Artists Way Week 1

An empowering thing I did this week was quit my job. I was working part time from home doing admin and it was a difficult decision to make as it brings us so much more financial freedom, but it's something that has been getting me down for a while. When we started to think of reasons to leave they quickly stacked up against the one reason to stay - money - and it was no contest.

For the last 4 months as I have been working while also taking care of Ivy I have always been torn, and every moment spent working has felt stolen from Ivy, and every moment spent with Ivy has felt stolen from work, and you can forget about any time to myself. I agreed to finish up my current project, but in the event I decided I'd done as much as I could do and threw in the towel, so now I am free to make my own schedule.

When we were living solely off Will's income we were more careful with our money out of necessity, but it was a better feeling. Our weekly food spending was budgeted, and we had to really want something if we were going to buy it. I have always found that having a higher income makes me careless with money and feel compelled to spend it, which is not something I really enjoy.

On the topic of spending, ironically that is what I've been doing this week as I have treated myself to a  couple of books. As well as The Artists Way I also bough Birthing From Within by Pam England, and Spiritual Midwifery by Ina May Gaskin, two books I so wish I had read when I was pregnant, Spiritual Midwifery especially is packed with beautiful birth stories, a long way off what I experienced but everything I hope for next time.

Last week we bought our fridge and washing machine second hand from a shop that reconditions white goods. We also popped into a second hand furniture shop first and found a Lloyd Looms ottoman for £25 and a similar style wicker chair for £10, two things that we were specifically after for the new house.
The fabric of the seat of the chair was a quite torn from wear, so I ordered a bundle of pieces of 70s fabric from ebay, mostly from duvet covers by the looks of it, and replaced the fabric of the seat. The pink wouldn't have been my first choice, but we bought a chest of drawers for Ivy's room from Gumtree that is also pink, so the chair will match it sweetly.
The bundle was also about 10 pounds, and I will use the other pieces for patchworking or other projects. I will probably replace the fabric on the ottoman as it is a dull grey/green velvet, so some bright patchwork would be perfect for that.

I finally finished making the dinosaurs for my friend's little boy's birthday. I hated making them to be honest. The patterns were quite easy, but I found a few mistakes with the patterns, and there were things that I could see could be done better and easier (once I'd already followed the pattern to the letter) which I would have done differently if I had the time. It's by the by now anyway, they're done - they're not perfect but I'm happy enough with them, I hope he liked them. I also made a card to go with the present as well as one to send with a care parcel for my mother-in-law, and a whole load of postcards to send to our friends with out new address. I love getting post and have tried to send more and more letters recently. I hate texting and never remember to reply to emails.

I didn't have an artists date this week really - I had intended to today, as I did last Sunday, but it's been a busy weekend sorting things for the house, and there was nothing I'd really planned to do. Because I wasn't having to work anymore I had a bit more time to work with. I worked on Will's birthday present (which is a secret) and did the cards and the knitting. I have also read half a novel which has been lovely, I haven't read since having Ivy. I also completed most if not all of the tasks from the Artists Way this week, most of which were about identifying positive and negative influences to your creativity. This wasn't difficult - during and after uni I got in with a pretty uninspiring group of artists and had a 6 month residency at a pretty uninspiring gallery, and left at the end feeling generally pretty uninspired. I put a lot of my lack of confidence in my creativity down to that and I am ashamed to say I am still recovering.
I also have decided on two artistic ambitions, one for the very near future, and another for the not so near future. I will talk about these another day when I have more time.

All is going well getting the new house ready to move into. We have rented a van for next week and will get the rest of the furniture in then, and then that will be it, apart from cleaning up our rental property. After 5 months of waiting it's hard to believe it's finally here.

That's all for now, hwyl.