back to the basics…

2013 New Year’s Resolutions
1. Exercise Regularly, and avoid setbacks
2. Get back in to creating art regularly.
3. Learn to play music.
4. Eat Right.
5. Write things down.

I’ve fallen off of the band wagon on sticking with the above. I am writing stuff down more, but got off of exercise a couple of weeks ago when my calf had a major issue…it sort of tightened up after I went down a flight of stairs a little too fast and it actually had me on crutches about a week… The pain stayed with me a long while. For the longest time I could not do stairs since it hurt so bad when the leg was in a certain position where the sore leg was behind the other leg… The pain has started died down a lot. It still does feel like a stiff, sore muscle in my leg sometimes… it is mainly one of the calf muscles but it sometimes radiates up to the back of the leg behind the knee and down to the Achilles heel… The ultrasound they did the day it happened didn’t find anything. I was told an MRI might find something since it has a finer scanning reading in looking for muscle tears, etc. Thank GOD there was no blood clots that the ultrasound found since I had the hernia surgery back in December.

I fell off the bandwagon also by moving my avatar in Entropia Universe to Rocktropia a few days back and exploring the entry level missions there. However, I’ve started to block myself from the forums related to Entropia with extensions on various browsers I use on home computer and blocking it elsewhere using other techniques such as content filtering in internet explorer and host file editing.

I got off target on eating right… I do plan to get back on target though. My goal has got to be 45 or 55 carbs a meal.

I got off target on the exercise because of the calf issue noted above, but plan to re-start exercising again regularly in the next couple of days. I have been doing some wii Just Dance 3 lately. I might re-start the Power 90 but it honestly scares me a little since I’ve read about how bad crunches are the last few days in a few blogs and websites. They can really screw up your back over time if you do too many. If I do do the power 90 again I might sometimes replace doing crunches with just doing a long plank or some other type of exercise?

I have been doing a little bit of MOOC (massively online open course) on coursera for song writing. It has been interesting learning about how line count affects stability/instability, etc. I find myself counting lines on songs playing on the radio these days. I haven’t been keeping up with that course or the social media MOOC I’ve been doing on Canvas Network the last few days since work has been very stressful and after work I just headed directly in to Entropia to reduce some stress through mindless grinding quests, etc. However, as I move forward and start to remove myself from Entropia as often as I have been playing lately, that will slowly come to a halt. If I’m spending all my free time in that mmo I’m not spending it doing other things like exercising and creating art, etc… I need to get back on path.

I see a lot of negativity around me at work, hear a lot of negativity on tv and in social networks, etc. I want to remove a lot of that from myself and focus with zen-like precision on tuning in to my own creativity and positive vibes. The world we live in is a wonderful place. I want to appreciate it more. I want to live long enough to appreciate it for many years to come. I can do much. I must do much. I don’t want to continue to “should all over myself.”

I want to DO.
I want to BE.
I WILL be FREE.

I AM GOING TO BE THE BEST ME I CAN BE.

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Day 45 of the Power 90

Day 45 – Circuit III IV is now complete! I can’t believe this first 90 days is now half over!

It’s got me thinking that if I can do this, I can do a lot more daily too.

After watching that 30 Day Challenge Ted Talk video the other day it has got me thinking… I’m going to set 3 daily goals for 30 day challenges, and try to make myself a bit more of a Renaissance man in achieving those goals every day. It’ll be simple things. I don’t know if I’ll be able to achieve all of them, but if I make it simple goals I think I will be able to, and can just add on to that over time.

Besides doing the Power 90 workouts, the goals are going to be

Goal 1: Snap at least 5 photos with a digital camera daily.

Goal 2: Spend time at night before bed (or just after work after the workout – see goal 3) writing 3 hand written, single space pages daily. This will be my equivalent of ‘the morning pages’ from The Artist’s Way. I’m going to do these at night since I don’t have a lot of time in the morning as I’m doing these workouts in the mornings.

Goal 3: Do a cardio workout in the afternoon after work… It will be a cardio workout likely, and it might not always get done since I will need to rest some days I suspect.

Goal 4: Create at least concept for an illustration or painting daily. It doesn’t have to be complicated. I’m hoping to also try to actually do some of the best works created from this brainstorming as paintings or illustrations, etc. One thing I’ve not done a lot in the past was prep work in coming up with ideas for illustrations and paintings, so I was not achieving too much as some cliches would come instead of real great works that were worthy of being created. I’m hoping that new ideas daily can help with this.

Goal 5 is here too, but I won’t track it much… that is to track keywords in Turbosquid. If you have guild membership there they update keywords that you can track. I used to track these some, but haven’t done it much lately. I plan to start doing that more… but if it doesn’t get done, it doesn’t get done daily – no biggie. I’m hoping that that will help with the illustration/drawing ideas, etc. since some of the artwork created from that may have some focus on those type of keywords and/or be 3d models for that sort of thing, etc. I haven’t used lightwave in a while, but might try to get back to that in future 30 day challenges.