January is Creativity Month

Well! Happy New Year – we have made it to 2015. I wish you well and may your year be full of blessings.

As this year has started I have found myself researching days and months and celebrations. I have always enjoyed these sort of things so now is the time to explore it all a bit more and just see what little gems are out there! Of course I had to start with one that sounds like it represents my own life and work so wholeheartedly. January, The Creativity Month. Yes! At first glance it would seem I have started this one with a blast and have filled my digital hours from the wee hours of this morning with colourful and cute little characters that are in the making for Project Isabella. Today for many people is probably a day off for many but as I got knocked out over the festive period with a stomach flu thing, then I feel I have had a creative drought and needed to slake my thirst literally and figuratively.

So, January is the International Month of Creativity which was founded by Randall Munson.

It is designed as a month to remind individuals and organisations to make the most of the power of creativity. I know in my own home there is clearly going to be a need be some creativity in finding places for my daughters new possessions without the house reacting something like my own body did over Christmas!

For organisations it’s a superb time to have a period of reassessment as this may be the longest period teams have been away from one another over the whole calendar and the distance can help where creativity is concerned. Hopefully on return to business there should be still a smattering of Good Will and most promisingly that new exercise book feeling you had at school – a great time for some fresh thinking and creative ideas to get a look in. 

So for Project Isabella and myself as The Graphic Overlord what do I take from this? Clearly in actually creating and creativity terms, myself and the purr of hard drives here can confirm then I honestly do not stop! But I think the idea is greater than that and this Month of Creativity is about creative thinking and I really do need to make some commitment to one particular aspect of business. Creative thinking needs to be applied to sourcing and working alongside a team to market Graphics For Schools that is a service at Project Isabella.  So that’s a resolution of sorts from me!

How do you think you will take advantage of International Creativity Month to refocus your attention to creatively improve your business and personal activities?

Day 5 Post a favourite photo of yourself. @_PVBOnline Blog Challenge

I genuinely don't have many pictures of myself. However last week I unearthed in an old box a card wallet full of little memory gems – the picture below is from a gym membership card for a gym in the town where I once worked in Berkhamsted. This is from between 1997 and 1998. I am unable to recall the route to the gym but I can recall the pubs, sandwich shop and even the dentist. So I surmise from those memories that I didn't go to this gym very much.


I like this picture from my very limited supply because of it’s position. It’s in a wallet which is a snapshot of what sometimes feels like a previous life.
The other things in the wallet fill out the picture a bit.
Optician card – I am short sighted
Hair dressing card – clearly optimistic there – ha ha my hair is always big and wild even after a hairdresser tries to restrain it.
Membership card for Clay Pigeon shooting – oh yes I used to sling a 12 bore and 20 gauge about with glee!
Membership for snooker card – I used to play snooker and they used to stock cheap beer – winner!
Gold Privilege Card for The Brand Centre – a clothes hunters paradise it claims.
A picture of Alan Shearer
A picture of Peter Beardsley
Australian Business Access Card – it’s like a working card – I was programming then and supporting clients all over the world.
and
A Hot Sausage Saver Card.
Well I think that lots tells a little story. I now have a different name, a child and live 200 miles from Berkhamsted and haven’t left the country since the millennium.

The ebb and flow of time

Image via Wikipedia

I am again left quite perplexed regarding the ebb and flow of time because ebb and flow it does -- well more surge and slow really. I have had probably a year of surge in other area and I have accomplished thing artistic wise very little. I try not to get despondent when this occurs but accept that there is a time for things. Perhaps scripture helps remind us of just that.

Clearly I haven't sat doing nothing all that time and what I have accomplished in my other brain is not to be sniffed at. It is just that I miss the creativity that can be accomplished when actually working on an art project.

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Anyway today I am clearing my desk which may be a sign that I'm ready to get back to work on my projects. I'll truly celebrate if it happens. Ok then -- on with desk clearing and finding some breakfast.

Seem to have fought all the disaster monkeys that were headed my way

Time has flown with it all being so hectic and so horrid. When you actually don't know whther you can feed and house your family for another month it becomes wildly stressful. It can also be mindnumbingly tedious when applying for jobs almost enough to strike you mad! Anyway, for now I have some respite at least - I went into hospital on Monday and was operated on sucessfully and came out with a few holes on Tuesday with instructions to rest severely for 2 weeks - That of course under present circumstances actually meant strapping down the stitches braising myself and starting the new job today. Today I started my new job - It was great actually I enjoyed it a lot, the offices are very pleasant and the commute not as harsh as the previous 47 miles. More importantly though the work is great and I am really excited about the post they are putting together for me. Really pleasant bunch of Designers and Project Managers to look after who all seem intelligent and dedicated -- it's been a happy first day. I am also pleased to have stayed in the Construction for Rail sector with a company who appear to take their standards and porcedures seriously - I may even knock up a picture of celebration this evening to counterbalance the grief of losing Ford earlier in the month. Hope none of us eat too much before pay day. Blurt seems to have really picked up on the stress and pressure and I don't think the last month has done her much good - hopefully we can start putting things back together and help her too. I doubt employers think of the damage they do when they jot out a three line letter that collapses your family and their hopes of having a normal financial existence. It's going to take over a year to put back together the mess caused by my dismissal last month - what a farce! But I guess we will push on and get by eventually but sometimes it's hard and I mean real hard to keep on going and going. I'll find it hard to forget that when I had to let Ford go I couldn't pay for the way we would had chosen to deal with his death -- I still find that difficult to cope with but and thats on top of missing him - I guess I'll have to get over that though or else become a bitter twisted crone - I have no shoes to go with the bitter twisted crone look so I will stick the way I am for now. Well that is a little more verbose entry than I have had for some time and I am going to take a drink to a brighter year coming!