Thank God it's Tuesday!

Tuesday is the day of the week where I drop off orders and pick up a check.  This of course makes Monday my "work like mad" day.  I spend Monday trying to do all the work I should've done last week but was too busy goofing off to do.

I pick up my new orders on Tuesday, which makes Wednesday the first day of the week.  Unlike people who  work for a living, this doesn't make Wednesday Monday because I can take it off if I feel like it.  Wednesday is Monday or Saturday, depending on my mood.  Sometimes it's just Wednesday.  Anyway, when I start a fresh week the first thing I do is sort my orders and figure out how much I can possibly get done by next week.  Then I enter them in my book in pencil.  I like to aim high; I almost never finish everything I pencil in for a week.  Then I start painting, and when I finish a piece, it gets inked in. 

This week, I was on a good pace until Saturday.  A basketball game on Saturday threw me off my stride, but I wasn't worried; Sunday is a good make up day.  Then, on Sunday, Jay asked me to help him with a project in the house.  I didn't think it would take very long; all we did was switch the cable boxes on two of the tv's.  Unfortunately, one of the boxes won't work anymore.  It's not the box, we tried the cable directly into the tv and that didn't work either.  We tried the cable directly into a different tv (an extra we keep around just for such tests) and it worked just fine.  The tv that would no longer speak to the cable had worked perfectly before we tried to switch the boxes so I have no idea what the heck is going on.  Not that it bothers me.  95% of what I watch is on dvd, I don't need cable on all my tvs.  Still, it's nice to be able to watch HDTV while my dvd loads...

So, I wasted several hours of Sunday, when I should've been painting, staring at the blank tv and saying "Nothing.  Nope, still nothing."

Come Monday, I had three enormous canvases to finish or it would be a very sub-par week.  Normally, I wouldn't sweat it, but this particular week happens to be the last invoice for which I'll be paid before Christmas.  So I wanted it to be as big as possible.

This all adds up to yesterday being chained to my drawing board painting like the wind.  It all worked out, I got a 16"x23" piece finished and two large Christmas stockings.  Believe me, that's a lot.  On a normal day, any one of those pieces would've been a good days work.  To celebrate my herculean feat upstairs, I pulled out my pilates dvd.  I hadn't done pilates in months due to a sore shoulder.  I did 35 minutes of bend, stretch, hold. It was fun.  By nine o'clock I could hardly move.  But it was a good stiff.  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to move today, but I awoke feeling just a little sore.  I love my temperpedic mattress.

I brought my work in, picked up my new orders, cashed my check and went to Halfprice Books, one of my favorite stores.  I sold them a grocery bag full of books no one in the house will ever look at again.  Last week Josie got $5.00 for a six inch stack of kid's paperbacks.  I had thirty books, several of them hardcover.  I got $3.00.  Apparently kid's books is where the money is.  I bought some dvd's that are on sundry kid's Christmas lists.  Oh, and one that's on my list.  Or it would've been, if I'd remembered how much I liked it.  Anyway, I think I got a good deal. 

I miss the days of buying toys for the kids.  Toys are fun, easy, relatively cheap and look great under the tree.  Now everything they want is expensive (a cell phone, an ipod...do they think we're made of money? Don't they know by now that I, at least, am made of chocolate?), tiny (dvd's, cd's etc.) and even if you take out a second mortgage (oh, wait.  Make that a third mortgage.) and bought the spoiled little brats everything, it makes a pile small enough to cover with a bath mat under the tree.  Dull.

So I've decided to wrap everything in robe boxes.  Big, fat, bathrobe boxes!  There may only be six things under the tree come Christmas morning, but by Gum! it's gonna look festive!!  HAHA!

Speaking of festive, I heard on the radio today that being Jewish contributes to Global Warming.  The idea is that all the Jews celebrating Hannuka will burn so many candles over the course of the festival will add tons of CO2 to the atmosphere.  I wouldn't worry, as I consider GW so much oat bran, but just in case any of my Jewish friends are worried about it, let me assure you; I will burn no candles over the course of the next eight days.  Neither will any of my extended family members ( we don't like candles unless they're on a cake.  Preferably a chocolate cherry cake.  Fudge frosting, mmmmm....) so you can have our candle credits.

Hey, if it works for Al Gore and Lori David, why not the Jews?  In fact, maybe that's why Lori and Larry split.  Can you just hear Larry? "I can't celebrate Hannuka?  Get out."

I spent the afternoon listening to Christmas carols, drinking cocoa, mixing up a new batch of southwest seasoning and generally goofing off.  I can only do that on Tuesdays.  By tomorrow, I'll be panicking about filling all the orders on my list by next week.

But for now, I think I'll just watch it snow.