January 2013 Junk Mail

The holidays were good and I'm feeling optimistic this year.  I think I'll see the fruition of some of my personal projects and maybe I'll finally get some longed for stability in my life.

• I'm writing and writing.  I'm still working on the first draft of my 2012 NaNoWriMo novel.  It's up to about 66,000 words and I believe I'm in the last quarter of the story.

• Work is going well.  I like the company and the people I work with.  Can't complain there.

• I've been developing some good household habits and the big news for me lately is I've been working on decorating my apartment.  In the past, my apartment's walls have been barren (even though I have some original art and a lot of good photos) and there were boxes all over the place.  All that has changed as I slowly work on decluttering and decorating.  The big project right now is creating a Gallery Wall of some of my art and photographs.  It's taken over a week as I've been putting up pictures, a few at a time, living with them, then making modifications and planning the next group of pictures to put up.  I'm almost done but it will likely take until next weekend before I'm finished.  This gallery is on the wall above the couch.  If you can believe it, that entire wall was blank until last weekend.

• There were a few pictures on the opposite wall, the one above my desk, but I took those down and moved my bulletin board all the way to the right.  This left more than half the wall blank.  I bought some white three foot wide rolled paper, taped the paper to the wall, and unrolled a four to five foot section.  This swath of blank white paper is being used to post pictures, maps, spreadsheets, timelines, articles, etc. for my current writing project.  I have a box where I store such things so I can reference them but it's great having them up on the wall where I can stand up and look at them when I need to.  Having a visual reminder of the story up at all times also helps keep it in the mind as I go about my daily activities.  If someone comes over and I don't want them to see all my notes, I can take the paper down and roll it up.  My living room is really starting to feel a bit like an art studio which is what I was going for with these changes.

• Shooting pictures.  I've been trying to keep in mind how important it is for me to be out and about using my Nikon 1.  I really need to learn to use all the controls so I'll be focused on that in the coming months.  You'll see the results here.

• I'm still working on my Luis Buñuel film survey.  I need to watch his last three films:  The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The Phantom of Liberty, and That Obscure Object of Desire.  Learning about Luis, his friends, his influences, etc. has been very satisfying.

That's pretty much it for now.  When I've made good progress on the decorating/organizing front, I'll post pictures.