The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I didn’t have any time to do art today. It’s time to start contemplating what I will do next though. For the upcoming week it will be focussed on finishing the Bosch study, but after that I’m not sure. I would like to get back into drawing again. Last time I attempted to do that I felt really uninspired by the effort and gave up. Maybe this time I will enjoy it more. I still do not feel ready to get back into another PPE painting.

I could do with less food and sugar. I could do with less dog poop to clean up. I could do with less anxiety. I could do with less of a mess to clean up every day. I could do with less laundry. I could do with less aggressive drivers when I try to cross the streets when I’m out jogging. I could do with less clutter. I could do with less cooking. I could do with less artist’s block. I could do with less driving. I could do with less grocery shopping. I could do with less plants to water. I could do with less purchases off Amazon. I could do with less takeout. I could do with less house expenses. Yeah, the list could go on but I’ll end it there.

I’ll switch it up and be more positive. Things I am pleased about… I am pleased I have such a sweet dog. I am pleased I can run long distances. I am pleased I can paint even if it’s really hard to do it sometimes. I am pleased that I live in Portland. I am pleased with my drafty old house. I am pleased with my neighborhood. I am pleased by the close proximity of the park for running and walking the dog. I am pleased by rain, even if I have to run and walk in it. I am pleased by my orchids and how they are all going to bloom soon. I am pleased that my other houseplants are thriving. I am pleased that I have a patient and attentive husband. I am pleased I don’t have to drive much around here even if I still do a little bit of driving. I am pleased with our car’s gas mileage (we have a hybrid so we only fill it up once a month). I am pleased with my art studio and how it is such a comforting place to work in. There are more things I am pleased about than displeased about and it feels better to write about the good things as opposed to the negative ones.

Today I ran the holiday half marathon in North Portland. I ran it with my pal Krista who you can see in the photo below (I’m the one holding the dog). Because Krista runs a bit faster than I normally do we finished in 2 hours and 8 minutes. Usually I pace myself at about a 2 hour and 30 minute race time, but I sped up to stay alongside her. It was pretty scenic, running alongside the University of Portland campus and along the ridge overlooking the river. My hip hurt a little bit towards the end but it feels better now.

So yeah, that’s 13 half marathons in a year. My goal accomplished. It feels a little weird to be all finished. I was getting pretty burned out though so I don’t think I could have done anymore than that. Next year I am just going to do one half marathon a season so 4 in total. That seems more doable. I couldn’t maintain this 13 thing for more than one year.

After the race my husband, my uncle, my aunt, and I all went to Salty’s for their brunch buffet. It was a tight schedule because I finished the race at 10am and we had to be at the restaurant by noon. So I needed to get home, shower, and then leave again immediately. The food was really good, Salty’s is a decent buffet. It’s expensive, but worth the high price because of its quality. There’s a lot of seafood on offer which is very much to my liking.

Now that I’m done with half marathons until next April, I want to try and get into strength training. I will keep running short jogs to maintain my aerobic fitness but no long runs until February. For the rest of December I want to try and not gain anymore weight because I’ve put on quite a few pounds since the beginning of October. In January I will start to lose that weight again. December just isn’t a good month to lose weight, so the best I can do is maintain at what I’m at and not gain. I sort of lapsed from my intermittent fasting so I’ll try and get back into that again. Really all I have to do is eat a big breakfast, skip lunch, avoid snacks, and have dinner. Not that complicated.

I finished Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice and boy is the former book dark. It sort of has a happy ending for the two youngest characters (only after they have experienced many years of utter misery), but for everyone else it’s pretty bleak. A lot of people die very unhappy in Wuthering Heights. During the marathon I continued to listen to Hollow Kingdom which is also very dark, but is a black comedy more than it is a drama. It has some very heartfelt moments though and some tragic animal deaths (which always makes me more sad while reading than human deaths cause me to be). The entire book is about pets surviving after humans all become zombies and is told from the point of view of a foul mouthed crow who was formally a pet himself. After I finish that I will start the sequel which I just recently discovered existed and which I promptly got on Audible.

I have a lot of physical books I need to get onto reading at some point but none of the ones I have appeal to my mood right now. Though I kind of want to go book shopping and get more, there’s just not any room on my bookshelves and if I went to purchase new books I would feel guilty having a bunch of unread ones at home. Maybe I would feel better if I sold some books back to Powell’s before purchasing new ones. My book shelves are definitely bursting and could use some clearing out of books I don’t ever plan to read again.