Days go by
Lord, I'm so sick of this rain now. It's been raining almost constantly for more than a week. OK, so we had a gloriously sunny and warm April and the garden probably needs the rain, but I'm bored with it all the same.
So, what have I been up to?
Unfortunately I've been a bit unwell this week (probably a virus as catvincent has been feeling rough too) so there's been a whole lot of reading and napping going on. Not so much eating though since I've been on a diet for the last month. I've lost half a stone so far and it's actually not been too egregious: I've cut out cheese and sugar (two big trigger foods for me), I've reduced my portion sizes and I'm only eating when I'm hungry and not when I'm bored or tired (the later is a big problem, in the past I've tended to 'cheat' my way to energy by eating when really I should rest). It feels more like 'reconsidering my lifestyle' rather than 'being on a diet', which is definitely a better mental space for me. It feels as though I'm just doing what my body wants - on the odd occasion where I've splurged on dessert, I've just felt ill afterwards and I'm mostly just wanting lots of fruit and veg. The weight is coming off gently at the rate of about a pound a week. I'm also carrying on with my strengthening exercises and I'm seeing a gradual improvement with my range of movement, which is great. My sleep is all shot to hell though, I was awake all night last night, which was tedious. I'm trying to push through today in the hope that I'll sleep better tonight. I was reading something about how some people have 25 hr circadian rhythms and so they get out of synch with daylight - made perfect sense to me.
Despite not being at my best, I have managed to get some work done this week - lots of photo editing for the website, lots of updating The Diary Project (totally up to date now, yay me) and I stuck a whole lot more photos on flickr last weekend (haven't finished putting descriptions on them all yet). Plus I've also been writing in my shamefully neglected sketchbook, I need to sit down over the next few days and paste in a whole lot of images. I used to keep such fantastic sketchbooks when I was in college but they've lapsed a lot since I graduated. I feel guilty about it because they're such a useful record to have but I just don't seem to have the same motivation to do them these days. Bad naughty artist, smack, smack.
I've also been working away on Pelt and it's coming on slowly, it's going to take an absolute age to do but that's OK, I'm not on a deadline for it. I also mostly finished the little pierced pin canvas that I was working on ages ago. I'm now at the 'sitting around looking at it' stage. It may need a little more work but it's basically done, although it doesn't have a title yet so it's not officially finished.
What else? Well I'm madly lusting after a digital SLR. I've decided that I'm never going to be any good at slide photography and my documentation would go much better if I had a reasonably lightweight digital SLR to play with. Realising that a) I haven't taken any slides for about a year and b) that the slides that I took in the past were truly dreadful, has made me face up to the fact that me and slide film are clearly done with each other. My compact digital is OK and it's fun to take out and about with me but it's really not good at low light levels. Since quite a bit of my documentation is taken in poor light (galleries tend to be universally artificially lit) a camera that's only great in natural light is not the best option for me.
Sadly I have no money for a digital SLR right now, so my plan is to save up and get one in the January sales. Despite the huge temptation, I don't want to get into more debt right now - not when I'm in the midst of trying to clear my overdraft (I've got it down from £1500 to £900, yay me again). Deferred gratification is not my best thing but I am consoling myself with the thought that I already have £140 in my savings account and if I step up my saving a bit (£20 a month instead of £10) then with the Christmas money I always get from my folks, I'll be able to afford one. I will probably also trade in my film SLR since I'm clearly not using it any more. I'm eyeing up the Canon EOS 400D, which looks very tasty. It currently goes for about £480 but will almost certainly have dropped in price by then.
This afternoon I went out to the central library - always a nice thing to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon - then picked up some shopping from Fresh And Wild. Got back to discover that our lovely friends J and R and their two girls had just arrived. We hadn't seen them for about 9 months so it was great to catch up. Now we're making tomato-free chilli and clearing up the chaos that invariably ensues when you have two small guests under the age of 7. All in all, it's been a good day and there's still some Six Feet Under to watch this evening (gradually and very happily chewing my way through them all - we're on season 2 at this point). Missing malabar a hell of a lot but life is basically good.
So, what have I been up to?
Unfortunately I've been a bit unwell this week (probably a virus as catvincent has been feeling rough too) so there's been a whole lot of reading and napping going on. Not so much eating though since I've been on a diet for the last month. I've lost half a stone so far and it's actually not been too egregious: I've cut out cheese and sugar (two big trigger foods for me), I've reduced my portion sizes and I'm only eating when I'm hungry and not when I'm bored or tired (the later is a big problem, in the past I've tended to 'cheat' my way to energy by eating when really I should rest). It feels more like 'reconsidering my lifestyle' rather than 'being on a diet', which is definitely a better mental space for me. It feels as though I'm just doing what my body wants - on the odd occasion where I've splurged on dessert, I've just felt ill afterwards and I'm mostly just wanting lots of fruit and veg. The weight is coming off gently at the rate of about a pound a week. I'm also carrying on with my strengthening exercises and I'm seeing a gradual improvement with my range of movement, which is great. My sleep is all shot to hell though, I was awake all night last night, which was tedious. I'm trying to push through today in the hope that I'll sleep better tonight. I was reading something about how some people have 25 hr circadian rhythms and so they get out of synch with daylight - made perfect sense to me.
Despite not being at my best, I have managed to get some work done this week - lots of photo editing for the website, lots of updating The Diary Project (totally up to date now, yay me) and I stuck a whole lot more photos on flickr last weekend (haven't finished putting descriptions on them all yet). Plus I've also been writing in my shamefully neglected sketchbook, I need to sit down over the next few days and paste in a whole lot of images. I used to keep such fantastic sketchbooks when I was in college but they've lapsed a lot since I graduated. I feel guilty about it because they're such a useful record to have but I just don't seem to have the same motivation to do them these days. Bad naughty artist, smack, smack.
I've also been working away on Pelt and it's coming on slowly, it's going to take an absolute age to do but that's OK, I'm not on a deadline for it. I also mostly finished the little pierced pin canvas that I was working on ages ago. I'm now at the 'sitting around looking at it' stage. It may need a little more work but it's basically done, although it doesn't have a title yet so it's not officially finished.
What else? Well I'm madly lusting after a digital SLR. I've decided that I'm never going to be any good at slide photography and my documentation would go much better if I had a reasonably lightweight digital SLR to play with. Realising that a) I haven't taken any slides for about a year and b) that the slides that I took in the past were truly dreadful, has made me face up to the fact that me and slide film are clearly done with each other. My compact digital is OK and it's fun to take out and about with me but it's really not good at low light levels. Since quite a bit of my documentation is taken in poor light (galleries tend to be universally artificially lit) a camera that's only great in natural light is not the best option for me.
Sadly I have no money for a digital SLR right now, so my plan is to save up and get one in the January sales. Despite the huge temptation, I don't want to get into more debt right now - not when I'm in the midst of trying to clear my overdraft (I've got it down from £1500 to £900, yay me again). Deferred gratification is not my best thing but I am consoling myself with the thought that I already have £140 in my savings account and if I step up my saving a bit (£20 a month instead of £10) then with the Christmas money I always get from my folks, I'll be able to afford one. I will probably also trade in my film SLR since I'm clearly not using it any more. I'm eyeing up the Canon EOS 400D, which looks very tasty. It currently goes for about £480 but will almost certainly have dropped in price by then.
This afternoon I went out to the central library - always a nice thing to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon - then picked up some shopping from Fresh And Wild. Got back to discover that our lovely friends J and R and their two girls had just arrived. We hadn't seen them for about 9 months so it was great to catch up. Now we're making tomato-free chilli and clearing up the chaos that invariably ensues when you have two small guests under the age of 7. All in all, it's been a good day and there's still some Six Feet Under to watch this evening (gradually and very happily chewing my way through them all - we're on season 2 at this point). Missing malabar a hell of a lot but life is basically good.