Tired, so tired

Oh God, I'm tired. Andy has been away for almost 2 weeks now and though I've had awesome support, it's not been easy. In particular, lil Dylan has not been easy and I'm going through a bit of an RA flare which means my knees, hips and feet in particular are affected. It hurts when I walk.

Dylan -in general- seems more on edge than usual, which is understandable what with his dad gone and new people arriving all the time to help me out. It's unsettling, so much change. He's also still going through learning that he has a little brother now and that he is no longer the center of the universe and that can't be easy either. The resulting behaviour is that he is more shouty, more needy, less cooperative and less easy-going. I, on the other hand, am getting more and more tired, sleep deprived, less able to be empathetic, patient or tolerant and just want to hide in a room - alone - for 5 weeks, recuperating from all this.

Additionally, doing all this, this life, work, art, living with kids without the person you're meant to do it with is rather bland. Like eating stale bread, or like wet snow, or like wilting flowers, pick your metaphor.

Don't get me wrong: I am deeply blessed. I am blessed, so blessed. But I'm tired and would like a bit more ease and cooperation from my first born and perhaps a bit more sleep and some time to art. Oh and to take a shower more often than once every 3 days. Ha.

I've not yet had a chance to work on newer pics from Elliot and Dylan but wanted to share these from a few weeks ago:


 Elliot - 7 weeks old
You can see in this pic how his eyes are uneven. I noticed from the moment he was born that something was up with his eyes. It's either that the one has a droopy eyelid or the other is too open. I have an appt for him in March with an eye guy to look at it. I'm sure it'll be fine, but would like it to be sorted for him, of course. They call it 'ptosis' on the internets and say it's only a cosmetic problem as long as the lid doesn't cover the pupil. If it covers the pupil it can interfere with sight and brain development. It may also correct itself, but I would've expected it to have corrected itself by now if it was going to. We'll see what the eye guy has to say.




And I love this picture of Dylan (29 months). There is such light in him. He has such beauty in him and I do love him so insanely much. :) But just need a bit more cooperation from him at the moment.

He's also got a bad cold/ cough and that always makes him much harder to deal with, he becomes even more needy and weepy, and though I understand it, it's just not easy to deal with. The other night, I had to force the puffer (nebuliser) on him a few times which is horrible and then he threw up in his bed first and an hour later in my bed, poor thing. Of course he's not easy to deal with with all that going on. And I try to be as understanding as I can be, but when you're physically in pain and get very little sleep, empathy is one of the first things that goes out of the window.

Here is another pic of me and Elliot that I like:

Anyhoo. In other news: Life Book is going so awesomely. I'm so loving what everyone is doing. Students are posting work, expressing themselves, connecting up, helping each other out, just being generally really wonderful human beings. So far, we've had lessons by yours truly, Juliette Crane, Bonnie Rose Bryan and Kylie Pepyat-Fowler. All awesome lessons! :)

We also had an artist interview with Jane Davenport! There is SO much to do/ see/ learn from each month, it's fabulous. I'm trying hard to find time to do Bonnie's lesson and I want to do Kylie's as well, but not sure if I can find the time!

I feel so touched and blessed to be running this course and to have over a thousand students! I know insane figure right?! Touched, blessed, lucky = the Tam. Sometimes, it leaves me tearful and speechless.

It's still totally cool to sign up to Life Book btw, all classes remain available until March 2013! So you can go back and forth throughout the year! Did you know that if you sign up to the basic package that you get access to 1 other of my courses as well? You can also sign up to other packages which give you access to even more of my courses too! It is truly a really good deal even if I say so myself. :)

Sign up HERE

And thank you to everyone who bought a Tam Art Calendar!! I was so chuffed by how many of you bought one!! :) Big hugs! x 

Printable Tam Art Calendar Now For Sale! :)

Woop woop. I finally got round to finishing off this baby. :) I know I'm a bit late, but there are still 11 months in the year so I thought there is still time to enjoy this printable calendar with uplifting Tam Art! :)

Here are the details:

Buy the printable calendar for ONLY £4.50 (approx $7 USD) and print it out or use it however way you want at home. (If you are a member of my art community or if you have 'liked' my Facebook Page you get the calendar for only £3.50, so if you really want the calendar, sign up to my art community or like my Facebook page for sure!). 

I decided to offer calendars this way as it's much more affordable for everyone this way. Normally if I have them printed by a company (at A4 - 12 x 8" size), I end up having to charge like £20 GBP including postage and many of us simply can't afford this, so I thought I'd offer my calendar as a printable! This way everyone can have a bit of my art in their home! Yay! (I recommend printing them on good quality stock paper, either matt photopaper or watercolour paper).

I've used the paintings that all have uplifting, life-affirming slogans in them, so they will help you remain connected to your inner divinity throughout the year!

Have a look at the preview - click on the image  to see large version:

How does it work?

Once you have paid, you will get a confirmation email. In this email you will find a link to a downloadable PDF file which you can then print out at home or at your local printers (they could also bind it for you if you don't know how to do it yourself!). Or you don't bind it at all and hang each individual page up each month, or you use them in your journal! The possibilities are endless! :)

Like what you see?

Buy NOW! 

£4.50

My Dream Board for 2012

This year, I hope to do as many Life Book guest teacher's lessons as possible, so that my Life Book will be big and fat and pretty at the end of the year. So this weekend I convinced Andy to take Elliot for an hour or 2 and made a Dream Board (also known as Vision Board)!

I made this based on a lesson by Juliette Crane who offered this in week 2 of Life Book! I loved the idea and thought it would go well with the 'word for the year' idea (my word is 'open').

Though Juliette's Dream Board contained mostly collaged images, I wanted to do a lot of writing and draw representative images. I found creating the Dream Board very meditative and I liked the process because I could dwell on visualising what I wanted for the year. This is my list of hopes/ dreams/ wants for this year:

• More time with family
• More community & friendships
• A summer holiday
• An open heart, open mind, open soul
• Presence
• Peace
• Balance
• Love
• Art Living
• Health
• Read more

I found it interesting to see that a lot of those wishes are quite abstract rather than concrete. But I felt quite good about that. A lot of those are inner experiences rather than hopes that depend on things that happen on the outside. :) It was quite eye-opening for me. By Art Living I meant to be able to continue making a living out of art as I do now. It is something I desired throughout my life and enjoy it so much. I want to hold onto it if at all possible! :)

Another thing that was eye-opening for me was to see how close friendships and community have become more and more important to me in life. There was a time where community and family just did my head in, now they are on the top of my list of important things. :)

And then there is 'health'. Now that I've given birth to 2 babies and am coming out of the pregnant mother phase, I'm much overweight and would love to become healthier in that respect. But food, for me, is wrought with complications, attachments and triggers, so I don't know how easy that is going to be, but I'm trying and being kind to myself about it as much as I can.

So here is the Dream Board in full:

I loved being able to create this and this will be page 2 of my Life Book! Eeh, exicting! :)

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It's not too late to join Life Book, 

come join the 950+ students who have already joined!

Awake VS Asleep

So, I said I'd do shorter and more often blog posts, but all the stuff I want to write about seems to have long, endless thought processes attached to them. Ack. Why can't I just write quick things about muffins or puppy dogs? Or post 1 picture blog posts? I used to do that on livejournal, I used to post 4 times a day with funny little tidbits! Ha ha. I suppose that is what Facebook is for me now. The really short posts go there!

Anyhoo, there are a few things I want to write about. One thing I wanted to write about is my dreadful incapacity to remain awake, mindful and aware. In a zen sort of way, that is. It seems I really like being asleep, in a zen sort of way, I don't mean, physically asleep, but more 'mind-asleep'.

What I mean by that is: I relish in just going into automatic mode. The physically awake, yet trance like state of just doing/ being, without being present. I like it there, it's warm and cosy and comfy and snug, for some reason. Oddly, I also like being alert, aware and mindful, in fact, when I'm there, is when I feel most alive. But my default position and go-to state of being is snuggy sleepy cosy. Why? I just don't know. Clearly, I prefer it there, most needs get met there, rather than in that other head/ life space.

The reason I have a problem with sleepy mode is because in that mode I am less healthy and present and here-now. I eat too much, without knowing why I eat, I watch too much tv (on in the background) without really watching it, the noise ust lulls me; I'm dozy, spaced out, only sort of half here, half alive... Like being drugged up of sorts.

Though it's a comfy space to be in, that is not the space where I'm clear headed, healthy, emotionally robust, spiritually free and appreciating my life here.now. I would really like to be light and free and awake and aware, but clearly I also want that other state, otherwise, why would I be there? I need me some Eckhart Tolle helpsies.

I'm glad that I'm not judging myself as such for prefering sleepy mode over mindful-mode, because the harsh self judgements just seem to make things worse, however, I do wish I could be less sleepy mode, more mindful-mode. Spiritual teachers all over the place would have all sorts of responses to this that would baffle me I'm sure. I can see Mooji, Byron Katie and Tolle now trying to respond to my stuff and me just not getting it. Ha ha.

Anyhoo, just wanted to write this up, not really trying to find a solution, just trying to write more frequent, shorter blog posts, hee hee! :) Oh also, I usually have a great resistance towards any offered solutions, like: meditate or build rock towers (though I like the idea of that one more!).

:) Over and out, I'm going to try be more awake and mindful now.

PS. Of course, the fact that I am sleep deprived on a daily basis due to 2 kids under the age of 3 doesn't help with the mind staying awake, never even mind the body! ;P Thanks for reading, lovely reader. x

A Tam Update! (Finally!)

 me, published, eee!

Ok, so I've decided I need to do more and shorter blog posts instead of few, endlessly long ones! I've been mulling over a blog post forever now, not finding time, writing bits and bobs here and there and continuously remembering other things that need to be included in the post! I'm never gonna get to actually post that way and my last blog post was over a month ago; that gives me twitchy eye! And though I have good reasons for having neglected my blog, I just don't like it. I enjoy writing and I enjoy reading back over posts months and years later! So, without further ado, here is a mini update on all that has happened since I last wrote! :)

• Elliot turned 6 weeks old this last Friday and he is amazing! He's already doing lots of smiles (melt!) and responds vocally when you talk to him. He's not too bad a sleeper and is generally a pretty chilled baby. Sleep - in particular - though I am never 'well-rested', is going a lot better than when I first had Dylan and I attribute this to the magic of 'lying down breastfeeding when he wakes at night'. With Dylan I never 'dared' to do that because I worried I might suffocate him or the blanket might or or or other endless fears. Now, there are many less fears. We're all a bit more chilled. So sleeping is more manageable than it ever was with Dylan.
  Here is his cute little smooshie face, smiling and all:
  
  
  
  
  Elliot - 4/5 weeks old
  
• Speaking of lil Dylbee. He too is awesome. Though he does have tantrum and moody moments, he is generally a happy, cheerful, kind and well-adjusted little toddler man. His speech is going crazy now and he comes out with hilarious sayings and sweet stuff. He is also taking well to his little brother, though we are always vigilant because he can suddenly do something off like whack Elliot on the head out of nowhere (woops!). But overall, I worship the ground he walks on. It's crazy how much love you can feel for a little person like that.
  
  Here he is:
  
  
  Dylan - 27 months old
  
• I PASSED MY DRIVING TEST! Finally! After my first fail, I was very nervous to try again, but did it. I feel like a 'proper' grown up now. LOL. I can finally drive a car, after all those years!
  
• I got published in Somerset Studio Magazine!!! Woohoooo! I'm SO proud! It's the Jan/ Feb 2012 issue, AND, I will ALSO be published in Somerset Apprentice and Somerset Digital Magazines! (Which I think are the March editions). I feel so proud and humbled to have this opportunity to be published!! My goodness!
  
  
  
  
  
•  Life Book has started off with an ALMIGHTY BANG! :-) Over 915+ people are now part of the experience and it's going fantastic! People are enthusiastically doing the work, posting it in the forums and Facebook/ Flickr groups and supporting each other with love and encouragement! It's truly humbling to see how wonderful everyone is to each other and the amazing art work they are already creating! It's NOT TOO LATE to join the course, if you want to be part of the fun, SIGN UP HERE.

So, those were the quick up dates. But more has happened. I've had some personal spiritual and emotional insights which I won't go into right now, but it did prompt me to choose my word for 2012 which will be:

OPEN

(more specifically: "breaking open", but more about this in another post).

And here some more pictures of the last couple of months!




  Happy New Year from Us! :-)  Here are some pictures I wanted to post a while back of Elliot's and my labour.  

Early labour, still relatively 'in control', was trying to do Byron Katie type exercises on 'pain' thoughts which were mildly effective. I remember calling the pain 'my friend coming to help me'. Ha ha. That changed later! It was no longer my friend but the "effing b*tch who could go to hell"! ;)



Second stage, really wanting to be knocked out with anything at this point.
I would've agreed to a sledgehammer, I kid you not! 
It looks so serene doesn't it? It was anything but! LOL!






Minutes after Elliot was born.




Minutes after Elliot was born.

Big bro & lil bro. :)

So, that was my version of a 'quick update' ha ha. I don't think I did too badly. ;) More stuff has happened and I want to write about more stuff in depth, but this will have to do for now.

Also, I'm aware of people suffering, which is always there for me. And I send out love love love and more love. 

Big hugs!