grateful: day 6

Posted by devin on Jan 10, 2013 in Grateful | 0 comments

today I am grateful for:

  1. Waking up from my scary Godzilla-esque dream to discover that the city was not, in fact, under crazy attack!

  2. Successfully completing two training runs in a row! (Last night was 8 miles, today was 3 miles).

  3. Dinner at one of my favorite vegan comfort foods spots, Native Foods Cafe. Yummy salad with shaved peppercorn tempeh, roasted corn and grilled veggies. So good!!!

  4. A over all encouraging meeting with the CAPS group for beat 1933. We discovered that’s not our district, but still learned a lot and it was really nice to meet up with local Chicago officers who were more than willing to talk and work with the community!!

  5. Making the manfriend laugh so hard that he had years streaming down his face AND got the hiccups. THAT, my friends, is a big accomplishment!

It’s the little things, you know?

December 2012 sketchbook challenge: Pattern a day December!

Posted by devin on Jan 2, 2013 in Art & Creativity, Life, The Spirit or Soul | 0 comments

Last month I was excited to join in on an Instagram sketchbook challenge of drawing a pattern a day for every day of the month.  The #patternadaydec group was awesome and being a part of it really got my creative juices flowing. I did more drawing/sketching/doodling in one month than I had done probably a whole year! (Sad, but true.)

Some patterns were more inspired than others, but the point is that I DID one for every day of the month!! It’s helped unlock me creatively in so many ways, and that made me feel happier and more alive thank I have in a while. Kind of in a similar way that exercise released endorphins make you feel great – working on this challenge had a similar affect on me! It’ll be nice to go back and see how I progressed throughout the year because now I’ve decided that I am doing my own sketchbook challenge for each month! Each month it’ll be a new theme of my choosing, and at the end of the month, I’ll post examples of them all here! This month’s challenge is #doodleadayjan which you can check out for yourself on Instagram!

But for now and without further adieu, may I present to you last month’s patterns!!!

grateful: day 5

Posted by devin on Dec 28, 2012 in Grateful | 0 comments

today I am grateful for…

1. my Instagram feed with its constant supply of inspiration from the artists I follow.
2. waking up and being able to walk normally (finally) after Monday’s 3 mile run. That run seriously kicked my butt!!! Well, calves actually. When all the reading you do says DO NOT RUN MORE THAN A MILE AT A TIME when learning how to run barefoot/minimalist style – LISTEN!!!
3. a super comfy bed to snuggle into where both Ernie and Ozzie snuggled up with me to sleep the entire night through. Waking up to both the big boys snuggled onto the bed with me really is the best way to start my day!
4. the upcoming few days filled with laughter, fun, good food, friends AND my bestie will be in town! Just doesn’t get much better than all that!
5. My report card finally came in! YAY! It’s not perfect [sad panda face], but a 3.9 ain’t bad either!

first semesters report card. 3.9 is close enough to a 4.0…right???

TGIF EVERYONE!!

grateful: day 4

Posted by devin on Dec 27, 2012 in Grateful | 0 comments

Today I am grateful for:

1. More tv and movie watching time! West Wing has been added to the queue and re-watching it fills me up with all the same hopeful emotions it did when it was originally airing.
2. Our twinkly lighted xmas tree. Even though his pine needles are falling off by the fistfuls, he still looks so pretty and makes me smile!
3. A clean apartment! The downstairs main living level is nicely organized. Now to tackle the office, my art studio and the bedroom (which will happen in time. )
4. All my lovely art supplies!!!
5. This Pattern A Day December project I’m doing thanks to an artist I started following on Instagram, @aisforanika. She’s also got her own blog (which I linked to here) and am so glad she got me excited about having a project a day to look forward to! It’s been incredibly inspiring to see all the other #patternadaydec postings on Instagram and definitely has helped to fuel my fire on seeing this little project through to the end of the month (and looking forward to next months challenge). It may seem strange to call this group of people I’m following through instagram (and who are following me back) a community, but that’s exactly what we are – a community of artistic and creatively minded people sharing what we love to do with one another. Seriously awesome stuff that keeps my creative gears turning!

3 days of “Pattern a day December” by devin schuyler

grateful: day 3

Posted by devin on Dec 26, 2012 in Grateful | 0 comments

Today I am grateful for:

1. Being able to sleep in late. IT IS THE BEST! (And I can sleep for days…)
2. Sporting my RGIII jersey for the 2nd full day in a row. I LOVE IT! HAIL!!!
3. All of my incredible friends that love, support and believe in me – and who make me laugh!
4. Seafood – specifically, king crab legs. I had ‘em two days ago and still dream of how delicious they were!
5. Hanging out all day with the man-friend, watching tv and movies and such!

grateful: day 2

Posted by devin on Dec 25, 2012 in Grateful | 0 comments

Today, I am grateful for…

1. Two delicious cups of coffee in the morning. One thing I have grown to love over the recent years is coffee – I’m sort of addicted!
2. As silly as it may sound – the RGIII jersey I got from two very special people for xmas! I love my team (the Washington Redskins) and our new QB (RGIII) so of course I love and really wanted the jersey – but the best part is who it came from. I’ll always think of them when I wear my jersey (which is going on three days now! lol)
3. Christmukah (Christmas + Hanukah) dinner turning out really well! I made Honey Walnut Shrimp over rice and it was surprisingly delicious. First time I made it too!
4. Spending the day relaxing instead of running around like most Christmas’ have been like. Low key this year was definitely a winner!
5. The cabby that double backed for us tonight after the last bus of the evening flew past us just seconds before we reached the bus stop. It was hella cold and windy outside and I was freezing and it was late on Christmas night – no cabs were in sight and those that were out were already occupied. So thank you Mr Cab who came back and got us. Really made the day extra special!!!

Honey walnut shrimp. SO GOOD!!

the sort of thoughts that keep me up at night…

Posted by devin on Dec 25, 2012 in Life, The Body | 0 comments

Lately, I’ve been so horrified by the weight I’ve gained in the past year and a half that I almost feel hopeless that I’ll ever look strong and healthy again. It’s hard not to feel badly about ourself like this, especially when you have to start wearing your “fat clothes” because your regular pants won’t go all the way up your leg anymore and then worse still when those pants stop fitting. Ugh, it’s a horrible horrible feeling.

I’ve been steadily gaining weight (fat, not muscle) for the past 18 months up from a solid 120/125 to 142 (on a “good” day). My doctor first thought it might be a thyroid issue, but turns out it seems to be the killer combo of stress, poor diet (as in not enough vegetables), lack of exercise and terrible sleep habits. You’d be amazed to see how small to normal size my portions of relatively healthy foods have been the past few weeks and still see that I’m getting chubbier by the hour.

So some nights, I lay awake, terribly uncomfortable in my own skin. It reminds me of when I was a young girl – horribly uncomfortable with myself. First I was too lanky with knobby knees, then I was too tall, then my bust didn’t fill out (at ALL) the way others girls did and then finally I got the crazy idea in my head that I was fat. Honest to goodness, I was a 5’8″, 115lb twig and I would look in the mirror and see an obese version of myself staring back. I’ve always had issues with my thunder thighs (saddle bags run in the family as does a long line of women shaped like pears – flat up top, ROUND on the bottom), uuuugh, and to see that (real or imagined) reflected back in the mirror used to crush my soul.

But when I was a teen and early 20 something, I didn’t even have the issues I do now – I fluctuated between a dress size of 2 and 4. Today? HA! Let’s just say, I’ve gone up a few sizes and move on…

This is all part of why I’m starting up with this blog – a blog about transformation and reinvention. I believe in it so strongly when it comes to other people, yet never give myself a chance to put the positive energies and thoughts to the test. Instead, I lay awake at night feeling my stomach and wondering where my flat abs disappeared to, or I feel around my rib cage and squeeze the layers of fat until I’m so disgusted I could spit. Or cry. It’s not helpful, in fact it’s definitely harmful to my mental and physical health, and I think it’s safe to assume none of you would think this a positive form of motivation.

I don’t want to be that worried girl I was back in the day, scarcely eating and then purging when I did, constantly battling migraines and insomnia. NO WAY! NOT ANYMORE!!! It’s time for serious change; a healthy change. Thus the blog. And in this blog, I will document the daily struggles, challenges and triumphs, the ups and downs of my physical transformation!

Today I went for a three mile run. It was a slow and arduous three miles, but I did it and saw it through to the end. It’s a small step in the right direction, but the most important point to focus on here is that it WAS a step!! They say you can’t become a good runner if your only motivation is to fit into your skinny jeans or to have a hot body, and I agree – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be one of the motivating factors right?

So today I ran, tomorrow I’ll rest. Wednesday I’ll run again and Thursday I’ll do some cross training. But it doesn’t just stop with me working out – I also need to change my mental game and attitude. I can’t beat myself up anymore and focus so intensely on everything I find wrong about myself. I need to love myself more, including my body as imperfect as I may think it is. So tonight, instead of disgusting myself by squeezing the extra inches of flesh hanging off my frame, I’ll turn my thoughts to more positive ones like how great it will feel when I start getting stronger and am able to do longer runs at a moderate pace. I’ll think about what that strength looks like physically when my old clothes start to fit me again, and how with real effort and consistent exercise I’ll be able to retire those “fat jeans” for good – because this time around there are no crash diets, starvation tricks or weight loss gimmicks, just healthy lifestyle adjustments and a commitment to transforming myself in the most positive of ways with the solid understanding that the change I seek takes time… a lot of time and patience. But I’ll mostly just focus on the benefits and rewards of building up a strong body again.

Oh yeah, and I might imagine what it will feel like to rock a dress like this one…

James Perse (Los Angeles) Dress

Sweet dreams dearies…
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