This past year I have focused a lot on painting and various media for art work. Watercolors, acrylics, portraiture in pencil, oil pastels, gouache, and probably a few others. I started my “Not Taken Vacation” series, which still needs to be completed, with pen and ink. Rewarding as this has been, and the gains I know I have made, I have also missed adventures in other areas. In 2024, I want to continue working on art work, as it is my first love, but other areas for creativity and exploration, have fallen to the wayside, and I miss them.
If I were to just list some of the things I missed doing and want to continue to do, I think I would begin to feel overwhelmed . . . but let’s see what a list will produce.
Sewing?
Knitting?
Gardening?
Photography?
Hiking?
Travel?
Reading?
Cooking and baking?
Exploring?
If I look at what I have been playing with to date, I am knitting, taking a few photos, and sewing. Most of my “reading” is really using an audiobook and listening to it while I knit. I have a number of sewing projects on hold because I have been lacking in time to focus, but that is really silly as I have everything in place and ready to go at the sewing table. I have a tabletop ironing board I can put on a countertop, so why not?
Being a Libra, indecisiveness is the norm. This? That? (Yes, laugh if you like at astrology, but sometimes it is too true!) Experience shows me that just starting something is usually all I need to get out of my slump, whatever form it may be taking and just
2023 has been a strange year for me. In many ways it has been productive in creativity as I have seen advances in skills I have been focused on. In other ways it has been limiting, too, when focus is more in one area than another. I am the kind of person who is interested in too many things but who does not seem to excel at any one thing in particular. That can get pretty frustrating.
And then there was The Fall. Breaking my left arm was pretty traumatic in a lot of ways. The esposo is still trying to recover from it because the vacation we had looked forward to, one of relaxing and traveling and visiting new places and seeing old friends, turned into several weeks of taking care of me and schlepping me here and there. His time off never really happened, so there is the mental and emotional repression that ultimately does no one any good. He has taken the next few weeks off, and I hope that will help ease things and take off pressures which are there. At least I can get here and there on my own, although we both fear another fall. I have broken 3 bones in the last 5 years because of falls.
As far as myself, I am really bored with my ongoing fear of falling, and the self-assignment for the next several weeks is to watch YouTube videos about balance and strengthening muscles, taking a “How to Walk” class if possible, and moving into forcing myself to do things that frighten me. I have a dislike of being out of shape and incapable of independence so hopefully this will motivate me into a more active approach to these things. For the first time in my life I have felt old, and normally I am emotionally and intellectually about 12 . . .
Creativity, too, needs some sort of order! I keep saying “schedule yourself” - and by this I mean making deliberate choices for time to do all the different things which interest me. Let’s see what happens! I want to do more photography, travel, sewing, knitting, gardening, and of course drawing, painting, learning. My own personality is set toward doing the daily chores and drudgery before having fun, and that is okay as it weighs me down if I know a pile of something needs to be done.
For example, since August, I have not really addressed paperwork as I usually do, and that is because my daily life was filled with exercises, occupational therapy appointments, dental appointment, doctor appointments, and home health care appointments. Yesterday, I pulled out all the things I needed to sort through. I sorted them and shredded until the 20+ year old shredder up and died. (New one arrives today.) I logged expenses and so on. Fortunately, it wasn’t a horrible process as I have kept up with the daily stuff quite well, but the paper stuff needed sorting and discarding. It feels good to have that done before 2024 shows up! And I have a bog full of papers still needing shredding, so I can practice on the new shredder, and see if it works. What fun!
And so, it is New Year’s Eve. We will be going to the Descanso Gardens to enjoy the Enchanted Forest of Light. We did it a few years ago, and I thought it a lovely way to end a year. I hope that 2024 is not as rough, and realistically, while tough in many ways for my immediate circle, it is far easier and pleasant than it has been for many. I hope that changes, but sadly, I do not think it will.
Ink, Yarn & Beer 