All In
And I'm all in, nothing left to hide
I'm falling harder than a landslide
I spent a week away from you last night
And now I'm calling, calling out your name
Even if I lose the game, I'm all in, I'm all in tonight
Yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life
Welcome to the week of crazy. Paul is a fighter and player in Fire and Iron, the fifth in a series of historical plays written, directed, and produced by our brilliant and charismatic friend Brennan. It was at one of those plays where I first saw Paul, and they are one of his yearly traditions. So this whole week I have the car to do as many deeds in as I can before life goes back to normal, and Paul goes straight from work to rehearsal to bed on a daily basis. I'm doing my best to take care of him while he expends himself utterly. Today I specified that he needed to have supper at suppertime and I'm bringing him food for that purpose.
Back in July I promised myself I'd take up crewel embroidery again, and here we are, many moons later. I found a lovely 11x14 kit - a trellis with roses - on eBay for a small sum. I bought it, borrowed a stretcher from my Mom, who used to embroider quite a bit, and started by disagreeing with the kit's choices for leaf colors and embroidering dark green on what was supposed to be a light green leaf. Proof yet again that I am more artist than crafter. Thankfully there's some leeway with the kit colors of yarn they give you. I find embroidery very relaxing, it fulfills my need to do creative things with my hands, and it's one of those fantastic hobbies that a person can do while multitasking other pleasurable things like listening to a new music album (I currently have three), hanging out with people (I'm doing a lot of that this week on account of the car), listening to Paul read to me (one of our favourite pasttimes, but one in which I often become bored of sitting though I love listening), or waiting for people in the car. This is one of the stages I've been in, having dabbled in woodburning, reading voraciously, and other stuff. Embroidery is a great combo of low-stress and working with my hands. I am hoping that this will take months to complete, continually keep me feeling accomplished, and help with my constant battle to force myself to relax more.
I have noticed I gravitate towards dangerous hobbies. Among the hazards of my hobbies are darkroom chemicals, woodburning tool burns, even the embroidery has pin pricks... In related news, my fiance is clashing steel with a bunch of other manly men this week and using powertools in... unexpected ways... to build shields and other armor. So I guess whatever urge it is that causes us to devote ourselves to these things may end up running in the family.
My health has greatly improved over the last few months. Just over a month ago I began seeing a multi-accredited doctor/acupuncturist/herbalist/nutritionist who gave me a very detailed diet that I am by no means perfectly following. I am trying to slowly integrate more foods that are good for me and give up foods that aren't. Unfortunately, two of the foods that I've discovered will flare up the eczema instantly are tomatoes and oranges in any format - as well as basically any citrus. This of course explains why the eczema got so much worse when I discovered the sensitivity to milk. There's really only two kinds of pasta - cream base, tomato base, and I guess maybe you could count combining of the two. So when I went off milk, I went onto tomatoes to compensate. This ended up being a bad plan. The other foods I'm supposed to try going off of are red meat and wheat. So life is becoming a little frustrating as going out to eat with the diet list I have is nigh impossible and there's almost no time this month to make meals for myself, let alone both Paul and I. Though I did make us a meal once, it was a throw together of steamed veggies, oven-thawed chicken breasts that came pre-seasoned (thanks to my Grandma's Costco purchase) and rice. It was a good meal, even if it was a bit simple and harried and my stomach liked me for it.
I've been continuing to get wedding stuff done, but I feel like every time I get something done I have to add more to the list. I sometimes feel like this wedding is eating my life. Part of it is that a lot of the specialized things for weddings are things that I'm good at.
And speaking of weddings, I just booked one to shoot for the summer, and not only that, but the guy said I'd been way ahead of the competition when it came to being prepared for meeting with him. He'd met with some other photographers after he met with me, and all in all my presentation made it sound like I knew what I was talking about. He said he had been extremely impressed with me and wanted some business cards of mine so he could spread the word that he'd found a great photographer and graphic artist. What an encouraging moment.
There's been a few discouraging things happening this week too, and I've felt kind of down. Sometimes I feel like I struggle and struggle for balance and then when I feel like I've found a semblance of it, something heavy falls on the scale and I scowl at it feeling helpless. This week has felt a bit like that.
I'm getting married in 80 days. I am starting to get really excited about that - the marriage part more than the wedding though. I don't have it all together, but I'm trying really hard to knit all the fragments of my life together, to help those who need my help, to reinforce, repair, or rebuild my relationships that may have suffered for one reason or another. To rework my diet and habits in the face of a better, healthier life.
I'm falling harder than a landslide
I spent a week away from you last night
And now I'm calling, calling out your name
Even if I lose the game, I'm all in, I'm all in tonight
Yeah I'm all in, I'm all in for life
Welcome to the week of crazy. Paul is a fighter and player in Fire and Iron, the fifth in a series of historical plays written, directed, and produced by our brilliant and charismatic friend Brennan. It was at one of those plays where I first saw Paul, and they are one of his yearly traditions. So this whole week I have the car to do as many deeds in as I can before life goes back to normal, and Paul goes straight from work to rehearsal to bed on a daily basis. I'm doing my best to take care of him while he expends himself utterly. Today I specified that he needed to have supper at suppertime and I'm bringing him food for that purpose.
Back in July I promised myself I'd take up crewel embroidery again, and here we are, many moons later. I found a lovely 11x14 kit - a trellis with roses - on eBay for a small sum. I bought it, borrowed a stretcher from my Mom, who used to embroider quite a bit, and started by disagreeing with the kit's choices for leaf colors and embroidering dark green on what was supposed to be a light green leaf. Proof yet again that I am more artist than crafter. Thankfully there's some leeway with the kit colors of yarn they give you. I find embroidery very relaxing, it fulfills my need to do creative things with my hands, and it's one of those fantastic hobbies that a person can do while multitasking other pleasurable things like listening to a new music album (I currently have three), hanging out with people (I'm doing a lot of that this week on account of the car), listening to Paul read to me (one of our favourite pasttimes, but one in which I often become bored of sitting though I love listening), or waiting for people in the car. This is one of the stages I've been in, having dabbled in woodburning, reading voraciously, and other stuff. Embroidery is a great combo of low-stress and working with my hands. I am hoping that this will take months to complete, continually keep me feeling accomplished, and help with my constant battle to force myself to relax more.
I have noticed I gravitate towards dangerous hobbies. Among the hazards of my hobbies are darkroom chemicals, woodburning tool burns, even the embroidery has pin pricks... In related news, my fiance is clashing steel with a bunch of other manly men this week and using powertools in... unexpected ways... to build shields and other armor. So I guess whatever urge it is that causes us to devote ourselves to these things may end up running in the family.
My health has greatly improved over the last few months. Just over a month ago I began seeing a multi-accredited doctor/acupuncturist/herbalist/nutritionist who gave me a very detailed diet that I am by no means perfectly following. I am trying to slowly integrate more foods that are good for me and give up foods that aren't. Unfortunately, two of the foods that I've discovered will flare up the eczema instantly are tomatoes and oranges in any format - as well as basically any citrus. This of course explains why the eczema got so much worse when I discovered the sensitivity to milk. There's really only two kinds of pasta - cream base, tomato base, and I guess maybe you could count combining of the two. So when I went off milk, I went onto tomatoes to compensate. This ended up being a bad plan. The other foods I'm supposed to try going off of are red meat and wheat. So life is becoming a little frustrating as going out to eat with the diet list I have is nigh impossible and there's almost no time this month to make meals for myself, let alone both Paul and I. Though I did make us a meal once, it was a throw together of steamed veggies, oven-thawed chicken breasts that came pre-seasoned (thanks to my Grandma's Costco purchase) and rice. It was a good meal, even if it was a bit simple and harried and my stomach liked me for it.
I've been continuing to get wedding stuff done, but I feel like every time I get something done I have to add more to the list. I sometimes feel like this wedding is eating my life. Part of it is that a lot of the specialized things for weddings are things that I'm good at.
And speaking of weddings, I just booked one to shoot for the summer, and not only that, but the guy said I'd been way ahead of the competition when it came to being prepared for meeting with him. He'd met with some other photographers after he met with me, and all in all my presentation made it sound like I knew what I was talking about. He said he had been extremely impressed with me and wanted some business cards of mine so he could spread the word that he'd found a great photographer and graphic artist. What an encouraging moment.
There's been a few discouraging things happening this week too, and I've felt kind of down. Sometimes I feel like I struggle and struggle for balance and then when I feel like I've found a semblance of it, something heavy falls on the scale and I scowl at it feeling helpless. This week has felt a bit like that.
I'm getting married in 80 days. I am starting to get really excited about that - the marriage part more than the wedding though. I don't have it all together, but I'm trying really hard to knit all the fragments of my life together, to help those who need my help, to reinforce, repair, or rebuild my relationships that may have suffered for one reason or another. To rework my diet and habits in the face of a better, healthier life.