My Day

Amy over at Park City Girl asked for a peek into our daily lives. I love this curiousness. We are remarkable in our individual ways, seeking out and making beauty.

I will keep it short, as the minute details often don't tell the big story.

I get up when I have to. Some mornings it is at 6 when the 10 yr old boy needs assistance getting out the door. Sometimes it's 7 am when the 6 year old girl needs it and the boy has gone off with the husband. Sometimes, when I am very lucky, it is when my body wakes, because I am working late nights and the husband knows how it can be to work until midnight and need to sleep it off till 9-ish, say.

We are professional actors, theater actors, and have ridiculous, erratic schedules based upon actor union timetables and traditional night-time hours.

My latest craziness, the annual Panto, which takes too much time to explain here, but suffice it to say, requires as many hours as we are allowed by Actors' Equity to get up and rolling. We open Saturday.

I look at these production shots and it is impossible to tell how exhausting this work is. But it is huge and when the audience finally shows up tomorrow night we'll be even more whupped.

I get home from work late, usually 11 or midnight. I get up (see above) and usually first attend to the house. Why can't boys do this simple task? I swear it is ingrained in us ladies to make sure the house is clean/presentable/not disgusting before doing ANYTHING else. Boys are perfectly happy to go about their business without wiping counters, emptying dishwashers, or putting away clothes. Or even noticing that any of that needs doing.

I drive a lot. Usually an hour to work and back. And often another 10-15 miles picking up/dropping off kids, or soing shopping. I spend a lot of time in my car. I wish I had a picture to share right here. My transport is a 1998 Honda CRV with lots of bumper stickers on it declaring my bleeding heart liberalism. A friend once called it the PolemicMobile. It is true.

My time quilting comes in fits and starts. This past week, while we've been in tech, and therefore called all the time but not used all the time, I've had my machine and a project or two with me at the theatre, at my place in the dressing room. It makes for good time-filler (I am such a shark and cannot be still and must always be moving/working with my hands) and even better conversation starter. The musical director of this show is a knitter. We share inspirations. She loves when I bring in the new fabrics I've received. I love hearing about how she hand-dyed wool with Kool-Aid.

Monday is my day off. I spend as much time as I can in my Studio.
This was actually a shot taken to impress my husband with my leaf-raking skills (there is a giant sugar maple right next to studio that had recently dumped itself inches thick on the "lawn"). The prayer flags draw life energy into the little white shack that is my studio.
It may not look like much, but this little transformed garage has saved my creativity, my marriage, and my heart. I love spending a whole day out here, listening to NPR, drinking coffee/tea/wine (in the evenings) and losing myself in my latest project/s. Often I take a break and sit out on the wee deck and watch the wildflowers in the park that abuts our yard. It's amazing how they change every day.

Of course, there are the kid-lets. They know how important my Studio is to me, they come in and out, I keep plenty of toys and crafts in there so they love to "work" alongside me, or Griff (the 10 yr old boy) might spend time making "improvements" to his tree-house (see above, the yellow thing).

Every day for me is a new day. I can't illustrate it in a schedule, or grid, but it is always full, and usually fun. And lately, since finding my quilty-community, full of inspiration.

Carpe Diem.

Post Script: for a hilarious and honest description of my blog-mate Meg's day, see earlier post "Life As Rollercoaster" October 4, 2009.