The Art of Making Lists

I LOVE making lists. Sitting at the computer, picking out colours, fonts, upper or lower case, what size, how many columns (item to do, duration, expected completion date and DONE).  Oooh the options are endless.  I can very happily while away a whole day creating the perfect list to fulfil all my objectives for the next month. Then what happens, the list has become the objective and very little actually gets accomplished. So what to do?  The other day I reached 5 pm and realised that I hadn't actually accomplished anything at all. (Never mind that I had spent an hour entertaining a dear friend in the morning and gone into town in the afternoon for that favourite of all pastimes - the annual appointment with the accountant). I digress, back to my 5pm earlier in the week - the house was a mess there was so much screaming at me for attention I decided to work head down for an hour, pick a job, any job - do it, then pick another one.

In a little over an hour:
            I sorted two bags of clothes - one for the charity shop one to throw away
            Washed some seed trays
            cleaned my paint brushes from the day before
            Paid two overdue bills
            Put the Christmas china away
            Cleared the dinning table ready for mounting some pictures the next day
            emptied the dishwasher.

I am so glad I did not make a list. That hour spent charging around like a demented flea meant that when I was ready to get to work the next day there were no little voices telling me I should be doing something other than painting.  I will probably continue to create the most sumptuously artistic lists, but perhaps if a couple of days a week I just get on and DO, those lists wont be so long and may be more meaningful.

Clearing that list above has also meant that my head is ready for completing a blog post I started last weekend and never managed to finish - no photos and no idea where to take it. It was not an auspicious beginning to a week but looking back I seem to have made something of it.

Sunday - What to do when the pavement of life just comes and slaps you in the face (again). Slowly pick yourself up, stand as tall as you can (5ft 1in in stocking feet) and VERY VERY slowly inch forward, doing one thing at a time.

 Thus I am trying to continue my daily small (postcard size) pastels, completed 2 in the first five days of this bright New Year.

After weeks of flailing around and pretending to search, have finally found the painting I prepared last February for the annual snowdrop festival in Shaftesbury.  Yes it was awful, but have managed to rework it and found a frame to fit.

I began to organise the stack of drawings on my shelf and sort them for the CAKE exhibition in March and discovered a drawing done in prep for the snowdrop painting, it looked promising this time around so I have worked that up onto a small board (A4ish size) found a frame and now I may have 2 painting to submit late January.

I also discovered a small painting on canvas I started late last spring of our bluebell woods.  Have worked over that and I now have something to submit for Welcome 17.

Now it is Saturday. My bluebell painting is ready to deliver to SAC tomorrow and the snowdrops are both framed. I shall enjoy my trip over to Shaftesbury to deliver my bluebells and Amo House' Jurassic embroidery.  Coffee with friends - a lovely way to spend a Sunday lunchtime.