I did all this on my Summer Vacation!
I had big plans for this summer. My To-Do list was a mile long. It started with all the jewelry making I was going to click off my list. I have a sketch book (or six) filled to the brim with ideas and pieces I want to make. Next up was organize the studio, including going through all the paperwork that has been piling up. And finally, I was going to put up Etsy and Art Fire sites, update my web site http://www.goodmusedesigns.com/ and write up a couple of tutorials. All this and I wasn’t even planning on being in town for most of the summer! There was a little voice that kept trying to tell me I was biting off way more than I could chew but, NOOOooooo! I pressed on with my master plan, for about 12 days…
Then I got caught by the myth….The radio was playing “Schools out” by Alice Cooper, “Summer in the city” by The Lovin Spoonful, and “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns. My best intentions flew out of the window because every year when summer rolls around I actually expect to get a summer vacation… programmed from childhood that summer means a break from the usual school year. When it starts to get hot outside I’m primed for a fun-filled, let me get out of town, head for the lake, the river, the beach time! Never mind that it’s hot in Tucson nine out of eleven months of the year and summer really means the temperatures around my home reach the same temps as Mars….Okay, maybe it just feels like Mars. Never mind that I haven’t been in school for, let’s just not go there… it’s been a long time! And NEVER MIND that I have a well thought out to-do list….When the word summer is mentioned it should always be followed by the word VACATION!
Now that it is Labor Day weekend, the traditional “last weekend of summer” in my fantasy world (based on actual fact from my school days), I wanted to beat myself up for not doing every single item on my to-do list. My “self” wanted me to feel badly for not completing it. I almost bought into the guilt trip….I nearly fell into an old pattern of perfectionism… but I caught myself just before looking back at my summer and calling myself a failure…. Instead I looked back at all this fun I had…Drawing and painting, playing with clay, writing in a journal, a bit of collage, collecting shells at the beach on my mini-trip with my friend Kaitlin, a bit of scrap booking and even planning the ideal work day was fun because I wasted a lot of time coloring in all those time slots! So tell me, does it make a difference in the end that I chose to call my summer a success instead of a failure?
By the way, you can listen to Sammy John’s Chevy Van here… I love this song! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiEIToOWr64&feature=related
Copyright © Mary Ehlers, Good Muse Designs all rights reserved.
I know someone that always undertakes more than they should. Fortunately they have a good support system.
Fortunately I have a GREAT support system… (for those of you that don’t know…Steve’s my wonderful husband)
You mean taking on more than you can possibly ever really D), believing you can leap tall buildings, dreaming about being able to live in a tropical paradise, and imagining what it would feel like to have just enough money to live without worrying what would happen if the car broke down or the roof blew off is a BAD thing????? You mean believing in fairies, trusting that the universe has a great big, juicy, happy gift for me every day, AND having a great friend like Marnie to go on a girlz road trip to the beach is impractical? Nooooo….I’d rather live in my dream world…AND go with Marnie to Pacific Beach! It’s ALL possible in my world!
That’s why I like you so darn much…. Your dream world is too, too much FUN!