Blogging for Bliss

After having the name and address for this blog for more than a year, now, I am ashamed at how little I have a) posted to it, and b) learned about how to use it.

Oh, I have an excuse list a mile long, mind you. I have been reading my little eyes out, for one. Nik and I have been spending time every week at the local library. We spend it mainly in the children's department, due to his ever-moving ways, but our local library has a fabulous online catalogue, and I search and place books on hold from the comfort of my PC during the respite that comes during Nik's naps on my weekdays off. Paired with the wonderful recommendation system developed and hosted by Amazon.com, I have access to more interesting books than I ever have time to read.

I have also taken another Internet-related plunge, which is taking up some of my computer time lately. I, too, have fallen victim to the Facebook epidemic. Oh, I resisted for a long time, believe me! But when searching for active online groups covering a variety of topics, I found everyone was meeting on Facebook, time and time again. That, paired with a co-worker implying I was only abstaining out of snobbery, was enough to push me over the Facebook cliff. Immune to peer pressure I am not. ;-)

But, here I am today, with new resolve for broadcasting the innane details of my existence to an Internet community of strangers. Blogging holds the appeals of being able to ramble on and on, without interupttion, a true tempation for a chatterbox such as myself.

But I need to start slow. Even trying to figure out how to change my background from black to the more popular white a few moments ago opened a Pandora's box of stress for this technologically-challenged sister. Not knowing how to do something, especially when I don't even know where to learn how, hurts my pride, and my body puffs up with ugly entitlement. Before I know it, I am angry at the Internet itself for being difficult on purpose! This techno-tantrum is truly not my most attractive side, so my first aim is to only add a photo. And to all you smirking veteran bloggers out there, remember... We all start somewhere. Also, never underestimate my ability to make mountains out of molehills.

Given that this blog post has no real subject, sort of like Seinfeld, choosing a photo to illustrate it, will be in itself a challenge. Vacation photo? Latest shot of my son around the house? What about Halloween? All contenders, but all seem a little common, a little dull... Not quite right for an inagural photo. I mean, this could set the mood for all that is to come! I may never reach elusive blogger fame, if the first photo isn't just right. Let's see... Pretty nature shot? Flowers, butterflies, beaches... Nope, nope and nope. Hmmm... I've got it!



A duck!


*quack*

Art journalling

Since my son was born nearly 18 months ago, I am afraid that my long time papercrafting passion has gone by the wayside due to lack of time and opportunity to indulge. Oh, I still get my Scrapbook etc. subscription in the mail, and I am keeping all my supplies and continuing to take photos, but I have pretty much stopped shopping, and haven't completed a single layout for months. I kept telling myself the opportunity would arise again, and maybe it still will, but in the meantime my soul was withering away from creativity dehydration.

Enter art journalling.

For Christmas, many members of my family write wish lists, and post them on my brother's web site, to make shopping easier on us all. I didn't have many things on my list this year, which resulted in getting not one, but two, copies of Kelly Rae Roberts "Taking flight", one of the books on my list. A fabulous, inspiring, tall-drink-of-water book, but I still didn't need two. So off to Chapters I went to exchange the second copy for another book of the same type. I looked through all the scrapping and cardmaking books and magazines, feeling sort of ho-hum about them, and then a new type of book caught my eye: Sharon Soneff's "Art Journals & Creative Healing". I knew Sharon Soneff's name from the scrapping world, best for her Sonnet's line of scrap supplies, and so I flipped through the book, deciding almost immediately that it was the book I had been looking for.

Being the research-oriented kook I am, I had to read multiple more books, magazines, and online articles/blogs on art journaling and altered books before I was ready to put pen to paper in my own version, but during a recent holiday I took the plunge, picking up a spiral bound sketch journal, and a giant jar of gesso at Hobby Lobby. My work is simple so far, consisting of drawing and/or painting with a wide variety of mediums (watercolour, pen, coloured pencil, crayon, oil pastel) and handwritten thoughts. I hope to get into more collage techniques in time, and also complete an altered book honouring my love of children's literature, in a old copy of A. A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh".

In the meanwhile, I am staining my bedsheets with art supplies, working in my journal before bed a few nights a week. It has proved a wonderful tool for combatting overthinking and negative self talk, and I hope create a record of personal growth (a la Sabrina Ward Harrison). The spin off benefit of beginning this new hobby is that, in addition to meeting my needs of getting messy and making things, I feel more in touch with my inner artist than I ever have, and I am having the strangest cravings to read poetry, or spend a day at the art gallery. If only I could afford real art lessons...

The beginning of swirls and swings

When deciding to begin a blog, for me the obvious question was, "Why? Why sign up? Why have a blog at all?" When it came time to title my blog, I realized that I needed an answer.

I thought of the reasons why people might write, and tried on some potential names. "My Soapbox"? No, I'm not really here to make speeches. I considered, "Breathings of my heart" (inspired by Wordsworth), but I decided it was too sentimental, and besides, it was already taken.

Then, I found these words by James Michener:

"I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions."

That thought resonated with me. I realized that I love using words. That is why it is so hard for me to wait my turn in conversation. That is why my message board posts are twice as long as the average user's. That is why I use phrases like 'canter of speech' and 'bone of contention'.

Words liberate me to say exactly what I am thinking; exactly what I feel. They marry freedom of choice with freedom of expression. When used effectively, words have power to move a reader to tears or action, to change a mind, or change a heart.

So, why start a blog? To play with words. To form them into sentences and paragraphs just to see how they sound together. To express myself; to tell the story of my experience. In short, to write out of the love of the swirl and swing of words.