Challenge #256 - week of 9th May 2017

The world is in voting fever right now. Or so it seems. And while this blog is not the place to talk about politics, I'm more interested in the results around me than ever before.

Alongside Brexit last summer, the US in November, and my adopted home country of Germany's General Election for Chancellor this coming September, we also have a Federal State election here in North-Rhine Westphalia next Sunday. And today, France went to the polls to elect Emmanuel Macron as their new, and youngest ever, President of France. It was a monumental election as were each of the others I mentioned. I'm sure there are many more happening around us right now but these are the ones that seem to mean the most to me for one reason or another.

As always, today's result got me thinking about the changes that may come but also about the national motto of France that I'm sure you're all familiar with and a prompt was born.

For this week's prompt I'd like you to be inspired by "Liberté, égalité, fraternité".

France used to be where I thought I would end up living. I used to be able to speak fluent French. The French culture is all its own and one that I loved. The land itself is beautiful and Paris is a dream. So there's always been a connection for me with the country and maybe that's the direction I will take my project this week. You might have been to France, learnt French or even have a thing for vintage French black and white art films you'd like to record.

But maybe I'd like to think a little deeper and consider the meanings of the infamous motto of freedom, equality and fraternity. If you'd like to find out a little more about the motto and its origins, head over to Wikipedia here. We've tackled some of the more serious prompts such as civil rights (WM#119 here) or even woman power (WM#199 here) before but this might be a time to really go deep about what these mainstays of society mean to you.

But whether you go light or deep, join me in a little je ne sais quoi this week and get creative with your projects.

We'd love you to use this prompt and hope you will share your creations - there are now two ways to do this!

You can either upload your layout into the Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery with the tag WM#256 or you can post it in our Whimsical Musings Facebook group. We've decided that we'll save albums for special occasions so just load up your photo to the group with the tag WM#256 in the write up text so that we can find it.

I headed over to Flickr today and found a bunch of layouts there that I'd missed - I'm so sorry for that. I had assumed that most of you joined us on Facebook but now that I know you're still there, I'll check it out more often!

And many thanks for your sweet comments about continuing the blog. I want to. Really I do. And I will continue as long as I can. But it makes me sad that somehow I don't even get around to making my own prompts. And I know that I've said this sort of thing on a regular basis over the last couple of years. Let's see how we get on ongoing and I will make more of an effort!

Challenge #182 week of 31st August 2015

Where have I been? You might well ask and the truth is, right here at my computer. But busy working. The end is in sight but it got me thinking about our prompt in relation to the activity I was undertaking.

I've got some work translating from German to English. There's quite a lot of skill involved but also a lot of interpretation and creative thinking. So why not use this as a challenge for us? Not the German to English bit! Just the meaning of the word itself.

Be inspired by translate

translate

verb (transitiv or intransitive)

/trænsˈleɪt/  /trænz-/

to ​change words into a different ​language: 
We were ​asked to translate a ​list of ​sentences.She ​works for the UN, translating from ​English into ​French.

to ​change something into a new ​form, ​especially to ​turn a ​plan into something ​real: So how does this ​theory translate into ​practical ​policy?The ​ways of ​working that he had ​learned at ​college did not translate well (= were not ​suitable) to the ​world of ​business

to ​decide that words, ​behaviour, or ​actions ​mean a ​particular thing: 
He ​mumbled something which I translated as ​agreement.

I hope you agree with me that there are many, many ways to take this prompt and really run with it. I'm thinking literal translation, problems encountered in foreign countries, learning languages at school or foreign words you use in your own environment. Then there's more creative translation, the realisation of plans, how you understand something, how you relate to words, what you think when you travel and can't speak the language. So many directions. I can think of a list of a dozen pages at least - if only I could get around to scrapping more than a handful of pages per month :-(

As always, we love it when you share your creations over at our Whimsical Musings Flickr gallery and don't forget to tag it WM#182 so we can track you down!