How do you measure up?

What a lovely day.  So cold and drizzly all day, I've loved being snuggled under my blanket and breaking out the colder weather clothes.  Nothing like long sleeves hanging over your hands to make you feel good.  Don't know why, but it always works for me.

For the last year we've been told by the media that Australia is currently the most obese country in the world, which is seriously concerning to me and was one of my motivators for my current weight loss regime.  The Australian government is even running a campaign to encourage everyone to get active, it's called "How do you measure up?"  I think it's great no matter where we are on the world scale, what surprised me when I started researching for this entry was that I can't find any statistics to back this up.  We're certainly high on the list at no. 6 in the world, but we're certainly not on top of the list.  Wonder which list was being quoted when they mentioned it in the media. Maybe I made a mistake and it was childhood obesity?

Regardless, along with following the weight watchers plan to monitor what I'm eating, I'm also taking the "How do you measure up?" programs suggestion to exercise at least 30 minutes a day.  So I'm walking every morning.  Today I saw these cockatoo in the park, and they barely moved when I got close!  Just goes to show that good things can come from exercise.  ;-)

Cleaning and creativity

There is something lovely about the feeling of a clean house.  New sheets on the bed and fresh towels in the bathroom.  Everything just seems nicer.  If only I actually enjoyed the cleaning part, but it's done now and I got the enjoy all the good parts. 

I've been playing with mandala zentangles, they're relaxing to draw and be free form about.  Here's one that I drew last night.  If you'd like to see more samples then check them out here, it's where I got inspired.

I also did some bamboo cards today, it was fun to play with inks and watercolours to get a simple effect.  I learnt how to do this from Yanghaiying's YouTube channel and you can see the tutorial here. 

I made a few of these cards so if you're interested in trading for one of these ATCs leave a comment and let me know.

Listing my little things.

Today I was a bit late getting up to take my morning walk, the garbage truck woke me at 5am and that always spoils my sleep, so it was hard to get up.  I did however and I'm glad that I did.  Today a few good things happened.  I'd just like to specify first though that generally I tend to try to appreciate the little things in life.

So first off I was happy because I completed my walk in record time.  In fact I've run out of excuses and must tomorrow extend my walk.  Hopefully this means I'll have a good week on the scales this Saturday.

Then walking home I checked the mail and there was a letter for me!  I've recently wanted to start writing letters again, not emails, but lovely hand written, sent through the mail letters.  So I went to a website (a bit of irony there) and found a few people that sounded right to me and asked them to exchange letters.  It's been a long wait, but today one arrived.  In fact she was the lady that was kind enough to start our letters to each other, all the others asked me to.  So I had a lovely time reading her letter, get to know you sheet and looking at the ATC she sent me.  Her handwriting is so pretty I'm a little intimidated as mine really isn't after years of mostly typing, but I'm not going to let that stop me.  I'm going to start my letter back to her after this.

Today is cloudy and gloomy, my favourite kind of day, so I got to wear my ballet slippers and cardigan and feel all snuggly. (note: it's summer here right now) It was a lovely feeling, something so comforting about wearing such comfy and warm clothing.

The last of the good things that happened today is that I've put a submission in for suggested classes at two of my local community colleges.  Hopefully this will lead to more work for me down the track, but in the meantime I feel good and hopeful that I've put the submissions in.

Oh today I've been remember all those childhood rhymes.  You know:

All Right Vegemite
Far Out Brussel Sprout
Roll Over Pavlova.

They were a series of Children's poetry books here in Australia.  Do you know any more?

A companion

So being at home so much has been getting to me.  I get very lonely and really would like a dog or a cat to keep me company.  I spend far too much time reading animal blogs and watching YouTube.  If only if only if only I lived somewhere I could have a pet.  I'm never going to make that mistake again.  And I can't wait til we have enough money to move!

I thought I'd share this little video though.  I never knew pugs could come in white...he's so adorable.



BTW if you're in Australia and are thinking about getting a pet, check out these sites that have dogs and cats up for rescue and mature adoption. 

Pet Rescue
Dogz Online

Okay just one more...so cute...and yes there is a slight pug obsession going on today.

Dinner Date

Yay!  I got taken out to dinner tonight.  Unfortunately I decided to get myself a glass of wine before the food arrived and got a little tipsy, or as my boyfriend called me, drunk.  So feeling very giddy I found it kind of hard to participate in a serious conversation about my situation at the moment.  I feel terrible about that.  I really should have realised that I had an empty stomache and that with my weak resistance to alcohol it was going to go bad. Luckily my boyfriend didn't seem upset, and given that it's Sunday night I don't feel too bad.  It wasn't even a whole glass!  It is at times like this though that I lament that I'm such a feather weight with alcohol.

I've had an idea for making friends in the area though.  I love making ATCs and wish that there were more in my area who were interested or even that I had some sort of social art group.  Since I can't seem to find one I though that I should try starting one.  I'm doing my research first, to check that there are none about that I can simply join.  Otherwise I'm going to try and make use of community boards, the local library and perhaps the local scrapbooking store to get people together. 

Where I lived before I went to an art class for 4 years every Tuesday evening.  Even though we paid to go, after the first could of terms it was more about being social and having time for art than about the class.  I really miss that and hope I can find a way to get it back.

And make friends!!

Plodding on

It was a loss at Weight Watchers, which I'm very happy about.  However as always there's a but.  It wasn't as big a loss as I would have liked, in fact it was small, only 0.3kg.  I'll take it though, and this week I'll do better.  I'll walk all five days like I'm suppose to and I'll stick to my points more closely.  I'm also going to lower the points I have per day.  I think that perhaps I was right and the computer was wrong with those calculations.  Hey, at least I can cheer about that!

My boyfriend made me get out my cross stitch today which was very good of him for two reasons.  First of all I was complaining of being bored.  What I really meant was that I wanted to go out and do something, I've been feeling a bit confined at home, but he didn't sleep well and only got home last night.  So naturally enough he didn't want to go out.  *sigh*  I could of course have gone out myself and did consider it, but then he suggested that I get out the cross stitch and I'm glad I did.

The cross stitch I'm working on is the partner for one I finished while I was at uni, I can't believe it but that was 10 years ago!  That means I've periodically been working on this cross stitch for 10 years.  That doesn't make me feel good and makes me worry about my inability to finish projects.  If I couldn't look around the room and see other projects I'd worked on over that period of time I'd be seriously worried.  So I'm going to focus on working on getting this cross stitch finished and up on my wall.  Good news is I won't have to worry about money too much for the framing because I already have it, will just have to pay for the labour to have it done.  I can't wait to see them both up on the wall together, but for now I thought I'd show you what the first one looks like. 

Windchimes

I've kept working today on staying active.  I got up for my walk this morning and then cleaned the apartment when I got home.  I then spoilt myself with a trip the art store and bought myself a small set of watercolours so I can start playing with them.  Then I did the grocery shopping.  All by lunch.  I was pretty happy with that. 

But now I'm doing a little art, playing with my watercolours and remembering how bad I am at them. *grin*  The best bit is the fresh wind and the windchimes.  I love the feel of the air flowing around me to the tune of the dancing windchimes.  My boyfriend gave me a glass windchime from Japan, it's called a furin and really makes the most lovely sound.  After living in Japan for 3 years to me it really is the sound of summer and is so relaxing.

Tomorrow I weigh in and see how much I've lost this week.  I hope it goes well!

Art over the last few months

I haven't been doing as much art as I could have been over the last few months. But here is a selection I've done during that time.

This little Faerie was done for an Advent swap. 24 of us made 24 for of the same card and sent them to each other to open over Advent. It was a wonderful swap and such fun to open them over an entire month. I must say that hand drawing her 24 times though was pretty hard work!

These cats were drawn for a person on request. They are actually her cats from three different photos that I combined into one. The littest at the front was the hardest as the angle of the shot was so different from the other two! It's actually much bigger than it looks here. I didn't stick to the usual ATC size for it, couldn't with all the detail needed.

The painting is of Angel falls, it was inspired by the movie "Up" which I really enjoyed. The copic horse was drawn for a friend to trade with for one of her lovely flower paintings. The aged card was done as part of a 5 card series that told the story of a some mysterious documents which told of some impossible animals, plants and a mysterious location.

Moving on

It's been a while since I've blogged and a lot has changed since then. So I've decided to make this blog more of a personal blog rather than purely for my art. I need a place for self expression to help me deal with what I'm going through at the moment.

So where am I? Well I was made redundant from my job last year and now I'm starting up my own business in an attempt to continue my work with teachers to help them with technology in the classroom. This is very slow going, almost a crawl, and is quite disheartening at times. I've never worked for myself like this before and I feel very insecure. My partner is very supportive, but it doesn't change my feelings of self worth when not bringing in any money.

I think one of the other reasons I've been feeling down also is I feel very isolated here. I haven't made a lot of friends since I moved here and I really need to put more effort into that. I know from pervious experiences that it does take effort, so I need to find groups to join and meet people. By the way, gyms are not good places to meet people. I've been trying that for the last year and no one there wants to chat.

The other major difficulty I've been battling with is my weight. I'm the heaviest I've ever been right now and it's time to do something about it. I've rejoined Weight Watchers and have already lost over a kilo, just got to keep that momentum up. I'm walking most mornings (and let's just say that's really astonishing) and keeping to my points. It's going to take time but I will get myself down this year.

So those are my gripes. I know this wasn't a particularly positive entry, but I needed to get that all out so now I can focus on what I'm doing to make a change. I need to get up every morning and put effort into my life to keep it going.

Oh for a blog that I've been enjoying and keeping me smiling, check out the Daily Puglet, it's a great read.