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Week 8: Encouragement
You are a strong, powerful woman, no matter how defeated or nervous you may feel.



This card is strongly tied to last week's card, Fall. In fact, this week's creation was entirely due to reaction to last week's.

When I created Fall and posted it, I sent the link to Delia (away at college) because, after all, it was our conversation about her art assignment that inspired the card in the first place. She sent me a beautiful e-mail in response and I've received her permission to post it here:

Sorry this reply took so long.

I really like that card. The blog post on it was very thoughtful and insightful, and made it a bazillion times cooler once I really understood the meaning.

I hope things start to feel a little better very soon. Imma preach a bit here. I know you know this stuff, but I'm going to remind you of it.

I know from experience, that dread feeling you were talking about gets you nowhere. Try to focus on today, the now, and you'll feel a whole lot better. (Obviously you have to think long term sometimes, but keep that to a minimum.) Cutting down on focusing on my future to do list or stresses helps me focus more on my tasks at hand, so I have less to worry about later because it's already done or no longer stressful. It also helps me enjoy the Sparkling Moments life gives me, without feeling guilty or stressed or even miss them all together. I hope that makes sense.

I know how hard it is to stop yourself from worrying about things and retraining your brain. It feels pretty much impossible at first. But with practice, you can do it. I know you can. You are a strong, powerful woman, no matter how defeated or nervous you may feel. I know you can and will get through this. We all will. If something is important, we find a way to make it happen, right? Finding a job is important, yes, but your quality of life is extremely important as well. You can do this.

Thought this might be a good song for you on this topic:
I Will Get There

"I will get through the night and make it through to the other side."

And you will. You will get through this, and you will be stronger because of it. I love you to the moon and back, Mommy. You are amazing and you can do this, no matter what.

I believe in you. I trust you. I love you.

Delia

(Bolding is in the original).

I was so touched by that email, and I thought about it a lot this week.

Now, I was in church this Sunday, struggling with a coughing fit, and as I have about a million times over the past three months, I pulled out a Halls honey-lemon cough drop and started sucking on it. The coughing is due to asthma (yes, I am also taking Zyr-tac and using an inhaler). But in this instance, for the very first time, I noticed the writing on the wrapper. Note: I have been unwrapping these cough drops for months. I saw the slogan they use: A PEP TALK IN EVERY DROP^TM and realized what else was written on the wrapper: affirmations. Lots and lots of affirmations, exactly like Delia's email. And the layout of the card bloomed instantly in my mind, just like that.

So for this week's card, I dug some of the wrappers out of my purse and others out of the waste paper basket (there were plenty to choose from) and cut out the affirmations. minnehaha K. suggested and provided a paint that would blend in the background (because the black of the prepped card would be a stark contrast). The sentence that describes the card came right from Delia's email; she even helpfully bolded it for me.

I think I'm just about as pleased with this week's card as I was with last week's. Perhaps not as pretty (well, Delia is, but not cough drop wrappers!) but it is certainly spot-on with the theme of the week.

What do you think?