Dreams
I kicked some walking ass yesterday! (What?) 2.83 miles for the day! There was a time when that would've been normal for a single day for me. Alas, no longer. I've become so ordinarily sedentary that if I beat 1.5 miles total in a day, I take some sense of accomplishment from that. In just a few weeks since the start of the year, I've begun to extend a single walk from a goal of 1 mile to 1.5 miles at a time. I'm walking faster, I'm breathing easier, I feel considerably less achy after a good long walk. I'm feeling good! Progress not perfection.
By the way, I don't know if you've watched this short video; it's been making the rounds on Facebook. I find it really inspirational, and I recommend it openly to take a few minutes to check it out if you haven't already:
23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health?
One area of my life where I'm feeling a little stymied is the expression of creativity. That's something vitally important to me, and I notice its absence from my life. I was between knitting projects for awhile, and I haven't done a whole lot else in the way of creative expression lately. I am starting to feel the inklings of doing something about that, however -- soon, soon. I did start working on a new hat. I'm working on adapting a pattern with Day of the Dead style sugar skulls in the pattern. The colorwork pattern for the sugar skulls is adorable, but I don't care for the overall hat, so I'm sort of winging it. If I like how it comes out, sugar skulls are the new skulls and crossbones, and everyone in the world is getting Day of the Dead hats this year. Between here and there is figuring some stuff out in a new pattern, however.
I'm also between books at the moment. I start school for this semester tomorrow evening (Civil Litigation I). I hope to receive my textbook in the mail from Amazon.com today. I've somewhat held off picking out another novel to read for fun until I see the textbooks, and get an idea of the required reading for this class first. Afterward, I'm just not sure what to read next. I still have some Norton Anthology of American Literature I want to explore. I really want to finally read Frankenstein. I've been thinking of picking up some more Poe since I haven't read much of his work. Then, oddly, I was thinking of exploring the John Carter of Mars book(s) with the movie coming out -- maybe I'll find something I'll like there? It certainly would be something different for me.
Ian and I had a talk recently about the difference between goals and dreams. He was making the point that it's important to have both, that they're really not the same thing... It took me a few days to really absorb that. I find that is a quality I'm either developing with maturity, or at least becoming more conscious of the need to mull over a new idea over a little time. I think Ian is right -- goals and dreams are not the same. Goals are important, practical things, attainable, valuable. "Dreams are transformative," Ian says. It reminds me of the line I love from the movie, "Dangerous Beauty," -- "It's wanting that keeps us alive." Dreams are important perhaps because they may appear to be just out of reach, and we have to stretch, and grow, and change, and plan, and as Ian says - transform - to reach them. In my personal journey, when I work on goals, I look at the ground as I walk, watching my step, watching the path just ahead of me but not too far, being careful, paying attention to the details. When I dream, I watch the stars! I haven't star-gazed in awhile, as this metaphor goes. Perhaps it is time to dream again....
Trace
By the way, I don't know if you've watched this short video; it's been making the rounds on Facebook. I find it really inspirational, and I recommend it openly to take a few minutes to check it out if you haven't already:
23 and 1/2 hours: What is the single best thing we can do for our health?
One area of my life where I'm feeling a little stymied is the expression of creativity. That's something vitally important to me, and I notice its absence from my life. I was between knitting projects for awhile, and I haven't done a whole lot else in the way of creative expression lately. I am starting to feel the inklings of doing something about that, however -- soon, soon. I did start working on a new hat. I'm working on adapting a pattern with Day of the Dead style sugar skulls in the pattern. The colorwork pattern for the sugar skulls is adorable, but I don't care for the overall hat, so I'm sort of winging it. If I like how it comes out, sugar skulls are the new skulls and crossbones, and everyone in the world is getting Day of the Dead hats this year. Between here and there is figuring some stuff out in a new pattern, however.
I'm also between books at the moment. I start school for this semester tomorrow evening (Civil Litigation I). I hope to receive my textbook in the mail from Amazon.com today. I've somewhat held off picking out another novel to read for fun until I see the textbooks, and get an idea of the required reading for this class first. Afterward, I'm just not sure what to read next. I still have some Norton Anthology of American Literature I want to explore. I really want to finally read Frankenstein. I've been thinking of picking up some more Poe since I haven't read much of his work. Then, oddly, I was thinking of exploring the John Carter of Mars book(s) with the movie coming out -- maybe I'll find something I'll like there? It certainly would be something different for me.
Ian and I had a talk recently about the difference between goals and dreams. He was making the point that it's important to have both, that they're really not the same thing... It took me a few days to really absorb that. I find that is a quality I'm either developing with maturity, or at least becoming more conscious of the need to mull over a new idea over a little time. I think Ian is right -- goals and dreams are not the same. Goals are important, practical things, attainable, valuable. "Dreams are transformative," Ian says. It reminds me of the line I love from the movie, "Dangerous Beauty," -- "It's wanting that keeps us alive." Dreams are important perhaps because they may appear to be just out of reach, and we have to stretch, and grow, and change, and plan, and as Ian says - transform - to reach them. In my personal journey, when I work on goals, I look at the ground as I walk, watching my step, watching the path just ahead of me but not too far, being careful, paying attention to the details. When I dream, I watch the stars! I haven't star-gazed in awhile, as this metaphor goes. Perhaps it is time to dream again....
Trace