Prepare for Summer Creativity

Thursday is my day to open the door to creative thinking and doing; I've reverted to an earlier phase of my life, before painting and art school, when I was internally driven to Make Things, and they were varied and creative. But I'm also a different person now - as Grandma Earth Teacher I am led to make things that are a gift to the Earth in some way, sustainable, and with a message. 

Also, I need to prepare for a summer of Grandma Camps, with themes, projects, and field trips.

And thirdly, I've got lots of projects that help us function better: Fixing broken things and maintaining the house.

Agenda: 

1. Read "The Achievement Habit"

2. Summer creativity

3. Camp preparedness

4. Projects for the week

1. Read "The Achievement Habit":

I'm reading from this book by Bernard Roth (2015), subtitled "Stop Wishing, Start Doing, and Take Command of Your Life". This is a book about "design thinking", applied to achieving goals in your life.

Chapter 3 is Getting Unstuck, about repeatedly hitting an obstacle. The first step is to ask the right question. If I am asking, "How can I finish my projects?", try looking at that from lots of angles: Ask, "What would it do for me to solve this problem?"

The answer to that is telling: Most of the projects on my list are not very important to me, even though the IDEA of them seems important.

So then a better question is "How can I generate projects that are important to me?". Or digging deeper, "What can I do to satisfy my project drive that IS important to me?" or "How can I feel satisfied without doing projects?"

"There isn't always a single answer to the question 'How would I benefit if I had a solution to my problem?' It is simply a matter using a different how-might-I question and repeating this procedure until you feel the aha! that comes from recognizing the actual issue." 

3. Summer creativity:

Last week I made a list of creative aspirations for the summer:

• Drawings and photos for my book.
• Craftivism to support my Nature-Culture shifts.
• House and Garden of Belief projects
• Sharing skill and fun teaching projects
• Practical fix-it projects
• Magical and meditative projects

If I'm honest, I don't want to do very many of these. The projects that are important to me, and for which I seem to find time for,  are:

• Photos for my book, including project samples.
• House and practical fix-it projects
• Sharing skill and fun teaching projects

4. Camp preparedness:

The theme next week is Baseball (plus birthday gifts). Ideas:

• Learn warm up exercises,
• Play tee-ball everyday
• Baseball books and videos
• Field trip to baseball games
• Decorate baseball hats!

Preparations: Order a tee and glove, find possible games to visit, get white hats and plan decor, videos and books. 

3. Projects for the week:

My new goals for Grandma Earth Teacher is 

photos and project samples for nature-culture, house and practical fix-it projects, and sharing skill and fun teaching projects. This week:

• Th: Gummy snake and Butterly stickers
• F: (Plan a birthday gift project)
• Sat: Gate latch + Camp books and supplies
• Sun: Solar disks
• M: Start birthday project
• T: Make a birthday gift
• W: Tree sample for model-making camp
• Th: (no camp) Plan next camp
• F: Make a pie

Doing the smallest thing is a great way to make courageous creative work less frightening; also finding the "minimum effective dose", the amount of work that keeps me challenged and joyful, and if I keep at it will get me to the finish line on time.