Glass. More is... More. And Sunday Food.

Wow. Glass makes me happy. I forget that.

I think that everyone's got a thing or two that just keys right into their core, and glass is that for me. Glass and enamel, vitreous things. If I had my life to do over again, I would have apprenticed as a glassblower, I think, or gone to art school somewhere that I could have studied glass working.

It's funny... my mother used to look at me and sigh and say, "I always thought you should have been an artist." This used to annoy the hell out of me, because I heard that as "I don't value what you actually do." Which may or may not have been correct, but still. (Total aside... I've heard people say about people who are dead... "this thing that they used to do that annoyed me; I just wish that they were still here to do that now." I do not feel that way. These sorts of things still make me angry and hurt. Yes, I should just let it go. No, I don't know how to do that yet.) But I'm terrible at the kinds of art that I was presented with at school... drawing and painting and so forth; I have minimal talent for them and no drive to succeed. But this... turning molten glass into solid light... this I could have spent a lifetime doing.

Anyway, another thing that I tend to forget is that when I do more, I feel like doing more, if that makes any sense.

I spend a lot of time screwing around and doing nothing, and then being discouraged that nothing is done (surprise!). I've been thinking a lot about the choices I make about what to do with my time, and I mostly think I could just be spending it better. Today I did a lot of things... made some beads, played racquetball, made food for the week (some of it, anyway), finished Michael's green card paperwork, and so on. And I feel a whole lot better than when I sit here and play games and end up with nothing to show for the day.

Better use of time.

Food. Boring.

Breakfast: quiche/protein shake
Then I went and played racquetball. Came back and had a chicken wing segment and a very small slice of cheese and the 3 ounces or so of leftover seafood salad.
Made soup for the week... more broccoli/sausage (my son: "Mom, can we just have a giant soup dispenser so there will always be soup?" Awwww.) But didn't really eat any.
Then we had curry for dinner, with the leftover pork from yesterday, but all of this looked so boringly like things I've made before that I didn't bother to take pictures.
And I had a sugar-free chocolate.

I feel a lot better about what I ate today, so maybe I'll end up ok for the week.

Everything Wants to Be Round. And Saturday food.

I was reading MizFit's blog yesterday and thinking about vision and gratitude boards and so forth, and about the amount of time I spend these days in activities that do not get me closer to any positive goal.

And so I decided to just do something that I've been putting off until the stars align properly and all the right things fall into place... setting up my glass working equipment again.

It's been years, literally, since I've done this... working with glass is the one thing that I've wanted to do practically forever, and about 6 or 7 years ago, I started taking beadmaking classes in Rochester and in Corning, and I finally set up a small studio at home. And I was just starting to feel like I was getting somewhere with this, when just about everything in my life changed, and I moved, and it took a long tiime to get things set up again. When I did, it was winter... and I work in the garage, and although the torch itself is over 2000 degrees, in winter here, it was just too cold. So Michael did the sweetest thing ever two years ago and as a Christmas present, hired someone to partition the garage and insulate it, so I could work in the winter. But the guy who was doing it, the son of a friend, turned out to be... well, "less than competent" would be putting it kindly. This was supposed to take a few weeks, and he finished at the end of last July. By that time... well, that was right after my mother died, and about when all the rounds of Michael being really sick started, and it's seemed like about the last thing that I should be doing. And too much effort to dig everything out and get going, and time that I couldn't afford to give.

So yesterday, I made a vision wall, instead. I tacked up all the pictures I had of glass by Kristina Logan, my personal inspiration, hooked everything up, and made a few beads. Wow, it's been a long time. I have forgotten everything. But it will come back.

Working with glass is a very meditative kind of activity for me. You have to be patient, not something that I do well. Lots of stuff goes through your head. Yesterday, what was going through my head was what one of my teachers said... "everything wants to be round." What she meant was, hot glass will always try to be round, so you have to remember as you're trying to shape it.

But to me, that means something else... it is easiest to be what you are naturally.

It's an extension of something I was thinking about earlier in the week, regarding exercise and food... it's a lot easier to try to follow an eating plan that suits the way you like to eat. Exercise for me got a lot easier when I got over the idea that I had to run, like all my friends, because this is not something that is natural for me. And when you get right down to it, most of the things that cause me pain in my life have to do with trying to be something that I am not, but that I have some notion that I "should" be.

Everything wants to be round. Use what you are naturally to make yourself better.

______
Food.

I am not paying as careful attention as I should.

Quiche/protein shake breakfast.

Then I went off to give a makeup exam, and ran by the grocery store to pick up prescriptions. I brought home some seafood salad for lunch, discovered that Michael had already eaten, and so just tossed a little seafood salad and a couple of chicken wing segments on a plate, and couldn't be bothered to take a picture. Also couldn't be bothered to have the green salad that I'd planned. Yes, I know... I will fuss around if I'm making food for other people, and I won't bother to feed myself properly. Not a Good Thing.

Around 5, we had 2 crackers with a little smoked salmon and some cheese that I'd bought earlier, plus 2 thin round of something billed as "Chianti Wine Salami." Good, not great.

And then dinner was pork shoulder, cauliflower purée, and broccoli with a little Parmesan cheese. The red stuff is a cranberry-walnut sauce, not low carb but there's only about 2 teaspoons of it.

But I nibbled on bits of pork as I was carving, and I ate a few of those little hamburgers I made a couple of days ago (and fed the rest to the dog), and I think I had a chocolate, and I sort of feel like I'm getting back to that not paying attention kind of eating. It's mostly, I think, because I've been sick and so haven't really been exercising, and that tends to make everything else kind of fall apart. This needs to be nipped in the bud now.

And today's bonus picture... a very bad picture of six not-very interesting or symmetrical beads. It's a start.