The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

Today’s drawing prompt was “spiders”. It was a good prompt for me because it brings up visceral feelings of disgust and fear. I’m trying the pencil and pen route because I’m getting kind of bored of the Procreate watercolor brushes and the style I’ve been drawing in for a long time.

Since I only ever really show at one gallery I’m trying to grow my audience on Instagram and use that as my platform to share work. I try to interact with other artists on there daily and post as much as I can (though only work I feel like widely sharing). Right now I have 930 followers and my goal is to get up to 1200 by December.

I ran 5 miles today. That will make it 13 total miles for the week so far. It’s harder to run on my own sometimes. Having company during a jog makes it go faster and is more fun. The only downside to running with a buddy is I can’t listen to my books. Today I listened to Hercule Poirot short stories. I have 12 hours left of those to go. Some of them I recognize as later becoming full books. Murder in the Mews for instance was a short story before it was a book.

I went to the dentist yesterday. My crown is loose and apparently it’s because the tooth is broken underneath so now I need to go in for an implant. My consultation with the oral surgeon is on Monday. Oh joy. That’s going to be a drama. The tooth needs to be extracted and the screw is put in my jaw at the same time. Then it’s 4 months of healing before they can install the actual tooth. Fortunately I’ll be sedated for the procedure so I won’t have to go though the trauma of remembering any of it. Soft foods for me for a long while. Hopefully the surgery isn’t too close to my Chicago trip because I want to eat a lot of food on that trip as that is the entire point of us going.

I’m trying to utilize meditation for anxiety but it’s hard to keep up the practice because as the time comes to do it during the day, I really don’t feel like sitting still for 20 minutes. I think it has helped some because my panic attacks are much less severe than they used to be and farther apart. For the first 10 minutes of meditation I do a loving kindness exercise and then for second 10 minutes I try to clear my head and just think of something pleasant like a stream or the ocean (I listen to water sounds on my headphones to help me focus). There has also been the self compassion I’ve been working on which helps a lot as well. I’m not sure if it’s the meditating or self compassion practice that’s affecting my panic attacks the most. To really get the ideas cemented in my head I read Kristen Neff’s book Self Compassion three times in a row. The first time I read the physical book and the subsequent times I listened to the audio book while I was running. It really has helped to acknowledge my suffering when it’s happening and live with it instead of fighting against it. Recently I have come to recognize some things as suffering and anxiety that are worthy of attention that I might have dismissed in the past, like procrastination and food cravings. When I feel distressed in any way I say to myself over and over “this is a moment of suffering, millions of people experience anxiety, may I have kindness for myself in this moment, may I give myself the compassion I need.” Eventually, after I sit with the anxiety for awhile repeating the mantra, it starts to pass and I can get on with my day.

Something positive is that I’m getting fish! My friend is giving me a free fish tank with rocks and decorations and everything. When I was a kid I had a string of goldfish that all died so hopefully I have better luck this time. Now I will have a dog and fish. It would be nice to get a rat, but my dog has too strong of a prey drive and it would drive her bonkers. I won’t get the fish until after all our October and November trips.

I ended up going out for dinner last night because my husband got home really late and there wasn’t time to cook dinner. I only went 100 calories over my goal, so it wasn’t too bad. Restaurant portions are always twice what you need so I try to stop eating about halfway through a meal and dispose of the rest. I prefer to have extremely healthy food throughout the day instead of leftovers and since my husband doesn’t like the kind of food I ordered, he wasn’t going to eat the remainder either. Sometimes you just have to throw food away or you end up eating too much and risk gaining weight in the long run. I’m not going to weigh myself until tomorrow to allow this takeaway food to process and pass through me (even though I didn’t eat a lot I tend to weigh a pound or two more after I eat at a restaurant).

My sugar cravings are under control. The longer I go without it, the less powerful the cravings and I don’t keep anything sweet in the house so there’s nothing to tempt me. The first few days I had a lot of cravings, but it’s getting better by the day. I only try to have ultra-processed food at dinner time if I have it at all and eat clean, healthy food during the daytime. Usually I have high protein yogurt and organic chia seeds for breakfast and then organic fruit and veggies and two hard boiled eggs (pasture raised) for lunch. I do not snack in between meals. The yogurt does have a little bit of added sugars in the ingredients but not much. It doesn’t taste like a dessert like Yoplait yogurt does and does not trigger an urge to have more than the recommended portion.

Day 5 no sugar

Day 5 limited ultra-processed food

Day 5 painting or drawing every day

Day 1 cooking at home every night for the next two weeks

Drawing Prompt Goals for September

September 19: Angel, September 20th: Spiders, September 21st: Fire, September 23rd: Dagger, September 24th: Sparkle, September 25th: Frost, September 26th: Drip, September 27th: Toad, September 28th: Demon, September 29th: Chains, September 30th: Beast