Revisiting Resolutions

Today, as I folded the laundry about a week later than I would have liked, I realized that I've fallen off the wagon as far as my 2008 New Year's resolutions are concerned. One of those was to get out of the habit of leaving the baskets of clean laundry to languish in the living room until I needed the baskets for the dirty laundry the following week. I actually did really well on this resolution until a couple of months ago. Then somehow I stopped being able to find the time to do on-time folding of laundry. Granted, this is not a particularly huge problem. Housework only takes priority insofar as routine maintenance needs to be performed (i.e., dishes, laundry, occasional vacuuming and tidying) and is generally of the keeping-the-house-from-being-a-complete-shithole nature, not the anal-retentive, must-keep-surfaces-immaculate nature.

However, as you can see from the images, one resolution from this year that I'm so far managing to keep is practicing my figure drawing. These are from the second session we attended, and they're somewhat better than the ones I produced in the first session (which I've deemed not good enough for public viewing). The drawings up top are one-minute gesture poses using graphite, and the ones just above are 30-minute poses, the large one charcoal and the smaller one graphite on toned paper. I still need practice, though, so I'll be going to Rob's figure drawing class from time to time. I'm realizing that the figure drawing class I took way back when was less technical in terms of learning bones, muscles, etc. and more focused on using various media, which is fine, but also means I don't have as much knowledge of anatomy as some artists. Rob is teaching that to his students, so I'll probably absorb some by proxy.

Re: my other resolutions for this year, so far--well, I thought I was halfway to my goal of losing 5 pounds, but evidently it was all negated this weekend when I was visiting my parents. My dad routinely tries to get me to eat more, MORE! and has the added quirk of possibly not knowing what a vegetable is. Meanwhile, my mom is strangely fond of breakfast/brunch, so when I'm at her house, I end up eating a lot more in the morning than I normally do, as someone who generally only has coffee and toast or fruit first thing.

The morning meal often also consists of unwanted personal conversation with a cafe waitress, since my mom is one of those people who will start conversations with just about anyone. This means that the waitstaff at her favorite haunts will know far more about me than I would normally divulge to random people. There's also a lot more talking than I usually want to do in the morning, as someone whose preferred method of communication pre-coffee is mainly caveman-like grunts and pained moans.

Anyway, I did go to the gym for an hour today, though, so I'm still holding out hope for the pounds going away again. The meditation resolution has yet to materialize (or immaterialize, as the case may be). I have a meditation CD that my therapist, Dr. Yoda (not his real name), kindly gave me, and I keep meaning to listen to it. Haven't yet. It's been a couple of weeks. I'm hoping to get to it before our appointment this week so I don't seem like a complete slacker. Wish me luck.