Last night I was telling some friends that I am puzzled by this drive I feel to re-create my office. Somehow I know that it is the most important professional development thing I’m doing during the first half of this year. But it feels anti-logical. If I profess to be a writer, then I should be focusing my energies on writing. My friends assured me that organizing my work space makes perfect sense. Howard agrees with them. Yet it still seems selfish, turned inward, and somehow profoundly healthy. I need the reminder that common logic about how writing careers should be managed can be wrong for an individual. I must trust my inspiration and intuition, both of which tell me that remodeling my office is important. So we proceed.

The schedule is graphic design heavy for the next few months. When I’m prepping for a shipping, then some of those Graphic Design slots will get re-assigned as shipper slots. When conventions are imminent then more slots will go to Business Management. The most important thing is that when I get a new task instead of just putting it on today’s list, I can tell myself “I’ll handle that on Wednesday.”

The schedule is going to be messed up, of course. It already has been. A sick child at 4 am this morning means that today I’m wearing the Nurse hat instead of the Business Manager hat. But many of the Business Manager tasks I’d assigned for this week will not be hurt by waiting another week. The few that can’t wait, I’ll sneak around the edges of taking care of my child.

I like this plan. Hopefully it will help me keep my head clear.

Before the children arrive home, there is work. The first week of January is always crazy. I have to tie off all the loose ends from last year while simultaneously launching this year’s focus. Top of the list this morning are the loose ends of: accounting, royalty calculations, emails, costumes for a school play, the never-ending query process, and house cleaning. In the category of launching we have: tax accounting, emails, organizing Howard’s art workload for the next weeks, planning for presentations, knocking out a wall in my office, and merchandise considerations for the coming year. At least five of these things are vying for the “first thing I do” slot.

My head is full. It has been full for more than a month. It is going to be full for at least another month more. Because my head is full, and because sleeping has been trickier of late, I’ve been making stupid mistakes. Not many. They’re all small. I catch them before anyone else notices them. Mostly. I fix them and life moves onward. Yet the accumulation of mistakes worries me, because I look ahead at all the things I’ve got to do and I know there are going to be more mistakes. I’m going to mess up something, but I don’t know which thing, so I can’t plan ahead to allow for it. I never considered myself a perfectionist, but this state of brain proves otherwise. The thought of making some stupid mistake, and disappointing someone who counts on me, is enough to make me want to curl up and cry. Logically I know this is ridiculous, particularly since I often set the bar for “other people’s disappointment” in places which are long before those other people would actually notice that I’d failed them.

In all the mess of swirling thoughts, a story keeps surfacing. It was told at church some time in the last three weeks, but I’ve lost any other context for it. There was a young woman who had to attend a church leadership meeting. She went begrudgingly, expecting to be told to work harder. Instead the man in charge said “You are all busy. Instead of improving your life by adding something, take something away. What thing can you eliminate from your life?” That last thought is what keeps coming back to me. What things in my life can I let go? I love clearing out and discarding physical objects, the process of clearing mental space ought to be similarly satisfying.

I had an argument with Kiki about organization yesterday. She feels like all of her things and space are jumbled. She would dearly love to have more space in which to spread out her things. I contended that learning to live inside the space you have is an important life skill. Then I tried to show her that perhaps she was holding on to too much. If she would just sort through, store, and discard then she would have the spaces she needed. Kiki argued back that she needs all her things. She needs six bottles of hand lotion because they all have different smells. She needs the clock and the ipod player, the nail files and the lip glosses, the seven pads of art paper and the thick files of reference art. Everything. She can’t let any of them go. The only resolution we reached was to realize that we were arguing needlessly. Kiki knows how to sort and make use of space. She’s done it before, she’ll do it again when she is ready. Mostly we just needed to walk away from each other and deal with our own things. Today I can’t help feeling like my mental/emotional space looks like Kiki’s bedside shelf, stocked with six bottles of hand lotion and multiples of almost everything. Then I become the one who is saying “But I need all these things!”

Do I really? What can I take out of my life to create the space I need to handle everything else?

I don’t have the right answer yet, but I’m fairly certain I’ve found the right question.

Answering this question will require me to re-think the things I am holding on to. I’ll have to look at the items in my brain and realize that some of them are only still here because I haven’t bothered to look at them in months. That will be like Kiki’s bag of candy, none of which she wanted to eat, but which she’d kept because they were gifts from people she liked. Candy doesn’t make a good keepsake. Some of the things in my brain have long outlived their purposes. Perhaps I could start letting other people decide when they are disappointed instead of me deciding that they are before they’ve had a chance to notice anything. I know that I want to get rid of all the useless anxiety, but it is so tangled up with everything else that I can’t start there. It is also possible that I need to containerize. Twenty small things loose on a shelf are a mess. Those same twenty things placed in three containers are neat and handy. Just as Kiki is the only one who can make sense out of her spaces, I am the only one who can make space in my brain. I’m trying to keep too much.

Thus “Brain organization” becomes item one on the To Do list. It is the sort of item that makes a difference for everything else. Perhaps I can apply a rubric similar to the one I use when sorting through books. As I look at each item on my list I can think “Do I really need this? Does someone else really need this? Does this have to be done by me rather than someone else?” If the answer to all three is No, then it doesn’t belong on my list.

What can I take out of my life to create the space I need? It is a question well worth answering.

So I have my calendar. Some time in the next five days I will pull it out and transfer information from the year past onto the year to come. Birthdays, anniversaries, schedules, and events must all be inked onto the new year.
But not yet.
I’m not ready yet.
For the next few days I only have those last 2011 odds and ends to finish up. Right now I can view and entire year’s worth of completed tasks recorded in multi-colored ink. I suppose I should feel accomplished about that. Mostly I feel tired and not quite ready to put together the list of things-to-come for next year. I’ll be ready soon, I think, but not today.

2. A great big thank you post to all the people who helped out with our shipping event. They are worthy of praise, warm fuzzies, and treats.

3. The reasons why my shipping system needs to be dismantled and rebuilt. The end result may look almost exactly like what I currently have, but the process will either replace my weird Jerry-rigged system, or will demonstrate to me that I just need to continue making-do. This whole thought makes me tired.

4. An intensely thoughtful post about how a hard school year is not necessarily a bad school year. This post would include the definitions of “bad year” and “hard year.” Short version: a bad year results in coping strategies which need to be dismantled. A hard year leaves one exhausted and drained, but positioned well for things to come.

5. My answer to the question “So, are you ready for Christmas yet?” This question pops up everywhere in casual conversation and, while I have a chit-chat sort of answer, the true answer is long. The true answer involves my whole approach to the Christmas holidays, the shape of our traditions, and why I’m just leaving the boxes of decorations out where the kids can decorate, or not, as they wish.

6. A long blog post responding to a discussion on whether the introduction of children into one’s life is the end of creative output for the next few years. Short version: No. It is just the beginning of a whole new set of decisions to make about priorities and how hours should be spent. Answers to these questions will (and should) vary according to person and circumstances. This post would also cover how beginning parenting is a learning process and multiple learning processes have trouble running in parallel. This could be why those established in creative careers seem better positioned to maintain them despite the arrival of small children.

7. A post describing how I’ve been deliberately seeking out things which are visual rather than wordy. This is followed by thoughts about how many photography images on the internet are photoshopped into a better-than-real perfection. This is not just in advertising or photos of people. The internet is full of better-than-real landscapes, product photos, and animal pictures. Then there are thoughts about what feeding ourselves a steady diet of hyper-perfect dream realities does to our psyches and expectations for our lives. This one must draw on psychological research, the Dove “Real beauty” adds, and several articles I’ve read lately.

8. Thoughts about self-promotion and whether there is any benefit to collecting followers, “likes”, etc. There is a definite benefit to having truly committed fans who are willing to support the creator and the work, but people who follow or “like” in order for a chance at a prize are not committed and will vanish as fast as they arrived. Again, this one will have links to articles and supportive research.

9. A post about the office remodel that I am slowly inching my way toward. This includes thoughts on how physical spaces affect the way I view my work and how form can re-shape function in odd ways that will linger for a long time unless one deliberately shakes out of old habits. It is possible that this will include an anecdotal story about a roasting pan. I would try to make my planning-my-shiny-new-office ramble into something relevant.

10. A look forward into the next year and the shape my professional life needs to take. I would view upcoming events with an estimation of whether or not I’ll be attending. I continue to strive for creative balance, pushing, shaking up old habits of thought, and yet being very careful not to spend much time in anxiety land. This would include thoughts on stress, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, anxiety, and probably a measure of whining.

11. An exploration of how my mind is pretty much always this full of 5-10 different thoughts about which I could blog. I fill notebooks. Though lately I’ve been trying a one-notebook approach which has been an interesting switch from my previous methodology of scribble notebook, blog-post notebook, and official journal. This post would probably also include an update on the progress of my River Song journal, which is still accumulating, but much more slowly.

12. Thoughts on calendars and the various holidays all over the world. I recently made a list which had limited space and I had to choose which holidays to include. I would have liked to include them all. The reasons that people declare annual celebrations are fascinating to me. I also find it fascinating that no matter the tradition or geographical location, August appears to be a holiday dead-zone. I wonder why that is.

13. Working on building relationships with kids individually and thinking of them as people rather than collectively as “my kids.”

14. Those blog posts continuing the series about financial structures for creative people.

15. I’m sure there was something else, but I’ve forgotten it now. If it is important, it will come back to me. I’ve had to learn to trust my brain to circle back around to important things.

It would seem that this Christmas season will be easier than the last, but life doesn’t tend to lower the difficulty rating. If the party were all, that would be easy. However I’m also the Scout advancement chair and I’ve been informed that we will be holding a Scout court of honor three days before the Christmas party (Dec 7). It is my job to do all the reports and paperwork in advance of this event. It is also my job to organize a Board of Review for the scouts who are advancing (On Dec 4). These arrangements are not all that difficult, in theory. I’ve never done them before and experience tells me that any job I’ve never done before will present me with unforeseen complications. Naturally I’m feeling a little stressed about it because part of my brain is trying to foresee those complications and prevent them. Only to foresee the unforeseeable is a bit of a paradox. Whee.

This is not all. One day prior to the Boards of Review which are mine to arrange, we’ll be hosting a shipping party to send out the calendars (Dec 3). That day will be completely consumed by the shipping of packages. We’ll be hosting this event in our house since Dragon’s Keep is unavailable on Saturday. This will require a smaller volunteer crew, longer hours, and a complete cleaning of my house in advance of the event. The two days prior to the shipping event (Dec 1 & 2) will be consumed by printing postage and the aforementioned housecleaning. The days prior to that will be focused on helping Howard do all the necessary sketching. Monday November 28 will be the day that Janci and I sort all the invoices, figure out what sorts of boxes we need and then place the order. Before that I need to go into the store reports and make sure I have enough dice sets, Emperor Bundles, and magnet sets assembled. If not, then we’ll be using our Thanksgiving weekend to make more. I’ve run lots of shipping events. It is routine, more or less. Of course each one presents it’s very own unforeseen challenges. (See earlier note on the unforeseen.)

On top of all of that, we’re cooking pies and rolls for Thanksgiving dinner, one son needs a hair cut, three children need new pants, the leaves need to be raked, there are non-calendar orders to be shipped daily, three pallets of books need to be relocated from our garage to the storage unit, the kids are going to want to put up the Christmas tree, and I want to put up the shelving in the garage so that the food storage can be moved out of my office.

When I line it up, all of it fits. In theory. If I’m working at top efficiency. But if I seem flaky or distracted in the next three weeks, now you know why.

Seek out more new things. Going to Antelope Island was marvelous. Going to the art museum with Kiki gave my brain all sorts of new thoughts to think. Even the trip to the dump was interesting and sparked new trains of thought. New experiences engage my brain and feed my creativity.

Teach more often. I’ve taught some art lessons in kids’ classes as part of a volunteer program. Preparing was fun, teaching was fun, and I walked out feeling energized. A local conference has invited me to teach next spring. My brain has been happily percolating plans to make those classes the best ever. I love teaching. I love the moment when I look out at the audience and can tell that my words have been interesting or useful.

Embrace my organizational talents. I plan and organize almost reflexively. Even when something is clearly not my responsibility or not my problem some part of my brain will latch onto it and think through how it could be solved or done better. This is valuable and essential in our business. Yet somehow I wanted to discount this gift. I wanted to be appreciated for my creative efforts not my administration. But pulling organization out of chaos is a huge creative act. When I see my organization as creative it becomes a soul-filling activity rather than a draining one.

Save money to fund dreams, not just fend off bills. I’m not really sure how I forgot this one. I used to do it all the time. In our early marriage every spare bit of money was put away so that some day we could afford for Howard to quit his corporate job. Then that dream arrived and all the money went toward making sure we could keep it. We have kept it, but I lost the habit of stashing money into savings. This meant that when an unexpected expense came finding the money to cover it required juggling and stress. Three months ago I decided I wanted to fund a family trip next summer. I started stashing money away for it. Last month I raided that stash completely dry to pay a medical bill and was grateful that dreaming had preserved funds which otherwise would have disappeared somewhere less important. Today I stashed away money for that trip again. I honestly don’t know if we’ll get to take the trip, but saving for it makes me happy. Having a financial buffer to pull from makes me happy. Either way I am less stressed. Saving money is a good thing.

Snuggle and hug the kids. I sometimes forget the power of touch. When I hug my children regularly fights are less frequent and less severe. Snuggling little kids is instinctive, it is easy to fall out of the habit when they get bigger, particularly when they are bigger than me. I can’t snuggle my teens, but I can pat a shoulder as I walk by. I can hug them before bed. I can remember to focus my attention on them when they need something. All of these things remind me that being with my kids is fun, not just a series of challenges which need to be tackled.

I’m not going to try to organize a systematic plan to fit all of these things into my life. Instead I’ve written them on a page in my River Song journal. Since I’m thumbing through that book at least a couple of times per week, I’ll keep running across the list. Bit by bit I’ll absorb and internalize these thoughts. Then they will naturally express themselves in my actions. I’m also watching to see what other things I’ve missed observing that make me happy. It is like a scavenger hunt where I compile the list as I go.

One of the pin boards I created is called “wearing beauty.” I’ll be filling it with clothing I own, clothing I admire, and clothing I hope to own some day. It allows me to collect images of fashion in a way that lets me survey it at a glance. The red shoes go there, for example. It is already apparent to me that the board gives the impression that I dress elegantly every day, which is simply not true. Most days I’m wearing what I affectionately call my “mom uniform.” It consists of a pair of jeans, a solid color knit shirt, and either bare feet or socks. The shirt usually has stains or spills on it. My hair may or may not have been brushed that day. On cold days I accessorize with an old red terry cloth bathrobe and bright yellow fuzzy socks. When I’m headed out to run errands or do other out-of-the-house things, I’ll upscale to an unstained shirt, brushed hair, and shoes. These clothes are not fashionable, but they are supremely suited for their task. While wearing them I am able to get stuff done without fussing over my clothing. There is a beauty in utility. If I have some spare creative time I may see if I can find a way to represent my mom uniform on the Pinterest board.

For years the mom uniform was the only clothes I owned. Even my church clothes had a heavy emphasis on wash-ability, move-ability, and adjust-ability so that they did not interfere with the management of young children in an environment not particularly suited to them. But then I started having to make professional appearances. I was able to let that part of myself which enjoyed fashion wake up and start collecting pieces. These days I’ve got clothing ranging from formal wear to paint-spattered work clothes. Each category of clothing is useful to me, but I am constantly winnowing to make sure that the various clothing types stay in balance. Sometimes clothes which are too worn for professional clothes get moved over to the nice mom clothes. Nice mom clothes gradually become stained mom clothes. Some items get culled completely as they are no longer useful. The culling is critical to make sure that I don’t run out of space in the closet.

I do have a special category of clothes called “project clothes.” These are clothes which are not yet what they could be. Sometimes they need mending or adjusting, but other times I intend them as the basis for a full creative project. I can’t have very many of these, they take up space and are not currently useful. However project clothes are the hardest category for me to cull. I have to let go of how I imagine they could be. Sometimes I have to let go of a shiny possibility in order to make room for a useful necessity.

All of this makes it sound like I spend lots of time and money considering my clothes. I don’t. I buy new things a couple of times per year and most of my “new” things are second hand via a thrift store. Usually these shopping expeditions occur in the the nerotic pre-public-appearance stressful time where I become convinced that everything I own looks horrible. A couple of new items can stave off that feeling for about half a year. Hopefully my new Pinterest board will not prompt me to be more spendy, but will instead help me have a clear picture of how to spend money carefully on things I really want and can use instead of a closet full of project clothes which I have no time to fix.

Gleek’s multi-page mystery story featuring the ghost of the explorer Samuel De Champlain which needed to demonstrate the qualities of an explorer, have at least three clues, have at least three obstacles, be detailed, and typed. With a card stock cover.

Kiki’s art project for reflections which she originally envisioned as five small paintings matted together to create a single image. But then some of the details were too small for painting, it didn’t turn out how she pictured, and she decided she hated it. In the end she stayed up til 3 am the night before it was due, discarded three of the paintings to finish up the other two, and still was not happy with the result. At least it got turned in.

Gleek’s explorer board game based on the life of Samuel De Champlain. We re-purposed all the pieces from a CSI Miami board game that I found at the thrift store. There was much cutting, pasting, taping, and gluing to get everything in place.

Link’s balsa wood bridge. He did this pretty much by himself, both carefully and methodically. There was a moment of panic in the final assembly, but all turned out well.

Link’s book reports. He had to finish up two book reports before the end of the term. This meant finding and reading books then writing the reports. Fortunately both the books and the reports can be short. One down so far.

Putting up t-shirts in the store and then shipping them. All the packages ordered before 8 am yesterday are out the door.

Howard spent some time designing new merchandise. Most of these items are ready to go.

Gleek’s Tiffany Aching costume. This included the creation of a book entitled The Goode Childe’s Booke of Faerie Tales and the acquisition of a black witches hat.

Patch’s Nac Mac Feegle costume. The Halloween shopping fairies smiled upon me yesterday afternoon and let me find all the needed pieces in a single store. I have a little bit of minor sewing to do, but I still count finding all the pieces as a win.

Projects incomplete:

Mailing another 30 or so packages.

Link’s second book report.

Kiki’s page-long Japanese translation assignment, which was due today.

The repair of the furnace which decided not to heat the house today. Current house temp 61 degrees and dropping.

The repair of my windshield so that I can pass safety and emissions and re-register the car. Also so that I can get that chugging noise in the engine checked.

Howard wanted to draw several weeks of comics, hasn’t happened yet.

Helping both Kiki and Link figure out costumes.

All the less urgent things which got shoved so far out of my brain that I can’t remember what they are. However I will remember them quite clearly next week when they still aren’t done.

Patch’s reflections project which he had originally envisioned as a visual arts piece, but discovered that creating what he had in his mind was beyond his current capabilities. The new plan is for him to write a story on the theme instead. This is due next week. Time must be made for it over the weekend.

Gleek’s book report. This is due on Monday. Fortunately she has already read the book and the report itself is not particularly difficult to put together.

Emotional dramas endured this week:

Gleek’s fear that her story and game were not good enough.

Kiki’s emotional roller coaster over her art piece.

Link’s overwhelmed sadness at having end-of-term pressure.

Kiki needing to work through her emotions about a mean girl at school who has chosen her for a target.

Patch being much more volatile and quick to anger than usual. Still haven’t figured out if this is an age thing or if there is some underlying emotional issue that I need to dig out.

5 out of 6 Taylers having at least one semi-depressed day during which all efforts seemed futile and the tasks ahead insurmountable.

Many arguments over the cat because the whole family loves the cat, but we all have differing opinions about how to appropriately love, play, and interact with the cat. The cat also has opinions, but is fortunately blessed with a deep well of tolerance and patience.

Kiki realizing that she simply does not have the skills nor the time to make the Samus armor costume that she has been envisioning for over a year. She had to grieve and figure out how to put that dream down for awhile.

Many arguments along the lines of “argh! You’re not listening to me!” vs. “I was listening, I just needed to finish this one thing.” Also many arguments over “Yes you did!” “No I didn’t!” Players were completely interchangeable. Everyone took their turn being unreasonable.

Other thoughts:

I have a hard time feeling sympathetic with children who are feeling overwhelmed when I am also feeling the same thing, only my overwhelmed also encompasses all of their things as well. Yet observing this out loud does nothing to help anyone, and it is in some measure false. Their things are theirs and I should keep my mitts off.

Link really impressed me. The day after stomping off sad and depressed, he sat down and made his very own checklist for how he was going to accomplish all of his work. Then he calmly and quietly work his way down the list. He just did it. I need to remember to compliment him for that maturity.

I don’t like it when I go into a rant and realize that I sound exactly like the rant which annoyed me from a child only hours ago. It makes me have to face the fact that either I am as childish as they are, or their rant was valid and I should have been more respectful of their emotional experience. A little of both probably.

On Monday the shirts arrived. Today I will ship out the last of them. We’ve had the influx of income which lets us re-stock the store for Christmas and which will let us pay bills in the interim. I am very glad of this. I could wish that this event was not in the middle of all the other events, but it couldn’t have happened earlier and we didn’t want to delay. We need this flurry of merchandise right now, but it will be nice to get back to the slower-paced work on creating books.

And after writing all of that out, I discover that I have no interest in actually calculating a score for the week. Instead I’ll just let it all be what it is and hope that next week can be calmer.