Rainy Days and Mondays

The weather this April has affected my creativity. I'm just feeling blah. Very non-committal about my projects.

I know the saying “April showers bring May flowers” and I generally don't mind. But after a not-so-bad winter, this April seems to be playing an April Fools prank: I think we've had worse weather since the end of March—cold, windy, snowy, icy—than we had all Winter! I know for a fact that February was nicer because my birthday is in February and we slept with the window open that night. It was the first time in my over-50 years that I awoke on my birthday to fresh air and birdsong.

All this grumbling is to simply to say that I am far behind on projects that are underway.

If you are a maker, a creative person, you know what that feels like: the unfinished project sitting waiting for you. But all you can feel is . . . blah.

So, I am trying a few things.

1. A little online Spring cleaning. By that I mean, I am finally catching up on what has become an almost unwieldy inbox. I had subscribed for so many e-mails, I haven't been able to keep up. So I'm putting all the e-mails from the same source together, going through one by one until they are done. Then I'm going to decide if I want to stay on that e-mail list.
2. Saying “yes” to most invitations. Particularly those that will expand my social circle. Just the other day I went to a friend's birthday party. It was so much fun seeing her and some mutual friends. What's really cool, is she and many of the others are at least twenty years younger than me. I love being around that energy, hearing what they are passionate about. It's really eye opening to discover either something new or something unexpectedly in common.
3. Thinking about other creative ventures. I think if I try something different creatively, that might give me the spark to continue on with my projects. I participated a tiny bit in an Instagram sketch challenge, where participants draw something every day for a month. I only did about half a dozen, but it was fun and I really felt it gave me a little boost for my other creative projects. Right now I have an idea for another sketch, but this time incorporating a knitted piece I made.

What have you done to bust the blues and get your creative spark back?