Starting To Change

It's been forever, hasn't it?  

It sure seems like it!

I've been adjusting (more on that later) and I actually managed to do a couple of art journal pages, so I thought I'd share them with you...as proof that I'm not dead and all that...

The first page is for JOURNAL 52...week 5...the television prompt, posted way back in January...yes, I am that behind...shame of shames!

"You spent half your life trying to turn the other half around."  -Kathleen Edwards

What does that page have to do with TV you ask?  The words are from this song by Kathleen Edwards, called "Six O'Clock News":

I am not a TV watcher by nature...even when I do, I've got to do something else while I watch...and I wasn't really feeling the TV prompt...until I remembered that song and the line "You spent half your life trying to turn the other half around."  Which I really like and had more to do with where I'm at right now than any other TV related thing, so I just went with it.

And then there's the DOCUMENTED LIFE spread...also from way back in January...I feel so behind!  (Probably because I AM THAT BEHIND!)  The Art Challenge for this spread was "writing" and the Journal Prompt was "words with friends" and here's what I came up with:

You can't see it very much, but I used writing as my beginning layer...it only shows through in a few places.

I got the words on this page from this song, "Time to Leave" by Melissa Ferrick:

And I think they are some wise words indeed:

"You can't fix anyone else, babe."

"Being a friend means knowing when it's time to leave"

Aside from getting a little art journaling in, KAT MCNALLY'S APRIL MOON (still time to join!) has started, and I've been pondering the prompts in my head...she's got such a knack for helping you get to the meat of things, instead of just fluttering on the surface...she just asks the right questions, I guess.  

Kat's Reverb14 prompts last year had a very profound affect on me.  In fact, they are part of the answer to the first April Moon prompt: 

"That's when I knew that this chapter of my life had ended.  And now I was free to..." 

The thought of leaving my husband is something that had occurred to me many times...but there was always a reason not to...me talking myself out of it with one thing or another.  Because it's wasn't something to do lightly.  So I stayed and things just kept piling up and piling up and I stayed and things piled.  And for years of my life, I waited and hoped things would change.  But they didn't change.  And so I decided that maybe if I changed, then it would be an inspiration to others and then they would change too.  But that's not what happened.

There was a point last year, during Reverb14, where I was sitting there typing my answer to one of the prompts and I thought to myself 'I don't want to live this life'.  I was so, so tired of trying and trying and having nothing to show for it.  I'd worked hard to make things better...but I was the only one who was changing...everything around me stayed very much the same...despite my needing it to be otherwise...despite my pleas for something/anything to be different.  

And something in me just snapped...I knew that nothing was ever going to change.  I knew that I was always going to live this same sad existence every day and have that for my life.  And I knew that I did not want to live that life forever.  There had been so much opportunity for things to have ended differently between my husband (Andy) and myself, but Andy was comfortable with the way things were...he didn't want anything to be different, and he didn't seem to care very much about what I wanted. This is not different from the entirety of my marriage...the difference is that I was not ok with it anymore, and I was not willing to keep trying.  He made his choice, and I'm not mad about it...I just wasn't going to let him make my choices anymore.  I needed things to be different and I wasn't going to be the only one compromising any more.  One person can't hold up the world.

And so I left, and I've been staying with my mom since January.  And in some ways, I feel in transition still...not settled...because this is not the end of the line for me...I will get my own place eventually and have my own space and take care of myself completely by myself...and so as I sit here and type away on mom's computer, in mom's house, I feel like a bit of a transient.  

But the thing is, I know now that I am free to do things differently.  That I won't always have this feeling of unrest...that I will find a place to put down roots.  I don't have to do the same things I've always done.  I can make another choice.  I can forge my own path.  And I'm working on it.

And that leads me to the second prompt for April Moon:

 "Knowing what I know now, I would tell my ten-years-ago self:"

Not to damn wait.  

Ten years ago, I was a year and a half into my marriage, and had pretty well already started to have doubts about it.  Instead of listening to my gut, I listened to other people.  People, who despite having the best of intentions, didn't really have the right to decide what I should do.  I chose to listen to them, and I lost a lot of time and opportunities.

I would tell my former self to get it together...pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get to it.  Nobody in life is going to hand you what you want, and you don't get anything by sitting there wishing for it.  If you want it, go work for it.  Don't let anybody tell you who you are and don't let anybody guilt you into being something that you don't want to be.

I'd tell her the same thing I am telling myself today:  Figure out what it is that you want and go get it.  Knuckle down, quit your whining and make things happen.  You don't get to blame anyone else ever again.  Whatever you end up with, good or bad, is because of your actions or lack of them, so whatever choice you make, you better be ready to make it work.

And on that forceful note, I'm done for today...

I'll leave you with some cuteness...Frida the adorable (and growing like a weed) puppy dog:

Had to trick her with treats next to the camera so as to get her to stay still...

...the paw on the leg is the last ditch effort at patience...half a second after I snapped this pic, she jumped up, head-butted me and stole the treat...

Reverb14 Days 1-3

I wanted to play along with Kat McNally's REVERB14, which I found out about through the fabulously interesting DEBORAH WEBER, but I missed the first couple days, so I wanted to catch up...

I thought I'd share a few sketches with you from my bedroom sketchbook while I answer the questions..."bedroom" because I sketch before I go to sleep...not because there are naughty drawings in it...shame on you for thinking such a thing! Heathens!  :)

Day 1 question: What can you say right now with certainty?

First, that I'm never certain about anything...we've talked about this before... 

Second, that the year is almost over.  And this means that I've almost finished two year-long projects, Documented Life and Journal 52.  And I'm certain that I'm REALLY proud of myself for sticking with it.  I can be a bit flaky at times and I wanted to work on that...and now, a few weeks short of a year later, I can finally say that, even though I can be flaky, I can also see things through to completion!  That's a big deal for me!

And third, related to the second thing, I am certain that I have grown a lot this past year.  I'm really happy that I have the blog, because it shows me how far I've come.  Sometimes I take baby steps, and sometimes I backslide, but looking back over this past year through the eye of the blog, I really have made forward progress!  That's an AWESOME feeling!

I use the bedroom sketchbook as a place where I can blatantly copy (well, as closely as I can...) cool sketches I've seen on Pinterest.  You can see the originals on my Pinterest board, "Copycat With Respect".

Day 2 question: What unfinished projects from 2014 are you willing to release now? (Regret not required.)  

Last December, which seems worlds away, one of my goals for 2014 was to get better at realistic drawings...there was a plan, involving a sketchbook and a determined attitude...but that plan ended up not happening.  And that's ok.  Overall, my art has improved.  I've done enough practicing that it has to have improved!  I will take one small step in the right direction over being stagnant any day!  

That doesn't mean that I've completely let go of this goal.  It just means that I release it for now.  I tend to put a lot on my plate and then can't finish it all (I think it's one of the reasons I end up being 'flaky')...and that's what happened with this goal.  That doesn't mean I won't keep trying in the future, just that I'm ok with the fact that I didn't put that much effort into it so far.

I like so many different styles of art and I constantly try to make progress...I want to get a little better with every attempt!  And I think that learning more about one kind of art, getting better at one style of it, improves my artist's eye over all.  And that's FANTASTIC!

So maybe 2015 will be the year of the realistic drawing...or maybe it won't.  As long as I keep making art and as long as I slowly and steadily keep improving at it, that's more than enough for me.

These bunnies were too cute not to try to copy them!

Day 3 question: It's all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect.  What can you love about where you are now?

At this exact moment, I'm loving that I have some good friends in my life...especially the kind of friend who buys me Mexican food...which happened last night.  I haven't had a spontaneous outing with a friend for a really, really, really long time...and it was SO FUN!

Despite my recent realization that I've somehow become a person who likes consistency and routine, there are still times that it makes me feel a little like a caged bird.  So it's good to be able to stretch my wings a bit and remember the feeling of enjoying the unexpected...even when that feeling comes as a result of a friend locking her keys in her house!  (It was Sweets to the rescue...I felt like Underdog: "Here I am to save the day!")

It's nice to have someone in my life who I can laugh with, take turns venting frustrations with, and someone who will tell me the truth, even if that's not what I want to hear.  Finding someone who will be honest with you (especially someone who does it in a kind way) is a rare and glorious thing, and it's very precious to me.

And who doesn't love a good fairy godmother!  I am pretty darn proud of this one!  My copying skills at their finest! 

So now I'm caught up  with Reverb14...despite my love of all things art journaling, I do like a good set of writing prompts once in a while!  I think it stretches my creative brain in a different direction.  I think, if inspiration strikes, I might like to make pages to go along with some of the prompts...but we'll see how it goes...

December has kind of turned into a blog-a-thon month for me...three posts in three days?!?  Crazy!  You know, I haven't done a single blog-a-thon all year, and last year I did several...  Maybe a December blog-a-thon will send 2014 off right?  I mean, I'm accidentally off to a good start...perhaps we'll see how far I can get before the laziness kicks in?