The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I got the lower part of the torso done today. Tomorrow I’ll finish the top half. So far I like it better than my previous work. It’s a little easier to render a yellow suit as opposed to a white one like in the last painting. I’ve really gotten into a rhythm when painting wrinkles, it’s getting a lot easier the more I do it.

It’s going to be slower going from now on because I had to stop the Ritalin. I had insomnia last night. So frustrating because it was really helping with my anxiety and was allowing me to work more easily. Oh well, I coped without it before so I can do that again.

Overall I hate cooking, but one thing I do actually enjoy is making ham, cheese, and corn muffins on Sunday morning. It’s sort of become tradition now so I look forward to doing it and eating the result.

I have made some progress on my New Year’s resolutions. This week I introduced reading and Instagram. I continued on with running and strength training, I worked on a new PPE painting, I only had sweets one of the days (and it had been 2 weeks since my last one), I meditated every day, I counted calories and stayed within my goal 5 of the days, and I practiced intermittent fasting every day except for Wednesday.

Here’s my to-do-list from the middle of last week and I crossed off what I achieved:

1. Finish Jane Eyre and read 2 chapters of a new book
2. Paint for 6 hours (I have already painted for 3 hours) 
3. Go on Instagram 5 times and post my new work on Saturday
4. Run 4 miles tomorrow and strength train on Friday (I have already run 2 miles twice this week and strength trained once)
5. Meditate each day (I have meditated every day this week so far)
6. Take the dog on a walk Thursday, Friday, and Sunday (Saturday she is at the groomers)
7. Cook dinner at home tonight, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday
8. Eat an average of 2000 calories a day 
9. Avoid sweets the rest of the week

Here’s what I want to achieve this week:

1. Cook at home 6 nights (we are having game night on Saturday so we’ll order pizza that night)
2. Paint 4 times next week and make progress on my new painting
3. Get to to chapter 22 of Dust (around 2 chapters a day)
4. Do aerobic exercise five times this week for at least 20 minutes a day (running or elliptical). Try to get a 4 mile run in if the weather permitts.
5. Strength train twice this week for 30 minutes each session (adding 5 minutes to my training because I now feel good at 25 minutes and need to push myself further).
6. Take the dog on a walk on days weather permitts
7. Meditate every day for 9 minutes (63 minutes total)
8. Eat an average of 1800 calories a day throughout the week. Avoid sweets and avoid UPF whenever possible.
9. Go on Instagram every day (2x days of commenting on other’s art, 4x days of favoriting other people’s art, 1x day of posting my own art, add 7 new people)
10. Apply for work on Monday and Wednesday