Self-Care through Creativity-Photos and Gardening

As we are coming up to the 4th week of the July self-care retreat, Iris of the Daily Dietribe will be posting on self-care through inward reflection.

I see gardening as one part creativity, one part reflection.  It isn’t my creativity as much as basking in the appreciation of the creativity of nature in what pops up where, the visitors, and of course, the taste.

I get such a kick out of watching the bumble bees make out with the squash blossom.  This blossom has 5 of the big dudes packed in that flower like a clown car. (above)

My earthbox floweth over:

And I’ve never seen an orange turtle before…fortunately he didn’t seem to mind his photo shoot since I stayed at a respectful distance.

Fortunately, the broad winged hawk was here Weds, when the turtle was out for a walk:

More about the July Self-Care Retreat:

Our fantastic group of bloggers:
June 30^th: Me! Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness      Food

July 7^th: Valerie of City Life Eats                                 Support and connection

July 14^th: Shirley of Gluten Free Easily (GFE)         Movement

July 21^st: Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl                       Creativity

July 28^th Iris of The Daily Dietribe                              Inward Reflection

These posts are to inspire you all to make July a month of reflecting on self-care and the many ways to nourish ourselves.   We encourage everyone to participate in this event in a way that feels appropriate to them, whether through personal reflection, journal or other self-care.  If you would like to share your experience with self-care, we would love to include you in the experience, whether you join us for one week or every week.  You can write generally about self-care and how you include it in your life, or “try on” one of the practices we’re blogging about over the course of the next week (movement, food, family/friends/pets, creativity and inward reflection). We ask that you link back to this post so that more people can learn about this retreat, and leave a comment for the weekly theme host, too!  If you would like to be included in our roundup and the drawing, please email a link to your post, along with your name and blog name, to us at selfcareretreat at gmail dot com by July 30, 2011.

As a little added incentive, for each post on your goals and your progress you link back here or one of the other co-hosts, you’ll be entered to receive a $50 gift certificate to Nuts.com  (they are not sponsoring, I just wanted something with healthy gluten-free, vegan, sugar-free, etc. options)

Valerie of City Life Eats designed us a badge, and feel free to use the badge in your posts.  Non-bloggers who would like to contribute, please email the full text to the same address and it will be included in the roundup.

For a “flavor” of previous retreats, here’s a link to the July Self-Care Retreat and the December Sanity Retreat.

As you can tell, we’ve been busy bloggers!

Welcome & kick off posts from:

• Shirley GFE
• Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl
• Valerie of City Life Eats
• Iris of Daily Dietribe
• Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness (you’re already here!)

Food as Self-Care

• Food Restrictions as Self-Care by Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness
• Thoughts on Food and Self Care Valerie of City Life Eats
• Check in from Valerie

Self-Care Through Connection

• Support and Connection Valerie of City Life Eats
• Putting life in perspective Iris of Daily Dietribe

Self-Care Through Movement

• Movement (reinventing a game from childhood) Shirley of Gluten Free Easily
• Joy of Movement Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness
• Self Care Retreat: Movement Valerie of City|Life|Eats

Self-Care on the Road & Trip Report from Southern NJ by Shirley of GFE

Self-Care through Creativity

• Using Creativity as Self-Care by Carrie of Ginger Lemon Girl
• Creative Self-Care (and Double Chocolate PB Oat Cookies!)from Shirley of GFE (temporarily removed)
• Self-Care through Creativity and an Ooey, Gooey Chocolate Chip Pie Cheryl of Gluten-Free Goodness