Crux

This weekend involved me eating a) more popcorn balls than a reasonable person should eat in a two day period and b) more candy corn than a reasonable person would eat in a two day period. We also got the house clean and the yard mowed, watched a lot of Halloween nonsense, and I finally sorted through/resized all of J's sister's wedding photos, got them uploaded to an album, and sent them to family members. Which is good. I feel so behind on everything.

But the weekend was nice, because of a) my husband b) pets and c) popcorn balls. I also took a two hour nap yesterday (don't judge me!) and we listened to Halloween music in the dark with our Halloween lights on. Because I am an adult!

My weekend sounds really exciting. Contain yourselves!

Yesterday morning we went to pick up Cab's tags, and stopped in a town north of here because the weather was beautiful. On the way home we checked on the lake we like to visit. J took some good shots of the water.








































































We've gotten a lot of rain lately.





















This weekend I also spent way too much time trying to get a decent photo of the dogs, for YOU. But the dogs are very twitchy and move-y when they are together. Also, they are dumb, and they are sort of jerks.

This is Cab, in the car. Cab is pretty, you know, moronic. (I love him!) This is about as smart as he ever looks:




















We tried and tried to get them to sit still for a picture. We ended up with a lot of photos of them running out of the frame and me looking cranky or bewildered. This is the best one we got of me with them.




















You see how they are:




















Then J tried. Pathetically, this is the best I could do:





















My husband knows how to hold still, however:





















So, there are the photos. It was the best I could do! I swear!

I wish the weekend could go on and on and on for about six more weeks. I feel behind on blog stuff and waaaay behind on art stuff. The crushing guilt of not having much time for art is k-i-l-l-i-n-g me, but it's my fault. Instead of parking it on the couch for a few hours every evening, I could be painting. Or I could get up an hour or two earlier. I've been thinking about my daily schedule quite a bit, which is as follows:

5:55; get up and take out dogs, feed cats.
6:15: shower and get ready for work. Skip breakfast.
7:00: work on blogs/read blogs, attempt to respond to emails, possibly fail miserably.
7:40: go to work.
12:00: come home, take out dogs.
12:30: finish with dogs because Monk is slow and a bitch. Eat a small quick lunch, check email.
12:54: go back to work.
5:15: get home from work. Take out dogs, go on walk, etc. This is the first part of the day I really see my husband, who will continue to work on his class stuff until anywhere from 9-11.
5:50: beginning of time vortex, in which I am not sure what I am doing or how I am wasting an hour. Sometimes this involves running errands.
6:45: time vortex/need to eat dinner collides.
7:00-9:00: do laundry, dinner nonsense (this varies), watch TV, work on blogs, attempt to respond to emails, attempt to call people, play with animals, talk to my husband, pick things up around house, other housework type activities, more general time vortexing action.
8:30: take out dogs.
9:01: start wishing I could go to bed.
9:02: continue doing more of the same, while wishing I could go to bed. More time vortex.
10:40-11:30: take out dogs, go to bed.

When I look at this, I realize, hey! I'm eating like crap lately! Also! There's at least a two hour block in the evening where I am probably just completely wasting time, and I could be painting and/or reading instead. But it seems so awful, when the desire to just sit takes over. I think about making the four steps into the studio and feel so tired. So! Tired! And then I torture myself by wondering how I would fit everything in if we also had a child to care for, and then I shudder and maybe panic a little bit and realize I would never, ever sleep. I also torture myself by wondering if it would be better to not have my artist desire/artist guilt, to have evenings free of worrying that I'm not working. I wonder if my life would feel simpler and my brain would feel less chaotic if I didn't have that wolf at my back. It's always there, it's always pressing, and I wonder how it would be if it was gone.

I probably wouldn't like it. And that is how it is: it's awful and stupid, but if it were gone I would miss it. If I dismantled the studio and used it for storage or a guest bedroom, I would hate myself even more, I think. This guilt? This guilt is the lesser of two guilts.

I think I'll find a balance sometime. I've been at my job less than a month. It stands to reason that I feel tired: the constant training/learning/meeting billions of new people a day isn't always easy. I just still feel chaotic inside.

Wanting to feel better, this morning I sat on our bed after my shower, with the windows open and the sun pouring in. The air was fresh, the wind was loud and jangled our wind chimes. I got into a yoga pose, closed my eyes, and tried to empty my brain. I focused on my breathing, while I listened to the wind and tinkling chimes. Everything felt cool and clean. I started to calm, and the music of the chimes were melting into a beautiful soothing puddle in my brain, when the sound of licking snapped me out of it. Jelly Roll, the fat cat, had planted himself right in front of me and decided it was the perfect time to clean his own butt. Leg lifted high, he was making a disgusting smacking sound, and he seemed quite smug about it. Also, he was obviously shedding.

Projectile shedding!

You know what kind of shedding I am talking about!

So I sighed and pushed him off the bed and that was that.

Here's to another week!

Love,
black sheeped