Summer Solstice Commitments to Practice

Happy Summer Solstice to all!!
Wednesday seems to be my blogging day now, thanks to Jamie Ridler. 

I may yet again reach a day when my posts consist of more than simply answering Jamie's Wishcasting Wednesday query. 

But for now, this is it.  I have many ideas brewing, it just seems to be pinning down the time to tackle them!

Today, the question is, "What do you wish for this summer?"

Although I will be working part-time throughout the summer, there are many things I wish to accomplish.

Mainly because the end of this summer marks the end of much of my free time.
I will be starting a full-time job in September!!  I am very excited about this new opportunity.
I am also trying not to panic at said loss of free time.

So, I believe the most important thing for me to do is to become more efficient with my time and I plan on doing this over the summer by creating some schedules, menu plans and routines to ease the transition for myself and my family.

I also have two weekdays off each week this summer and so I plan to make the most of those by spending precious time with my little girl, doing the things that she wants to be doing. 

This I know, will consist of much time
~swimming in the river
~a trip to Canada's Wonderland
~the Toronto Science Centre
~and the ROM 

Fortunately, these are things that I am totally into doing as well.
Especially the many days we will spend at the river :-)

Blogger friend Christine Reed who writes Girl On Fire and Monkey Brains  prompted me today as well, with this question:

"We are in the new moon (June's moon is the Strawberry moon) AND at the Summer Solstice. Seems like an auspicious time to commit to a new practice of growth and exploration. ♥ ♥ ♥ What practice do you need in your life?"

The answer to this question is simple, although not new.

Music.

Again and again and again.
I keep needing to pull myself back to what I love.


Blogger friend Pauline at journal illustrations reminded me today that:

"Habit is about baby steps"
And she is right.  That's why I'm starting small.  I'm committing to starting out with:

10 minutes each morning of guitar/singing practice
(Why do I forget again and again how joyful this makes me?)

Also, reconnecting with my morning pages practice as that always encourages me to practice my passions.  However, I'm going to be an "Artist's Way" Rebel and only do 10 minutes (gasp!)

And one more habit is to move this body, through 10 minutes of walking or yoga which provides me with the energy necessary to fulfill my main practice of growth and exploration.  Which of course is:

finding Joy through Music!

Time to renew my vows to "Commit".  It is still, afterall, my word of the year!  Oh how quickly I forget!!

What do you wish for this summer?

Previous Post Updates #1

I've been making some claims and promises here to accomplish a few things.  Time to honour accountability.

For my word for 2012,  I chose Commit.

Go here for a list of the things I wanted to commit to.

And this is my progress on:  Happiness.

So, here we are nearing the end of March and I can definitely say that overall, I have been a happier person .

I find January and February to be such challenging months, both in maintaining emotional balance and functioning energy levels. However, with the practice of Julie Cameron's morning pages in January (issued as a challenge for the month by Jamie Ridler), I feel I gained a leg up on beating the winter blahs this year.

Of course, I still experience the odd "down days", just noticeably fewer of them!

Well, So Much For That!

This new beginning only mangaged three posts for the month of January, but it is afterall, a beginning. So I'm not about to beat myself up over it. In fact, I think I will celebrate the fact that I did indeed make three posts in the month of January. Goodness knows, I did an awful lot more than that in the other corners of my life in January. In fact I'm feeling inspired to.... make a list... (drum roll here).

In the month of January I have:

~started walking again! Most mornings, I walk my daughter to school (that only takes about 7 minutes at a leisurely pace). Then, instead of heading directly home, I take a new and different "long way home" which usually ends up being about a 20-30 minute brisk walk (as well as allowing me to become more familiar with our neighbourhood and the many lovely old century homes in the area-we just moved to this town in the summer of 2011)

~really been focusing on my word for the year by committing myself to daily guitar practice. Honestly, a minimum of 30 minutes each day is doing wonders for me. I mean, there have been days that I have skipped, but on the whole, if I can manage to pick it up for at least 30 minutes, I often end up playing for a lot longer than that or returning to it several times thorough out the day. I have several new songs that I can now play to show for it too!

~completed the Morning Pages Challenge from Jamie Ridler. This has been very satisfying. First of all, I love the routine of it. Since I haven't been working much since before Christmas, I need something to get me out of bed a little bit early and the Morning Pages have been my motivation. I have also loved having this little piece of the day in which my thoughts flow into words onto paper and I gain a sense of organization over my thoughts, needs, wants and desires. It gives me an opportunity to send a little message to the universe, a documentation that doesn't have to be a committment, simply a voicing of what is floating around in my head. Finally, it has provided me with the starting point for the rest of my day as I often make a list of my things to do within my morning pages. This has been extremely helpful in acheiving consistency in the two items mentioned above (walking and guitar).

~been working on menu plans and cooking yummy meals. Why, just the other day I made delicious cabbage rolls, something that for some stange reason, I have never made before. I also made a heavenly split pea soup with ham, which has always been one of my all time favourite meals. The meal planning is coming along, I get the ideas in my head for what I'd like to prepare; it's the actual putting it down onto paper part that is still in the development stage.
Perhaps that is something I can develop here on my blog! Oh I love the lightbulb moments!!

~begun to reacquaint myself with my yoga practice. In fact, yoga practice is next on my agenda after completing this post. Which, much as I'd love to write more about my relationship with yoga, I must postpone for another post as I need to get moving onto the actual practice of it and then guitar and then the dishes and the laundry and the rest of the TTD list for today.

And so, I think all in all, January was a pretty good month for me. Now here, three days into February, I am looking forward to even more of the same,but with more hearts and chocolate !!

Following My Heart

I'm really working on establishing those routines and schedules and I'm flying high today!

You know what I mean? Some days are high, zooming right along, energy and motivation are good.

Some days are low, sluggish, stalled, energy and motivation are more or less calling in sick.

I find these first couple months of the year tend to play host to those “low” days more frequently.
And such has been the case for me of late.

But not today.

Today, I have a renewed energy and sense of purpose. And the reason is twofold; singing and yoga.

I had recently been undecided about two things.

a) Whether or not to join an women's A cappella singing group called Bella Anima (beautiful souls) and

b) whether or not to take a short break from teaching one of my yoga classes to take a yoga class for myself.

Well, I decided to listen to my heart (and ignore my bank account's nasty glare) and DO BOTH!!!

I checked out the singing ensemble last week and decided to join.
I went to my first yoga class last night and I have been feeling so good today.

One other thing.
Yesterday day Jamie Ridler asked “What would today be like if you took 10 minutes to doodle” . Well, today's photo is the result of my doodling that I actually did on the weekend.
I'm planning on making cards out of it.

So how is your energy today?
High or low?

6:00 a.m. Ramblings

Ahh, the morning pages. A daily writing exercise designed by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way” in which one writes (long-hand) three pages of stream of consciousness, first thing in the morning. It generally takes me about 25 minutes.

I have been rifling through my morning pages because sometimes, not always mind you, but sometimes, something really great comes out of them.

An idea for a piece of writing. A revelation. A spark. An insight.

Most days however, they are simply a means to clear out the clutter inside my head, to make space for the rest of my more creative ideas. Often I use them as a self dialogue of what’s on my mind first thing in the morning, which is usually the long list of Things To Do. This works quite well for me since, once I’ve written down my TTD, I know that I’m half way down the road to having them accomplished.

So today, I thought I would post a random selection from my morning pages. I know that morning pages aren’t intended to be read by anyone but the person who wrote them and I’m not putting this out here as any form of polished literature by any means. Just as a sample of the ramblings that go on inside my head at 6:00 a.m. This is usually one long non-stop block of writing, but I have broken it up a bit for easier reading.

Yikes! I work an extra few hours this week and the house falls apart! I have little fires burning all over the place. But I can and will get on top of them in very short order. All I need to do is spend a few minutes here and there putting them out. First though, 15 minutes here, an abbreviated session so at least I write something today.

I need a lap top! That’s all there is to it, I could get so much done writing wise with a lap top. I could work (write) on my break at work or today when I am off at 1:30 and don’t know what time Fishguy* can pick me up. And in the evening when he is on the comp—all evening long… Which reminds me I better e-mail Sonja this morning. And call Susan.

After I am done this I am setting my timer 3 times for 10 minutes each to tackle:
1. the dining room floor area which has become piled up with THINGS
2. the coffee table
3. my desk and filing cabinet.

These are my usual hotspots. So yeah, 30 minutes and the fires should be under control. Then another 15 minutes on the kitchen and the dishes from last night. Note to self: Stop leaving the dishes until the morning!!

And then what. Hmmmmmm. Oh yes pull the laundry out from the washer and hang it up to dry. I don’t think it’s going to rain today, but if I hang it outside it likely will. Wake Fishguy* and Sugar Plum* up out of bed and….Oops where is my guitar practice gonna fit in there?

I would do it at 7:00 usually, but we have to leave the house at 8 this morning since I have to work at 8:30. Yikes. Well I may just have to practice when I get home before going back to work for a staff meeting @ 5:30.

Ah well. Now the other writing I need to do. The Newsletter. The Blog. The Flyer. The workshop. I must work on that @ 1:30 today when I get off work. I must get that flyer printed today and posted around town. I must call Judy @ the town office @ precisely 8:00 to confirm booking the library for Thursday evenings. And now the timer just went off and it is time to set it for 10 minutes and become a fire fighter!

So that’s a typical day’s worth of morning pages for me (well that’s actually only a page and a half, but it gives an idea).

* I haven't quite decided yet, what to call my partner and daughter in this Blog. For now I’ll be referring to my daughter as “Sugar Plum” and my better half, her dad as “Fishguy”.

I’m curious what sort of writing the morning pages produces for others who practice them. Do you also list your Things To Do? Do you record your dreams from the night before? Do you write creatively?