I am back on the horse, y'all. I have neglected this tiny blog so badly, but blogs are eminently forgiving and accepting and don't fault you for things like that. Especially if you have another blog to keep up with, which is wieldly and sometimes cross and not quite as forgiving as a new, baby blog. I've neglected the Artist's Way as well, but the encouragement to keep going was strong. How do people EVER do this alone? They must be people of iron strong willpower.
Last week was all about abundance. It was a chapter that was hard for me, but one I needed to hear and read and think over. It was difficult the first time I read it, as Husband and I are poor, poor newlyweds. (Okay, not that poor I guess but not much extra money at all.) I wanted to laugh when she suggested we write down what we spend our money on, because at that point, there was no money to spend. And going through it all, I thought there was only one abundant moment where the heavens opened and I was gifted with something beyond my means, but I was wrong.
I bought myself beautiful rainbow hued legal pans (which I plan to post a picture of for Blue Dog) for my morning pages, as I'd run out of the original legal paper I'd bought when starting the Artist's Way. Plus, I needed a tiny treat to start writing morning pages again on a regular basis. I eschewed laundry detergent (but not frozen pizza) to buy that legal paper, I'm telling you! Clean socks, no! Morning pages, yes indeed!
Yesterday morning it felt so good to turn on some music and write things out - and I had to ask myself, why did I stop doing this again? I started writing about abundance and realized that I had several instances where I was open to the abundance of the universe and received some good things:
1. A concert on Valentine's night, tickets paid for by our generous church.
2. Wednesday night meal at church paid for by the Other Parents, yummy shrimp over rice.
3. A call to check on a dog Saturday afternoon,for which I was paid 20 bucks for 10 minutes of my time.
(And which really helped when the cabinets were bare at home, plus financed the new legal pads.)
4. A free caramel americano, my rediscovered favorite coffee drink, something I was longing desperately for. (This was the only one I remembered until I started writing them all out.)
5. Sunday lunch paid for by loving friends.
6. Tuesday night Husband and I realized that we were out of coffee -after I'd been to the grocery store and had zero money. I was so frustrated and thinking how can I make it through the morning without coffee? Then I opened up the refridgerator and stood there looking in it, and there! was a small bag of Starbucks coffee! given to us by friends as a honeymoon happy months ago!
Look at all that abundance! Spilling out everywhere! So, see - perhaps this wasn't the free stuff that Julia C. is thinking of, as it doesn't affect my creativity per se (still waiting on that laptop to drop out of the sky) but it did help me tremendously. And it helps me to believe in the goodness and generosity of God,who if he cares enough to provide my morning coffee, will surely help me creatively.