Recipe for Successful Creativity

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Bridget

These are an assortment of handmade creative cards to help me through moments of: dullness & low energy, moodiness, feeling stuck, and exhibiting destructive behaviours or poisonous thoughts that are detrimental to my artistic output.

I’d seen creative cards before, cards you could purchase at a store, but I’d never considered making my own until I started reading The Creative Entrepreneur. I’ve been methodically making my way through the book and completing the small, but meaningful, creative projects along the way. Once I got to the section on Mastering Your Modes Recipe Cards I thought, “Brilliant! This might work!”

Working for myself, I often find it difficult to sustain my inspiration and enthusiasm for my own ideas & projects, so creative recipe cards, tailored to my own specific experiences and remedies I respond to, seem like a great way to motivate my passion to create. I often have all these great ideas but I don’t actually do them. So, I’ve decided that it’s time for more action. Armed with my new creative cards, and a few supportive & nagging friends (namely Nathalie), I hope to amp-up my productivity this year!

I have some friends who really responded to the idea of my cards so I thought I’d share the concept with you so you can make your own!

[Conversely, you can tailor the cards however you wish. If you’re not a creative type, but you spend too much time at work, you could try making Relationship Building Cards that help guide you to spend more time with your loved ones.]

Creative Cards Recipe

Each card represents the different challenges that disrupt my creativity and on the reverse are the solutions I can use to counter-act my negative thoughts & behaviours.

Ingredients:
glue
scissors
card or thin cardboard (from the recycling bin)
magazines
newspapers
tissue paper
old greeting cards
makers
pens
pencil crayons
paint

Preparation:

a) First, I made a list of all the destructive feelings, thinking, and actions that keep me from achieving my goals. (In the example you can see both constructive & destructive for each but for this exercise the focus is on the destructive aspects).

 

b) I choose a few of my top challenges from the destructive columns and used those for my cards.

 

 

 

 

c) On the front: For each destructive challenge I made representative images meaningful to me.

On the back: I glued a corresponding list of remedies.
(You could always switch it around and try making a picture of your remedy instead).

d) You can make extras and give some to your creative friends! My friend Heidi, who is a mother/housewife/shop manager, could use a stop Excessive Worrying card… can’t we all?

Card Size: I made mine the same size as a deck of cards I had laying around the house. I used the standard card to trace the size onto random card/thin cardboard I had in my recycle box: a cracker box, a brie cheese box, some old greeting cards, etc.

Decoration: Then I decorated them with coloured tissue paper & images from magazines, cards & old projects which I had around the house. I also made sure to add some hand drawings so I could feature some of my own personality.

Storage: I keep mine in a lovely brown leather watch box that was waiting for something to keep in it. You could decorate a special box or envelope for yours. My creative cards sit on my bookshelf; laying in wait for the next time I need inspiration.

Now I just have to remember to actually use them… Happy creating!!!

 

Posted in inspiration | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Where The Pancakes Are

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Sara

“Then all around from far away across the world he smelled good things to eat…”

What’s true for Max in Where the Wild Things Are also rings true for me.  The need to find familiar (and hopefully) tasty food pretty much consumed me when I first moved to Addis Ababa.  One of the first things I spotted in the two-aisle grocery store was Heinz Beans.  I’m not even sure that I recognized the packaging as much as the brand.  I’m sold, I know.  But it was very exciting to open a tin of pale, saucy beans on a Sunday morning, barely let them come to a boil and then have them get to know the pancakes on my plate especially when I spent the better part of the week eating enjera which is often characterized as a sour, pancake-like bread; the description is fairly inaccurate.  Seven years ago a tin of beans was 14 birr and now it’s 34 birr.  It seemed expensive back then and I still hesitate when I reach for the can.  My tastes have changed – I like them with hot sauce now, of course.  And I like enjera too.

The search for familiar good food led me to rediscover baking.  Ingredients are limited here; I’ve chopped chocolate for cookies and added molasses to make my own brown sugar.  I made fairly standard things like brownies and banana muffins.  After noticing a strong connection between my migraine headaches and my sugar consumption, going through subsequent sugar withdrawals, eating kilos of veggies to prevent me from eating a chocolate bar and adding honey to my bunna, the migraines subsided.  And I realized the need to fill my out-of-country familiarity void was quite out of control.  It was as simple as thinking that chocolate would equal happiness.  It didn’t. 

I’ve mellowed with the constant searching and the baking.  I wanted to include my recipe for (somewhat healthier) pumpkin pancakes here as a tribute to my pancake/bean eating days as well as my growth as a home cook (although it doesn’t mean the measurements make any sense).  The whipped cream indulgence is optional.

Pumpkin Pancakes (makes 12-16 pancakes depending on the size)
1 1/3 c. all purpose flour
2/3 c. whole wheat flour
1/3 c. brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1 large egg (or 2 small eggs), lightly beaten
1 3/4 c. milk
1/3 c. pumpkin puree
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla

Whisk the dry ingredients (except the brown sugar because it tends to clump) together in a large bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients as well as the brown sugar together.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until there are no lumps (but don’t over mix).  Over medium heat, melt a pat of butter in a large fry pan or griddle.  Ladle out each pancake, wait for the bubbles to form and then flip over allowing the other side to cook.  Serve them while they’re still hot!

Posted in food | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Epiphany to Cross the Finish Line

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Amber

I was standing on top of the escalators making my decent into the mall. My mind racing, as usual, covering every emotion, lesson and piece of advice I’d had over the last twenty months, analyzing, sorting and reliving until it came to me. I’d been working so hard at achieving my goals, taking every piece of advice that came my way, weighing seriously, never rejecting it, but feeling guilty for not at least trying, frozen into a too scared to move in any direction lump that I hadn’t realized one very important piece of information…. The kind of information you’d get in the dating world, but no one gives you while you’re trying to make a baby. Just be yourself. Is it really worth wanting something so much that you need to change everything about you to get it?

When we first started this journey we’d just moved to Yellowknife from Ireland, got engaged, started building a house, moved twice, got new jobs, and got married all before we even started trying to conceive. So, of course the first piece of advice I received was to reduce the stress in my life. Following that it was my diet, my weight, exercise, the type of exercise I chose, hobbies, and the list goes on. These might sound like normal, healthy life style changes… but they were never consistent. Doing too much or too little of either could be ‘fatal’ to the process.

Of course through most of this time we had no idea why we were even going through any of this which made it so much harder to make a ‘life style’ decision. Other than a small threat of a brain tumour (which turned out to be a medical over reaction.) tests were coming back normal.

Eventually we progressed far enough into the process and were finally able to get a referral to a specialist, where we finally started getting some answers. I was only 34 when we first started trying and at 36 the Fertility Specialist pinpointed a problem with my ovarian reserve (which they found while reviewing my original tests, and retested to confirm). They couldn’t say for sure, but I either had a problem with the quantity or quality of my eggs. They also said that the issue could be age related. This was my greatest fear. When we started trying I was afraid I’d be too old and here it was slapping me in the face. I will admit I shed a few tears when I first heard the news, but it didn’t ruin my day. In fact, it inspired hope. We now had a clear and solid path to follow. No more blindly searching for a cure or a magic potion.

It seems strange to have the epiphany I did on the top of a mall escalator on the first day of my IVF regiment (In Virto Fertilization) in the middle of Burnaby, BC. At the time I thought it was a bit late in the process to have this realization, but now, in hind sight, I’m glad it came. It gave me the power during my month with the fertility clinic to enjoy the process, to enjoy my temporary home, to take care of me, the way I needed to be taken care of.

Posted in pregnancy, trying, women | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The underpinnings of confidence

Posted on March 5, 2012 by Kimiecat

On March 12, one day after the earthquake I received this email:

Hi Kimberly,
There was huge earthquake yesterday.
I have not experienced such big before.
Are you OK?
Everything is fine?
If you could see the schedule we have offered,
please let us know whether we would borrow your power.
Regards,
Iwao

;

I had been locked up in my house for two straight weeks and then started flying all over hither and yon doing shows with Elmo from Sesame Street to entertain kids. I went to some pretty far flung places, including Shin Urayasu, which had a lot of liquidification damage as you can see here from my friend’s blog The Tokyo Reporter. It was really upsetting seeing the damage there knowing it was a mere fraction of what had happened up in Tohoku.

Cheney mentioned Marie Colvin, a heroically brave woman whom I am nothing like, except in one tiny way. After the earthquake on March 11th I bought ridiculously expensive fine lingerie. Not immediately after, but about a month after, while ping ponging across the city, I started having flashbacks of my grandmother saying, “always wear clean underware you never know what’s going to happen.” Clean got translated into downright fancy. I cannot speak for Ms. Colvin, but for me, frivolous underpinnings were anything but (butt?), they became the foundation of my new confidence.

It’s not that I never had nice underware before, of course I’ve had some, but I hadn’t ever purchased any in Japan and certainly not with a “no matter the cost” attitude. I picked exactly what I wanted and bought it all…all of it. And yes, the price made me gasp, but it was about one tenth the amount of money I had raised for earthquake relief. Splurging so I could wear something pretty if I was going to be crushed to death by falling buildings AT ANY POINT wasn’t so hard. Also, it wasn’t the fancy undies that were the real pleasure but allowing myself to have fun after weeks of being scared, sleepless, and worried. Allowing myself to spend time, interact and chat with the salesgirl and to forget for a little while that the world sucked a lot. I took just a little time to slow down, think about exactly what I wanted and look at pretty feminine things. She had fun, I had fun.

When I bought that underware it felt like a step back to normal. It was the first time I was really enjoying shopping in a long time. Shopping is something you are supposed to really enjoy in Japan, especially Tokyo, all of the women’s magazines I have ever read told me so.

With my lovely new underware on I started really enjoying other things I couldn’t/wouldn’t before…like cafe lunches alone and exploring the city. On those days I started dreaming up some goals for the future, buy an iPad, expand my work as a voice actor, get back on stage, and start an art salon evening. And as of last week I managed to cross everything off my list, it has been an incredible year of getting my feet back under me creatively.

So, on March 11, I’ll be buying a new set of nice undies. I’m not quite ready for the eye popping prices of La Perla like Marie, but I might be ready to make a new list of eye popping goals to conquer. If anything happens on that day or any other I’ll have on my very best underneath it all.

Posted in earthquake | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

To not worry so much, about worrying

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Cheney

Illustration by my lovely pal - http://alicecarroll.net

I rank 49,561,166 on the Global Rich List.

That may not sound like much, but in a world with approximately 6 billion people, it puts me in the top 0.82% in terms of income. And it makes me think twice before whining about my budget when 99.18% of the population is getting by on less than I am. Of course, more money doesn’t always equal a better life, but I’m also young, healthy, able-bodied and live in a country with good medical care, access to clean water and few imminent threats to my safety. I should probably never complain about anything ever again.

The #firstworldproblems hashtag is undeniably popular at the moment. I’ve used it more than once to flag self-awareness of being an ungrateful sod for hating my smartphone or feeling miserable in secure employment because there are people in the world dealing with poverty, famine and armed conflict. Be happy you don’t have Real Problems! it says. After all, you do have all of your limbs and a place to sleep at night.

But I started thinking about it more seriously when a friend linked to Teju Cole’s series of tweets about the hashtag. Cole points out that #firstworldproblems creates a false dichotomy between the problems of people in the ‘first world’  and those in developing countries. After all, is it not impossible to imagine that someone who struggles to feed their family might also get annoyed by spam email, their daily commute, or poor internet connectivity? Or that living in a poorer country means you spend all your time thinking about that and nothing else?

It’s a salient reminder that people’s lives, all people, are complex and full of issues big and small, no matter where they live. Remembering to be grateful for what you have is always worthwhile, but if you start evaluating your right to complain on the basis of hierarchy, you’ll soon discover that just about anyone can find somebody doing it tougher than themselves.

And even if your worries seem small, voicing them does not define you. The first piece I ever read about war correspondent Marie Colvin was in an article in Vogue about modern women’s work wardrobes *. She talked about changing her style to match a recently acquired eye patch (the result of losing an eye to a shrapnel wound in Sri Lanka). She also mentioned how she tried, if possible, to wear nice underwear whenever she could, since she spent most of her time on assignments living pretty rough. She even once filed a compensation claim with her employer, the Sunday Times, when East Timorese rebels took off with some of her nicest La Perla items.

Getting annoyed that your lingerie was stolen in a warzone might sound shallow, but if you wanted to argue that this was the kind of person Marie Colvin was, you’d have a tough time making a case for it. She devoted a 25-year long career to bearing witness to the suffering of others in some of the most dangerous places in the world and making sure their stories got told. The risks she took ultimately ended her life, in a rocket attack in Syria last week, and very few people have argued, even before her death, that she was anything other than deeply compassionate and incredibly courageous.

Complaining and wanting is not a right you get from having the bigger problem, it’s  just a part of being human.  It only becomes problematic if we let our issues overwhelm us, and lose the ability to ever put it aside and be generous to the needs of others. How you act and how you treat others in the everyday course of life, and not what you feel like venting about from time to time, first-world problem or otherwise, is a much better measure of the kind of person you are.

*I read this piece about eight years ago at a hair salon, so no link. But I’ve since found it mentioned here and here. Marie Colvin was amazing. Seriously, go read about her.

Posted in global, inspiration, women | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

#firstworldproblems

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Nix

I wonder,

Is it alright for me to moan about the hassles of my daily commute when elsewhere folks have to walk hours just to get to a tap with running water.

Is it alright to sigh about the stresses of my job, when all around me unemployment is rampant.

Is it alright to feel the pinch of singledom, when just weeks ago I watched a friend have to say goodbye forever to her husband as she laid him to his final rest.

Is it allowed that I feel angry and humiliated by an event that was, at the very least a violation of my human dignity and at most the blatant arrogance of bureaucratic law? Elsewhere, vast multitudes face the daily humiliation of poverty, hunger and hopelessness.

But, if I am not allowed to feel these things, am then not also a person in need?

 

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A bit of a twist

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Lem

I’m terribly sorry about this, but with this humble and brief posting of mine I have to take you away from JoAnna’s most likely warm and lovely yoga indian island and transfer you to a cold and snowy Munich night. But don’t worry, the kettle just boiled. Earl Grey, nice and hot. Please, do sit down and have a cup. One sugar, or maybe two? There you go.

Actually, this is the first moment in the past two weeks that I’ve been able to catch a short breath and steal some time for myself, thanks to the blog deadline. Reading the yoga valentine post reminded me of the short affair I had with it. Ok, it was more a one-sided thing. I admit that I tried too hard, and in the end we both agreed that we should just stay friends. Amicable separation, so to speak. We do see each other sometimes – more by accident though. A lot of things do seem to happen by accident in the past few weeks it seems. Smaller and bigger ones. Mostly accidents/incidents that take your breath away and – temporarily – disrupt the flow of the day. And even after the first little shock has worn off, I feel myself breathing a lot more irregular for the rest of the day. It’s no wonder my little affair with yoga hasn’t lasted all that long. I understand breathing is an essential part the whole concept – and I am terrible at it.

So here I am, trying to breathe deeply, trying to get some equilibrium back and trying to embrace the change that all those lumps and bumps have brought with them. Because, gosh darn it, some of the change might be damn good. I might enjoy it. A lot! And I might even give the downward dog another try.

But for tonight I’ll release you back to southern indian islands. It’s been a pleasure and please, do come back for some more tea. Maybe next time, let’s break out this great Gyokuro green tea I received from a fellow student. I’m looking forward to it!

Posted in beginnings, trying | 4 Comments

Love Actually (or: How I Got My 18-year old Thighs Back)

Posted on February 13, 2012 by JoAnna

Happy Valentine’s Day! We’re approaching our two and a half year anniversary and I felt compelled to write a proper letter to express all the things I haven’t gotten around to saying. I don’t know how you did it, but you’ve always had your way with me. You actually managed to convince me to meet up with you on a small island in the south of India (and a proper island at that, one which requires a boat for access) for a whole 30 days and with a jam-packed schedule. Who would have thought I’d agree to it and jump in head first with total abandon? For the last few weeks I’ve found myself embracing 06:00am wake up calls that lead to break-of-dawn meditation sessions and sunrise practices. I’m gleefully gorging on an all-vegetarian spread, cramming a course load of anatomy and nutrition into my head, and throwing in enough spiritualism and Sanskrit for good measure. There’s no meat. There’s no wine, and I’m asleep before most people finish their first aperitif.

*Sigh* It must be glaringly obvious to you that I am in love.

An early morning start with you. There's love all around...

Thanks to you Ashtanga I’m a yogi in the making. Do you remember how I found you? How we first met? It took awhile us to cross paths, because I had to play the field. First there was Hatha, then Power, followed by Sivananda, Iyengar, a short stint with Kundalini and finally Bikram. I dabbled in a bit of everything, but after pushing my ridiculously stiff and unbendable body through 90 hellish minutes of just one of your practices, I was hooked.

I was hooked despite the fact that I woke up the morning after and felt like I had been hit by a truck and dragged down the street for good measure. I was hooked, even in the face of the aches and pains you gave me as my body twisted, turned and stretched itself out over the last few years; the pain annoyingly persistent in the best of times and tortuously transformative in the worst. I am still hooked despite the occasional purplish blue bruises that materialize in the strangest of places and serve as a pseudo-scarlet letter to mark me for the world to see.

Oh, I was hooked all right, and I latched onto you (or you onto me, I’m not entirely sure anymore) like a lovesick fool. That first flush of infatuation rushed to my head and made me long for you with unapologetic athletic abandon. I’ll be honest though, the attraction was superficial at first. I liked how you made me feel, I liked how you sounded and looked. I liked how you treated me. I enjoyed how you gave me (wait, still give me) a post-shavasana glow that lasts until midday, and how you spin fibrous muscle, like a spider in its web, to make it lean, smooth and strong all at once. I’m impressed by your ability to offer a workout that doesn’t involve pounding pavement, spinning wheels or giving up chocolate, and I’m especially thrilled by your innate ability to melt my stiffness just by gracing me with your presence.

Ah yes, you, my dear Ashtanga, are crack-cocaine for the semi-enlightened soul.

Sure, I played hard to get the first few months by agreeing to meet up only once or twice a week, but you doggedly pursued me and found a way of thoroughly seducing me. Our early morning rendezvous’ swiftly increased in number once I realized there wasn’t a good enough reason not to get on the mat. It also didn’t hurt that you taught me some pretty cool tricks; you know, things I’d have never been able to do without your instruction.

Now before you get overly pleased with yourself let me backtrack for a second: it hasn’t been all rainbows, wagging tongues and throbbing red hearts. I moved past that starry-eyed honeymoon phase 9 months ago and was ready to kick you to the curb. Don’t you remember? I wasn’t progressing in my practice because I didn’t understand where the hell you were coming from. I was tired, cranky and demoralized by what you were asking of me and I was pretty sure we didn’t want the same things. We seemed to be on completely different tracks and, frankly, I was so tired of your magnanimous and Zen-like all-knowingness rubbing up against my oh-so-human and flawed persona that I swung to the far end of love’s pendulum to entertain a hatred for you that almost led to the end of our affair.

I don’t quite know what our saving grace was, but I think it helped that you gave me the space to walk away and that I did walk away for a short time, only to realize the sole thing I wanted was get on my mat every morning and greet you. So that’s what I did. I sheepishly showed up one day, you were there (all content, uncomplaining and forgiving) and the rest is history.

And as I rediscovered the multitude of things we have in common, my pseudo hatred moved back along the spectrum – beyond infatuation – to turn into a deeper kind of love. The kind of love that stuns you by showing you how utterly transformational it can be. Thanks to your patience and gentle persuasion I shifted long standing habits over time, case in point: I now find myself getting up shortly after dawn to get on the mat before moving on with the rest of my day. Not only am I a bright-eyed morning person thanks to you, but you’ve altered what I eat (minus chocolate, fish and wine – come on, we all have our vices), how I breathe, and the way I think about things, along with a host of other non-yogic things in my life. 

You – body whipping, ass kicking, soul shaking – Ashtanga have changed my life (*insert mock swoon here*). I insist: dinner on the 14th is on me.

By the way, in conjunction with all the yoga-related love you’ve rained down, there is one thing in particular I wanted to specially thank you for next time we meet. During the throes of our tumultuous relationship I managed to find my 18-year old thighs (or more spiritually put “my 18-year old thighs found me”) and I have a sneaky feeling you’re behind this reunion. Since you’re forever modest I doubt you’ll own up to it, but just for the record you are aware that 18-year old thighs are equivalent to a platinum ring with 2 karats worth of heavy metals on top don’t you? Killer thighs trumps platinum and flowers any day, and based on that fact alone I dare anyone to tell me that what we have isn’t true love.

Whatever. To hell what anyone thinks. It’s the most thoughtful and original Valentine gift. Ever.

Eternally yours, JoAnna

Posted in community, global, inspiration, relationships, travel, women | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Hastings St

Posted on February 5, 2012 by Kate

This is Hastings St, Vancouver, BC.

Hastings & Cambie

It’s my favourite street.  Today it’s raining  and we’re walking to my bus stop.  We see this sign:

free marc

Hastings is  upset that Marc Emory, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Emery, a pot advocate, is in jail in the US.

Now we’re waiting at the bus stop.  It’s changed a lot since I started working here; only a few months ago the buildings around it were run down with the odd store selling cast off fabrics or empty.   An artist had painted a sign to look exactly like a City of Vancouver planning permit sign, and nailed it to the brick wall of one of the abandoned buildings.  It railed against the seeping gentrification.  I kept thinking I should take a photo of it, I kept thinking it wouldn’t last.  The developers got it.   Now it’s covered by this:

art is gone

Another sign of change: the Yoga people have arrived.  I now see hipsters holding yoga mats, where once there were the homeless and the mentally ill.   They go to the studio right over the Fabric Liquidator store that’s always been there.

Yoga over liquidators

But the artists are still there.

dreams

dreams

They’ve just moved further down.

The next important stop is Main & Hastings.  It’s the epicentre of an area, of which Hastings is the main artery, called the Downtown Eastside (but locals just call it the DTES).  In the ten years I’ve lived in Van it’s always the area I’ve felt most at home – perhaps because I grew up with mental illness all around me so the unpredictability of the people seems familiar.  It’s absolutely lacking in pretention, of which the rest of the city has too much, and almost everything else as well.  Homes.  Enough food.  Hope.   But the gentrification is heading that way too, they say…

storm warming

condomarcoprah

condomarcoprah

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s changing fast.   One of my favourite signs on my commute to work in the morning was the rip off of an old skool Coke sign, in classic red and white, except it said “Coast Salish” instead of Coca Cola.  Coast Salish is a First Nations band that used to live in this area, before the settlers came.  Then it disappeared.  I think I know what happened to it.

demo

Just the tattered shell of the building remains.

DTES love

This cafe (see below) was used in the movie “I, Robot”.  A lot of Vancouver has been in a lot of movies.  What looks like smearings on the lens of my camera?  That’s just rain on the bus window.  I took all these with my phone.

bus window ovaltine

bus window ovaltine

One we pass Gore Ave we’re entering a new phase of Hastings.  It’s industrial and commercial.  It’s like any industrial/commerical area on any street.  To the north are the cranes and buildings of Vancouver port, to the south just buildings.  But things start to shift at Nanaimo.  Suddenly the word “family” starts appearing on shops.

family

Then at Boundary Road,  Hastings St becomes part of a different city: Burnaby.  And a very different part of that city: wealthy.  It finally feels cared for.   The architecture is heavily influenced by the surrounding Italian community, and it’s expensive and well built.  Some of the buildings have Italian-influenced names, too.

tramonto

But even here change is coming.  The city is growing fast, they say…

altezza

And empty lots and old commercial buildings are being torn down and turned into condos.  This neighbourhood calls itself the Heights, and they have a motto for the way life is lived on this part of Hastings St:

life as it should be

Life as it should be?  Maybe.

Life as it is?  …Yes.

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Down the Rabbit Hole

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Bridget

So, it’s just a few days into the year of the dragon and already it’s making me change. My trusty computer, Shamu, had been giving me some problems. Every so often her screen would suddenly go bleaaach… and the whole thing would freeze up. It happened once while I was compiling the epic dragon post. It was very annoying and I had to start a section of it over again – from scratch, but at least it kept on chugging away so I was able to make that final post. Anyway, a few days later I’m trying to watch a YouTube video having something to do with a WordPress plugin (no surprise there) when the screen suddenly goes bleaaach… again and freezes up in a very strange pixilated manner. I went to restart it, as I had the few times before but this time it doesn’t make it past that grey apple screen! I tried a few more times and then left it for the morning so it could sort itself out – but alas it did not! Thank goodness for the new Apple store because I booked myself a free appointment with a genius where I learned, sadly, that my computer is just getting too old. She feared a problem with the video card & the hard drive! So, in a bittersweet moment I bought myself a new top-of-the-line laptop & went home toting the new and the old under my arms; a little heavier in my hands & substantially lighter in my wallet.

At this point I am grateful for a few things:

a) That I have enough to purchase a new, & very awesome, computer without having to worry or go into debt.
b) That all my info was already backed-up on my time capsule. (Time capsule you are brilliant!)
c) That, after I called the Apple guys to clarify how to do it, I was able to move everything from my old computer onto my new one. I did not have to sit there with disk after disk reinstalling everything like in the good old days.
d) That my brainiac husband managed to get my old computer functioning again! Now I can at least use it to perform some non-crucial tasks like playing music, movies, or those evil flash heavy addictive online games.

So, with my new computer by my side, or should I say on my lap, we will be destined for great things. I chose the name Tallulah for her, it means leaping water. She has a crystal clear high-resolution screen and I expect her to bring a great deal of calm and clarity to my life as well as a little adventurous fun! Out with the old and in with the new…

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