Sketchbook Pages: Week 1

One of my goals this year is to work in my sketchbook (or be creative) daily. So far, I've been very good about creating at least one page a day. It wasn't always easy last week since I was working, but I made it a priority and I'm really happy about that! Some of these pages are (very) quick and simple, but the sheer act of creating has put me in a more creative mood. I'll call that a success!

1/1 - quick doodle to mark the new year + a simple collage with journaling

1/2 - collaging my to-do list
1/3 - a doodle with journaling inspired by washi tape

1/4 - my simplest page, a washi tape compilation
1/5 - portrait of a girl

1/6 - marking my last day of work for the year
1/7 - a drawing of the latest addition to our baby's collection of stuffed animals, Steve the Stegosaurus (named by Pat)

List of Supplies:

• Uniball micro black pen
• Artist's Loft fundamentals woodless pencil crayons
• Staedtler triplus fineliners (pink and light blue)
• Sharpie paint pen (silver)
• Pilot blue pen
• masking and washi tapes
• scrapbooking paper

Pregnancy: Week 38+3

Pat took another set of photos yesterday - week 38+3. We are getting there!!!

First, let's compare week 35, 37 and 38:

Definitely some progression here! My bump is rounder and lower. I feel him in my pelvis a lot now (and punching at my bladder!). He's still quite active, stretching as much as he can... but he's running out of room, that's for sure! He's getting so heavy!

My hips are still extra sore when I lie down, so sleeping is in 1-2 hour intervals. Otherwise, I feel great! I still feel like he's going to go past 40 weeks - and as anxious as I am to meet the little guy, he can take as much time as he needs! Friday was my last day of work, so now I can just relax at home and prepare for the big day.

We can't wait to meet you little one!

2017 Goals

17 GOALS FOR 2017:

1. Read 30 books.
2. Finish 2 cross-stitch patterns.
3. Finish Amber art book and start a new one.
4. Take monthly baby and family photos.
5. Journal or sketchbook daily.
6. Set a schedule for blogging (weekly), crafting (daily) and getting out of the house (3-4x weekly).
7. Make and freeze meals for post-partum.
8. Gather 10 good crockpot recipes.
9. Set a routine for exercising (3-4x weekly).
10. Catalogue library.
11. Host Thanksgiving.
12. Organize, declutter, minimize, purge.
13. Figure out cloth-diapering, nursing/pumping and making baby food.
14. Stay in touch with friends while on maternity leave.
15. Tackle a new "kitchen challenge" monthly (challenging recipe / technique).
16. Be intentional deepening relationship with Pat. Set weekly date nights.
17. Plan a family trip (overnight, not counting grandparents' house).

This year, I tried to make specific, concrete, measurable goals. I think most of them are, with only a couple exceptions (#12 and #14). This will make it a lot easier to keep track of my progress. Blogging monthly kept me somewhat accountable last year, but this year I wanted more. So I made myself a "Goals Journal" where I can keep a log of all my goals (and plan some of the bigger ones). Here's a look at what I'm talking about:

This journal is actually making me even more excited about accomplishing my goals this year!

What are your goals for 2017?

2016 Goals in Review

Here's a recap of my 2016 goals. I think I did pretty decently, considering the great distraction of being pregnant!

16 GOALS FOR 2016:

1. Read 30 books. 41/30 (YES!) 
2. Try 16 new Ottolenghi recipes. 9/16
3. Try 16 new (loose-leaf) teas. 16/16 
4. Put up shelves and organize craft room. Make it inspiring.
5. Finish Amber art book - this year I WILL! (I started out strong early in the year, but haven't painted much since... 2017 will take me back into my craft room!)
6. Work in sketchbook daily. (Not daily, but almost weekly for a good part of the year.)
7. Blog weekly. (Nope. I have 38 blog posts total, which falls quite a bit short of my goal. 2017 will be my blogging year!)
8. Finish 2 cross-stitch samplers. (I almost finished the Woodland Sampler. I'm carrying this goal over - this will be my first finish of the year since I plan on hanging it in the nursery.)
9. Travel somewhere new. (Eastern Canada)
10. Sign up for and pass my SOCRA certification.
11. Make an inventory of all my books. (Another big no. I did make a list of the books I have yet to read - it's quite satisfying crossing them off once I read them. This goal is also getting carried over to 2017.)
12. Wake up earlier and practice yoga every morning evening. (I did really well with exercising at the beginning of the year... and then I ran out of energy. Again, 2017 will be a year for setting good habits and routines!)
13. Make a weekly meal plan and prep veggies on the weekend. (I did pretty well with this one, so I'm calling it done. It wasn't quite weekly, but close enough.)
14. Get rid of junk we never use (i.e. downsize our "things") and organize storage and spare spaces. (I started on this one, but didn't get too far. I plan on working on this in 2017 too.)
15. Work on making the backyard nicer (plant flowers, landscape, garden). (Pat did a great job with this - we still want to add a bit more landscaping, but it's quite a bit better than it was.)
16. Set reminders in my phone to make me check in on my goals at least monthly (and blog about it). (10/12 monthly reviews - missed June and November.)

Not bad! I crossed off half of my goals, and put a decent dent in most of the others. I'm really happy with how the year went - blogging regular updates really helped me stay on track. I'm going to do the same in 2017; plus, I've started a "goals" notebook to keep track of some of the more daily/weekly goals I've set. I'll post some pictures of what I'm talking about with my list of 2017 goals.

2016 Recap

Before I set my goals for 2017, I'd like to take a quick look back on 2016. Again, I wish I could look through my blog posts from last year, but there isn't much there. I'm really hoping that being off for a year means I'll be blogging much more in 2017 - especially of the day-to-day things that I most enjoy looking back on.

Anyway, here are some of the highlights from 2016:

• Obviously, the biggest highlight for me was getting pregnant and everything that went along with that. I've had a great pregnancy and all the love and support for our little man has been overwhelming. Our baby shower was incredible! Setting up our nursery has been so much fun (I'll have to share some photos of that real soon). Now we are just waiting (somewhat impatiently) for his arrival!
• Shows / events from 2016:
• January: Mozart Juniper Symphony (TSO)
• January: Niagara-on-the-Lake Ice Wine Festival
• April: David Gilmour concert
• April: Hewlitt Plays Bach (TSO)
• April: Yoga Retreat with mom in the Muskokas
• September: apple picking
• I signed up for, studied and passed my SOCRA certification.
• We cleaned up the backyard and Pat built me a raised bed for growing herbs and veggies.
• We went to a few birthday parties, backyard BBQs and Christmas parties; I went to Pat's cousin's baby shower and out for drinks with co-workers; we visited family and had family visit us.
• We took an epic road trip to the East Coast in July... something I never blogged about. Here are two lovely photos from the very first evening, taken somewhere in Vermont:

I kept a travel journal of this trip, so perhaps I will find time this year to blog all the incredible photos we took on our adventures.

Lastly, here's a look back on what I was reading in 2016:

1. Dai Sijie - Balzac and the Little Seamstress
2. Vladamir Nabokov - Lolita
3. Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
4. George R.R. Martin - A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
5. M.L. Stedman - The Light Between Oceans
6. Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith - My Secret Sister
7. Kim van Alkemade - Orphan #8
8. Junot Diaz - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
9. Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - The Nest
10. Haruki Murakami - South of the Border, West of the Sun
11. Margaret Atwood - Stone Mattress (Nine Wicked Tales)
12. Phaedra Patrick - The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper
13. Jonas Jonasson - Hitman Anders and the Meaning of it all
14. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Love in the Time of Cholera
15. Janet Fitch - White Oleander
16. Paul Collins - Sixpence House
17. Lian Hearn - Emperor of the Eight Islands
18. Joseph Heller - Catch-22
19. Jo Nesbo - Blood on Snow
20. Joseph Conrad - Heart of Darkness
21. Yaa Gyasi - Homegoing
22. Shilpi Somaya Gowda - The Golden Son
23. Rachel Joyce - The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
24. Haruki Murakami - Hear the Wind Sing
25. Haruki Murakami - Pinball, 1973
26. Ransom Riggs - Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
27. Bret Easton Ellis - American Psycho
28. Neil Pasricha - The Book of Awesome
29. Karine Tuil - The Age of Reinvention
30. Lian Hearn - Autumn Princess, Dragon Child
31. Lian Hearn - Lord of the Darkwood
32. Julia Stuart - The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise
33. Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase
34. Chad Kultgen - Men, Women and Children
35. Charlotte Wood - The Natural Way of Things
36. Andrew Sean Greer - The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
37. Wilbur Smith - Golden Lion
38. Paulo Coelho - The Spy
39. Joseph Kim - Under the Same Sky
40. Tea Obreht - The Tiger's Wife
41. Shirley Barett - Rush Oh!

Legend:

• Book club books
• Books I borrowed

The books I would highly recommend are #21, Gyasi's Homegoing and #39, Kim's Under the Same Sky.

Next up: a recap of my 2016 goals and a rundown of my 2017 goals!

2017 Word of the Year

This year, my word came very easily. I made a list rather quickly:

nurture
nourish
nest
delight
indulge
savour
relish
revel
rejoice
pamper

Two words immediately jumped out at me, so I "tried them out" in my sketchbook:

savour + delight

"Delight" appealed to me for fairly obvious reasons - I have a lot to delight in this coming year.

But "savour" resonated even more. I'm already delighted - that's going to be an easy response for me throughout the year. But savour. I really, really want to slow down and enjoy the year. I want to savour it and appreciate it to the fullest. I want this word to be my gentle reminder that the year is going to fly by and I need to savour every moment (no matter how challenging!).

What words or intentions are you setting yourself for this year?

Pregnancy: Week 37+3

Here are a few more photos taken yesterday, at week 37 + 3 days. I really love how these silhouettes turn out!

Not much longer now!

I don't see a noticeable difference in size from my last photos 2 weeks ago. I do think he's dropped a bit more though, since I can eat a larger meal without my ribs feeling like they're going to crack apart! I've still been feeling good, although sleeping is starting to get difficult. I wake up every hour or two to go to the washroom or roll over (my poor hips hurt if I lie on either side for too long), and the last few days I find I'm having more difficulty falling asleep in the first place. Pat tells me I'm too excited... I guess he's probably right. It's all I can think about! We're all so very ready for baby to arrive!

Happy New Year!

I have a feeling that this year is going to be the best one yet!