I am recovering from a painting high that just struck me and motivated my time in my studio. I managed to pull the first layer of an acrylic mixed media piece out of my weary soul. It is a eve with loud music and strong emotions. Manic in their range.

I spent my day with the men I work for wandering around the Portland Sidewalk Art Festival. It was really enjoyable but I must say that I did find the lack of representation of mixed media work a bit disconcerting. There were a couple of wonderful mixed media artist represented but the majority of the art work there were pretty things. Not that there is anything wrong with pretty things, however they bore me.

So here I am another night home in my lonliness. My husband at work, my friends otherwise occupied and my energy level low, anxiety high. Not a particularly comfortable feeling, unfortunately the remedy of ice cream and pizza is not doing a damn thing to pacify me tonight.

I can't put my finger on what I want.

Vivid dreams trying to send me a message and whether I am blocked by fear, laziness or pure exhaustion is hard to say. So much of the pieces of me that I abandoned long ago are coming back to make me complete once again. And with this overwhelming process comes a great deal of isolation.

...

Here we are the eve of my 28th birthday. I sit alone to the soundtrack of the new Ani Difranco album. Exhausted from work and painting and passion. It has been a long time scince I blogged here. I have been neglectful scince we finished the Artists Way process. Things have changed over the last several months. For one my job has changed which has been a huge blessing. I am now actually the team leader for a group home for men with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy. The house opened June 10th and my world became a whirlwind of work and anxiety and adjustment. Things have fallen into place and I am slowly losening my grip on the home. I have always believed it takes 6 months at a new job to relax into it and adjust. So I have felt in flux. But that is the nature of the beast I suppose.
My body has been aching. My healing stagnated as it seems. I have increasing back pain and my anxiety ebbs and flows with no avail. I am trying to find a new shrink to assist with my meds as I have yet to find a combo that brings me any relief at all. It is managable when I can bring myself to paint and express myself, but I am finding myself more and more tired and plagued with physical pain which makes the effort to do anything a huge challenge.
Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be an end to this ridiculous anxiety. It seems I have just struggled with it for so long.... how much can one person fight for themselves? Eventually I just want to sleep... like really really sleep. Deeply with no pain , no anxiety, no waking up, no cold sweats, no nightmares.... just sleep. It has been years scince I just slept... I am exhausted.

Absolutely to the core.... exhausted


Jocelyn

Another week gone by...


I am starting my day a little differently today. It is Saturday morning at 6:40 am. My work day has just begun and I have decided to blog first thing and see how that sets the mood for the day. I am not wanting to be here today... really I am not wanting to be here any day... but today especially. We have been having our whole office repainted (the interior) and it looks like today is the day they are going to be doing more work on the room I work in.... yeah for 12 hours breathing in paint fumes! This place is such a hole it's unbelievable, really. What little consideration is given to the health of the employees blows my mind. Anyhoo. I do not want to spend my whole blogging time bitching about the job you all know that I hate. I would rather catch you up on the events of the week.

This has been a pretty intense week for me. I applied for two more direct care jobs. One at Spurwink and one at Creative Works. My goal is to find and apply for 2 appropriate jobs a week until I am out of here. It makes me feel good and productive when I have actions to take on a weekly basis. Makes it a little easier to spend the time I have to here in the interum.
I had therapy on Wednesday and we talked a lot about my issues with body image, sexuality and intimacy. Very intense. What I think I have discovered is that I never really developed on a emotional level when it comes to sex. I spent my adolecent years trying to fill a role and please everyone and find the place that I fit that I never accepted myself just as I was and never had the chance to explore sexuality in a safe way. Now here I am at 27 and married and competely out of touch with my body. SO I am going back! My husband and I are going back to the teen years with our physical relationship so that I can explore and become comfortable and learn more about myself. I never had the high school boyfriend or the giggling sexual exploration. My experiences were all very intense and alot of them traumatic. I am very excited about this! On the other front in dealing with my self esteem and body image issues I am working on a mixed media painting to express acceptance of my body as it is right now. All the curves and roundness and beauty of the body I am blessed with. It is going to be a long process pulling all the images out of my head and getting them on the canvas but I spent 2 days this week working on the background and I am really pleased with it thus far. The other thing that I am doing in this arena is next week my dear friend Miranda is going to help me to update my wardrobe with clothing that really fits my body now and makes me feel good. I have avoided purchasing new clothes because of my deep desire to be smaller and now all of my clothing is ill fitting and ratty and i done care for much of any of it. Clothes shopping has always been challenging for me... not one of my favorite hobbies and I am so fortunate to have Miranda who is a master shopper not to mention fashion expert to help me on this part of my journey! So that is where the healing is at this week.

I also saw a chiropractor for the first time this week which was very enlighteneing. I have alot of upper back and neck pain which I have attributed to job stress and working at the computer. However it looks as though it can be more attributed to the way I walk and breathe. My body still functions in the "fight or flight" response because of my PTSD. I knew that my emotions were ruled by the PTSD and my hormones but had no idea that my physical movements were as well. SOOO I have 4 excercises to work with daily: deep belly breathing, tummy tucks (sucking in my tummy) Kegal excercises and striding (walking with elongated strides for 1/4 mile per day) These 4 excercises should improve my core stability and support my spine in proper alignment as well as retraining my body out of fight or flight. Very Intense!~ I go back to the chiropractor twice a week for the next two weeks and am pretty excited about all the syronicities... cool.

SO we are also finishing up the AW pretty quick here. I have been doing my morning pages on my work days, which does help with the work stress. I have pretty much abandoned the artist dates and have been using the time in my studio instead. I have stayed up on the reading every week and have done proably 50% of the tasks the past few weeks. I have gained a lot from the process and am glad that I stuck with it. I am sad that I havent been able to stay up with the blogs that I origionally did but most of my computer time was at work on the weekends and now that we are in busy season I do not have that oppurtunity as much. AND once I change jobs I won't have that opportunity at all... ah well I am doing the best that I can to keep all the balls in the air!

OKay blog time for the week is now over. I apologise for any spelling errors, I am not in the mood to go back and re read all this I just hope it is coherent. I hope yall have a wonderful week and I look forward to sharing with you again next weekend!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Hello..... I think I am done neglecting my poor blog now. Things have just been so crazy scince the surgery that it has been hard to reconnect with blogger world. I have made it a priority to update my blog today so here I am at 6:39 am here to share with all of you lovlies. SO this is what has been happening: I am still hating my job, actually I think I am hating it even more now. I find ever minute that I spend in this building depleting my internal resources to a dangerosly low level. I am still waiting to hear back from the guy at Residential Resources. I applied a week ago and then emailed him a couple of days ago. I will give him until Tuesday and then follow up by phone. If I still get nothing then I am going to make it a priority this week to go through the job listings and find 2 suitable positions to apply for. Keep moving slow but sure to get myself out of this hell hole. IN the meantime I am fighting to keep my spirit open to new job opportunities. SO, that's the job front.

I met with my surgeon for my post-op on Wednesday. Eveything came back ok from the lab and looked normal. She did not find any endometirosis and just removed a small piece of fibrous tissue which could be the cause of my pain. We will have to wait and see. If my pain has not subsided then we know that the problem is more the vulva vestibulitis which sucks because there are not a lot of treatment options for that. I am beginning to fear that there is going to be a lot more of the mind-body connection involved in this physical part of my healing than I thought. One of the ideas that has been presented to me is to see a sex therapist in conjunction with my regular therapy process and do some deeper work with my emotional and energetic connections to my womb. ANYWAY this week I have been feeling a bit fragile, frustrated and sad. I had really hoped that after the surgery things would be much more setteled than they actually are.

As a treat to myself I went back to the massage school I graduated from and got a massage from a student yesterday. She was an amazing deep tissue practicioner and really worked a lot of the knots and problem areas out of my neck and upper back which is exactly what I went there for and thought I needed most. Physically I think it is what I needed most. But, emotionally I think I could have benefited more from a nice relaxing nuturing full body swedish massage. Perhaps in a couple of weeks I will need to go back and try for that. It is just so difficult for me to relax most of the time. Even when I am just hanging out doing nothing I feel like I am running a marathon on the inside. It just gets so exhausting and frustrating being me sometimes.

As far as the Artist's Way goes, I have been somewhat recommited to the process. I have definitley been staying up on the reading and doing about half of the tasks. I managed my morning pages 4 days this week and I did not even think of the artist's date but that is okay. I am not going to allow myself to feel guilt for that. It has fit as much as it can in my process for the moment and it has lent to a tremendous amount of work and healing. I plan to stick with this same level of commitment for the last two weeks of the process and finish it out with pride.

Well, I beleive that is all for today. I hope all is well out there with my blogy friends and family. I do sincerly love all of your feedback and I do apologise if I have been out of touch with your blogs I hope to get back into it at some point, when the time is right.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

This is my very first altered matchbook shrine!

OKay folks I am back and I survived! The surgery went well. They found some scar tissue nodule thingy behind my uterus which has been removed and I did have an unplesant allergic reaction to the pain medicine which sucked but I made it through and now I am bored out of my MIND! My husband has my car this week as his is in the shop so I am stuck at home and going stir crazy. You know when you are so bored you don't want to do anything? yeah, that's where I am at. I still have to take it easy. Yesterday I did some crazy cleaning and wore myself out (I was sick of my apartment smelling like a sick person!) and ended up in bed at like 5:30 and in quite a bit of pain SO I am trying to honor my body and my healing today and continue to take it easy but I will tell you it is not an easy thing for me! I have febrezed everything within reach and my cat is now avoiding me... hmmm I don't really have anything else exciting to share. I have taken a hiatis from the Artist's Way due to the surgery buisness and don't feel ready to recommit quite yet. I have been working on some different artistic projects and some nice treats for my new pen pals and I will share a bit with you all shortly. I have finally uploaded pics of my altered matchbox that I did for my cloth paper studio competition and am oh so proud of so I suppose I will share those with you in the next post above you lucky dogs :) Okay I got nothin!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

No weekly check in today folks. I am cranky, in pain and in no mood to deal with anything. I have been at work for 11 hours. I have had these pin prick sharp pains shooting out of my left ovary for the best 24 hours and it makes me very uncomfortable. I have a feeling I am going to be uncomforable, over tired and cranky until my surgery is over on Wednesday. THEREFOR, you proably won't hear much out of me until a couple of days post-op. I appreciate any good thoughts you can all send my way and hope to be back up and in good form ASAP.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

OOH Week 6 Check In!

Here I am back at work for another Saturday and it has been increadibly busy. SO I am going to jump in with my Week 6 Check in while I have a minute.

#1. I did my morning pages 4 out of 7 days this week. Again, in my days off I just did not find the time or the motivation. I had a lot of sadness this week onf Wednesday and most of Thursday and I was stuck in it. Then Friday I had a lot of resolution and love and I was enjoying that too much to be distracted by anything else.
#2. I did not do my artist date this week, again, it was not my focus.
#3. I wouldn't necessarily say I experienced syncronicity this week as much as I experienced the grace and ease one has when they are on the right path towards their authentic life. Cetain things particularly with the effors in going back to school just seemed to go very smoothly.
#4. Alot of issues with body image and womanhood surfaced this week amd these are things that are going to take time and energy and work to get through.

So week 6 is over and we are onto week 7. I am actually going to try to do week 7 and 8 this week so that I wont have to worry about getting behind the week of my surgery. I know that the Artist's Way is going to be the last thing on my mind that week.

I am feeling okay today. Pretty stressed out because work is so busy and I really hate my job. BUT only a week and a half and I am off for 10 days and then when I return I am hoping to be out of here for good by May 1st... cross your fingers for me!

Okay I am going to cut it short today and get back to work. I hope all is well with all my lovely readers and we will get more caught up soon I promise!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

I am feeling a little sad today.


I had a therapy session today and one of the major focuses was body image and my ability to complete disconnect myself from being a woman as means of protecting myself from pain. I don't know where or when it all began but I have what I logically know is a very "off" image of self. This is a very hard post for me to write because there is no wry humor or off color remarks when it comes to this topic for me. This is very real, very raw and very much a part of my daily life. No matter what size I have been through out my 27 years I have never felt attractive, or sexy. I struggled with anorexia thoroughout the end of high school and the beginning of college and then moved to alcohol and pills and then I suppose when I gave up these addictions I just sort of started hiding and letting the anxiety take over my life. The more I hid the more weight I gained and the more I felt the internal weight of the hatred for my body. Now, I know that I am not an enormous woman. And I know that I am probably very much in the "average" but that is not how I feel. The scary part of it for me is that I can look back at pictures of myself 15 lbs lighter or 30 lbs lighter and even 60 lbs lighter and completely emmaciated and underweight and I know that deep down in all those years and all those sizes I felt exactly like I do today.
I am working very hard to heal all aspects of my life but this one here is a very tough and very painful corner for me and I don't really know which direction to turn.. it feels very lonely here. I do not want to hear how beautiful other people think I am because that only accentuates the fact that my image of self does not match up....
One of the things that came up in therapy today was how all this connected with my issues with intimacy and womanhood... on a physical level this ties in with my medical problems and my upcoming surgery. When asked the question "What does being a woman mean for you?" I was filled with sadness and I guess that this is the place from which I am looking to connect. So I ask to you my women readers. What does being a woman mean to you? I appreciate your feedback and your honesty.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Another Saturday stuck at work!

Hello all! I have a lot to write about today so I am going to try and be a bit organized and hope you all don't get too bored with me... especially as I am not sharing any lovely eye candy today... perhaps if you are good next week I will post some more of my projects.

Okay so AW Week 5 Check In:
1. I only did my morning pages 4 out of 7 days this week. BUT I do not feel guilty about it, which is lovely. I have been much more focused on getting well this week than the structure of the AW process, so I am okay with it. On the days that I did my morning pages I did enjoy them this week with less resistance.

2. This week I did not do my Artist's date. In fact, I had doctor's appointments on all the days that I wasn't at work for 12+ hours so I did not want to "schedule" any more of my off time. In lieu of the artist's date however this week I did spend more time than usual in my studio creating art.

3. don't feel like answering this this week.

4. I would say my ability to set aside the structure and rules of AW and just allow myself to create and heal this week was pretty signifigant to my recovery. I had more confidence in my creations as well. I can't wait to share my matchbook shrine with yall!

OKay that is all for the check in this week. Today I am stuck at work for an amazing 12 hour shift which I am none too excited about. My car is in the shop so my husband has to drive me to and from work all weekend and we are expecting a big snow storm tommorow... joy oh joy. Oh the upside I started a new novel which I am really enjoying it is One For the Money by Janet Evanovich which is the first of 11 that are in the series about Stephanie Plum who is a crazy cool bounty hunter. My therapist told me if I didn't like them I couldnt tell her as she could no longer be my friend so I was a little worried... but man, it is funny and I wish I could read all day instead of doing work! I am definitly checking the rest of them out of the library to read post op in my recovery do nothing time... now I am reallly excited!

Okay the last thing I am going to address today is that I have been tagged by both http://harmoneyinline.blogspot.com and Eliza from http://sixfootone.blogspot.com So ladies here it is

1. Four wishes, dreams and desires:
a. to open a private massage and polarity practice in my home.
b. to own a digital camera
c. to visit the Greek isles
d. to obtain a bachelors degree

2. Four imaginary lives:
a. An ecelctic author of romance novels.
b. A full time artist with an amazing studio.
c. The lead actress in a Broadway musical in NYC.
d. to be a mom

3. Four things I should change:
a. my job
b. how often I use the phrase "I should..."
c. my excercise regime
d. the amount I eat sweets.

4. Four things I like about Artist's Way:
a. I love doing the writing tasks on Monday and Tues while I am at work
b. I love the feeling of community we have in the way we are doing it together.
c. I love the essays each week and find her writing very insightful.
d. I am beginning to love the morning pages.

5. Four things I hope to get out of the Artist's Way:
a. Confidence in my creating.
b. Clarity of my goals
c. Contiued sisterhood
d. Love for myself and my inner artist.

Okay I am all worn out now so I am going to be a stinker and I am not going to tag anybody today... perhaps tommorow, we'll have to wait and see. I hope you are all doing well and taking car of yourselves and your souls.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Hello my blogery friends! This is my very first Artist Trading Card and I am so very proud of it. I watercolored the background paper and then stamped and embelished it. This has been my joy of the week thus far.

I am feeling really disconnected from my blog. Pehaps because I have spent so much time lately creating rather than writing about creating. I guess I am at a place in my healing where I am celebrating my growth and healing in the creation of my arts. Though, I am having a difficult time not feeling guilty for my lack of passion when it comes to this here blog. Ah well it is all part of process. Today I had my therapy session over the phone as my car is without a working transmission and therfor I am housebound until it gets fixed next week.

I want to talk for a moment about this over the phone buisness. The session itself was validating and wonderful as usual. What I find so extraodinary is the fact that my therapist was willing to take the time and just have a conversation with me off the clock. I think that I got so used to sublevel medical care that when one of my doctors goes above and beyond like this I am completely bowled over. Another example is my amazing OBGYN who is performing my surgery in 3 weeks. She is going into private practice in a couple weeks and called me yesterday in between surgeries from the hosipital just to put my mind at ease that she still intends to care for me. She too is absolutely amazing. I know how frustrating it can be to be unhappy with the level of care you recieve from your doctors. I just want to encourage people who are unhappy to seek put a better situation and not settle as I setteled for so long. Having a couple of doctors that I feel are really in my corner has made a tremendous diffence in all aspects of my healing including the value I put upon myself.

On that note, tommorow is a day filled with pre-op appointments. I am actually looking forward to meeting with my anestheiologist and nurse so that I feel better prepared. I will try to check in tommorow and tell you all how it goes but if I do not get a chance I will be back over the weekend.

Oh and by the way.... that job I hate so much... I am leaving it soon! After the surgery and postcare I will be moving on and am just exstatic as can be about that!

Hope all of you being of light are living well!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Artist's Way Week 4 Check In


1. I did my morning pages 6 out of 7 days this week. It felt like I didn't really have anything to say in my pages this week. It made them hard to get through and frustrating. I did not want to do them this week.

2. I did go on my artist's date this week. I took my inner artist to Michaels and AC Moore craft stores and spent a couple of hours perusing and picking up treats for myself. Then I went home and taught my inner artist how to make chocolate mousse! It was a really lovely day!

3. I can't say that I noticed any syncronicity this week- though I was feeling pretty disconnected so I very well could have missed it!

4. I joined the yahoo group clothpaperstudio and found a whole new group of creative supporters. I m starting to recognize the divide that I have created between artistic and crafty as a safety for myself. I am trying to find a balance of both expressions in my life and an equal appreciation and respect for both of these aspects of myself.

So that is all she wrote for my check in this week! Now on to bigger and brighter things!

I am stuck at work again for another 12 hour day. It is loud here today. All the leasing department have taken over my normally quiet little bay and there is horrible music being played in the cubicle next to me. Not to mention most of the men in the leasing department are loud and showy... icky. I wish they would all go home and leave me in peace and quiet. Crappy energy in here today.
I have been pretty busy today but I did manage to spend some surfing the net. One of the women from my birthday group on clothpaperstudio is Gina. It is her birthday month for February. That means that all the other members of the group send her a little something like an embelished tag or Artist's trading card. I was working really hard all week putting stuff together for her that I am pretty proud of. THEN I found that she has a buisness and a website www.sweetwatersisters.com I checked out some of her mixed media work and OMG this woman really does some amazing stuff! I was drooling over the sister circle journal pages sooooo beautiful. But now I have inner critics creeping in about my work. I am really new at Mixed Media and have been having a lot of fun with it but I am starting to feel itimidated now that I see what some of these other ladies are doing. Ah well perhaps the more I practice the better I will feel about my work.

Okay I am getting a headache and a great deal of impatience with my job so I shall say farewell for today. Perhaps tommorow I will be able to write from a better place!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Good Evening Friends!


It has been so weird to not blog all week this week due to my reading deprivation for the Artist's Way process. I have felt really disconnected. Not only from not writing but especially from not reading the blogs I generally keep up with. Tommorow is going to be a big day of catch up... hope it is slow at work!
This has been a good week overall I have gotten involved with a yahoo group clothpaperstudio which has been exciting. I am learning new mixed media collage techniques and spending a lot of creative time in my little studio. I am a bit bummed that my collage Adult Ed class got cancelled. It was supposed to start next week and evidently there wasnt enough interest. BUMMER! I am having a hard time finding affordable collage classes, if anyone has any online class resources they could turn me onto I would appreciate it!
Well, I am fading iknto dream land here folks. I will be much more exciting tommorow I do promise you that! I hope all of my readers are doing well and that you dont feel neglected by my week of absence!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

The past that lingers....

In love and light,
Jocelyn

I am tired, sweaty and stuck at work.

All of this makes me a bit crabby. Actually I have been frequently crabby this week. Disjointed and disconnected and disconcerted for that matter. It has been an icky week. And now here I am sitting at my computer at the mouth of hell and writing my blog.
So we are at the end of week 3 in the artist's way which is crazy in itself. I am going to share my weekly check in again. So here we go:

1. I did my morning pages every day this week. I still enjoy doing them, it is becoming more of a habit and I am finding that I run out of things to write earlier than in the beginning of this journey. I think this is a good thing.
2. Yes, I actually did my artist's date this week and it was okay. I read through about 1/2 of the hollywood gossip magazine I had set aside and enjoyed about 35 minutes of silence in my home, but then I got bored and took a nap. I liked the nap better than the date so I am going to make the nap my date.
3. Yes I did notice a weird syncronicity this week. My friend Jessica emailed me . She is also a fan of the Artist's way and has just started watercolor painting.. hmmmm
4. I had a difficult time with some of the childhood tasks this week. I also found that some of the tasks made me realize that I have built a really amazing support system for myself outside of my family.

OKay that is the end of Week 3. Now I have done the reading for Week 4. I am feeling nervous and resistant to the reading deprivation. I am going to make a commitment to it from Monday to Friday of this week. SO for all the blogs that I religiously read and comment, please don't feel neglected and I will return next weekend to catch up. That being said, it may be too much temptation to hop online so I may not update my blog this week either after tommorow so if that is the case please know that I haven't abandoned ship I am just taking a little break in support of the "process" I am getting even more cranky just thinking about it.... I might have a tantrum. Hmmm that actuallly sounds like something that would proably be really good for me. What do you all think... are you fans of the occasional tanrum?

Okay that is all for today. My job is melting my brain and making me very unenteratining indeed ! Hopefully I will have more inspiration or at least entertaining words tommorow!

Oh bother!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Hello! Above is my first submittion to Mixed Media Memoirs and I am very excited about how it turned out! This has been a good art week for me. I started working with the acrylic paints that I recieved from Erin's family last week. I have had alot of fun with that. I have also been able to keep up with my morning pages and am going to start this week's artist date as soon as I finish with my blog here! This week's date is a steaming cup of tea and a couple of Hollywood gossip magazines and a silent house.... oh and then I am going to take a nap.... oh lala.

I want to share one of the tasks from this week. 3 of my obvious rotten habits and my subtle rotten habits. The obvious ones are 1. I eat chocolate in excess on a daily basis. 2. I only excercise like twice a week at a maximum and 3. I take sleeping pills every night. My subtle rotten habits are 1. I beat myself up about rotten habits 1 and 2. 2. I smoke when I am at Erin's house even though I quit smoking months ago. 3. I neglect my self care. Hmmm the tasks this week have not been easy for me and I will talk about it more on Saturday with the weekly check in. I think mostly it is all this looking back into my childhood stuff. It's not that I had a horrible childhood by any means it's just that a lot of my self image and esteem issues are very deeply rooted in the past and it makes it difficult and uncomfortable to explore that territory. I did have a very productive therapy session yesterday where we addressed some communication skills that I can work on to improve my ability to stand up for myself with my family ..... this is tough stuff for me.

I am feeling like this post is really disjointed. Perhaps that is the theme for me this week. I have been feeling out of sorts on and off all week. Emotionally and physically. I am adjusting to the Effexor which I have been on about a week now. I have also been eating like crap and not excercising all week so that doesn't help matters. I did get up this morning, work out and ate a really solid breakfast and lunch which did improve the way I feel a bit but I am starting to bottom out again. SOOO I think I shall take my nap now and make my self care the priority for my day and see if I survive or if my whole world falls apart! Gotta work on those bad habits sometime!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Miss Banana, This one's for you!


So here we are on Sunday. I am feeling cranky and groggy. I have been at work for 8 hours and I have 4 more to go and I do not want to be here. I am thinking of my paints sitting at home and all the creative ideas that I would love to be experimenting with. Alas I cannot as I am stuck in a dusty building which I truly do believe to be situated over the mouth of Hell (yes, just like Sunnydale High School) I am talking to whiny clients over the phone booking car rentals that I don't give one iota about and wasting my time away.... I hate my job. Granted it is only temporary. Granted I have other things in my life that fill up my soul. Granted I am doing everything in my power to create and implement a life plan that will get me out of this place. BUT today this is where I am and I am not very happy about it. But enough of this nonsense. My friend Miss. Banana has asked me to share the Mexican Casserole recipe I was raving about yesterday from last week's date night, so me being the nice lady that I am is going to do just that. Now this is not actually MY recipe. I did find it somewhere online and I don't remember where but if the actual creator of this recipe is out there, thank you!

Mexican Casserole

1 lb ground beef
1 tablespoon veggie oil
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup each onion and green pepper chopped
1 teaspoon each salt and chili powder
1 16 oz can kidney beans drained
2 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes with juice (from can)
3/4 cup uncooked instant brown rice
3/4 cup grated cheese (I like the mixed cheese and I use way more that this)



1. Brown beef in oil add garlic. Add onion and pepper. Cook until the onion is transparent.
2.Drain the fat off. In a 2 quart casserole dish combine meat mixture, salt, chili powder, beans, tomatoes, and rice.
3. Bake covered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle with cheese, bake an additional 15 minutes uncovered.
4.Serve!


So there you have it, this casserole, Scene It and your honey and you have yourself a lovely little date! I hope you all enjoy.

Okay I think I am going to close this up for today. I don't have anything inspiring to write about so I figure I will just stay at work and wallow for a while. I hope you are all doing better than me today!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

I'm Back!


Well here we are the end of week 2 of The Artist's Way... I can't believe how fast it is going. I am going to start my blog today with this week's check in.

#1. This week I did my morning pages 5 out of 7 days. The first day that I missed I just completely forgot about it and then yesterday I didnt do them as I didnt feel well and it just wasn't part of my truth. I am still proud of myself for sticking with the. I am not resistant to this piece of the work.

#2. I did not do my artist's date this week and I honestly feel increadibly guilty about it. I know now that scheduling it for Friday does not work. I need to do my artist's date on Wednesday or Thursday morning. Next week I will make it a priority.

#3. Nothing new is really coming in for me this week. The continued theme is finding balance and I seem to be pushed in the direction of painting which is pretty exciting!

So there it is. I am looking forward to doing the reading for week 3 today. I am stuck at work for 12 hours so I should have plenty of time to absorb the information. So now I want to talk about my last couple of days. Yesteday I had a wonderful morning with my friend Erin. We went up to Freeport and had tea with her parents and then I was allowed to raid the closet filled with her aunts old art supplies. I ended up with a rather large selection of oil and acrylic paints and some canvases. I am very excited about this however I am also a touch nervous. I am afraid of the oil paints cuz I dont know anything about them as far as maintaining brushes ect and even the acrylics because I have no idea what kind of paper to use or anything. So next week I shall have to make a trip down to the art store and speak with someone there and hopefully get some help without looking like an idiot.. hmmm we'll see I get really anxious about stuff like this.

ON another note, my husband and I had "date night"on Wednesday night. It was really really lovely. We snuggeled in at home and played Scene It (which I am now obsessed with) and ate mexican casserole (which I am now also obsessed with) It was so nice to just spend a couple of hours together without his stress from nursing school and my stress from (well just from being me I guess) anyway, that was that and it was lovely for that matter.

I also started working on a multimedia collage for Melba's page this week under the theme "this is me" Unfortunately I did not get it all together and will not have time by Monday so I am really disappointed about that. I had planned to finish it Thrusday or Friday but it didn't work out. On Thursday I found out that my surgery will be on March 1st and I have a bunch of pre-op stuff on Feb 9th. Now knowing the date has made the whole surgery bit very very really which is kind of yucky. Then on Friday I started my new medication Effexor and it made me feel a bit under the weather for the afternoon and evening. In fact I went to bed at 6pm :( So I guess I should say I had some really nice moments this week but I also had some disappointments and today I am feeling the disappointments more. I guess part of it is adjusting to the new medication and getting back into the swing of working and whatnot but I am just feeling kinda down today. SO I am going to leave it at that and try to get into The Artist's Way week 3 and see where the day takes me. I hope all is well with all of you lovely angels!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Here is my life pie... it looks so broken and sad.