Housework Monday, Writing Tuesday

Housework Monday has been and gone. The oven is clean! The kitchen floor, and the kitchen above it, is washed. The lounge is vacuumed and laundry hung out to dry. The fridge and fruit bowl are stocked for the week.

And now it is Tuesday. Yippee! Housework Monday sound like a drag? Yep. But that's the idea. Housework Monday is what gives me writing Tuesday, reading Wednesday and painting Thursday.

I came up with this plan a couple of months ago. I stuck to it for about a week, maybe two, before I got totally absorbed in finishing editing/rewriting my novel. Reading and painting went on hold, as did some housework (but who really cares about that?), until the blasted novel was finished.

Reading and painting have been reinstated into this rhythm of life. I'm a fan of the rhythm. At some point I'm hoping it incites another passionate lapse, and I will become totally absorbed by another writing project or painting.

In fact, the timing is a little predictable. November is not so very far away, and November brings nanowrimo, an international writing frenzy.

In the meantime, I have the easel set up in the lounge and Louis is yet to pull it down on himself. (Success!) A giant blank canvas is glaring at me. This afternoon I am going on a photo-taking mission, in search of subjects for this blank canvas. I want a silhouette of the port hills, the line of the summits. I will drive out to yaldhurst and then around the back of the airport. That should give me plenty of angles and options.

A few daffodil photos, and early cheer as well, though I'm sure I could get those, from any angle, with a google image search. Couldn't find the port hills on google though. The more popular picture is the southern alps, taken from the port hills. Plenty of those...

Looking forward to painting thursday. Last thursday was fantastic...

It inspired a painting friday...

And a dabbling saturday...

between reading Edith Shaeffer's 'Hidden Art' and 'Art as a Way of Life' by Ann O'Shaughnessy & Roderick MacIver.

What's the rule for Friday? The house usually needs vacuuming again and then there's the dishes (from writing tuesday, reading wednesday and painting thursday... yuck.) but Friday is the rule-free day... so whatever goes. More 'goes' if I've done the dishes early on, because then I feel free to work and create, unfettered by the 'should'-monster, who looks something like this:

(Either one really.)

The 'should'-monster bullies me into procrastination and guilts me out of inspiration.

(Yes, that is the ghost of christmas yet to come, and scrooge, from the muppet christmas carol. These are the images in my head.)

Alright, moving on. Just as soon as Louis is napping and I'm showered/dressed/decent... Writing tuesday, here I come.