Believe in Yourself

Have I mentioned the class I'm taking this summer is 5 credits? And that it meets for 2 hours a day Monday through Thursday? And that we have a quiz every day? Or that the guy teaching it is...actually, I have not a bad word to say about the man.  But damn he moves fast!

This whole process has been a fun challenge up to this point.  I'm not going to lie: I've complained a lot a long the way, but it's all been doable.  But things ARE getting harder. And I have my doubts.  It's funny, because I've done this before (I already have a degree in math, so shouldn't this be a piece of cake?), but it's not like riding a bike. And having not used those muscles for 20 years, it's like doing it for the first time.

But I really want this.  And I'm entirely different person than I was at 18 and 20 and 22.  I have a focus and a determination that I never had before.  I have my priorities laid out and I'm honoring them on a daily basis.  I know myself, my strengths and my weaknesses.  I know how to manage my time, how to push through and when to take a break.

This won't last forever (although, it's sort of feeling like it at the moment), but I am seeing the end in sight.

And all of that ↑↑↑  is what this ↓↓↓ is all about:

This is a lousy shot of a page I really like.  If you know the kinds of pages I make, I'm not one on embellishments - love them, but they feel awkward unless they have meaning.  (even then, I'm no master, so I often remove them before committing to them)  But this does have symbolism - the graph paper represents my math journey, the butterflies are...well, duh...the leaves are growth, the metal shows the strength that I want to have.  Even the hexagons are routed in an assignment on tessellations I had last semester that really pissed me off. :P
















But yeah - the hexagons are hot right now.  I love them and this won't be the last time they pop up on a page.  Maybe next time they'll be a little "funner" than they are this time around.  But I *love* these - they way they're wonky and just trail off.  And here's a fun tidbit: I asked Kerri Bradford to make them and she did.  How cool is that? The set can be found HERE.

I spritzed the background with Mr. Huey's and cut the hexagons out of the patterned paper and then cut the hexagon edges in black and mounted that on top of the patterned paper, then mounted the whole thing on the spritzed cardstock using foam squares. I love the way the elevation creates the shadows.  Sadly, it just doesn't show up in the photos.

So that's that today.  It's not my usual way, but I like it.