The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

Today’s drawing prompt was “remove”. I am trying this scribbly style as something kind of new but I’m still feeling very rusty with drawing. Yesterday I opted for the old watercolor brush style and I wasn’t too happy with how the drawing turned out and I can’t say I really like today’s drawing either. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to use a photo source to loosely help me.

I got pumpkin spice creamer for my coffee. It’s in season again which makes me happy as pumpkin is my favorite flavor for almost anything sweet or savory (although I find in the USA pumpkin as a savory flavor is less common than in New Zealand where I lived for 11 years). This creamer doesn’t have sugar in it and uses almond milk and coconut cream. It doesn’t have any artificial sweetener either, which is good because I try to limit artificial sweeteners to special occasions only. At restaurants I like to have a Diet Coke since I don’t drink alcohol very often and it’s nice to have something fizzy to go with the food.

For my husband’s Christmas present I am going to bind him a journal. He uses blank journals in his programming job and I gave him one last October for his birthday that is nearly full. I really enjoy binding books once in awhile. For the cover I am going to get a print of one of my paintings of our dog Margot and attach it. In addition to a new PPE painting, that will also be a November project. Last year I bought a bunch of book binding supplies to make my projects look more professional. I got cloth paper covering, stiff and durable cardboard for the back, front, and spine, some acid free paper for the pages, and some acid-free glue.

We went to Oaks Park yesterday. They were holding Oktoberfest there despite it not being October yet. Though we went on most the rides, we skipped the Atmosphere because it got stuck upside down for 30 minutes with a ton of people on it. They all had to be rescued and it made international news. So yeah, passed on that one. It was nice because the entire trip was free as my husband won ride bracelets in a raffle at work and that also got us into the festival. I did get a small ice cream when I was there so I need to say I’ve only been 7 days of this challenge without sugar because yesterday I had some. We also had bratwurst for lunch with sauerkraut and potatoes (I was provided a knife and fork so I could cut it up really small). As a result we did not have any dinner.

Next year we’ll bring Margot to Oktoberfest because they were holding weiner dog races and there were so many dachshunds there. It was a cacophony of barking and howling. When you get a ton of sausage dogs together they make a lot of noise.

Today is my consultation with the oral surgeon. That happens at 1:40 pm. I really hope he can get me into surgery ASAP. For about 4 months I’m going to have to smile without showing my teeth because the tooth they are taking out is very visible and it takes 4 months to heal before they can put in the implant.

My intentions for this week are a continuation of my September and October goals. I want to continue to avoid sugar, limit my ultra-processed food to one item or nothing at all, paint or draw every day and follow my prompts, cook at home all days except for Sunday (my uncle’s birthday dinner), and lose 2 pounds by next Saturday (with the aim of being 118 pounds). In addition I added the intention to go on Instagram 5 days this week and meditate for 5 of the 7 days. I did not weigh myself today because I had a big sausage meal yesterday and I am going to wait until tomorrow when I’ve had time to digest it to check the scale.

September and October goals so far…

7 days out of 44 days without sugar

8 days out of 44 days limited ultra-processed food

8 days out of 44 days painting or drawing every day

Goals for this week so far…

1 days out of 6 days cooking at home

0 days out of 5 days of meditating

0 days out of 5 days of going on Instagram

0 miles out of 21 miles of running

Drawing Prompt Goals for September

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