Before the new challenge is revealed...

It's been an interesting weekend.  I now know what "bored to tears" means.  It's been such a busy summer so far that when I found myself with nothing (that I wanted) to do after I submitted my dissertation topic for review on Saturday morning that I literally cried while watching a Hallmark Channel movie - and, trust me, the movie wasn't good enough to warrant tears!  So - I decided to tangle.  "Why didn't you think of that earlier," I hear you asking?  Ok... so it was a V8 moment, for sure.  I had been thinking about what it is that I really want to manifest in my life.  I am a firm believer of "be careful what you ask for" - been there, done that, have few scars to prove it!  So I sat down and wrote out some notes, placed them on my sketchbook and loosely traced around the notes.  I then created a string connecting all of my "non-negotiables" and the following is a draft of what will eventually become a larger piece.  The finished piece will use the official Zentangle tiles in place of the post-it notes for larger open spaces to representations of my dreams/desires/needs.  You'll see they are not listed on the draft piece... I'm leaving my options open for awhile.

Feeling less "needy" and more centered, I decided to tackle a "tile noir" - I really need to get over my fear of making a mistake... very little in life is truly perfect.  It's that erroneous notion that anything we do as humans could ever reach perfection that fuels the pharmaceutical industry (and keeps me in busy during the week).    Assuming that others are scrutinizing and judging everything about us - our size, our clothes, our hair cut/color, our messy house, our wayward (read: perfectly normal) children - keeps us in a state of constant panic and self-doubt.  Most of the time I am quite capable and successful at letting that stuff go, but when it comes to committing words or lines to paper I feel that old self-judging worry monster crawl up onto my shoulder and whisper negative words of discouragement in my ear.  Anyway - last night I flicked the little bugger off my shoulder, grabbed my first black tile and white jelly roll pen and just drew.

I'm a fan.  It was fun and I am sure I will like my future attempts much better.  But for now, in all of it's imperfection, I kind of like my "dark side."

All in all the weekend has not been as bad as I feared.  I had a nice lunch with friends, took a great nap, and then baked homemade whole wheat and flax crackers just because I had all of the ingredients.  The cooler temps from the weekend will give way to more high heat and humidity as thee coming week progresses and I am sure there will be a few more challenges.  But I am looking forward to seeing where my manifesting takes me and waiting for news of the birth of a new baby girl in my family.  Oh, and what new challenge Diva sends our way.

Shalom!