Declutter Flu

Been away a little long. I caught the declutter re-organizing flu. I've still got a touch of it and it may be a long recovery. The good news is I am feeling a little lighter and less bogged down. May be able to go in my studio soon and work on creative projects without feeling the weight of all that needs to be sorted out and cleared away.
I feel like I'm making room. Opening up space. Making room for more clay projects and more multi media and collage play. I feel as if each thing I find a proper home for and each thing I release to a new home is opening up an area in my life that will allow for new friends and new work and new creative inspiration. Each little project that has been waiting because it was a low priority that I take care of releases that "I did it - I finally did it - energy!"

I didn't realize I was complaining about the mess and how it didn't work until my husband seemed so proud of me for doing something about it rather than having a meltdown over and over again about it.

Having to clear out my mother's home this year really taught me a lot about what's important. You can't take it with you. So I am finding a balance of keeping things I love - letting go of things that are getting in the way. Finding other ways to honor the past without allowing it to be a space hog crowding out the present precious moment.

I was at the library this week - looking for low fat cookbooks (another current project of mine). Along the same aisle, I passed the organizing books and Sandra Felton's book Organizing Magic leapt out at me. Now I realize reading about organizing doesn't get one any closer to getting the job done. But it looked like a little book to inspire me while I'm down with this declutter flu.....

Here are a few quotes from Felton's book:

Organizing is not nearly as important as many other things in life. But what it delivers often is priceless. - Sandra Felton

A year from now you may wish you had started today. - Karen Lamb, author

Every minute you procrastinate putting something back where it belongs is a cluttered minute. -Sandra Felton

A habit cannot be tossed out the window: it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time.
-Mark Twain

So, this is where I'm at......away from the computer mostly.....I have my clay work in an art show at the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque. Next week - I'll show you the work - you had a sneak peak earlier here.

I'll leave you with some images from the last week of my sacred life - clouds - more clouds I can't seem to help myself they have been so magical this year

Finding Balance

Whew! Part of going on retreat I am realizing is finding one's balance again post-retreat. I've been giving myself lots of time to integrate the spa and my creative inspirations. I'm grateful to have had some time and space for this -BUT I have a mountain of laundry, need to buy food, need to do all these things that are demanding my attention. So I am off to go do these things and I'm stating here for the record:

I trust I will find balance. I can take care of these things and the creative impulses will still be there once I return.

So my wish for you dear readers -

how can you find the balance you need in your life?

What can you give attention to because it is demanding attention - maybe it is a child or an aging parent or a job - and how are you going to remain connected to your own creative impulses?

Can you entertain trust, can you set aside a few minutes to just breathe and connect to your creative project in your mind and heart?

I will no doubt run around like a crazy woman today but I am also going to reserve a little room in my mind and heart to stay connected and tomorrow I'll be back into the studio...........

Stuff, stuff, stuff

I feel the need to post something here. I don't really know what. There is a lot that I could say and perhaps need to say but it just seems like I don't have the extra energy or space in my life to sit and compose a post. Most days I wake up with a weariness. I come out of dreams about stuff. Giving stuff away, losing stuff, matching parts of stuff with other stuff. My days have mostly been spent doing the same thing in my waking hours.

I knew it would be a big job to go through my Mother's house. I stayed in denial about it until I was actually faced with the reality of the job. My sister and I have really kept at it and little by little done the job. We first had to sort it all out, then decide where it all goes, then pack it up. I wish I could say we are at the end of it all. I can see how far we've come and it's easier to see that we are getting close to the end of the job.

This is the part that is perhaps the most difficult. The tedium sets in. We get fussy and tired and snappish in our tone. We just want to be done and yet it only goes as fast as it goes. After sorting through it all it becomes really easy to begin to forget what I really loved about my Mom. All these things she refused to decide about and now we have to decide --they begin to have an impact on my ability to remember her.

Meanwhile, my life and my sister's must go on. There are things too numerous to name to attend to and not lose track of while we clear out the stuff of Mom's. I am in awe of anyone who has had to do this kind of job. I am working hard in my mind not to become a victim. I let Sonia Choquette remind me with her phrase "Bless your mess" I am in this situation because of my choices. I do not resent my brothers because their own choices have taken them far away. What a creation my life is right now................

I will however hop up on my soapbox right now and say if you have siblings who have cleared your parents estates and you have not had to do the job then you need to thank them and acknowledge the time it took to do it. My brothers have said thank you and the brother I am closer to has made it very clear how grateful he is for my work and my sister's work. It helps.

I fight the urge daily to just run away, to start whining , to become a victim, to begin to resent the lives of other's who go on without this huge job absorbing every last nook and cranny of their own life. I don't think I truly knew what this job is like until I was in the thick of it and it makes me all the more aware that anyone - including my own mother, my own dad, my brothers - that anyone who escapes this fate of having to get rid of another person material life is very lucky.

As you can read I fight the urge to have a pity party. There are worse things to have to struggle with in life than this and there are blessings to be found in it too. So onward I go to bless my mess.........