Giveaway #1: We have a WINNER!

Thank you to all who entered my first giveaway contest for 2016. The “prize” is this pink 2016 paper pocket planner:

And the winner with this comment “Hi Lynn, I’m definitely a paper girl. I do use my phone, but I still prefer paper. I always have a pen in my purse, so writing an upcoming appointment in a planner is faster for me than entering it into my phone. I was going to buy my 2016 one this week, now that they’re on sale. Now I’ll wait until after the 13th! 🙂 ” is….

Heather Wright!

Congratulations, Heather! You are the winner of my first giveaway in 2016. Aren’t you glad you waited? Please check your email for my request for your mailing address so I can get this on its way to you.

For everyone who didn’t win, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR TRYING. I will be posting another giveaway in February, so please be sure to come back.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

My word for 2016

If you could choose any word at all to fit YOU in 2016, what would it be?

I’ve thought about this a lot, and waited, and listened, and waited, and thought some more. The result of all that is a word I’ve been feeling is for the year of 2016. It may be for my own life as well as extending far beyond me. Although other words came to mind, this one always rose to the top. That word is CHANGE.

Therefore, my word for 2016 is CHANGE.

What I foresee in my limited vision and understanding is the following, as applies to me:

letting go of some longstanding commitments, thereby allowing space for other things
seeing myself as the writer I am, thereby freeing myself to create
pushing forward, thereby completing and preparing stories and manuscripts for submission
still applying my last year’s word .. POSITIVITY .. thereby disallowing negativity and discouragement to pull me down or stop me
allowing God to affect change within me in those places that can not remain the same if I am to grow and move on

Change may seem a simple thing for you. For me it is a little unnerving, a little off-putting, while at the same time it is exciting, hopeful, and alluring.

Change is my word and also my goal for 2016. What is yours?

Thank you for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

PS: Giveaway Reminder: tonight at 9:00 EST I’m drawing for the planner. Did you enter for yourself, or maybe for a friend?

Giveaway this Wednesday!

This is a short post to remind you I am drawing a name in my first giveaway of 2016 on Wednesday (January 13). I’m planning to have other draws as the year progresses, when I find things I can easily mail out. This could turn into my year of giveaways!

Please note in my right sidebar I have a Milestone widget that’s counting down the days to the draw date. Each time I hold a giveaway I’ll be using that to make it easy for everyone. When you come to visit you’ll know what to look for and easily see the important details of the immediate upcoming draw.

I would love it if YOU would help me get started by entering your name in my draw for this month. See my first post about it HERE with lots of pictures. Perhaps you don’t use anything but electronic/digital anymore. If that’s the case, you may have a friend who would appreciate having this planner. You could enter your name to try to win it for them. Or send them here to try for themselves.

I feel as if I’m begging here, pleading for people to enter my draw! Well, okay…. PLEASE enter my draw, and tell your friends about it. The more the merrier, so they say. Of course, if no one else puts their name in the draw those who did have a much better chance of winning. 🙂

Just leave your comment telling me why you prefer using a paper planner to an electronic/digital one.

Happy January everyone!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Colouring? Or another form of creative relaxation?

As I mentioned in my December 29 post I received some books for Christmas. Two of those are colouring books for adults.

Now, you may think a colouring book is a colouring book … all much the same, no real challenge to them. You would be mistaken – as I discovered. There is so much detail to the drawings to colour it took me awhile to get started, but once I did – I found it to be relaxing and enjoyable. I also discovered the perfectionist in me still lives. To be honest, it took me awhile to feel relaxed colouring because of the perfectionist me, but I’m doing better now, although I sometimes tend to hyper focus once I start something new.

Regardless of my fretting over what colour will go with which, and should I even start this picture … it’s so busy! … I have now completed three pages. The next thing, though, is I’m finding colouring could be my newest distraction from my writing goals! oh me

This is the first one I completed and so far it’s my favourite.

There are so many ways to interpret this art with colour. I’m not sure what my choice says about ME – (any ideas?) – seeing as I used and varied all the colours available to me. 🙂 Another more subtle shading would have resulted in a calmer image.

Ah well, there is a lot I have yet to learn about myself, I’m sure.

How about you? Have you found a creative form of relaxation that suits you, something that nurtures creative you?

Thanks for reading, and Creative Musings! 🙂

My first GIVEAWAY of 2016! Your chance to win!

Hello, everyone! Happy New Year (again)!

I decided to start this year off with a small giveaway.

I like pocket planners. I know so many people now use their phones but I prefer to use a paper planner, so I’d been trying to find one for 2016. It seems around here they were in very short supply this year but I finally found this pretty pink one. (Yes, I like pink.) It’s not actually quite as brilliant pink as shown below.

This little planner is 3 1/2″ x 6 3/4″ and barely 1/4″ thick.

The reason I am giving this one away is because a dear friend gave me one for Christmas and I don’t need both. If YOU can use it and would like to enter a draw to try to win it, I will be pleased to mail it to whomever’s name is drawn.

Here are a few shots of the inside pages.

This 2016 planner has the 2017 calendar on the back page, a measuring guide in inches in the front and in the back it’s in centimeters. Each month takes up two facing pages so you see the whole month at a glance. There’s room on the first page for your personal information, also several pages for phone numbers (or email addresses) you want to keep handy, a few pages for your notes in the back, and a section for travel/expense records for each month. Oh, and it is in both English and French.

If you want to try to win this handy 2016 monthly pink pocket planner, just leave a comment telling me why you prefer a paper planner to using an electronic one.

I want to give people enough time to enter, but since this is for a planner and it’s already nearly a week into the first month, this contest time will be short. I will use Random.org name picker to draw out one name on Wednesday next week.

The draw will be January 13th at 10:00 PM AST. (That’s 9:00 EST)

Pass the word around and be sure to leave a comment for your chance to win!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Bringing in the New Year

Can you believe 2016 is here already! How did you bring it in?

On New Year’s Eve eleven of us got together at my Dad’s. We all contributed snacks of varying types. Dad and a couple other people enjoyed working on a jigsaw puzzle awhile, and we all enjoyed the snacks, conversation, and table games. And snacks. And we ate and nibbled and snacked. Did I mention food? There was a lot of it – just snack food, some healthy, some questionable, all good. Perhaps I should have warned you that we are such party animals! .. who like to snack. 😉

At 12:50 my brother-in-law and nephew set up fireworks on Dad’s lawn near the bird feeders. (All survived quite well, by the way. 🙂 ) It wasn’t nearly as cold and deep with snow as two years ago when we did this. My daughter and son-in-law had also brought fireworks, so beginning at midnight both boxes were used which made a long and thrilling display.

Here are two images I captured through the kitchen window, not great ones but it gives you an idea of the colour, and you can imagine the sizzling, popping and booming going on.

The final canister they set off was a big one. When it lifted off in a blast of colour and noise it did a surprising mid-air turn, shooting over Dad’s two-storey house and not missing it by much. whew! That could have been an interesting ending to the evening.

Yes, 2016 has begun. A new year to try new things, improve on the already tried, and find success in achieving goals. I’ll write soon about that point.

How did you bring in the new year?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂