cut down, and I'm planning a little herb garden around the stump.  Actually, I'll probably mix herbs and flowers in with the vegetables too.  I found an awesome book at the library called Edible Flower Gardens and I'm going to see what I can plant of those, because doesn't a flower salad sound seriously cool?

Anyway, we didn't come indoors until nearly 8:30, and while I realize 3 to 3.5 hours outside in one day is not that long for some people, for me, it's a major accomplishment.  One I can feel all the way from my sore neck muscles to my throbbing feet, and I'm pretty freakin' proud of it.  I'll try to post the progress of my little garden experiment.  I'm thinking this will be a project that can ultimately help me with all three aspects of the original purpose of this blog -- my physical, mental, and spiritual search for happiness.

I can't believe it's February...

That's crazy!  I thought there was another week of January left.  Of course, I spent a whole week in bed sick, so I guess it's not surprising that I'm losing time.  Oh well. 

I spent a couple hours this morning job searching -- still no luck so far -- and then I came to the public library, thinking that if I'm here, there won't be any distractions and I can get some writing done.  So, I get here, and then remember that since my computer had a massive break down and I had to completely reformat the hard drive -- restore it to factory condition -- I hadn't reinstalled my word processing program.  I remembered to put everything I thought I would need from my ancient desktop onto a usb drive so I could bring that with me, but I can't access any of the files!  And I left my installation CD for Word at home.  I really don't want to install the trial versions you can download from the internet, so this idea was kind of a bust.

Until I remembered I hadn't updated my blog in quite a while.  I didn't realize how long it had been, though.  That's one of the problems with being unemployed, I guess.  And being sick.  The whole situation stinks.  I have gotten some cool stuff done, though.  When I get home I'll have to remember to take pictures so I can post them and show off a little.  :)  I have been going to church, though -- and reading the Book of Mormon, which I think makes my days more calm, less completely stressed out.  It's almost like the difference when I don't take my meds, only not quite as drastic.

Maybe I can just write some in notepad and copy into Word once I get that installed...  I'll give it a try.  Bye for now.

Merry Christmas!

Yay!  Merry Christmas!  I had a very nice Christmas at my parents' house with my sisters.  Niel and his family came over for most of Christmas day, too, and that was also fun.  I loved watching my nephews open their presents and get all excited about it.  My traditional Christmas Eve pajamas was a nightgown with a kitty print that made me miss my cats, but I'll be going back home tomorrow so I won't have to worry about them anymore.  :) 

I had Emily this year for our rotational gift giving, and I made her a set of bookends out of clay.  They are a pair of dragons, and I thought they turned out pretty well.  Emily seemed to like them, so that was good because I couldn't have done anything else -- no money.  I already had the supplies for this.  Dad got Mom a flat screen tv with dvd player attached and a wall mount to put it up in her sewing room.  NICE.  I'm a little jealous!  (j/k)  Mom got Dad a four-wheeler and he had lots of fun yesterday pulling his grandkids around on their new sleds.  It was fun to watch -- while they were in range, anyway.  :)

My mom also got a Wii Fit and everyone had fun playing on that while I watched.  I'm over the weight limit.  That really hurt, but it's given me a new determination because I really want one, and it looked like fun, and I am now the largest person in the family so I can't even use the Wii Fit to get  fit!  So, my New Year's resolution is going to be to lose enough weight that I can use a Wii Fit, and secondary to that is to get a job and save enough money that I can buy one.  For now, my miniature goal to help me get to that one, is to go for a walk -- even if it's a really short one -- every day this week.  When I accomplish that goal, I'll set one for the next week.  I think I'm also going to get a picture of the Wii Fit and  stick it on my door or something so I see it every day and remember that that's what I want.

Anyway, I'll post my progress, and I'll take pictures of Emily's dragons and post them soon, too.

Christmas Stockings

A good friend of mine (Tressa) asked me to make her some stockings for her young family, since this is (I think) their first Christmas with their little boy and they don't have any yet. We found a pattern that we liked the shape of, but it was pretty plain and when I really got down to reading the pattern I thought it seemed far more complicated than it needed to be. So I simplified some of the pattern and added the design elements and tweaked a whole bunch of stuff so it made more sense to me, and voila! Green for the boys and red for the girl. I really liked how they turned out and Tressa was thrilled, which made me happy. I did keep track of my now original pattern (I seriously made enough changes that no copyright lawyer in the world would deny it's originality, I think the only thing that's the same is the heel, and even that changed in size) and I think there's probably some small tweaking I'd still like to do, but I'm going to try to sell them for next year. Nice, huh? We were going to add names, but I didn't have time. I worked pretty much straight through for the last 3 days because I'm leaving tomorrow for the next week or so, so my fingers were cramping up anyway. We'll probably add them after the holiday.

Tressa was feeling bad about taking me away from other stuff I need to get done -- especially after I told her how much time they took (I had estimated low -- I always seem to do that). I wish she wouldn't because with having no job, and being pretty down about the future and what I have -- mostly haven't -- done with my life, having a project like this to focus on was seriously a blessing for me. And she did insist on paying me -- too much, especially since I would have just done it for her, but after doing some research I found she would have paid a lot more for handmade items like this elsewhere, so I guess it's still a win-win -- so it was a much better use of my time than what I would have been doing all week, plus I got some late Christmas spending money that I wouldn't have had. Most importantly, though, it taught me quite demonstratively how much better I feel about myself when I have a goal and am able to keep myself busy. I need, now, to learn how to get motivated the way a new project for a good old friend got me going so quickly. I think part of it was the deadline, too. I need to learn how to use self-imposed deadlines effectively. All that stuff I need to get done that I put aside for this, would probably have been put aside for stupid stuff like movies and TV anyway. This way, I feel productive, and I'll still get the other stuff done.

I'm back -- really

Well, hello to anyone who might possibly still be checking to see if I've updated my blog yet.  I lost my job, I've been seriously depressed and stressed, and didn't feel like I've had anything positive to write about.  You know, therapists will often recommend journaling as a way to help work through the negative thoughts and get past them.  My experience has always been that the more depressed I am, the worse my writing is and the worse what I write makes me feel.  I write what I feel, and seeing the irrational thoughts on paper -- instead of helping me to see the error of my thinking -- just makes me feel more horrible that I really think like that.  So, I've stopped writing when I'm down.

You may have noticed the new gadget just below the header.  It's a link to my store at ShopHandmade.com.  I haven't got a lot listed yet, but I decided to stop waiting until I had a lot of stuff to list and just put in what I've got.  All of those journals are a few years old, but they still look like new.  I plan on making a whole bunch more sculptures and focal beads.  I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing, so I decided I really needed to write.

I'm still searching for a job.  Sending out as many applications as I can.  I think I might have applied for every listing workforce services has for the Cache Valley area!  Well, thank heaven for family and church.  And yes, I'm going.  It's nice.  My friend Janette is very supportive and encouraging and it's nice to have someone like her.  :)

Anyway, check out my store, because it's just cool that I've got one, and keep coming back here, because I'm back and ready to write again!

In the doldrums...

Yes, definitely.  And why?  Because an old college roommate of mine has just gotten her first book published and I'm jealous.  I'm really happy for her of course, but I'm thinking my own book will never get published and that makes me sad.  Oh, and yes I have been working on it, so it will get done eventually, but I guess I'm just sad that I haven't accomplished anything I thought I would have by this age.  Publishing was at the top of the list, along with being in a real career, not just a get-by-for-now job.  Of course what would be really awesome is if writing full time could BE that career...

Okay, the real reason for the melancholy?  I worked tons of overtime this last week and didn't have time for anything fun -- or productive.  (I finally got some time yesterday and I did manage to start a new dragon.  I think he's going to be really cute.)  AND, I haven't started reading the BOM like I was going to, either.  I feel like a turtle myself, pulling head back into my shell when church is even mentioned, just pretending it will go away.  I'm going to have to start sometime, though...  especially since I doubt I can get any of the rest (lose weight, sell my book or my creations) done if I don't get my spirit back into alignment.  I'm all out of wack right now and I'm afraid realignment will hurt which is the reason for hiding in the shell.  Sheesh.  Get it together, girl!  Enough with the pity-party.  Boooorrrring.  Back to work!

Clay creatures

This is the clay turtle (with stone bead accents) that I made last weekend for my sister Emily who collects turtles.

And this is the dragon I made -- took about a week.

 

Her name is Amy, and Amy loves her amythyst! There's her large rock and several smaller ones in the ground around her -- looks like she found a good place to collect them from. 

She has mother-of-pearl as plates along the spine, and green and purple freshwater pearl accents.  She's my first dragon, but don't worry, Amy will have lots of friends soon!

I also made a lion's head and some filigree beads (which my Mom helped on) over the weekend that look pretty cool, but I don't have pictures of them yet.

Spirituality and stuff

Going to my parent's house for the weekend has, for the last couple years, been a little bit uncomfortable when time to go to church rolls around.  I don't want to go, they wish I would, etc.  This last weekend there was no choosing because it was general conference, and it's just on.  If you don't want to watch or listen, you shouldn't have come.  :)  It was pretty good, actually.  I cringed a couple times just like I would have in church, but for the most part, it was enlightening, like it's supposed to be.  There was one talk about discipline that I'm going to have to see if I can find online so I can reread it.

The point of this post, though, is that it occurred to me that I could be putting my focus on the wrong one of my 3 main goals (see the post from August 26th).  I was going to focus mainly on the physical and mental(creative) but my early plans for the physical goals fizzled out, and haven't gone anywhere.  I have made good progress in the creative arena -- more posts on that later.  I've got pictures! -- but I'm not healthy, and without getting healthy, I won't be able to accomplish all that I eventually want to with my creative work.  Perhaps I'm not getting anywhere with my physical goals because I'm pretty much ignoring my spiritual ones.  Okay, I know of the few of you who read this, most will be nodding your heads and thinking "well, of course," and even though I already knew that -- on an intellectual level, anyway -- I probably still needed that "aha!" moment to do anything about it.  Don't we all?

I'm reluctant to get back into exploring a relationship with God because I know it will involve change (something I've never been a fan of) and I'm pretty certain there will be a large amount of emotional pain involved (something I avoid as a rule -- you have to when you've got a chemical imbalance in your brain that amplifies all negative emotion beyond reason).  I suppose, though, any kind of creation is change, and if I'm going to create a better me, I have to be willing to undergo all of it.  It occurred to me to compare myself to the clay I use to make things with -- malleable, versatile, full of possibilities -- but clay is inert.  It has no control over what happens to it, and that's what I have been -- floating along, letting life happen to me -- and not what I want to be which is someone who lives her own life.  I am not the clay.  I can't let life shape me, I have to shape my life.  Right?

Anyway, if I can figure out what shape to mold my spirit into, then my physical goals will have the backing of my spiritual ones.  What I mean is, right now, my outside and my inside match.  I can't change what's on the outside without changing what's inside, and the inside has to come first -- and whether that's spiritual or just has to do with attitude or habits or all of the above, I think working on my spirit will help to change it all.  Like I said, I'm reluctant (nervous, a little resentful, uncomfortable), but I'm willing to bet this is the only way to make the changes work the way I want them to.  So, for a short term goal under "Define and Live Spiritual Beliefs," I'm going to re-read The Book of Mormon.  I'll keep you posted on what progress I make.

New Clay Technique

These beads were an experiment using a technique I found in a book called Polymer Pizazz presented by Bead and Button Magazine.  Two artists -- Jody Bishel and Aya Teshima -- each wrote instructions for a type of hollow bead, both using cornstarch packing peanuts.  I decided to try my own version, and these beads were the result.  You can't really tell from the picture that the beads are hollow, but they are.  I only made a few and strung them with some glass seed beads and hematite to make this bracelet.  I like the way they turned out, but next time I try it, I'm going to leave bigger holes, both to see the hollow design better and to make it easier to get the packing peanut out.  They're water soluble, and they do disintigrate, but I still had to poke and prod the slimy pieces out of those tiny holes.  Blech.  However, the technique itself has given me some really cool ideas that I hope I'll be able to transfer from my head into reality.

As for everything else, well, this week has been really hard as far as the diet goes -- wait, I was supposed to be on a diet? -- and I've been working 10 hour shifts at work, so I haven't had a lot of time to do anything besides work and sleep.  Should be a nicer paycheck than usual, though.  :)  I'm really happy to have a two day weekend (I worked last Saturday and will have to work next Saturday) so I'm going to make the most of it by getting laundry done, cleaning my room, and working on some art projects.  Hopefully, by tomorrow evening, I'll have more pictures to post.  :)

Labor Day Weekend

I love visiting the Back's.  :)  We played with clay, and went to see Star Trek (yes, this is probably the 20-somethingth time I've seen it, but I love it!  Can't wait for the DVD -- Nov. 17th!), and had yummy food at Cafe Rio.  Janet is on the HCG diet too, so she knew what to order for us both, and it was really good.  Jilese and I got lost in Salt Lake looking for bookstores and a Michael's so we could get some liquid Sculpey for a project.  Over all, a very worthwhile weekend.

We made little glow-in-the-dark ghosts and some fairies (we used the liquid Sculpey and glitter for their wings and they looked awesome), but I didn't get any pictures.  Jason even reminded me just before I left and I still forgot.  Oh, well, I guess.  Jayden seemed to have a lot of fun, but Jilese was getting frustrated because hers wasn't perfect.  I know just how she feels.  It's one of my biggest "negative" personality traits to overcome -- the idea that if I can't be best or do something extraordinary, I don't want to do it at all.

All the things I do that friends and family find so amazing and talented are things that came really pretty easily to me.  The stuff that's hard, I give up on.  Which is really why my book is still unfinished -- I'm scared it won't be as good as I think it is or as good as I want it to be.  I know, I know.  Irrational.  But when depression sucks the will to try out of you, that kind of irrationality holds much more sway than anyone who hasn't been there would suspect.  The worst part is, while it's happening, you know you're being illogical, but instead of prompting you to change the behavior, the idea that you are behaving that way just makes you more disgusted with yourself and less likely to do anything about it.  Depression is an evil spiral -- like that scene in Disney's The Little Mermaid where Ariel is lying on the dry ocean floor at the bottom of the whirlpool with the massively oversized evil witch laughing far above her aiming to kill her with the tritan, only the witch is the wall between your emotions and your logic and the tritan is all the negative thoughts you keep trying to jump away from, but can't because the vortex would just spit you back out into the bullseye.  I suppose if I were to contine the metaphor, the prince in the wrecked ship that kills off Ursula would be the medication that breaks down the wall so your logic can start informing your emotions and counteracting the negative thoughts.  Whew.  How's that for a great description?  :)  I think I've said this before, but the hardest part right now is changing all the destructive habits I formed while at the bottom of the maelstrom.  I think I'm making progress.  I hope I am, anyway.

On the HCG front, I've lost 10 lbs.  Yay!  I haven't been as strict as I should be and so I'm not losing as fast as I could be.  It's really difficult, and I'm working on building my will power, but I am still trying, which is what's really important.  The evil witch cannot be allowed to win.

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

Not to sound cliche, but I knew this would be hard -- just not this hard.  I don't have nearly as much will power as I thought I did.  I haven't missed an injection (which I was worried about remembering), but I haven't been as strict with the diet as I planned to be (which I wasn't worried about).  I'm either not getting all the food I'm supposed to eat, or I'm eating one of the donuts the company puts out for employee birthdays once a month.  I think it will get easier.  The hardest part is to not just give up entirely because I haven't done it perfectly so far.  That whole black and white mentality thing I've got going on is really hard to deal with sometimes!

On the creativity side of things, though, I'm going to visit my aunt's house this weekend and spend some quality time doing "art stuff" with my young cousin.  I'm really looking forward to it, and we'll post the results of our mutual creative genius here.

Ready, set, GO!

The summer has been full of frustration for me -- frustration with the heat, with my weight, with my slovenly habits -- and I haven't written anything because I didn't think I had anything interesting, enlightening, or pithy to say. Well, I've hit a breaking point in my frustration. The point where it's no longer possible to shrug it off, to ignore my disgust with myself and take comfort in the very things that are causing the problems. I'm feeling more like me than I have in over a decade -- thanks to finally finding the right drugs to keep my depression at bay and under control -- and now I've reached the point where I can start changing the negative habits I slipped into in a futile effort to keep 'the pit of despair' from engulfing me.

So, I figure "Charity's Creations" is the perfect place to document the progress of "Operation Create a Better Charity." The operation has three basic long-term goals: 1. Achieve Optimal Physical Health, 2. Define and Live Spiritual Beliefs, and 3. Organize and Maintain Productive Creativity.

Vague enough? :) Well, here's what I mean by that. 1. Achieve Optimal Physical Health. I'm enormously obese. I'm not just saying that, I really am. I break into a sweat and start gasping for breath just hurrying up a flight of stairs. In order to change this disgustingness, I'm going to take HCG. It's a hormone, and it helps you lose weight quickly. I don't intend to go into details about it here, because there are plenty of websites that will teach you all about it if you're interested. It's enough to say that I've read the research, I've talked to people who have done it, and I'm convinced it's safe and, most importantly, will work. The diet that goes along with it is very, very strict, but it's only for 6 weeks at a time. I started taking the injections last Sunday -- the 23rd of August -- and my first week has gone okay, but not as well as I'd like. I've been hungrier than I thought I would be, but I also didn't get all the food I was supposed to eat, because I was unable to plan properly. The foods that I used to eat all the time kept calling out to me -- eat me! eat me! -- and I admit I slipped up a little because I was hungry and didn't have anything else at work. So this week, I plan my meals better and take them with me to work. Oh, and the George Forman grill -- my new best friend. I tried cooking a chicken breast and a steak on the stove, and it just didn't work well. I thought about buying a GF grill, but when I mentioned that to my roommate, Heather, she magically produced one from the back of a kitchen cupboard! (The benefits of having had many roommates come and go.) Anyway, love the grill! So easy, and convenient -- especially cooking for one. :)

So, short term goal to achieve goal 1, follow the HCG program for this first round. Even shorter than that, make it through this next week without slipping up at all. I don't know where my weight is at because I don't have a scale, but I started at my parent's house and their scale put me at 390.2 lbs. Yeah, I know. Told you I was enormously obese. I'm going to start going back to Curves, and I'll weigh myself there. I probably won't go back until I'm back on the grave shift so I can just go right after work, and that is one more week away.

Goal 2. Define and Live Spiritual Beliefs. I've been struggling with my spiritual beliefs for a long time, and though I've investigated a few different things, I keep not committing to anything. Mostly because none of it feels right, and I've had anger issues with God anyway. I don't want to live a life devoid of spiritual belief, so I'm going to have to choose and stick with something. I've decided to give the beliefs I grew up with one more chance (Mom, don't break the chair bouncing up and down in joy) and if it still doesn't work for me, I'll go on to something else. Short term goals for this, though, I haven't figured out yet.

Goal 3. Organize and Maintain Productive Creativity. This one was the hardest to put succinctly and therefore is probably the most vague. :) What I mean by this, is that I want to organize all the projects -- and supplies for those projects -- that I haven't done yet, and get something done instead of just always thinking I'll do it eventually. Eventually never comes! And I'm going to finish my book. I have been working on that a little bit the last month or so, but not consistently. Short term goal for here, is to write for at least an hour every day. I can do that. An hour is really not that long and I'll probably get so caught up that I'll end up writing longer -- of course, that's just fine, because I want to find out what happens. :) I'm also going to box up and store and/or give away most of the junk that's cluttering up my room, which keeps me from getting anything creative done because I don't have space. Then I'm going to work on my clay chess set idea, because that little king was fun to make and I've got good ideas for the rest of the pieces.

So, for family and friends, and anyone else who's interested, this blog is now about my journey towards a better me. Hopefully it'll be a good one. Hopefully I'll be able to share tips and insights, and encouragement for anyone facing the same types of problems (so the blog isn't completely narcissistic). Please feel free to leave comments, and here we go!

Inner turmoil

I just read a quote from Albert Einstein. "A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future." I'm not sure I agree with that statement. It's not that I think a happy person wouldn't be satisfied with the present -- that part of the statement is obvious -- but I don't think being happy with the now would preclude thinking about the future. Especially since I know that someone who is depressed doesn't think much about the future either. In fact, part of depression is a hopelessness about the future, and so one thinks about it as little as possible, searching instead for something to alleviate the sadness right now. Part of being happy with oneself and one's situation is having a plan for the future -- something that implies knowing one's path and purpose in life, which a depressed person certainly doesn't.

Perhaps Einstein just meant that a happy person isn't going to let worries about the future detract from enjoying the present. A nice idea that taken to extremes means an aimless wandering through life with no achievements, no aspirations or accomplishments. How do you find a middle ground in that? How can you make your life meaningful, knowing you've done something important with it and still be content enough with yourself and situation to enjoy the now without worrying about the future?

Yes, I know, my "all or nothing / black or white" mentality is showing. My biggest problem is that I understand things in black and white but all there really is out there are shades of gray which means I don't understand anything. This whole searching for happiness thing really sucks. Is it the journey? The destination? What's the point of the journey without the destination? That whole school of thought has never made sense to me. And then there's the "happiness is not something you find, it's something you are" school of thought which also ticks me off, because when I try to just BE happy, something in my life suffers and causes me more heartache and self recriminations down the road. In fact, almost everything I do to just be-happy-in-the-moment comes at the expense of some long term goals.

I have a picture on my wall captioned "It's sad when we give up the things we want the most for the things we want right now." I've tried to remember that when I want to do something stupid like eat a whole bunch of bad for me food, or put off doing work that needs to get done. But living like that puts me in a state of constant resentment. How can I find contentment with living in the now while doing the things I need to do instead of the things I want to do?

Hmph. Rhetorical question, by the way. This is just stuff that's been on my mind lately, trying to find a balance.