Oh, I Forgot I Have Controy

No, I am not turning this into a cooking blog. This post is a reflection on my creative process.

My New Year’s resolution is declutter my home, to take inventory of my physical possessions, and to learn to live more simply. My first area of concentration is the kitchen. In doing an inventory of my pantry I came across a bottle of Controy. I am not much of a drinker so I considered just dumping it out. Then it occurred to me that I could use it in some sort of dish.

My mind started turning. I have dried cherries. Oooo. Dried cherries soaked in orange liquor. What can I do with that? Wait, I have some dinner rolls that are getting old.  Milk, vanilla, eggs, sugar, CHOCOLATE CHIPS. I have chocolate chips.

My excitement grew.  I pulled off the shelf some of my cookbooks and started flipping through them.  Bread pudding. Yep, that’s it.

So I took a standard bread pudding recipe and added to it the Controy-soused cherries, chocolate chips, orange extract, and a pinch of ground cloves.  Baked it up and served it with some French vanilla ice cream.  Wow!

So my point in sharing this is to tell you that inspiration sometimes just comes at you through the most ordinary circumstances and when the urge to create hits you, you have got to go with it.

Getting Organized

My winter break is almost over, and I have managed for the most part to keep up with my self-imposed 21 day creative challenge. I have painted and drummed and to my surprise found that getting organized and decluttering my home is a major creative outlet.

One of the things I did was to set up my 2016 bullet journal. Below I have put a link to the bullet journal page so you can see what this organizational tool is all about. One of the things that I discovered during these last three weeks is that I can be organized if I apply myself and use such tools as the bullet journal. I’m going to take you want a little flip through of my bullet journal so you can see how it’s set up.

My bullet journal is housed within a leather passport-sized traveler’s journal. This is not an expensive Midori; it is a “faux-dori” that I bought through Amazon from ZLYC. It was on sale so I could not pass it up.

The journal is about the size of two decks of playing cards. This may seem small for a journal, but it fits into my bag. If I cannot take it with me, then I will not use it, so this works for me.

The main component of the journal is an extra small Moleskine weekly diary.

This is perfect for me since it has seven days on one spread.  I write in the tasks I plan to undertake each day, including the creative ones.

I linked together with rubber bands four extra small Moleskine cahiers each dedicated to a specific purpose.  My Brain Dump is the  most important section as this is where I figure out things I want to create.

I used a spreadsheet program to create a tracking chart. On it I have various daily tasks that would be too much to write in each day on the bullet journal spread — like exercise, reading assignments, etc.

Finally, I created a pocket pouch to hold things like post-its, business cards, and other bits of paper.

So my bullet journal will help me to stay on track with all my various creative projects and daily chores.  No excuses this year for not getting things done.

To learn more about bullet journaling, visit its website