NoGoPoNo

I did it.  I survived Blogtoberfest and managed to post every single day.  It was fun, and it got easier as I went along, but I’ve gotta say I’m glad it’s over.  I was getting a little crazy and stressed last week and don’t ever want to feel like art and blogging is a chore.

In light of this, I’m signing up for NoGoPoNo.

Not Going to Post every day in November.

I might make myself a badge.

But now that I've given myself permission NOT to post,  all I want to do is post. So I thought I’d show you how I spent my day.  Work was cancelled for the second day in a row due to lack of power, so to keep myself from devouring all of my son’s Halloween candy, I decided to clean the studio.

 Here’s the really scary corner before I started cleaning:

(not visible under all the other piles of stuff: large pile of drift wood and beach stones that have been on the floor since our August vacation)

Here's what it looks like now: 

Okay, maybe it doesn't look that different to YOU, but it's downright amazing to me!  The biggest thing I did was pack up all the old children’s books and professional books I’ve accumulated over the past 20+ years.  I’m such a ridiculously sentimental person that I can’t bear to part with them, but I no longer need them taking up prime studio real estate.  They are now neatly boxed and stored in the attic.  The step ladder is back in the garage, everything's off the floor, and some of the art supplies that were overflowing from the other shelves have been moved to this side of the room.

I failed to take "before" pictures of the closet, but trust me, I took my life in my hands every time I opened it.  Much better now.

 I even made FILES.  (files!!!)

 This shelf still looks like chaos, but it's a HUGE improvement.

And my work table is still in it's perpetual state of disarray, but that's not a battle worth fighting.

I'm feeling very accomplished.  Everything's more accessible and there's a lot more room to move. There’s even room to fold down the lumpy futon into it’s rock-hard bed formation, which is a darn good thing since we’re having an actual GUEST Friday night.  Imagine that.  I might have to start accepting reservations.  

And then, since it’s sort of like Sunday night (and we’re all reluctant to go back to school/work tomorrow) we had our traditional end-of-the-weekend family movie night.  We watched Rio and ate quesadillas in front of the TV and I doodled in the sketchbook to keep myself awake.