Just a few thoughts, such as weather

Hi Everyone!

How are you doing lately in this changing world? I’m not even going to mention the social and political upheaval, how about the climate?

Here in Canada, we had an abnormally dry spring which opened the way for fires that quickly got out of hand. Even here in Nova Scotia, starting in late May, there was a record loss due to forest fires. Canadians in several provinces were battling forest fires, and many people had to evacuate their homes – some losing everything. So tragic.

Now it is rain. So much rain. Not every day, but it sometimes seems like it. We went from too dry to too wet, so you can imagine what that is like for growers. Hot, humid, thunderstorms, rain; this is summer 2023.

On another note … I am still plodding along with building a website for my paintings. I’m sure it is simple for some, but not for me. I’d hoped to have it ready by now. If I don’t give up in exasperation I will let you know when you can visit it – if you are interested or curious.

Last topic: I found a couple of things that I enjoyed and thought you might, too.

DON’T LET ANYONE WHO HASN’T BEEN IN YOUR SHOES TELL YOU HOW TO TIE YOUR LACES.

And this African proverb for the writers among us …

UNTIL THE LION LEARNS TO WRITE, EVERY STORY WILL GLORIFY THE HUNTER.

What has the weather been like for you?

and, Can you relate to either of the above quotes?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Change – the one consistent thing

Hello my readers!

Finally I’m back, making another attempt at blogging again. It’s been nine months since my dad passed away, ending 11.5 years of caregiving. The total change has been very difficult, but I am feeling better as time goes on while I’m figuring out and adjusting to my new normal. Grief takes its time.

Do you find it interesting how we go through phases and seasons in our life? By that I mean, for myself anyway, interests come along to explore and spend time in, then they morph into something else to learn from and grow in, and on it goes through life. Or we find ourselves in a pleasant working relationship, which eventually has to come to an end. That is difficult to deal with and what I’ve found is that change is the one consistent thing. It will happen, like it or not, so I can adapt and hold onto what I’ve learned or I can make myself miserable. The first choice is the better one to live with, don’t you agree?

As you know, I’ve loved books all my life, reading them, accumulating them, even learning to write them for children. When I got burned out on the ‘write them’ part I was directed into learning to paint. I am still reading a lot, but now I am finding joy in oil painting. I haven’t given up on the writing goal, but it is set aside for the time being.

Creating through painting seems to be the something that was missing for me, the something that was locked up inside me in great need of expression. It is challenging, frustrating at times, rewarding, tiring in a good way, confidence building, fun, healing, and surprising. Surprising when what I’m trying to do turns out the way I want it to or even better than I’d hoped. It’s a growing experience, and I do enjoy the challenge, as I am a creative and have to be working at something.

I’m telling you this because I am going to try to set up a place where you can view my paintings. So, please, bear with me. You may come here and find things are all messed up, while in the meantime I am probably consulting a WordPress Happiness Engineer to help me undo and fix my mistakes.

Most of my paintings are from photographs taken by my instructor, or myself, or my daughters. I will talk more about that later. Below is the very first painting I did, chosen for me to learn how to colour match. What you see is my copy of the original by Lawren S. Harris who was a member of the Group of Seven. My apologies that my photo is a little dark.

This is Lawren Harris’ painting:

Now, I hope to be able to set things up correctly and quickly. Until then, please be patient!

Have you had creative and/or challenging changes occur in your life lately?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! – Lynn

Happy New Year!; news; word for the year

2019! 2019! 2019! 2019! 2019! 2019!

It’s hard to believe it is 2019 already, but that’s what my calendar says so it must be true, so …

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

I have a bunch of news to share with you.

About LIFE: Looking back, 2018 proved to be a more challenging year for me on a personal level. Sometimes you learn surprising and/or disappointing things about people. It can be quite impacting. Enough about that, except to say I’ve also learned more about myself, and that there is more to self-care than I realized. Although we are soon completing 8 years of daddy-care, I’m now giving myself time for new things, which I’ll tell you about. First I’ll mention that in November 2018 I passed a landmark birthday. It doesn’t even bother me; in fact, I’m rather happy about it. There really are some benefits to getting older. 🙂 My family had a surprise party for me, too, which was fun.

About HOME: We have a new kitchen and I love it! (did I tell you this before?) My husband completely renovated it from a tiny space to a very large and up-to-date one. I have an ocean theme happening in there and it brings me such peace. Did I say I love my new kitchen? From start to finish it took a year, but it wasn’t that bad living with my kitchen things stored in several rooms, and using a two burner hot plate, knowing what was coming. We still got along fine, despite a few enthusiastic discussions, and it has all come out better than expected.

About WRITING: You all know that writing was my main reason for this blog, well … writing and books, books, books. Because of … stuff in my life … stresses, depression, much tiredness, and so on, the joy of writing disappeared and writing became a burden to me. All that hoping and planning and effort had to be set aside; I did the minimal and stopped expecting more of myself than I could manage. The heaviness lifted which confirmed it was the right thing to do for now. I still am interested in writing and believe I will come back to it again as I always do. Can’t stay away. My blog suffered and I feel I’ve let you down, for which I apologize.

About ART: Since I have to be doing something creative, you might be wondering what I was led into now. In July, thanks to a set of situations that God put together so beautifully, I began PAINTING LESSONS! Yes! This is something I’ve been wanting to learn since I was 17, decades ago. It didn’t work out for me then, but the time is right for me now and I am loving it. My teacher is a very talented professional artist who is patient, easy to work with and fun to be around. That’s what works for me. 🙂 I started with private lessons, then joined others for two sets of classes spanning eight weeks, and now I am renting space in his studio and getting help when I need it – which is still very necessary. I’ve met other interesting painters, all women, and two in particular I paint with the most. They’re funny, talented, and great to spend time with in the studio. Being the only one with no background experience in painting, I learn something every time I’m there to work on something, which is only one morning a week at this point, but I’ve completed two oil paintings that now are hanging in my house. If you are interested in seeing some of my teacher’s work: ARTCAN

About READING: If you happened to peek at my reading progress, which you can access from the menu at the top of the page, you’ll have seen that I did a huge amount of reading last year. My total? 1389! I can hardly believe it myself! Most were pictures books, but I read several novels and also enjoyed audio books. Goodreads sets a reading challenge every year, so in 2018 I set mine at 500. Guess I beat that one with no problem! This year I may have set my personal goal too high – 1000 – but I’ll see what I can do.

About EVENTS: The exciting news for 2019 is that another of our daughters is getting married to a great guy. They’ve set the date for April and are having their ceremony in Jamaica, following that small event a few weeks later with a big celebration with family and friends in May. It’s going to be a busy spring!

About MY WORD FOR 2019: The past several years I’ve chosen a word for the year. Actually, I wait for it to be given to me, and this year it was immediately revealed. FLOURISH. That’s got an expansive feel to it, freeing and creative.

About GOALS: As you know, I don’t set new year resolutions, I set goals. I didn’t do very well with them last year, so for 2019 I simply want to improve in my painting skills, read lots, and gradually get back what I lost.

Now it’s time to stop and let you do some sharing. What were the highs and lows of your 2018? Do you have goals for 2019? And do you have a word for the year?

I hope to hear from you. ♥ Sending you love.

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

How do you express your creativity?

I’ve been thinking about creativity.

I don’t remember how I found this, but I made note of it to share with you because I think it’s such a fun and creative idea. A dad takes his children’s drawings and colours them (with their permission), and it’s amazing how it enhances their artwork. Take a look here. Did you ever think of doing this?

I used to sketch. In school — don’t ask how long ago that was! — I took a sketching class, which was fun and I looked forward to it. Each week a member of the class would sit in the middle of the room and the rest of us would draw him or her. Mine weren’t too bad – if I do say so myself; they looked like the person, anyway. For years I occasionally liked to sit and draw what I saw out the window, or across the room – but I am long out of practice. I’ve been thinking of taking up sketching again, taking classes, maybe even learn to paint, but who has time? Maybe it’s not about that, though. Maybe it isn’t whether there is time for it, maybe it’s about allowing myself that creative outlet, another vehicle of artistic expression. A stress reliever. A mind-expanding experience.

My dad used to doodle interesting little drawings. A few days ago I heard someone being interviewed about doodling. She said it’s very important because it is creative expression and also is something many people do while thinking problems through, processing things during conversations or meetings. I doodle sometimes, and my husband often doodles during his telephone conversations.

My mother had a very creative mind. She sewed, crafted, planned fun family parties, made up cute stories and funny poems. After her passing we found a delightful children’s story tucked away. I remembered she had written it for a summer course many years ago. Dad would like to see it as a book, and it could be … Mum also painted. She took beginner classes and learned different methods, so now we have several of her paintings in different mediums.

One of my daughters paints, beautiful work. Another can create very detailed drawings and embroidery work, another sculpts wonderful little creations from Sculpey (a polymer clay), another likes to bake fancy delicious desserts. This is just a glimpse of their artistic side. I remember when they were in school, each could come up with such good stories for writing classes, but unfortunately none of them chose to continue in that venue.

It seems I’m in musing mode tonight. Now I have some questions for you.

Are you a doodler?
Do you have memories of creative adventures – good or less than satisfactory?
Are there artistic expressions you wish you had pursued?
Perhaps there are things you are reminded of and feel enticed to venture into again? Do tell!

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂