A long post with no pictures, alternatively titled… “My weekly posts…. on a monthly schedule” or “Why can’t I just be creative all the time and who needs sleep, anyway?!” This post also has nothing to do with my creative updates or projects I’m working on in particular, but it is an attempt to provide excuses explanations for my crazy irregular posting schedule.

Trying to get back to my weekly updates but it is a real struggle to balance everything out properly. I work full-time; draw, paint and wander with my camera when I can; am attempting to improve my physical health by going to roller derby practice and thinking about going to the gym (I still haven’t figured out how to actually set aside time to go to the gym); wondering how I can convince the cat to do the dishes so I can watch more Star Trek; and thinking about all the stories I’d like to write/draw. Most days I can choose between two or three activities as long as I don’t mind sacrificing some sleep.

I’m notoriously bad at time management when it comes to my hobbies. I feel like I have this terrible case of inertia and momentum so I’m reluctant to start things I can’t finish, or once I do get started with something I get completely annoyed if I can’t spend absolutely all the time I wanted to spend on it. Compounded by the fact that in most cases, my hobbies consume large chunks of time and when I can’t devote a large chunk of time to something I tend to set it aside and wind up doing mundane or pointless things. It’s hard to explain, but I feel like I waste a lot of time because I don’t have quite enough time for all the things I want to do.

For instance, today I went to work and I thought about doing some small sketches for a project on my lunch break but then realized I wanted actual food for lunch instead of instant food from a box. So I went out to get food instead which meant I didn’t really have time for sketching. Who needs food…! I should just fill my lunch bag with drawing supplies! Oh wait, it is already is filled with drawing supplies… more supplies than food anyway.

As soon as I got home, I fed the cat, changed clothes and headed to practice. I was already running late by the time I walked into my house–traffic is a mess. I usually feel pretty tired and drained after work, but going to skate gives me an energy boost 90% of the time. I get home and feel better that I made myself get out and do something other than sit on the couch with my computer or my sketchbook. Except I also kind of feel sad because I didn’t spend any time with my sketchbook or processing the ever-growing backlog of photos I have.

But, on my way home from practice, I stopped by the store and grabbed food not from boxes to make healthier dinners and lunches for the next couple of days! I like to make pasta bowls and quinoa bowls with various vegetables and some kind of protein mixed in. Tonight was quinoa with tuna, corn, black beans, zucchini, tomato and avocado. Since I won’t need to go out tomorrow, maybe I’ll have to time to sketch during lunch, too.

By the time I finished making food it was probably about 9:40 pm, so I sat on the couch, and ate while I watched approximately 90 minutes of Star Trek. Well, I was only eating during the first 30 minutes. The other 60 minutes I kept looking at my computer trying to convince myself to go get the memory card out of my camera or at least grab my pencils and sketchbook. I finally grabbed my computer, not the camera (because I didn’t think i had the energy or attention to start sifting through photos), and not the sketchbook (not because my pencils were far away in the other room, nope….) and started this blog post at about 11:30 at night (because I thought I could write an update quickly. And somehow it took me more than 40 minutes to type up all these thoughts and I am past my latest possible decent bedtime of the Hour of the Pumpkin by almost a full 20 minutes. The time keeps ticking up as go back and reread and edit what I’ve written. But I can’t stop because I’ve got momentum and I have to get to my own internal “save point” which in this case is a somewhat coherent blog post that I feel is ok to publish. Time keeps ticking!

I’m still trying to figure out how to make my process of working and playing coexist peacefully with a well rested night of sleep (especially since I’ve given up caffeine recently), but I think I’m learning and still making mistakes of course. Tomorrow Today is a new day though, and a new chance to maybe get some other things done. Optimism is hard.