Gearing up for ICAD 2013

This year, once again, I will be tackling the ICAD Challenge. After failing hopelessly to keep up with Every Day in May, you may wonder if I am capable of completing such a challenge. I know I am because I have done it before (twice). The ICAD Challenge runs from 1st June to 31st July and the idea is to create something on an index card every day. That’s it. The challenge works for me because it’s so flexible – you can do whatever you like on your index card! There are weekly prompts if you get stuck, but there is no obligation to follow them. In addition, the boys love joining in as well, which means it becomes a fun part of family life instead of something I need to carve out separate time for.

Here are some of the different index cards I created in 2012 and 2011 to give an idea of the different range of possibilities:

Poetry:

Fun with sharpies:

Silly stuff:

Random doodliness:

Drawing:

Fun with crayons and paints:

It’s even possible to complete an index card on those less-than-creative days:

So, what are you waiting for?! Get yourself a pack of index cards and JOIN IN FROM TOMORROW! You know you want to 😉

Facebook Schmacebook and Other Thoughts on the Year Ahead

This week, looking ahead to 2013, I have decided to deactivate my Facebook account. Is my life really enriched by knowing that an old classmate is having steak for dinner? Or my sister in law has a pile of ironing to do? Or by hearing my cousin’s offensive political opinions? I think not.

When I first signed up to Facebook, it seemed a fun way to keep up with those friends and family members that I didn’t get to see often. Then there was the novelty of seeing how former classmates had “turned out”. Over the last year or so, when I have been trying to pare down and simplify my life in many ways, it has become increasingly apparent that Facebook is not such fun. It has become, for me at least, a compulsive and yet irritating presence. Yes, I have had some wobbles (a Fear of Missing Out, as Leo Babuta might put it) but in deactivating my account, I feel that I have opened up a new space in my life. Facebook – I don’t need you!

Other internet sites and habits have been more of a support and inspiration this year though. I have really enjoyed being part of the Everyday Matters group, joining in with Daisy Yellow’s ICAD Challenge in the summer, and more recently signing up to the Love What You Wear project.

But one of the things I have been most proud of this year was overcoming my party-phobia to invite friends and neighbours round for a stitch-in as we took part in the Craftivist Jigsaw Project. Online groups certainly have a place, but sometimes you need to connect with people right where you are. And giving a thought to what the future world might need to look like, this community level involvement will become more important than over. So, for 2013, I would like to devote the time and headspace freed up by releasing myself from Facebook to make deeper connections with local friends and neighbours. Just call me an old-fashioned girl.

61 Days Later!

Phew! We made it. An index card every single day from 1st June to 31st July.

To check out all our icads, you can look at my Flickr set here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/towardsagoodlife/sets/72157629997076394/

The boys are keen to continue producing index card art, but I have struggled the last few weeks to find the time or to feel inspired, so I think I may just stop, give myself a pat on the back for completing the challenge, and move on to other creative pursuits, like my poor, neglected quilting hobby ;-). Tammy is continuing throughout August with a Daily Paper Prompt, which you can read about here. I may dip in and out of this.

It’s been fun but I’m ready to stop now!!

Waif’s Holiday ICADS

I promised I would share the boys’ holiday ICADS. Still catching up on the scanning, but have done all of Waif’s (although the time saving idea of scanning them together has resulted in some upsidedown-ness for which I apologise most humbly ;-))

So!

Whenever you feel annoyed, whenever your mind goes bad, just say, “So!” When you feel better, just say, “So!” If you love someone just say, “So!” When you feel you’re getting angy, just say, “So!” Do you understand? You don’t have to go looking into the scriptures. Just “So!” Whatever arises, just tell it, “So!” It saves a lot of time.

Ajahn Chah in Food for the Heart

ICAD Catch Up!

We have been away on holiday this week, but have still managed to do an index card every day. Here are mine for the week. A couple inspired by the holiday:

(the crooked house is inspired by this art gallery in Lavenham)

The rest just doodly fun with sharpies and colouring pencils:

And fun as a week away may be, I am quite happy to be home. I have missed watching the garden birds, my bookshelf and my yogurt maker 😉

The boys have also done (at least one) index card a day all week, but I haven’t scanned them all yet, so watch out for theirs in the next post!

The Challenge Continues…

Judging by the drop off in numbers in the ICAD challenge Flickr group, a few folk have fallen off the icad wagon! We’re still going strong though 🙂

Here’s a few recent cards.

I have been playing with sharpies again:

Experimenting with masking tape & paint:

And paint & ink & words (which are from Rodney Smith):

Today I made my first ever attempt at drawing a mandala. It’s kinda wonky, but I enjoyed the process so will probably have another go:

The boys have continued with various drawings. Here’s a couple of Waif’s recent cards:

And Gman’s:

Happy Birthday, Dalai Lama!

Marking the Dalai Lama’s 77th birthday, today is Compassion Day:

Ever since we first read Demi’s lovely picture book telling the life story of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, the boys have been quite fascinated by him. I think it was finding out that, as a child, he was really quite mischievous 😉 and liked to take things apart to see how they worked!

Anyway, Waif has written another of his poems in honour of the occasion:

Peaceful monks

Very kind

A monks mind

Is always kind

A robe red

The Buddha said

Peace

Barely cease

Meditation

Whimsical Village – ICAD # 35

Flags, Torches and Patriotism

Today is Independence Day in the US, and so there has been a special ICAD challenge prompt for today: “share an index card of the US flag (or your own country’s flag!), a card inspired by freedom, independence, fireworks, something related to the holiday.”

I have gone with the Union Flag (although purists may note that this is not, perhaps, terribly accurately drawn!)

Gman went with the easier-to-draw St George’s Cross:

And Waif was very inclusive with his flag-waving celebrations:

Friends and regular readers will not be terribly surprised to learn that I am not much of a patriot – I’m with Voltaire in this belief:

It is lamentable, that to be a good patriot one must become the enemy of the rest of mankind.

The trouble with patriotism, for me, is that to glory in an Us, there has to be a Them. There is danger inherent in such dualism I think. This is the first time I have ever tried to draw a Union Flag and will quite likely be the last ;-).

It has been something of a year for flag-waving here in the UK – first the Diamond Jubilee celebrations (I invite you to read Ben Naga’s excellent poetic commentary), now the Olympics. And today, as it happens, the Olympic Torch has been carried through our town. Passing just 5 minutes’ walk from our door, it would have been rude not to go and see. Here’s the boys, dressed for the British summer weather:

On arrival at the scene, the boys were handed plastic flags, which they dutifully waved a bit, in a slightly unimpressed fashion:

Amidst the noise and hullabaloo of all the corporate sponsored buses, we nearly missed the torch itself:

The handover took place just yards from where we stood, but unfortunately our view was obscured by a stationary vehicle, though I did manage to get this pic by holding the camera above my head:

Flag-waving duties over for now.