Artistic Projects - Over July Fourth, I took my cardweaving project to work on while we waited for the fireworks show. We "camped out" on a parking structure in a mall, with several hundred people from the community. Our neighbors to the right were our fireworks neighbors last year, which gave the whole experience a very "small town feel" not usually found in Southern California. Neighbors on both sides of our lawn chairs were very interested in my weaving, and twice I was asked for my business card.

You can see my current project at the end of this album, Textiles, on my Google+ page. There are a couple of photos from July 4th -- specificially images 24 and 25.

I'd been meaning to get business cards for a while now, but I really had a vision of a logo for "Cay Swann Crafts" or just the phrase "Cay Swann" but I'd been stumped on some of the details. So I've hired a friend of mine to do the logo design, since she has done some fantastic work for several other logo projects. She also happens to dance in classes with me on Monday nights, so we sat down with her sketch book and my notes after class this week. We have a very nice working draft for the logo, so now she's working on the finer details at home. I look forward to making a grand reveal sometime soon.

Edited: My heraldry is a large attack swan in black and gold. My heraldic badge is just one wing with a crescent on it, also in black and gold. My logo has roots in these, but is being done in bold tribal brush strokes. It's an attack swan, but just one wing and the head/neck profile. Every time she sketched something "sweet and round," we modified it back into something more edgy, masculine, and bold. This swan had very definite ideas about being butch. No sweet, quiet, sleeping swans here!

Second Edit: OMG! She just sent me drafts of the sketches cleaned up!! *SQUEE* It looks amazing! *falling over happy now*

Having fewer hours in my commuting has resulted in some increased dance/exercise hours, but I haven't applied those extra hours to artistic pursuits yet. I have some spinning projects on hold, only one weaving project on the loom, and many sewing/costuming projects on hold. I'm looking forward to learning how to budget more artistic time into my week again.

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Today's Blessing That I'm Thankful For: Fun new friends like Adina. I'm really looking forward to dinner tonight!

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Detailed Note about Food and Exercise: I'm certain that my detailed notes are NOT of interest to everyone. I plan to leave these at the end of my journal entries, and they are really more of a writing task for myself than a narrative any of you are that keen to follow. You're welcome to read along, but I expect people to skip reading this section. Just so you know. *grin*

Monday exercise: Dance, 2.5 hours Lvl2: Double-bump w/turn; Drills/Reviews. Lvl3: Drills - Wet Dog, Reverse Shimmy, Belly Roll, Flutter, Layback Slow: Medusa ATS, Loco Camel. Walking total, 3.1 miles. Monday classes are my "advanced night" with Level 2 and Level 3, back-to-back. This was the first weekend where I'd done 3-hours per day, Fri/Sat/Sun, so I wasn't surprised to completely lose steam about 10 minutes before the end of Level 3. But I still felt accomplished, finishing our Duet drills together with Katy, including some improvement on my Spins. Katy and I also worked on some possible yoga-based stretches that will help me unkink the chronic shoulder tightness that I've always had. Some days I'm not certain I'll ever gain backward flexiblity in my shoulders and arms. But I don't plan to give up yet.

Tuesday Food, breakfast (6:30AM): 1 egg+cheese muffin, 1.5 large coffees w/creamer and splenda. A thick slice of marzipan (maybe a bit more than a tsp). 10:30 AM snack: about 3/4c Cashews, almonds, and cranberries. First sports bottle of water w/Crystal Light lemonade. Lunch, 12:30: about total 2c food from the hot buffet: Some curried chicken with squash and carrots, more wheatberry hot salad with cranberries, some broccoli, and a few sweet potato fries. Green Monster naked juice. One chocolate chip cookie. Afternoon: Another 16oz water w/Crystal Light lemonade. About a cup of "veggie chips" (potato, tomato, spinach). Early dinner, 4PM: 5oz grilled salmon. 4.5oz beets. 5 oz black quinoa salad with butternut squash and feta cheese. One advantage to buying food from Whole Foods deli counter: the weight is listed on the price sticker, so it's easy to record how much I consumed. Also, I loved finding out how high the protein content is for quinoa. I think I'm in love with quinoa salads. NOMZ!

Tuesday exercise: Dance, 2 hours. Lvl1: Slow: Torso Twist; Fast: Pivot Bump Wrap Turn, Lead Training & Group Drills
Lvl1.5: Floreos with Body Wave, Body Wave Turn; Review Chorus, Kaboom, & Formations. Walking total, 3.0 miles. It's a relief to take Fundamentals sometimes, because I have the luxury to really pay attention to small details in posture, technique, and stamina. I'm still working on the details of my Arabic correction on Sunday: Apparently for two years, I've never fully kept my left knee bent throughout the Arabic. However, I'm only just now going up on my toes, so I'm not surprised that flat-footed my Arabic wasn't fully correct. I noticed my Pivot Bump right arm was *way* "too close" and did not match the right arm in half-time shimmy posture.

Wednesday Food Breakfast (8 AM, I got going slow this morning): 1 egg+cheese muffin, 2 large coffees w/creamer and splenda. A packet of honey-almond-butter (I'll have to check the size). Lunch, 1PM (told you I was going late today): Veggie Pad Thai and hot tea (jasmine). Ate half, saved half for later. Afternoon snack: 4PM, Heart Thrive (meals to go), Cranberry. The Heart Thrive cakes are dense oats and rice cakes from Whole Foods, my favorite flavor. I was feeling *very* hungry, and this really fills me up. Dinner tonight, I expect to meet a friend for Persian food.