Early Mornings and Feathered Friends: A Week of Personal Progress

This week has flown by! For today’s post, I thought I would reflect on the past few days. Now that I am focused on my path forward and I’ve written out a five-week plan, I feel more energized and clearheaded. Here’s what’s on my mind and what I’ve been up to recently:

Would You Believe Me If I Told You It Is Still Too Hot In Texas

This week began with a lot of complaining about running. After a 5k “race” I did on Sunday, I was not looking forward to the week ahead. On that partly cloudy morning, I went to a local track for the run, thinking I got there early enough to avoid some of the heat. I knew I messed up when the sun started peeking out from the clouds and scorched everything directly in front of it (me). It was messy. It was hard. I was grumpy. 

I finished the run and decided that I can’t do these 7 or 8 AM workouts anymore. I need to get up EARLY. So I now wake up around 5:30-6:00. (I am finally living the productivity goddess dream of being a part of the 5 AM club.) It’s nice to have that time to myself in the morning, and I’m enjoying the slightly improved running experience. 

I’m also trying to mitigate running burnout by giving myself the option of speed workouts. Yesterday’s workout was inside on the treadmill, and instead of running 4.5 miles at a consistent pace, I turned it into an interval workout. One mile to warm up, then seven 400-meter sprints separated by seven 400-meter jog/walk periods. It usually takes just as long as it would running it normally, but time flies. 

Birds!!!

A few days ago, I went birding for the first time as part of the environmental volunteer work I’m doing over the next few months. I woke up at 5:30 AM not to run but to see the birds before it got too hot. Two volunteers took me out and showed me the ropes, and it was an incredible experience – I felt like I was on a field trip, taking in so much new information. One of my initial thoughts from this experience: birding is a lot like Pokemon. I am excited to catch spot and record information about ‘em all. 

Fear

I’ve caught myself slipping into brief moments of fear a couple of times this week. I’ll pause and think, “What if it all goes wrong?” I worry that what I’m doing won’t lead to the results I want because a career change is hard. I’m concerned that I will need to start over again, but this time, four months from quitting my job, four months of eating through my savings. And what would I even pursue? I thought I had finally figured it out. 

Ok. Hold on. Pause. 

To counter this, I ask myself– “What if it all goes right?” or even “What if some of it goes right?” If I’m giving so much weight to the possibility of it going wrong, the other options deserve at least an equal amount of thought. 

In my mind, the worst things I can do are:

1. Do nothing and stay stagnant

2. Go back into advertising

And I’m not going to do either of those. 

I hate wasting my time, which is both a good and a bad thing (but helps with decision-making!). Thankfully, learning something new is never a waste of time. Continuing to pursue something that is not working is a waste of time, so I’m not doing that. If I follow my plan and continue learning, I can only see myself moving forward. It’ll take effort and energy – so that part is on me to put in the work. So that’s how I’ve been able to push through recurring fears, and I feel a lot stronger now that I can identify them and stomp them out.

Knitting

I decided to take up knitting this week. A few months ago, I bought some bamboo needles in case I developed the itch to learn. I greatly benefitted from watching this video from Jenna Phipps about getting started with knitting, and the actual video that taught me how to knit is linked here. Like crochet, it is a meditative practice and is quite simple. Of course, I am still not very good and couldn’t knit a sweater, but I’m enjoying playing around with making a scarf.

I missed the feeling of learning something new and the joy of watching skills grow and harden over a few days while gaining your footing. It’s so nice! I am still having a hard time learning how to correct errors without destroying the whole project – one of the many things that are hard to understand since they are different in crochet. There’s a yarn shop near me that has knitting help and lessons, so I may take a class in a few weeks once I practice a bit more. 

Books

My current reading practice appears to be checking a bunch of books out from the library, carrying the large stack around with me everywhere, barely reading the books, and renewing them as many times as possible. Then I enjoy my little trip to the library to return them, picking up my new holds on the same journey. 

Yeah… I need to work on that. 

But! Here is my current stack of books that I am determined to get through:

• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer (LOVING!)

• What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (LOVING!)

• Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall

• The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

• Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler

Doggust

I am also in the process of sketching my dogs for this year’s Doggust! You can check out their Instagram page to learn more, but it is a fun drawing challenge I participated in last year. There is a prompt list of 31 dog breeds, and participants are invited to illustrate them and share their work daily on social media. 

I did not complete all the paintings I planned last year, but I got through a large chunk of them. You can see some of them in the gallery below and on my Instagram, elyse_draws. 

Follow me on Instagram! @elyse_draws

This year, I’ve decided to keep it simple and do sketchbook drawings of the dogs using an ink liner pen. I might include some colored ink or colored pencil to jazz it up, but I am hesitant to put a ton of energy into each piece — I’m more focused on completion. Whether you already think it is or not, 31 drawings is A LOT and pretty overwhelming. I’m thankful we received the prompt list a month early, and I am working ahead to be ready in August. Here are a few of my sketches so far!

That’s it for this week! I hope you have a fun weekend ahead.