Tag: life problems

What a week!

Hi Everyone,

Hope you are well.  I/we have had a crazy week here in the wilds, thus the delayed posting this week.  I started writing on Friday and evidently while I was waiting for a few pictures to go from my phone to my computer, I got sidetracked.  Two days worth of sidetracked!

Why does it seem like when you commit to a project the fates do their best to stop you?  Last weekend started with a bad case of Spring allergies.  I haven’t had Spring allergies in years!  They usually hit in the Fall.  So, trying to work and function have been a struggle for days now.  Somehow I carried on to some degree.

I finished painting the guest bathroom just barely on schedule.  I have to finish the room currently called “the office” this month so we can move my son’s bed in after his graduation in May.  On Monday, what I can only describe as banking hell, started.  Without going into all the gory details, thanks to a new bank buying out our old bank our bills have been paid numerous times this week.  Can you make two or more mortgage payments in a month??  Neither can we.  Needless to say, I have spent WAY, WAY too may hours dealing with this situation which ended Friday by my closing the account.

Insomnia kicked in again as well and last night was my first good night sleep in several days.  Somehow I prevailed and got my work done, most of the necessary housework done, deliveries made, D’s retirement paperwork and insurance dealt with along with all the nasty bank stuff AND managed to get four 100 days paintings done to this point.  I will not claim they are great pieces of art, but they got done.  Perseverance, my friends. That is my one true talent that has gotten me through a lifetime of ordeals.  Dogged perseverance.

So here are my first three drawings/paintings of things I am grateful for:  A New Day, Clean Water and Sleep (wonder why that is in there?).


 

Yesterday (Saturday) I missed making any art for The 100 Day Project.  I am having to rethink this 100 drawings/paintings thing. I am still going to do it, but trying to do something different each day is causing me a ridiculous amount of stress.  I take deadlines deathly serious and uh, this is not my job, just a thing. So from here on out my plan is to start a piece and take it as far as I feel necessary but doing what work I can on it each day.  There are some skills and experiments I am trying to achieve with this project and trying to do a different project each day isn’t really accomplishing that.  So, hopefully this week I can make more stress free progress.

Gotta go sketch my daughter and son-in-law’s other dog…for the SIL’s birthday present.

Have a great week. Persevere.

Advertisement
by Categories: art, creativity, productivityTags: , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Patience required

Life seems to require an ongoing, endless supply of patience.  I’m sure there is something right now that you are having to wait on.  You would think that as the decades fall behind you that patience would get easier.  Maybe it does to a small degree, but overall it seems to be just as difficult at every stage of life.

There are huge “patience required” problems such as waiting for medical test results, medium level problems along the lines of trying to sell a house and the average low level patience trials of traffic, slow service, etc.  Often all of them are happening at the same time!  Why is it surprising that we are all walking around stressed?

First apartment, here she comes!

Today I have a list of low level stressors that are just aggravating the heck out of me.

  • A pile of boxes waiting to go to a recycling event tomorrow, but I still have to wrangle more out of the storage today.
  •  Another pile of boxes that are part of the “slow move” that I keep tripping over.
  •  The one room that still is not finished with the tiling. I have soooo much more to do and this one is taking forever.
  •  Several client jobs that are on hold until decisions are made or meetings rescheduled.
  •  A landscaping project that is on hold until a large water trough can be moved.
  •  Flowers and herbs that need to be planted, but we have a cold snap at the moment so it’s too cold to plant.

There are a few more, but I will not bore you with all of them. Then I remind myself that there have been many times where my patience was required for the HUGE level items.  Yes, I have waited for the medical results.  I have waited for payments from clients while wondering how the bills were going to be paid.  I have waited to hear from kids who were driving alone at night for the first time. Why, after all of these big ticket issues do I continue to let tiny day to day things try my patience?  I should be in Zen mode most of the time!

Bad Bob

Last week I did discover a new method for relaxing that surprised me.  I took a break from tiling floors and wandered out to the barn where D. was doing some work.  As always Big Bad Bob was there offering his equine help.  He was a muddy mess so I got the grooming bucket and intended to just clean him up a bit.  An hour later we had three spiffed up horses and I was the calmest and most relaxed I had been in months!  I don’t know if it was the concentration required (you don’t want to brush a big horse in the wrong direction) or the big, warm creatures who let you know when they appreciate a good scratching or exactly what the combination was, but it worked wonders on me as well as the horses.  I think Bob, KC and Christy will be looking better on a more regular basis from now on.

Well, it’s time for me to head out and face more tiling adventures.  I hope you all have a wonderful week.  Don’t let the little stuff get you down and if it does, find a horse that needs detailing.

by Categories: creativity, lifeTags: , , , , , Leave a comment