Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A new day

Big old button sculpture on the Penn campus.  I don't know why.
You might be wondering what my day is like now that I'm a lady of (cough) leisure.  It goes pretty much like this:

7:00 a.m.   Alarm goes off; Mario gets up for work and I feed the chicken and then go through the house, feeding cats and cleaning litterboxes.  Generally I grind my coffee and set up the pot then, so all I have to do later is turn it on.  By then it's about 7:30.  Some days I stay up, but often I  am joined by a cat or two and I go back to bed for an hour.  Because I can.

8:30 a.m.  Second alarm.  Turn on computer, go downstairs, make coffee and breakfast, feed Lily a little of my breakfast, check my emails, Etsy and do a little blog reading over breakfast.

From 10:00 - noon is a bit of a blur.  I shower and dress (not letting myself get into the habit of working in my pjs).  Then I generally go out back to check on Bonnie, which ends with me puttering in the yard for a good hour or two, or coming into do some cleaning if the weather isn't accommodating.  Slowly, the house is getting cleaner.  It's amazing what you can ignore when you're too busy to deal with it.

Noon - 2:30 p.m. (at least) is time in the workroom, doing whatever project I set up the night before.  I've been trying to do things for the Etsy shop in assembly line fashion - it makes it go much faster - so the other day I watched a movie while stuffing 8 bear bodies and 32 arms and legs.  Then I cut out 2 toddler dresses and left them on the table.

2:30 or so, I walk down to the post office if I have anything to send out.  The vintage shop is slow but steady, so most days there is generally something.  From there I'll also hit the fruit and veg vendor if we need anything, or maybe pop my head in the thrift store to scope out what might be on half price sale on Saturday.

The garden is starting to bloom - and I'm home to see it!
4:00 p.m. - Good afternoon light, so usually I take photos for the Etsy shops then, on big white boards on the kitchen or bedroom floors.  I'll upload and clean them up for posting later.  Usually I'm in the living room on the computer when Mario comes in from work.  Then he generally goes up to his office to work on whatever he's been doing and I go in the workroom, clean up the earlier mess and arrange the next day's work.

7:00 p.m. - dinnertime.  Sometimes this has been started earlier, depending on what I've gotten up to (yesterday I made a big pot of soup).  This is generally eaten upstairs on the couch so he can get in an hour or so of news viewing before we both can't take it anymore.  Then he generally works on a project on the laptop and I'll either bring out some handwork (finishing on bears, embroidery, sewing on buttons) to keep him company, or I'll retreat for a bonus few hours in the workroom.

11:00 p.m.  Daily Show/Colbert Report - a must have unless one or the other of us has fallen asleep on the couch, and usually the survivor watches anyway.  I get more news from them than the actual news anymore.

After that, it's bed.  I tend not to fall asleep right away because late night is my best time to plan.  It's also my best time to obsess that I'm a complete and total failure and my venture will never work out, so the planning is also an attempt to quiet the other voice.

7:00 a.m. - the alarm goes off . . .

5 comments:

Vicki said...

Everyone had doubts and you have reason to. And you are not a failure as you are having a go. And that takes a lot of courage. Fingers crossed that things continue to grow.

Rosie said...

Good for you Karen!!! I bet the brood are very happy to have you home. Enjoy every minute of it.

Clio said...

Just catching up on your blog after a super busy work interlude. My goodness, you are busy! Killer chicken, telling the man to take the job and shove it, etsy and crafting up a storm... Good for you! Well, maybe not the chicken part...

Lorinda said...

Maybe not obcessing about failure and instead affirming that you are a winner, because you are, will bring even more positive opportunities to you.

I think you are doing amazing things to be able to work for yourself. Please don't forget that you are setting an example for a lot of us and we are all cheering for you.

Lisa and Robin said...

Doing what you like doing all day is definitely NOT being a failure. If I can EVER get retired, I plan to spend a month in bed. Just to make up for years and years of HAVING to get up.