Hello from Chicago!  I’m here for a lovely long birthday weekend and I’m super excited!  It’s been a long ride (getting up at 6:30 am, driving for two hours, followed by a 5-hour long train ride through Michigan and Indiana!) but it’s nice to finally be here.

The theme of Week 3 is “Recovering a Sense of Power.”

Morning pages: 7/7
I love writing the morning pages.  It’s so great to be able to just write anything I want to.  I still censor myself about certain topics though.  It’s not like anyone is going to read my morning pages (I hope!) but it’s interesting that I don’t allow myself to describe every gory details.  Maybe that’s not what the pages are for though.  They’re not therapy… or are they?  Some days I want to write more than the prescribed three pages.  Is it all right to keep going and write more?  Or am I supposed to be limiting myself to the three pages?  Just writing/thinking the word “limiting” seems silly.  They’re my pages.  I feel like if I want to write more, then I should go ahead and keep writing.

Artist date: not completed
Boo-urns.  I didn’t do one this week.  The closest I could say I got to an artist dates was going to the mall on Monday and browsing in Sephora and going to Dollarama.  But I don’t really count that, seeing as the reason I went to the mall in the first place was to run errands.  I will be able to do an artist date (or many!) this weekend in Chicago though!

Synchronicity: This is a new concept this week which deals with “answered prayers,” or “fortuitous intermeshing of events.”  This concept was developed by Carl Jung in the 1920s.  Basically, now that I’ve started my road to creative recovery, things should start mysteriously falling into place!  And things have started moving for sure.

My first instance of synchronicity was when I ran out of greeting/thank you cards (writing all the thank-you notes for Mermaid).  My colleague Ellen was going through the mail at OKTC, and found a pack of cards from the Heart & Stroke Foundation, and gave them to me!  Woot!  I also got a great surge of productivity at work this past week and was able to finish a ton of projects at the office, thus being able to leave feeling comfortable that I did everything I needed to do before leaving for Chicago.  So I can enjoy my holiday without stressing about work!

But then the BEST THING EVER happened: I found out that The Blogcademy was going on a world tour and one of the stops is in Toronto!  I have wanted to go to the Blogcademy since I first read about it on Gala Darling‘s website.  I cannot wait to go.  I feel like this is the kick I need to get my blog into professional shape and hopefully increase readership and grow my business!  I am so excited that this opportunity has arisen and I am counting down the days until I get to go!

Thoughts: I’m really happy to have this vacation for my birthday.  It will be nice to just get away and relax and have no responsibilities.  I haven’t had a proper vacation in a long time!  Even my most recent trips to New York were either to do combat workshops or supervising the Original Kids.  I had a very productive (albeit short) week at OKTC and I’m looking forward to a Pillar Nonprofit workshop that Jeff and I are going to take in May about volunteer management.  Professional development FTW!  I’ve also been getting some really sweet messages from my Mermaid cast, telling me how much they enjoyed the show and how they’re missing their friends.  Makes me happy, and very proud of my work.

I enjoyed the tasks and exercises this week.  Lots of reminiscing about childhood and describing favourite toys and experiences, remembering what my childhood room looked like and noting my childhood accomplishments, including winning school champion in track and field in grade 2, and winning the graduating academic award in grades 6 and 8.  😀

Week 4’s theme is “Recovering a Sense of Integrity,” and one of the big exercises is a week of reading deprivation!  This is going to be a really hard one for me, especially on that long train ride back home on Sunday!