LifeBook2014 ~ Week 1 ~ Warm Up Exercise

Today is the first day of my LifeBook online Art Journaling Course. First there was an introductory to what to expect for LifeBook. Then we did a meditation to find our Guardian Angel and our Word for the year. The word that came up for me was Intuition. The one thing I really want to gain from this course is learning to paint more intuitively and just let go. After the meditation there is a warm up exercise for people who have blank page anxiety. This is my page from that exercise.


The next exercise is creating your Artist Guardian Angel.

Happy New Years 2014


First I thought I would start off with a Review of 2013 and then I will discuss my goals and plans for 2014...


Here are all the paintings I finished in 2013:


I had set a goal to read 30 books in the year but I fell short on that challenge and only read 16:

A couple other things I am proud of myself for accomplishing. The 13 Drawings I did for Halloween. I was able to do a little traveling this past year, with my trip to Salem with my Sister, and the Bahamas with the Boyfriend. I haven't done any kind of traveling like this in years and haven't been very many places in my life. Another thing that I am happy about and that has been working out great is the relationship I have with the Boyfriend, we got back together back in March.

Some things that didn't work out as planned. I wanted to run in a 5K Race and I fell short on the training. I let my procrastination and laziness take over. Also I wanted to try and blog more often in 2013 but I feel I let other things get in the way. I wanted to share more of my Graphic Design from work but didn't get a chance to do much of that either. There are things I wanted to get done around the house that I didn't get to. I am still dealing with my Mom being in a nursing facility, being in a minimal state (she doesn't talk at all or move very much). I go visit her every other saturday, because she is 2 hours away, and sometimes I feel guilty that I am not with her more. Well those are few things that didn't work out so well in the past year, and I am hoping to work on them in the New Year.

All together 2013 wasn't to bad!


My goals for the New Year 2014:

I started an online class call LifeBook 2014. It is a year long art journaling class focused on art through healing. I am really looking forward to starting this today!


I am going to try and finish some of the other paintings I have on my to do list along with doing LifeBook for the year.

I am going to set my reading goal at 30 books again and try my hardest to reach this goal this year. Which means no more mindless TV watching for me!

I want to pick up writing on the blog more often and sharing my Graphic Designs at least once a week.

I would like to start at least running 2 times a week to start out, working my way up to the full 5K (3 miles). I got to just about 2 miles when I gave up last time. I found out that Disney does a Halloween 5K run around the park, so my goal is to work up to run in that.

My niece is Graduating this year and I plan on traveling to see her graduate. Along with this my Sister and I are planning another sister trip. We are going to explore some things in her state of Tennessee that she hasn't had a chance to check out yet. I think we are planning on visiting Nashville mostly. We are still discussing this.

I want to plan another short trip with the Boyfriend this year.

The Boyfriend turns the big 40 this year. I am trying to figure out what to do to make it a big deal for him. He isn't the type to get overly excited about things but I want to make it big for him.

I want to go to the Zoo this year! I haven't been to a zoo since I was a kid and there is a Zoo about an hour away that I have been wanting to check out.

There are things I have been wanting to get done around my house. This year my goals with the house is to get the porch re-screened, and finally paint the walls inside.

My financial goals are to pay down some debt so that I can get my Master Bathroom redone in 2015. Also of course to save more money.

My career goals is to just keep pushing myself outside the box to be more creative at my job. I want to also get more items in my Etsy Store.

I bought a workbook planner for the year and plan to write all my goals in it. I plan to make myself a to do list every week and try my hardest to get those things done within the week.

I am sure there will be more, and things can change but those are my main goals for the year.

I hope everybody has a wonderful 2014!!!


December Adventures

I hope everybody had a wonderful Holiday Season!

The beginning of December was pretty quiet. We were saving for our Holiday Bahama Getaway! You can read about that here.

My niece received her present and loved it:



I went to the eye doctor because my eyes started feeling strained, especially when being on the computer for long periods of time. My eyes aren't to bad but he did prescribe me some reading glasses. I picked out some cool Converse glasses. You can't really see it in the picture to well but the outside color is Dark Blue and the inside color is a Lime Green.


If you didn't see the blog post, this is the only painting I finished this month. Also look for this coming to the Etsy Store soon.


Here are my sunsets for the month, there are some really pretty ones.





I am looking forward to a New Year! I did sign up for the LifeBook 2014, so you can look forward to see some art journaling coming from me from this course. I am very excited about starting this.

Holiday Bahamas Vacation

I have never been a huge fan of the Holiday Season and all the commercialism that is included in it. This time of year has even been harder since dealing with my Mom in the situation she is in. So talking to the boyfriend we decided, instead of buying each other material gifts we would split the cost of a cruise and get away for the holidays. I did some research and we decided on the Bahamas Celebration Cruise since it is only a 2 day cruise (mainly because I get motion sickness and I wasn't sure how I would handle the seas). We took off Christmas Eve and returned the day after Christmas.

Once we boarded the ship we weren't able to go right to our rooms so we walked around and explored the ship.

We were able to go to our room around 2pm. The room wasn't spectacular but it was comfortable.


Our room was on the 8th deck. Here is a picture looking down where the elevators go up and down.


Then we went outside to wait for the boat to take off. This is a picture of the Port of Palm Beach while we were docked and waiting to take off.


By the time we took off we had to get to our room and change for dinner. We decided to eat at one of the restaurants you had to pay a little extra. The restaurant is called The Rock and they bring your food out raw on a 800 degree volcanic rock to cook at the table on. It was such a neat experience and the food was really great.


By the time we were done with dinner the boat was out on the open waters and the seas were rough. The boat was swaying so much you couldn't walk straight. We decided while we waited for the shows to start that we would go get our pictures taken, since we were all dressed up. I wish I could show them because they came out great (the boyfriend just doesn't like the idea of sharing on the internet, and I respect his wishes on that). After that we went to catch the shows. They had a woman sing, then a few people performing Cirque Du Soleil, then there was a comedian. All the performers were entertaining, I especially liked the Cirque performers. While watching the show the ship was really swaying and I started to feel a little queasy. After the show was over we decided to go lay down.

When we got up in the morning we were just pulling in to the Bahamas. We got ready and went down, ate some breakfast, then proceeded to head off the ship. We decided not to do any excursions and wanted to explore the island. We took a taxi down to the main shopping area and beaches. It was neat because they drive on the left side of the road. We walked around the market for a little bit but some of the stores didn't open until 10am.

We walked across the street to explore the beach a bit. The water was beautiful but cold.







After exploring the beach we walked back over to the shopping market.


There was this beautiful mosaic in the middle of the marketplace.


I found this beautiful sea blue gemstone necklace that I fell in love with, so the boyfriend bought it for me. I love natural gemstones. This stone is called Larimar and is only found in the Caribean (the Dominican Republic to be exact). It is such a gorgeous teal color.


Since it was Christmas there were a lot of shops that weren't open. We took a taxi back to where the boat was docked to check out that area.



We decided to stop in at Senor Frogs and get a drink and something to eat.


This was the only alcohol we had the whole trip.


After that we walked around the little shopping area near the boat. Then decided to board the boat and went to the room and laid down for a bit. We ended up falling asleep and didn't wake up until dark. We got ready and went outside to see how far we had got from departing from the Bahamas.


We decided to catch the early show and it was a different show. There was a comedian magician and he was a trip. After the show we went to the little Italian restaurant and ate pasta and pizza. We then walked around the ship. The seas were definitely calmer so we were able to walk around outside. We had some dessert and then went back to the room to go to bed. When we got to the room we found this little guy on the bed.


All together the trip was nice and relaxing. It was great to just get away for a little bit.