It’s never too late… to just start again.
About the time I posted last, I was beginning to consider running for public office. I won’t bore you with the details of all that came along after the idea first lit up my brain, but suffice to say I got a little busy. So here I am almost exactly four months later, able to think about things other than bios and headshots and platforms and such. Whew. Oh, and if you’re so inclined, here’s my political page.
Freshy Fresh
But today, it’s Monday! It’s a new month! a new year! And I have a lot of new ideas (and several of the same old ones) that I’m trying to get organized in my brain and in my planner. During the holiday weeks I was surrounded by people every day. I spent a week in Oregon with two siblings, their spouses and my son, then back here the Hubs worked from home during New Year week, and the son and granddaughter were also here. Last week, school started up again, so the kids were gone, but Hubs worked from home a bit more, so it was Friday before I really had the house all to myself to spend some quiet time being slow.
Working from home can be isolating, and I make an effort to intentionally meet friends for lunch or coffee every few weeks to keep myself from being too much in my own head. On the Briggs-Meyers scale, I’m an ENFP, so I have historically really enjoyed being the life of the party, involved in all the things, meeting all the people. I still enjoy doing things and meeting people, but the more I have switched my work over to a creative place – writing and making art – the more I find I need some time away from all of that to let ideas bubble up and develop. If I’m always in the noise and busy-ness of activities, they just remain ideas, or half-ideas, and I don’t get anything done.
More Making!
This year, I’m starting off on January 22nd with the #The100DayProject. I jumped into this last year, but missed the official start. The result was the poetry and collage I was posting here. I’m going to continue that work, but I have a specific theme this time, taken from the project website.* The theme is Secret Places, but I am jumping off of that to create my own focus that centers around the experience of being in a space that is typically not meant for you – or, where you’re seen as being out of place or unexpected.
This is a recurrent feeling for me as a 54-yr-old woman who isn’t done trying new things or adding “firsts” to my list of experiences. A lot of folks pile up the new experiences and first times in their 20s and 30s, and I did some of that as well, but I am by no means DONE. So, I’ll be creating more collages for my Indoor Pets series I began creating last year, and I’ll write about some experiences (real and imagined) that explore this theme. I also want to create some mixed media pieces that are more 3D in nature, and maybe even some wearable pieces. Basically, I think I’ll hold to the theme, but not limit myself to one kind of medium for my expression.
Sounds good as I read it back. So that’s good. LOL
Here We Go
So, off we go into the new year! I’ll stop this info dump now, and catch you up on other stuff I’m doing later. In the meantime, tell me what cool new thing (or same old thing) you’re digging into this year, I’d love to hear!
*As I was looking for the link to share, it became apparent there are SEVERAL of these projects out there. There’s a 100 Day Challenge, a 100 Day Project that is hosted at a nonprofit .org website, as well as the one I signed up for. Screwy. Anyway, if you want to join in, you have options. Nothing wrong with options.
