I haven’t been engaging in many creative activities lately, which is sometimes frustrating. I have all sorts of ideas and projects I want to work on, but real life gets in the way too often. That, and the fact that my ‘studio’ is a disaster and one of the areas high on my ‘de-clutter’ list. If I get brave this weekend I’ll take some before pictures. Although the computer room is supposed to be next on my list, I think for my own sanity I’m going to have to work a bit on my creative space first.

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the artistic talents of others. If you are a Napolean Dynamite fan and a Postal Service fan, your worlds have collided in this video. Remember back in the day, when MTV played music videos? Those were good times. I’m also planning a road trip to see Cary play in Los Angeles. It’s on a school night again, but I like to live on the edge sometimes. And it’s Illustration Friday! A resolution for February-I want to participate at least once this month, although I should be intimidated by all the fine illustrations submitted.

I have conquered my fear of baking with yeast!

I can cook. There aren’t many recipes that intimidate me. And I can make just about the best chocolate chip cookies you ever had. But every time I attempt to bake bread or pizza dough, or anything with yeast in it, disasterous are the results-I either kill the yeast with water that is too hot, or it never activates, presumably because it’s old or the water isn’t hot enough. I’ve been reading Sunshine, by Robin McKinley, and the heroine is a baker in a coffeeshop. She bakes cinnamon rolls every day, and i just couldn’t stand it any longer, after reading about half of the book, I had to have freshly baked cinnamon rolls. I was nervous, but the need for cinnamon rolls was so great, that I had to give it a try. So I carefully checked the water tempurature, added it to the package of dry yeast, and followed the rest of the recipe. It was a lovely dough, and I kneaded it into a smooth, elastic ball, and set it aside to rise. And it did! I rolled it out and sprinkled the cinnamon and brown sugar on, and rolled it up and cut it into individual rolls, and set them aside to rise again. And they did! Anyway, according to the husband, they were delicious, even better than Cinnabon. And I think I’ll try baking some bread next weekend.

So, November and December were not the greatest of months, and I was a giant ball of stress. But things are much nicer and calmer now, and New Year’s resolutions consist of things to make life around me all peaceful and organized. I am slowly cleaning and de-junking my house, and not taking on any new projects or responsibilities for a little while. I’m all about the Flylady right now-it’s all about 15 minutes at a time around here.

One of my first projects of the new year was to clean up our laptop computer’s hard drive and hook it up to our new wireless dsl network. So now I can sit anywhere, including the front porch, and update my site! I’m awfully proud of myself for figuring it all out (with only one quick phone call to tech support)!

Next on the list I’ll be tackling the hideous computer room, which will also be getting a coat of paint, new window treatments, and some re-working of the furniture situation. There will be progress photos, and you know you don’t want to miss out on that!

I have no time for regular posting, but I want a free ipod, and if you want one too, go here and get 5 other people to join and soon we’ll get free ipods!

Free ipods for everyone!

This is what I saw on my way to work this morning:

And on Tuesday, I got a new niece. I have a lot of baby knitting to do!