Artist Date #1

The weather was gorgeous yesterday, sunny and almost warm. I'd had a productive early morning. Did my morning pages (by candlelight), checked blogs, wrote several blog posts. I showered and dressed, kissed J. goodbye (he was still in bed) and said I was going out for awhile. It was so beautiful outside, I just had to get outdoors. I figured I might as well do my first artist date right off because I've got a busy week ahead.

I didn't have any particular plan. I took the camera with me and began strolling, snapping the occasional photo. Things that were blooming were catching my eye. The surroundings seemed to be a wonderful mixture of the blooming and the bare. I was only able to get a few shots off before the batteries in the camera died.

I walked to Borders and spent an hour just strolling and browsing through different sections of the store. I left without spending a penny, but at various moments I could be found standing, squatting, kneeling, sitting on the floor or in a chair...reading. I'd read a bit from one book and if it triggered a thought about another type of book, I'd put the one in my hand back on the shelf and go in search of the next one. (I find Borders' shelving to be rather counter-intuitive, so sometimes finding books there can be a challenge.)

When I left Borders, I walked to the Hallmark store. My brand-new ergonomic pen I'd bought last week at Office Max had already run out of ink. I got a total of 8 pages of morning pages out of it. What a rip-off! I would have taken it back, but I didn't keep the receipt since I'd only purchased 1 pen and 2 cheap spiral notebooks. (I hadn't anticipated that a return would soon be in order.) I'd originally wanted a disposable fountain pen, since that's what I used to use for morning pages, but couldn't find one at Office Max. The Hallmark store had them and I bought one with turquoise ink and one with purple ink.

My last stop was Aquarius, the New Age store, which is only a couple of blocks from the house. I browsed around...through the clothes, books, jewelry, candles. At Borders it had occurred to me that it might be nice to have a companion book--another tome to accompany me through the next 12 weeks. I didn't come across anything at Borders that really spoke to me though--not strong enough to commit to it for 12 weeks. But at Aquarius I spotted SARK's "Succulent Wild Woman" and it seemed perfect for my intended purpose. At the front of the book she breaks it into 12 "menu selections." Perfect. I think it will dovetail nicely with AW. I'd also been wanting a nice journal, not for morning pages--I 'dump' those in a spiral notebook--but as a special place to record thoughts, insights, ideas. I come up with lots of ideas, but I'm not always very good at writing them down. I found a lovely, very lightweight bamboo journal. Sold.

All in all, a lovely first Artist Date.