Being in school for the past 9 months required so much of my brain’s bandwidth that some of my regular functions got suppressed, or shut down completely.  First, it was excercise and daily gratitude.  Not a power combination in terms of making my life bearable.  Second, it was my optimism. I sat in classes with people who said that, given the opportunity to make “stupid easy money” betting against the economy of Greece, they would do it without second thoughts, regardless of the fact that doing so could cripple an entire nation’s people and economy.  Its not easy to listen to that and avoid becoming a cynic.

Another core function that went into hibernation was my creativity, almost unbeknownst to me.  I didn’t take pictures, I didn’t do any creative writing, and there was an absolute dearth of fun, creative projects. Now that I have time (and brain space free of accounting, finance, operations, economics, and the like) I am back it.  Creating things that bring me satisfaction and make me happy.

The first project:  what to do with all those old CDs that are busted, unusable, but seem wrong to put in the landfill?  Make coasters!  All it took was paper and adhesive.  Now every time I have  a sweaty drink, I’ll put one of these underneath it and feel so happy that I made them.  I am grateful that my creativity is back.