Monthly Check-In: February 2014

Like many, I rarely blog anymore. I've moved on to quicker, more visual ways of sharing my life. But I don't want to neglect this lively space, so I've decided to do a monthly check in that aggregates the "best of the month" in other social media I use. It's so meta! So please enjoy, and make sure to follow links and connect with me in other spaces as well as here.

February 2014 on Instagram

I started off the month of February with fresh magenta hair!

I moved into my NEW ART STUDIO! Where, for the first time in my life,
I could line up all my paintings and look at them together. Amazing!

I've been drawing one portrait every morning. I improvise with these two funny gentlemen.

I painted a giant, abstract Full Pink Moon on the floor of my new studio.

Playing with the Diana app, to combine self-portraits with my drawings. So fun!

 

Videos I made in February 2014

 Here is me benching 55 kilos (121 lbs) for 5 reps!

Rain in my new studio!

 

Books I read in February 2014

I read three books this month:

Lady Q: The Rise and Fall of a Latin Queen by Reymundo Sanchez & Sonia Rodriguez, which is the very intense memoir of a "Latin Queen" in the "one of the largest and most notorious street gangs in America." The story was brutal and difficult to get through, but still an important story to be told.

Ariel: The Restored Edition by Sylvia Plath, with a foreword by her daughter, Frieda Hughes. While I am a huge fan of The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's poetry was much harder for me to get through. The best thing about this book (for me) is learning more about the life of Frieda, Plath's daughter. She is an accomplished artist and poet herself and her writing style is beautiful and eloquent and powerful.

And finally, Emotional Alchemy: How the Mind Can Heal the Heart by Tara Bennett-Goleman with a foreword by Dalai Lama XIV. This book completely blew my mind. It's so good. Bennett-Goleman breaks down "ten basic emotional patterns, including fear of abandonment, social exclusion (the feeling that we don't belong), and vulnerability (the feeling that some catastrophe will occur)." She gives great tips on mindfulness and presence and shares wonderful stories to illustrate her suggestions. She's humble, authentic and generous and this is a book I'm keeping on my shelves to refer to when things start to spin out of control and I feel overwhelmed by my own schemas (it's a life-long journey, isn't it?).


So far, I've read 14 books in 2014.

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