Creative Therapy (for real)

For those of you who don't know, I am currently seeing a counselor in an effort to cope with some mild depression. My counselor is convinced that my depressions stems from my circumstances more than my biochemistry and has highly advised that I give myself some more "Kim" time. So, I called a bunch of my local crafting stores in search of a class to get me out of the house and doing something I love. There really weren't a lot of options with the places I contacted, but I did find a couple things that appealed to me. I'm enrolled in a second course of cake decorating which will be lots of fun! And last night I was able to attend a painting class!

I love to paint. Every time I pull out my paints (which is not very often with all my wee ones running about) I say to my husband, "Oh! I need to do this more often. It is so therapeutic!" Seriously, every time. Keep in mind that the only medium I have ever worked with is craft paint. I've done some paintings that I've been really pleased with on canvas. I've watered my craft paint down and treated it like water color. But I've never used actual artist quality paint. My painting class was using acrylic paint, the real stuff. I was super (dee-duper) excited! So when I came home from a meeting Wednesday night and my hubs told me the instructor called to cancel because I was the only one enrolled was major disappointed. So much so, that I called the manager and asked about it. Turns out there is a corporate policy that if there aren't at least 3 people signed up the class is supposed to be cancelled, but she was willing to ask the instructor if she'd be willing to teach just one student and she was! YAY!!!

The painting wasn't something I would have chosen on my own, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. There are things I would do to improve it, but the evening was very therapeutic (not to mention the smile I get each time I look at my work). I just love creating beauty! There's nothing quite like it!