Mid-day Dawn

This fella fell of when the wind knocked the big one over

Good morning pages, my drawing practice is coming along really well. Of course when what I’m making is pleasing to the eye that makes me feel good but beyond that it’s becoming easier to draw for longer periods of time, that fills me with confidence and motivation for the future. I have been at a point similar to this in the past and burned out. I was doing four hours of drawing a day and trying to get to eight; probably too quickly. It’s a story I’ve lived time and time again. A lesson I learned by growing trees from seed is that growth takes a lot longer than you think. I’m learning to enjoy the journey though.

In other news, yesterday was a bigger day for me than I was thinking about. I guess I knew I’d have to buckle down and focus for it, so I had my two therapy appointments and then the at-home interview for Big Brother Big Sister(BBBS). We finished our module in group therapy, so I won’t have that again until at least mid January. I also won’t have individual therapy until after Christmas. My therapist said my smile seemed easier, I agree and it felt nice to hear. I’ve also been ecstatic at how my BBBS interview went. She asked the types of questions like what my life was like growing up, who were some mentors to me, why do I want to work with kids and it was genuinely a lot of fun talking about working as a big brother. Next step should be that she will call me with a little that she’s matched me with or possibly a couple and I’ll choose one. After that I get to meet them and we’ll be allowed to hang out! It’s so crazy, I don’t know why it seemed like an impossible dream to get this going, all it really took was my therapist asking, “What would happen if you visited BBBS for more information?” I didn’t have an answer so as soon as I had the time, I went down. I’m really happy and I hope you are too. Take care of yourself, challenge yourself and reach out for help when you feel you need to. Thank you.

Catching Waves

My prickly pear, tomorrow I’ll share the “branch” that fell off

Today is another one of those Tuesday is for therapy days. I actually have a pretty busy day by my standards. In two hours is my individual therapy, afterwards I’m planning on doing my food shopping. Then I’ve got a pretty big chunk of time before group therapy. I didn’t go to group therapy last week partly because we had a cold front and I didn’t want to leave the house, but also because I had a dip in my depression and didn’t want to leave the house. Towards the end of the day I’ll have my BBBS meeting. This morning I felt a little low, but I don’t think it’s an energy low, I think it’s some sort of allergy thing. I felt similar yesterday morning, both days I took a shot of this nasal steroid for allergies and it helped a lot yesterday. I’m hoping it will be better in a bit, but I’m planning on taking things easier today anyway.

I was astonished with how much unscheduled drawing I was able to do yesterday. I would see an opportunity to draw, like if I was only listening to something. Before I know it what I’m listening to will finish and I’m sill drawing. I’d put the paper and pencil down because I have to be conscious not to burn out, a little while later I’d be right back at it. My goal was just to draw at one point during the rest of my day and I exceeded my expectations. The real tough part is that I have to do that for the rest of my life. It sounds harder than it is because I’ll want to do it, but also as time goes on it will become more natural. It’s like if when I was 12, someone said, “You have to carry around this ½ pound computer everywhere you go and make sure not to crack it.” I’d feel so burdened by it, but billions of people are getting on just fine with their smart phones. As it brings you more joy, you want it to be around more.

Not Today

My practice from today

It’s that time again for Chris’ brain dump. I’m currently making food to meal prep for my week. I’ve got 360 g of rice boiling next to a minced onion grilling. That’ll be the entree of lunch for the next eight days. I also started cooking pasta for my dinners but I’ll do that once the rice is done because I only have so many big pots and burners. I’m also trying to roast a head of garlic for some added flavor to the pasta. It’s about finding the balance of ease to do and flavor brought. I could eat my pasta with just red sauce, but it’s nothing to get excited about. When I added the onion to my rice I started to get excited about it.

Today is going pretty well, I’m technically already done everything I’m supposed to do today. My wife had to wake up an hour early today, so I wake up early to make her breakfast. Then I went to the gym. Honestly, it feels a bit like cheating how easy it is to go to the gym these days. I guess I’ve adopted the attitude of just do it and that’s what has made it easy. Funny to think all the time we spend mentally preparing or relaxing before we do something is actually energy we’re wasting, just get it done and you’ve saved that energy with the rest of your day open.

Then some how immediately after breakfast I rolled right into drawing practice. I knocked out an hour of drawing which is great and my goal, but I want more and if I have the rest of the day almost entirely free, I should be doing some drawing because why not Chris? You want to be great at that and the only way you’re going to get on the same level as people who do have their pencils moving all day is if you become one of those people. You will become who you are. Your destiny awaits you, how many more days are you going to put it off because you’re afraid. Not today.

Saltwater Salad Dressing

The sharing plant, Pilea. They propagate quickly.

Good morning pages, I’ve put you off for long enough today and I don’t want to forget to do it entirely. Not much going on this weekend, been relaxing with the wife. I just got finished cleaning the house. On Tuesday I have my at-home interview with someone from Big Brother Big Sister. They’re going to see if the house is safe for a kid, get to know me better and what kind of kid I’d like to be paired with. I don’t have any preference, just looking to help. Hopefully I can be a good example and offer encouragement in the directions of life they’d like to travel. You know the old, “It’s dangerous to go alone, take this.” Clean up didn’t take too long and literally most of what we did yesterday was lay around the house to relax, I learned my lesson this week when I had my crash that weekends still need to be taken for recovery. I wish I could work all day everyday, but right now I might be able to get to 9-5 Monday through Friday and that’s a huge accomplishment for me. Getting that can be a stepping stone to working more, but I’ve got to get stable with that load first.

Last night I made a set up so I could have pencil and paper everywhere I go. Something I heard someone say was just to have your hand moving all day, so that is sort of a goal. With that it’s important for me to recognize that doesn’t mean I’m trying draw perfect lines of shapes and intricate shading, but drawing anything even random squiggly lines. It’s step by step; crawl walk run. There are some area where I can run but if everything isn’t brought up to that level, I’ll feel the imbalance and it will show in my art. My dad found my instagram and last night sent me some very nice messages. I’m really happy to have that available to read whenever I want and love him dearly.

I’m Beginning to See the Light

Can you see why this is called an “African mask plant”?

I hope you’re having a beautiful Saturday morning. Some how I’ve developed the habit of waking up early and going to the gym. It’s a fairly new concept to me because I’m used to having to talk myself into it. Now I don’t set an alarm, but at 6 am I’m fully awake and go to the gym because what else am I going to do at 6 am. I’m so surprised at this because I went out last night. I know my definition of going out is much more muted than it was 10 years ago. One of the guys from my wood working class invited me to his place and a couple of the other classmates were there. It was four other guys and and their ages range from 20-23. 

I’m 31 and am very self conscious of my age hanging around them. Part of me thinks I don’t want to hang out too much with people that much younger than me, but I do want to get to know my classmates better and feel a bit of an obligation hopefully be a good example for how to hold themselves as adults. Then on one hand I think, “Who are you to be offering advice to people, you think you’re better than them?” No, but I do think I made mistakes because I acted like a young boy and there are certain mistakes that it would be better for them to avoid if they can. I don’t want to tell anybody what they should do, but I want people to know of possible pit falls that I’ve encounter, how I landed in them, what I did to get out and what I learned from the experience. We’re all learning from new experiences everyday, even if that experience is that you’re another day older. If people talked about those things more freely and without letting their ego restrict what they hear or say, we would all be better for it.

Lose Weight at a Moderate Pace with these not so Simple Tricks

Quick selfie so you know what I’m working with

I woke up this morning and got right out of bed, now that leaves me with a little extra time that I’m not used to. I have to kill about 15 minutes because I don’t want to eat my breakfast yet. I’m sure it wouldn’t matter much, but it’s a psychological thing with me at least that if I eat earlier than I’m “supposed to” that I will run out of fuel earlier in the day. Then I’d most likely have to eat more than my diet plans. I should discuss my diet plans. You might already know my goal is to lose 10 lbs. I’m about 50 lbs down from my heaviest. 

Fitness is always something I’ve been into since I was a kid, from my first weight loss plan around 16 years old. Everyone in my family is heavy set and obviously at that age you’re thinking about your looks a lot. Every year I was getting heavier and it was as if I had no control over it. Then I started to learn and take control. It all started with high school biology. My teacher was explaining the different energy storage systems your body has, that if the immediate storage was depleted the body would have to burn fat for energy. I devised a plan where everyday at 7 pm I’d throw on some DVDs of the show Futurama and ride an exercise bike. For the first 4 minutes I would go all out, then comfortably ride until 10 minutes, then at every 10 minute interval I would go all out for 2 minutes(this was to keep that immediate storage empty because the body will replenish it. I still didn’t know anything about diet, but it worked, people started to notice my weight loss and my family looks at me as, “he’s always been skinny”. In the fitness industry, what I was doing later became known as High Intensity Interval Training, or HIIT.

To move ahead in the story a bit, I joined the Army and was physically active there. Then got a B.S. in Kinesiology(exercise science) and got my ACSM personal trainer certification. I say around 27 years old my metabolism slowed down significantly and that’s when I got to my heaviest weight of 235 lbs. I probably lost about 30 lbs of that with diet alone, it’s a much more powerful tool at weight loss than exercise. I used to have an excel spread sheet with different food items to track calories. Then I was at a 1,000 calories daily deficit which if followed means 2 lbs of weight loss a week. 

I’m currently on a 500 daily deficit because it’s easier and you shouldn’t lose more than 1% of your body weight a week, since I’m under 200 lbs, I lose less than 2 lbs. I now use an app called Lose It(not sponsored) that my wife introduced me to, it makes tracking calories incredibly easy compared to what I was doing. Like nearly everyone, I’ve always wanted visible abs probably because the TV told me I should look that way. I’m hoping to get down to 175 in the next 17 weeks because my wife and I have a vacation to Cancun planned and it would be a good finish line. If you want to take any of this as advice to help you in your goals, please do and if you have any fitness related questions feel free to reach out.

Bout to Chisel Some Wood

My first adult painting

Good morning pages, it’s before woodworking and I’m eating breakfast. I’ve got a nice big bowl of steamed carrots, sure wish these were steamed hams though, or is it clams? Anyway not much going on with me, since my dip earlier this week I’ve been thinking about what my time really needs to be spent on and what goals are important to me. Social media is important to an artist because it allows their stuff to be seen by a massive audience, but that shouldn’t be my concern yet. Right now I want to work on being able to make the best art possible. In fact it hardly matters at all if anyone sees my art. I was looking at the pieces I posted here in the Art section of my page and was incredibly proud that I was ever able to do those things. A couple years ago I couldn’t paint, I couldn’t draw. Now, there’s a couple of paintings that after I finished I thought, “I can stop painting now, this is what I wanted to accomplish.” 

I got so happy about what I’ve done in the past and how far I’ve come that I went digging through my closet and found the first painting I did around 6 years ago. It was before I knew I couldn’t draw. I just thought I would make this idea and it would be pretty, it is pretty, but there’s a realistic style that I wanted. Beyond that, if you look at my portraiture and maybe it’s not as visible as looking at the portraits of a master, but the skin has a certain glow even though it’s a painting. I think that glow is the most beautiful thing and chasing the sight of that beauty is what pushes me to be a better artist

The Earth Says Hello

My favorite bonsai, I started this one from seed almost 4 years ago

Good morning world, doesn’t the air taste amazing today! I’m not that chipper, but my spirits are much higher. I have this habit where once I’ve been around someone long enough that they see my depressed side, I then run away and hide from them. It’s embarrassing for people to see me like that because I know that’s not the real me. It’s like if you ever had a family member or friend that can be a disgusting or rude person and you have to bring them around other people. I have little control over what that person says and does, they just come around to mess stuff up every once and awhile. I suppose I should read Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde sometime because that is my Mr. Hyde, maybe it can give me some inside on living with the monster inside. Along those lines I felt like I learned a lot of those lessons from Frankenstein which was also a pretty fun read if anyone is looking for a book this Winter. I made a second post yesterday because I think the things I say can seem pretty scary, but they’ve become normal to me. When I first thought I might have PTSD I was reading the VA’s definition of it and under suicidal thoughts, it was describing what I was going through basically every hour of my life. That really shook me for a bit because I assumed it was normal and everyone else was thinking that way too. Now I know it’s not normal, so I work to improve it and that acknowledgement I feel helps in preventing the lows from being so low. I don’t want someone who doesn’t think like this to read my thoughts and feel they need to take action. To go back to the plane analogy, my average altitude is lower than most people’s, but it’s usually pretty steady and I’m rising. That’s good with me.

I added some pages to my blog. I don’t know how people are interacting with this, but at least on my home page I’ve added a section for Art and Garden. Art has some photos of paintings or drawings I’ve done that I’m pleased with how they turned out. The Garden section is pictures of my plants. As I was gathering pictures for that section I realized the ratio for pictures of plants to plants I own is stunningly low, so I’ll took a bunch yesterday and I’ll share them here then there. It’s a shame because we’re entering Winter and the plants aren’t putting on as much of a show as they were a month ago. We’ll see what Spring brings and I’ll take some more then, but if you’d like to look at some pretty things, I’d be pleased as punch for you to check them out.

This Just In

I’m feeling much better now, it felt nice to take some time to relax and reflect on what I’m doing in my life right now. I wanted to write this because as I was thinking about my earlier post two things came to mind. I hope people don’t ever feel, “Woe is me.” I’m know I’m very blessed. One of those blessing I wanted to talk about individually.

When I express feelings of pain like being limited by depression, I’m trying to examine it from a third person point of view. I think the human body is so interesting that the slightest inclinations in consciousness should be studied, so saying, “I wish I wasn’t like this” is not me complaining about my life. I’m so lucky to be in a position where I am afforded the time to think about these things and to have a mind that can. I am not homeless and I have someone who loves me. A couple people who love me enough that I could probably live with them if need be, so by my standards I have it made in the shade. Exploring these feelings, how they effect our lives and who we one day become is part of what I do as an artist. I guess this is just the best medium I’ve found to share these thoughts. I hope they’re valuable.

Where I wanted to shine the spotlight for a minute is my wife. She is amazing, she puts up with me acting this way. I owe her the world, that’s the biggest factor of why I want to recover because I want to be more, so that I have more to offer her. I don’t think I would put up with someone that acted like me. Everyday I’m living in a fairy tale with her. I love you very much honey, thank you for all that you do for me and the pup.

Another Day, Another Click

I feel like trash today, I don’t know if I’ll even finish this, but I was thinking about my day and the one thing I’d at least like to have done is this. I realized yesterday my energy levels were low, so I dumped some stuff from my schedule. Let me explain it the way that I’m imagining it. My life is me flying an airplane. Yesterday I felt like I was beginning to lose altitude, so I dumped some cargo. In this scenario, cargo is responsibilities or just things normal people do. I lighten the load and put more fuel in the tank thinking I’ll be good, but it was a stormy night and my precautions weren’t enough. I think I laid in bed for 12 hours and felt like I didn’t get an hour’s worth of sleep. I can sometimes get sleep paralysis. It’s when you mind wakes up, but your body is still asleep. For whatever reason I’m really scared of getting it right now and whenever I start to drift off I subconsciously start moving to keep my body from getting too heavy. That’s what sleep paralysis feels like for me. My body parts are too heavy to move, but I can still see, so I’m imprisoned in my body. I sort of feel like that with depression.

Now I can see the plane spiralling, but I’m already tired. Pushing the rest of the weight off the plane won’t help at this point and I feel like I don’t have the strength to put more fuel in. This is my life, on top of the world one minute, hopelessly lost the next. I’m going through the list of things that I can do, just activities I normally do and none of them seem interesting. My mind tells me I just want to fade away, but I know I can’t let it do that so maybe I’ll find some crackers to eat until I can get enough strength to go proper food shopping for some more exciting foods. I don’t want to do that though. It’s crazy how there’s a stabbing in my head and stomach and it seems easier to just put up with the pain then to get up and fix it. Wish I wasn’t this way and when I’m mentally stable I try to build a safety net to catch myself in these times. I am safe and if I wasn’t I’d go to the hospital, I’ve been that low before. I know what that feels like and when I’m not safe alone. Just gotta figure out how to get out of the hole I’m in today. I do feel a little better after writing this.