Busy Busy

I'm still working on balancing my time. This week has been busier than previous weeks when it comes to the day job portion of my life. We are currently moving the business to a new location and all things have just been more difficult than they need to be. It seems that if it can go wrong, that it most definitely will. I'm looking forward to being open again and having a regular schedule even though these past few weeks have been nice being able to just work from home and set my own schedule. Sure makes it easy to give myself the time to be creative. It also allows for the dreaded procrastination and the want to sit around and play video games instead of housework.

It has been really nice using the new computer. Sometimes you just need to splurge on something nice for yourself. I've been able to run Photoshop effortlessly, it's so smooth and nice. I've also gotten myself into PC gaming, which I'm finding that I enjoy more than I'd thought. I always like playing games, but something about online gaming and making friends has been a really nice touch. Currently I've gotten myself sucked into Fallout 76.

Nothing all that creative to report this week, it's just been a lot of gaming and spending time with my girls.

-- J

And Now Life Gets a Little Busier

Moving into mid-week and post holiday, the day job work begins. Not only that, but the kiddos will be here as well, so I'll have a full house this week! I'm definitely looking forward to that since it's been a few weeks since the girls have been able to come visit.

Here's a couple more scrapbooking Layouts I put together yesterday for the challenge:

A trip we made back in 2018, this was actually our last stop before we headed back toward Oregon.

Gosh those kids are getting big, and that was 4 years ago! 

I've got about an hour before I need to start thinking about day job work, so I've got time for my coffee and to think about what I'm going to be creative with this morning.

-- J

Digital Scrapbooking

Who knew that it was so easy to forget how to do things on Photoshop?

I guess after 10 years of never touching the program a lot has changed. Has anyone tried out that new Beta AI generative fill? I was playing around with it yesterday and found that some of what it can do is amazing, and some of it, not so much. I should have saved some screenshots of some of the edits that it did for me. Some of them were super hilarious. 

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Day three of being intentionally more creative. I've started trying to digital scrapbook again. I've had to learn how to do many of the things that had once been a natural thing for me to do in PS. It's fine, the updates to the program have made a lot of things easier than before, so I seem to be picking it up rather quickly. I've decided to do some challenges on an old Forum I used to frequent.

Here's a look at the first page I've done in a lot of years. Not too bad, but I'm definitely rusty. I have about 9 more to go to complete the full challenge, but since I've got all month to do it, it should be a pretty easy task to complete. I've been trying to download new digital kits, but our internet has been slow and out of commission since last week, so what should only take a few minutes has been taking hours! How frustrating. I might have everything that I've purchased on my computer by the end of the day today. Things seem to be running a bit smoother than they have been.

-- J

Photography and Editing

Do you think I'd make a good photographer?

I spent hundreds of dollars on a fancy Nikon DSLR and I hardly ever use the thing. It used to live in my car so that I would always have it with me when I decided to run away and relax in nature. However, I'm so worried about it being stolen and my car getting broken into, that it now lives on a shelf in my room collecting dust. Plus, I'm pretty sure my new phone takes better photos than anything I could pull together on manual mode from the camera. I've recently pulled it out though and thought I'd try to re-learn how to use it. Manual mode on a DSLR is somewhat of an art form all on it's own, right?

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Day two and I'm focusing on installing new photo editing software. A few months ago, I spent a good amount of money on a computer upgrade and figured I might as well put it to the test. I've installed a few new games that I enjoy playing and now I will have Photoshop and Lightroom again to figure out how to use as well. It's been a few versions since I've last played with the program, and there have been a lot of upgrades. Things that I used to have to do completely manual are now done with a push of a button. Is learning new software considered being creative? I'm thinking so, since I'll be working on recreating some digital scrapbooking pages as practice. Another thing that I used to enjoy doing. We'll see if I still have the heart for it.

-- J

Getting Back to Writing and Creating

Do you think that I would be good at writing a book?

I'm not sure that I'm creative enough to build a world and twine characters together to form an interesting enough story.. plus, considering the astronomical amount of new authors releasing books on a regular basis, would it ever be read? Do people still submit books to publishers? I've been seeing a lot of Amazon self published works more and more. Is that the way to go about it these days? Where would I even start?

...

It's been almost 15 years since I've really sat down and tried to be creative on a regular basis. I think it's time to get back to the basics; re-learn photography, photoshop, writing habits, drawing, and all other things creative.

Here's to PHASE ONE -- creating the habits

I read somewhere that it takes approximately 21 days to form a habit, so here I am, day one of twenty-one. My plan is to carve out a minimum of 30 minutes a day for week 1, 45 minutes for week 2, and an hour a day for week 3. I want to focus on only doing something creative during that time and get into the habit of carving out that chunk of time regularly.

The big question, however, is... should I focus on one singular task or keep it open to whatever I'm feeling that day? 

I have a rather large list of projects, some started already that need completed, as well as some I have supplies just waiting for me to make the time for. I do not lack in projects, so I guess we'll see how this goes.

- J