Portrait Painting SMC: Class #1

Today was the start of my six week painting class at SMC. I was a bit nervous earlier in the day. But after all the last minute rushing around and dropping off Mr. Mine I forgot the nerves and was eagerly anticipating class. The teacher, Ms Bledsoe, was kind and efficient. Starting the class out with lots of explanations and how tos. Today our assignment was a value scale painting using only black and white. I got too class about 15 minutes early so was able to get an ok spot. Although i think next week I will opt for more of an angled position.

This was my first time working with oils so it was a bit off an adventure. I did feel as though everyone else in class seemed to sink their teeth into the assignment while I was only just starting to graze the surface. I'm a very slow painter and we had probably about two hours to work on this. It was also hard because the model seemed to only sit for short periods of time. Then she'd get up, stretch, then get back into the pose. Every time i swear the light hit her face differently. Which was a little frustrating. I'll have to get used to this.I'm not used to dealing with moving subjects. But overall i loved the class and it was exceptionally fun getting my hands dirty.

Curvily Yours: Secret Class

I took a secret dance class the other day. Just to see how my body would take it. The result? My body felt fantastic. My back groaned a little through all of the stretching but has felt absolutely fabulous since class. My biggest complaint once I stopped PT was that my back was always tight. It's amazing how much one class loosened me up. Ok, well MOST of my body felt fantastic after class. There was a little bit of a groin strain incident. But that was my own fault for just not acknowledging mentally how inflexible I have become. Thou shalt not try dropping into a split from a standing position if one has not done the splits in over 9 months.

So I survived class with flying colors. I mostly just warmed up and danced. No pole tricks at this time. I'm not planning on pushing my luck. I have an MRI scheduled for next wednesday to officially clear me ( I hope) to start taking classes again.  I know that my family is going to throw a fit about this, and I don't blame them. But I want to dance, need to dance and if I can completely bounce back from this injury I am damn well going to do it. It makes me happy and it keeps me fit both mentally and physically.

How do I know that my family is going to throw a fit? Well because they have already made their position quite clear on the issue of me being back to playing soccer. Yes soccer, I know I am probably crazy, but I'm not ready to stop playing yet. Although I know there will come a day when I decide, enough is enough when it comes to this sport. Dancing for the rest of my life is one thing, soccer, well, we'll see.

In the meantime I am enjoying the ability to move freely. To run and jump, to bend and twist all things that I definitely missed. 

Curvily Yours: Back Update Latest

October 29, 2012
I had my latest appt with Dr Perri and he declared that I should start weening myself completely off my brace. He also said that as long as I continued to heal that I should be back to my full activities in 3 months. I have to say that I did a mental happy dance when I heard those magic words. He also ok'd me to start physical therapy once I returned from my trip. Woohooo! The road to recovery is near. I'm looking forward to not having to wear my brace all the time while we are in London too. I will be so happy to no longer be a bionic woman. And I can tell that my posture has definitely improved already. I'd say things are finally starting to look up.

Here's a look at Oct vs July:

Happy Valentine's Day!

Thanks to my Mom and Dad for my awesome V-Day Socks! Wish we were all together too! xo

Sloppy Joe Firsts

Today Mr Mine tried his first ever sloppy joes. I didn't realize this when I pulled this specific recipe out of our new light meals in a slow cooker book. But I was very excited for him once I found out. I loved sloppy joes as a kid. And probably haven't had one in years. Although he wasn't getting your everyday average Joes. He was getting a much healthier version, Turkey Joes. These were incredibly easy to make and once I pointed out the correct way to eat them (not with a fork and knife) he was in love.

Turkey Joes!

Leo's Latest Antics

So my cats know that they are not allowed on the table. But that doesn't mean that they don't try to bend the rules as much as possible. As in putting two paws on the table as they jump from chair back to chair back. Leo took it to a whole new level this morning with trying to sun himself. He decided that as long as only his head was on the table, he technically wasn't on the table because his body was still on a chair.

His second bout of amazingness today was even more classic Leo though. My husband opened the litter box lid to clean out the litter and what did he find. The Toilet Brush. Leo was definitely letting us know that the litter needed cleaning. When he was little he used to drag plastic bags over to cover the litter box when it needed a full cleaning. Who says cats aren't smart?

When in doubt find inspiration!

And just because we are on an inspirational track at the moment this also seems appropriate to share:



We CAN do it. And by it, I mean ANYTHING. I was having a really rough couple of weeks and when a friend shared this video it really hit home. Inspiration found! I hope this inspires you as much as it inspired me. People are pretty amazing. 

Heart's Desire

One of my cousin's shared this video on facebook today. I love the message. It speaks to my heart and what it has been trying to tell me the last few years. Or maybe even the last decade. Enjoy:



No matter what your job is this video tends to speak to your life. One of the commenters on the post wrote the following which also rang true to me:

"There is no happiness in pursuing a quest that matters not to ones true desires."

What are your desires? What would I do if money were no object? I'm still working on figuring my answers out. On initial response and much I am sure to my parents chagrin I would say. I want to be an artist, a photographer, a dancer. I do love designing, but it is definitely not something that comes easy to me.

So I have been working towards a few things. I signed up for an online photography course and I also signed up for a painting course. The photography course is all year, but the painting class starts this Saturday. I'm a little nervous. Last year Mrs Bokeh and I took a 3 hour painting class and while it was fun, I found that I was berating myself over technique and lack of abilities most of the class. Which made it a lot less enjoyable for me. I think that my expectations are way to high so I am also trying to work on that. Since talent takes time and patience to grow.

I also signed up for online photoshop, flash, and dreamweaver courses. I know photoshop pretty well, but there are always different ways to do things and so much to continually learn.

The other thing that I want to do this year are workshops and possibly conferences. I've found that my local camera store has a lot of workshops that happen pretty regularly and are not too pricey. And I was thinking about trying to attend the annual Adobe MAX Creativity Conference.

Chaos

One word today...Overwhelmed.

My mind and heart are whirling with the sheer gravity of the amount of stuff to DO. From the big stuff like finding property to buy and figuring out this whole trying to get pregnant thing to the little things like cleaning out my email inbox which has well over 6.8 gb in it. The apartment is completely trashed from having people over for the Superbowl (and there were only 2!), the cats puked on the new rug in the living room, the bedroom and hobby room are turning into chaos jungles, and I have a mountain of work to do.

I know that I should just take one step at a time and it will all eventually get done. But the chaos is driving me to madness. All my organization gets destroyed in minutes. Even when I think I have finally gotten the perfect solution, created the perfect tetris formation, thrown out enough of the excess junk. I just can't seem to do it all fast enough. It takes 24 hours for all my careful work to turn back into chaos. Ergo, Madness. Mounting frustration that just makes me want to kick and hit things. It's so hard to sit at my desk and tune all of it out so that I may actually get my work done. One of the reason I suppose why working from home is not always a blessing. I can't escape from all of this. And I can't take a break and do something about it all right now. Even though I know that doing so would improve my work efficiency. Since I would no longer be regularly distracted by the piles of clothes, miscellaneous boxes, stacks of books, and the massive amounts of odds and ends strewn helter-skelter everywhere.

I may just have to call a halt to all activities that do not include apartment rehab. My husband and I continually got tangled up in our own lives and ignore the place we are living. We both hate the chaos and it only makes us even more disagreeable the longer we let it go on. Lucky for him, he gets to leave the chaos and go to work.

I know there is a solution to this. I just don't seem to have the strength and energy that I know it will take to implement. Ok, now that I have take too much time to write about chaos, back to the work at hand. More work done = less stress. Hope you are having a less overwhelming day!