Daily Rituals

I received this book for Christmas, and am enjoying reading it before bed and when I first wake up.

There are two "rituals" that seem to appear in more than half of the creators written about: alcohol abuse and sleeping aids! Some writers start drinking before 10am! And then continue until the early hours of the morning. And the sleeping aids. Some use alcohol's effects for that, others use pills. Some drugs used I've never heard of, and I think that's a good thing.

The use of sleep aids is something I definitely share with those artists. Most nights, especially when my To Do list is growing, I must take a melatonin, just to slow down the thoughts and let my mind rest. It used to help with the 3am-5am wake-up as well, but those are coming back. (Perhaps I'll up my dosage.)

A lot of the artists are night owls, which I'm starting to understand, but with T working a 9-5 job, I want my schedule to mesh with his as much as possible so that we have (most) evenings and mornings together. It's important to me. Maybe one day, when inviting can afford to pay two people a proper wage (I'm still getting less than minimum wage) he can join me in self-employment and we can adjust the schedules to stay up later and sleep in more, even if just until 8 or so.

My current "ritual" is roughly as follows:
Wake up with T's alarm at 6:30 but stay in bed and and sleep more, play with a cat, or read in bed until he's done getting ready and is having breakfast. I drag myself out of bed when my alarm goes off at 7:15. We visit for a bit and then once he leaves for work, I make tea and start working. (Used to start my day at 9 but lately it's been before 8, sometimes before 7:30.)
Printing hours (on Monday, Weds & Friday) depend on the temperature: if it's hot, first thing in the morning; if comfortable, at 9, and if cold, after lunch.
Design days are Tues & Thursday, usually in the morning hours.
Lunch is from 12:30 to 1.
Afternoons (or cold printing mornings) are spent prepping products for sale or doing computer work like blogging and financials. Financials are (depressing.)
Quitting time is 5:15 but if T has plans after dinner, I often come back to work and work until I get tired, around 10:15. Pop a melatonin if the mind is still racing, and get ready for bed.

Do you have a ritual that gets you started (or through) the day?

The Quietness of Working from Home

This morning I got an early start; was pulling type for a specimen sheet shortly after T left for work. Had a Pandora radio station playing The Smiths, with lots of 80s and Joy Division sprinkled in. It was nice and productive; and digging through the type drawers is strangely relaxing. Dirty as hell, but relaxing. Just had the fan blowing, and when the temperature hit 85* I called it a morning. Was at a stopping point and very hungry, so it was time.

After cleaning up, I made myself a little lunch (salad with goat cheese, sandwich with ham slices & some leftover Brie):

Before I opened my book, I was pleasantly surprised by how quiet the house was. The cats were all dozing, the a/c hadn't kicked on yet and I turned off the music when finished printing. There was the slightest hum from traffic, and a ceiling fan was on. That was it, and it was so nice.

In the middle of my lunch, my phone rang- it was my replacement from the law firm. She hated to bother me but didn't know who else to ask as the people in the office who would know were both out. I'm always happy to help, and after I made a couple suggestions and we hung up, I laughed: I don't have to deal with document productions any more! Huge productions in zipped files, needing to save them to specific places and copy certain people and make the proper notations... yeah, I don't need to worry about that stuff any more.
And if that isn't motivation for making inviting a success, I don't know what is!

After lunch, photographed the new wedding design that I printed, got that listed in the shop, did Quickbooks for the week, and worked on finding more samples for the Personalized Stationery brag book/catalog to take to shows for pre-orders.

Now, the a/c is on, PBS is streaming some American Experience, but the cats are still quiet and I'm feeling ready to make my list for tomorrow and to work on a PWaT project, calling inviting done for the day, with the exception of working on an interview for This Creative Life.

Hope your day has been as quiet and productive as mine. It's tea time.
Cheers,
ashley