yes, i'm like that. a list-maker, organizer, pretty things all in a row. ok, well, mostly. sort of. except for the "tidy & organized house" image that might conjure. every morning while i have my 1st cup of coffee and wait for diva dog to shake off the sandman and come downstairs for "out," i make a list of what i hope to accomplish that day. well, back up a sec...on Monday, i make a list of what needs to get done for the week, then break it down every day. so on monday, i tackle a few things & check them off. then tuesday i pick a few more, etc. I know if i pick at least 1 hard thing a day (laundry, grocery shopping and that ilk), then by friday, my list will be empty. and the weekend free. except my weekdays and weekends are pretty seamless. so it's more about carving out personal time. if i finish xyz on my tuesday list, for example, then i have "free" time...my list is done for the day. and i include things like "an adventure walk" with diva - which is nothing more than taking a different route than usual...not such a hard frog to eat*, right? and also in the schedule are items like "9-11am: sketch," or "afternoon: used book store to find text for collage." so along with vacuuming, cleaning up after bulimia cat, running the stairs with scorchingly dirty laundry, etc, are Must Do's that are actually pleasurable. but they are important. and if a wrench gets thrown in to my perfectly planned day, i can assure you that the vacuuming will wait. which explains the state of my house. but i figure there are no extra points for dying with a clean house, and when the temps are in the high 40's in January, it's a sign from God to go ye therefore outside of the structure and play. (that's a rough translation from the actual verse found somewhere maybe). you know, in all this random rambling, i completely lost my point. surprised? ok...back to paint and pencils and gesso and the smells of a productive studio. wishing you an amazing day of play, and a self-cleaning house! *my ex-boss had a term "Bite the frog" which meant to tackle your least favorite & often avoided task first thing in the morning, so then the rest of your day was better by comparison, and you were done with the task on deadline. my whole day was a frog, so it was a matter of jumping from lilypad to lilypad all day! and yes - i did buy a pack of rubber frogs, and would randomly launch them over the tops of people's cubes throughout the week. and yes - i was not an easily managed employee, but was very productive, and have heard morale sunk to a low low after i left. so there's that.