The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I have started my Bosch study. It‘s really relaxing and low stress. I basically just color the drawing in slowly. Four of the days this week I will do an abstract drawing, but the other three days I’ll work on this. I adore his work and am inspired by it in my writing.

My friend Riona hands down. She’s a heavy extrovert and really loud and boisterous. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks and is just marches to her own drum proudly. She’s a good friend, albeit a bit of a newer friend. We grew close in 2020 during the pandemic. I see her about once a week now.

With poetry I’m really tapping into my imagination. With art, I had really stopped exploring or being particularly imaginative. My mind is a very vivid place and to have it inaccessible creatively was painful for me. Not just because repressing things is toxic, but also because I wasn’t able to live as full a life mentally as I wanted to. There was so much I wanted to get out in art and I just couldn’t. But in writing I don’t have that barrier. I think my favorite artist of all time is Hieronymus Bosch and I channel him in my poetry. My writing is very visual and influenced that way because I am a painter originally. I paint pictures with my words.

I’m making great progress towards some of my New Year’s resolutions (poetry, fitness, and art) and not making much progress towards others (weight, finances, and relaxation). Going on vacation really set me back from doing my routines (which involve achieving a lot of my resolution related goals) and I’ve re-adjusted to doing my morning routine for the most part, but not the evening routine or my mid-day routine. Next week I’m really going to try and work on that.

I haven’t lost any weight. Overall I’ve been eating better quality food, but not less food. So I’ve sort of sat at the same weight for about 2 months now (136 pounds). This week I am really going to try hard to reduce how much food I’m eating significantly. Mostly it’s dinner I need to watch out for. In the daytime I eat pretty well and when I do eat, I eat healthy, but at dinner time I really lose footing and tend to have a big portion. If I can cut dinner back that would help a lot. At least I’m not gaining weight, I suppose.

I’m trying to be better about not eating at restaurants so much. This past week hasn’t been great because we were on vacation, but I have a chance to improve matters this coming week. I want to not buy anything off amazon and reduce eating out to only once this week. That should help achieve my finance-related resolution of saving money and not spending very much.

Here is a breakdown of the intentions I hope to achieve next week. I’ll check back next Sunday to follow up on what I did or didn’t do:

1. Follow my morning routine (write a poem, draw a picture or work on my Bosch study, exercise)
2. Follow my mid-day routine (walk the dog, have lunch)
3. Follow my evening routine (go on Instagram, play video game, meditate, and read 2 chapters of my book/some poems)
4. Keep to a budget and only eat out once and don’t spend on Amazon
5. Get in 65+ grams of protein and 25+g of fiber on the weekdays
6. Avoid sugar and ultra-processed food.
7. Do strength training twice, run 3 miles three times, and 7 miles one time.
8. Apply for work on Monday and Tuesday