Here is my clay drying up..its calling me to come and put it in plastic bags and take it out to the shed. I'm antsy to get out there and work. I just realised last night how much my clay time is important and special to me.( I'm getting a bit crabby!) Its almost like going to see a movie some days..pure rest and relaxation. I know I get this feeling at the beginning of a throwing cycle. At the end when I'm about to go to a show, its work and I'm stressed. I've been building on a goal to organize my life and priorities since the girls have been born. Teaching a course is a necessity to our finances and it is the priority this week. I've to got to push on through and get it done and put my blinders onto to my studio or I'll get sucked in.Teaching my clay class for the most part is fun. The hour long drive there and back is not fun- its a priority and with the price of gas that drive and the fun associated with teaching shrinking. This KILLS me at times but priorities always need to be done before play. Stable pay checks sometimes out weigh "soft money" although I have had a good year with my sales.
Family priorities are at the top of list but as a mom and kind of the "Captain" of this boat this summer I've been trying to get my crew to help out more. The word aallowance has been popping up a lot lately so I figured I'll let go of some stuff and get the children involved more in cleaning with an incentive attached. Here is what we came up with today
..our Chore Chart. With anything and our three children we had lots of back and fourths about how much they should get paid for each tasks, who was going to do what and on and on it went. When it was time to do the work this morning the comments and bossiness that was going back and forth made me wonder if I could listen to all the bickering. I chose finally just to go outside and hang out the cloths while these two attemp
ted to do the breakfast dishes. ( I wonder if that Ronan Peterson cup made it safely through the dish cycle!)
..our Chore Chart. With anything and our three children we had lots of back and fourths about how much they should get paid for each tasks, who was going to do what and on and on it went. When it was time to do the work this morning the comments and bossiness that was going back and forth made me wonder if I could listen to all the bickering. I chose finally just to go outside and hang out the cloths while these two attemp
ted to do the breakfast dishes. ( I wonder if that Ronan Peterson cup made it safely through the dish cycle!)
4 comments:
Jen:
I could have written this very same blog. I am in the throes of summer camp with 4 and 5 year olds(see blog photos) and doing a show at Playmakers and trying to entertain my 15 year old and her friends, and of course there is the endless searches for things my husband can never find.
So my pottery wheel has become a storage vessel for things no one can put away and my clay that I wedged up three weeks ago(thinking I would throw in the evenings when I got home HA!) is all hard and sad.I feel your pain!!!
I understand all about husbands not being able to find things. To funny....and very universal! Sorry guys.....
Persistance pays off with the chores, although it seems like an endless time before you get to cash in on it. I remember a friend of Katie's telling me when she was 17 that she learned how to clean her room and her bathroom years before because Katie showed her how "we did it at our house". You could have knocked me over with a feather! I am still waiting for the "neat" fairy to visit Spencer and magically transform his housekeeping skills, however.
I understand getting caught up in the cycle of the "have to do's" but it's easy to have that become all you do. It's easier to put aside chores and such but not so easy for work outside your studio work. I read something lately that really had an impact on me. It was just this: if you don't spend it, you don't have to make it.
It really helped me set my mindset a little about what I needed to do, or not do to make working in my studio full time a reality. That and having a temper-tantrum at work and thankfully loosing that job didn't hurt either :-)
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