Nest Head

I've certainly had days like this. Fortunately, today was not one of them. The ennui is fading, and I'm starting to feel energized again! I'm not teaching at all during January - I've got too much work scheduled for the Other Part of my Brain - so the drawing a day (along with some classes I'll be taking) will serve as my creative accountability.

And, I've got a few cool links to share!

For you Portland folks, the main library downtown is featuring a mail art show! I didn't pull it together to participate (it wasn't juried, making it a great opportunity for the entire community to participate), but am excited to visit - Diane over at DIY Alert talked about it on her Cool Places Alert blog this week, and gave some great links to learn more about mail art.

I'm also very excited about the up and coming jewelry exhibits at The Museum of Contemporary Craft here in Portland - Touching Warms the Art and Framing: The Art of Jewelry. Both look like they're set to open January 19th, but get this - visitors get to touch and even try on the jewelry created for the Touching Warms the Art exhibit - I cannot tell you how much this thrills me. I am thinking about becoming a member of the museum just so that I can crash the pre-opening gala! (Although it's not really crashing if I'm a member and have an invite, is it?) It also looks like the jewelry is made from a lot of found, recycled, and non-precious materials - something that appeals to me. I'm going to be reworking my Toolbox Jewels class into Junk Drawer Jewels - incorporating more different types of found objects into the workshop.
And last but not least, my friend Mark Silver of Heart of Business publishes an e-newsletter that is full of wonderful information for the spiritually-minded entrepreneur, folks who want to "make a difference and a profit." His newsletter this week was about creativity - and he hit on a really important point: it takes quiet time in order to turn around and have productive time. You have to allow yourself times to be fallow or to simply be quiet and reflective in order to be creative. If you want to read the whole article, go here.

And perhaps that is part of the purpose of post-holiday ennui: my mind forcing me to rest, to contemplate . . .

Post-Holiday Ennui

It happens every year, and I guess I should expect it.

The after-the-holidays gray gloom. And I'm not just talking about the weather, though that's been pretty grim, too. The snow Portland was promised for today is turning out to be nothing more than very cold rain, though we did have a few fluffy flakes on Christmas day.

It may have something to do with coming off of an incredible sugar high - I baked like a maniac Sunday night, making Chocolava Cookies, Pineapple-Pumpkin Bread with swirls of handmade cranberry sauce, and my family's infamous No-Bake Cookies which are like the carbo-crack love child of fudge and chocolate-peanut-butter-oatmeal-bars. I finally stopped eating them late last night, and packed up the last few today to hand out to friends. After all, there are still a few gifts under the tree that need to be distributed. And this morning, I finally finished cleaning out the stove, and got the last of the baking dishes done. Yippee.

And just as baking must be followed by clean-up, it may just be that a high like Christmas must naturally be followed by a low.

It was a great Christmas. I had a marvelous time with The Sweetie's family and I got some really good things that were on my list - a bat house so that I can play hostess to flying rodents (read even more about it at http://www.batcon.org); a Versa-Tool and a soldering gun; and a Ratatouille Holiday Ornament to add to my holiday mouse village scene (you can see the new ornament on the bottom left . . . and no, I don't actually need any more mouse miniatures)


But now I just don't feel excited about much of anything. I've got a stack of things I need to do and an oodle of fun projects I could work on, and I just can't seem to work up enthusiasm for any of it. It feels like ennui, though I have no excuse for the boredom and dissatisfaction associated with it.