Workacising

So, I have days where I'm extremely productive and eager and motivated, and than periods of time where it seems so hard to get anything done. I had been in a funk for a while lately, and I was starting to get depressed because it is winter, and my clothes don't fit... and it's winter. I stepped on a scale at someone's house this weekend and was shocked to find I had gained 15 lbs. So, I made Ryan promise (it was really hard to get him to promise) to work out with me doing a full P90X routine every morning (we do skip some parts, but we do our best to do everything). We have been doing well, we started on Wednesday morning, because Monday we were traveling, and Monday night through Tuesday kids were sick and up all night. I am so sore!! I hurt all over like someone beat me up. I'm much happier though, I get more done when I force myself out of bed at 5 freaking 45 am. Yeah... I'm not a morning person. Life is much happier though when I get up early, I find I get more done around the house, and I also have a better chance of being motivated to work on art. My sisters really struggle with weight, and it is really hard on their self esteem. I see how it started with gaining 10-20 lbs and than ballooned from there--so I figure it is easier to work with 15 extra lbs than 115. Ryan isn't too happy about getting up early, but I figure he will be happy in a couple months when he feels so in-shape! :) And it really is cute when Violet gets up with us and "workacises" with us.

Piano

Ethan is finally starting piano lessons! I wanted to have him in lessons for a while, but I just had too much on my plate last year to add piano lessons on top of it. Our piano is currently in Burley, and honestly it will be quite a stretch to find a place for it in our little apartment... so, at least for the time being he will practice at the church whenever we can. His first lesson is tonight, but then he will start two Tuesdays from now on a steady schedule. The teacher was completely booked, but when she found out we were Mormon she suddenly said that she could switch some homeschooling clients around. I got the impression that although she isn't Mormon, she has a high regard for Mormons. She started naming off every Mormon in the area she knew to see if I knew them :)

Game Plan

It is hard to be a mom and to pursue any type of career. I am grateful that as an artist I can do my career from home, while also being a mom; however, it is really hard to do that! What with trying to maintain a clean home, cook meals, take care of children... it seems like I am going at the slowest pace possible with my art, so slow that it sometimes seems I'm not going anywhere at all. There is definitely a time and a season for everything, but I also know that I need to be actively pursuing my art in order for me to be happy.

I came up with a new plan that is reasonable and something I can work towards.

• After the two pieces of commissioned art which I'm currently working on are finished, I am going to start putting more emphasis into building my portfolio. (I'm also doing a painting for the church contest, but that is something I will be working on all year long).
• I'm going to advertise asking for models to pose for me so I can work on my drawings and paintings of the human figure, which is what I really want to draw and paint.
• I am setting the goal of having enough high-quality work completed in a couple of years that I can have my own show--a real one located in a gallery.
• At that time I will contact agents and invite them to the show, with the hope of garnering an agent. I already have one in mind, but they are of the level that would require me to be amazing, so I wouldn't do the show until I was confident enough in my work to believe I had a chance.

I love plans, and lists, so after coming up with these new goals I feel a surge of motivation and energy that I had been lacking the last several weeks. It makes it easier to get up every day and wash dishes and do laundry if I know that at the same time I can also work towards something I love. It is also nice to have Violet's sweet face smiling at me as she helps me with dishes.

Toddlers...

Violet has been really having a hard time. She won't eat enough during the day, and then she wakes up very hungry and demanding around 4 am. She then keeps us awake until 7 as we try to get her to go back to bed. She also hates sleeping in her own bed, and wants to sleep in our bed, which is not a great idea because for one, she keeps us awake. Plus, she just needs to sleep in her own bed. So, each night is filled with melt-down; repeated requests for milk--or actually chocolate milk--and I tell her no, she can have regular milk; requests for more books, cereal, songs, cuddling... I tried taking away naps so she would stay asleep all night, but then she is exhausted and falls asleep on the floor or in my arms, so I reinstated naps, but I wake her up at 4. I really don't know what to do. I give her meals, she just won't eat them, even if it is something she likes. She seems to go in phases of eating and not eating. Yesterday she had oatmeal, cereal, a couple green beans, a spoon or so of macaroni and cheese, and a couple bites of eggs with bacon in it. And chocolate milk. It is 8:17 am and she is exhausted because she ended up in my bed at 4 or 5 this morning and begged for cereal off and on for the next several hours. She always seems so listless and lacking energy, and it makes me worry. *sigh.

The other problem is that she won't go to Ryan at all, unless we bribe her. It is starting to hurt Ryan's feelings. She used to be Dad's little buddy but lately we can't even get her to barely sit on his lap. I keep telling myself that it is just a phase.

Lack of sleep is making me grumpy, that and having failed my third attempt at a painting I'm working on. It is a gift for someone, and I want it to be really amazing. Today will hopefully be a successful attempt number 4. And hopefully I'll also get the house clean...

Project

So I am finally converting the kitchen into my art studio. Ryan is not too fond of the baby gate, so he suggested last night that we get a room divider screen. If you have ever shopped for one of those, you know they tend to be rather ridiculous in price, so I'm thinking I want to make one. They honestly look so simple in construction... these are the two ideas I like most:

If I did this one, I would do it a little less intricate. It would be much simpler, but still the basic idea.

If I did this one, the frame would be a different color, and I would do two layers of curtains, with Christmas lights strung between them. Obviously I would have to figure out how to not have it be a fire hazard.

http://www.changeprod.com/stunning-dividers-for-rooms-ideas/amazing-dividers-for-rooms-design
http://www.nygeekcast.com/various-kinds-of-room-dividers-screens/limed-wooden-dressing-screen/

Fatty needs a treadmill...

 Hunter is doing better, I'm fairly certain it is mainly because he is in love with his water dish and the bubbles inside... He seems to have flipped to the polar opposite of emotions and has been overly cuddly and loving, which is completely out of character for him. He is so happy it is pretty funny and nice. He is normally an outdoor cat who only comes in at night, and even than would most often rather be outside. Now, when we put him outside he mainly just sits under a bush all day. As a result he has gained weight. He has always been a very lean cat with impressive muscles. I am hoping that he will recover in summer...

New Year

• I have an "I can conquer the world" attitude lately that I hope doesn't go away. I have not been this confident since I was a toddler.

• I love the movie Frozen, I really relate to Elsa. 

• I am planning on spending the year painting and drawing hundreds of paintings and drawings, and I really believe it will happen.

• I'm converting the kitchen into my art studio... as soon as I get the parts to the baby gate to put up in the doorway  (we got the gate out of storage at Ryan's parents house, and forgot to ask for the parts that secure it in place). It is nice to have family dinners at the table, however both Ryan and I agree that we can easily have them in the living room, as we both think it is important and necessary that I have a place to do art. I am grateful that Ryan agrees and supports me. I find the more confident I get in myself, the more her supports my ideas that once sounded crazy.

• We are in a tiny two bedroom apartment that doesn't have a washer and dryer, is drafty, is a basement type apartment, and doesn't have any insulation in the outside walls of the kitchen--therefore allowing a lot of moisture to build up inside the cupboards (we found this out after discovering puddles underneath our packaged and canned food)... yet we are perfectly happy and content. I think we will actually even stay here for at least a year. It is interesting how you figure out through constant moving and trials what you really want and need to be happy, and for us we have discovered that we don't need or want a big place in order to be happy. We don't want to live here forever, and when we do move we hope we can move into a home we have built (the options for housing in this area are so expensive, that we would rather build a home for the same price it would take to get into a cruddy old home). It won't be a huge home--It will be around 1900 sq ft at the most. I have a friend who is currently living in a very tiny log cabin style home that has a loft for one of the two bedrooms which overlooks the living room and kitchen, and despite the very cozy conditions they and their two kids are the happiest and most content people I have ever known. I want to be the same way.

• I'm doing a large oil painting this year, and I have very high expectations for it. I have the composition planned out, and I am waiting for some reference photo's from one of my models.

• Ryan bought me a new fancy camera for my graduation, and I love it and have no idea how to operate it. I'm going to have to take time to read the manual, because I want to use it to take reference pictures for my painting and drawings, as well as use it to take pictures of my artwork--instead of relying on others to do it for me.

• People continuously ask us at church how we like Lander, as well as if we think we will stay. The truth is that we decided before we moved here that it didn't matter what Lander was like, we were going to love it simply because it has been such a blessing for Ryan to get this job. Honestly, Lander isn't too impressive in winter time; it's pretty boring and cold, and very isolated. We are okay though, and happy simply because we had prayed so hard and for so many years for this job. We are going to therefore be happy regardless of our surroundings.

• It is hard to explain why graduating from a four year university was so important to me, as well as how something so simple could inspire so much confidence in myself. Ryan was surprised at how emotional I was over my graduation; he said that the only thing he felt over his graduation was surprise at school being over. I am the first person in my family--including among my grandparents on both sides, my parents, and my 8 siblings--to get my bachelors. I have some cousins who have graduated, but no one in my immediate family has received their bachelors. I also have many friends who wanted to go to college and could not for financial and confidence reasons. Many feel stuck in cycles of poverty as a result of the poverty they were born into. Others feel they are not smart enough. Sometimes I think that the value of school is beyond what most graduates understand. When I first went to BYU-I after high school I felt that there was no way I could really succeed because I didn't think I was smart enough... I did my best to pretend that I was going to graduate, but I didn't really believe it was possible. Therefore, finishing school built my confidence tremendously, and I will always be greatful that I was able to go and to get a degree that I had worked so hard for.