December Devotion/4

In this piece from 2012, titled "Devotion, stardust & the rewards of showing up: 3 lessons from 12 years of yoga," Alexandra Franzen says, 

"DEVOTION is an action, not an emotion.

Want to know what you’re devoted to? Look at your calendar. Examine how you actually spend your time, on the planet.

If you ‘can’t find the time’ for an hour of yoga, three times a week — or whatever else you say you want to do — that’s fine. Do something else. Check your email. Fly a kite. Learn to crochet. Host a tea party. But don’t kid yourself — it’s tiresome. Be honest about what you’re devoted to."

In this piece from 2013, titled "On Flakiness & devotion," she writes,

"With a modicum of self-inquiry and honesty (“Can I really devote to this? Do I really want this? Can I really afford this?”) we can avoid 99.9% of eventual flakedom.

The next three times I want to flake out … I won’t. (...) Because devotion is wildly sexy."

December Devotion/3

There I am, in the middle of that photo! Can you see me? I'm seated at an upright bench, in the middle of the gym, in what used to be, for me, the scariest part of the gym, the part in front of the mirrors where all the Serious Weightlifters work out.

And now I lift weights alongside them, and watch my form in the mirror, and I'm actually watching my form and going "damn girl!" instead of feeling super self-conscious about my body and wishing parts of it were smaller.

Part of that is that certain parts have gotten smaller. But part of it is also that now I'm proud of the strength I've built up. 

This past year, since June, I've devoted myself to learning to lift weights. (You can read the whole story in this post from last month, about why I started, how I've done it, and how it makes me feel.)

This last month, I've been devoting time to eating better, too... eating as fuel for my lifts. I'll post about that sometime this month, as it deserves its own post.

December Devotion/2

Does devotion look like a mustard jar? Or a sandwich, at 6:30 am? 

Or a bagel with cream cheese?

I think it does. Every morning, I wake up when Adam does at 6:30, and he goes and gets ready in the bathroom. I go out to the kitchen and pour him a cup of coffee. Then I make his breakfast. He comes out of the bathroom and sits down, and eats breakfast, while I make his lunch. 

I've been doing this for nearly four years. 

I wonder to myself, if and when we have children, will this change? I imagine it will. But for now, it is our daily routine. It is an example of devotion. It is simple, and real, and wholly love.  

December Devotion/1

The idea to do something for December, here on my blog, came to me last month sometime. I don't remember exactly when. I just felt the need to go inward a bit for December, felt the need to do something daily, something devoted.

Then I got a newsletter from the lovely Mara Glatzel, and at the bottom, she talked about a virtual retreat she was holding in December called "Glitter and Devotion." And it was just like, yeah. That's what I need. (So I signed up.)

And the word "Devotion" wouldn't leave me, ever since.

So, I googled it. A "daily devotional" is a publication that provides a specific spiritual reading for each calendar day - which is something I didn't know. Most other links having to do with "daily devotional" are Christian in nature. I am not Christian. I am, however, somewhat spiritual.

So, what the hell. "Devotion" it is! I'm calling it December Devotion. A bit of writing, or art, or something, each day of the month of December, with something to do with devotion.

I want to think about... what we devote ourselves to. What grows, as a result. Why we devote ourselves to things -- what passion, what love? 

I also like the idea of daily readings, and may perhaps dip into books in my own personal library for bits of random wisdom here and there. 

We shall see! Check back in tomorrow.

xo, Leah

body + creativity: on lifting weights

Around this time last year, I went for a routine check-up with my family doctor. She put the blood pressure cuff around my arm and took my blood pressure as usual. She looked a bit worried at the reading, and took it again. 

Again, it was high. 

She suggested I get a blood pressure cuff of my own, and track my blood pressure. So, I did, for a month, and it was high the whole time. I went back to see her. We looked at all the factors and prescribed some changes: eat less salt, take a sodium pill, and try to lose weight.

I wouldn't call myself heavy, necessarily, but definitely I'm a curvy gal. I'm 5'8" and at the time I weighed 205 lbs, and wore anywhere from a size 15 to a size 18, depending on the store and brand of clothing. I've always been fairly comfortable in my own skin, though, and believe in body-positivity and in all different shapes being beautiful. "Losing weight" had always been one of those "maybe someday, wouldn't that be nice" things, kind of like "going to Hawaii" or "having a $4000 buffer in the bank". Not necessary to daily life, but a someday-sort-of goal that I wasn't really doing anything about. 

Anyway, there I was, with high blood pressure, at 30 years of age. Not cool. I already did yoga regularly, and walked on my lunch break sometimes, but there wasn't really much else I was doing to try to lose weight. After several months of this, and no weight loss, I felt frustrated. I thought about it, and realized that I was having such great success with having a business coach, why not seek help with weight loss? 

So I asked the guy at the counter of Downtown Nutrition if he knew of any personal trainers. He in fact did, and he wrote a name of a gal down on a piece of receipt paper. I remember thinking, as I picked up the paper and folded it and put it in my pocket, "This piece of paper is going to change my life." 

I messaged the gal. Her name was Stephanie and she lived near me. We agreed to meet at the Tim Hortons by the mall here in North Sydney, to talk about options. We had a great chat, and agreed on so many things: that weight isn't necessarily the important thing, but fitness is; that food is to fuel the body; and that getting outside to work out is fun.

The next time we met it was at the local gym, Platinum Fitness. I signed up to see her twice a week. We measured around my waist, my hips, my bust, one of my thighs and one of my arms. (I'd share these numbers with you but they got lost.) She said most guys measure their necks too, but we would skip that. "For guys it's important, for some reason," she said. 

We began each workout with a ten minute warm up, just walking on a treadmill. Then we walked over to the area with all the machines, the racks of weights, and the big muscle-y dudes. It's the area of a gym that scares off most people, and for good reason: it's scary to go to a place you don't know, where there are people who know what they're doing, and in clothes tight enough to show off all your fat rolls, no less! 

But with Stephanie there with me, I felt confident, at least enough to give it a try. 

And that's all it took: trying. Twice a week. Each week. Following her instructions, and trying out these new movements. Lifting the weights. Being pleasantly surprised by what my body could do! 

At the end of each workouts, we'd do some H.I.I.T., or High Intensity Interval Training. It sounds super bad-ass, but it really just means doing cardio in intervals: one minute on medium, one minute on high, on minute on medium, and so on, to get the heart-rate up. 

So that was in June, that I started working with Stephanie. By August, when Adam and I went to Chicago (and I took a three week break from working out), Stephanie had moved gyms, to Ascendo Fitness in Sydney. Even though it's in a different town, it's right on my drive home from work, so I happily switched gyms with her. (She's super rad!) 

By September, my measurements were: Bust, 43", Waist, 39", Hips, 46", Thigh, 27.5", and arm 13.3" My weight, funnily enough, stayed exactly the same, at 205. 

By October, I was ready to work out on my own. (Plus, I'm actually trying to save some money, for that other goal of having a buffer in the bank, haha.) Steph set me up with a program to follow, and suggested I go three times a week: twice for lifting, and once a week for just cardio, 30 minutes of "playing with my heart rate." I'd lost three inches, 1 at the hips, 1 at the thighs and 1 at the arm.

By November, I'd lost another 4.5 inches. (At waist, hips, thigh and arm.) My weight, on the other hand, went up: I currently weigh 217 lbs. But I honestly don't even care, and in some ways am proud: it's muscle I'm building! And it's obviously just a number, as I'm the trimmest and strongest I've ever felt.  

Alexandra Franzen has said that everyone has different ways to be motivated, when it comes to fitness, so you need to find your thing and why you like it, in order to keep doing it. I think that's certainly true! And, I have found my "thing". I love the feeling of being powerful, of being strong, of being able to lift those badass big manly weights. I love the clank when I rack the deadlift bar and it falls back into place. I love the feeling of pressing through my heels and feeling my legs engage when I squat in the squat rack. I even love my cardio sessions: I put my music on in my earbuds and I kind of go into another place, almost like meditation, swing-walking on the elliptical, feeling the sheen of sweat come out on my skin. 

And, I find that my mood and my creativity is increased as a result. Here it is, November, the time of year when I normally find my mood dropping, and I feel pretty damn good. 

My blood pressure? Well, that's dropping too. I'll know more next year about the long-term effects of my working out, but for now it's looking pretty good. 

So that's my fitness story, at least the story of the past year! Maybe some other time I will write about how I felt about fitness as a teen (and how I would do anything to avoid participating in Gym class), or about my love for yoga, for hiking and for swimming. 

In the meantime, I'd love to hear about your fitness story, and how fitness contributes to your mental wellbeing and creative work, too. Leave a comment below! I'd love to hear from you. 

links loved: november edition

A co-worker shared this bean burger recipe with me recently and I want to try it out.

Linda Arcuri is a yoga teacher who was part of It's Business Time with me. I loved her recent post about feeling safe with yourself. 

"I used to spend a lot of time feeling inferior; like for some reason I did not deserve the success I was experiencing...But at some point, I decided, this is bullshit." "I am an artist" by Lisa Congdon.

A cute free Christmas background for your phone or desktop. I'll admit I've already put it on both of mine! I'm in the spirit of the season this year. 

Nixed ideas for iTunes logos, circa 2004. (I like looking at early sketches and logo development.)

Entrepreneurship is the new women's movement.

Reading the Ministerial Mandate letters from Prime Minister Trudeau to his Cabinet last week for work made me feel super excited and proud of my Canadian government. I know, it sounds boring, but it's actually pretty neat! 

Esmé Wang's writing in this piece made me feel transported and transfixed: a Thanksgiving Story.

I'm thinking of trying my hand at a simple sewing project for our home this year: a star tree garland.

If you're wondering what to get me for Christmas... a fat plush pony by Kate Beaton always wins.

And, Michael Buble's Christmas album is my favorite, this year and every year. Here is a little clip where he talks about the arrangement of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."  

Logo design: Margaree Walking Tours

When I did my crowdfunding campaign back in April, to raise money to take the It's Business Time program, the main thing I did to raise money was sell my time as a designer. People could buy my time in 1-hour blocks, which I valued at $50/hour. A couple of people bought 10 and 20 hours of my time, but most people bought 1 or 2. 

One such person was my friend Hannah. She was starting a small business and wanted a logo designed for it. She's an amazing gal, super positive and energetic, and passionate about the environment. She was creating a summer job for herself, in between living in Edmonton, and moving to Budapest in the fall with her boyfriend. Her plan: to give walking tours in Margaree.

Hannah bought 2 hours of my time, which to be honest isn't really enough for a proper, in-depth logo design, but the way I figured it with the crowdfunding perks, was that I'd be honest with people about what I could do in the time they had purchased, and do my best for them in the time allotted. And, it worked out. With Hannah, we already communicate well with each other, and she liked my work, so that cut a lot of time out of the process.

We started with an in-person client meeting. I asked her all about her new business and what her plans were. I took notes in my sketchbook and sketched out some of the things she described:

We used a private Pinterest board to collect ideas and similar logos that she liked.

Then I spent some time sketching out ideas based on the Pinterest board:

I picked out the six that I liked the most (circled in red) and re-drew them on tracing paper with Sharpie. This, I scanned and emailed them to Hannah:

She picked out the ones she liked the most and then I scanned the Sharpie drawings at a high resolution (600 dpi), and used Illustrator to Image Trace them. This is how you vectorize (make digital) any hand-lettering project. 

Then, in lllustrator, I created the logo variations:

Hannah got to choose which ones were her favorites, and then I'd tweak accordingly, depending on what she wanted. She liked the hand-lettering, but wanted to try the circular logo with it. We did some back and forth, and in the end, this is what she got: four variations to use where she wanted.

Even though it was a fairly quick process, I really enjoyed this logo design! And even more, seeing it in action: here is a post Hannah wrote about the logo, on her business blog.