It's so easy to feel energised and inspired when spring is here! The quality of light and the longer days. And the ice on the lake has melted! When it snowed at Easter, I was afraid that I'd have the same news update for the rest of the summer, Ice in May, Ice in June, Ice in July... But spring is here, the birds are singing and the days growing longer.

Here are some of the things that inspire me just now and that I'd much rather do than fiddle with my uncooperative printer. Especially after having spent the weekend setting up my new online shop.

• Participate in Lisa Sonora Beam's free online workshop in five parts, for how to make Mini-Journals. Here is part one Mini-Journaling to Max Your Creativity: Day 1 of 5 and part two Mini-Journaling to Max Your Creativity: Fear Itself, Part 2 of 5 of the workshop.

• Work on my new painting. It's got to do with honey and hot summer's days.

• I'm still thinking about what Julia Cameron writes about "the virtue trap". "For an artist, withdrawal is necessary . . . We strive to be good, to be nice, to be helpful, to be unselfish. We want to be generous, of service, of the world. But what we really want is to be left alone. When we can’t get others to leave us alone, we eventually abandon ourselves.” It's week six of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron over at lovely and brilliant Suzy Greaves' The Big Peace Blog. This week we're recovering a sense of abundance.

• Go for a long walk along the lake and stop for café au lait and croissants at Petite France. Buy some fresh bread and apricot jam to bring home. Bring a sketchbook and doodle, sketch and write.

In fact, why not? Why not just pick something here and do it! Alright, I'm taking the day off to do something creative for myself.