The goddess of fog and rain
(Speaking of happy I taught positive
psychology for 10 years, and the 10
reasons to be happy exercise (below)started in
that class. I found a post I wrote about
another course I taught called
Writing To Vision to help
artists get back to work. In an
preparing that course --
50 Art Journal Prompts, a featured writer,
April Bowles-Olin's, suggested drawing
yourself as a goddess. At the time
I was always walking my dog through
fog and rain, so created this self-portrait,
If you love the ocean, like I do, you better like fog and rain.
This seems like the ideal day for my familiar exercise 10 reasons to be happy.
So here goes.
10 reasons to be happy
1. It was an incredibly beautiful day. All of the flowering trees were at the height of their beauty, the sky was blue with perfect clouds, and everyone’s gardens are full of flowering tulips, daffodils and grape hyacinths.
2. We went to the local outlet for the farmers market in the small area behind a church on St. Clair. The farmers pack our homemade quiche, and freshly picked lettuce into a brown paper bag with my name on it. They are cheerful and kind – it’s a great way to start a weekend.
3. We sat on our back porch with the cats, Timbah and Fiona, and our dog Sally and just enjoyed the beauty of the spring day.
4. The irises in the kitchen that I bought at a market on St. Clair are at the height of their beauty. They look like magical purple birds.
5. We are well, and delighted to be able to say that at this hard time..
6. This should’ve been first. It’s our monthaversary of our wedding day, and we’re
going to get takeout food for dinner from one of our favourite restaurants.
7. I finished my marking for my once a week evening course. That is very happy news
8. It’s movie night. You all know how important TV is in the time of COVID, and tonight
we get to watch a movie! Yes!
9. The favourite restaurant was closed for renovations to our shock and dismay. So we
went to get pizza -- which was delicious -- and also got very fancy ice cream for dessert.
Yum.
10. While waiting for the pizza we took a lovely night stroll through that neighbourhood.
All in all a perfect day -- with many more reasons to be happy. But this was a good start.
2 comments:
I love this painting! And later this evening I will take time to read the 50 Art Journal Prompts link you posted. I used to write 5 things I was grateful for first thing every morning. I need to do that again. Thank you for the good reminders, you must have had some very happy students!
Hi Evelyn,
I hope the link still works. I copied that from an earlier post of mine.
It's great keeping a gratitude journal. I try to shift myself from a negative to a positive state if I get down, but I am lucky to be pretty positive in my outlook.
I did have very happy students -- even in the term that just finished. But in the psychology course we had outstanding success rates. That was thanks to an entire team.
Love your work.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXO Barbara
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