Category: time

Time Just Flies

Do you see what happens when you’re having fun?  Time just flies right by!  Oh gee, when was the last time I posted here?  I have to take a look to remember what day it was.  One day just flows right into the next and before I know it the week is gone and another begins.  If you’re not watching, life turns into one long cup of coffee, my analogy anyway.

I was writing in my Morning Pages just this same thing yesterday.  I can remember adults saying that life goes by in the blink of an eye, and it is just so, so true.  I thought of it while writing at 7A.M. that every day I see my granddaughter she is different.  Literally different.  I am trying to slow down life so I can really see her changing.  Most times when she is delivered to my house she is asleep.  I stop whatever I am doing to look at her sleeping face until she opens those big, brown, beautiful eyes of hers.  I straighten up the house and myself, before she gets here so I can be comfortable in the present moment.

Being present has to be one of the hardest things to do.  To stop and smell the roses, as they used to say, is a difficult thing when life is so demanding.  There is so much to do, lists to cross off, errands, painting, beating myself up for not painting, cooking and cleaning, and on and on.  I have had a good talk with my brain and told it that it must shut up and stop bothering me for the time being.  I am going to sit here and look at this baby for now.  Granted, my off days will be hectic.  Even so, I will try to be present, aware, and awake.

When Son#1 got engaged I jumped up when I remembered I hadn’t put his 3 month baby photo in a frame yet!  What an idiot I am!  I can’t believe I let that much time go by without doing some of those things.  Don’t get my wrong, I do have pictures in albums.  But then again, there’s a slew of them in boxes and that’s just not right.

So I have made up my mind to slow down, breathe, remember what day it is, where I am, what I am doing, and keep my eyes open.  If I don’t, this baby will be 10 years old and I’ll be wondering what happened.

OK, gotta go, the baby just woke up!

It Starts Again Tomorrow

My Sunday was really quiet this week.  Even though I was all alone, my family was out of the house, I didn’t get much done. 
I wanted to fool around with the new watercolor I started, but I didn’t.  I thought I might look at my jewelry supplies and maybe put a few stones and beads together like I did a couple days ago, but I didn’t.  I’m not going to beat myself up about it either.
Sometimes it’s healthy to do absolutely nothing.  I know I need down time.  Time to let my brain take a break from thinking about things.  Even though I’m writing the Artist’s Way Morning Pages every day to get the excess brain junk out, I still need that extra do-nothing time.  I don’t know why. 

I’m not saying I sat in a chair and looked at the wall all day long.  Lately I’ve been reading a really good book and I just had to get to the end.  When I picked it up yesterday I just had to keep reading.  While I was reading I had a banana bread baking in the oven that I assembled before I picked up the book.  The warmth of my kitchen along with the great smell of a tasty quick bread in the oven made a cozy feeling in my house.  While I waited I read my book and had some coffee.  The house was quiet with the others out for the day doing their own thing.  It was a great day and it felt good not to “work”. 
Tomorrow is another day.

Next Thing on the List

(I really want to be here)

The thing with To-Do lists is that you need to actually do the things on the list, right?  So how come I have such a long list?  Maybe it’s because I’m not getting to anything on this list?  What do you think?  If I’m not working on the list why am I so busy and tired?

Every day that goes by, every week, the same things are still there on my list, waiting. Want an idea of what’s on my list?  Ok, here goes:

  • Play in the studio every day for however long
  • Organize studio closet for flat storage and upright canvas
  • Get a CD shelf at IKEA to replace another shelf and move to studio
  • Matte some finished work
  • File paperwork
  • Get a black handbag
  • Make more bracelets for Etsy shop
  • Add more finished work to Etsy shop
  • Plan Artist Dates
  • Remember to take photos while on Artist Date for blog (ugh, keep forgetting)
  • Shread 2007, 08, 09 papers
  • Visit Pearl Paint for 50% off art supplies sale
  • Call cable guy
  • Call dishwasher repair guy
  • Call electrician to fix studio light and other stuff
  • Re-arrange living room furniture, again
  • Do Artist’s Way tasks I liked again
  • Remove old carpet from foyer
  • Paint foyer
  • Re-paint bedroom with better color
  • Buy picture frames for favorite photos before my babies have babies
  • Put photos in albums before babies have baby photos
  • Blah blah blah and on, and on, and on. 

There’s more, but I’m tired of this list already.  Is it the weather?  Is it my artist’s block showing up to hold me back? 

Somehow I need to shake it off, wake up, show up and get on with it.  This is ridiculous.

Whining About Time

“Decide to make the most of the time you have and to stop whining about the time you don’t have.”  Alyson B. Stanfield, Art Biz Blog

Canoes, 8×10, watercolor (c)2000 DSThemelis

I received an email update from a wonderful site I found a little while back.  Ms. Stanfield is the author of I’d Rather Be in the Studio,(http://www.idratherbeinthestudio.com/), book/blog that helps artists in marketing their art, social networking, and such.  It’s very informative and inspiring. 

For the new year Stanfield sent out an article and podcast titled, Decide What Your Year Will Look Like.  All the to-do’s in this article are noteworthy, but this particular one jumped out at me.  I’m always complaining about how much time I don’t have to do what I really want to do, but is it true?  Do I really have the time, but allow other things to just drop in my way?  In The Artist’s Way course I became aware of doing such a thing by working my way through the twelve weeks.  (I’ve suspended finishing Week 12 for the holidays.  Convenient? Hmmm…)

Seeing these directives in print makes an impression.  I’ve printed the list and plan to post it in a place that I can read it every day.  It’s good inspiration for a new start to the year.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Since the huge snow fall this weekend suspended my Christmas shopping activities, today had better be the day things get done here!  Painting has been suspended until further notice.

I feel like the character The White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland who kept muttering, “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”  What happened next?  Alice followed that White Rabbit down the rabbit hole. 

If I’m not on it today I’ll be next down that rabbit hole!

Getting snowed in has its advantages.  You’re stuck in anyway, may as well get things done.  I needed to wrap the gifts I’ve already bought, put up my tree, bake some cookies and other little things around the house.  What did I do?  We shoveled the two feet of snow at our house for a couple of hours.  By the time I was done with that I was exhausted.  I baked, and burned, some chocolate chip cookies, baked bread and made dinner.  I did some decorating and wrapping.  The tree?  Later today.

Did I say I’m late?

I’m a Slacker!

Yeah, okay, I said I was at the end of The Artist’s Way, but I’m not done with it.  Totally, not done with the course in Week 12.  How can I be done if I didn’t do the tasks?  I’m a slacker!  Is there a good reason why I can’t get it together over here, or what?  Okay, so I’m in a pouty, stomping my foot mood. Blah.  Didn’t do the tasks, didn’t have the artist date, didn’t paint.  I did do Morning Pages every day.  I fooled around with some beads and made a new bracelet, but that’s not what I wanted to do this week.  Now Christmas is coming and I barely did anything about that!  I need to make a list, but I already have a list and I can’t stick to it!  I’ll end up with a list of lists!  I need to take a deep breath, in, hold, and out.

How do you handle it when you have so many things to do and can’t get to any of them?  I get one thing done and forget the other.  I do the other, and forget the next.  I make one necessary phone call and don’t have time for the other call.  And then I forget to make the other call all together.  This is bad!  Am I ever going to be free of these “things” and just spend the day painting?  Nah, don’t think so.

I remember my last semester in college when we didn’t need to be in class to paint.  We were to have a meeting with the professor once a month for a critique of the work we were doing at home or where ever we were painting.  Weeks were passing and I felt like I had all the time in the world.  I was doing everything but painting,  Daydreaming of painting was more like what I was doing.  Thinking about what I wanted to paint while the time passed.  What else was I doing?  I don’t even know.  Other things were happening, I was at home as a commuter student, so–I don’t know!  It’s a blank. 

Then one day I received a postcard about when the meeting with the professor would take place.  It was going to be that week. Yikes!  I had nothing!  I knew what I was supposed to be working on and decided in a flash to get to it.  My prof had previously told me to paint bigger!  I tend to paint big in too small a space.  Every time I painted bigger he’d say, Paint Bigger!  So I got out the roll of canvas I had, kicked it out on the floor of my basement and where it stopped I cut it.  I painted and painted, all day and into the night.  Five feet high by nine feet long later I was done!  Did I say I work well under pressure?  Well I do.  Doesn’t mean it’s a good thing.

Who could stretch such a big canvas in a small space?  I painted it flat, rolled up the damp oil painting, and threw it in my car to take it to my class.  Well, the professor was thrilled with my BIG work.  Eventually, I painted four more like that.  They were color studies and as I went on to each I used the minimum of colors to get the same effect.  They were beautiful.  But did I have to be shocked into doing what I needed to do?  What’s with that?  I worked as if someone was chasing me with a lit torch.  It’s too stressful and panicky.

Color Study 1, oil on canvas  36×36  ©1977 Dora Sislian Themelis

I’m trying to avoid that kind of panic in my life.  But I don’t think I’m going to change much.  Someone once asked me what I was like years ago and what made me think I was going to be much different now?  I guess I’m still the same person, but I’d like to think I could change a couple of things, right?

Time

Time is fleeting.  We keep wasting it, trying to make it up, see stretches of it, and watch  it just fly by.  We spend most of it just doing nothing.  But if we’re the person at home, the one responsible for house and family, the CEO of the household, we’ve got to figure out how to spend that time very wisely to get things done. 

I stink at it.  I get so sidetracked by the every day stuff, that I miss opportunities of time to be my creative self.  What’s up with that?

Somehow I have to schedule in the “me” time.  Time to make my art.  Time to be just me.  I like “just me” too.  I’m very comfortable being alone with my own self. 

Lately, I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron.  Her book is a 12 week course on finding the artist within that’s been lost along the way while having a life.  More than a course, it’s a recovery for artists who need to find their way in the creative world, again.  It’s very interesting for me.  I’m up to week 3.  Cameron suggests making time for an “Artist Date”, spending time with the inner artist to do something fun, no third parties invited.  Ok, sounds good, but when do I have this date with myself?

Let it be said right now, I should be at week 5, but as usual, I can’t find the time to do the tasks and move on. 

Ok, so I’m trying, right?