Drops of Inspira

  Hello! I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention last week, but things were a bit chaotic at my house so I'm talking about it now.  When people think about February, they normally think of Valentines' Day . My entire time growing up, that's all I knew. When February came around, the world went crazy with pink and red hearts, chocolate, teddy bears and people in love.  As a kid, somehow I got a hold of old-fashioned valentines cards and would give them to my parents and siblings, writing in them with red crayon. Scandalous, I know. How dare I ruin those beautiful cards with my childish scrawls? As I got older, I watched those around me fall in love, get married, or break up. Meanwhile, I stayed single and made heart sugar cookies for me and my family.  It wasn't until about five or so years ago that I discovered that the same month that houses Valentines' Day , is also International Friendship Month . Which is pretty awesome. I mean, a whole month that cel...

  Hello! I have a question for you. When you think of February, what colors come to mind? Red? White? Pink? Maybe gray? What about blue?   For me, the color blue, has always represented friendship and going deeper. Since this month is International Friendship Month , I chose my favorite color for this month's prompt. (Well, technically, my favorite color is cerulean, but that is a shade of blue.) Here is the prompt: As always, please feel free to use the prompt to generate your own creativity. It doesn't have to be a poem. The prompt is mainly to get your creative juices flowing again. Here is my response: This is it for this month, but I'll be back, Lord willing, next month for some posts about Spring. Until then... -Julia Garcia / Arysta Henry

  Hello!      Today I want to talk to you about one of my favorite subjects: friendship. I know I may be the odd one out talking about friendship in February when everyone else has Valentine's Day on their mind, but hear me out.       True friendship is love too. It's not the romantic kind, but it's just as important.       Love lets someone know they matter to you. Love is being patient with a friend that may be insecure and pester you night and day. Love is being kind, even when your friend is not. Love is not jealous of your friend when he or she is doing something that you really want to do, or is in a relationship and you are not. Love is not prideful. It's preferring someone over yourself and encouraging someone, even when you're not having a good day yourself. Love is not ripping someone apart. It isn't backstabbing the person or gossiping about the person behind their back. Love is selfless. It thinks about the good of ...

 Hello again!  So, we've full circle again. It seems hard to believe that it's been a year since February (last year seems like it had several Februarys in it. Maybe that's just me, but I doubt it.), but here we are again.  So, the month of love. Valentine's Day, hearts, candy, cards... Yeah. That's what most people think of this month, but February is also International Friendship Month, which is pretty great. I mean, an entire month devoted to celebrating friendship? Epic.  I've got a few things brewing on the back burner of my mind. One is a post about friendship on the fourteenth of this month. The other is my Poetry 15th . I might do something besides the poem this month. It's still undecided. I wanted to talk about something that surprised me last month. So, every month I take out my small corkboard that lives on my wall and paste inspirational quotes on it. Usually, I find these quotes from the page-a-day calendar at work or just things I see online t...

  Hi there! So, I'm only ten days late. I meant to get this out earlier, but *shrugs* life happened. To be honest, the holidays exhausted this introvert and she kind of went into hibernation for a little.  Before I reveal any goals, let's see how I did for last year... Read 60 books? In 2020, I read about 84. Hurray for surpassing goals! Draw a hand without instructions? Nope. Better luck this year. Finish secret writing projects? Yes, and no. I did finish one, but it needs revision something fierce. I made a plan for it though, and it will happen. Continue writing poetry? Absolutely! It's been a good challenge and a good way to get the creative juices flowing. I've even had the odd event of waking up at 3:00 a.m. to write poetry about four days in a row.  Take any trips? Like to the grocery store? Yeah, it was 2020. That didn't happen. Maybe this year? Spent more time with friends? Over Zoom, yes. In person... not so much. Ye good ole lockdown kind of made that imp...

Hello! This month I wanted to discuss something that I normally don't talk about: books! Okay, so I'm joking. But only halfway! My favorite genre to read in is fantasy, especially lesser known fantasy, but way back when I was a wee thing, I didn't have access to the internet which has broadened my reading field.  I grew up on classics and read them for school. One of my goals for this year is to revisit some of them and read some new ones.  Today, I want to share with you some classics I've read that have inspired my WIPs (Works-in-Progress). These aren't arranged in order from most inspiring to least. They're just numbered for my sake (because I like order and that sort of thing). Classic #1: Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle My entire childhood I had a friend who would badger me to read this book, but it wasn't until I was an adult and in desperate need of reading material that I took him seriously and checked out this massive book from my local l...

February is known for many things.  Where I live, this month has been known for the odd snow storm or torrential downpour of rain. (Last Valentine's Day I couldn't get into work because the streets were flooded and there was a waterfall running down the slope above our parking lot and into the street.)  Most famously, February is known for Valentines Day. Yep. That day devoted to love, the one that makes single people uncomfortable, one of the holidays overrun with commercialism, flowers, teddy bears, balloons and heart-shaped candy.  When I was little, I loved making old-fashioned Valentine cards with paper lace and giving them out to my siblings and parents. Now that I'm older, I suppose I've gotten a bit jaded with the holiday. It just doesn't have the same feeling it did when I was younger, which is why I was excited when I heard that February is also International Friendship Month.  Yep. You heard that right. A whole month devoted to friendship. Isn...