Week of Creative Projects

It's interesting to look back at the beginning of this week and see the progress I've made as it grew toward the end.  I will be completely honest, I've been suffering from the January blues recently and I caught on to what was going on, so in the beginning of the week, I self-prescribed myself a few minutes outside in a remote part of the yard where I wasn't going to be interrupted.  I was to subject myself with only the quiet noise of (mostly) nature.  This winter has been a little warmer than it has been in the past, so sitting outside for several minutes without getting too cold was possible.  Sitting there with all of the noise in the distance, except for the birds singing in the nearby trees was soothing and I was able to get into my own thoughts to work out some of those odd things that get stuck.  It's absolutely amazing how soothing the sounds of nature can be.  I ended up coming back to my duties energetic and free from the melancholy that seemed to be over taking me in the previous weeks.  One thing seemed to come from this exercise that I didn't expect was how many things began to work in my favor creatively this week.

The weather on a few days this week were in dense fog, but I was determined to go out and see what I can discover.  I went wandering around and discovered the birds were flying in large numbers around the area.  With my good camera, I was excited to capture a few birds in the surrounding bushes and trees as well as on the power line, but then I looked down on my digital screen, and it was flashing the message, "no flash card," on it!  I had just taken all of these wonderful pictures with nothing to save them on!  So much for that.  It wasn't the only time I found some good photography moments.  It was the next day when I was going out to get something when I saw that the sun was beginning to set and knew it was going to be an awesome opportunity for me.  The most colorful part of the sunset only lasts a few minutes, so I dropped everything and went to get a quick shot.  There are a lot of trees in that direction, so the sunset had silhouettes of trees in the way, but it adds some character to it I think. 
It had been a while since I had a song stuck in my head, but there is one song I had picked up in the last month or two that I thought would be perfect for Valentine's Day, though I'm not sure exactly how that project will turn out.  I recorded myself singing the song and thought of putting it with something, though I'm not quite sure what yet.  That's still in process.
There is a story I keep telling people I'm writing that for some reason has really been uncomfortable for me to deal with.  It has been a long time in the making, over 5 years to be exact, but every time I tried to work on it, my brain would freeze.  To be honest, I am certain now that I was experiencing some mental and emotional health issues at my previous employment that were affecting my ability to create and thus the reason for the writer's block as well as the apathy.  This week I sat down and decided that I needed to stop avoiding it.  It was time to stop letting it intimidate me.  I pulled it up and began writing the chapter, and much to my delight, the freeze didn't happen.  The ideas came so easily that it was difficult to stop in order to eat something.  I was determined to finish the chapter, and finish I did.  It's been such a long time, and I've forgotten how thrilling it was to experience them flowing so smoothly as they did.

One final project to end the week was one of a moment of ambition.  I'm not confident in my ability to draw or make any sort of visual art by my hand.  I never thought my artwork was that good since, well, you know, I've been known to make my lines crooked even when I used measuring sticks.  Somewhere along the lines I convinced myself that I couldn't do it.  There are memories I have back in elementary school days when a few people tried to hint to me that maybe I wasn't as bad as I thought I was.  My third grade teacher submitted my paper butterfly to be displayed at a local art museum and a fifth grade student teacher complimented me on a few drawings I did for some class projects.  I distinctly remember her telling me she was impressed by my attention to the details.  So had I told myself a lie all these years?  Cue the moment of ambition.  I decided to google a simple image to draw for Valentines Day.  Perhaps I could use it for my project if I was fine with the result.  There is a cute little picture of Winnie-the-Pooh holding a heart, black and white, and simple.  I went for it.  Not sure how well it looks like him, but not too bad for someone who hasn't attempted drawing anything since 5th grade.