AW Week 6 Check-In

Let me start this off by saying this week stank, health-wise. I have ongoing allergy issues; they all cropped up and bit me at once, to the point of interfering with my sleep and also leaving me itchy. Being itchy (in between anti-itch cream applications, anyway) and short on sleep makes me really really irritable. (I seem to have them somewhat under control today, but I'm still slightly irritable. At least I could sleep in and I am not as itchy, so progress is being made! And how come it's better today, one day after I get the allergy shots that should make them worse in the short term??)

Anyway, as a consequence I suspect my check-in is going to have overtones of the irritation. For bonus points, my washer decided to screw up and flood this morning. Fortunately I heard it botching the imbalance handling and got to it before it caused much havoc. My already-frayed mood was the biggest victim, and I'm mostly over that. (The next load waiting to go in was towels. Handy, that: I used a couple to mop up the mess. Sigh.)

1. Morning pages. Um. 4/7. 6/7 if I stretch. Thursday I got 2 pages done and then something came up (I think my patience, hitting its limit, but I don't remember). Friday I got less than one page done. Today I was out of sorts and wanted fun time, so I played World of Warcraft. I could still do them but to be honest, I do not feel like it. I'm just very irritated at the AW (and the world!) right now and I don't want to spend the time on it. I know I probably should, but while I've benefitted from MPs, I haven't seen enough benefit to think them completely indispensible, and it feels like forcing myself to do something "for your own good" like a kindly, well-meaning, but stupidly misguided parent. So I'm ignoring them today. Will try to resume tomorrow, hopefully more in the mood. I did poke a bit at the idea of abundance this week but, to be honest, I didn't really feel this chapter or topic applied much...well, I'll hit that on a later question.

2. Artist Date. I did not pre-plan and execute one. But I did go to two craft stores after work on Thursday, looking for things to use in making things to brighten up my office a bit. I found some! :) Plus I finally gave in and bought some fake water, which I've wanted to play with for a while anyway, for both its intended use and a couple others. Haven't used it yet - hopefully sometime this weekend (but maybe not - I have a couple other projects I'd like to try, so it's sort of a question of which one wins the battle of the temptation first).

3. Synchronicity. Not a ton - but in the week on money/abundance, I wished I'd win the lottery (yeah, I know...still, I can wish!). I did not. But I did get a bonus at work - a small one but a real one, for all my hard work on the current tasks! (Bonuses at work, other than a token Christmas gift, are about as rare as lottery wins, actually. It's not worth nearly as much as the Powerball jackpot, but it's still money and - even better - it's money that has recognition/appreciation attached, which is always nice!)

4. Other issues. Two sets:

First, really, this chapter is hard for me to apply to myself. She presents it as though everyone has money/abundance problems...I really don't. I mean, there are things I'd love to do if I had more money, but they're in the "I'll get there eventually" category anyway. (I'd love to pay the mortgage off this year! Without a huge windfall, not happening - but we will pay it off at some point, and I know this.) I used to have abundance problems - buying too much and all the wrong stuff for me - but I trounced those a couple years ago. (Ironically, by putting myself on a budget. Because it made me think about where I was spending my money and what I really wanted.)

That's not to say I can't improve. I spent some time casting around and came up with a couple things to try. Just saying it's not a huge issue - there's a lot of abundance in my life already, and I know this. Of the exercises - thanks, used to collect rocks as a child, still have them, have more rocks than I know what to do with. May need to purge some. After I find them again, as they're buried in with all the other clutter. Flowers? In this weather? I think not! Though I did get some fake flowers for my work-brightening decoration project.... Baked apple muffins. Been baking for weeks. The muffins weren't that great so I made blueberry later in the week. Those were better. Etc. Nothing really horrid, nothing really great, for any of the exercises. More a "whatever".

The other issue, ironically, was my health making me see things badly. I read the two comments on my last post as being very harsh - and of course they were supportive. Where the heck did I get that turnaround? Simple, I was itchy and snarly when I read them and so I read them horribly wrong. Fortunately I know I do this, so instead of ranting about the unsupportive comments (that were quite supportive!), I just wandered off and then reread them later. I took them as criticisms for looking too far ahead or trying to shape others (maybe because I was afraid that was how it would be taken? - though I don't think I was, really), and they were really just supportive comments. Boy did I feel silly (and then grateful!) when I reread them later on, properly!

So I hope that Kara and GreenishLady will forgive me for taking their words all wrong, even if they didn't know I had until now. :)