The Creative Notebook

“I am who I choose to be. I always have been what I chose…though not always what I pleased.”

~Lois McMaster Bujold

In fact, I’m sure you have noticed that there are some sponsored posts on Creative Notebook now. The site is growing so quickly, readership is increasing dramatically every day, and I’m so excited about it! Nothing gives me more fulfullment than sharing my love of journaling and creativity in general. If I can get just one person excited about it, just one person to pick up a pen and stretch their boundaries, then all the writing is worthwhile. If I could come to your house, each and every one of you, and infect you with my enthusiasm for journaling and creativity, I would. But I can’t, so instead I invite you to my virtual house, this site. And with growing readership and site content increasing, the hosting fees grow, too.

I started checking out places to make money blogging. I chose PayPerPost to help with the costs. I can pick and choose my opportunities and take only what’s best for my readership. And best of all, it helps pay for the cost of maintaining the site. I can’t think of a better way to do it: share my passion for journaling by feeding my passion with more writing opportunities. Some sites charge for membership fees or ask for donations. I’d never do that if I could find another way. That’s why I’m excited about PayPerPost.

Just this evening I’ve covered the cost of retaining my domain name for another two years. I just can’t say enough great things about the opportunity PayPerPost offers for small site owners like me to keep us doing what we love.

I’ve been a postie for a little over a month, and it’s been well worth it. I can keep doing what I love-teaching, sharing, and infecting my growing readership with the journal keeping bug–and not worry about how to pay the mortgage on the virtual house so you all can keep coming over for our writing sessions.

Keep recommending CreativeNotebook.com to all your friends. I love having you here and enjoy your comments and reading your responses in your own blogs.

struck my house last night.  Now I have no air conditioning.  It’s hot.  I’m miserable.  Nuff said.

 No kids here today either.  I could have played with my art supplies in my journal all day.  Heat is not conducive to creativity.  sigh…..

That’s exactly what a bookstore owner in Kansas City has been doing.  These two quotes a re on there website:

There are worse crimes than burning books, one is not reading them. ~ Joseph Brodskey
The individual who won’t read has nothing over the individual who cannot read. ~ Mark Twain

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  Burning books to save them?  I see book burnings as a way to protest people reading a certain book or type of books, not to encourage people to read them. 

But mostly, the booklover in my cringes, cries, and is considering a road trip to Kansas City to get my hands on as many as I can before they burn any more. 

For a dollar plus shipping they will send you one and not burn it.  For $20 plus shipping you can save a whole shelf of books. 

All I can say is this, if you are willing to take a chance, and let someone else pick the books out for you at random, go for it.  I did.  3 shelves cost me around $7.00 for shipping.  It’s a book grab bag.  I’ll let you know how it turns out for me.  If you try it, let me know how it turned out for you.

I love sending ecards to my friends and family.  And this time of the year brings to mind beaches and Sandcastles.  Feeling a little stuck today, not having anything to write about and trying to avoid the work portion of my evening, I jumped at the chance to create my own ecard by building a sandcastle!   Nothing helps me lost that stumped feeling like letting my inner kid play, and she loves to play in the sand.  In fact, my son saw me doing it and is now on his computer making his own sandcastle.  And his is much better than mine!  Amazing how kids can let loose and go crazy so much easier than we can with all our “adult” rules.    All the while I’m creating my castle, I have the ocean waves and seagulls in the background adding to the experience. 

You can choose your beach, add color, size and rotate each piece of your castle, pour water on it, and add cool stuff like starfish and a bucket and shovel.  I named mine, and sent it to my buddy in Florida to show him he’s not the only one who can play in the sand any time he wants!  Take a look at my castle here:

I named it Castle Creativity, of course!  You can see it in the gallery on the site.  It’s fun.  It’s easy.  And it’s heads above other ecard sites in creativity.  Give it a try!  I think I’ll paste mine in my visual journal, too.

Sometimes we all get so bogged down in the daily stresses and anxieties of life that we tend to focus too much on the negative in our life. 

Today, date the top of your page and number from one to ten.  Write down ten things you have to be grateful for this week.  It doesn’t matter how trivial it seems.  Even if the best thing that happened was your morning cup of coffee, put it down.

You’ll be surprised because the more you do this the more you’ll find you have to be thankful for.  It may be a struggle at first, but it will help you see what you do have versus what you don’t.
 

You can leave your list in the  comments, or post a link to your list if you have a blog.

Today I’m thankful:

that the week is almost over

for a hershey bar as snack tonight

the kids were entertained most of the morning playing on the slip-n-slide

for antibiotics for whatever this crud is attacking my ears and lungs

for my new puppy–pictures later, of course

for a roof over our heads, food in the fridge, and internet connections

for my two great kids

a cold soda on a hot, hot day

the rotating fan blowing me cool air

the upcoming weekend

for the piles of laundry I have to catch up because it means we have plenty to wear

for those who helped me get my daughter to cheer camp and home while I worked

So often when we right in our journals, it’s about the problems in life. Things that don’t go our way, losses, frustrations, yearnings fill the pages of my book. So today I want to throw a little twist into your journaling. In the tradition of Thankful Thursday, number your paper from one to ten.

As quickly as you can, without thought, write down ten accomplishments you’ve made. Could be big things, like graduating college, saving someone’s life, getting the big promotion. It can be little things like finally decluttering your bathroom, or making your way all the way through the backlog of your inbox. Whatever it is, whatever you’v accomplished, write it down.

Now, take a look at that list. You did great! Look at all you’ve done with your life, with your time. You ROCK!!!!!!

Leave a note in the comments directing us to your blog and link this post back, or leave your list in the comments as a whole if you don’t have a blog.

Here’s my quickie list of little victories:

took care of some paperwork that had been haunting me for a couple months

finished washing wool I bought at a fiber festival

contacted an old friend

finally got a new puppy

chose a new art journal

chose a great father’s day gift for my dad

 handled some doctor bills that were bothering me

finished the book I’d been reading

started the 6th Harry Potter(gotta hurry up!)

I don’t have much debt.  I have a couple small credit cards and a car loan.  Car Loans make me horribly nervous because I hate to commit to that much money per month for five or six years.  I’ve thought about personal loans to roll the credit card debt together and get it paid off faster, but they are so small that researching loans seems a waste of time.  It’s so easy to combine those cards into a loan and then charge the cards back up.  It’s a hard circle to break and I wonder if we all wouldn’t be better served if it wasn’t harder to get those loans, or if they required you close the other accounts.  Something to think about, anyway, that’s on my mind today.

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