Today, I was driving back from the Post Office when I pulled up at a stoplight behind a small car. I can’t tell you what kind it was, because its logo didn’t get my attention. What did get my attention were the three pine tree-shaped car deodorizers that hung from the car’s review mirror. You […]
Category: writing
52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Is it Time to Change Your Schedule?
Shift #38: Is it Time to Change Your Schedule? Over the past several months, I’ve struggled with getting a decent night’s sleep. I wake up several times a night. I know this has to do with natural shifts in hormones and that some of this can be addressed through diet, exercise, routine, and all of […]
52 Ways to Shift Your Focus: Drive on Ice
Shift #33: Drive on Ice I began today not with a journal and coffee, or with thoughts of this blog piece, but with my daughter behind the wheel of our Outlander as we navigated our way to the high school at 7:45 a.m. Abby picked a great day to oversleep. And I picked a great […]
52 Ways To Shift Your Focus
Shift #11: Don’t Take the Freeway Every once in a while, my annoyance with a culture that wants everything done right now boils over. Coupled with the sheer inundation of information that shows up in my inbox every day and people in my life who won’t wait for anything, I just want to stop. Everything. […]
52 Ways to Shift Your Focus
Shift #10: Identify Your Obstacles – Remove a Tree Our yard is a work in progress just as much as anything on my writing desk. We mow, move plants around, pull weeds, sit back and admire. We let other people see it. Some of our more dramatic plants, like the blazing orange poppies that were […]
52 Ways to Shift Your Focus
Shift #9: Different Place, Different Time A holiday weekend always shakes up my sense of what day it is, because nothing occurs at its usual time. Yesterday, Memorial Day, meant that everyone was home around here and there was no alone time to do the usual Monday writing work. But it did mean that there […]
Artist’s Way Check In #9 – Compassion and Toys in the Office
This week’s work was supposed to focus on recovering a sense of compassion. I felt inexplicably silly about being reminded to stop yelling at myself and wondered how this really applies to where I am in my life right now. Then something happened that reminded me that, yes, compassion towards self really does matter. This […]
Artist’s Way Check In #8 – How Can I Make This All Work?
“How can I make this all work?” is a phrase I try to get my daughter Abby to put into action as she struggles with balance around homework, activities, boyfriend, friends, and family. I thought about that a lot this past weekend, as she had a terrible time figuring out how to fit everything together […]
Artist’s Way Check In #7 – About Connection
One of the things that I appreciate about how I’m going through The Artist’s Way this time around is a different sensibility about what bits apply to my life and what bits are not particularly helpful. And this fits right in with this week’s chapter about connection to that which feeds my own creative process. […]
Artist’s Way Check In #6 – Abundance and Generosity
A sense of abundance is sometimes hard to come by when an artist is seeking that balance between having to earn a living and making art. Throw a family into the mix and it shifts again. It’s hard to find abundance when money or time is in short supply. The past couple of weeks have […]
