WELCOME 2014

Time for a fresh start.  A new beginning.  A happier healthier future.  Back on the right track.  More time to create.  These are my plans...

First things first - I am getting back to a daily morning bible study with accountability partners.

Next I have picked my word for 2014.  SERENITY.

What exactly does this mean?

Serenity - the absence of mental stress or anxiety.

In order to reach this state it is time to put the past in the past.  The debts, the burdens, the clutter.  I spent a good deal of time on New Year's Eve clearing clutter from various spots in my house.  7 bags of unopened, partially opened, unread, partially read bills, mail, junk etc.  What a difference it made!  There is still a LONG way to go but the progress was actually majorly visible.  Most of the clutter that I cleared was the burden of the debts - or the evidence of it.  I have spent the last 6 months working with a debt consolidation company that did absolutely nothing but have me stop paying all my creditors and pay them.  They were not able to negoitate anything and they ended up tanking the last of my credit score.  It's time to clear the slate.  The next step I take is to learn the Delaware Bankruptcy laws and find out how to get back the money I paid the consolidator and pass it along to the bankruptcy judge.  Too many years of living above my means in New Jersey left me with nothing but debt.  I am so happy to be living in Delaware in a much more reasonable economy and the plus of NO sales tax.  Had I done it a few years sooner I may not be in this position but...I am, there's no changing it so there is only starting fresh.  

I need to find out what exactly can be done to the used car I bought last May to get it running so I can return the van that was so graciously loaned to me several months ago.  

I need to get to the neurologist to find out exactly what the EEG told them.  I missed the appointment on the 26th when the tire on the van literally exploded.  I have not left the house since.  I have to continue with my B12 injections and making sure my other iron levels stay where they should be.  I probably need to see a rheumatologist and definitely a dermatologist.  So, it will be another year of doctoring but at least some things have now been resolved and a treatment plan has begun.

So that leaves creating - 

First, January starts my term on the Scrapping Everyday Miracles Design Team.  The new challenges opened today...the theme this month is Friends.  Our scripture is Proverbs 17:17.  There is also a layout sketch and a card sketch.  You can choose to do any type of paper project incorporating the theme or use either of the sketches, or any combination of the three.  For my first project for the team I chose to combine the theme/scripture with the card sketch.

Here's the sketch:

and here is my card:

There are 3 great prizes up for grabs so why don't you click here for all the details and enter something!

and finally, today I got back into my art journal after several months absence and did a page stating my word for 2014.  

I had created this background using white and black gesso a few weeks ago in the hopes of working in my journal but never got past it.

Next I got out some Tim Holtz Grungeboard and added my word.

I got involved in the page and forgot to take individual photos of the steps but what happened next is that I got out a Crafters Workshop stencil and several colors of acrylic paints and Gelatos.  I wasn't getting anything I wanted so I decided some texture might be a plan and grabbed my bag of washi tapes.  I started tearing them and randomly placing them all over the page until I was satisfied. I wanted to paint the grungeboard but realized that a coat of gesso would really be a better place to start.  I love gesso.  

As it turns out, I liked the letters white so I decided to forgo painting them so for my finishing touches I took a black Sharpie pen and outlined the letters so that they would stand out and I added number stickers for the year which I also outlined.  

The finished page:

I am also entering these in Word Art Wednesday #113 Anything Goes.

Another step in getting back on track is getting to bed at a more normal hour.  For some strange reason the last few months I suddenly found myself up until 2, 3 or 4am every night.  This is NOT a healthy habit so tonite it's off to bed between 11pm and midnite.  

Hope that you have enjoyed viewing my latest creations and will spend time visiting with me regularly! 

Happy healthy 2014 to you and your families!

ONE WORD 365

As the New Year arrived I started reading a lot of blog posts that were mentioning something called 'One Word 365'.  I decided to investigate a bit.  I knew immediately that my word for the upcoming year would be HEAL.  I have had a very rough last few months dealing with anxiety and depression and trying hard to make changes to my life.  The good thing about the suffering I have been going through was that it really drove me literally and figuratively to my knees.  My prayer life has revived which has been pretty dry for quite some time.  I cried out to the Lord in desperation...and I know in my heart of hearts that He was listening.  He was there all the time just waiting for me to come back and rejoin the relationship process.  See, for me, the important thing about God is relationship - having a truly personal relationship.  But, for the last long while I have been going through all the motions - praying for others, reading some scripture daily, attending church every week, spending time with other Christians...but, the missing link was my PERSONAL relationship with my creator.  I was doing all the extraneous stuff but had totally ignored the most basic thing - to share personal time directly in communication with the Almighty for and about ME (and of course, the greater me - my life, children, friends and family).  During the time that I was going through the motions, He was still there, He was reaching out to me through beautiful Christian women that I know from some online groups as well as through making new relationships at the church we started attending when we moved here to Delaware in January 2012.  All of these held me together when the bottom fell out emotionally, spiritually, physically and financially.  I had BIG decisions to make and BIG changes to make.  None of these were easy (or will be easy as some of them are still to come).  But, I felt God stirring within me as the anxiety racked my mind and body telling me that no matter how bleak things were looking that I was going to be OK...that everything would eventually be OK.  I just needed to HEAL.  I needed time, peace, quiet, introspection, prayer time, bible study, counseling, medication, and to start eating normally again.  I had hardly eaten a full meal from mid October until New Years Eve.  I was sustaining myself with what little I could get down as well as drinking Ensure as I knew I needed to somehow keep up my strength because I have two children that needed me.

Now nearly 2 weeks into the New Year I can say that the healing process is really taking place.  I have been eating regularly.  I started counseling.  I've been spending some good daily time in prayer and reading.  I am working hard on trying to get my house in order as well as my life.  Although we are really struggling financially we have SO much excess.  So many things we aren't using or haven't used in a long time that can go to good use.  I hate throwing away things that still have life and purpose in them so I have ended up burying myself (and a storage unit) in clutter.  I arrived at the conclusion that it was not healthy for me or for my children to go on living amidst all the chaos.  I have made some small dents around the house and today picked up a bunch of toys and books from the storage unit to donate to children that lost everything in a fire in my apartment complex the week before Christmas, as well as for the grandchildren of some dear friends of mine.  This is just a small start but it is progress.  It is the beginning of the healing of our environment.  The beginning of healing from hoarding.

During these weeks and months of struggle I lost my ability to create which was normally something that would sustain me through the difficult times and bring me some joy.  I still am not back to any regular art activity - all I have done so far recently is something I needed to do for my DT position and 2 cards for a contest I have been in all year.  And, this art journaling page which has been progressing in layers every few days.  That was part of the process of healing too.

Since healing is a process that goes through many layers and takes many different things to complete it that was how I viewed the process of this page.  I started off layering my page with gesso - my usual layer of white topped off with a layer of black gesso.  I added some torn tissue tape to form the word HEAL.  I used some Derwent Inktense Blocks and added the words BODY, MIND and SPIRIT.  They didn't show up much until I added some irridescent glitter paint over the top.  My next layer was a watered down layer of white gesso to dull some of the pain of the black.  I adheared the tissue tape with a little bit of gel medium as it was curling up.  I added more of the Derwent Inktense this time onto the top of the tissue tape.  I then covered it all up with more watered down gessso.  This dragged color all over the page changing from the blackest black to the grey and now to having a little tint of color.  

I then outlined my tissue tape with my favorite black Pitt pen.  I used an embossing pen to trace over the very faint images of my other words and topped it with purple foil embossing powder.  It was starting to look like I was feeling.  I little bit lighter.  A little bit brighter.  I knew I was getting there.  I decided to add some glitz - I used a stencil of a starburst with some gold perfect pearls.  Then I added some doodling with a few shades of glitter and finally I wanted to add a bit of something red so I took the embossing pen and some red tinsel embossing powder and voila!  I think that it is finally in it's last state.  Which is the beginning of my journey towards healing my art process.

It's much more vibrant and has more life to it in person but if I used flash the glitter just glowed far too much and took away from the feeling of the page.

So here's to 365 days of HEALING.

It's a process.  I'm sure over the course of this period of my life and year of the word HEAL I will add more posts about how the HEALING process is coming along in my life.  In my MIND, my BODY and my SPIRIT.

If you are doing Word 365 please send me a link to your post so that I can share in the journey with you.  If you are interested in learning more about it check out Word 365 at http://oneword365.com/blog/

Thank you for sharing with me in this journey towards total HEALth.