This is...What's on My Desk

Today has been an odd day. Requests piling up on top of one another, piles piling up ontop of one another. I had to take a "breather break" and try to refocus. Things that would make my life easier at this very moment: a new copier, real cupboards, chocolate, an office outside in the sunshine, dip for my carrots, a focussed mind.

100 ideas so far

The cover. I stiched 6 groups of 5 pieces of paper together to make a journal with 120 pages. Then I decorated the cover. All while watching Scrubs on DVD.Day One: #90. Draw or write about some of the doors in your life.
I came across a couple of photos of pages that Keri Smith has done, and this was one of them. I decided to copy it into my book because I thought it was both interesting and true.
Day Two: #85. Cut a random shape out of several layers of a magazine. Make a collage out of the results. These shapes were all cut from a copy of PhotoLife Magazine. It is 5 pages of a story about Rural China.
Day 3: #34. Fill an entire page of your journal with small circles. Colour them in. Well, it's not an entire page, and they're not all coloured in, but I like it. I did most of this while I listened to our Pastor on Sunday.

Well, there you have it! The first few entries in my 100 ideas: A Work in Progress Journal

washing windows

Hubby is a custodian at our church in Calgary. Every Sunday we show up at an unreasonably early hour to make sure that the building is in tip top shape before people arrive, and there is usually no end to complaining from me. This morning when we arrived, we discovered that one of the part time custodians had accidentally used floor wax as window cleaner across 30 feet of glass doors in our foyer. Oops! Needless to say, it was more than a tad foggy, and that had to be fixed before the 9am service. What's funny, is that just a few weeks ago, Hubby asked me to clean the glass doors and I did the same thing that our part timer did! The Windex and the floor polish look exactly the same, and since I didn't know the official name of the window cleaner, I just assumed it was the one labelled "Buck-Eye Blue".

The point is, that as much as I can complain about being put to work cleaning windows, I can't hate it! In fact, it gives me a good 30 minutes to stare at the glorious sunrise. I am lucky enough that the sunrise I get to stare at is the one that slowly illuminates the Rocky Mountains, and the Springbank valley and the Bow River, and the fields of wheat and so on and so forth.

How could I possibly complain about that? Even if my lungs are being filled with the gentle mist of Windex.

a good night

Dinner with friends tonight. Great company, delicious lamb, lots of laughter and a bit of heated debate. I'm content. Now to snuggle my hubby.

a morning date

This morning my husband and I decided to venture out on Saturday morning date. We decided to head to the Nellie's Cafe in Kensington, but upon arrival discovered an hour long line up to have breakfast! So we went to the Nellies in Marda Loop, which had a much more reasonable 25 minute wait. What can I say? Their breakfast is THAT good!

It was nice to be out and walking around, enjoying great food and yummy coffee in an entirely overcrowded little cafe with him. Hubby even wore that wonderful knitted sweater I love so much!

Early in the afternoon we stopped by some friends house to check out their moving sale and picked up a cute gift for a family member, and on the way home decided it would be fun to wander through the Home Depot. Call me a nerd, but I love that place! It's filled with beautiful tiles, and carpets and appliances for me to lust after and lots of fancy power tools for hubby to drool on. We ended up picking up a couple of more "tools" to go with our Ryobi 1 set. A hand held cannister vaccuum for the car and stairs, and a wet/dry dust buster type vaccuum. And they were a steal of a deal at 90 bucks for the two items!

I thought I'd share a little piece of funny looking inspiration from the day. The dumpster in the back parking lot of Nellies loked like this:

Isn't he cute??

This is...My Favourite Childhood Book

When my brother and I were kids, our mom spent a lot of time reading to us. I always loved when the three of us would cuddle up together on the couch or in our parents big bed and read everything from Dr. Seuss to The Hobbit. I had many books I loved over the years, but my favourite has always been Garbage Delight by Dennis Lee. I was reminded of this in June when hubby and I went to Ontario and stayed with my mom and step-dad. She has been purging the house of clutter and found a collection of our books from our childhood and was kind enough to set them aside for me to take back home.

I love the beautiful colours and amazing illustrations in the book, and how every poem is just a little bit nonsensical. It's the perfect kind of book for me.
And this is my favourite poem:

Suzy Grew a Moustache
Suzy grew a moustache,
a moustache,
a moustache.
Suzy grew a moustache
and Polly grew a beard.
Suzy looked peculiar,
peculiar,
peculiar.
Suzy looked peculiar
and Polly looked absurd.
Suzy got the garden shears,
garden shears,
the garden shears.
Suzy got the garden shears
and Polly got a bomb.
Now, Suzy's face is smooth again,
smooth again,
smooth again.
Suzy's face is smooth again
and Polly's face is gone.

finding inspiration can be frustrating

I would describe myself as a very creative person. But for some reason, for the last few year I haven't done much that I would consider creative. I don't know why, but since I graduated high school (2004) my "creative activities" have all but dwindled away. I used to paint, draw, make slideshows and movies, play the flute, dance (mostly by myself) and now...nothing.

I have been overcome with the urge to be creative again in the last few months. I supposed it started a while ago, or maybe it's always been there, but a few months ago, I started to become interested in sewing. I have a few friends who are avid sewers and incredible quilt makers and their work started to awaken my creative side again. For my birthday, my husband bought me a gorgeous Janome Quilting and Embroidery sewing machine and again, my creative side was woken up a little more. Then, a few weeks before our first anniversary, as I was pondering (again) what to give my hubby, I couldn't ignore it any longer. "BE CREATIVE!" It seemed my soul was actually yelling at me!

Finally, I remembered a painting I had started 4 years ago. My husband is actually the one who asked me to paint it, even though at the time we barely knew each other. (Long story). I decided I would give him the completed painting as an anniversary present.

Since then I have been trying to find the inspiration I so desperately need to be creative. I read blogs and search random things on the internet hoping to find something that will spur me into action. I finally came across it the other day. 100 ideas - a work in progress was created by a woman named Keri Smith, who I now owe dearly for wonderful inspiration.

100 ideas is designed to be used with a journal and to me it is becoming an exercise in creativity. Each day I will pick one of the 100 squares and do what it says. I decided that if I was really going to force myself to learn to be creative everyday I should make a journal instead of buying one. So last night, for 3 hours I sat in front of Scrubs and sewed 120 pages into a book, decorated it and dedicated it to my 100 ideas experiment.

This is a pretty big commitment in my mind, because I'm not the most disciplined person, but I really think that this is just what I need to get out of my creativity slump and back to creating on a daily basis. The thought has even crossed my mind that it would be interesting to do the same 100 things every year in a new journal and watch the progress over time...

Today is day one. "#90. Write about or draw some of the doors in your life."

I've got three so far. The front door, the Yaris door, and the fridge doors. I'll post it when it's done.

For now: THIS IS...What's on my desk.