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I recently started working through Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. My manager gave it to me after I expressed that I'm a pretty easily discouraged person, and struggle a lot creatively because of it. It's a bit of a self-help book that's been around for some decades but I believe I recieved the most recent edition. It frames some of its teachings around a very Christian sort of God, and though in the very beginning she advises to let it refer to whatever higher power you want, or just the creative process itself if you have to, it's a little hard to detach the two. There aren't any bible verses or anything terribly offputting (so far), but I don't like feeling preached to (prought at?). Even though it casually suggests picking up horseback riding or visiting an "ethnic neighborhood" to get that creativity flowing, there is some genuinely great advice and I only wish I it was shown to me sooner.

So in short I've started doing morning pages. I almost always wake up 30 minutes before my alarm anyway, so it wasn't that big of an adjustment other than that instead of going back to sleep I now immediately start having to think. And it's been quite the experience so far! I typically only journal at night, since it makes sense for collecting my thoughts at the end of the day. But I found that a lot of my worries are actually things I wake up with, and I've just been ignoring them until bedtime, sometimes so that I can spend hours rumminating over the same pointless thought over and over until I tire myself to sleep. Turns out it's much better to get those thoughts out of the way from the very beginning. Not suppressing them, but letting them go. Who knew!! Anyway, journaling is free therapy.

Speaking of journaling, Friday was Haupia's birthday and I only knew because her arrival was last year's entry in my 5-year journal that day. I thought it was in September, but I think I got it confused with my cat's birthday?! Oops. Maybe next year she'll get a party hat. Well I finished the doll bed. I did a terrible job staining but I really don't care. While I was sewing the "mattress" I realized that a standard pillow would have done just as well but I guess it's a little better that it actually fits. I really should have just used a big block of foam, but it felt good to use up the rest of the polyfill that I've been sitting on for about 8 years. I guess that's what this project ended up being really, using up old materials. It was fun. My cat is indifferent to it still but he's a little slow to things so maybe when his birthday does come around, it'll be a big surprise for him.