The Zen of Blogging

No coffee (it's only 6:00 AM on Saturday and I have hopes to get back to sleep after posting), the sound of the Spaniel chewing a rawhide bone for music. I press my palms together and bow to the four corners of the world. Rituals provide the foundation of our daily lives. They ground, center, and calm us as we forge our way through the chaos surrounding us everyday. Change is anti-ritual. In general, we humans don't like change. The act of writing this blog every morning is my primary daily ritual. When I don't do it, I get anxious--of course lots of things make me anxious so this state is neither unknown nor unexpected in any given day. Take yesterday for example: I didn't have time to blog because I had my assistant here most of the day and I was on the phone for three straight hours being interviewed for a studio profile in the summer issue of Profitable Glass. I missed blogging--not like I missed a bus, but like there was a big, gaping hole in my day. I woke at O Dark Thirty this morning and lay anxious and squirrel-caging until I finally decided to get up and center myself with a post. Blogging, my version of yoga.

It is the beginning of January, almost the middle of January actually, and there are a million pesky little things to do in the studio. I find myself picking one up for 10-15 minutes then being distracted by another which I then pick up, discarding the first still unfinished. I am not at my efficient best right now. I blame not taking time off in December like I promised myself I would do. Now myself is sullen and rebelling, but I think I have found the answer: I am going to try to take off the week of January 25. Whoa, radical. Time off two weeks before the BMAC. My work time is measured right now in countdowns to the Buyer's Market (the emails the Rosen Group sends out every week to prepare us for the show), how can I even *think* of taking time off? Simple: If I don't take time off to recharge, the results could be catastrophic. I harken back to my experience at the BMAC last year starting with the first day out, the drive there, day 1, day 3 and the final review. If I had had more emotional, physical, spiritual margin, I would have been better equipped to deal with the inevitable adversities of doing an extremely large show show in the wintry north.

Yesterday Stacy and I did an inventory of all my finished work and I may have enough left from the One of a Kind Show in December that I only have a few pieces to make for the BMAC. Huzzah! I do want to try out some new colorways incorporating opal glass, but there are few enough of them that I can squeeze them in with my current pre-show orders and commissions.

And now back to sleep for an hour or two before a full day in the studio. Got to work today if I want to take time off in a week... (does that even make sense?!?)