Week number two of the Artist’s Way challenge is behind me and it’s time for the weekly check-in. I want to thank VV for challenging me to make and take the Artist’s Date.

Success!! I took the challenge to heart and made a date with myself for Saturday. I drove towards and into the mountains and stopped alongside the Kenai River at Jim’s Landing. I did my daily morning pages while there – having rolled down my windows to listen to the river and the wind in the trees and the birds calling to each other. There was some road noise from the cars passing by on the highway nearby, but it wasn’t overpowering.

So peaceful – until someone pulled in next to me with radio blaring. I had completed my assignment by that time so was able to leave with a clear and cleansed conscience.

So – for the rest of the check-in . . . i completed morning pages all seven days.

Other issues: I discovered I was stressing about my upcoming vacation time – which falls within the 12 weeks of the Artist’s Way challenge. As I talked it out with myself in the morning pages I came to the conclusion that I would carry my journal with me and ask that my traveling companions respect my need to take some “me time” each morning. I may not be able to do an online check-in, but will do so within the journal and then post it after the vacay is over.

Much less stress – self-induced stress – now.

Again – a hat’s tip to Ms. VV for the challenge. Thank you.

Answering the weekly 100 Words challenge by Velvet Verbosity – this week’s word is Forgetting. I’m also answering another of her challenges – the Artist’s Way. This 100 words entry came from my thoughts and morning pages Thursday morning.
————————————-
In the forgetting lies
The memories and
The thoughts of you

In the forgetting lies
Raw emotions
The absence of feeling

In the forgetting lies
Real threats in
The calm before storms

In the forgetting lies
Thoughts and
Memories of you

In the forgetting รขโ‚ฌโ€œ LIES
The ones you told
The ones I heard
The lies that tore
Our family apart

In the forgetting lies
A broken path
a lost love

In the forgetting lies
Pieces of us
Pieces of joy

In the forgetting
of lies
Is healing

I can seek truth
I can live again

In the forgetting
Of lies

Last week, VV (of 100 Words fame) challenged me to take part in a 12 week challenge – using the book The Artist’s Way. Oh, okay – she didn’t challenge ME personally, but I took it personally.

I am now into week 2. Each week I will be “checking in” to see how the previous week went.

Each morning I write “Morning Pages” – three handwritten pages that are mostly unstructured. I was able to do that 6 of the 7 days. The first three were not handwritten, btw. I did tem on the computer because my ordered supplies, which included the Artist’s Way journal – had not yet arrived. The thought was there, if not the way to do it.

Having completed the week – and started this week by handwriting the pages I can see the value. Writing by hand makes me stop and think about what I am writing. When I type I can do it without thinking and much more quickly. Aha!

I’m also supposed to have an Artist’s Date with myself. Okay, I didn’t do so great on this one. Rather than SET A DATE and keep it, I just took that part loosely and as such didn’t really have a special time for me.

I did sit alongside the road and watch the cranes for a bit – that was relaxing and good – and I got a couple of pictures. But I’m not sure it was really all in the spirit of the thing.

Work tends to get in the way of a lot of this – those things I “have” to do.

So much of my life is taken up by my work – and I noticed that a lot of what I am doing/reading during this exercise parallels what I do in my work in the domestic violence field.

Talking about “crazy-making” for instance. And why it is easier to stay with a crazy-maker than it is to move on. The women who come through our shelter have experienced those same things.

Paralells – no wonder I write about the things I do.

๐Ÿ™‚ Yeah – that!


Love our blue and black Stellar Jays – click for larger view. These came to us this morning where I work.

Here are some things I am sending out today. I belong to a couple of “charity” knitting groups at ravelry.com and these are for the mid-April through mid-May projects.


These are some funky scarves knitted up for a domestic violence shelter in Pennsylvania.


These button cuffs were quick and fun to make. There is a buttonhole in one end that hooks with one of the buttons at the other.


These are called Tribbles – after Star Trek’s The Trouble with Tribbles, of course. They are quick to make and multiply like crazy. (thus the name) They are great exfoliators.

The cuffs and tribbles are going to Annie’s Gifts in Pennsylvania to a group of women who receive chemo treatments weekly for cancers.