One of the assignments in The Artist’s Way book is to take yourself on a weekly Artist Date. It could be a walk in the park, a visit to a museum, or anything that engages your senses.

Today I took myself to downtown Olympia. The pavement was wet and the rain was falling on my umbrella. I went to several little gift shops and took time to appreciate the scents and sights. There were some beautiful candles in an array of floral scents. One shop had handmade scented lotions. I took time to smell and sample and engage with the items. I looked at the displays of handmade greeting cards in one store. Each card was a little work of art. I bought one to send to my friend in prison.

After smelling and viewing the gift shops, I took myself out to lunch. It’s a date, right? 🙂 I had delicious homemade mac-and-cheese (comfort food) while sitting at a corner table with a view of the rain, the traffic, and the people trying to avoid the rain and the traffic. I didn’t come home with any great artistic ideas, but I think the point of the Artist Dates is to keep the creative well filled with a variety of sights and sounds and smells and textures.

I’ve been feeling blah about how I look for a while. Probably because I don’t do my hair much, never wear makeup anymore, and wear the same few outfits that I don’t even particularly like. That sounds pretty blah, doesn’t it?

I was writing about it in my Morning Pages today and I feel like it’s a combination of a lack of self-esteem and also remnants from a time not that long ago when I would cry off my makeup all the time so it just seemed silly to wear it.

So today for something different, I did my hair, put on makeup, put on a different shirt than I usually wear, and tossed on a colorful scarf. Amazing how much better I feel.

I have a meeting to go to this evening and I’m wondering if I’ll feel better/different at the meeting. I suspect I will.

In the book I’m working through (The Artist’s Way), one of the assignments was to do an artist-brain activity. Roughly described as something monotonous or repetitive. Running, walking, painting a wall. For me, handwashing dishes is my most productive artist-brain activity. Each of my book ideas was birthed while standing at the sink with my arms in warm soapy water, scrubbing things clean.

Today my dishwasher was almost full, but I decided to try handwashing the dishes instead. I didn’t have any earth-shaking creative ideas, but I felt a little more grounded. A little more open to what my creative artist-brain may be speaking to me. And my fingernails are clean. 🙂

I’ve noticed recently that I’m starting to develop little piles around the house. A pile of books/notebooks/papers/pens where I write at the table. A small pile of papers related to meetings I attend that accumulate on the kitchen counter. Assorted things that piled up over the holidays on one of the desks in my office.

As you probably already know, I’m a Piler to the core, but I was really hoping my piles wouldn’t follow me to the new house. But they evidently did. At least it’s just a few small piles and not a houseful.

So I have to take what I know about working with my Piler tendencies and find ways to tame them.

I need to identify what’s in the piles and then either find homes for them or get a “pile container” of some sort to contain the piles. I know I need to keep my writing-related pile close to the table, because otherwise writing won’t be as apt to happen. It’s a fact of my life that as soon as I put things away in a file cabinet, it’s like the things have vanished from my mind and cease to exist. For my writing stuff, I think I might get a nice basket of a size and shape that will hold things well. It’ll look nice enough to keep in a visible area of the house.

Maybe a little basket for the tiny pile on the kitchen counter, too. The pile on my desk is going to take some serious consideration. Real filing is going to take place with some of those items.

Anyone remember the chapter from my A Simple Choice book where I shared about a friend’s techniques for Pilers and why attempting to become a Filer just doesn’t work? I have a nice file cabinet that someone gave me when I moved. Perfectionism stops me in my tracks …. I have to have the perfect filing system. I actually don’t have to have a perfect filing system, but I’m frozen about getting started with the cabinet. I think I might work on it this week while I have some extra time off (and I’m avoiding the cold weather outside).

I think the Pilers/Filers chapter of the book might be online somewhere. I’ll look and see if I can find it.

When I started journaling daily last year, I’d sit and stare at the paper and often write nothing. I think I was getting hung up on things like “What’s it going to look like on the page?” “Will it make sense to someone else?” “Am I writing about the right things?” “How’s my handwriting?” “What’s important enough to write about?”

A common thing I do is overthink things. Well, I was overthinking keeping a daily journal. Part of the problem was I’d gotten a pretty little journal and it had the effect of making me feel like my pages needed to look perfect. No scribbling out words, no sloppy handwriting. So instead, I bought a large, plain spiral-bound notebook. The kind I used in grad school for taking notes. Those classroom notes were never neat and pretty. Suddenly, when I had a plain, ordinary notebook to journal in, I felt the freedom to be messy. That was a huge step for me.

I discovered that I needed to make the decision that my journal was for my eyes only. Although I still struggled with judging what and how I was writing, it helped to know that nobody else was going to come along and try to make sense of my writing or judge my handwriting.

As for topics to write about, I follow some instructions I’d found in a book a while back. Just write what’s in front of you. Look out the window. “The sun’s shining.” There. First sentence. Then write whatever comes to mind next. Could just be a word. Or a sentence fragment. Essentially stream-of-consciousness writing. Some days it’s choppy and nonsensical. Other days it flows and makes sense.

I guess some of it depends on the purpose of the journaling. Something to leave to future generations is going to be completely different than something to just get the writing juices flowing for the day.

As I scribble down my stream-of-consciousness thoughts, I find my mind starts making interesting connections. I learn things about myself. I get ideas. It’s sort of an aid for thinking.

I’ve been writing this on breaks at work (I work Saturdays). I may have more to add as the day goes by. As usual, take what’s helpful. Leave the rest. Just my random thoughts for what they’re worth. 🙂

Last year I successfully kept a little journal. I’d write for about half a page, and share three little gratitudes. Kept it simple. Super do-able.

Fast forward to this year. At the first of the year, I started working through a book that has the reader keep three pages of handwritten journaling. Since I was already doing this daily handwritten thing, I figured it would be no big deal to add a couple more pages.

Then I started reading a little inspirational book by a poet and I was really liking the book, so I decided to take his advice to heart: keep a daily logbook of your daily activities and a monthly calendar of writing activities.

Suddenly I found myself hitting Journal Overload. I went from doing my happy little daily journal to trying to juggle about seven different journaling techniques. Probably don’t need to tell you it all came crashing down in no time flat.

I took a deep breath and told myself to keep it simple. So I’m going back to my original journaling method on days when I work full-time, and on my days off I’ll do the three-page method since I’ll have more time. All the other calendars and logbooks and diet journals and whatever else tried to invade my life will just need to wait for another day (or never).

As in so many areas of life, keep it simple.

I think I’m over-thinking my journaling.

I was just going to write for ten minutes each day, but then after I read something, I decided to go for three pages every morning. Then I started questioning what time frame constitutes “morning”? Do I need to get up earlier to make it the first thing I do? Can I do it during lunch? Is it too late to do it after I get off work?

My journaling today ended up being writing about this very topic. Writing about it helped me make some sense out of it.

For now, I’m going to try to keep from being too legalistic about it all. So my tentative plan is to write three pages if there’s time. Just ten minutes if there’s a time crunch. Morning hours if it’s a day off. Whatever works around my schedule on work days.

I can over-think myself right into inactivity.

I was reading today and a thing I read reminded me of something from a while back.

When I was trying to decide whether or not to go to Graduate school, I kept thinking how old I’d be when I finished, and it just sort of seemed ridiculous. Then I had the thought that I was going to be the same age at that later point in my life whether or not I went back to school. It was like a lightbulb went off. Either way, I’d be the same age, but by choosing school, I’d be that age with a Masters degree. Suddenly my choice became clear.

I have some choices I’ve been facing lately. I’m not going to put them off based on age anymore.