I have to say the sun’s glorious light has been very welcome here the last couple of days. The hours of daylight are really noticeably longer and it has me feeling that I have made it to the downhill slide of winter around here. It will be a couple of months before we see leaves on the trees or all the snow gone but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel of the long dark winter. I feel like today is the day I can start coming out of winter hibernation.

Just to note we had a lot of snow this week and cooler temps followed by a milder few days. Snow mountain in the back yard continues to grow at a ridiculous rate. Here is the progress of its growth this week.

I have been exploring ways to jump start my creativity. I just finished a queen sized quilt for my friend and I felt creatively exhausted. I found an ad for The Wonder Habit on Instagram. I checked it out and it is right in my wheelhouse. Its a simple practice of looking for wonder each day, doing a one inch little art piece in 5 min and write what it is about. So simple yet a very powerful practice I am finding. I have just started but it has been most therapeutic for me in the depths of what I call the Januaries, the winter doldrums, and uber stressed out due to work. Here is what I have achieved so far in my journal, just be warned I like to make art but I am not a pro artist. I am a doodler and that suits me fine.

I decided to use up my precious and hoarded 2 inch zentangle tiles. One inch tiles seemed way to intimidating. I have 4 inch tiles I will cut up when needed. The paper is divine and I am tapping into a part of me I want to cultivate and grow this year. I am using a stock mixed media journal from the craft store. Nothing fancy just using up supplies I have on hand. I may bust out the watercolors next week.

Finding the Wonder Habit lead me down a path of learning about Substack. You can have your blog and podcast linked to Substack and followers can have notifications sent to their email about posts without having to be on social media! I was like … what? That is amazing because I want to use social media less as a consumer and yet find more people who are interested in articles and podcasts but don’t want to scour the internet or social to find interesting things. If you are interested in Substack, it is easy to joing and you can find me here:https://substack.com/@vicki962161?r=56hi72&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

I do not have anything under a paid subscription at this time. I just enjoy sharing with my followers and would love to grow the audience of the blog and podcast this year. PS I am loving the Wonder Habit Substack her articles are very deep and thoughtful.

I am also a huge fan of Rosie Acosta from Headspace and here is her lovely article with links to her audios in her article: https://open.substack.com/pub/radicallyloved/p/stillness-and-the-hummingbirds-lesson?r=56hi72&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

I have definitely found wonder this week in the sunshine, the uniqueness of each individual snowflake and the miracle of plants reaching for the sunshine in my house. I have been recharging and feel really good about starting a couple of projects of my own this weekend. I have been just not able to get going on them until now.

I am really focusing on the things that I am so grateful for right now. I am certainly grateful for so much that my heart is quite full today.

Create on!

Vicki