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! 🙂

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

HAPPY NEW YEAR, dear readers!

May 2016 be an exciting year of change in your life!

May God bless your life according to what is suited to you.

Thank you for faithfully visiting my blog. I hope you continue to find things of help and interest to you here.

As we enter a new year, my goal is to write more, read more, and progress forward to publication. (I don’t set resolutions.)

What are your goals for 2016?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

2015 in review

I didn’t think I did much blogging this year because I know my posts were fewer, however, according to WordPress it seems as if I’ve been quite busy here. I do enjoy blogging, so it’s rewarding to read a report like this one. If you’re interested in reading the whole thing you can follow the link included below.

Here is my 2015 blog report:

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,900 times in 2015. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 7 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Do you have any thoughts to share about Polilla Writes?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

What books did you get for Christmas?

Another Christmas is past and the clean-up has begun. Where do we put all these new things? Another incentive to purge and declutter?

This year I received a variety of books from several of my loved family and friends. Here is a picture (poor quality – sorry!):

You know I love books. 🙂

Close ups:

You can see (I hope, despite the dark views) I received the following:

two adult colouring books with markers and coloured pencils. Have you tried colouring again now you may not be a child anymore?
a drawing instruction book. Do you love to draw?
a writers’ book. Do you doubt yourself or push on through?
a novel. Have you read any of Ken Follett’s series? If so, which is your favourite? or what are you reading?
a daily devotional and two different types of journals – one for notes of gratitude, one for recording of blessings. Do you refer to any kind of inspirational reading/writing?

These books remind me I am a creative – in a couple of ways. I also love to read so must read more. I have to get writing more, too, including from my Christian perspective. Yes, 2016 is going to be a different kind of year for me, and I already have my word for 2016 which I’ll share in the new year. 🙂

Now, I’m eager to know: What books did you get for Christmas … or during the season, however you celebrate it?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS to you!

May your holidays be cheerful and touched with sweet blessings from god.

Our Christmas day has started out fun with one daughter staying over last night. Probably ten of us (Dad, my sister and family, my husband and some of ours) will get together at my dad’s for Christmas dinner; not as many there this year because two of ours will be spending that time with the other sides of their families. Then there’s the craziness of gifts exchange, which is always amusing and interesting. Dessert follows that mild chaos, having given time for the main course to settle. 🙂 After clean-up our daughters and families will come out to our house for gifts exchange among us. And, of course, more food since it will be close to meal time again. It will be a full and fun day.

Our house is nicely decorated and I even got some baking done – not as much as I had wanted to do, although there’s plenty.

In all of this, it’s sometimes a little hard to remember why all of it is happening. It came out of the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth. Now …. for many people it’s so very not about Him at all.

(One Christmas my husband gave me this beautiful Jim Shore figurine.)

For those of us who know Him and His Truth … I wish you a deeper joy in your relationship with Him. Personally, I know no greater love and nothing stirs my heart the way He does. I cannot express all He is to me.

For those who have not made that choice/decision … my wish for you is that Truth will find you and you will find Answers for your life.

Merry Christmas everyone! I send my love and best wishes.

Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. – Psalm 95:1

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂