Number 9

ok, before i force myself to go to sleep (lest i become completely unable to wake up extra extra early for work next week with my night owl vacation habit), i have another New Year's resolution to add to the list!

• I want to draw and paint more! now, i realize that's going to be a bit of a challenge since I'll be busy with school... but i doubt that it will be impossible... especially since I just signed myself up for an extra cool Cabaret Life Drawing session in Seattle, featuring burlesque models ~ including Kittie LaRue of the Burlesque Nutcracker! how cool!... i think i'll aim for at least one model session every 2 months. i think i can manage attending 6 of them in 2010. it can't possibly be completely unreasonable to expect that i can find one date that i can attend every 60 days. (right?)
  

i may just go to another one even earlier in the new year, on the 6th. we'll see. I don't want to over extend myself during my first week back at work... i'm already going to need extra coffee to drag myself out of bed so friggin early. have i mentioned that one of the fantastic benefits of moving onto a Project Management position will be getting to "sleep in" a couple of hours, since those jobs will likely allow me to begin my work day at a reasonable and normal hour? :)

big plans

i spent a good part of the day today filling in important dates and reminders in my new 2010 planner. i don't think i've ever bothered to put this much effort into planning out a new year... but i'm feeling very excited about this one. (probably in large part because a significant portion of this current year just pisses me off... so it's exciting to kick it goodbye and start fresh - finally!)

on one hand it's bizarre to think that a decade is going to be finished and over with on Thursday night - not just a year, but a whole decade - the first decade of the millennium in fact! it's even weirder to think about what was happening in my life a decade ago. On the verge of the end of 1999, i was working a low paying, substitute page job at the local library - which was nice and low key, and always interesting... but i recall thinking often that i did NOT want to be stuck doing that job for the rest of my life (like a lot of the older ladies i saw there, who had been there for AGES, and still had practically the same job I had, and i had only just recently turned 21... i was SUPPOSED to have a crappy job)... i finished my first post-high school degree in June of 2000, which was an associates degree in arts and sciences (mostly arts... and just the bare minimum of sciences because they required it)...

In the past decade, i've had 3 graduations! the associates degree, a double bachelors degree in fine art: painting, and another in art history from the UW... and finally a masters degree in teaching from UPS. it's funny to think that 10 years later, i'm still finding a way to become a student. it doesn't feel like 10 years of education... but i suppose mostly it was. nearly half of that time was spent at the UW (and i loved it. i loved devoting most of my waking time to painting and learning about historical artists... what a fantastic time in my life!)... just over a year of it was spent at UPS... and the past 3 i've spent teaching art. not too shabby for the professional portion of my last decade huh?

And what about travel? the Double 0's have really been a decade for travel for me! i took my first (and longest) international trip in 2003, when i spent a quarter studying art history abroad in Rome! Having learned my lesson about travel by this time, i didn't just go to Rome and come straight back home. I spent as much time as possible traveling all over the place, seeing the things that I MOST wanted to see while in Europe. I even spent a couple of years preparing for the language. I did 4 quarters of Italian before even bothering to apply (though it was not a requirement). During that trip, I went to 7 countries, including Spain, France, Italy, Austria, Hungary, German, and England. Having acquired a taste for travel, I spent the following spring break in Mexico enjoying the beaches of Cancun... and then that was it for a while. The next big international trip was to Jamaica for my honeymoon a couple of years ago. Then for spring break this past year Mike and I went to Korea and Japan to visit a couple of friends of mine. I've wanted to visit Japan for ages, and I have to say it was every bit as cool as I had hoped it would be. Counting several trips I've taken to Canada over the past decade, that makes 13 countries I've visited outside of the US in the last decade! I doubt I'll beat that in the 2010's, but it would sure be fun to try to come close! I would love to go to Egypt. Mike has promised me that when we get rid of our last bit of credit card debt, we can go to Egypt. Hopefully that will be sooner rather than later - I'm dying to go see the pyramids!

Back to my plans so far for 2010, I've got all of the birthdays and anniversaries plugged in, upcoming show dates for Morpheus, my Film Noir & Pinot Noir nite on the 15th... and (my favorite of the moment), 6 weeks of yoga all planned out! That together with my regular weight watchers meetings on Tuesday nights, and I've just made real plans to make like 3 of my resolutions a big success right off the bat in 2010! I'm also dragging the new planner with me over to Hillary's house tomorrow night for wine & a movie night - but just as importantly, we're going to plan some art happenings for the new year... and i think right this second i'm going to log off and go check out that Drawing meetup, so i can plan a few dates in the new year to go draw w/ a live model. it'll be good to make regular dates to use my cool new sketchbook.

books and books and books!

this afternoon i ventured down to Tacoma for a bookstore shopping trip. i was hoping to find some of my textbooks locally (and hopefully used) to see if i could slash the price, compared to ordering them online through the school's bookstore. I know that the UW Tacoma campus does have a Project Management program, so I was hoping that some of the same books would be available in their bookstore. No such luck!

Then i went across the street to the Tacoma Art Museum, merrily hoping I would find a fabulous art-based new planner for 2010... and BIG DUH, they were closed. Art museums being closed on a Monday is not a new concept for me... but being on vacation and forgetting what day it is explains my problem! :) While I was waiting for the crosswalk signal to tell me it was safe to cross the street to get back to my car, i found myself thinking how WICKED cool it must be to be a UW-T student, with the art museum, and Tacoma's best art supply store literally right next door! (Hillary, i'm jealous!)

So then I drove up the hill to King's Books, wanting to find a decent bargain on a gently used copy of a classic novel for my 2010 resolution to read at least one. I have almost positively settled on The Scarlet Letter (but Ulysses keeps sneaking its way back into my mind)... I found a good copy of The Scarlet Letter, and also came out with a somewhat old looking copy of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - which i've learned depicts the early years of a character in Ulysses... so why not? No luck on finding a good copy of Ulysses though.

So then I went to Half Price Books, hoping to score Ulysses, and crossed my fingers that they would have cheap copies of my textbooks too.... no luck on either of them, but I did come out with discount copies of the Golden Compass trilogy!... Then Borders was practically next door, so I went in and found a National Gallery Planner (for 50% off), and bought a copy of Ulysses. I used my teacher discount too. (what are they going to do, track me down and find out that I don't actually teach literature?) hehehe

but it doesn't end there! I went online and found my textbooks AND Mike's textbooks for cheap and decent prices on half.com! Assuming that mine comes with the promised CD and Mike's comes with the promised DVD, I think we're in good shape! (we saved loads of $$ from the list price on the school's bookstore website, too ~ even after shipping!)

I think for a follow up book based day, tomorrow I should see what I can do about finishing the two books that I'm currently in the middle of, to make space on my "now reading" mental bookshelf... I think I'm right about in the middle of Friday Night Knitting Club, and am somewhere near the beginning of the 3rd Harry Potter book. Unless I go buy the 4th one, I'll have to stop there for a while (and I looked at King's and Half Price Books today too, and they didn't have what I wanted... they had them in hardcover, but I've always preferred paperbacks. that' weird isn't it?)

maybe i should have been an anthropologist

it has occurred to me recently that as i'm slowly returning to doing all of the things that make me most happy, what i'm really doing is attempting to steep myself in a nice rounded mix of culture... and not just my own. i'm hungry to dig right into the finer things in life. I'm wanting to do movie nights, sure, but not just any old movies... i want to watch great foreign movies, and legendary old movies... i want to read books - but again not just any books - i'm looking for the classics again. i've always sought out the classics. I've done it since I was in high school and first learned what the classics were! - and it was almost never for a class. People would ask me (even when I wasn't a student anymore) what class i was reading "that book" for... and I'd answer that I was reading it for pleasure. They're time tested, and proven to be great - otherwise they wouldn't still be well known - they would have faded into history by now... that's the heart of my reason for wanting to read them, but it's not the whole reason. I think I also want the cultural knowledge that goes along with reading those books, and watching those movies.

For example, i was researching Film Noir earlier for my first movie nite of the new year... and i came upon Strangers on a Train, which happens to have been filmed before either of my parents were born. Even so, I have heard that particular movie referenced so many times in contemporary pop culture that i feel like i already know the movie. it would undoubtedly have even deeper significance for me every time it's referenced, though, if i had the background of actually having watched the movie.

it's the same with food - i love trying new foods, and foods from different regions of the world. i'm probably the most adventurous person in my family when it comes to food... not to mention actual travel. i've been to at least 13 countries, and can't wait to go see more! i just can't help it... i want to expand my cultural horizons, and the more i get, the more i seem to want.

it's not even New Year's yet!

i am so excited about this New Year's! 2009 was a real let down for me... at least the first half of it, anyway. the second half was pretty awesome. during the first half i was stuck working at a school with a person i couldn't stand... an abusive person who took advantage of me. it did a real number on me, too - i was functioning over my stress limit for months, i didn't have the mental energy to do much of anything after work - for months... even a good way into the summer. the de-stress and recovery took a lot longer than i really ever imagined it would... a good 6 months to be exact.

i finally FINALLY feel like ME again. I'm painting and doing my own artwork again - not nearly as much as i was able to while I was a full time art student, of course, but enough to keep me feeling like a happy and active artist. i'm cooking and baking again! i've got the energy now to enjoy my new home (and finally feel like decorating the place!)... i guess i never quit drinking wine, but i feel like i'm more actively enjoying it, since i'm planning a wine party tonight, and a wine tour early this year, and hopefully more wine events w/ my friends and family throughout the year...

which brings me to my New Year's resolutions... I know it's not even New Year's yet, but i just can't wait to kick this stupid year out of my life... so i'm ready to set some resolutions NOW!

• here's the obvious one - i want to lose weight. i've already lost 15 lbs, and i'm set and ready to lose more! (i gained weight while working with that abusive witch early this year... i want to kick the memory of her out for good too, and that means losing the rest of the weight she caused me to gain... and hopefully more on top of that too. i DID gain weight during grad school, and on my honeymoon too... i'd love to just get rid of all of it!... and if i can lose weight between Thanksgiving and Christmas, i can probably do anything!

• I want to spend more time with my favorite people - which means Champagne Thursdays with Hillary, and monthly dinners (or whatever) with my UW artist friends. I want to get my mom out of the house and doing fun social things too!

• I want to do monthly movie nights. Only one person showed up for my foreign movie nite - but i didn't even care... the point was, i was making time to do something i love... who cares if i'm doing it all by myself? it's probably more fun that way anyway, than trying to get people to do it with me who will end up hating it and having a terrible time.... if people want to join me, the more the merrier - but this one is about the ritual and enjoyment of making time to do the stuff i love... anything more than that is just going to be icing on the cake (and everybody knows my favorite part of the cake is the icing) ;)

• I want to host more game nites too! We had a fun game nite with Mike's sister's family, I think we had my parents over for one, and we had one or two at friends' houses too... they're just fun, and i suppose it probably fits under the spending more time with my favorite people section... but these are my resolutions, so i'm going to organize them how i want!

• I want to pay attention and spend more time at SAM. I always love going there, and I just don't feel like I go enough... and since I did ONE art walk in 2009, i'm going to set the goal of doing at least 2 art walks in 2010. it's realistic... and hopefully i'll do more than that too. we'll see.

• I go to my weight watchers meetings on Tuesdays, and they started giving out this little weekly Zine thingy that features a recipe in it each week - and so far (with the exception of this week's, since this week's was a cocktail!!) i've made each one on the Tuesday i got it... so i want to do recipe surprise on Tuesdays. I love being adventurous with food, and so far that has been a great way to keep mixing it up and trying new things!

• I also plan to return to doing Yoga this year! I'm already signed up to do Doga (Yoga for dogs and people!!) for 4 weeks starting toward the end of January. I found a neat looking studio sorta nearby for regular yoga too, that I would really like to start going to. I have always loved yoga, and I think it will feel like one more step toward being my normal, balanced, and happy self again!

• I also love reading the classics (among other things), and i haven't read one in ages... so i want to choose one and read it this year too. I'll read other stuff too, of course (among the other stuff i'm working on the Harry Potter series, and got as far as buying Twilight, and i'm halfway through the Friday Night Knitting Club for Alyssa's Book Club Lite)... but i'm going to do at least one classic novel this year too.
  

I might add to this list between now and New Year's... but that's a good working list of the things I want to do in 2010!