Phil Bowell

Finally got all the presents wrapped.

Nothing like a little snooze on the sofa when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. Not such a big fan of sleeping on your hands and them being numb when you wake up, it’s like having rubber gloves for hands.

Finally got some Christmas cards written. Tomorrow starts the big wrap, after I’ve bought the remaining four presents.

I keep finding myself looking at the Apple Watch a lot lately, something about the Series 4 is making it a much more appealing device than previous versions.

Finished a lovely weekend celebrating my Mum’s birthday with a delicious meal out.

I’m also aiming to find a way of introducing exercise into my weekly routines. I walk a decent amount already, but I need to do more and regain my fitness alongside improving my diet.

Realising I need to get my diet under control, this year I’ve gained weight rather than lost it and it’s mostly through diet. Anyone got any suggestions for quick, low prep, easy meals for one? Also open to suggestions for meal planning methods, whether they are apps or analog, but one thing that I know doesn’t work for me is the burden of tracking calories with apps like MyFitnessPal.

I really dislike WordPress paging and custom queries. No matter what I do it never works and it drives me mad.

Put my Christmas tree up tonight and wrapped my Secret Santa ready for the first Christmas work so if the year. Starting to get into the festive mood now, just need to buy some presents, watch Home Alone, and eat some mince pies.

For as long as I can remember I've had a sketchbook on the go. I think I established the habit when I started senior school, but I remember having them back in junior school as well. They’ve been a companion beside me all that time, whether I’ve been drawing, writing, brainstorming, planning, or something else, they’ve helped me to be creative in some form or another.

When a new sketchbook arrives, it always brings a moment of joy. The moment the wrappings come off is one of the two moments that a sketchbook is perfect. There are no creases on the spine, no scuffs on the cover, no page corners curling up or folded in, everything sits square and compact, full of potential. I always enjoy that moment. When a sketchbook is first opened it’s exciting, there’s potential on those pages, but with it comes a hesitancy, it’s something that I don’t want to ruin.

It’s the fear of the blank page.

Over the last few years when I’ve started a new sketchbook I’ve developed a habit. I open it to the first page, grab a pen and I write the same sentence.

I give myself permission to mess this sketchbook up.

From then on I use it how I want and it doesn’t matter what goes in it.

It might seem a bit silly to write that sentence on the first page, but without it it would take a lot longer for my sketchbooks to get to their second point of perfection. The moment they are finished, either because they are completely full, or the year has ended. At that point it’s done it’s job and deserves it’s spot on my shelf alongside all it’s older siblings, it’s perfect because it’s been used and not wasted. It’s helped me think, helped me create, helped me process events that have passed, it’s potential has been met.

Without that first page sentence and my natural state of being a perfectionist, there’s a chance those sketchbooks would remain on the shelf in their first state of perfection. And in that state they would be a waste. What would be the point in owning them, if they remained forever in their first state of perfection and never made the journey to the second state of perfection?

It’s not just a sketchbook that has these two states of perfection. A blog has them, a canvas has them, a book has them, a roll of film or an SD card in a camera has them. The unused perfection, and the finished, full, complete perfection of a job well done.