Being Creative

I have been trying to make a point to be creative often, almost every day if not every day.  With the weather getting nicer, I am spending more time outside with the kids.  I have been able to bring some projects outside with me, which has allowed me to create as well as allow my kids to be outside which they love.

Recently, I have been making dolls, or at least attempting to make dolls.  I remember loving dolls as a child, especially the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that my grandmother made for us.  I remember having life-size Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls as well as small ones.  I was lucky enough to have a Raggedy Ann doll for my daughter and a Raggedy Andy doll for each of my sons, made by my grandmother.  I actually have to make a Raggedy Andy outfit for my twin son's Raggedy Andy.  I am hoping to create some dolls for charity, as well as for fun.

 My attempt at a Waldorf doll

Baby Bows Doll in the outfits that my twins came home from the hospital in. I still need to make one for my oldest!

A sleepytime doll that I made for my niece for her Christening

The more I create, the more I realize that I love doing it.  I know that I need to make time to have this as part of my life.  I am hoping to make being creative a major part of my life, and not just something that I do when I find the time. I know that I need to start spending time actually getting good at a craft before I move on to something else. There are many times that I think that I have ADD, seriously, and the creative arena is o different. I flit from one project to another, never committing to fully learning and fully succeeding at the one I am working on. I want to stop being average at the things I create and start being proficient at it.

 I also want to start getting more creative in my cooking.  The farmer's market in town is starting in a couple of weeks and I hope to start buying more local foods and start being more creative with it.  Between my BRCA2 gene mutation (I think I have decided against surgery, at least for now) and my son recently being diagnosed with PDD NOS, I really need to watch what we are eating.  My goal is again to eat more local and to eat way more fruits and veggies (little to no animal protein for me due to the BRCA2 mutation), and decrease, maybe even totally eliminate gluten and dairy (we again have greatly reduced it, but not totally eliminated it, both my oldest and I are sensitive to it).  Part of my problem with cooking lately, is that I am bored and not feeling very creative with my cooking.  I am hoping to get inspired by going to local farmer's markets and even just walking around.  I am hoping to find some good cookbooks and some good online sites that can help to inspire me.

I am hoping to find a job at the end of the summer that will be able to take into account my love of creating.  I am under no illusion that there may not be anything out there like that, but I would love to try to find something.  I still have a few more years before I go back to work full time.  I hope by then, I can figure out how I can do work that I love instead of just working for a paycheck.  I do like being a social worker, but I don't love it.  My husband thinks that it is just because of fear of doing 1:1 counseling, but that is not it.  I don't know that I want to do 1:1 counseling! I'm not really sure I know what I want to do, but I really want to wake up and want to go to work.  Hopefully I can figure out a way for that to happen.

Amy

Healthy Eating and Living

I've written a lot about wanting to change my diet and my reasons for doing so.  I've also written a lot about my struggles with being healthy.  Currently, I am finding it really hard giving up meat.  I still want to give up meat and I think in time, I will actually do it.  I think my biggest struggle is figuring out a meal plan that my whole family will eat.  I am thinking that I probably need to make meat dishes for my kids, and maybe even my husband, and I will just need to have some restraint and follow through with how I want to eat.  Given my BRCA2 gene (and don't want to proceed with surgery yet), I think it is also important to reduce the amount of animal protein I eat (at least from what I have read).

At this point, I really need to stop eating gluten, dairy, and reduce animal protein.  I also need and want to reduce the amount of added sugar, especially white sugar, in my families diet.  I start off doing well and then, I flop and fail.  My oldest son is not supposed to be eating dairy and gluten either (we both scored 3's on our IgG blood test) .  Given that I have concerns about Michael having more of an issue than just a speech delay, I know that following through on no gluten, no dairy, and probably other additives will help him out tremendously!

At this point, I am really going to concentrate on following through with my healthy living goals.  Other than this week, when I have been sick, I have been doing great at exercise.  I could probably do more, but I am happy with what I am doing.  I need to add some short meditation and yoga in, but otherwise exercise is great.  I am trying to make time to be creative, which is going ok, but not perfect.  I am also trying to get organized which is extremely slow going and tedious and time consuming, and difficult.

My thoughts here seem a little scattered (I'm obviously not a writer).  I really just wanted to get down in words, my goals and what I am finding difficult.  I hope that taking time to write down, what I want and what barriers I am facing, even if those barriers are just invisible barriers that I have put up, will help me be more aware and make the changes I need to, even if they are slow going!

Amy