February is the month of Drinking Only Water & Taking a Picture Everyday.  I forgot about Drinking Only Water today, so I’ll go one extra day in March.  You can read about Sarah’s Month of Resolutions Idea here.

So, here’s picture 1.  I took this picture because we are trying to Baby Wise the Holls.  Don’t judge.  We feel like it’s the best way to get her to go to sleep on her own.  Anyway, it may be hard on a Mom’s heart to watch the monitor move to the red (that means she’s REALLY angry with us for leaving her), at least I have the peace of mind that she won’t be 16 and still wanting someone to rock her to sleep.

For some reason, this piece from the A.V. Club popped up in my Reader this week.  From Justin to Kelly is one of my favorite movies and I LOVED reading their disgusted review of it (there is a language disclaimer).  Because it is disgusting.  But also delicious.  My favorite line is,

“See, the young people of today, they’re too busy to spell out long, complicated words like “burger.” Who has the time? They’re too busy Googling up The Twitter on their iPhones to spell out words in their entirety.”

The piece includes some clips, but most certainly left out my favorite, where Justin & Kelly break into song while driving a boat while wearing matching white track suits.  Sadly, I cannot find it anywhere.  You would have really liked it.  I’ll buy you a Starbucks treat if you can find it.  Scouts honor.

I believe I first heard about Stephen Wiltshire on NPR, but listening this story on the radio and seeing it in person are two totally different things.  He’s drawing the Manhattan Skyline from MEMORY.

Ruth & David totally need these shirts for their girls.

From the world of tumblr.com: some very interesting tumblr blogs:
This dad draws on his kid’s lunch bags everyday: Lunch Bag Art
For the Men: Put This On
Weird Black and White Photos: Black & WTF
For the Zombie Lover’s: Zombify

Although I am not a photographer, (I’ll leave that to this guy, this guy, and this guy.  And this girl.) I like Annie Leibovitz’s pictures a lot.  Here is a series she did for Disney Parks.  Really, really cool.

I basically need this everyday of my life.  Now if only they could come up with a website to find my car keys.

And finally, Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) gives a TED talk and it’s very good.  She’s unassuming and charming and funny, and says a lot of great things about writing and creativity.  It’s interesting what she says about where creativity comes from

Internets, here’s the deal:

I am in the Creative Doldrums.  I can’t think.  And I’m very sleepy.

Before I get on a roll about this, let me just preface by saying: I love my job.  I can’t believe I get to do what I do.  If my 9th grade self could see me now, I know she’d be FLIPPING OUT.  She’d say: “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you work for Student Life!  Do you know Travis?”  And then I’d tell my 9th grade self that I DO, in fact, know Travis and that sometimes we even grill hot dogs at his house and she would promptly faint from SHEER DELIGHT.

Anyway, I really like my job and enjoy it, for the most part.  I am actually using my degree (which was THEATER, so…that’s incredible) and could my parents be more proud of this fact?  No, they could not.  Lately, however, I’ve noticed a slight change taking place in my daily workload.  There’s a script I should be writing and there’s also some mundane administrative duty I need to perform.  Normally, I would slough off the admin task, as admin tasks are boring and I would rather die.  But not lately.  Lately, the admin task seems more appealing.  The looming script deadline hangs ever over my head, but boy, have I made some spreadsheets!  You simply would not believe the spreadsheets.

I know what this means for me.  It means I’m stuck.  I stare at assignments and NOTHING comes to my mind.  I get up, walk around the building, see the baby, get some tea, and I’m stuck.  The fingers fly over the keyboard for the spreadsheets, but not for the scripts.

I pretty much know why I’m stuck.  Here are a couple of reasons:
There’s a baby.  She’s cute and cuddly, but also a sleep sucker.
I have no creative outlet outside of work.

It’s really that last one.  Even my free time is mostly spent writing freelance, so still work.  It’s very fun work and I enjoy it, but my brain is at maximum capacity.

So, I’ve got to find a cure.  I mean, this is my job.  My job is 10% spreadsheets, and people will get suspicious if all these spreadsheets start popping up everywhere.

I trolled the internets for some solutions.  It seems many people have this problem.  Art-Slam says I need to change the scenery and flip the script.  John Cleese says I need to go on auto-pilot for awhile and see where my whims take me.   E-How (yes, I have stooped to E-How) tells me to write down my goals, do something different, and not be afraid of support.

In The Phantom Tollbooth, Milo is rescued from the Doldrums by a dog with a ginormo clock embedded into his side named Tock.  So I’ve got to figure out what my Tock is.  Any suggestions on getting out of these old, sleepy Doldrums?

I’m all ears, internets.