I went to sleep listening to; Deep Healing Meditation Guide. Five hours later it was morning and I was not ready. Homer made waking up much more enjoyable though. He’s always so happy when I wake up and he smothered me with snuggles.
First stop on the daily agenda was art-ing. Except I didn’t really get to art-ing until the afternoon. Still not doing great at multi-tasking but spending all this extra time with wifey is definitely putting a smile on my face.
After lunch I finished four Puddles. I didn’t get any extra art-ing done but I did spend a couple of hours sifting through keto recipes to put together the rest of the week’s meal plan.
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him preparing a huge sandwich for National Make Lunch Count Day. Douglas wanted to play Scrabble for National Scrabble Day but he got distracted by lunch.
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him picking some fruit in the garden for National Gardening Day. Arthur also celebrated Look at the Sky Day but seemed to miss a visit from some friendly aliens.
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him and Douglas dog doing a photo shoot for National Banana Day. Arthur made a banana bikini, a banana palm leaf skirt and reclined on his yellow car. Rosie will love the photo!
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him with a brand new orchid plant for National Orchid Day. He thinks this is one of the prettiest flowers he has ever seen.
I finished the day with some housework. It wasn’t my most productive day but I got more done than I thought I would when I first woke up. Hopefully I can get a long nights sleep tonight.
I hope your day has been filled with creativity, happiness and a dash of relaxing. Stay safe and stay at home. Take care.
I almost got through the entire meditation guide last night before falling asleep. It was a decent sleep and I woke feeling pretty good around 7 am. Hubby had to go to work for a couple of hours, so it wasn’t really a weekend day….. for him. Apparently I took full advantage of the weekend and didn’t get much done.
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him and Douglas dog gift wrapping a vintage Barbie doll. Arthur thought Rosie would love to celebrate National Barbie Day with a piece of history.
It’s the start of a new Happy List week. The goals are the same as last week. Last week I did fairly good… sort of okay… I did some stuff… not much. Eep! I worked out 4/5 times, did the water drinking, did the watercolouring, I sang twice and I was in bed on time. I know there were bouts of smiling for no reason but didn’t really time them. I’m sure I can do better this week.
Workout, 5 days
Drink 2 bottles of water, 5 days
Watercolour, 3 days
Do art lesson/’how to’, 3 days
Other art-ing, 3 days
Sing, 2 days
Knit, 2 days
Self care and pampering, 2 days
Be in bed by midnight, 4 days
Smile for 10 minutes, for no reason, 5 days
I hope this week is filled full of goodness, success and bouts of uncontrollable smiling. Have fun and take care.
I probably got to bed late last night and I did Guided Sleep Meditation “The Healing Spring”. I must have had it on auto-play because I woke up around 3 am and I was still listening to meditation guides. Homer dog gave me a peaceful night and didn’t wake me up until about 8.30 am.
I started the day with French and Norwegian. It was a good practice on both. I’m still working on the new ‘People’ words in French. I have done this much slower than normal even though I’ve been practising more. I’m not sure how that works.
Then it was onto finding a holiday for my Puddles cartoon. Once I learned what it was about, I really wanted to do a tribute piece for ‘Will Eisner Week‘. So I did a quick Google image search and found the perfect piece. It’s the cover of a book which you can find on amazon: Will Eisner: The Centennial Celebration: 1917-2017. This was such a fun piece to create.
I’m going to keep the same ‘Happy List’ each week for March. I am happier when I do certain things and apparently I need a list to tell me to do them.
Workout, 5 days
Drink 2 bottles of water, 5 days
Watercolour, 3 days
Do art lesson/’how to’, 3 days
Other art-ing, 3 days
Sing, 2 days
Knit, 2 days
Self care and pampering, 2 days
Be in bed by midnight, 4 days
Smile for 10 minutes, for no reason, 5 days
So I think I’m pretty prepped for the upcoming week. I’ll try and stick to a daily schedule of languages, workout, Puddles, other art-ing and then whatever else I may need to get done in the day. Sounds like a busy and fulfilling week.
I hope you have a productive, inspired and creative week. Do all the things that make you smile or just smile for no reason.
January has been a hard month. The weather and my health were big factors to a slightly unproductive month. There are two new habits I’ve developed though; nightly meditation and the Puddles cartoon. Last night I did Pain Relief & Healing GUIDED MEDITATION “The Cleansing Pool”. This has been my go to for the last few nights.
I wanted to sleep in but Homer dog had other ideas for me. The last couple of weeks he has let me sleep in but this morning he bounced up onto the bed for snuggles and plays. Luckily he’s adorable and it’s one of the nicer things to wake up to.
Once out of bed I got straight into French. I even started a new group of words; ‘Shopping’. So far the words have been about clothes, cost and the number eight, nine and ten. It’s the first day, so I have no idea what any of them are. Maybe dress is la robe, purse/bag is le sac and okay, that’s all I can remember.
I have watched this Youtube video, 5 min Easy Watercolor | Rowing boat, a number of times but felt very intimidated by the initial sketch. There were a lot of lines that needed to go the right way and my brain likes to draw them the wrong way. I tried anyway.
Hubby and I have been pretty unorganised the last few weeks and my normal meal planning went out the window. We’ve still been eating well, just, not planned. I whipped up a quick list. It should be a delicious week, with two vegetarian meals.
I always put off doodling because I never know what to draw. I have decided that I will just cycle through the alphabet until doodling feels more natural. For the letter A, I decided to draw an apple. I will complete these daily doodles in 10 minutes.
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him waiting for the mail carrier to arrive. He has left a cupcake in the mailbox to say thank you for Thank a Mail Carrier Day.
I haven’t been doing great at my Happy List the last few weeks and I have been less happy. I’m keeping the list the same as it was last week. I think it’s a good balance of creative and self care. Wish me luck.
Meditate – 5 days
10 minute doodle – 5 days
Watercolour – 3 days
Sing – 2 days
Write meal plan
Use face mask – 1 day
Eat breakfast – 4 days
Be in bed before midnight – 3 days
Workout – 5 days
Smile for no reason for 10 minutes – 5 days
I hope your week has an abundance of smiles, creativity and love. Big hugs for anyone going through a rough time at the moment.
Oops I did it again. I forgot to post about the 30 day; New Year, New You Challenge yesterday. Luckily I remembered about 11.30 pm and plastered a smile on my face because the goal was to smile more. That is one of the things I’ve had on my happy list for a while now and it actually does make you feel good. Try it.
For my bedtime meditation last night I tried; Fall asleep fast guided meditation, A sleep hypnosis. This didn’t work for me at all. The only reason I fell asleep at the end of it is because it was after 1 am and I was already tired.
The first thing I did when I woke up was a workout. It felt so unpleasant. We had a little rain overnight but only enough to make it humid. I pushed through anyway.
In today’s Adventures of Arthur Puddles we find him excited to be the owner of a hula bobble head for National Bobble Head Day.
The morning was spent creating the meal plan for the week. One of the meals was moved from last week and there are three vegetarian meals again. I’m going to have to spend some time finding some new vegetarian recipes. I also like to add a meal that produces a leftover meal from Monday night’s meal, so we can have a quick and healthy meal when hubby gets home from shopping.
I haven’t linked the spinach salad or veggie pizzas because both meals are recipes of our own. But if you want a rough idea; the spinach salad has baby spinach, cooked red onion and feta dressed with balsamic vinegar. The salad is also good with grilled eggplant, grilled capsicum and baby tomatoes. (I don’t eat raw tomato.) The veggie pizza has onion, mushroom, red capsicum, baby spinach, red chilli, pineapple, feta, pizza cheese, tomato sauce on Lebanese bread.
The mid part of the day was unproductive. I really want to blame hubby for being home and distracting me but really it was just I wasn’t disciplined enough to do things. Although I did get my French practice done and it was another top day of timed practice runs.
During the afternoon I went to Skillshare to watch a watercolour class called Painting a Watercolour Poppy: Explore 3 Watercolour Styles. I followed along with the poppy study, doing each sketch quickly in pen as the instructor did. I then watched how she would paint the petals, middle and leaves. That felt intimidating and I didn’t want to try. I then watched the first video which demonstrated loose painterly style. I will do the watercolour tasks soon.
I spent the rest of the afternoon looking for easier art lessons on Skillshare. I think I saved about 10 different lessons from drawing to watercolour. That should keep me busy for the rest of the week.
I hope your day has been filled with colour, creativity and cake.
It’s New Years Eve. Woo hoo! I’m really looking forward to jumping into the New Year. Before I do, I’d like to take a quick look back at 2019.
On March 4, I started this blog. I created the blog as a way of keeping myself accountable as I strive to achieve 40 goals by the time I turn 40.
The first 10 goals are health based and I have chipped away at a number of them. I have been working out 5 days a week for months and have continued to improve my diet and water intake. Next year I plan on doubling those efforts. More veg, more fruit, more water and longer, harder workouts. There has been more smiles and good feels too.
I was developing a pretty solid meditation routine but I stopped a few months in. I will make a return to meditating but most likely opt for a nighttime guide, so I can try and get better sleep. I want to learn to calm my brain too.
I have been more online social. It’s hard to be any other kind of social while I’m still not leaving the house. I have done things far outside of my comfort zone though like joining Discord channels with multiple people. I will continue the baby steps until I’m comfortable to step outside again.
The next 10 goals are house based and there wasn’t much progress in this area. We’ve tried growing a couple of veggies during winter but nothing has been successful. I’m kind of glad that we didn’t go ahead with a garden this past spring because we’re now heavily in drought and we most likely would have lost it all anyway. Fingers crossed for some rain before Spring 2020 when I am determined to get the garden started.
As for house renovations, cleaning, organising, we have definitely made some ground but no where near enough. Not sure how to get more focused in this area but it is going to take the support of hubby and wifey to pull it off.
Goals 20 to 40 are more creative and learning based. I have started my art journey by dabbling with pencil, watercolour pencils, acrylic paint, charcoal and ink. I took part in many Doodlewash challenges and Inktober. I am still trying to find my feet in the art world and workout what I would like to focus on. I plan on taking many art classes in 2020.
I started learning French on Duolingo. I used Duolingo for 166 days and completed 1,499 lessons. I spent over 100 hours learning 5,247 words.
While I don’t have a lot to show for my writing, I spent a good couple of months working on some short stories.
In the New Year I will be setting a monthly goal list of 10 things (it seems to be the magic number for lists.) I will also be doing a weekly ‘Happy List’. It’s like a to-do list but more focused on things that will make me feel happier if I do them. I know I will be happier if I am consistently learning and practising skills, so they will always feature heavily.
I would like to thank everyone who has followed, liked and commented on my blog. It has been very encouraging and helped me a lot to stay focused. You are an amazing blogging community for constantly uplifting and inspiring.
I hope you all have a very safe and magical New Years Eve. I hope that no matter where you are or who you’re with, that you smile. A New Year is about to begin and this is your year to make dreams come true. Good luck with dreams and goals in 2020. If you need encouragement, you know where to find me.
*BIG SMILES AND HUGS FOR ALL*
Tilly
It was 38 degrees today. This was what the sky looked like at 4 pm with the smoke haze.
I woke just before the alarm and was sorta okay about starting the day. First thing on the agenda was French practice. I’m going to spend another week going over what I’ve already learned. I think my French brain is full and needs a little time for these new words to soak in.
Once hubby had disappeared to work, I worked out. I was still feeling sore from yesterday’s workout but that didn’t stop me pushing hard. There are aches on top of aches but… I like it.
Next it was time to put together a meal plan. I didn’t feel like doing it, so there are no new meals this week. It’s still a delicious week of fairly healthy meals, including two vegetarian meals.
Then it was time for art. I didn’t know what to do for art and the longer I spent trying to find something, or even settle on which medium to use, the more frustrated and anxious I felt until I just couldn’t art.
After hours of beating myself up, I tried to do some ‘quick sketches’ and doodling. I decided to use ink so I couldn’t change my mind 100 times and I didn’t care how rough I was about it. It wasn’t a good experience. It just made me feel less creative when it all went wrong.
The only thing I can do is try again tomorrow.
I hope you’ve had a successful day. If not, good luck with your attempt tomorrow. You got this.
In some ways I was thankful when Homer woke me up this morning. I was having a horrible dream. In the dream, wifey was here and life was going on as normal. I woke up (still in the dream), her things were gone, she was gone and I couldn’t contact her. I was heartbroken. Even though it was just a dream, her things are still in the closet and I spoke to her this morning, my heart has just ached all day. The dream was too real and I miss her too much.
I’ve spent hours looking for inspiration for any art medium. It’s been about a week since I’ve used watercolour and I really want to do something but the things that catch my eye are either too hard or far too simple. I have talked myself out of a number of things that probably would have been rather enjoyable to create. I have a number of portraits I’d like to do but they are very time consuming and I didn’t want hubby watching my terrible attempts. I feel self conscious and for no good reason.
My art learning journey has been pretty haphazard. At first it felt like an okay place to start, dabbling in little bits of lots of things. Just pretending to know what to do with each new medium and trying to create art. That’s the thing though, I don’t know how to use any of it and that is making me feel anxious about doing it. I know it seems silly seeing I have been doing it for a few months now but this thought is a crushing weight on my brain today.
Once rational brain decided to kick back into gear, I worked out the meal plan for the week. Every meal is new to us. All the recipes are from; https://food52.com/
I got my French practice done and a new week is about to begin. I’ll set new goals, I’ll learn new things and I will shake off the very silly inner negative commentary from today.
Good luck if you’re starting a new project, big hugs if you’re struggling and most of all I hope you all have a wonderfully inspired, sunshine filled, satisfying week.
Oh Day 217, you are my least favourite of all the days. I knew this morning would be hard and it was. My reaction in the hours after wifey left, was not really what I had expected.
Last night we cried a lot and fell asleep exhausted around 11 pm. I woke at 1.30 am worried that we’d missed the alarm. I went back to sleep until the alarm did go off. I cried some more. We sipped coffee together for the last time on this trip and wifey went about getting ready to leave. I cried.
No matter how hard I tried to keep myself together, tears would continue to bounce down my cheeks. Before I knew it 5.30 am was upon us and hubby and wifey were ready to head to the airport. I held her as long as I could and then they were gone. I cried. In fact, I wailed and sobbed. As I walked through the house there were so many of wifey’s thing scattered about that it almost felt like she was still here.
I sat down on the sofa and decided to sing. One thing I learned when I was working as a radio announcer is; if you smile while talking (or singing) then your voice will sound lighter and brighter. Singing meant I needed to plaster a smile on my face. There were smiles. There were tears.
I was inspired to draw another penguin cartoon. This little guy will be the star of his very own adventure cartoon in 2020. I promise there’ll be less tears for him in the future.
Project Penguin coming 2020
I wanted to continue the creative and started to pencil sketch a portrait of French actor, Romain Duris. It took about 30 minutes for the first rough sketch.
WIP – Romain Duris
With all that under my belt it had hit 8.30 am. WORKOUT TIME! So, this was one habit I thought I had formed and neither hell nor high water would stop me. Then we got sick near the beginning of wifey’s trip and I didn’t work out for about 3 weeks. The next week or two I did minimal workouts until they had fizzled into nothingness. I have been disappointed at myself for not being more disciplined.
Anyway, I climbed back onto the workout horse (not an actual horse) and got through the first 15 minutes very quickly. I was tempted to stop. I wanted to justify a half workout as a way of ‘getting back into’ working out. Rubbish! I went the full 30 minutes and pushed harder than I have before.
Then I started a new set of ‘home’ French words and practised for about 30 minutes before heading off to the kitchen to get it all in order. Housework hasn’t really been a thing for the last few days.
By lunchtime I was tired and unmotivated. It was understandable though. I’d been awake since 3 am and had only got about 4 hours of interrupted sleep the night before. I spent the rest of the day in bed and woke up feeling just as exhausted.
I whipped up a meal plan for the week. Hubby will do a little shop on Friday to get us through to the next pay day, then it will be a weekly shop again.
Today was a pretty chill day. Wifey and I spent most of the day playing WoW and having fun together. Hubby pottered around fixing the taps and a couple of other odd jobs.
By late afternoon I decided to do a quick sketch for the Inktober 2019 prompt; 27. Coat. I wanted to do something you would ‘coat’ with paint, so I found a cute pop art-ish nail polish reference and created my version in about 10 minutes. Once Inktober is over I’ll spend more time working on pop art inspired ink sketches.
I spent some time looking up some Halloween food ideas. I found some great galleries and a handful of recipes. You can check out my Halloween collection on Pinterest. I also put in an order for some interesting Halloween treats. Stay tuned for all the details.
I continued the food theme and whipped up a meal plan for the week filled with meals that wifey wanted again. I made it an 8 day plan so we’d still have food for the night before she leaves.
I finished the day with French. It was a positive practice. There are some words I haven’t had come up in a while and I still remembered them. That made me feel good.
I’m not sure what the coming week will bring. I’ll try and do some creative and get back to working out. I think it’s mostly going to be spending time with wifey though. This is her last week here and it is usually pretty hard on both of us.
I hope your week is filled with things that make you smile. Good luck if you’re starting a new project or a new job. I believe in you. You’ll do great.
40 'fore Forty 