The Artist's Way Check-in: Week 2

I thought I hadn't been into The Artist's Way much this week but then I realized that I went through a number of the exercises in the week 2 chapter before life got too busy over the weekend.

Morning Pages: 6 1/2 of 7. I got derailed over the weekend and never got back to it. Considering my resistance, I'm not too unhappy that I didn't do them.

Artist's Date: Once again I thought I was going to say "nothing" but I got an invitation to a party at a yarn store a few blocks from me. Really, it was to show off the new line of artisan yarns from different small dyers and spinners. I like this particular yarn shop because they have good relations with the community and once in awhile I participate in their charity knitting projects. But, their yarn is super expensive and I can't afford to buy it. (I knit a lot and when I tell people this they think I am finicky about my yarn and shop at places like this all the time. I don't have the heart to tell them I'm a sale at Michael's kind of gal.) I just thought I'd look at the pretty new yarns and perhaps talk knitting.

(photo by Alicia Jo McMahan)

Well, I wasn't feeling too social when I got there because it was Sunday afternoon, normally a day of family for me, which wears me out. Surprisingly, a number of people wanted to chat me up about the food. (Chocolate, finger foods, fudge, ect.) It was excellent. The cupcake icing was so tender and light that I've never licked anything like it before. The yarn was pretty and fun to play with and I got some free patterns. I also had a Dixie cup full of white wine -- a real oddity for me because I rarely drink because it reminds me of growing up with alcoholism. Well, I decided to not be so uptight but I did relish the chocolate more than the wine.

The yarn was beautiful and the colors were amazing, but again, not while I'm on a budget. One artist named her colors after local landmarks and there was a beautiful deep red named after a building that my boyfriend has a pleasant association with. Well, when my budget gets better perhaps I'll go back and make him something with it.

Issues: hating writing and having no self motivation. I kind of put it on the back burner but now that I think of it, it kept me from doing my morning pages and posting some things I wanted to say in this blog. Plus, I thought more about why I hate to draw.

In going through the week 2 excercises in The Artist's Way I discovered that I'm not bad with self care, but it is mostly lumped on the weekends. I stopped going to my Wednesday night Al Anon meeting  because after some crime was reported I didn't want to go out alone at night. But, I do plan to call my sponsor on Wednesday evenings now and I often poke in on the meetings on Step Chat.  I'm not using any of my self care time for "small creative acts" (as Julia Cameron says in the book) so perhaps that is something to work on.

Good Stuff: Just when I got on the computer this afternoon I got an email from a web site where I wrote about 5  articles for fun and then left off of because even though it was positive, the articles weren't money makers. Well, they sent me an email saying they were putting one of my articles in their fancy new web magazine, which means more exposure and probably more money. I'm not sure what this is all about yet, but the topic was something that I like writing about a whole lot better than the stuff I get paid for.