New Stuff to Try

Sigh. It's was a wonderful Christmas with a long, restful, yet unplanned blogging break. The break just happened -- well, that's not really true. I was cleaning my little study, which doubles as a second guest room if needed, and found a paper with a quote on it that really struck home to me. Of course I can't find the paper now -- I think I probably threw it away -- but it said something to the effect that the absolute greatest waste of time was to do something perfectly well and then find that you never had to do at all.

That quote kept popping into my head every time I'd find myself overstretching this holiday season. Normally I have a "Christmas meltdown" sometime before Christmas simply because I try to do too much -- most of my friends have the same problem. This year, however, I kept my focus. I decided it was going to be a smooth, relaxed, enjoyable Christmas, AND that work was going to be smooth, relaxed, and enjoyable, AND that I was going to do what I could to make it smooth, relaxed, and enjoyable for the people that I'm responsible for, too. In other words, I cut out all the unnecessary stuff. We had a good time and did it simply. The shopping was finished early -- packages were wrapped and mailed off in early December rather than at a the last minute. Cooking was kept to a minimum. If there was something that I had planned to do for the holidays but it felt like too much of a push to get it done -- well, we decided whether or not it was essential (usually NOT) and if not, we just DIDN'T DO IT.

As a result, other than missing the family members who were out of town, we had as perfect a Christmas as I had hoped for. We even managed to pull off the First Annual Traditional Christmas Eve Macaroni and Cheese Supper ... although, unfortunately, the Second Annual Traditional All-Girl's Christmas Poker Tournament was cancelled due to shopping and hanging out talking instead of playing cards. That was okay, though. We hung out TOGETHER, which was really the point after all.

Unfortunately, my daily drawing and posting here got slid over onto the list of non-essential items. I simply couldn't fit it in and get the Christmas that I wanted. So I didn't do it. So there. I haven't really checked e-mail too much in about three weeks. I haven't surfed other people's blogs. I haven't surfed the internet much at all.

I've spent the last week "cleaning up 2007" at home and at work. The plan is to have all stacks of paperwork type stuff, magazines, and general junk cleared out and gone by Dec 31 (done! as of last night!). I want to have my painting area cleared up and organized by Dec 31 (yikes! not started yet...). I want my desk at work cleaned and caught up by Dec 31 (about three quarters of they way done, and the plans are to finish Monday!) Hopefully I'll be able to start 2008 with a CLEAN slate. Hopefully! :-)

It was a good break. BUT -- I missed everyone and am ready to come back and get back to art! I feel re-energized by the break. Tomorrow I'll be looking at last year's goals, and how they worked out, or how they fizzled by the wayside and WHY. The day after tomorrow, on New Year's Day, Diahn and I meet for our "2008 Strategic Planning, Goal Setting, Coffee Drinking, and Bagel Eating Workshop" -- or something like that -- and I'll have new goals for 2008 then!!!

Oh, and see what I got (above)? A new set of DaVinci Gouache tube paints -- specifically to use in the Moleskine (which handles it perfectly!) Yep. There are Moleskine plans for 2008 ...

Woo hoo!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday season!