Sunday, July 30, 2017

Contentment--Even In Texas in July

Sunrise this morning
And a long, good day comes to an end. Everything is in readiness for the spouse who is due to roll in in the next 20-30 minutes. All I have left on my list for the day is to post. So in hommage to the return of the spouse, I post on contentment.

Contentment fills me in the morning when I water the garden and watch the frogs in the pond. It follows me into the cool, dark of the house when I am done, and accompanies me while I have breakfast and practice the piano. In the evening, it sings to me with the voice of the windchimes in the night breeze. And in the dark and quiet of the humid Texas nights, it dews my skin and relaxes me into sleep.

No, Texas in July and August is nowhere I planned to or wanted to be. But now that I'm here (again--we were here last summer too), I'm getting back into the rhythm of outside in the early morning and late evening, and inside the rest of the day. As I still don't have A/C in the glass studio I also have to work early and quickly on glass. I don't see A/C in the studio ever being effective enough to really cool it down low enough to work in there in the summer even if I had it--it's hard enough keeping the house cool with the big A/C units; never mind the mini splits. But orders are picking up--two more came in over the weekend and there is another in the works. Guess a good project for the hot summer afternoons is to get off my ass and finish my website. I've been "working on it" for over a year (almost two years!) and I need to fish. I've cut enough bait.

The orders will make Todd happy. He's been a bit worried that we were petering out--and it's my fault because I haven't been marketing or engaging our client base in any way for the past year. I had other priorities. I still do, but in order to afford those priorities, I need to make business a priority too. Art for art's sake and beauty is nice, but it doesn't pay the mortgage.

I end my post tonight with a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. The spouse should be home any minute!

5 comments:

Bill said...

Best wishes. I'd love to see you get that website up and running.

ellen abbott said...

same here. metal shop not air conditioned and have to be very determined to get something done early or late. Just too hot to in there. fortunately, I have a big room in the house that is a sort of sub-shop. I've been doing model making inside til it cools down enough to make molds. we've pretty much retired from the etched glass. I no longer promote it and only do whatever job trickles in.

Brenda Griffith said...

Ellen are you still casting much?

ellen abbott said...

I did three new pieces back in February and then spent the next three months out in the yard. now that it's too hot to work in the yard I'm back to model making. Have 10 new models finished and am working on another box piece. We'll start casting in the fall.

Bill said...

About that website...?