The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I painted this little section yesterday. Today I couldn’t bring myself to do anymore. I’m so over these wrinkles. Tomorrow I might start my Bosch study to give me a break from this painting. I will finish it, but I really, really need to do something else for awhile.

I found a really good track for meditation. It’s the sound of a stream in a forest with lots of birds singing in the background. Very calming and I know it’s in the northwest because I recognize the sounds from when I go into a forest around here. They are the same birds. Previously I had been listening to the recording of an ocean stream but I was getting kind of bored with that one and needed something new. I’m going to meditate twice a day now because of the increased anxiety. Once in the morning and once in the evening before bed.

The caffeine reduction is making an impact on my anxiety. It isn’t completely vanquished and is still present, but I’m not taking lorazepam and propranolol. At least not yesterday which was the first day only having one cup of coffee first thing in the morning (around 5am) and non-caffeinated tea and seltzer water the rest of the day.

Intermittent fasting has worked well for me so far. I’m not sure just skipping lunch and in between snacks is intermittent fasting but I do have eating windows which are 8-9am and 4-6pm. Outside of those times I have tea with milk, seltzer water, or plain water only. I’ve decided not to use the scale at all because it just exists to upset me. So as long as I’m eating relatively healthy meals, takeaways only once a week, a dessert only once a week, and exercising regularly, then I should maintain an acceptable size and fit my clothing. That’s all I want, is to fit the majority of my clothes. Currently I do, but they are tighter than they were and threatening to not fit if I kept going the path I was going.

I’m attempting to live as frugally as possible before December because we have a few big expenses coming up that month (including Christmas) and I need to save up for that. Also I just want to be better with money. I’m going to eat out only once a week and not order anything off Amazon. Just doing that is going to save us hundreds (eating out is usually about 70 dollars for the two of us and we were doing it 3-4 days a week). Buying in physical stores doesn’t tempt me and I rarely impulse buy at a store, but Amazon is a simple click and it’s too easy to just think of something and tap the purchase button without much thought. I logged out of the website and deleted the app off of my phone and iPad. My goal for the rest of the month is to only eat out twice before the end of November and to not purchase anything off Amazon.