Week 1 - NaJoWriMo

The first week was like riding a bike right after the training wheels come off...

It was wobbly and I was nervous.

But, I did manage to meet my intentions for the week.

It wasn't so much the journaling itself, but finding the time to do it that intimidated me.

In my last blog post I talked about how I aimed to set myself up for success, and it really did help!

My first few days I wrote like it was a diary. My daily rundown. Simple & factual.

And...short.

Some of the shortest writing I have done yet. Eep.

I even became bored with my own writing...yikes!

But...that's when things began to change.

Day four I stared at the cover of my journal for a bit as I prepared myself to write and it read:

Find Joy in every day.

Find J.O.Y.

Joy.

(facepalm)

I was following the procedure and my set rules, but I was not finding the joy in my every day.

So I wrote about joy.

That's when my hand came alive; as did the words on the page.

YES - I was(am) tired.

YES - I don't have THAT much free time (oh wait...)

But I do.

We made some changes here in the household yesterday. I found myself lamenting so much in my journal about my lack of time. That I was so sick of always feeling rushed and tired...yadda yadda...but I didn't talk about what I could do about it.

What I know is that the TV takes up a lot of my day...

So yesterday we made some changes in the house and got rid of our TV subscription!!

Whhhaaaa...

Today as a family we organized an Art & Creativity Centre within the home. I am currently in the process of painting the art hanger I made and then we will be fully up and running...

We also all went for a drive, ran errands, played at the park, gathered pinecones, organized and cleaned the centre (TV stand turned art centre), and played with the pinecones - INSTEAD of watching the usual TV shows.

This was one of the biggest moments for me in the first week of journaling - saying goodbye to the shows. I'll update you on how well it goes when it's a full week and my husband is back to work...

I've enjoyed the extra time we have all found throughout the day without the TV today though. We managed to do a lot of creative work. I wrote in daylight hours...

I have also begun to write about the Joy in the every day as my daily prompt!

Today's JOY - Watching my children & husband play creatively at the dining room table as I made us a lovely dinner.

What was your day's joy?

-- SR xo