what I have been up to, among other things

I updated my Facebook cover photo.

I also did this.

keeping the faith

It's a challenging time for me this month. Some big changes will need to be made while staying true to what matter to me.

A part of me marvels at the nuances of these new experiences. There are insights and lessons to be learned in the situation I find myself in. The test of faith is at its most difficult. Things WILL get better. The tide WILL turn.

Meanwhile I will do what I can and wait for everything else to unfold in its own perfect time.

project : recipe journal

I love cooking, and I'm trying to be good at baking as well. One of the most joyful things about living on my own is having my own kitchen and being able to design and stock it the way I want to cook.

I have a growing bookshelf of cookbooks and I am also subscribed to a number of cooking sites. I also pounce on second-hand food magazines. On my own I have adapted, re-invented, created, redefined many recipes. I have also come to know myself better on the kinds of food I enjoy and the kinds I could live without.

I have accumulated many recipes through the years, some I've tried, some I haven't, some have become standard favorites and specialties. Thing is, I never really put them together in one place and in the process I have lost some. I also have recipes handed down by my grandmother and my aunt.

So I feel it's time to put them all together in a recipe journal, plus my musings on food and eating. Weaving my love for food and cooking into an artful activity is one great way to spend a few happy hours.

doodling

creative storm

Pushed to the brink and dangled over the edge of the abyss, I was left with no choice but to put uncertain hands on blank pages. Soul took over as soon as I relaxed my death grip on reason. I was starving on so many levels but as the pages filled with color and images and words, a sweet delicious taste flooded me and drowned all my inner censors and doubts.

inspired everyday

I am finally making a lot of artsy sketches and drawings in the past few days. I just started. After imagining for months how I would begin to make art when everything is ready, I just started in the midst of nothing being ever ready. And I guess that is the whole point. I will never really be perfectly ready because there will always be distractions and obstacles. But if I really want to make art and live a creative life then I should just go ahead and live one instead of imagining a future that somehow never manages to turn that next corner.

I have been having so much fun and the feeling of satisfaction is simply delightful. I have even taken to doing rough sketches in the middle of the night when an idea strikes me.

This has been a creatively productive week. I have also been reading and writing a lot and my sleep has improved from the previous week.

The weather has fully shifted to the rainy season. I hope for the pouring of more inspiration for everyone.

art journal progress

One of my Life List goals is to go back to my art journalling - basically it meant writing and making collage art in my journal almost every day. I used to do it when I was still going to school but when I finished college and found a job, most of my creative activities were slowly shelved.

I have managed to get back slowly into writing journals (by this I mean pen and paper) but it was only yesterday that I stumbled into the perfect groove of turning it into an important part of my day. The key idea was putting everything together. I realized that I have scattered too many pieces of my selves across different files (on paper and online and in computer files) and it has become very difficult for me to trace myself. So I decided to gather all these pieces of me and pour them all in a single journal -- all thoughts, morning pages, ideas, random notes, quotations, and even lists. I realized that in my effort to "organize", I overdid it and oversplit my life into too many categories thereby rendering the whole quite incomprehensible and without pattern nor easily discernible meaning.

So when I sat down to pull my selves back together, the themes in my mind and my heart were cohesion, wholeness, integration, unity, harmony. As I pooled many bits of myself together I started to feel energy pooling as well. Energy that I can use to fuel more creativity.

And as I write this I also realize that this is yet another part of my distillation process -- of keeping only what is essential in my life and trimming away all that do not contribute to my learning and growth.

Have a fruitful weekend!