Week 2: BirthdayPartyTagSale

So Week 2 of The Artist's Way is about recovering your identity and figuring out how to define your own interests and boundaries. How synchronistic then, that this week we should decide that this big, expensive Victorian house is not for us, and a small 2 bedroom (+ office!) flat in a neighboring town suits us much better. And how crazy that we have 10 days to purge and pack and move. Whew!

So as I was exploring memories of things I love to do and maybe have forgotten through the written tasks in the Artist's Way, I was also cleaning closets and finding physical evidence of those things. Beading, knitting, fabric and sewing patterns, rubber stamps and a ton of other crafts. Camping equipment that hasn't been used in years. Clothes appropriate for nowhere I'll ever go. Games I don't play. CDs I don't listen to. Some of it reminds me that I'm neglecting my interests, so I'll save those things and try to bring them back into use. (I love cooking over a campfire.) And some of it shows how my interests have changed, so those things will go. (In the unlikely chance that I suddenly have an urgent need to put puffy paint on my clothes, I know where I can get some more.)

My birthday came this week, which was also a classic opportunity to look back and think about who I've been over all these years. And it gave me another chance to do a couple other things on my list of "Things I like to do:" Have Guests Over, and Bake For Crowds. Thus was conceived the BrthdayPartyTagSale. I made a huge batch of sticky buns and a big pot of coffee and all our friends and neighbors came to hang out and sift through all the things we didn't want anymore. At the end of the day, we had a sugar crash, $116 more dollars and a lot less stuff. I think I also had a little better sense of who I am. The move comes in Week 3 and I'll probably have to get rid of a lot more stuff once I see how my identity as a "small house person" doesn't really mesh with my identity as "Renaissance woman with 75 different interests." Stay tuned...

Back in the blog.

What is up with my lack of blogging? I guess that 5 days in a row marathon output really took it out of me for a while. I haven't been doing much on Twitter or Facebook either, guess I'm just having a private couple of months. It's sometimes nice to get away from the chatter. And to keep from adding to it.

I've been doing what? Thinking, reading, gardening, pickling, writing songs, making lists, sewing patches. Went to the beach. Went to the South. Found a place to live part-time in Nashville so I can go to the South a lot more often. Went to the Barney's Warehouse Sale and braved the elbowing and shoving and trying things on in the aisles to get these perfect jeans for only $19.75 that I love and can NOT take off. Like seriously, I've worn them 5 days in a row now.

I started reading The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. It's an absolute classic, always-recommended major work of the self-help cannon, so I can't believe I haven't ever read it. A lot of the concepts are in other books I have read, and I have been doing a kind of morning pages things for a while, but I can already see after a couple of days, that it's going to make a huge difference in my life. I'm discovering things about myself and working through them. See, it got me blogging after a two month absence! It's working already.

Pickle attempt #1

Reasons last Friday was awesome

1. I had prepped Sticky Bun dough the day before and then cooked them Friday morning and they were perfect and delicious and sticky sweet. Alison took a big tray to work to share.
2. It was the best weather the Berkshires have seen in 2009. Sunny and up to 68 degrees.
3. I met a super cutie little 2 year old boy that I'm going to babysit every now and then. He really liked me, too. It's such an ego boost when kids like you, cause they are generally not polite when they don't.
4. Bought gas for $1.27. Hello! Our grocery store has an unfortuneate name, Price Chopper. But if you sign up for their big brother savings program where they study everything you buy, you get gas discounts. Ours was up to $0.80 a gallon and I cashed it in! It's disturbing how good it feels to hear the pump click off at only $18.00.
5. I visited Great Barrington's music instrument store for a couple new harmonicas, the local record store, Tune Street, to set up selling my CDs there, and the Berkshire Community Radio station to drop off CDs for airplay. Started to feel a bit more connected to the local music scene.
5b. Visited the mix and match licorice counter at Robin's candy store. Most of the exotic ones were awesome, but I don't know about that salty stuff. Still really fun to try them.
6. Got a check in the mail.
7. Got a bunch of email from Alison's co-workers about how awesome my sticky buns were.
8. I played a show at The Dream Away Lodge. It is such a special kind of secret hidden restaurant with this cozy music room full of squishy couches and foot stools. All the dishes and furniture are vintage and mis-matched, kind of like eating in a very clean antique shop, but a quirky cool one like Uncommon Objects, not fussy. The food and cocktails are amazing and you drive forever on these back roads until you think you are lost and you almost turn around, then you are there and there is a party going on. I love it. The only way it could be improved is with BBQ.
9. I went to a party full of New England hipsters where the music was Brad Paisley and Dixie Chicks and Sugarland and Keith Urban. I don't think most people noticed, but I loved it.
10. At the party, people described to me in full detail how obsessed they were with my sticky buns.

I think we can see the theme here. My new mantra: put down the Facebook, pick up the cookbook. Sticky buns are the secret of life.