A Really Big Blank Slate…

Posted by Jeanne Adams Jan 5 2012, 12:27 am in Blank Slate, ideas, January, Jeanne Adams

It’s January.  Time for new starts, right?  Right! 

So I went to Costco yesterday.  I like Costco.  Sometimes.  Other times it makes me totally insane and I have to leave. 

This was actually a good experience believe it or not, since the holidays are passed, and Wednesdays, mid-afternoon are actually less insane at my Costco than other days.  Amongst the other bulk – and bulky – items I loaded into the mini-van, were a heavy 25 pack of yellow lined pads and a whiteboard.

Why do I mention these two items in particular?

These for me are Blank Slates.  Tabula Rasa.  That old-fashioned phrase – blank slate - comes from the days of one-room-schoolhouses where students would use chalk and write on slates then wipe the slate clean and start over with the next lesson. 

It’s come to mean so very many other things, but I’m thinking of it in the original context.  A clean, new start to the lessons ahead.  An unmarked, unblemished space for idea generation!

To me, January is like a blank slate.  A clean writing pad is a blank slate.  An empty whiteboard is a blank slate.

Sure, I have deadlines and things on the calendar and necessary errands and appointments.  Those never go away.  But it’s a new year.  If I want to take my computer and write, standing up, at the kitchen counter while baking cookies, I can.  If I want to settle into the big squashy chair in my bedroom, with said laptop, to work on projects, I can do that as well. 

If I want to contemplate the universe, go where no one has gone before, I can.  

If I want to take two weeks off with the cabana boys in Bermuda….

No, wait.  That I can’t do, Sven and the Banditas wouldn’t forgive me for absconding with the cabana boys.  In January.  While they’re in their Caves, slaving away.

*Jeanne ponders, still contemplating just how MUCH trouble she’d be in…..with Banditas AND with spouse…..* 

Sigh.  Not quite worth it.  Sorry guys! 

Ahem.  Back to topic.  Clean Slates.  *drags mind back from Bermuda*

If I want to,  with this blank slate of a new month, a new year, I can start new habits that don’t involve cabana boys, new patterns.  It’s not only incredibly acceptable this time of year, it’s encouraged!  Go us!  New us!  Clean Slates for everybody!  Woohooo!

I don’t generally set resolutions, per se.  I have goals – ranked and ordered (but not color coded, sorry Tawny!); I have plans and schemes (I WILL change the bedspread, new color, new pattern…stealthily so the DH doesn’t notice…not that he would…not for weeks!  Hahaha!);  and I have ideas about what I want to do ’round the yard and house through the year. 

I also have plans and goals for books I’m writing, marketing plans for books coming out, and all of that.

But January is a time to evaluate and figure and think and get out one of those yellow pads and consider what ELSE I might like to see happen in the fabulous year 2012.  

Fun stuff.  New stuff.  Cool and exciting and hitherto unknown stuff.  World-changing stuff!

As a huge digression from topic, I don’t subscribe to the world ending a la the Mayan Apocolypse - it may change a lot because hey, it’s an election year in the USA! – but things seldom just “end.”  And what a Mayan might consider the end of the world oh-so-long-ago might not seem that abnormal to us, so….  I’m taking that one with a whole block of salt.  Grins.

So, back on topic, all this is to say that I’m evaluating.  Writing notes, making use of that clean slate to figure some stuff out, making lists and contemplating new things. 

The good news is that my horoscope says it will be a banner year, a year of surprises and great things both career wise and in my family life.  How nice!  And something to look forward to.  Grins. 

Which means I’d best get to writing some of those new plans and ideas down, right? 

Right!

What about you?  Do you like a clean slate?

Does each new year feel like a new start to you, or same-old-same-old?

Does an empty writing pad excite you or worry you?  (or do you even use them, now that you have an iPad?)

Do you like whiteboards, or do you prefer the computer for brainstorming or big lists?

What do you think of these “big-box-wholesale” places like Costco, Sams Club, etc?  Do you love them or hate them?

And again, completely off topic, (but because I can Bwahahahahah!), is ketchup an American thing or do people use it all over the world?  (I bought a LOT of ketchup at Costco…it made me wonder!)

 So, list away….what’s on your list as a TRY THIS NEW THING IN 2012?  What will you do/see/have/become in the brave new year?

(BTW, the caption below COSTCO in the picture on the left is: “When TEOTWAWKI comes, I’ll be ready!”   I had to look up TEOTWAWKI – it’s The End Of The World As We Know It.  Did you know that?)

71 Comments