RESOURCEFUL

My One Little Word for the year is RESOURCEFUL (see Ali Edwards for more information).  I recently revisited my word and wrote some new goals for the rest of the year.  I want to discover my inner resources and to see just how much I can do! 

One way of doing this is to exercise more, and see if and by how much I can improve my fitness.  I am going to the gym, and enjoying it!  I never thought that I would say/write that!!!   Being resourceful, I found an old pair of Lucy’s trainers and have leggings and tops from previous exercising.

I have been doing Pilates type exercise on a Wednesday morning for a few months and encouraged by my improvement, I decided I’d try Boot Camp!  I’m just coming to the end of my first 4 weeks, exercising 3 times a week at Infinite Fitness.  I am so lucky that the gym is literally 5 minutes walk from my house, that Jason our Boot Camp ‘commandant’ makes the classes such fun, and that I go with 2 friends.  All things that encourage me to keep going.  On top of the 3 Boot Camp sessions and Pilates I am still walking the dog twice a day and try to do an Aquazumba class occasionally. My goals are to do a proper sit up from lying flat on the floor and to run about 1.5 miles, down to the sea and back.

 

Another way of discovering my inner resources is to notice and be grateful for the beauty and joy in everyday things. I made a daily note last month of things that ‘made me smile’, and then found this class, Ode to Nature!  Thanks to Alexa, on whose blog I found the link, and who has written brilliant blog posts about the class.

I’ve been collecting things!  I’m keeping them on the kitchen windowsill at the moment.  (Excuse the dirty window!!!)  Flowers from the garden, shells, pebbles and seaweed from the beach, leaves, feathers and pine cones from my dog walks around the local streets.

  

Alisa has some wonderful ideas for recording these finds, with photography, sketching and painting.  So I thought I’d have a go!  I was pleasantly surprised at my results:

I’d love to do a series of ‘still life’ framed photographs for my home.

I am not an artist, and never really tried to sketch or paint, so was really thrilled with my watercolours of the shells!  I found an old watercolour set and some water brushes, and picked one of (the many) watercolour paper books I have, and now I’m hooked!  I want to learn about painting and sketching.  I love the way it makes me really study things.  I love trying to make the right shapes and colours.  I love trying to capture the way the light falls on things.  Gosh I have a lot to learn!

Alisa suggests using a field journal, and to sketch, take rubbings and stick things straight into the book.  Here’s my leaves from the garden, and a work in progress of a flower I found on the beach.  I think it is a wild mallow.

My goal is to practice sketching and painting, and to keep up with a field journal.  It makes me study things, find the natural beauty in things and to live in the moment.

Now that summer is drawing to a close, I can’t wait for autumn to continue my Ode to Nature.