Inky Cup of Tea in a Saucepan...

I just want to quickly add that last week I finally got to the Art Shop, had fun with my little Inner Artist oohing and aahing over all the wonderful mediums available. Finally chose ink as something new to try.

(Week 2's Artists Date that didn't happen) I didn't get to Harrods but I did get to Selfridges in my lunch break yesterday to buy myself a 12 year wedding anniversary gift - a lovely set of saucepans...now I can get creative in the kitchen also! Yum.

AND I got to look around at the china, didn't have time to really admire it like I had hoped - but I did purchase a teacup for the teacup swap that is happening over at http://www.justmycupoftea.typepad.com/ . Check it out:

Now wishing I'd got one for myself also, this is such a quintessentially English teacup - cabbage leaves! teehe. Can't wait to see what I get in the post this week! weeee!

Angels Abound

My morning pages (5/7) were looking alot like the previous post - all about what I needed to do, what was going on, the juggling and the overwhelm - breakdown. This past week I have had a big breakthrough in dealing with my marriage and myself - this is very apt: "Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: noone to blame!" (Erica Long) I haven't wanted to be responsible... And of course always out the otherside of the breakthrough process we feel great! so yay! I have been having dreams, I have been having creative ideas, I've been powerful in handling my commitements.

I prayed this week for the first time in years, it felt great, a big sense of relief & letting go, giving up having to work so hard to make everything good - Just Let It Be (ok, this is weird, I am listening to Madonnas latest and as I type Just Let It Be she is singing it!!?!?). So, I will be keeping that up and being careful what I ask for! "Desire, ask, believe, receive." Stella Terrill Mann (wow that name has a lot of doubles). I was surprised at how easily I gave it up and had faith that God would take care of me.

Today my Artists Date was combined with taking my artist for a walk. We walked through the forest noticing the detail "The capacity for delight is the gift for paying attention", then randomly I decided we'd walked back through an old graveyard. Its been a long time since I walked through a graveyard and the first time in this old country and I was admiring the beautiful headstones, Celtic Crosses and Angels being what impressed me most.

What I am finding is that each week I am really living the Artist Way, each week there are some things that I just don't relate to "crazymakers!?" but in week 2 it was the Going Sane (when I was feeling insane) & the Attention (when I was noticing that I rush so much in life I don't have time to get present to people around me let alone pay attention to things!). Last week Recovering a Sense of Power, is totally what I experienced. My previous blog entry is me totally powerless, overwhelmed & when I opened to Week 3 & read Recovering a Sense of Power I thought Yes! Then read about the anger - well someone who is feeling powerless and frustrated is certainly present to anger...Then prayer and synchronicity! Wow - let me just say I am LOVING this...growth!

One night through the week I watched the Horizon program on "Intelligent Design" & how this scientific theory proves there is a God - the randomness of Evolution just doesn't occur - I noticed how it was in line with week 3. Also interesting that when I do the excercise of drawing a pie and noticing the imbalance, my least nurtured area of life was my spirituality...this week is changing that.

And so of course, just now when I look at this week...Recovering a Sense of Integrity. This is just too good to be true! My big breakthrough in my life last week was around my Integrity - or major lack of!?! I had coaching on Wednesday night from the leader of the Relationship Seminar I am doing - very very insightful and I am excited to see what is instore for this week!

So, I created my first artwork this week. I had this 'aha' moment - I had been thinking about how I could ever find time to make art and then I thought I could visually express what I get out of each week doing the Artists Way, I could do this on Sunday evenings with my children - when they are doing their creative journalling - we pull out all the paints & inks and fun stuff. Oh yes! So, this is what I did this week:

I loved Cats Prayer so much I used it - do hope she doesn't mind...

Saturday I did a day course on goal setting, very fitting for what we are doing on this course also, thinking about what we want for ourselves, writing lists of dreams etc.

My imaginery lives:

High School Art Teacher

Life Coach

Cowgirl

Scuba Diving Instructor

Adventure Travel Guide

Pornstar

ProSurfer

Personal Fitness Instructor

Professional Traveller!?

Organic farmer

Travel Writer

Wildlife Photographer

Chef

Second Hand Bookshop Owner

Antique Fair Dealer

Jewellery Maker

Hairdresser

Osteopath

Reflexologist

Potter

Painter

oh what fun and joy!

7

Your Life Path Number is 7

Your purpose in life is to find truth and meaning You are very spiritual, and you are interested in the mysteries of life.You are quite analytical and a great thinker. You have many theories and insights.A life of solitude is perfect for you. You need time to think and do things your way. In love, you are quite charming. You attract many with your confidence and wit. While you enjoy being alone, sometimes you take it to an extreme.You can become too isolated, shutting out loved ones and friends.Express yourself a little bit more, and you'll be surprised where it takes you!

What Is Your Life Path Number?

Help

aaargh. Help. I just read the top of my blog - creating more time...I need more time. Oh, I am sooo exhausted. Since my blog name starts with "B" I'm supposed to write something inspiring for others. Friday night I worked until 11:30pm, came home and didn't unwind enough to sleep until 2am. Saturday we used my husbands Xmas gift to us - Body Flying! What a fun fun experience - also physically tiring. We were supposed to get there at 2pm & then fly at 3pm, we got there are 1 minute to 3. This is how my husband who I am temporarily seperated from - does things...me trying to not make him wrong about this. So, we decided to hang around until a 6pm session (we'd driven 2 hours to get there) however, this meant I didn't get to go to my friends for pre-party girlie fun. But I went to the party, just rushed and later than I would've preferred. The party was a White Party - I went as the queen from Narnia - think LOTS of furry stuff. Oh, what a treat to walk into a room filled to the brim with gorgeous party people all dressed in white, white room, white flooring, white draped fabric - such fun! But I didn't get enough sleep that night either....Slept ALLL day Sunday. So, I was being all about me and irresponsible. My kids were away having fun with a friend and her boys for the weekend.
Last week kind of sucked since my littlest boys teacher expressed concern at how he is going at school - I need to find time to read, nurture, play, relax just "BE" with my kids. My day is jammed packed from 6:45 - I wake up to do morning pages & while I do these my baby wants my attention and cuddles - aarrrgh - torn, torn, torn. I feel like I just can't do it all. I'm running our business, which seems to be in chaos at the moment, I've seperated from my husband - best friend & lover - our 12th wedding anniversary is this weekend - as I've said previously I'm doing a Relationship Seminar to work on this area of my life. While doing this I realized that I couldn't give anymore because I wasn't nurturing myself enough - hence joing this group. So, I'm working (in theory) until I pick the kids up from school, then the afternoons are filled with music lessons, swimming, cub scouts, running rushing, jamming kids in & out of the car and reverse parking everywhere! It is frantic - I physically run alot, to not be late. Monday nights I am doing a Sex & Intimacy course (started tonight) - again working on myself/ relationship with Husband. I am trying to be all things to everyone. I didn't have a conscious Artist Date last week. Since I had to work this afternoon instead of going to my big boys swimming lesson I have promised an afternoon of swimming over the weekend. aaargh, I am in overwhelm & I am really tired and its late and I'm all over the place. How can I make this inspiring? - get real.
I want to be great at all things I am committed to (in no particular order): To be an inspiring and great leader at work, to have a successful business and customers coming back for more. To be an energetic and fun, nurturing & present mother. To be a loving, passionate, commited, sexy & irresistable wife. To be a thoughtful and generous friend. To be creative and original, to have time to nurture me. To be great and inspiring for you. To be a fantastic and loving and caring family member. To be a caring and compassionate pet owner. To be healthy and fit. I need more hours in the day!!
What am I pretending? I'm pretending I can do it all and that I'm OK. What thats hiding is that I can't and that I'm not - I'm being inauthentic. Am I trying to prove something? - how great I am? I don't think so, I genuinely want to do alot and have fun doing it - it would seem its just not possible to do it all AND have fun. or could I have fun doing it if I created that? Could I have fun while rushing the kids to school, while dealing with being totally overloaded at work, while wishing I'd had time for the gym? while feeling bad that I didn't do what I said I would, while dealing with my relationship with my husband. Have I bitten off more than I can chew? I really really want to do it allllll. Can't I some how just make it all work? How can I do this? The impact of all this is that I am tired, exhausted, drained & therefore short tempered & not what I actually want to be for myself and others. The impact on others is that I they feel unloved, not cared for, distance, shouted at, wronged. arrgh - how awful! So - what can I create? The possibility of being content, accepting & love. Imagine "being" love! And accepting - others, myself, my life & circumstances. Content & free! aaah - I'm am feeling inspired by this! I am just letting go of all the pressure and angst and tension. I can do this - I am powerful, a creator of my life.
I am committed to being transformed through the artists way, this is just a blip and you can count on me to be more inspiring next time! And to share more and to get more sleep...xx

queen of narnia

I AM A REAL, VALUED & WORTHY ARTIST

Yay! All is good - where to start?!
Cleaning up - Its Sunday night & while I didn't get to do morning pages last week & I won't make myself wrong about it. I am fully committed this week - I have just now set my alarm for 20mins earlier & put a notebook next to my bed.
The other thing is I signed the contract including that I would have enough sleep while doing this & Friday night didn't go to bed until 3am, so I'm sorry about that, I'm going to change the contract to: I commit myself to excellent selfcare for 6 days of the week for the duration of the course! - but the up side of a late night is that this meant I spent most of Saturday enjoying the soft white sheets of my bed AND reading the AW and working on the excercises! I had a couple of breakthroughs!

My blurts go like: I'm not original, I'm not good enough etc. (I have a blurt page with affirmations on the facing page - so when they come up I write them there). And I distinguished 2 incidents when I was younger and saw that I made up a story about what happened and I attached meaning...So, I have worked on getting complete. The one horror story I wrote a letter to my best friend at Uni (I won't send it) the other horror story I spoke to my Mum about & got complete. Getting complete is something that I am working on in the Relationship Seminar I am going to at the moment. The conversation goes like:
I have been incomplete about....
I give up....
I take responsibility for...
I forgive you for...
I forgive myself for...
I request you forgive me for...
I acknowledge you for...
For me it is very effective - its like these horror stories, that I made mean something about who I am have lost their power. I will continue to look for incomplete incidences for my artist child to work on.
So, thats what I got out of the excercises this week.

My Artist Date - Last Sunday I went to the Tate Gallery. I joined! Annual membership!! yay. That felt really good, like I am going to be going to that Gallery alot and taking my kids - you should see how many kids have little workbooks that the gallery obviously supply and these kids are lying on the floor drawing etc and all these adults are just stepping over and around - LOVE THAT! I went last week & kept thinking how much my boys would like it. But I was also thinking - this is the first time a 12months since I had a day alone, doing what I want. And it felt great, I have this Brilliant Bright Red coat, that you can see a mile away and it was a grey grey london day. I was just floating over that Millenium Bridge - like I was this bright beacon amongst all the grey puddles, and it was FREEZING! And St Pauls cathedral was all misty and beautiful and it was so quiet and peaceful. Oh, I loved that day.

The exhibitions I saw:
Henri Rousseau - he does all those jungle paintings from the 18oo's. I loved the colours and the naivety, like anyone could do that - even me! And they weren't perfect & all 100% finished. I also really liked the element of invoking music by painting someone playing an instrument. Love that. I really liked the light and the black in the paintings. very inspiring.
Jeff Wall - Canadian photographer who captures scenes of everyday contempory life. I didn't stay long in the exhibition, as beautiful as it was - talk about picture perfect!

So that is where I am at on my journey week 1.

I wanted to have an Artists Date this weekend also, but ended up working Sunday. I am thinking I want to go to Harrods this week - I go about once every 2 years - I'm not a huge fan, but they have a great sale & I would like to look at the beautiful china. I am participating in a Teacup swap and want to buy a nice one on sale from there AND I want to buy myself a really good set of saucepans. Nothing like buying good tools for getting creative! Cooking can be a creative outlet & I figure I am old enough to invest in a really good set - after living on hand me down pans and cheap stuff. I think my creative child would have fun playing with that! weee...

mememe

The first entry.

In the past I commented to my bloggin sister that blogging is generally egotistical & self absorbed ( not for me since I didn't have time, (how could anyone have time to be self absorbed?) - little bit wishing I did have time - I now see that I need some me time! & so here I go being all self absorbed. 2 weeks before Christmas I split from my man of 12 years (at the moment we are just having time and space apart - nothing more) We have 2 small boys and we run a business together - life is hectic to say the least. I feel like this year I need to reconnect with me, I haven't created the time to excercise a creative muscle in my body for what feels like an eon. Its always go go go: business, kids, hubby, friends and way down the list was me. This journal space is a structure I am putting in place that is going to hold me to account on the things I say I will do - I often tell myself I will do things and then stuff gets in the way & it doesn't get done & then I feel crap. So by putting it in writing and sending it into the Universe I will do it because I said I would - maintaining my integrity and being held to account. It will mainly be about my journey of rediscovering and nurturing my creativity and so...

Today I have my eldest boy off at a viola workshop with his dad and my youngest boy is at a supportive friends - phew, was that a mental struggle, using up brownie points (having him stay there for the whole day) while I don't do anything that is really important - slap on the wrist! I AM important I do need time...so its a START! yay! ...now I have the house to myself and whilst the piles of washing are tempting me to just get on with keeping on top of it...I have sat down here and set up my blog, Now I need to go and get ready for a day at the TATE Modern, art gallery - yaay, I'm meeting my lovely brother & his girl there and I get to travel on public transport! - loving the time to read (must read first part of Artists Way) And it the first time in years I have been to an art gallery which I love doing and I love the Tate and I will come home all inspired!

I have been having thoughts about starting The Artists Way - last year I got together a group of interested friends and we were going to start in Jan, then June - now its already Jan again - eek! So I came across a group (Kats Paw) that is starting on the web - yay! I am soo excited about starting this. I am feeling slightly concerned about finding the time to start this AND a blog - I'm just going to have to get up earlier...eeek, there already aren't enough hours in the day! I will manage it tho - its important AND its so easy for me to just make it the bottom of the list...be strong girl - you want it & need it!

Today is the beginning of great great things for me. I'm excited!