Hey, friends! It’s been almost a month since I checked in here. We got to South Carolina and finally have everything unpacked. We still have a few items in the shed that Flea Market Guy needs to go through, but as far as the house is concerned, there are no boxes left. The bedrooms are complete, the workout room is set up, the office is set up, the kitchen is unpacked. So basically, all the rooms I use on a daily basis are up and ready to go leaving me with no excuses to not cook or not workout or not to go to bed at a decent hour.
With that being said, I’ve been pretty consistent with all three since we got unpacked. It did take us about a week and a half, almost two before I started working out again, I think.
Going to the beach and strolling along searching for cool shells doesn’t count as a workout, at least not to my fitbit. If it did, I would have marathon numbers.
I’ve started working my local job and I’ve already gone out of town once on a photo shoot so things springed to normal pretty quickly.
One thing that did change since I got here is that I’ve been giving myself more time to read and work on my mindset.
I recently read The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins. I read it once and have listened to it on audible about three times. It’s just so good. I ran a book club in our wellness accountability group that went pretty well, but you know what they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Lots more people said they wanted to participate than actually participated but their intentions were good. If you’ve ever tried to read a book, then you know how easy it can be to put it on the back burner because there are a hundred other things on your to do list that are way more important.
I’ve done it a million times so I’m not at all upset that we had limited participation. I’m just happy we had some participation. Plus, leading a book club or being obligated to a daily check in or more than one, makes me more accountable to this journey that I’m on.
In the midst of reading Mel’s book, I started another one called The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s a 12 week course in “discovering and recovering your creative self.” I cannot think of a course I need more right now.
All I do is beat myself up about losing my creative self or losing my creativity or having writer’s block, but I never DO anything about it. So I decided to no only DO something about it, but to go a little overboard.
I’m committing the next 12 weeks to the bare minimum work schedule. I’m only doing what I am currently committed to. I’m not going to pick up any extra gigs or apply for any other jobs. I’m just going to work through this course and read more books on writing, creativity, and personal development. I’m going to work on my nutrition. I’m going to continue to workout daily. I’m going to watch the sunrise every day for the next 12 weeks. I’m going to spend a lot more time with myself. I’m going to do a lot more journaling. I’m going to be writing a lot more here.
You may get tired of it. Or maybe I’ll drop a useful nugget of wisdom every now and then.
The most useful and beautiful quote I’ve come across so far in the creativity book was the title of this blog. It said, “Leap, the net will appear.”
I love the idea of that blind faith so much. I’ve always ascribed to something similar, but never really had the words for it. Those are the words.
That’s exactly what we just did when we sold our house and moved here.
We leapt when there was no net. We sold our house before we knew we had a place to go.
The net appeared. We ended up in the most perfect house for us that we could have found.
The landlords are great. The neighbors are great. The neighborhood is quiet. The yard is fenced in. Our cats have their freedom. Our dogs have their space. We have plenty of carpet free space inside the house to enjoy. We’ve got lots of natural light. And the best part is that we are only six miles from the beach. The only thing better would be living on the beach, but I don’t think there are any houses like this one on the ocean. But this is the one Faith wanted us to have.
So here we are navigating life in a city where we know nobody. Could there be a better time to really get to know oneself? I don’t think so.
I’m excited to learn and read and grow over the next 12 weeks. I’m excited to use the tools to figure out what I should do next. I am excited to work on my book over the next twelve weeks by committing to sitting down in front of the computer editing and rewriting for two hours a day.
I’m at the beach. I mean, if I can’t be creative here, where can I be creative? That’s the real question.
RouletteWeekend 