1-31-10 grateful for today

1. My Vision Board
2. A nice cool cloudy day
3. My journal
4. Garageband
5. My creative abilities
6. Tea
7. Money to pay my bills
8. Chanting and meditation
9. This blog
10. Loving myself

Tea is on the list, number 6. I debated it because I'm on a tea drinking kick. I'm worried about getting addicted to tea. Let me fill you in on some history. I used to be a HUGE coffee drinker, a pot a day coffee drinker. I would go to bed at and be able to put myself to sleep faster by telling myself, "the faster I go to sleep, the sooner I can get up and have coffee." It was an addiction that I allowed to alter my mood and I would do things that seem ridiculous now. Like visiting friends up north in the middle of winter, getting up before my hosts and not being able to find coffee in the house and walking ten blocks in a snow storm to find horrible gas station coffee. And being from Florida, not having the proper winter clothes either.

One day a year and a half ago, I woke up, went to work and realized halfway through the day that I didn't have any coffee. It was strange, I didn't crave any coffee. And even more strangely, no caffeine withdrawal headache. My first reaction was fear, must drink coffee NOW!! However, I calmed myself and sat through that initial feeling without taking any action and just let myself not have any coffee. I told myself, as soon as the withdrawal or need kicks in, I'll go get coffee. It's been over a year and a half. I will let you know that I did participate in an intense personal transformation retreat the weekend before the not-drinking-coffee phenomenon.

So, now Tea is on my list. I've been having it every morning and throughout the days for the past week. I'm scared it will turn into another addiction and I'll be that person that HAS to have tea in the morning. I'll let you in on some more personal information, my dad is a have-to-have-coffee person and my mom is a have-to-have-tea person. There is also that I-don't-want-to-turn-into-my-parents fear also.

Well, that's my 15 minutes.

1-30-10 grateful for today

1. Saturday open to do creative work of my own
2. My adorable dog
3. Music
4. Open to all possibilities
5. Friends of all shapes, dispositions, talents
6. My car running well
7. Starting this blog
8. My creative abilities
9. Kitchen timer
10. Movies

I am grateful for my kitchen timer. It is important especially today. It's also important (and I'm grateful for) that it's portable. I will be carrying it around with me today. It will be set repeatedly for 15 minutes. This works well because I have a lot of creative projects going on all at once and I have the day to day and weekend chores that need to be done. So, the plan is to work 15 minutes on something, when the timer goes off, move to something else whether it is finished or not. I have spent too many weekends starting work on one project and then Sunday night rolls around and I realize I'm not prepared for my week. I haven't done any laundry, prepared any lunches for my work week. I don't have that piece of work done that I needed to have worked on over the weekend for a client. So, in using the 15 minute rule. I can do my work that may have some aspects of drudgery in them, AND have 15 minutes of fun here and there, like composing music and creating artwork. All projects most likely will not get done. I little bit of everything will move forward. That's my 15 minutes!