Resolve

It has come to pass that we have made a great many resolutions since we have moved here. Suddenly with modified responsibilities, we have lost, to a certain degree, motivation for many things that should be a ‘given’ in daily life.

For example..

We now have a dishwasher (awesome!), but it’s not the greatest dishwasher ever and you have to scrub the dishes before you put them in or they come out with the same gunkiness they had to begin with (we mostly rely on the sanitizing nature of the dishwasher as opposed to that whole ‘washing’ thing). So, instead of letting the dishes sit in the sink for weeks like we used to, you know, to get them good and fuzzy before we spent hours wishing we had done them sooner, we let them sit for a day or two before we spend about an hour wishing we would’ve just done it piece by piece.

And we have resolved to do that. And it lasted about one mealtime.


Another example…

We have this great habit of leaving things about the house instead of putting them away. I get home from work, change into comfy clothes and lay my work clothes on the bed, chair, whatever surface is available. That goes on for a week, until finally on Saturday I spend an hour cleaning the bedroom. And Ian loves his piles. Piles everywhere. And I don’t know what to do with stuff so I just chuck it somewhere to ‘deal with it later’.

We resolved to put our [fill in the blank] away (at least twice) and that actually may have never happened.


Yup, we’re still going…

Remember this? When I resolved to paint every morning? Yeah, well, I’ve been painting, but it has gotten more and more sporadic as the weeks have passed. My only hope is that with being consistently full time at work, I will be a consistent painter, as I was the first week I started this resolution, when I was working full time.


Not to mention when we were going to start working out consistently (at least a dozen times this year).


And that is only the tip of the iceberg. I have been able to maintain a few things that I have consciously decided to do pretty consistently, but that’s about it. The frustrating thing is, I genuinely want to do these things.. really badly. I want to be disciplined. I want to ‘have it all together’ at least at the most basic level. I want to be able to overcome my desire not to do something by realizing the value of doing it. You know?

I also want to tell myself things like ‘oh, you’ll figure it out eventually’ ‘when you have kids it’ll get straightened out’ ‘you’re going through so many transitions all the time, how can you possibly hope for any consistency’, but I know that those are just excuses and ways to put off the truth of the matter. I’ve just got to do it. It’s not going to be any easier tomorrow (and who am I kidding thinking KIDS will make it easier??), in fact it will probably just get harder and more frustrating the longer I find ways to drag it out.

So. I’m going to try to come up with some kind of system for myself to dredge up that motivation on the good days, so it’s not as hard to find on the bad days. I would also love suggestions… :)

The Return of the Hamburger Things

The hamburger thing is a beautiful meal. It's like hot pocket, but you can customize it. My mom always made these for her picky kids, two Pillsbury crescent rolls laid out flat, filled with ONLY hamburger, then folded over to make the 'pocket'. Being married and also a college student, I loved this meal because it only took like 20 minutes to make for dinner. And it tasted sooooo good! 

When we moved to Scotland, I discovered that 1) I didn't really care for the flavor of the beef - the main ingredient, and 2) I couldn't find Pillsbury rolls anywhere (although, now I'm on the lookout - thanks Kristin!). Since Tesco has some pretty great clearance deals on their meat, we ended up with some beef and had a hankerin for hamburger things, so we started looking to see what kind of pastry we could find. We ended up getting a 'roll it out yourself' puff pastry to attempt the dinner and got the lovely result above. I cooked the meat with seasoned salt and pepper, and next time I'm going to add some onions to make it taste EVEN BETTER (just give my mother a moment to pick herself up off the floor). Ian likes to stick cheese in there with the meat for some extra goodness as well. 

They were delicious - even on day 2! - and we are so grateful for the re-discovery of a quick and easy meal! :)

Now, I just have to learn how to make 'tastes like kraft' macaroni and cheese from scratch, then we'll be all set.. (Yes, my childish taste buds still prefer kraft over 'sophisticated' macaroni & cheeses, unless it's made with velveeta.. mmmm velveeta :)

Quote of the Night...

As we are walking past one of the many street musicians that show up around St Andrews when the weather is nice, Ian says..

'I always give her money.. sometimes..'

followed by the look that makes it hilarious as he realizes what he just said :)

Painting - Week 3 - SLACKER!

That's the only way I know how to describe my painting attempts this week. I started one.. mid-week I think.. and never finished it because I hated it and was getting tired of working so detailed. So, I painted over it nice and sloppy this morning, and will hopefully reach a finished painting this week.

Sorry for the poor photography!

And, I started another one, but it's just an under painting at the moment. I'm painting a picture my sister took a few years ago while in the UK that she has been wanting me to paint... for a few years :)


I'm using my new water-soluble oil paints, and am very excited to see how they work.

I know.. kind of a disappointing week, but maybe this will be a good chance for me to demonstrate the many layers of thought and process that go into a painting :) 

I've had some good points of inspiration this week in Scripture and in random works of art I've been looking at online. One of the things I'm going to pursue: BEES! I'm super excited :) I'm expecting my progress on the smaller 'weekly' paintings to slow while I'm working on the larger oil painting, but hopefully I'll still have some good results to show on both each week, unlike this week..