Eating Failure and Parenting Success

I'm frustrated about the fact that I put weight back on this weekend even after being so careful.  So I was pouting today and didn't eat well at all.  I was actually doing the whole "it's not working anyway so why put myself through that" rationalization while I ate too much at lunch.  I know it was immature and counter-productive, so I plan on getting back on track tomorrow.

One thing that hasn't been frustrating me lately is my interactions with my children.  They've both been so pleasant and fun lately.  My son has been very compassionate and kind to my husband as he deals with the loss of his grandmother.  When my kids were little they used to tell us that the angels painted the sky when they saw the sunrise.  Last Friday morning here in Denver we had a particularly beautiful sunrise and my son told my husband, "it looks like a new angel painted the sky today, it must be Grandma."  That certainly helped to soften the grief a little bit.  He attended a sleepover birthday party this past weekend and the birthday boy's mother told me that her little son was attached to my son at the hip and that my son was so good with him.  My son can be uber-challenging at times, so I really treasure these times.

My daughter decided she wanted to paint with her spare time yesterday.  She's not 100% pleased with the result, but for a quick afternoon craft: color me impressed.  She may go back and touch it up as the bottom of the silhouette isn't dark enough for her tastes.

She's really getting to the age where she makes a good companion now.  She's always been fun to be around, but now she's reaching the age where we can have actual conversations (she'll be starting high school in the fall.)  With today being Martin Luther King, Jr. day, they've been studying him in school.  She told me that they had learned about some of the less inspirational parts of his life the other day and she wasn't sure she liked hearing that.  I told her that I actually find it more inspirational that a human being with all of our shortcomings and failings could muster the strength and courage to do the things he did.  I think it actually made sense to her and opened her eyes a little bit.  I loved having little kids, and I still miss having little ones running around, but I am finding a great deal of enjoyment in parenting older children now too.

Deep Freeze and Envy

Current picture out my back door

It's cold here right now, bitterly cold.  When I woke up this morning the thermometer showed -4 degrees.  Then as I worked out, I watched it continue to drop down to -6 degrees.  It's started to warm up a little now, to -2 degrees, although it feels like -14 with the wind chill and it's snowing.  Our high today is supposed to be 1 degree.  I actually don't mind it terribly, I'm on vacation and staying warm and toasty in my house.  My husband, my son, and I are going with my father-in-law to see the last Hobbit movie today, but that's also indoors, so it'll only be the walk from the car to the movie theater that will be uncomfortable.

Picture of the stormy sky last night

I'm feeling somewhat envious this morning.  I love art, and frequently wish that I could create it, but I can't.  There are areas where I'm creative.  I can write formulas in Excel that surprise even the Finance department.  I take photographs that sometimes capture a different perspective.  I sometimes think I can "paint a picture" with words.  I wrote and delivered my father's eulogy this year and got lots of compliments on both the content and the delivery.  I've always loved to write and I lettered in speech in high school.  But I can't use a blank piece of paper and a pencil to make something beautiful.  My husband and my daughter both can, which is why I'm feeling envious.

The finish was ruined on this old guitar, so my husband's uncle just gave it to him. My husband decided to make it look nice again, and he painted this in his free-time.  He didn't have any templates or anything, he just sat and drew.  He also drew the new logo for the elementary school where he taught for fifteen years.  He doesn't create art all the time, but when he feels like it, he can just sit down and do it.

My daughter made this picture using a pen and ink, and I do mean the old-fashioned pen where she had to dip it in the ink.  She was inspired by a drawing of bird and birdhouse, and then took off from there.  She frequently draws in her free-time (when she's not reading) and is getting to be very good. Apologies for the poor picture quality, it's behind glass hanging at my in-laws' house and there were too many lights to get a clean photo; and I didn't think it would be very polite to turn all the lights off while my mother-in-law was making dinner.

I guess I shouldn't want to be something that I'm not.  I should be thankful for the talents that I do have, they serve me well in supporting my family financially.  But I can't help feeling a little jealous when two of the people I live with can sit down and draw and create something beautiful for others to see, and I just can't.

Contrast

This has been a somewhat challenging week at work.  My boss is out of town for meetings, and we've got a board meeting coming up so she needs to keep having several meetings with all of us here to make sure that the board materials are finalized.  She was in California for the beginning of the week, then New York, so she's been in multiple time zones that we've had to work with.  She's pretty bad about calendar management when she's here in the office, so being out of the office it's been even worse.  She keeps scheduling meetings, then changing meetings at the last minute, then expecting us to drop everything else and meet immediately, and also double-scheduling meetings with outside vendors which I have to clean up.   I'm going to have a serious conversation with her the next time we're both in the office (which won't be next week since I'll be traveling).  I don't have time to do my job, which requires focused time, and manage her calendar.  I realize that this is an area where I'm not particularly strong, but I'm a bit OCD and I'm a planner, and these moving-target meetings are not the way I in which I work best.

Yesterday afternoon I was on one of the calls while I was driving my kids to their piano lessons.  The call continued for the entirety of my son's lesson, so I didn't get my normal 1:1 time with my daughter which was disappointing.  Thankfully, it was over when my daughter went in for her lesson, so I got to go with my son to the park.  It was the perfect salve for a work day like that one.  We walked together and visited.  We swung together, even though my hips are a bit wide for the swing these days.  We watched hundreds of seagulls circling overhead.  We played in fallen leaves.  The contrast between the hectic day and the calming evening was very pronounced yesterday.  I could feel the tension and stress draining away from my mind and my body as I spent some time with my kiddo.  My son also had a good night, so for now the new plan with him seems to be working.

This pictures are all from my camera phone, so they're not quite as crisp, but they still captured the walk.

Cottonwood tree in the afternoon sunlight.

A Flock of Seagulls (the actual birds, not the band!) ;)

Making it rain...leaves.

The park bench in all its autumnal splendor.

This little flower is still going strong, even though it's almost the end of October.

Tonight after my son's gymnastics class we're going to turn the Halloween music on and carve our pumpkins.  So no matter what happens at work today, I know that I'll have that to look forward to!  I hope all of my readers have a great day too.

What is Art?

I've had some thoughts on art recently based on some photography that I've seen.  I follow a blog called Digital Photography School because I always want to keep improving and getting better.  There was a post last week with pictures of splashes, and the one that really caught my eye was called A Splash of Rose.  The post this week contained spooky images, and some of these are simply amazing.  These kinds of pictures are what I consider "art."  These are the kinds of things that not just anyone can do, it takes an artist to create these images.  I've been considering for quite some time trying to create a website and sell my photography.  While I have a good eye for composition and I keep my eyes open for photographic opportunities, I'm not so sure that I make pictures that anyone else with a good camera couldn't capture.  So I haven't tried to sell my work because at this point I don't think it's close enough to art to really interest anyone.  If I can’t do something unique that couldn't be done by the average person, why would anyone want to spend money on it?

This is similar to the way I feel about some abstract art:  I could make some of those things, as could anyone else.  It’s only when it’s unique and takes a level of talent not enjoyed by the average person, that I find it to be art worth appreciating.  My husband has a different take on abstract art.  He thinks that it's still art if someone thought it up.  However, if all it took was an idea, I'd be a published author hundreds of times over.  I just don't think it's difficult to come up with a good idea.  Executing on the idea is the hard part.  So we have to agree to disagree on this one.

One place where I do have unique “artistic” talent is in how I can use math and formulas to create tools for others.  That’s something that I can do that not everyone else can do.  Which is why someone pays me to do math, and no one has ever paid me to take pictures, or create a cross-stitch (something else I enjoy).

I do have the Lightroom download on my wishlist for Christmas this year so that I can start doing some post processing, and maybe once I get good at that I'll start feeling like I have a product that's worth selling.  I used to think that it wasn't real photography if you couldn't make it look the way you wanted to directly from the camera.  But I have a picture that I took late this summer of cherries on a tree that would really pop if I could make the photo black and white and just keep the cherries in color.  I also know that you can't get some photos straight out of the camera if the background and foreground need to be captured with different exposure levels.  So I'm hoping that I get my Christmas wish so maybe I can start getting more artistic and eventually reach a place where my pictures are better than just anyone can make with a decent camera, where I actually produce photographic art.

Leaves in the flowers, which are still blooming since it's been so warm this fall.

 

Our maple is finally turning yellow.

A bush in our backyard.  This has gone through some post-processing to really make the red pop.