A break between semesters

The school year is winding down. This means all kinds of crazy, but one thing it means is that I'm not buried in deadlines for competitions and I'm finished with my grad classes for the semester.

I am rather proud of my 4.0 for the semester. 12 hours of graduate classwork on top of our life meant for some stressful times, but I didn't want to make a B. So at least for this semester, all is good. :)

One of the things I am most proud of this semester is that not only did I earn A's in all four courses, but I feel like I really LEARNED useful stuff too.

And since last night I didn't have classwork to occupy my time and as I've mentioned before, I don't watch much television, I painted another painting.

I'm really focusing now on developing my own style. I love palette knife paintings, but using the entire color spectrum has bothered me. My painting mentor pushes us to use all of the colors, but I'm finding myself really enjoying a limited palette painting.  The painting below has no red in it.

I think for a 20x24 inch painting completed in an hour and a half, it's a nice piece.

More than that, it was fun.

The start of a new painting series

I painted this today. I've had this big canvas sitting around for months and decided to use it.

I really like how it turned out.

Now I'm thinking about doing a series of girl athlete paintings in this style.  Wouldn't it be fun to have a girl hurdling, a girl playing soccer, a cheerleader, and so on..

Guess I better get to work! :)

A little painting

I got to paint this weekend.

Yippee.

A little paint does wonders for the soul.

I've even sketched out my next painting! 

It's the little things that are the big things

My children are my daily mirror. If I want to know about life, my attitude and my habits, all I have to do is look at them, see what they are doing and what they are interested in to know what I have been busy focusing on.

So this week, I am trying to look in the mirror of their eyes more. 

But first, I have to share this.. 

I can't believe that my baby is about to complete kindergarten. 

I love her drawing of herself!

And because I know that I will blink and she will be ready to graduate from high school, I am trying to document some of her little girl moments!

I love that she loves writing stories and reading.

Moving on..

People ask why I do challenges, I do them because:

• it keeps me accountable to complete the task
• it makes me try new things
• it makes me try HARD things

And teaching my girls to complete hard things is one of my jobs as a mom.

So with this handstand challenge and healthy eating, there are days when I don't want to continue the journey. Some days I want to sit on the couch and eat potato chips. But you know what, my girls are great at reminding me to get up and get going. 

Lexi is eating salads with me and is my official handstand photographer. Kylie is working hard on handstands too. 

So even though the other night I had tons of chest congestion and a bad headache, legitimate reasons to take a day off the handstand, you know what? I did that stupid handstand. And Kylie sat there and watched me, and afterward, I felt like I had accomplished something!

Cause look at my girls.  

They will follow my lead, whichever path I take them on.

And this is last night. 

I'm getting stronger.

And relishing in a few moments with my baby girl who likes to draw butterflies on her face. 

What? These pants are tooo big!!

When I started this journey, I knew that I wanted to feel better, but I really wasn't expecting to LOOK different, or to lose enough weight and inches that my clothes would be too big.

But here I am..

Here is my week 5 midweek report.

I am 4 pounds from weighing what I weighed when I went to the doctor for my first OB visit with Maddie, SIXTEEN YEARS AGO! 

Yeah. 

And, my size 6 pants are HUGE on me. 

I never imagined that I would need a smaller size than 6, so over the last year I have restocked my wardrobe a few pieces at a time.  All of my pants are too big now.  Time to buy size 4. 

WHAT? 

That is CRAZY talk.

Anyone want to go shopping? :)

I'm not even dreading swimsuit season this year!