November's Challenge

The November challenge initiated by my pen pal and sistah friend, turned out to be a fabulous adventure in self and other discovery.  For the thirty days of November we each posted a haiku we created that reflected some aspect of our inner child along with an explanation/story. At the end of the month, we presented photos of the inner child dolls that we created and the above photo is mine.  

November Challenge- Inner Child Doll

October was so chalked full of activity that I am just now slowing down to do my blog post. First off the 10 day wellness challenge initiated by one of my facebook friends was wonderful. It was all about total wellness and for me that meant mind, body and spirit.  I worked my body  by doing a lot of walking and a little pilates.  I meditated everyday, this has been going on for almost two years now, and I did morning affirmations and of course as part of my October challenge, I got back to journaling. Another thing  that I did for my body was was  the tea infusions that I consumed each day. My diet was a lot better for those ten days as I tried, did not always succeed, in getting more green stuff into my body.  The one feature of the Wellness Challenge that I really enjoyed when I expected not to was, the daily vlog post as a way to check in and let others know what you did that day and if you reached your personal goals. You can tell a lot by hearing a persons voice and observing their energy as opposed to, just reading their words on a blog.  

So let's move on to the November challenge which is another challenge that my friend and pen pal came up with and we are already eight days into it. Each of us is creating a doll that represents our inner child, wow!!  Her challenge is that we journal each day about our inner child and that we create a haiku which we share with one another, accompanied by a little or long explanation/examination about the haiku.  When she first mentioned haiku, I almost backed out but it has become the most enjoyable feature of this challenge.  At the end of the month, we will each have, thirty haikus, thirty journal entries and one fantastic magical inner child doll, wow, I am excited to see what we create.

October is My Favorite Month for New Beginnings

Wow, September was a crazy month filled with out of the ordinary things happening in my life, the summer went out with a bang.  I am looking forward to settling into fall. With all of the nice weather in September, I seemed to still be in full summer mode and it was hard for me to slow down long enough to paint but, I did take a lot of photos.  My guitar practice and spanish lessons were kind of spotty.  Charlie and I finally finished reading Jane Austen's Mansfield Park and now have moved on to reading(re-reading for me), The Celestine Prophesy and The Art of Dreaming. This month I am excited to add a couple of new ventures, one is making herbal salves which I learned to do from attending a Herbal 101 workshop.  The second venture is joining in on a ten day wellness challenge which will give me incentive to exercise and eat well.  It also involves meditation which I have been doing for the last 20 months without missing a day, so I have that on lock!  My personal challenge for October is to write everyday because when it comes to writing, this year has been the longest dry spell in my writing life and as a result, I feel antsy and off balance.  So it is back to doing my morning pages right after my meditation and affirmations and in the   afternoon, writing in my journal at the local cafe. This will also help me to get back to posting on my blogs which have been neglected for far too long.  Happy October, heres to slowing down and taking root! 

September Challenge-Get Back on Track

It is time for me to jump back into the game after taking a two month break from everything. It was the first time in seven years that I didn't pick up my guitar and that was strange but I really wasn't making much progress and I was just ready for a break from my routine so perhaps I could breathe some new life into my pursuit of being a renaissance woman.  So now I am ready to ride that wave again.  I will return to my studies and my painting and mixed media art.  I did do a lot of reading over the summer and I took long breaks from watching my movies and series on netflix because I realized that it was eating up too much of my time.  I also spent a lot of time in my garden and recreating my home by adding new sitting areas and redoing my library so now I can find the books that I have spent years looking for.  There is so much that I want to do and I am looking for ways to slow down time as I mentioned earlier this year and recently I found a book called Making Time by Steve Taylor which presents some pretty cool ideas on what causes time to speed up in your life and ways in which you can add more time to your life.   This month I plan to check in one a week because I am trying to do so much.  Have a spectacular September!

Still On Break

                                                                         

I am still on break from coming up with a new challenge and that is okay.  I am doing some new things like starting a new dance class this week and walking the lake in the evening but most of all, I am enjoying my summer by letting go and relaxing.

July Break

• Here it is July 8th and I loaded this photo on the first,so, I guess I am taking a break for the month of July.  I need some time to just relax in my sunny garden and dream up some new challenges for myself.  So, I will be back on August first with a new fun challenge for myself oh and by the way, my June challenge on giving up gossiping and releasing the past is a challenging work in progress.  It was one of the hardest challenges that I have taken on and I was constantly catching myself in the act of failing at one or the other. 

June Challenge Remix

My June challenge has to be expanded, instead of it only being about releasing the past, I now realize that I have to include my original challenge to the mix.  I tried to leave it out because I felt as though it would be almost impossible for me to succeed in this challenge but after today, I know that I have to do it for my wellbeing.  I challenge myself to stop gossiping, and that includes listening to and passing on second hand information. So that means staying out of other people's drama, leaving my two cents out of the equation, minding my own business. Louise Hay said that when she decided to stop gossiping, lol, she didn't have anything to talk about for a month.  So here I go and I will check  in to let you know how it is going.