So, have you ever had a day where you just weren't motivated to do anything? That's what happened to me yesterday. Of course, I have to say that it was probably due to lack of sleep. Until last night, I was averaging around three hours of sleep for several days. It finally caught up with me yesterday.
I did take care of the kitties and made the evening meal...steamed cabbage, potatoes and Kielbasa. It turned out to be a great meal for a relatively cool day...high here was 41!
I also did some crafting and eventually got excited about a journal for myself. I don't particularly enjoy making totally junk journals. I like my journals to be used mostly for contemplation both for writing and for art.
I began collaging a cover for a new journal (Again doing something for both 100 day challenges.)...
The base for this was a piece of card stock and the collage pieces came from magazines. I used stick glue to adhere the pieces to the card stock, slightly inking the edges. To make sure that the cover can withstand handling, I covered it with wide clear packing tape. I like packing tape over clear contact because it holds much better especially at the edges.
I collaged the inside of the cover with book pages. I added a pocket on the front inside cover and a belly band on the back inside cover both made out of collaged magazine pieces...
I have three additional collaged pages (using magazine pieces) for a single signature. Each will have a place to hold a poem.
Why a poem? Well, for some reason I remembered a poem that my mom used to read to me at night called 'Wynken, Blynken and Nod' by Eugene Field. And that got me to thinking about poems and those I remember from childhood like 'My Shadow' by Robert Lewis Stevenson and 'The Owl and the Pussycat' by Edward Lear and 'The Deacon's Masterpiece or The Wonderful One-Hoss Shay' by Oliver Wendell Holmes.
I loved listening to Holmes 'One-Hoss Shay' poem even though it was really a satire on the breakdown of Calvinism back in the 1800's. Much like the beloved story and movie 'The Wizard of Oz' was a political comment about the Populist movement.
So, I picked out 12 poems including the four I remembered from childhood plus poems on planing trees, being old, love, etc. Check out the rest of these poems. 'When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be' by John Keats; 'Plant a Tree' by Lucy Larcom; "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud' & 'My Heart Leaps Up' both by William Wordsworth; 'How Do I Love Thee' by Elizabeth Barrett Browning; 'When You Are Old' by William Butler Yeats; 'Love III' by George Herbert; and, 'Sympathy' by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
Interesting that these poems are from as early as the 1500's but mostly in the 1800's. I do love later poets like Frost and Plath and E.E.Cummings. The nice thing about this journal is that I can remove poems I have already reflected on and replace them with others.
Added to this journal, I will have a journal with pages to write in only and I will use this to reflect on the poems in the first journal. They are small enough to take with me when I go walking. When I take a few moments to rest, I can take them out, select a poem and write my reflection.
To be honest, I am really excited about not only creating these journals, but using them this spring and summer and beyond!
I also managed to keep up with the gratitude challenge...
The page is filling up. I think it will be jammed full by the end of the month. How about yours?
Well, I need to finish my exercises (already have 30 minutes on the stationary bike) and then get the to-do list done so I can continue crafting. So that's it today...
Talk with you tomorrow...