shared thoughts.

Ok, so I've been messing around in Photoshop. Don't ask me why except for that I took a picture of myself with my new journal. And I don't know why I did that either, but hey...I felt inspired.

It was a busy (but fun) day. It's been a day OFF...and even better: a day off WITH a car. Ah, sweet heaven. Usually V. needs the car for work but, because I have been unwilling to bike my sorry ass around in this cold weather, I opted to get up at the crack of dawn and give him a ride all the way across the city just so I could have transportation for the rest of the day. It was worth it.

I got a spontaneous haircut, bummed around uptown, thought about my blogging friends, went out for coffee with a rather large pile of books, hung out in a few bookstores (yes, I go to bookstores on my days off from the bookstore--I'm a geek), looked for a new sweater (although everything I liked was ridiculously expensive), did a little grocery shopping (where I stopped to smell bunches of peonies--*deep breath* ahhhh...), drove my wolfie with me everywhere, found a little gift for Loralee and (for the highlight of the day) bought a new journal!

In my opinion, there is nothing better than a virgin journal. It's like getting new socks and underwear....but better. Yesterday morning I finished the very beautiful handmade journal that Tara Dawn sent me a couple months ago. And today I set out with the intention of finding a simple spiral bound notebook due to inspiration from Dancing Willow and Natalie Goldberg.

Doing a post every day in November for NaBloPoMo primed the pump for more writing. It felt good to write everyday, even when I sometimes didn't have the energy for it. Granted, I missed 1 or 2 days, but I'll forgive myself. November is over and I intend to continue posting on a (nearly) daily basis. But I also have noticed that, lately, I allow myself to be a lot more raw in my handwritten journal. Right now I like rawness...or, at least, I think a little rawness would do me good. I need to swear every other word and complain and cry and not worry about how stupid I sound. Ok, so I do a lot of that here anyway, but...

Like Dancing Willow is doing, I like the idea of filling up 1 spiral bound notebook a month. However, in the process of today's bumming around, I found an extra cheap and very fat journal that felt so smooth and wonderful in my hands (that's what I get for picking it up in the first place!). It fell right open (in just the right way) and was filled with page after page after page of white graphing paper. I couldn't help myself, and abandoned my spiral notebook intentions in exchange for the big fatty.

I don't even know how many pages are in it, except to say that there's too many to count. Generally, I don't like big journals because I get sick of myself before I get to the end. Well, this time around, I thought I'd try out my staying-power. If it comes down to it, I'll write one word per page until I get to the end. Whatever's necessary. It only cost 8 bucks and will last me the better part of the winter. Not to mention, it's the kind of journal that will almost certainly inspire some serious drawing as well...and, for this, I've decided to start carrying ink and colored pencils with me in my already over-loaded purse.

Like always, I'm ready for a new beginning. I've been thinking about my creative habits a lot lately. Actually, I live my life around those habits. Today was just a little celebration of the little things that make life colorful.