Lisa Call

Progress in the Studio

Markings #21 In Progress

I’ve spent time in my studio every day this week. Making progress on Markings #21 (only 2 more panels at the top right to construct then the fun part of fitting the sections together. This final stage of construction is fairly important and I always feel I could ruin the entire thing if it doesn’t go well.

I’m also making progress on the ACEO’s that I’ll make available with my studio newsletter. I anticipate sending it via email on sunday. I had a lot of fun designing new work (first time in months) so I ended making 5 of them, all of them based on Markings #21.

Progress with Everything

Two weeks ago I posted the following list as my goals for the upcoming 2 weeks, during which my kids have been at camp. I have 2 days left to complete everything and so far I think I can get it all done. Depends on how motivated I remain this weekend.

Here’s how I’m doing so far:

• Unpack entire house. DONE - at least done enough to live comfortably until we move out again for the remodel. I’ll post photos soon to compare to the cramped look we had on moving day.
• Set up studio. DONE - although small and I have to juggle things around a bit ,it’s quite reasonable
• Make small art for studio newsletter. Very close to done - another hour tomorrow and I’ll wrap it up.
• Write and send my second studio newsletter. All I have here is an outline.
• Catch up with the very many outstanding requests for photos, info, etc of my art. I’ve put many many hours into this task - came up with a list of over 30 projects to deal with. So I won’t finish them all but I’m dealing with the most outstanding requests now and more importantly I feel on top of the business side of art again.
• Find all my dye supplies and dye fabric with my childhood friend, Kelly, over the weekend. DONE and very fun - see photos in this post about dyeing fabric.
• Process the 400+ pictures taken while in Montana (my kids went a bit nuts with the camera - I think well over half are to be deleted). I downloaded them to my computer then forgot about them. This is lowest priority for the weekend.
• Figure out timeline and budget for getting house repaired and possible addition added, talk to 3 builders and select one to do the work. DONE - the builder came and measured the house and is starting the ‘as-built’ drawings this weekend.

Saturday and Sunday I’ll be focusing on my newsletter and wrapping up a few more of the outstanding art requests. And finishing construction of the composition of Markings #21 (next up will be doing the surface stitching on the piece). Markings #21 didn’t make the todo list but I couldn’t resist working on a big art project this week.

Structures #6    ©2001    20" x 26"

Getting Back to Normal Life

Yesterday afternoon we arrived back home from the trip to Montana and had 24 hours to get the kids packed for camp and off again for 2 weeks. I’m now back home and faced with the rather large chore of unpacking and settling in. I also have a todo list a mile long of things that I let drop the last couple months, many of them art related requests that need attention.

When I start the think about all that needs to be done I get a bit overwhelmed. So I’m doing my best to not think about it all. I got a lot done the last 3 months by just working on my goals every day. So I’m sure that in no time I can get caught up again if I just stay focused.

A rough outline of what I would like to accomplish in the next 2 weeks while the kids are at camp (no reason to think about the zillion of other things cause this is enough for now):

• Unpack entire house
• Set up studio
• Make small art for studio newsletter
• Write and send my second studio newsletter
• Catch up with the very many outstanding requests for photos, info, etc of my art
• Find all my dye supplies and dye fabric with my childhood friend, Kelly, over the weekend
• Process the 400+ pictures taken while in Montana (my kids went a bit nuts with the camera - I think well over half are to be deleted)
• Figure out timeline and budget for getting house repaired and possible addition added, talk to 3 builders and select one to do the work

Tomorrow I return back to work. After 2 weeks off it’s going to be difficult but it pays the bills right now so off I go. My todo list would be a snap if I didn’t have to give up 40 hours a week. Although now that I live in Denver my commute will be 10 minutes instead of 30+ so I’m looking forward to having an extra hour in my life (not to mention the gas savings).

Artful Home Studio Sale

The Artful Home (formerly known as guild.com) is holding a studio sale. Lots of amazing art at good discounts. I have several pieces available for sale that can be viewed from my Artful Home Artist webpage. The items marked as Studio Sale are discounted from 30-40%. The sale ends on July 15th.

The above piece, Structures #6, is one of the items I included in the items for sale and can be seen here: Structures #6.

This is my kitchen as of 9am this morning. The stove is in the living room. In it’s place is a whole bunch of sawdust. Refinishing hardwood floors is quite the process.

This is the stairway down to my studio. Although you can’t really tell, that is plastic at the bottom of the stairs. Huge hopes that no dust gets into the studio during the 3 day refinishing process.

As a result there is no art making going on at my house. There isn’t much of anything going on at my house as the polyurethane doesn’t smell so good. So I’m headed to a hotel for the next day or 2. Thanks to priceline and their name-your-own-price feature I’m staying at a super nice hotel for a super low rate - yay!

The answer this week to the question: when do you have time for fun and relaxation? Right Now.

Looking forward to having absolutely nothing I feel I must do the next few nights. Great time to recharge my batteries. The next few weeks, finishing up my house so I can get on the market, are going to be busy.

Shaded Walk    ©2007 Stephen Carl
Reprinted with permission from the artist

Artist Breakthrough Program

The last 4 weeks I’ve been participating in the Alyson Stanfield’s online Artist Breakthrough Program.

Today is the last day, the last phone call. Time to evaluate how things went.

So to start here are the goals I stated for the month:

1. I work 5 or more hours a week in my studio making art.
2. I complete the rewrite of my website and blog and go live with them by May 12, 2008.
3. I update my resume to include jurors for all juried shows.
4. I create a complete resume for my personal use with every show in my career listed. This list also includes a list of which pieces were included in each of these shows.
5. I design a portfolio package to send to galleries (the package does not have to be complete but I identify all the parts and the format of the package)
6. I start a list of potential galleries to contact for representation. The list has 30 or more galleries listed.

In addition to the above, I was also working on getting my house ready to put on the market. Cleaning, packing, hiring contractors, yard work, etc.

How Did I do?

1. I worked in my studio 19 hours over the 4 weeks - very close to the my original goal.
2. Nope - the website is coming along nicely but it needs more work.
3. Didn’t even start
4. Didn’t even start
5. Didn’t even start
6. I have between 15-20 galleries on my list with contact info.

In addition I got a lot done on prepping my house. This weekend I completed the last of the decluttering, and have done a bunch of packing, cleaning and yardwork. I’m almost done getting contractors lined up to do the big stuff (paint, carpet, refinish hardwood, etc). This was a larger job than anticipated, getting estimates, rescheduling, etc, etc. I’m certainly learning a lot about how to deal with these guys (number one tip - don’t have expectations about getting anything done soon).

How Do I Feel About It?

I’m super happy with how things went. I probably stayed focused about 70-80% of the time I had available to "do stuff", which is a lot more than normal. Although I didn’t complete everything on my original list I didn’t really think I’d get it all done so that’s fine (more on this later).

I knew I’d be super busy, not just because of all I had going but also because my kids were with me almost the entire month since I didn’t get to see while they were in Europe for 3 months. Not every weekend was as crazy as the one I outlined in this post, but we were still busy. Staying this focused for a sustained period of time, with my kids at home, was probably a first so I’m very happy about that.

I got some really great ideas from other participants in the program for my website so I have more work to do than originally planned. I’m writing a custom plugin for wordpress to display my artwork images, as I couldn’t find anything out there that did what I wanted. I haven’t written code in a while so I’m excited.

What Did I Learn?

I set my goals higher than was realistic. I did this to keep myself motivated. But what I found as the weeks went on is that I wasn’t taking the goals quite seriously enough. I’d list 6 or 7 things to do in a day and only have time for 4 or maybe 5. So I set myself up from the start to not finish everything.

I think this is how I normally operate. It’s safe - because I know I never get everything done I fall back on that as the excuse every time to not do stuff. Eventually I start to think I don’t really need to finish things.

This month has shown me this is maybe not the most optimal way of doing stuff. I love my Getting Things Done project and tasks lists (from David Allen’s Book) as they are great at capturing the big picture. Yet this month I’ve found I need to get more specific, and more realistic, about what I am doing TODAY.

So in addition to my big lists, each morning I started to pick at most 3 things todo. The super most important things that absolutely have to get done. And I put my focus on getting those things done. At the end of the day it’s awesome to say I’ve completed them all.

Learning this new way of approaching my work was the best thing I got out of this class. Taking the time to think about how I get things done and to try some different approaches.

Where Does Blogging Fit In?

Obviously I stopped blogging about 1/2 way through the program. I’d find myself with an hour of time to work on my website or to write a blog post and more often than not I’d blog. So I decided to drop the goal to write and spent my free computer time on my website.

I don’t intend on making this a habit. Living my life at a pace where I don’t have time to blog is not okay with me. I love writing and I find it a great way to process information about my art and myself. So something else is going to have to give because I’m going to continue to blog 2 or 3 times a week throughout the process of selling my house.

One fun thing about this class was watching other artists work on their goals. Steve Carl (photographer - the above image is his work) had a goal of starting a blog and it’s been fun watching him and remembering back to when I started mine 3 years ago. I think he’s off to a great start. You can check it out here: Works by Steve Carl

What’s Next?

The other important thing I feel I learned is that trying to do 3 things at once (make art, build a website and get a house ready to put on the market) is too much. I think if I would have focused on just 1 thing at a time in the end I would have gotten more done.

Time to focus on the house and get it on the market. I’ll have a few moments here and there to do some art/art business work but at least 2 of the 3 must do items on my list each day are going to be house related. While I’m not excited about losing momentum on the website I think in the end this is the best choice. I’ve been feeling a bit too scattered the last few days not really making huge headway on any one thing.

Deb Kirkeeide wrote the following comment on my last post (the crazy birthday party weekend for my daughter):

I’m exhausted! How do you keep such focus? And when do you have time for fun and relaxation? I admire your fortitude.

Very good question Deb. Recently I listened to the book The Total Money Makeover: A Proven Plan for Financial Fitness by Dave Ramsey. He’s the debt free guy. While I don’t agree with all he says, nor do I like some of how he delivers his message (I think the belittling and sarcasm are way over done), he makes a lot of good points.

What struck me listening to this book was how his line:

Live like noone else,
so you can
Live like noone else.

applies to many of the choices on how I am currently spending my time. I am very busy with 2 full time careers and kids and a house, etc. I’m making choices today so in the (very near) future I can be a fulltime self supporting artist that doesn’t have to scramble for money. Those choices have me living today as very few people are willing to live: staying super focused and not having tons of time for just sitting about. I believe the pay off in the future will be well worth it.

The alternatives don’t sound very attractive to me.

1) Just work the day job and wait until I retire to make art (no way!)
2) Quit the day job and struggle for money (also not for me)

I wouldn’t object to finding a wealthy art patron that would support me but that sounds like a recipe for disaster as these types tend to have hidden agendas and I’m not good at being told how to live my life.

 
But not everyday is a day full of goals and craziness like last weekend. Today, I’ve got nothing on the todo list that I must get done. Just doing what I feel like doing cause it’s my birthday. Yay! Chocolate for everyone on me.

And next weekend - I’ve told the kids I will not drive them anywhere - I’m going to get in some studio time.

This is what a weekend looks like when focusing on 2 major goals (preparing my house to put on the market and redesigning my website) when four 12 years olds visit for a birthday party:

Friday evening:

• 4:00-4:05pm: Arrive home from work thinking that the weekend isn’t busy enough so decide to participate in community garage sale in the morning.
• 4:05-5:00pm: Sort through kitchen in search of something to sell. Fortunately garage is full of things needing a new home as they’ve been decommissioned from my life.
• 5:00-6:00pm: Cook nice dinner for kids
• 6:00-6:15pm: Plan menu for daughters sleepover birthday party. Head out the door to purchase food for party and discover wallet is in purse, which is still at my office.
• 6:15-9:00pm: Settle for plan B: work in studio an hour and work on new website design.

Saturday:

• 6:30-6:50am: Up early to hear answering machine message from sister that airplane tickets for family vacation over 4th of July have just gone up to $600. Wonder why I didn’t purchase them last week when they were under $300.
• 6:50-8:00am: Drive to office (~1 hour round trip) to get purse, buy food for party (they don’t have the required ice cream flavor so leave that task for later), return home as the garage sale is to start.
• 8:00-9:00am: Pull stuff out of garage and slap prices on it. Note it is really cold and windy (as is indicated by the lamp that keeps crashing over).
• 9:00-11:30am: Send kids off to teen court training (they are jurors) as I come close to freezing to death doing yard work during the garage sale. Few people show up, I make $50 and get my tree trimmed and start cleaning up rocks overgrown with grass in my front yard. The snow is not encouraging. Look at clock often wondering when kids will be home.
• 11:30-11:45am: Bring remaining junk in to garage. Label unsold dresser (with drawer that won’t close) and 40 year old folding camp table (that is less than stable) as free and head to yummy thai restaurant for lunch.
• 11:45am-12:45pm: Have yummy lunch and hope that when thai place reopens in a week in new location it is still as yummy.
• 12:45pm: Return home to happily see that the dresser is gone. The camp table is still on my driveway as I type. I’m sure my neighbors are pleased with me - my house looks like a flea market at the moment as there is also firewood, some PVC pipe, bags of tree branches and a big pile of rocks on my driveway. This is all against HOA rules I have no doubt.
• 12:45-1:00pm: Purchase airline tickets for summer trip into alternate location requiring a 5 hour drive on days other than originally planned no doubt messing up everyone else’s plans.
• 1:00-1:30pm: Try to organize house for birthday party starting at 4pm as I try to get son to figure out his plans (something 15 year old boys do not excel at).
• 1:30-2:00pm: Phone call with sister about summer plans. In the background son discovered his cell phone is out of minutes and he has no idea what is going on. Hang up phone recognizing I need to take action.
• 2:00-2:10pm: Turn circles wondering what I’m doing.
• 2:10-4:10pm: Go to store to buy more minutes for sons phone. Drive son way the heck downtown denver (60 miles round trip) so he can attend friends lacrosse game and escape sister’s party. Includes turning around and driving back to give him money after I drop him off so he can take bus and lightrail to another friends house later on (plans changed 2 seconds after I dropped him off - surprise!). Also stop and buy ice cream for party. They didn’t have the required flavors either. Glad I added a second shopping trip to the day.
• 4:10pm - Arrive home 10 minutes late for the start of party. One kid has already been there 45 minutes. Good thing kids are old enough to babysit each other. Discover daughter did amazing job decorating for party - looks great.
• 4:30-10:00pm: Hide in basement packing boxes and organizing as kids make noise during party. Cook dinner, let them make huge ice cream sundaes, be thankful house has not yet been cleaned or repaired for sale as 4 girls are making a mess. Plans of working on website fly out the window when I realize it is just not very quiet.
• 10:00pm: Send girls to room, hope they sleep then head to bed.

Sunday:

• Wake up at 7am to discover girls are already awake and playing Wii (borrowed from kids dad’s house). Wonder if they slept at all.
• 7:00-9:00am: Escape to basement again and pack more. There is always more to pack apparently.
• 9:00-10:15am: Cook breakfast and try to round girls up into car to go bowling.
• 10:20am: Finally get girls in car - wonder if we will make it there by 10:30 to get the cheap rates.
• 10:35am-12:45pm: Kids bowl. We got the cheap rates so I buy them popcorn and sprite and win mom of the year award for about 10seconds. It’s over when I refuse to buy more sprite but offer to get them a pitcher of water. While kids bowl I shuffle papers and redo all my todo lists figuring out what I can get done in the coming week. Also talk more with sister about summer plans. Drive back home (40 minutes round trip drive time)
• 12:45-1:30pm: Make lunch for girls.
• 1:30-1:45pm: 15 glorious minutes in my studio.
• 1:45-2:00pm: Round kids up to leave. Hunt for lost retainer (which was already packed).
• 2:00-4:00pm: Drive kids back home. Not a normal birthday party service but needed to help out another mom that had to work. Also drive in complete opposite direction across town to pick up son - it’s safe to come home now. Total miles - 70, Total time in car 2 hours. THIS is why I am moving to Denver.
• 4:00-8:00pm: Try really hard to focus and get back to work on website or packing. Fail at both. Hang out with kids and play board game instead.
• 8:00-9:15pm: Identify that I can complete an item on my weekly goals for the artist breakthrough program if I write a blog post as it’s the only thing I have energy for.

This must be why others have cable/dish - I’m sure even reality TV might seem okay right now.

Priorities

In my series of posts on holding intent I’ve talked about some of the quotes I have on my studio wall. Here’s another related to priorities:

My Take on the Parts

What: I need to identify the specific tasks, or at the minimum the next task, that will get me to my goal. Without this breakdown of the parts it’s hard to identify the next action I should take to achieve a goal. Priorities imply that there are things to choose from, I need to identify those things.

I: There is only 1 person that is in charge of me reaching my goals - and it’s me. Taking responsibility for all of my choices and actions is a huge help in reaching my goals. It is not the internet’s fault that I waste time reading email and blogs, it was my choice. If I don’t like that choice and I can change it.

Doing: If I just sit around it’s unlikely my goals will be met.

Right Now: Worrying about the future or stressing out about the past isn’t going to move me forward. It’s when I stay in the present moment I make progress.

Closer: This is a process (and not a quick one), not a destination. Doing things gets me closer to my goals but I need to be patient and enjoy the journey, because without that the goal is rather empty. For me it’s about a life time commitment to living life one day at a time with the intention to be the person I want to be and living the life I want to have each day giving my situation in that exact moment.

Ultimate Goal: If I don’t know what I want and who I want to be, it’s kind of hard to make progress in that direction.

The Universe

On Alyson Standfield’s recommendation in January I signed up to get Notes from the Universe. I love these emails each morning as they make me smile and remind me that my thoughts do become my reality. Today’s was particularly relevant to my topic:

Where are you spending your time?

Structures #62    © 2007    33" x 19"

A Slow Reply

Eight or nine months ago Meagan asked me the following question on one of my posts:

Something a little off topic, but still related: How do you know when your art work is “good enough” to start marketing it? (Obviously this isn’t a problem for you, Lisa, since your art is amazing!) Previous commenters (Ed) have mentioned that in the beginning of their career, they sold stuff that really wasn’t very good. How do you know when your art work has reached that particular level?

I’ve had a draft of this question sitting around waiting for an answer ever since. As I wasn’t up to a dissection of my studio newsletter as promised, I decided to go back and deliver on an older unanswered query.

It’s about Growth

The article I wrote was about selling my artwork (click to read). My thoughts have changed over the years and today I will answer this differently than I might have 3 or 5 or 8 years ago when I was not looking to pursue an income generating career from my art.

Today my answer is: You are ready to start marketing your artwork when you are ready to take that bold step and put yourself out there. It’s a big leap as it comes with many risks but also many rewards.

Sure, five years from now you might look back and think "Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I tried to sell that junk." But that’s the future. What matters is right now, today, this moment. How do you feel about your artwork? Are you happy with it? Do you think it is good? Do you want to market it? Great - go for it.

And I don’t think that’s such a bad future, to be a bit embarrassed about your work from years back, because it means you are growing as an artist. This is a great thing. Maybe something to look forward to.

How Will You Handle Set Backs

Artists are often advised to ask others for opinions about their work. Is it good enough? Will it sell? While this isn’t bad advice I’m not sure I’d recommend that. I suggest just going with your intuition. If you have the desire and resources to market your artwork, then go for it!

What’s the worse thing that could happen? You might fail on first try. The question is, what will you do with that failure? Will you let it destroy your dream? If so maybe you aren’t ready. I think this is probably the single most important question to answer.

Sure you might never face rejection, but chances are good you’ll face more than a few "we aren’t interested" situations. As Christine Kane says:

SWSWSWSW: Some will. Some won’t. So what? Someone’s waiting!

[Read her excellent article about not taking things personally here]

Even if you do face failure you might learn something. You might get better and grow. You might find new ways to do things. You might meet people that want to help you over that hurdle.

When you are ready to fall down and get up and keep on going. That’s when you are ready.

I’m Finally Ready

I’ve been making art that I really love for the past 10 years. Yet I’ve never taken the leap to go after an solid income with my art. I always have an excuse:

• I need to build up cash reserves.
• The kids are only at home for a few short (18) years.
• This work isn’t quite good enough yet.
• No one buys art quilts.
• I could never replace my software engineering salary with an art income.

Well, no more. I’m doing whatever it takes to get rid of the day job and replace it with the art income.

First up on the list of to-dos is to sell the house that requires a really big income. If I wait until I have enough money from my art to pay this mortgage it could be a pretty long wait. So I’m short circuiting that problem and downsizing.

It’s a huge task and when I think of all that needs to be done to get this huge home on the market I freak out, which is the reason I’m still here. I thought about moving 6 years ago after my divorce and then again 3 years ago, but I didn’t have the courage to do it.

Now it’s the year of courage, which gives me the focus needed to work through all that needs done. I don’t think about the huge list of to-dos. I make short lists of easily doable tasks. Things I can accomplish in a few hours. I’m just focusing on each step, one and time, and steady progress is made every day.

In the meantime I’m not ignoring my art. I’m in the 7th day of Artist Breakthrough Program with Alyson Stanfield and it’s fabulous. I’ve made huge strides in getting my new website ready to go. Tomorrow I’ll blog about how I did with my goals this week and what’s up for next week.

And yes - at some point I’ll write about all I learned when doing my studio newsletter. Hopefully you will not have to wait 8-9 months for that answer.

The above image was the one I selected for this post 9 months ago, I can’t tell you why. It’s orange. Maybe that was it.

Studio Time

In my last post I wrote that one of my goals for the upcoming weeks was to continue to spend 5 or more hours a week in my studio while I’m working on some longer term business goals and getting my house on the market.

Laure responded with the following questions:

One question though, how do you define time in the studio? What is included as time in the studio - is it purely making art, is it prepping for making art, or a mixture of this and other stuff?

Great questions. Early this year I wrote a post about the logistics and reasons for tracking my studio time. That post doesn’t address what I define as "studio time"

My Definition

I define time in my studio as time actively making my artwork: dyeing fabric, cutting the fabric to designing compositions and stitching. I don’t do much prep work for my art. I almost never do any sketching (drawn or fabric sketches) and if I do I generally count it as studio time.

I do a lot of photography and hiking and other activities that inspire and inform my artwork. I never count this as studio time. I also don’t count extended cleaning and organizing my studio as studio time either. I view that more as maintenance of my environment. A quick straighting up of my cutting table probably gets counted.

I do count the finish work that is done on my art, such as finishing the edges, attaching sleeves and labels. Probably because I do these steps with needle and thread so it fits into the construction process.

It Doesn’t Have to be Exact

When I first started tracking time in my studio I was rather uptight about it. I tracked it down to accurate 15 minute intervals. This ended up generating unnecessary stress into my studio process. No doubt the engineer part of me taking over (not to mention the meticulous perfectionist side).

I got over the compulsiveness and now it’s just a pretty darn good estimate. The main purpose is to motivate me and spending time worrying if it was 1/4 hour or a 1/2 hour on monday isn’t very inspirational. So now I just make a good guess and call it good.

I think it’s all very personal, the definition of studio time, how accurately one might or might not track it. And even if you track it at all. I like keeping these records as it does help keep me on track and keep me motivated. When I see my studio time slacking off I look around for the cause and see if I need to adjust something in my life.

ACEO #6    ©2008    2.5"x3.5"
This card was inspired by Markings #3

Breaking Down the Work

For the next 4 weeks, throughout the Artist Breakthrough Program, I’m going to post my weekly goals. Both to hold me accountable to all of my readers and also to write some about how I get things done. Nothing like doing this in public to inspire me to actually do the work.

I break my larger goals down into small tasks. The more overwhelming the goal feels the smaller I break down the tasks. Sometimes down to 5 minute jobs that are super easy. Doing these simple tasks gives me a sense of accomplishment and the momentum to start tackling some of the larger tasks. Once I get going I get on a roll and can "do things" for hours.

Week One Goals

These are my tasks for this week, based on my longer term monthly goals from my previous post. These are to be completed by Sunday, April 20.

1. I work in my studio 5 hours this week
2. I do 3 blog posts
3. I upgrade my 2 wordpress installs for my website to 2.5
4. I complete the template for my website/blog. This is a multi step task - 4.1) I break this down into steps for what is still needed to complete the template and 4.2)I complete the identified tasks from 4.1
5. I define the structure of my website (which pages I will have, what will be on the pages, the menu structure to access the pages)
6. I identify 5 potential galleries for representation (at this point I’m just building a list with contact info)

The First 24 Hours

Yesterday I completed #3 and my wordpress installs are now ready to go. I love wordpress, I’m less enamored with having to manually update my install. I’m looking forward to the day they have a single click upgrade feature.

Today I worked on item 4.1 and have the list of changes needed in my template fairly well settled. I also started in on 5 and defining the pages I want in my new website.

And best of all, this morning I worked in my studio for half an hour before heading to work. The last 6 weeks my studio has been fairly well neglected. I’m looking forward to returning to a routine of making art on a near daily basis.

Oh and blog post #1 for the week is now completed. I know I said it would be about newsletters. I promise - I will get to that this week.

Update on Moving

Much of my motivation for doing this program is to keep me on track with my art while also keeping motivated with getting my house on the market. I spent most of the last week removing a very large amount of stuff from my house. Throwing out a lot, giving away tons and packing up things we can live without until we’ve moved.

I’m very picky about what gets put into a box labeled "I don’t need this for many months". I’m looking to eliminate the majority of these types of things from my life. So far most of these boxes are filled with either 1) my kids stuff (they aren’t as enamored with tossing things as I am) or 2) photo albums and scrapbooking supplies. This is one project I’m sure I will get to some day so I packed it all up and will move it. If I don’t do something with this stuff before the next move I think most of it will end up in the donate pile.

The unfortunate news is the contractor, general fix-it guy that was going to do much of the fix-it type work around my house bailed out on me. Had better offers so I’m left with noone to do the work. I spent much of monday being stressed out, pissed off and generally unhappy with the situation. I decided I needed some time to feel bad but gave myself a deadline of 9pm to just get over it and move on. Great way to experience the emotions but not let them take over my life. I’ve now processed the experience and am getting back on track.

Moving is a lot of work but I’m focusing on enjoying the process, keeping the tasks small and manageable so I don’t get overwhelmed. My morning yoga is a big help in keeping calm.