feeding inspiration

you might have noticed i've been feeling rather inspired on the creative front of late. and while i don't know where it's coming from, i am doing all i can to feed it, as i'm desperately afraid it will leave me again. last night, before i went to sleep, i browsed flickr groups i'd long neglected, in search of eye candy and ideas - ideas for sabin's room, which we're redecorating and of course, for more quilts, since i seem to be on a roll with that.

i love to browse flickr on the iPad - as i can easily sit in a comfy chair or in bed and the screen is just a dream. it's pretty much the perfect size for viewing photos and the colors just pop. ok, this isn't an iPad ad, so let's get back to the inspiration. my favorite group for kids' room inspiration is called go to your room and this is what i found there:

inspiration for sabin's room

clouds, garlands, butterflies and hearts, what more could a girl want?  quilts, that's what. and my go-to group for fresh, bright quilt inspiration is fresh modern quilts.

quilty goodness

this practice of feeding inspiration to my brain before i sleep seems to be having a rather magical effect. i've been waking up every day with fully-formed pictures of what i want to do in my head.  i have to keep my iPhone and/or a notebook by the bedside, so i can scribble them down upon awaking, so as not to lose any of the ideas. it seems that my brain takes the images and synthesizes them into something that's my own. and, it gives me an energy buzz that means i can't wait to get out of bed and get stuck in.

the beauty is that my fabulous bloggy friends send me inspiration/temptations (camera porn, remodeling, weaving, maps) all the time as well, so i don't even have to find all of the beautiful things out there by myself. (a big thank you for that, even if it is, at times, hard on our bank account (ahem, kristina, i currently have the high bid on TWO lots of cameras, thanks to you, tho' there's still a lot of time left).)

what do you do to feed your inspiration, ephemeral beast that it is?

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p.s. click on the mosaics to take you to my flickr, where there are links to all of the original posts!

if it's tuesday it must be random, right?

~ i've reached the bit of life of pi where pi finds himself in a 26' lifeboat with a 450 pound tiger named richard parker and i've remembered why i didn't really get into the book previously. it raises my heart rate to nearly unbearable levels just reading it. and i can't sit still at all from squirming all around. at least the tiger has taken care of that awful hyena now. he was bugging the hell out of me.

~ nobel prize-winning economist/new york times columnist paul krugman has two cats named doris lessing and albert einstein. i think that's so cool.

~ i'm starting to have a time alone deficit. husband is working on big, giant spreadsheets and has been working at home. and i realize that i like being by myself. and even need to be by myself. soon.

~ i just found myself writing an email on the pleasures of montenegro and now i want to go there.

~ is it just me or does it sometimes seem like everyone else has it all figured out and you're the only one being totally left behind?

~ one of my worst fears has come true...after those people from high school found me on facebook, one of them took a break from praying in her status updates to suggest a 25-year class reunion for this summer. and oddly, i found myself saying "sure, if i'm in the country," which led me to believe that i had suffered a blow to the head that i didn't remember (which perhaps only PROVED the blow to the head), which caused quite a lot of alarm laughter amongst my real friends, which ended up quite fun.  leaving me, once again, with mixed feelings about that whole being found by the old school crowd and about facebook in general.

~  i heard they're going to start charging for facebook sometime next summer. i can tell you that when that happens, i will immediately leave. that ship has sailed, people.

~ speaking of facebook, although i didn't have the heart to turn down the friendship requests of the old classmates, i have no qualms whatsoever about passive aggressively swearing like a sailor and praying to  nordic gods in my status updates. things which are probably far more offensive to them than me ignoring their friend requests.

~ and while we're on the subject of facebook or twitter for that matter, if you find yourself at any point typing the word toilet along with too much information about your own bodily functions, for the love of odin, erase it and write something about a kitten instead. we seriously don't want to read that shit. pun intended.

~ what on earth am i going to take a picture of today for my 365 project? as spud says, this 365 thing is a marathon and i'm starting to think that it's making my lungs give out.

~ random words deserve random pictures.