January 2026 Reading summary

 

Creativity Goals

 

I usually set and share reading goals for each year.  I did that this year, but this year I also set some crafting/cardmaking goals for the year.

Last year, my cardmaking and card sending deteriorated to almost nothing. Life happens, and I'm certain that is why. I want to reenergize it this year, so here are my goals:

• Make cards every month - and not only make cards (but that is the basic goal) but also find time to play with card making and art.
• Send out cards as scheduled - It's just January, and I've already fallen down on this goal, but I'm working to recover quickly.
• Make 4 Christmas cards a month. Christmas card making also went very downhill last year. Luckily, I had a cushion of cards already made, so I was able to make about 25-30, add to the cushion, and send out 53 handmade cards. But the margin is completely gone, so I need to not wait until the end of the year.
• Send our guys (two adult sons) a card each per month. I did this in 2023 and 2024, but not last year, and I want to get back to it.

No, this is not my desk.  Nice, though, isn't it?
Thanks so Unsplash

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Blog goals are:

• Post on Sandpiper Creates at least twice a month - so far, so good.
• Post on Sandpiper's Thoughts three times each week - well, working on it.

I do have a couple of journaling goals.  First, I want to bullet journal at least 50% of the days of the month.  I don't skip days - I go back and enter them, but it is hard to catch up.  Secondly, I've started a new reading journal, and I want to use it as planned.  That's the easiest goal of all - I really enjoy and look forward to entering books in the reading journal.

Dried out Copics?

 Do you use Copic markers? Have you ever opened one and found that it was dried out?  I don't mean that it was out of ink. I mean that the nibs are hard with dried ink - both of them - and the pen is unusable.

I've had this happen several times now.  All five markers in the image above are just gone.  I don't know if the caps are faulty or if there were cracks in the marker caps somehow. I always "click" them closed when I am finished using them. Always. 

I've replaced these pens, but that is not an inexpensive endeavor.  Last time I tried buying new nibs and adding ink to the pen but I'm not sure that worked.  I'm going to try to regenerate the YG07 in the picture and then watch it to see what happens.