Grateful

Sometimes it's important to remember the things we can be grateful for. I've been working on this little booklet of all those precious things in my life... only a couple more pages to go. For the whole booklet click here

Ever wonder what you've been up to?

This is a collage I put together in about 10mn of some of the tickets, cards, bits and bobs that were lying around on my desk. I always keep all these things and never do anything with them... I might try and do this every so often. It's funny to look back over the last few months and see where I've been and what I've been up to!

A weekend away

I just spent a short weekend away on Terschelling, the biggest of the Wadden islands in the north of the Netherlands. The island is truly beautiful, with dunes, pines forests and gorgeous long beaches of white sand. We spent our time there enjoying the simple pleasures of life: feet in the sand, jumping photos, a long walk along the shore, much chatting and a lot of laughter, good food. It was so good to smell the ocean air, feel the wind and the sun shining on my skin, to see the beautiful landscapes. A weekend like this is enough to awaken all my senses, make me want to do new things and see new places (even not far from home) and give me energy for the next weeks...

Note to self

These days I am busy looking for an appartment to buy here in Amsterdam. Of course I have very high expectations, I want a renovated sunny flat in very good state in a nice neighbourhood with equal sized rooms,a balcony, a not too tiny bathroom, not too expensive etc.

I know I will find the perfect place for me and I will probably realise it as soon as I walk in, but in the mean time I am visiting many flats that do not correspond to my dream home and sometimes I feel restless. I want to find the flat and I want to find it now! Or I start to doubt, should I buy this flat even if it does not totally suit me?

In the end I take a deep breath and remember to have faith, the Universe has always brought me wonderful things and to give it time to bring them, I just need to have patience.

The things I dream about

Recently I read about the Arthouse Co-op, they set up projects which anyone around the world can participate in as a really interesting way of encouraging artists to make art. The art sent in will then be exhibited in a travelling art library.

There are all sorts of projects (from one word defined on a canvas to filling a whole sketchbook) for different budgets (some are free!). I participated in 'The things I dreal about' project, here's my piece:

It was fun to make and interesting to work on a small space. I liked posting it off to its destiny in the project library... I must say I'm very curious to see the other pieces!

The longest days of the year

Just enjoying the wonderful sunny weather and long days where the sky is light until passed 10pm. Also, treated myself to some new art supplies to experiment with: stencils, acrylic paint, watercolour pencils, new paint brushes... Can't wait to try them out :-)

Thanx for reminding me to be grateful

I have a thing for websites where the blogger repeats one idea nearly daily, and today i stumbled upon this wonderful blog a collection of thank you notes to the most surprising things in our everyday life written with a lot of humour. I love how even the most mundane or annoying things become a source of gratitude.

Funny I should find this today since the last couple of days I have been working on a little booklet of things (big and small) that I am grateful for (more about that soon...).

I guess being grateful is the best remedy to being down or unsatisfied. It all comes back to the title of this blog, the key is to focus on what beautiful things are there and not what's missing:

As you ramble through life, brother, whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye upon the doughnut, and not upon the hole.

Dream, transform, inspire

Sometimes it's easy to focus on the wrong things and feel overwhelmed instead of letting them go. To me it seems like letting go means losing control, but in fact I need to realise I never had that 'control' as I can never anticipate how things will go, and all it brings me is a lot of overthinking.

My aim is to learn to really relax and slow down in order to grow space around the things that take a lot of my energy at the moment. I'm hoping to find there is more space and time than the limits my mind perceives, and that letting go allows truly unexpected things to take place.

Picture is a collage and words taken from keri smith's inspiration words picked at random (from her wonderful book 'Living Out Loud')

Falling into the mind's trap

Despite all my good resolutions my mind went completely crazy last weekend, spinning dark thoughts all over the place without control. Turns out I fell into my mind's trap again (it had been a really long time since I felt so down). Now I've realised it, I can spot it easier and avoid getting caught in negative thoughts and focus on centering myself again... This little doodle dragon was inhabiting my brain, I got him out on paper, hopefully he won't get me again.

Serenity and an open heart

At the moment I am struggling with letting go and accepting things as they come. I can feel I am tense and trying to keep things going the way I want or the way I believe things should go. It is exhausting and frustrating because in reality there is only so much I can control.

My reaction then is to want to completely give up on what I'm finding difficult, not even to give it a chance in order not to face my fears and potential 'failure'. But actually I'm realising I need to stop my constant thoughts and just accept to go along with what happens and see where it leads me, without tensing up and expecting the blow before I manage to make it fail. Maybe there is no bad surprise, maybe my fears and anticipation have nothing to do with the amazing potential of what could happen.

So I have written a magic message to keep in mind when I need to stop the thoughts in my head:

I decide to welcome whatever happens with serenity and an open heart.

Let's see if it works...