I recently volunteered to address Wedding Invitation envelopes for my nephew and his bride-to-be, as a gift.  After they accepted, I started practicing my calligraphy, something I haven’t done in years.  I was feeling discouraged and down about the results of my practice as well as many other things going on in the world and in my life.  As is my practice when my mind starts reeling & feels overwhelmed, I thought of the Serenity Prayer and began writing it as my practice piece.   Over and over....   As I wrote I had the thought that if I had a nickel for every time I said the Serenity Prayer to calm my mind I’d not only be a lot less calm but a lot more rich.  As money is one of my worries at the moment, I decided to make something of the practice I’m doing.  As ‘Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without’ is one of my mantras in my recent economic downfall, I decided to start doing these practice pieces on watercolor paper that I’d decorated with color applied loosely and that I’d spattered and had set aside for a few years, for a project I never carried further.

I’ve been listing these practice pieces on eBay for .99 and lo and behold....!  One of the pieces has 2 bids and is now up to $1.29.

I’m now working on 2 more and feel that with the practice and the focus, I’m getting better.  I’m going to continue this practice as long as I can.  Who knows, maybe I’ll sell enough Serenity Prayers to actually have a few extra bucks.  I’m hoping that the Serenity Prayers I’ve recently offered for sale on eBay will get better and better because the first few I’ve listed aren’t that great.  Worth all of .99.

I’ve discovered that within myself I’m eager to do more of this work, to get better.  I’ve enjoyed the out-of-time moments in the real-time hour or so I spent this morning working on the 2 I finished today.  I’m enjoying getting back into a routine of practice and the thinking that goes with it about how I’d like to do the next one, how I can make these pieces look better, how I can work more efficiently, how I can best make use of my crumbling tools and cranky pen nibs...